I am homesick. Isn't that silly? I am homesick and I don't have a home to be sick for. I want to go home, yet there is no home for me to run to.
I am homesick for a man. He is the only one to see me as a little girl and see not a plaything, not a body to be used, not a heart to stomp on, not a spirit to break, not a soul to poison. He saw the one thing I have always wanted to be.
A daughter.
I have only ever truly wanted one thing. A father's love. And he has given me a small taste of it. Two years of unabashed devotion and care. As much care as he could muster.
I have spent my life being used and abused by others. He taught me selfishness, in that I don't want him to show anyone but me his fatherly devotion. He taught me carefree-ness, in that I didn't have to be scared he would sell me or give me away while I was with him. I could relax, because I knew he would be there when I opened the door, no matter what or when.
I run to that door now and all I find is emptiness. He has retired, and moved, no longer able in his advanced age to take care of things like he used to. His bones ache, and his mind forgets things so easily now. I email him all the time, but there is no answer. He doesn't understand computers very well.
It is unfair and cruel that he found me so late in his life. But nothing in my life has been fair. I am grateful for the two years I got with him. Another thing I learned while with him was that the old adage that "it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all" is half true and half false. I am grateful that I now know the loving embrace of a father and of a family. I am bitter that my time in the sun was so short.
When the starved dog is given steak, can you blame him for no longer enjoying the bits of beef thrown his way every now and then as much as he used to?
The heart dies a slow death. Some days I wish he had never found me and taken me in, so that I wouldn't know the bitter taste of loss. It is far easier to suffer a longing for something you never had in the first place. It is so much worse to know how good and safe and life-affirming something is and then to have it snatched away right when you are comfortable and at ease.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Monday, July 18, 2016
Lovex
Lovex is one of the greatest bands to come out of Finland, my home. This is not to be denied. No one has disputed this, but it bears repeating. Lovex has been a band since about 2001. They started out as a goth tinged emo-glam rock group that played fucking fantastic songs. I'm serious, their 2006 debut, Divine Insanity, is one of the greatest debut albums I have ever heard.
Cute, right? Eye-catching at least. Their next album, Pretend or Surrender, followed in 2008, and was more gold, more heart felt, emotional lyrics that really touched people. All of their songs described things that real people went through and struggled with. On both albums, they touched on teen suicide, bullying, cheating girl/boyfriends, depression, and hope.
Still quite firmly gothish and alternative, but with a bit more maturity. Very sexy, no? After this was a period of silence which was slightly worrisome. They randomly released a few alone standing singles with no connection to each other, which were quite good and followed in the same style and vein as classic Lovex.
And this is apparently where Lovex lost their goddamn minds.
Third album Watch Out! took a year longer to make than the time it took to create their previous two albums, so fans were all expecting something big. We got.....a normal looking Lovex.
Okay, looking back now, this isn't such a shock, and actually they look like they merely matured their old goth look into something that would attract more than some angsty teenagers, but when they came out with this promo, people shat themselves. The general consensus was, WHAT on earth was this and where had the goth gone? Third album, Watch Out! was pop rock. Plain and simple, it wasn't like their previous efforts hardly at all. I understand becoming more accessible and wanting to reach out past Finland and Scandinavia and wanting to be on more of a global stage. And Watch Out! was a good segue into that. It still sounded like Lovex, but like an adultier Lovex. The majority of the songs were still really wonderful and heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
We should have seen it coming with the release of Watch Out!'s second single, "USA". It was basically a vomit of pandering for US fans and media attention. It's so blatant in it's approach that I honestly thought they were being sarcastic and were actually slamming the US. They weren't, they really recorded a song about how great the United States is. It was very confusing.
We should have all apologized for our initial complaints about Watch Out! right then. We knew not what we did, nor what was coming.
This is Lovex in 2013. A lot of their initial fans had given up on them, not wanting to see their once genius deteriorate any further, after seeing State of Mind's promo pictures. We weren't asking them to stay 20 forever. We weren't asking them to wear the same style of clothes from ten years prior. We just asked them to continue their efforts in making really beautiful lyrics that touched people and saved lives. They did not. Watch Out! was tolerable because some of the songs stayed true to Lovex. State of Mind felt like a giant middle finger to every Lovex fan who had loved their first two albums.
