Tag: feelings

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Coffee Date

Coffee Date: Is it all over in your twenties?

Hello everyone and welcome to another Coffee Date with Luna, let’s start.

In many of my previous posts in which I discuss some struggles I’ve been having, I noticed that I often mention my age, the concept of getting older, adulthood etc. I honestly thought that this fear of getting older was something that the patriarchy installed in me as a woman but it was much more than that.

Just to put it out there, I am 24 and paranoid about it.

You want to know why?

Because the world is constantly trying to tell me that my life will start to end around the age of 25. Let me explain!

My surrounding is very traditional when it comes to those “steps” you have to take in life – grow up, school, job, marriage, kids, die. There is this norm that’s imposed on 20-something people when they start getting closer to 30 than they are to 20 and this norm makes the future look like a fucking cage. At least to me.

It’s like you can make decisions, navigate your life freely, pick a career, do what you love and then you become 25+ and that choice is gone. What was done was done, what you studied you studied, you better have a good job and a roof over your head because it’s time to “settle down”. EXCUSE ME?

NO.

For the love of actual God, stop expecting people to fit in with your standards and your rules of what their life should be. Tradition is a thing of the past. We live in a world that is constantly changing and expecting for a 20-something or even a 30 year old to just have her/his life figured out is insane.

I am going to speak from my own perspective. Had I not quit grad school, I would have graduated last year which means that I would be unemployed in the middle of a pandemic. Luckily, I quit, got a job, got a promotion and I am still trying to navigate working on a position that wasn’t really what I went to university for and I never thought I would end up on it. I am still figuring out who I actually want to be and what I want to do in life and this pressure that I need to have it all figured out is making me anxious.

Maybe in two years I decide to go back and graduate. Maybe I will have some sudden desire to start my own business. Maybe I decide to say goodbye to everyone and start backpacking through Europe. Why the fuck shouldn’t I have the option to change my life path completely?

I think that growing older is causing a lot of anxiety for me because I have no one to talk to about this. People around me seem to have a plan, have this all figured out and I often feel like this weirdo that is constantly unhappy, gets easily bored with everything, cannot sit down and make a plan for the future. One of the reasons why I do not like making plans is because it feels like I impose more limits than guidelines on myself when I start planning my future.

For me, not conforming to the norms is the only way to live because conforming would make me lose sight of the things I want and my dreams. It would also kill me in my twenties. I believe that many living in more “traditional” societies understand what I am saying and that we all just need for the world to back off and give us room to grow and create our own futures.

Let me know what you think and have you experienced similar things!

Sending love and positive vibes,
Luna


Latest Poem: Poem #354
Youtube videos: Luna’s channel
Latest Coffee Date: Equality in Parenthood
Latest #savingme: Give Women Their Rage Back
Life updates: Getting Better

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Coffee Date

Coffee Date: The art of getting comfortable

This is not easy to write, not just because it’s hard for me to discuss but because it has been so long since I’ve written anything that I don’t know how to do it well. Let’s just let the stream of thoughts flow.

After the last earthquake in Croatia, I took some time off. It was right before New Years and I just wanted to have some time for myself and away from my job and blog and everything. Just me. It turned into a disaster.

My mind does not like to be left without a hobby because then I spiral into negativity and episodes of sadness, fear, anxiety and all things that make me want to lock the door and never leave the room. Working from home certainly made this easy for me – too easy.

The first red flag that I was not doing well came with a sudden craving for smoking. I broke the habit over a year ago and was not planning on sinking into my nicotine addiction no matter how bad the cravings got. Smoking was an addiction but it was also a way for me to push down negative feelings. Something in my cup, music in the background and a cloud of smoke around me.

Instead of screaming that I am not doing well and seeking help, I started to close up. I got new addictions that helped me push the feelings down even for a short while – beer and binge eating. A few pounds are already visible, but I pretend they are not there.

“Why are you this unhappy?”, I asked myself one day. In an attempt to try and make myself feel better I started thinking about everything I had – a family, a good relationship, a good job etc., and the more I listed everything I got, the more I felt ungrateful and started telling myself that my own negative feelings were invalid and that I need to be happy because I do not have a lot to be unhappy about.

