12/10/2025

     The smell of the coming winter. I'll have to arm myself with thick socks and an even thicker layer of romanticism to get through the dark, frosty days. Those are the worst.

     Earlier today I tried inducing lucid dreaming. I don't remember if I even had a chance to dream before I woke up. As I raced toward the horizon on my bike, it occurred to me that maybe it had worked. The evening felt like night, a night reminding me of those I spent under my grandmother's care in the early, distant stages of my childhood. I remember thick weighted blankets with tigers from the bazaar, Turkish bed linens with eagle-nosed moons patchworked on them, sewing supplies in a cookie tin, the humming of the CRT television, the fear of the darkness lurking in the short hallway, the smell of instant noodles and lemon tea in a clear mug, my grandmother's breath with the unpleasant smell of coffee, and her decayed teeth, from which oozed the story of the ugly duckling and the song about blueberries, which I knew by heart and which I begged her for every time before bed. This short bike ride recalled all those dreams I vaguely remember from my childhood, dreams I'm not sure actually happened. Worlds made of tangled blankets, skies smeared with pen ink, trees made in the same way, rooms made of pages of non-existent books, all immersed in a night stained with spots of light.

     I have no idea if my dreams actually looked like this, but they came from somewhere and occupy a place in a dusty corner of my mind. Those market Indian sheets, stop-motion cartoons, and books were the first stimuli in my life, so it wouldn't be all that unusual for my brain to have crammed them into memory drawers in this simplified form from the very beginning.

     On Friday, while waiting for my dad, I listened to a girl from school tell a story. We're not friends or anything, but I say hello to her when I see her in the hallway, and sometimes she comes over to listen to what we're talking about or to chat. She brought up the topic of the boy she's been dating for a while, and it all sounded like the scenarios I've been playing out in my head before bed. I'm jealous of her, but not in a malicious way. I hope things work out between them, because they sound like soulmates. They're both nerds, they have a lot in common, they left a mutual friend's birthday party where they saw each other in person for the first time, and went for a walk on the beach slightly tipsy; they kissed that same night. I'm not judging; I wouldn't resist it myself if I met someone cut from the same page.

     My dad told me I wouldn't meet anyone if I stayed home all the time. But I did went out all summer and didn't meet anyone. Alright, fair, it's hard to meet someone while rushing on a bike. Sometimes I even hoped I'd crash into someone, or in front of someone. Anything, just not to look for someone with the intention of looking, because that's firstly desperate and secondly inorganic. Now that I think about it, I still do it, but mostly on Internet.

     Recently, however, I've reached that point in the month when I'm embarrassed by the thought of any kind of closeness, and I'm irritated by displays of sweet affection. Okay, not by anyone, but by someone specific. Maybe it's not the actions themselves, but the person, and that's why it turns me off. But anyway, every few weeks, I get a lull in my longing for a soulmate, and everything about couples, dating, etc., bothers me. And then I think, God, I'm so glad I don't have this burden yet. The relationships I have right now are demanding enough. I'm not saying they're not worth it, just that I don't have enough energy for someone even more important to come into my life. But maybe when it's the right person, you don't feel it as difficult. Maybe the desire to be with them all the time and make them happy completely overshadows how much energy it takes. I don't know. I have no idea what it feels like to have a significant other, to be loved by someone romantically. Those who have experienced it will never understand the impact it has on a teenager's growth. Knowing that you've never been attracted to anyone in that way. That you're just an okay friend, nothing more. That all your friends have already had that first experience. That your parents were even younger when they started dating (okay, that's a bad example, they should have never met, especially so young; it sealed their fates too soon).

     Ever since my younger sibling got a girlfriend, my dad has been asking me more often when I'm bringing someone home. At my friend's eighteenth birthday party, we played "never have I ever" and, for fun, we tried the romantic version. I took maybe one sip. My friend pointed out that I wouldn't drink for a while, and I grinned, in no hurry to finish the paper cup of disgusting-tasting vodka. But deep down, it stung. Not her words or the fact that she said them, because it's true, but the fact that they're true. Everyone around me notices that I have no experience in these matters. Absolutely none. Sure, I've had crushes. The only time it led to anything was when one of them and his friends jokingly asked me if I was dating him. For a day, I thought, uncritically, that the popular boy at school wanted me as his girlfriend. 
It's not about proving anything to yourself, or having someone just for the sake of having someone.

