Tag: Lunatheblog

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Poems

Poem #359

I started layering clothes to keep away from the cold.
It keeps me warm and I can feel the weight of it on me.

Don’t worry, they say that soon we will have better weather
so I will just go outside and my skin will be sun-kissed.

It will be effortless, warm, I won’t have to ask for it,
no gesture needed to get the sun’s attention.

I sleep in a fetal position, with my hands crossed over my torso
like I am trying to hug myself. Some nights I am. Somebody has to.
It makes me look like I am so small you can fit me in your pocket.
Maybe I am just trying to take up less space to be more acceptable.
Maybe I am trying to look cuter, have a softer voice, seem more loveable. Sometimes I think I am just attention seeking.

You are not like the sun, it’s not effortless. I have to ask, I have to put myself between your arms or I have to expose every inch of my skin because it seems to be the only motivation for you to touch me.

Don’t worry, they say that soon we will have better weather so I will spend my nights with my hands crossed over my torso and during the day I will be sun-kissed again.

Latest Poem: Poem #358
Youtube videos: Luna’s channel
Latest Coffee Date: Manipulating the Public Attention
Latest #savingme: Give Women Their Rage Back
Life updates: Productive Sunday

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Coffee Date

Coffee Date: Equality in parenthood

Guys, I don’t know if this is one of our lovely Coffee Dates or me just having the need to vent about a thing I got randomly triggered by even though it does not really concern me. Let’s begin, shall we?

I was bored and did something I only do when I am bored and that’s scrolling through Facebook. I don’t know why facebook is still a thing but anyways…. An article about a woman who ended up in jail because she didn’t pay alimony was there and I had to be stupid enough to go and read the comments. I don’t know why I do this to myself.

I am going to focus on one thing here, one type of comment under this post. So, if we are mentioning alimony you already know that parents are divorced and the kids went to one of the parents – in this case the father.

The comment that just triggered me (and I will try to translate it the best that I can from Croatian) was: “You know how good of a mother she was if the court gave the kids to the father”. There were several comments of this nature under the post. What the fuck is wrong with our society? We have all of this fucking technology, we came to so many new discoveries, built so much but yet we cannot grow out of this patriarchal view of families and family roles.

Let’s just be clear on one thing – in many countries around the world, when parents get divorced the court and social services are more inclined towards giving the kids to the mother. And that bothers me. So when a mom doesn’t get the kids in the divorce then we question what type of a mother that is but when the father does not get the kids, that’s normal. We set the bar for fatherhood that low we don’t even bother to discuss the biased opinions the judiciary system has about family and parenthood; we do not even consider that both parents should have an equal opportunity to get custody of their kids. And that FUCKING BOTHERS ME!

For people who came to my blog for the first time, just know that this is coming from someone who grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father and still I can be objective enough to expect for fathers to be as good as the “mother” stereotype we uphold.

Parenthood should be equality. Both a mother and a father should be able to raise their kid, put clothes on them, cook a meal for them, study with them, put a roof over their head and they both should be held responsible for their child’s well-being. PERIOD! If one parent does not know how to take care of a child in the absence of the other parent, then that person should not have kids. I am sorry to anyone offended by this, but it’s the truth. A child is a responsibility and if you are not ready for it then don’t have a kid. If you expect your spouse to take care of the baby, then you are not ready for the baby.

I don’t like how we applaud fathers for things that should be expected from them like changing the diapers, for example. When a mom does it, it’s just a random thing but when we see a father who is changing diapers, feeding the kid, waking up in the middle of the night when the baby is crying etc., then we often have the need to tell the wife/mom how lucky she is for having such a good husband. Do you see how messed up that is? I know this is not the rule in general but we see this type of behavior often and it got us to the point where we are fine with the system discriminating against fathers when it comes to giving custody over the kids during a divorce.

If we are going to keep the bar this low for fathers and just expect moms to take care of the kid then we do not have a family with a mother and a father – we have a mother and a sperm donor.

I could make a whole separate post about moms just enabling the fathers to feel comfortable with sitting on that low bar society set for them. Also, I could make a whole post to talk about how this toxic mindset has badly influenced parents and kids living in domestic abuse. I am going to speak from my own experience – on more than one occasion the police and the judges and people in general overlooked all of the circumstances in which my family lived, overlooked how many times we had to call the cops, asked for help around my dad and took him to rehabs because of his alcohol addiction because all that could come out of their mouths was “What type of mother keeps her kids in such danger”. It’s always easier to judge than discuss the system that does not protect people in need, in poverty, victims of abuse etc. But that’s a topic for another day.

I am not a mom and maybe this is not a topic I should discuss, but this is my opinion and I am sticking by it. Feel free to let me know what you think about this in the comments down below!

This is off-topic, I would just like to thank you for being around and for showing me a lot of love on my last Coffee Date where I opened up about my struggle with my mental health in the last few weeks. Knowing I still have a safe space here is amazing and makes me feel good. I am currently in the process of getting myself out of this mess and getting better. I hope I will be able to make more posts for you soon and film some YouTube videos (already brainstorming some ideas) because straying away from writing and content creating always puts me in a bad state. Thank you all again, you are amazing, all 6.900+ of you <3

Let me know if there’s a topic you would like to discuss in out next Coffee Date and let me know if you have some video ideas for me – all suggestions are welcome!

Sending love and positive vibes!

