Happiness is a memory

Yesterday I again talked with my mother via video chat as we regularly do. This time we once more touched upon my youth and the many happy moments in there. Even though there was the bullying and harassment, as well as other unpleasantness at school, at home things were generally positive. Or at least most of the memories I have of that time are positive.

My love for nature, biology, science and technology can be traced back to those early years of my life. Growing up on a dairy farm, surrounded by the reality of animal husbandry as well as early personal computers thanks to my father who used the latter for his accounting while also encouraging my brothers and me to use these computers and eventually the internet.

Together with my younger brother I developed a love for classical video games, both on video game consoles and on the PC. To me most of these years have anything negative which may have happened during that time more than cancelled out by positive experiences.


To then look back at the time since then and see, as well as feel, my struggles since then. Not having a real home for more than a decade and counting. Struggling to make some sense of a body I no longer understood. Dealing with a world which simply does not understand me, yet seems to be intent on punishing me physically, psychologically and financially for who and what I am.

At this moment in time I am living in an apartment where I am totally unhappy, with its owner hating my guts while not bothering to fix fundamental problems in the place. That horrific 'justice' system in the Netherlands still seeks to punish me financially for having the nerve to break down completely after years of psychological and physical torture, not to mention medical neglect. I'm also inching towards what may become the most crucial surgery in my life, all while dealing with resurging traumatic memories of the past decades.

I generally do not feel that I live in quite the same world as people around me any more. Maybe it's just that I have seen and experienced too much, but it feels more as if I am drifting alongside all of these people scurrying around, doing their thing, while I can only feel a sense of despair and emptiness at this sight.

Inside I feel fundamentally unhappy and broken. After more than a decade I have had to long since admit that I won't ever live in a place again where I will feel comfortable enough to really call it a home. A broken down hovel suffices for the likes of me. I only can do things any more if they have some kind of long-term goal, something which will help me live forever, learn everything, and so on. For anything less than that just feels meaningless and empty.

Except when it involves something which reminds me of those scarce happy memories. Allowing myself to sink back into those recollections for a little while, to return to that time when life seemed a whole lot brighter and less terrifying than it turned out to be.

As happiness is a memory, suffering is the dystopian present and future.


I wonder at what point I took the wrong pill...


Maya