Auteur/autrice : admin

Quote of the day #4

We don’t fall in love with people because they’re good people. We fall in love with people whose darkness we recognize. You can fall in love with a person for all the right reasons, but that kind of love can still fall apart. But when you fall in love with a person because your monsters have found a home in them – that’s the kind of love that owns your skin and bones. Love, I am convinced, is found in the darkness. It is the candle in the night.

C. Joybell C.

Thoughts on scars

New ones, fading ones, hurting ones, visibles ones. Somes thoughts on scars.

Since a year, that’s a daily topic for me. Taking care of some new scars, impressive ones, fresh ones, is something particular. But that’s not only skin to take care of, that’s also managing the mirror reflection, the looks of the others, the questions, & more importantly, the cause of those scars. I’ve always thought that they can make someone (even more) interesting. It’s a trace of time and life, and that makes me want to hear their stories. You learn so much from someone who opens about their pain, past or present.

As far as I can remember, I’ve always been a bit fascinated by scars, on me first, and later on others. I vividly remember some knee scars when I was young. The pain, the sting of disinfectant, the fresh air on the open wound. The discomfort of the first healing days, the body magic happening, the full healing and the disappearance of any trace of suffering after a while. These were the easy ones, the light ones. The scars that don’t last, on a young skin and body. The one that are only the result of living and learning.

I have some long lasting ones : right ankle, left knee, back and left arm. Some of them were stupid accidents, and some others were surgeries and hard moments to go through. They hold memories and short periods of life. (Yeah, memories and nostalgia is a big topic for me). They remind me a lot, so many feelings linked to each of them.

Right ankle : THAT is the definition of a stupid accident. I can’t exactly remember the year, roughly between 2007 and 2009, I think. Generali Open de France, the french national horseriding championship, in July, with friends. Crossing a small stream by walking on a metal barrier acting as a bridge. Obviously, I slipped on it, the back of my ankle on a sharp edge. The cut wasn’t even that deep, but the scar is still there, thin and almost invisible, unless you touch the skin. I love it. It reminds me of an airiness, of people that were good friends at that time, and of others that became, for a short period of time, a little bit more than that. It was summer, happiness, being free and enjoying each days and nights.

Back : a tiny round scar precisely in the middle of my back, centered on my spine. The first ever beauty spot (mole ? hate that word) that I had to get removed. I didn’t know at that time that it’ll only be the beginning, for other reasons tho. Nothing serious, it was just at risk of scraching it, so we decided to get it removed. I’ve always liked this scar, it’s a small one, and the skin is thin.

Left knee : that’s a good one, a hard one too. And that’s not really one, for 4 small scars around the knee. Context ? A bad fall while skiing in 2012, and a lovely ligaments rupture. That was almost 2 years of pain. First, the fall, hearing and feeling distinctly a snap in your body is not something I recommend. A check-up in the hospital, a splint and a recommendation to rest for a few weeks after, I was back home and ready to not respect that. I was starting an internship, and I went. After 3 months of physio sessions, the sentence was that I couldn’t avoid a surgery. So, surgery it goes.

It went well, but these 4 small scars will always remind me how the rehab was difficult, how I suffered to go through this, and how I worked my ass off to be able to walk without any pain, to run and ski again too. What was hard too was to feel diminished. The pain was sometimes complexe to manage, I was easily tired, I couldn’t sit still for a long time, I coudn’t walk a lot either. For almost a year after the surgery, I was in pain everyday, at some point. It took time, I still have a metal clip inside (and yes, i can sometimes predict the weather thanks to it), but now I’m good, since 10 years.

Left arm : the last ones, three of them. My body is covered by beauty spots, everywhere. I’ve always had regular check-ups, but last year we discovered that two of them may be melanomas. Two successive surgeries for the first beauty spot, an initial surgery for the second one, and alarming results. The first beauty spot had a melanoma, but so small that it was managed by the second surgery, local and non-invasive. That second one wasn’t that small. The propagation risk of cancer cells was way bigger, and the surgery was way more invasive. I needed a (fourth) surgery to retrieve even more skin around the beauty spot concerned, and to retrieve the sentinel lymph node under the armpit.

The surgery lasted around two hours, and I left with two impressive wounds. the first wound is on the back, below the shoulder, around fifteen centimeters. The second one in under the armpit, around eight centimeters. It took three months to heal. That was physically painful, and mentally hard. The scars are still fresh, and a year later, they are still reddish and so visible that it’s hard for me to imagine how I’ll dress in summer. Taking care of them is okay, everyday, but I’m really not comfortable with them now. They also remind me how alarming the situation was, even with frequent check-ups. I’m still seeing my dermatologist thrice a year, and having a brain MRI and full body scan twice a year, for the next five years minimum.

It’s like having a sword hanging over my head everytime I having one of these, and waiting for the results.

But what all of that says about me ? A lot, and nothing at all to be honest. It shows some pain and some past & current experiences, but it doesn’t show everything. A broken arm (also the left one), or a broken heart are not visible for the eye. Also, I’m sure we are the sum of our experiences, the sum of wins and losses, of friends and enemies, of love and grief ; but not only, and that may be another topic. The scars, they don’t define me but they are mine, the skin is just a canva of moments of our life.

I’ll do my best to cherish mine.

