I was a weird kid. My imagination was constantly interfering with the reality and it was very hard for me to decipher which is which. I also believed in magic, princes on white horses, talking animals, witches, dolls being alive (one of them trying to kill me), Jesus listening to my prayers and a happy grown up world where one day everything will make sense. Once I painted all the walls of the living room and yelled: Mum, look, chickens!' I also said to her many times that I discovered the meaning of life and once I told her that I ate some of my small toys. They took me to hospital to figure out I hadn't. The problem was I wasn't lying. I was completely sure I did.
Now I am 30 and things haven't changed much. Except the Jesus part.
At some point of my childhood, I asked the ultimate question: 'Mum, where do babies come from?' Mum being a very rational mathematics professor answered: 'When two people fall in love, babies come.' There was no storks in her story. I gave it a thought (I very often dwell upon strange things people say to me and it can last for hours until I proofread it to suit my view on the world: 'Could that be true? If not, do I want it to be true? If yes, what's in it for me?') and I realized - Shit (or whatever equivalent was at that time), the baby is coming!
You see, I was terribly in love with a boy from my kinder garden and Mum said when there is love, there are babies. Of course, I completely ignored the fact that I didn't know if he is in love with me. I wasn't ready to be a Mum so I cried in my room the whole day: 'I am too young, I am a child, how can I raise one, there was supposed to be this whole life ahead of me before babies and above all - MY FATHER WİLL KİLL ME!' In the evening, I came to another conclusion: 'It is over now and I will do it. And if my parents love me, they will accept it. It wasn't my fault, you can't stop yourself from falling in love. And if they don't accept it, I still have my little red suitcase and I will put a towel and soap (it is important to have some basic hygiene) and my favourite doll and I will go away. There must be some work out there that I can do...I WAS 4 YEARS OLD.
When I told my mother, she cried. Nothing much has changed. She still does from time to time, for different 'What the hell is she doing now?' reasons. I still make my decisions in 'Well, what's done, it's done' and 'MY FATHER WİLL KİLL ME' fashion. I am always ready to pack my little red suitcase although I am not that eager on hygiene any more. I still ignore the fact that I don't know if people love me, as long as I love them it's all good (I'm OK. You're OK.). Definitely I am still not ready to raise a child and I strongly believe that there is this whole not so adult life ahead of me without children but I also know now that babies are not that eager to come by (or at least I take care of their non-arrival) and that love comes and goes very nonchalantly.
I also don't fit in any of these categories. Yet.
The world was very confusing when I was a child. Many things puzzled me like how can there be iron in lettuce, why refugee kids have flees, why all the women in Bible end up badly, why Jesus doesn't want to talk back to me, why kids can't drink beer, why every adult I know drinks it, why Tooth fairy doesn't exist in Croatia, why old men have pregnant bellies and so much more. I also imagined that one day when I will be 30, I will be a mathematics teacher happily married to a handsome boy and have two kids and a dog. I wasn't supposed to have short hair cause girls don't have short hair, or live outside Croatia cause Croatia is the best country in the world, or travel for no apparent reason cause Croatia is yes, the best country in the world.The only worthwhile travel was if you are something like Indiana Jones, that's acceptable. There was only one Love of your life. And you should always be a lady. HA! My father still strongly believes that I will change and become normal again. But he also blames Turkey that I became a vegetarian. Exactly. Sometimes I think making no sense is in my genes. But then I take a look at my friends and they don't make any sense either.
When I became teenager, it got even worse. A completely different set of questions rose up to the surface, my personal favourite being 'Why and how are some people cool and some bullied and how to avoid being in the latter category?'. A nice quote on how: 'I’m talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn’t them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn’t them that they were throwing just as hard as they could'. Same rule applies to burning at the stake, guillotine and classroom. Furthermore, why you are not allowed to have same shirt like somebody else, why Adidas is always cool and Nike is cool only if they are black, why cool people don't have pimples (life, you must be joking me), how to stalk somebody, why is everybody so deformed all of a sudden and what deformations are cool. Boobs are cool but you get harassed by boys a lot. Moustache is not cool. You won't get stalked by girls.
You get self conscious and nothing on your body is as it should be. I was as tall as now, weighed 20kg less and covered myself as much as possible cause I thought I was fat. And nobody ever could persuade me different. Social structures and group dynamics were really giving me a hard time, I never understood why everybody is so horrible but on the other side, I became as horrible as them. Better than being bullied. And when it all got mixed with a healthy doze of hormones it became THE WORST PART OF MY LİFE THAT I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER REPEAT. All that hormonal confusion and puberty and world is a bad place (yes, I had that phase as well) and not knowing what you are and what you belong to and searching yourself in different music, clothing and groups of equally confused people that pretend they are not confused and blaming your parents and all the I'm in love nonsense on top of it...Wow. Never again. Thank god. Hallelujah! No wonder teenagers drink so much, it's impossible to deal sober with all this. No wonder adults drink so much either.
In early 20s I discovered LOVE, proper full on Love of my life kind of love and that dreamy girl from the beginning of the story was the happiest person in the world. A bit later on, I discovered that love goes away and that there is not one Love of your life, there is Many of them. If you're not unlucky.
I discovered travelling which also gave me this amazing feeling of being the happiest person in the world. Travelling then turned into hitch hiking which turned into not following peoples' expectations which turned into not following career which turned into not having any money which turned into not caring about your looks which turned into not acting 'normal' which tuned into having damn good life all along (until someone tries to touch you, that's not so damn good).
Of course, there are always bad times. There will always be bad times no matter what you do. For example I am worried today the whole day (apart from the latest When the hell will I get a job) that I might have adopted some bigger creatures in my stomach while I was in India and I have this feeling in my guts that they are on a nuclear fission level of civilisation now. (Not so) funny stuff happen sometimes.
Trucks, love and parasites. Not necessarily in that order and hopefully not correlated.
On the other hand, maybe I will also be broke, sick and lonely when I am 40. So ask me then again.
Que sera, sera.
And a completely brilliant video.
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