     You can't rush it, because it never works out well. You meet your soulmate unexpectedly, and certainly not when you want them to. Only sixth-graders and adults that perceive it as settling down do that. I also don't believe in some strange statistics about when you should have your first everything, because it's subjective. I know that some people meet love as adults or even in the autumn of their lives. It's not about the physical aspect either, because the Internet and magazines are for such desires. It's not about love in the cinematic sense of the word. I simply want someone who understands how I feel, with whom I have a ton of things in common, with whom I can and want to see as often as possible without feeling like my social battery is drained, with whom I feel absolutely comfortable and at home in my own skin, for whom I won't try to cram myself into the space of three atoms, because I'll know that this person wants to see me fully. Even silly things like, I wouldn't feel embarrassed if the wind blew my bangs, exposing my forehead. I wouldn't try to drown in my baggy pajamas during sleepovers. I wouldn't worry about what my face looked like if we were screaming the lyrics to our songs together. I wouldn't worry about getting too excited about something because we'd be nerding out together. After getting used to the idea that we'd entered the romantic phase of friendship, I wouldn't struggle with whether to rest my head on their shoulder, I'd just do it. We'd subconsciously hold hands as we walked side by side. We'd sit next to each other in a restaurant, not across from each other. Involuntarily, one of us would rest his hand on the other's knee, their elbows on the back of the chair on which the other was sitting, their head on the other's stomach while quietly engaging in one's own activities. Not in a lustful, horny way. In a constant-unconscious-need-to-be-close way.

     We remain separate people, but when we go somewhere, people expect us to arrive and leave together. We are each other's support, and this time, two voids actually create light. It was always meant to be this way, we finally met, fate fulfilled, we can let down our guard, because from now on, everything will somehow fall into place, we'll get through it together, as long as you're with me, I'm not afraid. I want to run to that someone when everything around me begins to overwhelm, and for them to run to me first. I want to trust them completely, and for them to trust me. I want to love them more than anything in the world, not be able to think of a single bad thing about them, smile at every message they send, go to bed with my heart pounding and the thrill of seeing them tomorrow; unable to stop myself from holding their faces in my hands, being moved by how long I've been begging the universe for them. I want to receive love and accept it, knowing I deserve it because I have the same love for them. I want someone in my life to get out of bed excitedly for.

- Tylko przy tobie mogę leżeć w drewnianym łóżku
i nie myśleć: jakież ono podobne do trumny.
Pauza.
- I co jeszcze?
- Tylko przy tobie nie ma takich północy, że ani
odejść, ani być, że tylko mrok i mrok, i ciemno, że
miliony okien i żadnego wyjścia.
Pauza.
- Tylko przy tobie zdarzają mi się takie kwadranse,
w czasie których nie myślę o śmierci.
Pauza.
- Tylko przy tobie umieram wolniej...
Pauza.
- Ciszej.
Pauza.
- Po ludzku.

Jarosław Borszewicz, Mroki

     I don't believe all this talk that to love someone/for someone to love you, you have to learn to love yourself. I need someone to prove to me that I'm worthy of affection. My job will be to believe them.

     Besides, it's not even about feeling worthless, that I'm beyond romantic affection, etc. I've felt incomplete my whole life. That even if I manage to reach peace with myself, something is still missing, someone is missing. It's probably just the simple loneliness of feeling misunderstood and not understanding others, impossible to fill with other kinds of relationships and the romanticization of pain. I can spend time alone with myself up to a point, and I can even accept that I'm the only one I can fully count on, but the mere knowledge that things could be different, that if only the stars were kind, I wouldn't be in constant mode of convincing myself that everything is beautiful and that I like it. Sometimes it is beautiful, but the fascination with something that has no outlet and that can't be shared between two weighs as heavily as the indivisible grief. I can't and don't want to be happy in solitude. Maybe that's my problem.

     Or maybe this is just another excuse for why things aren't getting better. I have a warm spot in my all-encompassing sense of hopelessness, maybe that's why it's so comfortable to stop kicking and sink to the bottom without a fight. Not to mention that sometimes I feel the need to make things even worse, to prove to the people in my head that I'm suffering. Or rather, so that those outside me will notice, make the connections, and understand why I sometimes behave the way I do, and so that I can receive concessions and care from them. On the other hand, I'm not going to open up to anyone for anything, and I shirk when someone asks how I'm doing. No one knows me beneath the surface, because I defend whatever lurks there with kicks, so as not to add to their worries. The teenage mind is full of skull-shattering paradoxes.

     I need to write myself a letter; I haven't done it in ages. I have a few envelopes scheduled to be opened on my eighteenth birthday. I mainly complain about my current life and finally wish myself all the best for the future. Not long ago, this felt so unrealistic to me. Now, I see officially becoming an adult as a matter of time, and only occasionally, in moments of reflection, do I realize it's so soon. I was seventeen during the summer holidays, now it's just a prelude to turning 18. I've never had to plan 10 months ahead before; now it's so normal. The end of this year and the entire next will feel like wandering in a fog. I don't need to mention for the hundredth time (I'm saying this after another rant about soulmates) that I'm not ready at all.