Thoughts about work, from a random Monday

Transcription of a voice message to K., 10th of June, 2024.

« So okay, you know that’s complex to explain because even if at this very moment I hate my job and I hate its impact on my life, it’s still my job and I worked hard for it, I’m proud of it. I love most of the people I’m working with, that’s one of the biggest reason i’m still working here. That’s also a paradox, considering how my social battery can be empty pretty quick, but some people fuel me and some others empty me, I just need to find the balance everyday.

But leaning that much on others, and their opinion, that may be the issue you know, my own value has always been linked to my ability to succeed and to perform, at school or at work. I was praised for that, I’m still needing this today because it’s my pattern, even if I worked a lot on that issue. Luckily, I’m only listening to some trusting people, I wouldn’t survive otherwise !

And that’s also a question of imposter’s syndrome, I often feel like I don’t deserve the praise and recognition I have, so I’m working even harder to deserve it. That’s what makes me a good employee for a company, but that’s also what’s killing me slowly, and that’s hard to cope with that some days. That means working on my way of thinking life, and success in life. That’s also why I never stop doing anything. If I stop, my mind starts spiraling and that’s easier to maintain what I know even if it may be toxic, that putting everything in perspective and freaking out. »

I want to keep a trace of that voice message, it was a bit raw and vulnerable maybe, but pretty much answering how I felt at this very moment about my work. In a way, that was easier by voice than by text, for once. Most of the time, I prefer writing. I can re-check, clarify my words, adding nuance. You can’t do that with a voice message. That’s also sharing a voice, some emotions that can go through, that’s almost intimate. It is for me.

Admitting some of these things was a bit hard at some point, but pretty easy to say at the same time. Like I knew that was the truth, but also knowing that saying it means I need to do something about it now. The fact is, I can’t now, and won’t soon. But admitting the situation is already freeing. The goal is not to accept it, to settle on this ; but to find ways to naviguate with internal and external pressure, needs and wants from everyone, and mine.

Maybe, starting to put mine first.

I miss the old days, or some of them.

I miss the old days. I miss lots of things in my life, I’ve always tend to be a nostalgic. It’s not new, it has always been, but that’s not always for the best. Spending too much time rewinding the past, being too self-aware about anything that happened, anything I said, how I should have handled things, is hard and uncomfortable. It’s hard to break the cycle though. It’s also uncomfortable, working on breaking a pattern.

I don’t know (yet) where it comes from, but that fear or forgetting things, events, people and voices has always been there. So, relying on that nostalgia is a great way for me to revisit my memories on a regular basis, like a general visiting his troops, checking that everything is at the right place. But the fact is that I often forget moments, or some memories are blurring. Also, I know that some of them are kept alive only because we talk a lot about them, and that’s the story told that I re-created, instead of really remembering. Is that clear ? Is that crazy ?

All of the memories from as young as possible to maybe 13, are some of the blurriest, yet the hardest sometimes. I learned a lot, as everyone, about me as an individual and about the way we, as kids, already learn to function as an ersatz of society. I’ve been happy, I had friends, I discovered what will then be a 15-year passion (horse-riding), but I also discovered cruel & narrow-minded people. That has shaped me, for sure. Around that age of 13, I realized that what brushed the others, stabbed me. That was an epiphany, a hard one to accept.

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I miss being 14, thinking I knew what it was to love someone, and to be loved. What a fool. I miss being 15 and thinking that 20 will be the end of youth, that I will have my life put together until then. I miss being 16 and sharing so many sad songs & quotes to cope with the teenage years ; it felt so inspirational, that was amazing. I miss being 17, eager to be older, to experience freedom on another level. I miss being 18, although I learned the hard way how maintaining friendship is hard work, and how I didn’t know how to do it. I still don’t, in some ways.

I’m not really missing being 19 to 24, I think. I’ve loved, a lot, I had fun, I enjoyed new friends and grieved some old ones. But I also often felt I wasn’t loved for who I was. I lost people, eternally, or just by letting some of them go. I discovered that leaving school and working does not mean that you’re an adult. I took care of myself, consciously, maybe for the first time. Some of my certitudes were shattered. I’ve taken difficult decisions, I left people and I left jobs, hoping I made the right choices, answering the right opportunities. All of that seems like a mess when looking back. But I got through it. At 32, I can say that my twenties were here to help me find myself, but that wasn’t the funniest ride.

I miss being 25, discovering that you can love again after thinking that it’ll never happen again, how can this happen more than once in a life ? That was eye-opening, an amazing realization. I miss the freedom I created for myself at that age, enjoying, truly enjoying being alone, and not waiting for my boyfriend to make me happy. He made me happy too, by the way, but I didn’t let my happiness to rely only on him. I discovered, at 25, that I should do it for myself, first, and I took this under my own accountability, first. That was another epiphany.

After that, I don’t know how to explain feelings about the 25 to now, 32. That seems too fresh, too close, and at the same time, so many things happened. Adulthood came to the door, the real one, in the whole cliché maybe. Buying a car, buying a house, doing renovations, having a demanding job, a wedding, starting a family. All of this was a lot of work, and still is, and will always be. I may miss the fact that I won’t ever be able to be irresponsible for one day in my life. A small soul depends on me now, on us, and that’s a new reality. That was the hardest truth to digest.

I miss the old days, but life goes on, and I can’t wait for the new ones.