In the past, these feelings meant that there was something wrong in terms of me not seeking out to find what inspires me, to strive for more. These feelings were there to yell at me that I’ve gotten too comfortable and that I need to start moving forward. They would force me to move forward before they ate me up alive. I completely disregarded this now. I knew this when I was 15 and full of life but the 24 and tired version of me wanted to turn a blind eye and become even more comfortable.

And so January flew by with me waking up, working, eating, watching Netflix and being socially anxious about going outside while telling myself I am not socially anxious and that it was just the time we live in when people don’t want to be around other people. A month of getting extremely comfortable with all those negative feelings still floating around. A month of telling myself I do not deserve to feel bad because I have what I need to survive. Not live. Survive.

My quarantine-born Netflix addiction would lead me to different shows and whenever there was a scene that was sad or tears-of-joy happy, I would have to try really hard not to cry. It was not the scenes, it was something inside of me that had to be cried out but I did not let it. I would get in bed after a long, hot shower – the same bed I spent the whole day working and watching Netflix in – and I would pray for sleep to come before my brain had time to overthink this mess I was making of myself.

I stopped writing because the 24 and tired version of me knew that writing would get the demons out and it would make me move, kick me right out of this comfort zone.

And so February came. I looked at what I had done to my blog, looked at all of the filming equipment I got for youtube because I was excited to make videos and I just kept on getting comfortable. I will get to it eventually. I will get around my dreams and goals right after this “me time” that has done nothing but made me unhealthy, mentally unstable, overly emotional and a complete mess overall. Isn’t “me time” supposed to make you feel better?

So here I am, doing what I’ve done countless times before. Writing all of this out in hopes it will provide some much-needed clarity, peace and healing. Am I scared that I went in too deep into the comfort that it will take me months to recover and get back to myself? Yes.

But I have to force myself to not get scared by that feeling. I have to force myself to face it, conquer it and remind myself of who I am, what I came here to do and convince myself that I am not this tired, comfortable and unhappy person I tried so hard to be. There’s more, there will always be more and I have the right to go after it, whatever it takes.

Latest Poem: Poem #348
Youtube videos: Luna’s channel
Latest Coffee Date: Flowers in the Garden 
Latest #savingme: Give Women Their Rage Back

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Poems

Poem #340

I only write about love because it was all
I have been looking for in life.
But it is so hard to recognize It in a world
that wants everything defined and in line. 

I want to stand on my own two feet,
but I still want you to save me.
I want a kiss on the shoulder over morning coffee,
and have my back arch against a wall. 

I don’t want it comfortable and defined.
I want it inconvenient, passionate and alive. 
Romance and lust dancing together under the stars
giving life to passion and to desire.  

All should be love, addictive and wild.
Silence and noise at once.
Chaos and peace intertwined. 
Nights you stay up opening your soul
and nights you lose all control. 

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Coffee Date

Coffee Date with Luna: Addicted to the Noise

Hello everyone!

I rose from the dead, here I am actually blogging on my own blog. My last few weeks have been quite interesting and when I say interesting, I mean numbingly painful but I am still working through that bullshit. When I say that I rose from the dead I mean it.

Forgot to say, welcome to another Coffee Date with Luna. Depending on when I actually publish this, might be time for warm milk before bedtime with Luna, but that’s beside the point.

Growing up in domestic violence (what a lovely way to start a blog post), you cannot function in silence or in a lot of noise which is more common for such environment. When there was noise, when we were fighting or my father was chasing us around the house trying to beat us, I heard something and I knew that everyone was alive and conscious if they were speaking. Silence would sometimes be comforting, especially on those rare night when I wouldn’t go to bed listening to my father’s drunk rants about how he’s going to burn the house down while we sleep in it. But there’s this other thing that you start fearing about silence and it’s silence itself. I would often catch myself enjoying some moments of peace and quiet to only then be awaken by the thought that someone is hurt or that my father randomly fell somewhere while he was drunk and broke his neck. Yes people, welcome to my childhood thoughts. Don’t worry, he is still alive and back then he was mostly sleeping on the couch or the floor because he was too drunk to make it to bed.

This fear of silence made me into a person that constantly has to have noises around me. While I was living alone in Zadar, I always had music playing in the background or the TV was on. If I was going to the store, I had my headphones in. I had a playlist for bedtime. Music would be playing while I would get ready in the morning or while I was under the shower. And this routine continued.