     Growing up is about understanding more and more. Bit by bit, I've started to notice and realize why I am the way I am. Without the support of a psychologist, it's incredibly difficult, and I won't stop feeling unfairly treated, that my friends can talk their thoughts out to specialists, while I, the youngest of the four, have to manage on my own. But I've started to notice patterns. It terrifies me, but I see that my brother and I are repeating our parents' patterns. I'm becoming like our mom, and he like our father. I'm dependent, completely dependent on others, immature and emotionally unstable, and need to be led by the hand. He treats our mother like our father does, becomes lazy and emotionally distant. He's used to not having to do chores because, for peace of mind, they'll do it for him anyway. Correction: my mother will do it for him. I remember some time ago being devastated by the realization that my birth sealed my parents' fate and that they were forced to settle down and mature faster than they should have. I can't recall exactly what it was, but I remember deducing it from a conversation with one of them, and the thought haunts me constantly. That my father would rather not have two difficult children to care for, and my mother, if she had any ambitions, had to abandon them completely. What did she want to become before she had to take on the role of mother? I'm a child of chance, you can probably guess. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't have had me at 22, and I wouldn't have spent my first few years under the care of both my grandmothers and aunts while they earned a living. In four years, I'll be 22, and it never even occurred to me to decide to have a child then. At that age, I'll probably still be figuring out adult life. And they had me. Four years later, when they weren't planning on having any more children, my brother was born. If only they had some reason to be proud of us. Only once in my life did I hear something from my father that I could have interpreted as praise, and it was on the last day of this year's holiday, when we returned from a long bike ride and he noticed I'd improved. Only then did I realize that I'd been subconsciously waiting for him to tell me something that might indicate I wasn't a complete failure in his eyes.
They shouldn't have gotten together. Only now, at 17, am I realizing that my family is, in fact, dysfunctional, even more so than I saw as a child, and that the thread of my unhappiness begins at home—it's the beginning, the backbone. It's not the only reason, but it's one of the first, paving the way for everything else. Even with self-awareness, it turns out that something you've witnessed and been a part of since childhood is so deeply ingrained in your psyche that even being aware of it won't help eradicate it. The patterns of family, home, close relationships, admitting guilt, apologizing, loving, vulnerability—all of these are hardwired into your mind, whether you like it or not.

     I don't blame them. They were young, grew up in poverty themselves, with alcoholic fathers. They provided my brother and me with what they considered the mandatory foundation for a child's upbringing. My mother succumbed to her motherly instincts, even at her own expense, doing everything she could to make sure my brother and I were happy, loving us thoughtlessly. We always had food, a roof over our heads, and clean clothes. In their day, mental health was either a fantasy or a taboo subject; they couldn't have known they would inherit problems, some of which would only surface later in life and become real issues, preventing healthy relationships or damaging self-esteem. I don't blame them because I have something I didn't inherit from either of them: a sickening empathy that forces me to look inside and surmise the reasons for certain actions. I love my mother, but I don't enjoy spending time with her. I see how fragile she is, and it hurts me because, first of all, would it have been any different if she'd had the chance to lead her life differently? She's wasting it. I know she's suffering. She might not see it that way, but I see all the possibilities, the paths she could take. It breaks my heart so much that when she's old, she might not feel satisfied with the life she's lived. Or maybe I'm projecting my own fears onto her because I'm terrified of it myself. I'm also afraid of ending up like her, because that's where it's headed. I see terrible similarities, and I see that she sometimes acts like an old woman. She's lost, spends money on unnecessary things, drinks very, very heavily, and sometimes I feel like I'm the older of the two of us. She relies not only on my father, but sometimes on me as well. I feel like she's age-regressing; she didn't have the chance to have a childhood or a carefree youth, and now her brain is trying to protect her. The worst part is that she forgets. Often, so many things. My father gets angry at her for not listening to him, but I know that's not the case. She listens, but later she doesn't remember it. I burned my hand last weekend. I was pouring a cup of tea, and either it or the kettle tipped over, spilling boiling water onto my hand. I screamed, not so much from pain as from irritation, because I was in a hurry, and I spilled water on the electric stove. My mother immediately got up and started drying it—an important element, too. I think this might have something to do with why I get overwhelmed so easily, why I easily fall into meltdowns, and why I need someone to help me—because my mother soothed my breakdowns. As if she was afraid I'd explode if she left me alone. Back to my hand. For the rest of the evening, it stung as if I'd stuck it in a clump of nettles. A pleasant kind of pain, but still a pain. I often mentioned that hand; she knew it well. About five days later, when I was dyeing her hair, I showed her my hand. The skin there is discolored, rough, and wrinkled. Her eyes widened and she asked what happened. I reminded her abruptly that I'd burned myself. I recalled the entire incident, and besides, it wasn't that long ago! And she didn't say anything, just looked confused. She wouldn't admit she didn't remember, but I knew it. I could tell from her look that she had no clue what I was talking about. There are plenty of situations like this, and I'm afraid it's a sign of some psychosomatic health problem. You can forget things, especially when you're stressed and overwhelmed by responsibilities, but not as if they'd been completely erased from your memory! That's one of the things I've never told anyone, not even someone who knows about my personal issues. That, and the fact that my mother abuses alcohol.

