I just read somewhere about in-betweens. The time in between these few moments of bliss that our life is made of- love, a smile from a stranger, a walk in the park, a sunny day, a cup of good coffee, a dog licking my face, the newspaper outside the door first thing in the morning. The person said she had a difficult time dealing with the in-betweens. Who doesn´t? I have, too.

I don´t know what to make of them. I don´t know how to let time pass without panicking like it´s my last second on this planet. I don´t know how not to live fast or just sleep it all away. I don´t know how to act like a normal person. I don´t even know what normal is, because to me I´m normal, it´s all the others who are strange.

Ever since I can remember, I either fascinate or I end up as the outcast. People are either scared of me, or drawn to me like moths to the light. Look out, don´t get burned, I´m a naked bulb!

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine said my energy was contagious and she had to see me, so she could rub some glitter off me. That was the cutest thing I´ve heard in ages. I remember in college, too, there was this fellow student having trouble with both men and homesickness and she came over to my place, confessing I was the most cheerful girl she´d ever met and she wanted to be like me. I had to laugh, ´cause she´d got me all wrong, I was just like her, sometimes I´d fall asleep on the concrete floor hoping I´d stop breathing by morning, because it hurt too much to be me. I would wake up feeling just as miserable as I´d gone to bed and stiff in my body, too.

But I always took that shower and put on that makeup and tried to face the world like I was ready for whatever it had in store for me. I´m still doing that. It´s the only way I know how to cope. And I´m still the one that laughs the hardest and it´s no show, I´m like that, I´m the great pretender, but also the one who feels everything like cigarette butts on my skin.

The doctor that found out I was depressed, some 5-6 years ago said I was highly a functional case. Haha! What a solace… You need to see the humour in it, though..

I need to pierce through this skin of indifference that my head has trapped me into. I need to let the hurt tip over. I don´t want any numbness anymore. I just want some balance.

And I want you.

xxx, Alina