Do you know what this does to you? It takes away your time to self-reflect and think about your problems and fears by constantly distracting your brain. I do not know how to be in silence or allow my brain to just process situations. I let everything build up inside of me until I become so emotionally unstable that I get depressed. And you want to know something? YOU ALL FUCKING DO IT AS WELL.

We live in a climate where we are encouraged to constantly be distracted by all types of shit. Our phones are always buzzing with notifications, there’s always someone talking, there’s always a new show to watch, news to keep up with etc. We all suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out). We are so caught up in this era of smart devices and constant noises that we forget about the whole world that’s inside each and every one of us.

I finished reading G. Steinem’s book called Revolution from Within. There’s a part where she speaks about people being healed emotionally and physically by coming back to nature. Do you know what nature is? Quiet. When was the last time when I enjoyed spending time in nature? When I was a kid, I used to run around and climb trees because being on a high tree with the fear of falling and breaking something was safer than being inside my house. Ever since I was liberated from domestic abuse, I gravitated towards the city, the noise, the constant distractions. The only thing that changes this for me is the proximity of the sea. I have a very special bond with the sea but I don’t spend much time on the seaside.

What I’ve come to realize lately, as I’ve been spending more time at home with my mom, is that this running away from my childhood and my inner self has produced a very negative side effect. I lost my memory or suppressed it so hard that I cannot remember years and years of my life. If something were to happen to my mother (God forbid), I would lose years of my life because she is literally the only person that can tell me what happened at certain points. I just don’t remember but that’s a problem for another post. I am researching this issue currently.

This is what being addicted to distractions and to noise brought me. I forgot who I was, do not like to think about who I am or what I wish to be. In this world of noises, I think it’s time for me to put the volume down and go back to me, listen to what I have to say and go through the pain and the thoughts and the memories for as long as it takes to process everything.

In a world that doesn’t want us to think, it’s hard to take that step. It’s not a step out of a comfort zone. It’s more like a jump of a cliff but we have to see it as a leap of faith, a return to the natural, to the human, to the raw part of life that was here before the noise and before devices that became smarter than us.

There is catharsis to be found in books, art, music and creation but there’s truth to be found in the world that’s inside of us. We came to the world naked, screaming and without shame. Let’s not leave it hidden, silenced and manipulated.

Sending love and positive vibes,

Luna

 

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Coffee Date

Coffee Date with Luna: Recognize Your Patterns

Hello everyone and welcome to another Coffee Date with Luna!

Ever since I dropped out of grad school, I have been experiencing a sort of a life crisis. Sometimes it’s okay, sometimes it hits me like a wave and I am a terrible swimmer. One of the things I have learned in this time is that the only way to grow and get the fuck out of this is to review my past actions, what decisions led up to this and how to take accountability for my actions and make better choices in the future. Trust me, I do not have this figured out yet, but baby steps are still steps forward.

One of the decisions I had to review is the type of people I let into my life, especially when it came to romantic relationships. Using the word romantic linked to the toxic relationships I actually had is very amusing to me. I had the attachments, the infatuations, the beliefs I found love and that love will conquer all and now I am here 24 years old and still do not know shit about love. But I do love to write about it.

When I look back and review my relationships, there are patterns I can recognize. I would either get into a relationship that would seem great but it would end abruptly because something was missing, I didn’t feel like the person I was with had any genuine feelings about me, like they didn’t care about me. The second pattern is rushing into relationships that I knew deep down would never work and then being crushed. As if I was looking for this amazing love that would survive the obstacles and thrive. And people, I thrived in one of those relationships that ended up with me crying and smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. It wasn’t just the relationship that was toxic. The consequences echoed in my life for years and when I look back, I cannot help but ask myself: Why do I hate myself so much?

I refuse to take all of the blame for my failed relationships, but I can recognize where I went wrong. I didn’t leave people because they didn’t love me the way I need to be loved, but because I didn’t love myself. I projected my problems and my insecurities on to them. I wanted them to give me the love and attention I never gave myself. I was looking for someone who would care about me because I didn’t care about myself.

I started relationships and became infatuated with men who were bad for me because I didn’t feel like I was worthy or love. I humiliated myself to the point where I accepted crumbs off someone’s table and called it love. This is getting very hard to write but it’s something I have to face in order to be better and do better for myself.