If I hadn't known it was definitely Lovex, and most certainly Torsti/Theon singing, I would never believe that State of Mind was performed by the same band that played Divine Insanity. It was so superficial, all of it; from the album cover to the slickly produced songs, to the empty lyrics. I was saddened and shocked, along with many other people. "Action" was okay, really. It was quite good, but not in comparison to previous efforts. There were still vomit-inducing US worship in "California," for god only knows why reasons.
"Don Juan" was gross. It was skeevy, and odd, and didn't fit in well. Lovex didn't write about fucking lots of women, Lovex told you not to kill yourself! They gave fans an escape! They cared about the state of young adults in Finland! Lovex obviously wanted to conquer the US, and now they were essentially sacrificing their reputations and potentially their fans to do it.
Only problem? The US didn't pay attention. They didn't become the next big thing in the United States, and if you want Lovex albums, you still have to order them online from Finland. I'm fairly sure that nowhere in the US can you walk into a store and find a Lovex album, unless it's a second hand store and you're extremely lucky.
So, Lovex released the single "Dust Into Diamonds" last month. Yes, I still keep up to date, because one day they might all come to their god damn senses and go back to their winning formula.
It's pop, electro-pop at that. It's auto-tuned, and the guitars can barely be heard. What else did we expect by now? Go to any recent Lovex music video and you're besieged by disgruntled Lovex fans who adore their REAL selves and cannot abide while they hide their genius behind cheap American style pop. Many fans are like me and merely check in to Lovex's latest release only because that's how good their first two albums were. Nearly eight years since they changed their sound, and we're all still hoping they'll go back.
Divine Insanity and Pretend or Surrender are now considered classic Finnish goth-glam rock, like old The Rasmus or Negative. Their old music videos are still hailed as some of the best works to have ever come out in the past decade or so.
The truth is, Lovex won't ever be goth again. They won't write about suffering and how to get through it. They won't write insanely good rock anthems again. They've chosen their path, and they're a pop band now. And we should all accept it. Accept it and still buy their albums because we just have to love them for the escape they gave us when we were at our lowest, Or accept it and abandon new Lovex, and just play Divine Insanity and Pretend or Surrender on repeat, I guess.
Cute, right? Eye-catching at least. Their next album, Pretend or Surrender, followed in 2008, and was more gold, more heart felt, emotional lyrics that really touched people. All of their songs described things that real people went through and struggled with. On both albums, they touched on teen suicide, bullying, cheating girl/boyfriends, depression, and hope.
Still quite firmly gothish and alternative, but with a bit more maturity. Very sexy, no? After this was a period of silence which was slightly worrisome. They randomly released a few alone standing singles with no connection to each other, which were quite good and followed in the same style and vein as classic Lovex.
And this is apparently where Lovex lost their goddamn minds.
Third album Watch Out! took a year longer to make than the time it took to create their previous two albums, so fans were all expecting something big. We got.....a normal looking Lovex.
Okay, looking back now, this isn't such a shock, and actually they look like they merely matured their old goth look into something that would attract more than some angsty teenagers, but when they came out with this promo, people shat themselves. The general consensus was, WHAT on earth was this and where had the goth gone? Third album, Watch Out! was pop rock. Plain and simple, it wasn't like their previous efforts hardly at all. I understand becoming more accessible and wanting to reach out past Finland and Scandinavia and wanting to be on more of a global stage. And Watch Out! was a good segue into that. It still sounded like Lovex, but like an adultier Lovex. The majority of the songs were still really wonderful and heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
We should have seen it coming with the release of Watch Out!'s second single, "USA". It was basically a vomit of pandering for US fans and media attention. It's so blatant in it's approach that I honestly thought they were being sarcastic and were actually slamming the US. They weren't, they really recorded a song about how great the United States is. It was very confusing.
We should have all apologized for our initial complaints about Watch Out! right then. We knew not what we did, nor what was coming.
This is Lovex in 2013. A lot of their initial fans had given up on them, not wanting to see their once genius deteriorate any further, after seeing State of Mind's promo pictures. We weren't asking them to stay 20 forever. We weren't asking them to wear the same style of clothes from ten years prior. We just asked them to continue their efforts in making really beautiful lyrics that touched people and saved lives. They did not. Watch Out! was tolerable because some of the songs stayed true to Lovex. State of Mind felt like a giant middle finger to every Lovex fan who had loved their first two albums.
