one half of a decade.

i realised that these past days, on the 22nd to be exact, i passed the five years anniversary of writing on the internet for the first time.
that stuff only exists on my harddrive these days: it vanished from the net when opendiary.com deleted my content on their site after months of non-usage, at some point in 2001.

i wrote that first entry a day or so before leaving for berlin for the goodbye trip with the aussie exchange students. and with evan.
at the time of writing that entry, we'd been together (*cough cough*) for just about 5 weeks.

the first journal-type-thing i ever wrote on the internet ends with the following sentences:

"i sometimes wonder what kind of traces i leave in other people's lives. i wonder whether people of my past still think of me as often as i think of them.
and i wonder whether people who i meet right now, who i have met in the past couple of weeks, months, years, will influence my future.
and right now, i wonder about evan:
'what will you be in my special history - and how the hell did you get here?'"

yes, how the hell did he get here? good question.

a few days later, i quoted something for kate for the first time.

"...for i have a compass
i watch the sundial
and i defy gravity
just to get myself
back to you..."

if only i'd never gotten so hooked on that idea, that fucked up idea that it's a good idea to try to defy gravity.
is that the one lesson i learned? that some things just aren't worth fighting for?
i wonder.

last night, i tried reading those first weeks of online diary writing (preserved in a 500 page .doc), and boy, was it hard.

i can still recognise myself, yes. i can remember feeling the way i describe in those entries, yes.
but oh, the naivity and the pretentiousness are painful.

i guess i must have been in love. in that head over heels kind of way.
what was that like again?
i don't think i can remember, really.

in those early weeks, i somehow managed to ignore that the shit started hitting the fan within a week (!) of evans' return to australia.
i wrote a post in the first week of february of 2000 on how his ex was still hanging around. i wrote about my worrying, my having trouble dealing with it, my feeling fragile and insecure, and how evan was not really taking a stand, talking about us not having any status. he was uncaring and hurting me.

who would have thought that six months, 2 years later, she would *still* be an issue? who would have thought that everything about evan's behaviour and attitude that was an issue would remain an issue for our entire relationship?

if only someone had told me to quit it back then, to stop working so hard to just see it as a little holiday affair and to let it go.
oh, if only someone had told me that much.

it's not that i think the entire relationship was a waste. it's not that i wish it hadn't happened. there were good times. i travelled to australia, i worked at great law firms, i saw and did some pretty cool things, we had a few pretty good weeks. that's the good stuff.

unfortunately though, sometimes it feels as if the bad stuff easily outweighs that good stuff.
in those first few entries i can already see myself loosing faith in myself, loosing strength and sliding down the slippery slope of depression. it happened that quickly.
how bizarre is that?

i wonder whether that's the real reason i chose to pursue this relationship in the first place: just because i needed to get that depression in the wait out of my system? who knows.
it would be very werther-like of me. could very well be.

it was definitely highly irritating to see that we never had a honeymoon period at the start, that i was sour right away, that in those first weeks of february of 2000, i was already sitting alone at home, waiting by the telephone, neglecting school, staying at home, not eating.
maybe someone should have forced me under a cold shower, slapped my face, and told me to get real back then.

but i'm not pointing the finger here at anyone for not doing so. fact is, i was old enough to think, i should have known better.
hell, i did think.

"i am still on guard. i am way to worried. i interpret way too much into every single word i hear from him. or don’t hear from him.
call me paranoid.
should not be that way. should not think that way. can’t help myself though.
he started to write meaningless emails and letters (or none at all) to jen even before we happened...(as they were in crisis beforehand)....am worried, that one day, i will get meaningless email as well. or none at all. which means the same."

i wrote this on february 11th, 2000. too bad all my emails were lost last month: i could check when the meaningless email, the "none, which means the same" started. it must have been some time back then.
bizarre.
i started that pushing myself on him thing that early. that non-stop writing, calling, thinking, wanting.
i should have known better when on valentines day that year, jen asked him out on a date 'as friends', considering they were both 'single'. that much to him about wanting that relationship we had and telling people about it.
now how did i ignore all those messages that he never wanted that relationship?
it boggles the mind.

whatever.

pondering about the past, and about "things that might have been"; as prone as i am to both, is worthless.
i'm painfully aware that that past can't be changed, only accepted, and that the only thing i can do now is to try harder, do better, have a clearer head, heart and mind.
and be more observant as to how i fuck up my head.

and oh, how do i fuck up my head these days, being so in love with the mediocre.
every kinda cool day, like thursday, makes me believe that it might work in some way for some time. every weird little phone call about nothing, like an hour ago, floors me and drains me and makes me want to spend the weekend by myself.

i'm a little sensitive this morning, underslept and over-tired (for weeks) and generally under-whelmed by life.
maybe niels frevert is too blame, too, for singing so beautifully on that bootleg that niklas guy from the mailinglist sent me, recorded on my birthday. it's just niels, a guitar, an orange amp and a few chords, singing wonderfully, including a surprisingly tender song by udo lindenberg (of all people).

maybe it's my not feeling the stuff described in that song that's making me this tiny tiny little bit blue this sunshiney saturday morning.
i definitely felt this kind of stuff 5 years ago. but not today.
now of course it didn't serve me well five years ago. but i can't say that not feeling it at all is any better.

brrr.

i should work on having better things to look back on, five years from now.

much better things.



"wenn du mich so ansiehsts
fällt mir nichts mehr ein
wenn du willst dann nimm mich
es kann für immer sein
ich geb dir alles was ich bin
das ist mein versprechen
jeder tag ohne dich
ein verbrechen

ich liebe hohe spannung
und stehe meistens unter strom
und die hochzeit feiern wir
in panikmanier im petersdom
und meinetwegen 13 kinder
und alle total verrückt
baby, baby, nimm mich in deine arme
oh kleines, ich bin absolut verzückt

nur zu dir fallen mir
solche schönen träume ein
ich will jede sekunde
nur noch mit dir
zusammen sein
bis ans ende der welt
wenn es das gibt
halt mich fest
mir wird schwindelig
baby, baby, ich bin so sehr verliebt"
"bis ans ende der welt"
udo lindenberg