I am sure I have mentioned this before (I am getting old and my memory is failing me), but I love walking. Going for walks is probably one of my most favorite things in the world. Maybe it’s because I know I should never ever ever take the capabilities of my legs for granted — they are not exactly the most reliable part of my body. When I walk, I feel like I am defying everything. With every step I take I am breaking down a barrier, and I am telling the disease that is causing my bones to be frail to go f itself. Every night, I sink together on my couch after a long walk and I feel like I have done my job — I have made myself physically exhausted, just like those jogging away on treadmills for hours in the gym. This, walking, is what I can do to feel normal, healthy and alive, within my body’s realm of possibility.

And it’s all I need. I am happy, I am content. I am walking, breathing, and I go home with a set of lungs full of fresh air and so much hope that I feel like I could burst. I am a flower blooming along with the bushes, trees, and everything else living that is cared for and nurtured by the sun and the earth’s natural resources. Unstoppable, invincible, every walk is like leaving the nest for the first time; brave and with wings that have been neatly patched up by those who love me, those who cared for me when I felt like I would be broken forever. For ten months, my grandparents held my hand and guided me through the fog of a situation that seemed so meaningless. Now, here I am, their babybird. Hope is the thing with feathers…

Sometimes I am joined by my sister, who clearly could have been a prima ballerina assoluta. Such grace, such style.

And sometimes we play. And sometimes I hide in crooked little houses and wave to the camera.

It’s all out there waiting for me.

A couple of years ago, when I was taking a psychology class, we spent a couple of periods talking about the theory of multiple intelligences. As part of this theme, the teacher had us do a test online to see how we scored in each of the 7 fields.

The test results pretty much confirmed what I already knew: I suck at everything mathematical (waaah waaah waaah waaahaahaah) not really a crushing fact. I scored pretty high in linguistics and interpersonal, but out of all the intelligences, I scored the highest in the intrapersonal intelligence. At first, I thought it sounded like a bullshit intelligence made up by a kind-hearted person who believes in affirmations for people like me who apparently are not too bright in anything else.

Imagine a job interview. So, Sofie, what are your strengths? “Well, Sir, my smarts definitely lie in the field of ME. I am really outstandingly intelligent when it comes to myself as a person. If you want to know something about me, I am probably the person in the world who can give you the most qualified answer, because my intelligence in this field is overwhelming.” After silently sourpussying for a bit, I decided that this intelligence probably wasn’t half as bad as I initially thought. I mean, I am doing okay, right? It’s who I am, can’t run from it. Also, if I have the ability understand myself so well, that must mean that I can eventually, when I am done being self-obsessed, turn the focus away from understanding ME and on to understanding OTHERS. And according to my scores, I was already pretty good at that also. So, maybe it wasn’t so bad. The ability to self-reflect is honestly underrated.

Anyway, you probably think that this post is over, but it’s NOT. No, this titty-tatty still has some drops of milk left.

A couple of days ago, my sister and I were doing the dishes while simultaneously making tea, and right in the middle of the dirty dishes, soap bubbles, teabags and boiling water (which I am still reluctant to be in close proximity of), we got to talking about zodiacs and ascendants. I have always found astrology endlessly fascinating, and even got a giftcard to a session with a numerologist for Christmas last year. You see, I have a feeling that one of my three names is bringing me bad luck, but I am not going to tell you which because it may or may not hurt a particular reader’s feelings (HI MOM!). ANYWAY, the numerologist passed away a month after Christmas, so I missed out on a name change to Szophfy. God bless, and DAMNIT.

Okay, that was going off on a tangent. Back to the topic at hand.

I am a Gemini, and have always identified tremendously with the description of my zodiac. I love reading about it, and I love having the description read out loud to other people because I am just that into myself, remember? I am very intrapersonally intelligent.

