December 2006 Archives

Right now I'm sitting on the ground on the floor of a rickety train that's lurching its way from the Irish countryside into Dublin. We're five hours late--our first train died fifteen minutes into our 110 minute journey, and a train from Limerick was forced to push our heaping carcass of steel into the next station. We were then loaded on an already full train, where I've ended up on the damp, muddy floor beside the toilet.

I'm on my way back from the country, where I celebrated the birth of Christ. I decided not to go to Poland for the holidays, as the risk of getting put in a camp and being made into soap seemed too great. So I went to the Irish countryside instead, with stern warnings from my host that the place was a bog-hole, but was pleasantly surprised to find myself on a historic estate filled with cows, chickens, and rosy-cheeked Irish children.

We had a traditional Christmas, a sort of mix of Irish and English conventions. I even went to church in the hopes that it might help me escape the fiery inferno that was to be my inevitable future. It was only my second time in such a place, and I actually had to put my fist in my mouth to stop myself from laughing. It was like watching Monty Python, live. Heaven, here I come. A few hours later, I got a text message from the DFP: "You could have saved yourself the trouble--we don't let half-Jews into heaven anyway."

There were mincemeat pies and a flaming Christmas pudding, and even though it wasn't my family I got a number of rather pleasing gifts. Funnily enough, although the maternal figure in the family had never met me before, she seemed equally as able to find appropriate presents for me as my own family. Always going to someone elses house for holidays might be the way to go. Contact with my family was limited to a three minute crackling phone call, and as I was the guest, the only nagging and insults that were directed at me were coming from my own psyche.

I'm excited about the possibility of moving to Dublin, though. I'd like to get as far away from my life as possible. Having been here three months now, I've started to create a new life--completely inadvertently of course. I wonder how long I will be able to stay before I have to run away from this life too.

I'm still happy, really. I still want to stay here. But I live my life perpetually in fear; I sit in bed most mornings and wait for something terrible to happen. And it inevitably does--but is that only because I was waiting for it?

The pseudo-relationship I am in right now scares me. I haven't dated anyone in a while because I'm terrified of having my self-esteem completely destroyed again. This boy that I am seeing, though, is so [redacted] that I can't see any other outcome. A very Seinfeldian question, but can a relationship with [redacted] disparity ever truly work? My impulse is to destroy things as quickly as possible to pre-emptively end things so I won't get hurt. Sabotaging myself seems so much neater than just waiting for someone else to crush you.

Usually I start smoking every time I get dumped. But I have an unusually severe case of bronchitis, and really need to recover before I can start smoking again. Hopefully, the hottie will understand this and hold off for a while, at least until the antibiotics kick in.