Young Blood

Via postsecret

Today I am crossing the boundaries of decency a bit by over-sharing what goes on in my vagina (and that of basically every woman aged 13-60 (rough guess there)). Once a month women bleed. And although this has been a monthly experience for nearly 10 years, I feel like the girl in the Postsecret image : despite being 24 years old, it is still a surprise every time my blood seeps out of me. Maybe it is because I know it is coming but cannot pinpoint exactly when. It is always (haha, always. get it. like the pads.) as though my body is telling me that in reality, we are not one connected mind/body, but rather that it will do as it pleases and I have no real control over it.

I associate blood with being hurt, with the possibility of death, and with that disturbing tinny smell. In Germany they sell a blood sausage (Blutwurst) and it is disgusting. Blood is life, blood makes everything work and function and spreading thickly it on a slice of brown bread is not really appealing to me.

I wonder if there is any woman who likes having her period. Well, perhaps those that thought they were pregnant and did not want to be. I hate having my period. I hate seeing my own blood. But it is a natural process and I can understand the biological spiel involved. Hell, Grade 12 biology taught us everything in deeeeeeetail.

Look, I don't see the period as some week of suffering where the lady lies in bed and contemplates her fate. Sure, some women suffer more than others and get cramps and whatever, but it is not an illness. In No strings attached, Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher have a friends-with-benefits situation going, and naturally they fall in love and bla bla bla. The point is that her character, A DOCTOR, at some point gets her period. The horror. So she spends her day curled up in bed, with her little flatmates prancing around her as though she has caught the bubonic plague. And then Ashton pitches with a period-mix, as in a CD with bloody songs on it. Because that is what happens, realistically. All bleeding women go into a state of distress and need a knight in shining armour to show up with some rocking playlist to make them forget about the suffffffering happening in their vaginas.

For shame, I say. Both to Natalie Portman acting in such a stupid movie and in their depiction of the period. And because I really wanted to say 'for shame' at some point.

This is paralysed

Ich weiß auch nicht, weißt, wegen dem gehen. Ich weiß du weißt es auch nicht. Vielleicht ist es eine gute Idee einfach alles abzuwarten, zu schauen, vielleicht meldet sich die CAF, vielleicht jemand anderes, vielleicht klappt es ja mit dem Master.

Aber wenn man dort ist und es nicht mehr sein will weiß ich auch nicht was die Antwort ist.
Wenn du gehst, was lässt du hinter dir, und wen. Und wenn du bleibst, was kommt auf dich zu und kannst du es packen, alleine. Wenigstens kann man skypen. Oder in die Bahn steigen.

Alles ist sicher ein Risiko. Und in 20 Jahren denken wir uns, pah, alles halb so schlimm, die ganze Panik umsonst, Hah, die Jugend. Alles intensiver und schlimmer und voller Angst dass die Zeit nicht reichen wird um das "Geplante Leben" zu schaffen.

On verra.

via Postsecret

There's no saving anything

via Postsecret

Every Sunday I check Postsecret. And had it not been for this today, I wouldn't have known it was Father's Day. My dad lives on a different continent, and it is a euphemism if I say we don't have the best relationship. Perhaps this is my choice, perhaps it is my fault, but my father left me and has never really said why, so I don't know if it is something I can forgive him for.

I saw on TV that half of the children in South Africa grow up without a father. Half. How can that even be? How can every second dad abandon his child/children? I don't understand it, because I cannot understand how you can leave your child. Divorce, separate, that is fine; but the choice to not have contact, to not be involved in your flesh-and-blood's life, well, I don't know how one could choose oneself over one's child. Either accept that is is a responsibility for life or don't have children. Easy.

All these fatherless children must have some larger societal impact, besides all the chicks with daddy-issues being easier to pick up at bars I mean. Parents are supposed to guide you and give advice and instil a sense of morality, but if one is gone and the other has to work constantly, what is left? On the other hand, having a terrible dad who is present surely is not exactly character-building either. Perhaps father's are just more prone to fucking up their children's lives.

I am glad when I see people have great relationships with their fathers, possibly even a little jealous, but the parent I do have is more than I could have asked for.