I was talking with Mark on skype and he dared me to reveal more of who I am on my blog. He's known me since he was maybe 10 years old.
I pointed out that I have 47.5 moods per day which would ever bore people ... or else cause them to send me free medication.
Mmmm, so I'm thinking on that one.
Paul, my friend for the last 27 years, called me out on my politics today, mocking me for my stance on a particular post.
Paul was the one who identified me as a leftie, after hours of arguing with me from his right-leaning perspective ...
Leftie ... ?
My politics are simple, it's how I live:
1. Do I want it to happen to me?
2. Would I do it to someone else?
It would be simpler for both Anonymous in Australia (Paul) and I, if he accepted I won't change my belief system and moved on however we've been arguing for years, I can't see it changing.
I wondered about what Mark meant when he suggested 'more of my self' and considered the implications if I talked of my recent fears about visiting Gert's doctor - as the wife of a Belgian I now have rights to health care ...
This doctor is the one who told me to get my blood pressure under control last October when she returned my lost hearing. I was 98.9% deaf when I arrived here in Belgium, she cured me after assuring me she didn't believe I could hear anything.
My winter spent as an 'accidental' in-process immigrant to Belgium played havoc with me and my self. I ran out of money 3 months into the '6 week immigrant process' that District House had assured me about and so it was that I have used Gert's money for the necessary and forgotten luxuries because I didn't come here to live off someone else.
One year of refusing the luxuries took a toll on my happiness ... I actually gained weight, mortifyingly enough. The doctor is not going to be sympathetic. Who understands the creation of 'pretend routines and work' ... as in sitting down blogging while caught between countries?
I spent that year living on travel insurance as an 'in-process immigrant'. I was mindful of the small print that said any serious illness would see me sent home for treatment (meaning I would have to begin my farcical process of application to live in Belgium again) and so being the wise woman I am, I decided to postpone anything serious like cancer and it's now with some trepidation and a huge imagination, that I'm preparing myself to go and see this matter-of-fact 'your health is your choice' doctor.
So I told Mark that sadness and imagination doesn't make interesting reading.
And okay, perhaps I could write about my political 'discussions' with Gert but I suspect he might dooce me and rightly so.
He's a liberal democrat and I sometimes spend hours questioning the ideology of his political party or wanting to discuss the way racism appears to have permeated the fabric of Belgium society. He sometimes wakes to a question, finding he has to defend all he believes in in English because I'm so bad at Nederlands.
And it has to be said that he would be right to dooce me if I wrote of those discussions and/or of course, people might send me medication ;)
I already know that had Paul in Australia spent more than a few hours in political 'discussion' with me about his ideology, I would have been fed to the crocodiles, then again I've know Paul since we were 14 and therefore he's probably entirely comfortable feeding old friends to the reptiles.
I don't know ... is Mark right, or am I?
More of my self, or more of what I am reading about ...?
4 comments:
Both! And I know what you mean about going to the doctor and addressing certain issues. It was the same for me the first two years David and I were together. Because we weren't married, I didn't have health insurance, other than the basics and avoided going to the doctor - postponed getting sick. The stress was horrific - not working, adjusting to a new country and way of life and not having my own money - and I believe that's part of what contributed to me eventually getting sick. The mind affects the body, after all. I'm glad things are falling into place for you now, after such a long struggle.
Paris, I didn't realise you went through a similar thing ... I always feel like a baby complaining and yet I've never experienced anything like the last year.
I'm sorry you went through similar things but it's nice to know that you're out there :)
Hi Di - as I recall it I think you pointed out to me that I was writing to an audience :) - and right you were too. Nail hit firmly on the head there my good friend.
My point was basically that we are more than what we read, or what upsets us. The challenge, should we both want to accept it, is to write about why we love what we read - or why we get so upset about "things". The next step perhaps is to truely let go of our literary shackles and truely say what we feel. A horrible prospect for two Green Street kids who should really know better. "Bottle it up" was our parents dogma - and it could so easily be ours as well.
Hi Mark ... so you mean write what I feel about Bush or about racism, the extreme right, Israel in Palestine and Lebanon, and immigration issues instead of hinting or rewriting until my opinion is out of it ... I'm not sure I'd like the responses I'd earn ;)
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