If I hadn't known it was definitely Lovex, and most certainly Torsti/Theon singing, I would never believe that State of Mind was performed by the same band that played Divine Insanity. It was so superficial, all of it; from the album cover to the slickly produced songs, to the empty lyrics. I was saddened and shocked, along with many other people. "Action" was okay, really. It was quite good, but not in comparison to previous efforts. There were still vomit-inducing US worship in "California," for god only knows why reasons.
"Don Juan" was gross. It was skeevy, and odd, and didn't fit in well. Lovex didn't write about fucking lots of women, Lovex told you not to kill yourself! They gave fans an escape! They cared about the state of young adults in Finland! Lovex obviously wanted to conquer the US, and now they were essentially sacrificing their reputations and potentially their fans to do it.
Only problem? The US didn't pay attention. They didn't become the next big thing in the United States, and if you want Lovex albums, you still have to order them online from Finland. I'm fairly sure that nowhere in the US can you walk into a store and find a Lovex album, unless it's a second hand store and you're extremely lucky.
So, Lovex released the single "Dust Into Diamonds" last month. Yes, I still keep up to date, because one day they might all come to their god damn senses and go back to their winning formula.
It's pop, electro-pop at that. It's auto-tuned, and the guitars can barely be heard. What else did we expect by now? Go to any recent Lovex music video and you're besieged by disgruntled Lovex fans who adore their REAL selves and cannot abide while they hide their genius behind cheap American style pop. Many fans are like me and merely check in to Lovex's latest release only because that's how good their first two albums were. Nearly eight years since they changed their sound, and we're all still hoping they'll go back.
Divine Insanity and Pretend or Surrender are now considered classic Finnish goth-glam rock, like old The Rasmus or Negative. Their old music videos are still hailed as some of the best works to have ever come out in the past decade or so.
The truth is, Lovex won't ever be goth again. They won't write about suffering and how to get through it. They won't write insanely good rock anthems again. They've chosen their path, and they're a pop band now. And we should all accept it. Accept it and still buy their albums because we just have to love them for the escape they gave us when we were at our lowest, Or accept it and abandon new Lovex, and just play Divine Insanity and Pretend or Surrender on repeat, I guess.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
If love is a joke, then go ahead and use me ruthlessly
I got a tumblr and made it a Girl's Day fanblog so it took up a lot of my time.
I couldn't wait for YW to go back home for the summer this year. It killed me last year, this year I almost looked forward to it. I don't know this man anymore. He isn't the same. Somehow he gives me even less than he did before. It's like I'm constantly taking some kind of test and if I don't pass, he just reminds me I'll never be with him and never be good enough for him or anyone like him.
My sister got married. He's a cool guy. He makes her and my other sister actually treat me like a human being twice a year so that's cool. My birth dad was there. Didn't say one word to me. Couldn't even muster the fucking balls to look me in the eyes. The priest talked about the sanctity of marriage and how a marriage is a treat for two best friends, the reward for how much they put forth for each other.
My birth father, A, sat two rows in front of me with the woman he cheated on my mother with and threw us out for. When the priest talked about this, they held hands and looked at each other. I was designated the interpreter for my sister's step-father's father who had recently had a stroke that affected his speech, since I'm so good at accents (?). I had no other role in the wedding. My mother did, my sister ex-step-mother had a role. I did not. I started crying in the middle of the ceremony because it was too much. It was too much seeing this family of pretend people living pretend lives with their pretend soul mates and having them all reject me. I blamed it on me and YW fighting.
I wanted YW to come. I wanted him to sit next to me as a reminder that I wasn't like the rest of them and that was okay. I had a different life as them, and that was okay. He told me an hour before the ceremony that he "didn't feel like" going. Said it'd make him uncomfortable. Because, you know, it was going to be so easy for me to attend this wedding and see all of these people who saw me as this pathetic ex-rehab patient who couldn't be expected to behave like a civilized human and thus must be excluded from the wedding as much as possible without "setting me off".
He left me, knowing it was the first time I'd be seeing my birth father since he threw me out of MY childhood home so his skanked up barfly HOE could move in. He left me, knowing I didn't want to go alone. Because he "didn't feel like it".
