0-29
I am born and I am different. I am strange and weird and different and I know it. I hate it at school and I move away when I am 15, I study music and dream of being a classical pianist. At 17 I am sexually assaulted for the first time, but I tell nobody. I move abroad, I study art at univeristy. After graduating, I move back and try to find a job in the city, but I am tired and sick, I live alone on 11 square meters and don’t understand how to get the life I want. I end up on sick leave for a long, long time, working part time in a secondhand shop, I get my first therapist, but tell her nothing of value and our last appointment is only 12 minutess long.
30-39
I spend three months in a psychiatric ward, being treated for depression and anxiety. I move to the capitol, I study some more, I finally make some friends, I get tattoos and whisper FUCK IT! to the dirty mirror and I attend my first pride and I graduate again. I travel to celebrate and have my first international solo show, I am happy, I take lots of pictures, I exhibit abroad again and I win prizes. I get new friends and I cry when I have to leave them. I buy a flat, I get a dog just in time for the first lockdown, she loves me and it saves my life.
39-
I get a therapist, I get a new one, I go to group therapy and physio once a week, I buy vintage dresses I never have the guts to wear and I wonder why I live here when I could be living in San Francisco. I go to vernissages and graduate shows, but I am still fat and I feel redundant and it’s incredibly debilitating. I don’t really have any close friends, maybe two but they’re far away, I miss my nieces and nephews, but I could never move back home to the tiny island.
I shave my head, I take my pills, I teach my dog tricks and I smile every morning when she wakes me up and we walk in the forest every day, there’s deer and foxes and squirrels. I look at the skies and wonder when I’ll die. I hope it happens quickly.