“Inside, we are ageless…and when we talk to ourselves, it’s the same age of the person we were talking to when we were little. It’s the body that is changing around that ageless center.”

David Lynch

As a child, I would disappear into my imagination, I could day dream endlessly. I could talk to myself on the way to Grandma’s house, and then back without even realizing that I just made the loop. I would come up with things that I would like to try out, you know the little girl part when your mom told you that it’s your Chim in Vietnamese. I would talk to myself, and I can tell you vividly how that conversation goes, I can still remember the exact spot where I passed by when I was busy talking to myself: ” So it’s a bird, what kind of bird? If it’s a bird, I would like it to be a beautiful bird. What’s the most beautiful bird that I could think of? A white swan. So I will name my private part : Thiên Nga.

You can still see that part in me through this blog, that I would randomly give things name. Something that actually matched the thing that I was talking about. You know Lorki is the second sons of Odin, and his greatest talents is to manipulate others by lying? That’s why I think it’s such a suitable name for My Emotional Monster. Or my heart that I imagine as a bird and give her a name Aria – Aria is similar to Aurora . Aurora is the Princess in Sleeping Beauty, she’s a special princess in the Disney series because she’s the only one who has no sense of agency, most of the decision is made for her. She’s trapped inside my beautiful body, just like my heart who has been trapped for decades.

But you know what’s interesting? These names, they just came to me, I didn’t think about it long and hard. In fact, when I started typing the name appeared. It was as if somebody has already thought over it carefully, I only need to make sense of it now.

There’s nothing more entertaining to me than my fantasy world. I could spend hours playing “Công và Quạ” with my friends, and each time will be a different story. My favorite things to do is to read a very long book, the longer the book the better. The world my mind created and inhabited is as real to me as real life, sometimes even more so. I would spend hours even overnight just to continue to read the books. The constant stream of images, colors and ideas and silliness became my safe place. I hated watching the movies that is made from the books, I kept on being disappointed because nothing in the movies could match my imagination. The spectacular fight between Harry’s stag and Dementors in my mind has been brought down by the movie, at best, it can only showed 10%. I was constantly disappointed that I promised myself if I read a book, I will never go to the movie. I also feel the joys and the pains of the characters. Sometimes, when I was deep into the books, the reality world became blurred and I just can’t wait to dive in the books whenever I can.

And then to be able to share that space, to be able to transport someone into the world that I imagine became the ultimate Bliss. For me, the border between reality and imagination has always been thin and transparent and I’ve been able to stepped in and out effortlessly. The problem is, not a lot of people can imagine as good as I am. So people who’s close to me has given me the name tag ” exaggeration”. My friends, my family and later on my boyfriend felt like they can never trust what I said. There’s a running joke among them that you have to dial back 2 or 3 steps to know what actually happened, or to taste what the food actually taste. What others don’t understand is that I didn’t lie about my perception, my perception lied to me. I would get lost, sometimes I would lose track of what real and what I had made up.

Then being a child of a controlled and frustrated mother, and an absent father, my mind would go even further. I idolize my father as some kind of heroes and became my ultimate place for mental supports. We all know by now that it’s just another of my delusional approach.

As I discussed in the previous posts, my sensitivity to other’s emotions became my survival skills. Actually, we could call it extra sensitivity, because I was so good at it, my mind can immediately pop out the ideas that the others want to hear. I became so good at lying, by lying and performing, I was able to make my parents happy, and thus, I’m validated. It’s so severe that I develop an entirely different personality, the opposite of what I am now. Instead of introvert, I became extroverted, instead of relying on my intuition and feelings, I used senses and thoughts to decide my every move. It’s always a calculated decision, what to say, what not to say.

Because the reality world is so difficult, so harsh, I spent most of the other alone time in a different world. I would talk to myself for hours bicycling to school, I would take the longer route just to let my thoughts flow. It’s funny and I don’t know if this happened to anyone, but I often get lost on the way to school. I was supposed to go to my highschool, but ended up being at my junior highschool. This happened all the way till college, I would go to my highschool and then suddenly realize, I no longer studied here.

At an early age, I’m guessing about 8 years old, I started thinking about death. I used to be fascinated by death while taking a shower:” What if I put my face down in this bucket of water, will I die? ” . I guess I was so suffocated under my mother regime that my soul just wanted to die.

This obsession of death followed me all the way till I’m a grown up, well all the way up until 3 months ago I guess. I secretly wish to die young, maybe 40,50,60 is the max. I’m obsessed with suicidal methods, not to suicide, just to know. When someone talked about death, I was so interested in it. If you are willing to listen, I can list down the pros and cons of each methods of killing self and why I would choose insulin injections as the most effective methods. One day, if you have questions, come find me, I can give you all the answers you are looking for. Promise I will not stop you.

Being an atheist, I don’t believe in God. I don’t think there’s anyone who’s going to punish me if I don’t have a lot of will to live.

Oh, and I never got angry. I never yell, or never going through a rage.

I guess, I was angry at myself, that’s why I was so interested in methods of killing myself. This dark energy has consumed me for the most part of my life, and I guess that’s why I can never be truly happy with any loved one. I made the others doubt, I do not love myself, how can he trust me to love him.

My go-to sentence is always : I want to die young, I don’t see the point of living, living is hard and tired, I don’t know why we have to work and then die, why don’t we just die.

I still cannot answer these questions, there’s no logical explanation to such legit questions. But I see the difference in myself, I started enjoying everyday of living. I see life as a gift now, and I was lucky enough to live it with such privilege. True, I’ve been hurt, but I’m living in a beautiful apartment overlooking Saigon River with my 2 dogs and I have someone to love, isn’t that so lucky?

My view of life has changed completely. I’m still not afraid of death, but I also am not afraid of living. I’m looking forward for every new day to come with new challenges. I’m grateful that every morning I can still breath and be healthy.

I’m grateful that I can still talk to myself everyday. Through this blog, I’m getting to know myself better everyday. I’m still the same person as I was as a child. Someone who gave random name to thing, and someone has such a big heart to love.

I’d like to end this blog with the most striking detailed description about Death that I found so beautiful. It’s almost like a poems, but so scientifically profound. I love how it ended with magics, starts in the sky. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I am. I named it “When I die”

When I Die

When I die…my body stops functioning. Shut down.
All at once, or gradually, my breathing stops, my heart stops beating. Clinical death.
And a bit later, like, five whole minutes later, my brain cells start dying.
But in the meantime, in between…maybe my brain releases a flood of DMT. It’s the psychedelic drug released when we dream, so I dream.

I dream bigger than I have ever dreamed before, because it’s all of it.
Just the last dump of DMT all at once.
And my neurons are firing and I’m seeing this firework display of memories and imagination.

And I am just…tripping.
I mean, really tripping balls because my mind’s rifling through the memories — you know, long and short-terms, and the dreams mix with the memories, and it’s a curtain call.

The dream to end all dreams.
One last great dream as my mind empties the f*ckin’ missile solos and then…I stop.
My brain activity ceases and there is nothing left of me.

No pain.
No memory, no awareness that I ever was, that I ever hurt someone.
Everything is as it was before me.
And the electricity disperses from my brain till it’s just dead tissue.
Meat.
Oblivion.
And all of the other little things that make me up, the microbes and bacterium and the billion other little things that live on my eyelashes and in my hair and in my mouth and on my skin and in my gut and everywhere else, they just keep on living.
And eating.
And I’m serving a purpose.
I’m feeding life.

And I’m broken apart, and all the littlest pieces of me are just recycled, and I’m billions of other places.
And my atoms are in plants and bugs and animals,

And I am like the stars that are in the sky.