First, my sister read her zodiac description out loud. My sister is a Leo, and most of it was spot on. At least I could recognize most of what I heard in the person I know. Then she read the Gemini description, and I went mmmm, me me me. Then I heard something I hadn’t heard before, something that nearly made me choke on my tea, which was “(…) The Gemini is Emotionally shallow (…)”. After she was done reading and I was done coughing up tea, I said:

Me: Okay, everything fits except for the emotionally shallow part. If there is anyone who is all about da emotions, it’s me.

My sister: … well…

Me: Well what? I am great at talking about my emotions and other people’s emotions and emotions in general. I am like MISS Emotion. I am always honest and open about how I feel.

My sister: Actually, I think it’s pretty accurate.

Me: (Stunned, shocked, disappointed, confused). What do you mean?

My sister: Well, it feels like there is a shell around you. Like, no matter how much we talk, I don’t really get to see the core of you. You don’t tell me things that are deeply personal, and I only hear about big things after they have already happened, even though you know it way beforehand. You keep things to yourself that I would be really excited to share.

When I heard her say this, I remembered that my (beloved) grandmother has once said that she thought I was a very private person. I remember thinking that no, I am not a private person; I just don’t blabber out to everybody about how I feel all the time. Which is BS, because I have a BLOG full of blabber about how I feel.

And… the truth is that it is probably more accurate than I thought. Especially if it comes from my sister. I can’t remember the last time I told anyone how I honestly no-bullshit feel. I was very emotional as a child, very outspoken, and as I have gotten older, I feel like my honesty back then (or frustration with how dysfunctional things were) hurt a lot of people. As I hit my teen years, I became everybody’s best friend. I felt privileged that my parents shared confidential information with me, and I had to be mature enough to handle it. I couldn’t be honest with them about how their actions made me feel, as I would lose the privilege of being their confidant. It’s still this way. Absolutely. And, never mind me, who would they talk to? Who could they talk to?

So. I shut up, I nod, I say “I understand”, and every time I do it feels like I am stuffing myself with something that is not meant to go in the stomach. Something that is little when I eat it and grows inside of me to the point that I feel like it is too big for my body to handle. Now, I can’t even really feel myself. I don’t know when my boundaries are being crossed until way after it has happened.

And I had no idea that it had come to this. It’s like all my self-insight has just gone POOF out the window.  That’s what happens when you spend ten years of your life eating compromises.

Maybe my mathematical intelligence has increased in return.

My siblings and I celebrated Christmas with just my Father this year. In Denmark everything that is big about Christmas happens on Christmas Eve, eg the eating your colons out and the opening of presents. In fact, December 25th just basically acts as the day where you chillax and play with the presents you got the night before, nothing else. Oh, and you eat the left-overs, of course. That party usually lasts a few days.

Christmas was strange this year. My parents got divorced eight years ago, when I was fifteen, and the first Christmas was tough. Very tough. But then it got better, and I stopped thinking of the holidays as being more sentimental than other days. I didn’t think of Christmases past and how things used to be, or how it felt to be with both of my parents. It just was what it was, and I accepted that that epoch was over. Maybe there was too much going on in my own life at that time, I don’t know. I really believed it was better for my parents to be apart.

I guess my point is that I don’t remember really dwelling on their separation and its consequences. Not until this year. This year, it really hit me like a brick that things are never going to be the same. Christmas is about family, and my family is and always will be split in two. I won’t feel that sense of family until I have children of my own. My Father did the best he could to compensate, and so has my Mother all the years where Christmas has been spent with just her, but it’s just not the same. It doesn’t change the fact that there is something missing. And that is the consequence of a divorce, I guess.

Also, it really sucks to not receive toys anymore. I still get a rush in my stomach when I walk by my favorite childhood toy stores. I used to know their inventory in and out. The power with which you want something when you are a child is indescribable.

Maybe that is also why Christmas kind of sucked. It’s just not the same when you are an adult.

So. Big things and small things have happened in my life over the weekend.

1) I have had it with kids TV for a while. A long while. Maybe even a lifetime. I can not comprehend how a parent can think it is okay for their kid to sit in front of the TV for 14 hours straight. This weekend has absolutely ruined my perception of television for kids, and will forever remain a mythical moment in time that my future kids will most likely damn to hell. “That second to last weekend of November, 2012, when Mama became firm about a new principle”.