Luna

Latest Poem: Poem #349
Youtube videos: Luna’s channel
Latest Coffee Date: The art of getting comfortable
Latest #savingme: Give Women Their Rage Back

Categories
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

Categories
Poems

Poem #337

The touch was something like silk.
The taste was that of sugar,
but even more addictive.
You felt like home, like peace.

I spent days writing then rushing
my fingers through paper
hoping to catch a glimpse of your face
somewhere between my words.

I think I was trying to recreate you,
but I don’t know how to recreate a feeling.
It was like a summer morning with a pinch of salt
in the air and hot sand between my toes.

I got lost between the palm trees,
wandered around the buildings,
spent my days climbing the mountains.
Are you looking for me as well?

Categories
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

 

Categories
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 #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

Categories
My life

We hit 6000 subscribers!

Hello everyone!
Do you know who hit 6000 subscribers this week? WE DID!

I am so excited about us hitting another milestone and for me this will always be an “us” accomplishment  because this blog is being built by all of us together.

We started The Poetry Bar back in the day when this blog gathered 1000 subscribers and I never thought it would blew up the way it did. I was surprised by the positive response to the idea and am grateful for every single submission. The Poetry Bar counts 950+ posts. We are close to 1000 Poetry Bar submissions. We have also been posting for 700+ days in a row.

I never believed this blog that I started almost 5 years ago would be such an important part of my life. It’s a part of my routine. I get up in the morning, have my coffee and breakfast and then it’s blog time.

This blog helped me get out of my comfort zone in many different ways and I want to thank you all for the support you show for the works of each other and for mine as well.

I would really love to be more active on social media and I will work on that for you guys. Also, I am still coming up with ideas for the Youtube channel I started in order to publish my travel vlog and I hope I will have the time and resources to start working on it soon.

I think that there’s still a lot of things I want to work on when it comes to me as as blogger and a creator and a writer and I am so grateful to have such an amazing platform where we can grow and learn together.

Thank you <3

Categories
My life

Vacation vlog – Island of Krk, Croatia

It took me a century to finish this but it’s finally here. The little vacation vlog I promised from my vacation on the island of Krk is here. I didn’t think it would be quite as long as it turned out but I hope you will enjoy it and that this could be a fun new thing we do on the blog from now on since I am obviously lacking creativity in writing… but I promise that I am working on it!

Sending love and positive vibes,
Luna

 

 

Categories
My life

Summer Vacation – Island of Krk, Croatia

Hello everyone!

My vacation has ended yesterday and on Monday I am going back to work. It has really been a wonderful few days, I also celebrated my birthday yesterday. It was so hard to leave Punat after days of sunbathing, swimming, eating out in restaurants and chilling.

I will begin working on the videos I took during the vacation this weekend but since I am very much new at this, it will probably take me some time to make a nice video for you to show what the island of Krk is like and to show you what the Croatian seaside looks like. Also, I am not a pro at this so the videos didn’t come off perfect or as I imagined they would but I will do my best to edit them well.

If you follow me on Instagram @luna.theblog you probably saw a lot of my stories and some pics I posted of the vacation. You can also check out the IG stories about the vacation in my highlights under Punat/2020.

I will just share a few photos from the vacation here. I was making a lot of videos so I didn’t take a lot of photos but I have some!

So, I love the traditional Mediterranean architecture and on our seaside we have plenty of examples. Just look how pretty this is! Croatia seaside cities are often compared to Italian cities by tourists, I heard this comparison a lot while working as a waitress during summer.

We also visited the small island of Kosljun which is the home of  a Franciscan monastery and also a nature reserve.  

The city Vrbnik just stole my heart. It is wonderful and I cannot believe that I haven’t heard about it before. I took a lot of videos of it so I have less pics but I have these two. The view of the sea is beautiful and I also had my birthday lunch there which I will show you later on. We actually came to Vrbnik on Wednesday and then we drove back there on Tuesday for my B-day lunch because we just loved this little city.  

I just had to throw this in. We were in the city of Krk and while we were walking around town there was a woman trying to catch a baby owl which fell out of its nest. The owl didn’t know how to fly well yet but she flew a bit and landed right on by boyfriends’ pocket. That little thing you see on the pocket of his pants is a baby owl. There were like three people trying to catch the owl and return her to her nest because the street was really close and she could’ve been hit by a car. We couldn’t stay for long enough to see if they returned her to safety but I do believe they did because they managed to catch her once.  

 Oprna beach is the most beautiful beach we visited. It is a bit hard to access, you’ll see it in the vlog video and you can also see there’s a hill behind me and we descended down a hill to get to this beach. I was a bit scared to film the walk down to the beach because I was scared of slipping and falling down but both of us got down to the beach and climbed up successfully. It was so pretty! 

And these are some pics from my birthday. I didn’t take a lot of videos during this day because it was out last day on vacation and we were just enjoying. The first pic of the food is the lunch we had in Vrbnik. If you come to Croatia, you have to try our Prosciutto and cheese, especially cheese from Pag. We had the dinner in Punat and it was delicious. He had some gnocchi and I had black cuttlefish risotto. My pretty little gift was this watch that he gave me when we went to Krk because I couldn’t wait to open up my present.  

And now I am home and I have to accept the fact that my office is not the beach and slowly come back to reality. But I am very grateful to have a job in this situation and to have had a chance to take a few days to visit Krk and relax. I hope you are all having a lovely day and stay tuned for the vlog. I will try to put it up as soon as possible.

Sending love and positive vibes,

Luna