I decided to share with you my relationship issues because you have these patterns too and maybe they just came into your mind. Writing them down, acknowledging these patterns will not solve them but it’s a start of a very long and prosperous journey. You cannot solve your problems in one night, in one post, in facing the truth but you can solve them with consistent work and by being honest with yourself always.

It’s hard. It’s fucking hard. It took me 3 weeks to sit down and write this because it’s not easy to admit that I hurt myself with my past relationships just because I didn’t love myself enough to seek what I deserve, what we all deserve which is love and respect and happiness. Do I love myself now? No. It’s a process but I won’t speed it up by not doing anything about it so, as always, I am sharing my truth here. I hope my little encounter with honesty will help you in your journey.

This is all I can take for this post, it’s hard to write about this when I don’t have my feelings sorted out but I am working on it. This is one of those baby steps.

As always let me know in the comments below your thoughts, what would you want to read about next and let me know how are you doing?

I love you all!

Sending love and positive vibes,

Luna

 

Categories
Poems

Poem #336

I am giving everything away
and the bar is low.
You just need to love me a little bit more
than I love myself and that’s easy to do.

Last poem by Luna: Poem #335
Our First Travel Vlog: Vacation Vlog – Island of Krk, Croatia

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Poems

Poem #335

Somewhere between the smoke and alcohol,
the hobbies and oversleeping,
the binges and the purges
you realize it was never a writers block.

You screamed your words at that page
to let go, to release.
You never expected they would scream
right back at you.

You used to write to let it all out
now you fake writers block to keep it all in.
Just to avoid reading what you feel.
Just to avoid facing your own fears.

Last poem by Luna: Poem #334
Our First Travel Vlog: Vacation Vlog – Island of Krk, Croatia

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Poems

Poem #334

She almost becomes one with people.
She immerses herself in one’s body and 
emerges carrying out their pain and sorrow. 
The burden gets too hard to carry and
people just keep piling on. They are biting
the hand that fed them help.  

Her bones break, her shoulders cannot carry the load.
When her body hits the ground there’s no one to pick her up.
The dust settles on a body that has a cold touch to it now.
It’s the death of an empath. 
 

Categories
Poems

Poem #333

The life of trauma means saying
“I knew it” instead of “I can’t believe it”
when the worst scenario comes to life.

The life of trauma means being
relieved when you lose because
it’s so familiar to you.

The life of trauma means sleeping
awake because you’re  just waiting
for the other shoe to drop.

The life of fear, of expecting the worst.
A brain in anticipation of pain.
A young body being a home to an old soul.

Last poem by Luna: Poem #332
Our First Travel Vlog: Vacation Vlog – Island of Krk, Croatia

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Coffee Date

Coffee Date with Luna: Inspiration in pain

Hello everyone and welcome to another Coffee Date with Luna!

Usually I intended for Coffee dates to be published each Saturday but here we are.

Yesterday I went to bed a bit early because I wanted to wake up early today but that didn’t work and I ended up spending a few hours overthinking and my thoughts came to my blog and my writing.

If you follow me, you know I haven’t been posting a lot of my original poetry lately and the reason for that is that right now I am very happy in my life. I have already noticed before that I have writer’s block when I am happy. Poetry and writing in general had always been an outlet for me, a way to let go of bad emotions and terrible experiences. When I come to periods such as this one when I am happy, I have things going well for me, that creative part of me just become blocked.

Do you experience this?

I know everyone has their way of writing but I got to thinking if this is toxic for me in a way. Would I ever sabotage myself and my happiness in order to write something? And yes, my brain likes to go to extremes when I am overthinking alone at night but this question has really been bothering me. How far would I be ready to go to break this writer’s block and can I unintentionally invite unhappiness and pain to my life just to find inspiration to write?

My mind was spinning a lot last night and I thought it would be best to read more and get in touch with art and poetry again to find a new source of inspiration. Do you have any good book recommendations to get me through this period?

Writing is something that has been with me through life, I have created my blog around it and I have connected with all of you thanks to poetry and I would hate to have to pick between my writing inspiration and my happiness.

Even though I am very happy currently, this part of me is missing and I think I would experience my feelings of joy more intense if I were able to write about them but I fail every time.

Tell me what you think about this, have you experienced this or any other type of writer’s block. Also, is there any subject you would like us to discuss in our Coffee Dates?

Sending love and positive vibes,

Luna