They’ll ask why they can’t watch it, and I’ll say, “My answer to that is four… five… wait, no, yeah, five (trying to keep it realistic) words: That weekend in November, 2012. Kids TV will RACK YOUR BRAINS! Not to mention the sound of it will give me the squirts.”

And that’s the end of that conversation. I hope.

I know that some programs for kids can be intelligent, and I am not going to be as stringed as I am making it sound… I am just suffering from PTSD after a weekend of non-stop fucking geared-to-kids voices and costumes and people who are dressed up. That’s what one has to deal with when they have a six year old younger sister, whose parents believe in the television as a third parent. I am telling you, that will never be me.

2) This weekend, I decided that I am going to no longer be sitting in my usual seat with my usual partner in my Spanish class. Yup, that time is o-v-e-r. Holds breath and awaits reaction. Guys, this is actually a lot more dramatic than it sounds. Do you have any idea what kind of drama this sudden movement of myself will spark? When one has been sitting in the same seat and has had the same partner since the first day, it is going to be pretty obvious that something is wrong when they decide to move three weeks before the class ends. The truth is that this decision should have been made a long time ago, I am just very shy of conflicts and confrontations, etc, etc, etc. I was also kind of afraid that he wouldn’t be able to find anyone else.

But now! Look at me now. If you want the short version as to why I have decided to move to another seat, the answer is that my partner sucked. SUCKED. The longer version is that he consistently made me feel horrible about my skills, or lack thereof, and that he went out of his way to be unfriendly. We also just didn’t work well together. It’s like we couldn’t reach our individual full potential together, if that makes sense. And then, the shit really hit the fan Friday, when he made fun of my analysis of a movie, in front of the whole class. That was the end of our partnership, I am telling you.

So, out with him, and in with a hopefully much more enjoyable experience.

Firstly, I want to thank Meg, Jinx and Alice for leaving such thoughtful, kind and compassionate comments on the entries regarding my current situation and everything that has happened. That was really wonderful of you, and I want you to know how much I appreciated that you took the time and made the effort to reach out to me.

As is hopefully evidenced by this picture, I am in better spirits. My grandfather managed to get the airline (KLM, whom I will ALWAYS be using from now on — these people have been so kind and understanding) to move my plane ticket to the Fall, where I should hopefully be up and walking. Most likely still with the aid of crutches, but still.

Strangely enough, I am still having nightmares about the last and final exam I went to (which went well). Last night I dreamt that my school’s computersystem went down and that all of our exam grades were lost. The answer to this was of course to make us all re-take every single one of our exams, and, well, that sounds like a nightmare, right? I don’t know why my brain is still dealing with/processing this issue that was never an issue to begin with. I have been on vacation for weeks now, school is over, MOVE ON, ALREADY.

Tomorrow, I will be going home from the summerhouse, and will be spending the week at my grandparents’ apartment by myself. They are going away for the week, and their apartment is much more wheelchair- and crutch-friendly than mine. That means I will have plenty of time to pen entries detailing all the embarrassing/weird stuff that has happened to me while being out and about in a wheelchair.

This weekend has honestly, honestly, honestly been the best weekend I have had in a while. The settings have been unreasonably cold and wet, nothing like summer, but life has been sweet, spontaneous, and full of chai lattes and things that aren’t good for me (chai lattes also belong to this category).

The girl in the picture up there (^) is my much-adored sister, who, a year ago (when she was SIXTEEN!) decided to move several hundred kilometers away from everything she knows to attend school for tailoring and design. As it is right now, we see each other about once a month. Next year, she will be moving even further away to a town she has never even been to before, so that she can continue her education within that field. The amount of admiration I feel for that girl is out of this world, and I wish I felt as confident about my future place in this world as she does. I think I know what I want to study once I am done with what I am doing now, but that is only 50% of it. What about after that? And most importantly, will it be useful as far as getting a job in the US?