     It doesn't look like in the movies, where the father drinks himself into oblivion, the aggression, asking friends and strangers for money, the violence, the black eye. But even my upbringing doesn't cloud my perception of this, because it's not normal. It's not normal to buy a four-pack or a six-pack of beer every time you go to the store. Hide empty cans in boxes so your husband can't find them. Drinking during the day while making dinner, cleaning, then in the evening watching TV, and before bed while scrolling through your phone. Buying more, knowing you can't cope financially, that it will cause another big fight. Lying that you don't drink, even though you do. If you can't stop, that's alcoholism. That's all. You don't have to get drunk. The fact that worrying about your children hearing another argument about it isn't a sufficient reason for you to stop proves that you do have a problem. When I was dyeing her hair, I saw her head and skin up close. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at her, and I had to hide so she wouldn't see it in the mirror. She looks older than she is. She doesn't have the time or ability to take care of herself, as she probably would like. Her hair is dark, which makes her scalp stand out and look patchy. I felt like I was brushing an old, demented woman's hair. She's only 39, and I already feel like I'm dealing with a retired woman in need of supervision during most interactions with her. I beg her not to spend money on unnecessary things, and I feel bad about it, because she's an adult and knows what to do. But I feel responsible for the household budget, afraid that at the end of the month, if she spends it so carelessly, there might be a cash crunch. Another thing is that I'm afraid of another argument.

     Changing the subject completely, or rather, returning to the one I brought up earlier, because I could talk about my mom forever, and it does nothing but depress me more. At my friend's eighteenth birthday party, I drank alcohol for the first time (because the previous times I'd taken three or four sips don't count). Vodka with Sprite, I discovered I like Sprite, even though I don't like soda. But what I definitely don't like is vodka. It tasted awful, after each sip, I took a bite of salad, and that's all I'll ever associate the salad with. Also, because I ate so much, I didn't get drunk at all, even though I drank five whole cups. But there was a slight buzz in my bloodstream, everything was five times more fun, my legs were a bit shaky, my tongue was very tangled (but that's normal, I am like that when I'm sober too), and most importantly, I didn't feel as insecure as usual. I sang karaoke from the heart, not caring too much about being off-key or looking stupid. I didn't stiffen up when someone leaned on me. When I said something stupid, I didn't overthink it. I felt stupid for a moment, but it quickly faded away. I later admitted I wanted to feel that way forever, and my friend told me I shouldn't say that. Another friend at the lake (that fateful August day) said the same thing, and the first one said it was a very, very bad idea. I know. That's how alcoholics begin. It's one of the things that connects me with that friend, I realize now. One of our parents was/is an alcoholic, and we're slowly heading towards following their example, because the state alcohol puts us in allows us to float an inch above reality.

     Then I read a message from the fourth of us, who couldn't attend the birthday party because he was terribly ill. I misunderstood because I thought he was responding to the karaoke video, saying my singing was "peaking," then I realized it was about all of us. But I read the message to the others when I still thought it was just about me and couldn't believe what he was talking about. I sing terribly. Sometimes he gives me compliments or praise that seem completely nonsense to me, as if he don't mean it at all and is just trying to boost my confidence. And then the birthday girl reacted strangely. I don't remember what she said exactly, but my deduction was that he had something to tell me, or rather, that he should tell me something, but something was holding him back, and she knew it. I tried to ask what it was about, and she told me to forget it, that she was talking too much because she'd been drinking, and she told our other friend to keep her quiet. This isn't the first time something like this has slipped her mind. I know she knows something because this friend told her, and it concerns me or our relationship, but neither of them is willing to tell me what it is. Although I have a guess. And I'm flattered, but... I don't know. I'm curious what it is and if I'm guessing correctly. Many things point to this, but it's possible I'm just ascribing meaning to them. In these situations, a chart with clearly marked boundaries of what activities are platonic and what aren't would be useful. I'll talk more about this in another entry, because it's a topic that recurs in my mind from time to time, but I doubt it will develop. It will subside, wither, and die a natural death.