Posts tagged with "confidence"

France, Day 1: Paris

I find myself in Paris once again, this time for a video con­tract over the next 10 days. Karin approached me to work with her in cre­at­ing sev­er­al films around this beau­ti­ful city, and I have the plea­sure of being involved with this amaz­ing per­son­al project of hers.

view from Sacre Coeur

This is only the sec­ond time I’ve been at Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, and both times there’s been weed in the air. I even passed by a man try­ing to roll a joint while sit­ting on a park bench, his paper mad­ly flap­ping in the wind. There must be some­thing real­ly trip­py about the church.

I’m doing it bet­ter this time. More effi­cient, lighter lug­gage. Luckily, I’ve made this trip before and the expe­ri­ence is pay­ing off. Pushing my lim­its last vis­it has giv­en me the con­fi­dence to han­dle any­thing that may hap­pen. I can retrace my steps with­out a map, remem­ber­ing where I took what pho­tos on which walks.

Continue read­ing “France, Day 1: Paris”…

Wow.

A read­er sent me this let­ter (post­ed with her per­mis­sion, of course):

Almost a year after I had man­aged to leave the island behind, the room, the floor, the sheets, the rape — I acci­dent­ly end­ed up on your blog entry called “The begin­ning to the end” and it changed my world. It awoke feel­ings inside of me that I had for a years time tried to sup­press and scare off so that I nev­er again would open up to any­one, nev­er trust any­one and there­for nev­er end up in the same sit­u­a­tion again. At that time, all men were a poten­tial threath to me.

Reading and watch­ing that very blo­gen­try have had such a great impact on my life and will to become ‘myself’ again, to reclaim my body and to dare to move towards feel­ing and being ‘beau­ti­ful’ again. Your video grant­ed me the sen­sa­tion of how sin­cere, pure and giv­ing love and affec­tion tru­ly are when it’s shared and not forced. It made me remem­ber blocked out feel­ings and sit­u­a­tions and it made me start to long for some­thing that I had com­plete­ly shut out for over a year.

I have been want­i­ng to write you this email for quite some time, but I havent been sure of myself or if the “new” me (which is the old in fact) would sur­vive and I did­nt want to make this into a sun­shine sto­ry if it real­ly was­nt — but after many down­hills, tri­als and tribu­la­tions, the­r­a­phy and social inter­ac­tion, I am there, I am back and I am stand­ing strong again. Nothing will ever be the same, but at least I made the right choice, for me. I have always been lifelov­ing in over­load and even if I am only halfway there yet, it is still enough to keep me going.

I still watch that video every now and then, to remind myself that any­thing is pos­si­ble and that you can recieve “help” from the most unex­pect­ed sources. It used to make me cry, now it makes me smile instead, isnt that beau­ti­ful? I know per­fect­ly well that you nev­er meant to post that entry for me, but it helped me in one of the most dif­fi­cult times in my life and for that I will be for­ev­er grate­ful. Thank you.

Yours sin­cer­ly,
Emma

I’m at a loss for words.

What Can I Say?

Things have changed.

I don’t write the same any­more, or about the same things. I’ve lost my fer­vent ver­bosi­ty. Every time I sit at my com­put­er, my mind blanks. Writing has become a chore. Even this entry has tak­en me days to think through. I find myself writ­ing and rewrit­ing every point, every para­graph.

In the begin­ning, blog­ging was a form of cathar­sis. Developing cog­ni­tive­ly beyond my ado­les­cence was an emo­tion­al peri­od, filled with con­fu­sion and grow­ing pains. The only way I could make sense of it all was to write out my thoughts, forc­ing myself to reflect and learn from every chal­lenge.

It was also a use­ful tool in fig­ur­ing myself out, as a part of my life where I could approach things with the con­vic­tion that I lacked in the rest of my life. Now that I’ve gained enough con­fi­dence, it does­n’t seem so nec­es­sary to prove myself with words any­more. It would seem that I’ve become a vic­tim of my own self-assured­ness.

I could fill this blog with entries, find­ing solace in the writ­ten word, when I was going through some­thing as sim­ple as a bad day. As time has passed, I’ve elim­i­nat­ed most of the things that both­er me enough to turn to this medi­um. It was a slow and sys­tem­at­ic process, both inter­nal and exter­nal. My new-found seren­i­ty has left me with lit­tle rage. I’m hap­pi­er now, and hap­pi­ness is too hard to write.

It would seem that I’ve run out of things to say.

There have been few epipha­nies, and even less inspi­ra­tion, in the last while. Maybe it’s because I’m in the mid­dle of a tran­si­tion. It takes a foun­da­tion of sta­bil­i­ty, some­thing I haven’t had in months, to grow. My life has­n’t quite set­tled yet.

Writer’s block is a sign that I’ve stopped grow­ing, a tes­ta­ment to what and how much I’ve been through.

But more impor­tant­ly, it’s a sign that I’m approach­ing where I want to go in my life.