Anyway, Saturday night I made her biscotti:

This year, six weeks of my summer will be spent in New York, and I can’t fucking WAIT! I can’t wait to be with Andrew. We haven’t seen each other for three months and I can’t wait to do all the stuff we usually do together, like, go for walks, go to the mall, eat, spoon. You know, all the good stuff you do when you are a couple (and doesn’t drink).

Speaking of drinks… I don’t drink and have never drunk, but something that can make me feel seriously tempted to dig into this mysteriously mythical substance, in this situation disguised as punch, is large family get-togethers. Every year, a family get-together is held at my grandfather’s brother’s house, where the whole family on my grandfather’s side is invited. They all usually show up, too, which makes us roughly 23 people. This time, we were 31. In one backyard. Five of the newcomers were our long-lost relatives from Germany, who barely spoke any English, and whose shoe-sized dog nearly ate one of the neighbor’s chickens, and, honestly, that + the obscene amount of people in a tiny space was enough to make me want to jump into the punch bowl (that was so 1980′s, by the way). Food was good, though.

Another thing that made me yearn for a stiff one + evidence of my attendance:

Yes, that is my cousin mooning the camera as we are having our yearly family picture taken. I blurred it for his sake and yours.

So, overall, I am quite happy tonight. Tomorrow, my History Teacher is doing a Q&A in my History Class, which I am definitely planning on attending. My oral History exam is on Wednesday, so it’s like perfect timing. We are probably only going to be four people, and all four of those people will have relied on the other three to have prepared some good questions, which, of course, no one will have done. Basically, it will be the same as always.

Goodnight, everybody!

Christ in a haystack it’s hot.

(Christ in a haystack is something I have been saying a lot lately, and I have no idea why or where it came from. Could I possibly have heard it in a movie?).

I really don’t want to be that Dane who is constantly complaining about the weather, because that is a tendency among my fellow countrymen that just drives me nuts, but GOOD GOD. It’s like the sun exploded on us. Yesterday, it was 83 degrees fahrenheit, and  no matter where I was or what I was doing, the sweat was dripping from my forehead. Inside, outside, eating, drinking, peeing, etc. It was honestly pretty EW, and there was no escaping it, because I was the ew. And from personal experience it is not possible to escape from yourself. I have tried, and it doesn’t work, so don’t waste your time trying.

Today is just as hot, and I don’t know about you, but the effect heat has on me is equivalent to taking five melatonin pills. The energy has been completely sucked out of me, and all I can do is lay here and drink Coca Cola and complain sweat quiet tears. Coca Cola hasn’t paid me to say that, but money talks, Coca Cola, money talks. I’m in a vulnerable state and I can be bought.

Oy.

Yesterday, I went to my youngest sister’s birthday. She turned six. My other sister and I gave her a Stacie Doll (for those ignorant to the world of Barbie, Stacie is Barbie’s tween-sister. AND SHAME ON YOU!) who loves to go camping. Well, I can only assume she loves it, because dolls usually feel things very strongly. At least according to the box they come in. She came with a tent, a plaid to keep her warm, a camping chair, a campfire and a stick with a marshmallow ready for some roasting. I know it might be bad taste to compliment your own gift (either way, I often do), but goddamn… I’m so glad we didn’t go for the tandem-bicycle Barbie. I would loved that when I was six… and fourteen.

I loved playing with dolls, and playing in general. I recently talked to a girl who just turned seventeen about how much I miss being younger and being able to play. She said that she hated being little, because there were so many things she didn’t understand, and so many things that didn’t make sense. I personally would give anything to go back to where nothing made sense, because I guess I believe that that is one of the perks about being little. One of the privileges. You will spend the rest of your life worrying about all the bullshit in life, so what’s the hurry? Playing with dolls is acting out fantasizes or scenarios without any consequences. It is part of getting to know yourself and discovering your own boundaries. It is a part of processing what is going on in your own life. I remember exactly how it felt, which is why I can identify so strongly with my little sister’s age. I can’t wait to play with my own future children, and encourage them playing on their own.

Okay. I think I am going to surrender to the heat and take a nap.