I don't feel like reassuring him a thousand times every time we hang out that he's handsome. I don't feel like hearing that I'm dumb. I don't feel like being constantly reminded "I'm not your boyfriend" every time he decides I've said something too chummy. I don't feel like being made to feel worthless and pushed aside every time someone more attractive walks by him. I don't feel like being paraded around his friends while they look me up and down and talk in Malay about how "she's hot, and you've got her wrapped around your finger? Too bad she's crazy." "she does whatever you want? It's like the perfect relationship, you don't have to do anything and she does everything else!" I'm not stupid and some of the Malaysian girls hate you and will gladly translate for me.
I don't feel like being put on the shelf and ignored every time you just feel like I've been asking for too much lately. But I do it all and I don't even know why. I hate this. I hate him. But I love him. Except I hate him. I hate him for making me feel like I'm nothing without him. I hate him for brainwashing me into thinking this pseudo-relationship was healthy and worth my time and effort. I hate him for gradually treating me like shit more and more at a pace that I didn't even notice it was so bad until I gained a new friend and they suddenly asked, "That guy's a dick, no offense, but why are you dating him?" I replied I wasn't dating him and they responded, "So he's not even giving you sex or affection or anything? Why on earth are you letting him?!" And I fully realized that the gifts had stopped.
The compliments had stopped. The sweet good mornings had stopped. The check in texts had stopped. The random hi's had stopped. The 'I miss you's had stopped. The care had stopped. He wasn't even putting on a front of pseudo-boyfriend care anymore, he was just flat out using me. He was using me for affection so he could feel better about himself. He was using me for love and affection without having to give anything in return and yelled at me when I asked for more. I talked about my problems and he ignored them. He said it wasn't important to him so he didn't want to listen. And I let him. I'm a pathetic loser. And he knows it. And he just takes and takes and takes what he wants and says piss off about the rest, the rest of me he can't get anything useful out of. The rest of me that isn't good enough for him, not pretty enough, not quiet enough, not demure enough, not whatever-the-hell-else-he-thinks-I'm-not enough.
I'm in love with a man who treats me just like my abusive, deadbeat, selfish, pathetic, worthless, horrible, insane, delusional, obese, hateful birth father did. If he slapped me and worded his thinly disguised insults as flat out cruelty, it'd be the exact same. And I hate him. But I love him. Except I hate him. I'm glad he's back in his home country right now. I can't deal with him being near me. I miss his affection so much and he doesn't even care. If I want to see him or talk to him, I have to reach out first. Because he's my one and only and I am nothing but a toy to him. His life goes on and mine is meandering without a destination, because I'm a pathetic loser who wasted a year and a half of my life on someone who sucked all the care, love, affection, and goodness out of me and spat out my empty shell and moved on without looking back.
I couldn't wait for YW to go back home for the summer this year. It killed me last year, this year I almost looked forward to it. I don't know this man anymore. He isn't the same. Somehow he gives me even less than he did before. It's like I'm constantly taking some kind of test and if I don't pass, he just reminds me I'll never be with him and never be good enough for him or anyone like him.
My sister got married. He's a cool guy. He makes her and my other sister actually treat me like a human being twice a year so that's cool. My birth dad was there. Didn't say one word to me. Couldn't even muster the fucking balls to look me in the eyes. The priest talked about the sanctity of marriage and how a marriage is a treat for two best friends, the reward for how much they put forth for each other.
My birth father, A, sat two rows in front of me with the woman he cheated on my mother with and threw us out for. When the priest talked about this, they held hands and looked at each other. I was designated the interpreter for my sister's step-father's father who had recently had a stroke that affected his speech, since I'm so good at accents (?). I had no other role in the wedding. My mother did, my sister ex-step-mother had a role. I did not. I started crying in the middle of the ceremony because it was too much. It was too much seeing this family of pretend people living pretend lives with their pretend soul mates and having them all reject me. I blamed it on me and YW fighting.
I wanted YW to come. I wanted him to sit next to me as a reminder that I wasn't like the rest of them and that was okay. I had a different life as them, and that was okay. He told me an hour before the ceremony that he "didn't feel like" going. Said it'd make him uncomfortable. Because, you know, it was going to be so easy for me to attend this wedding and see all of these people who saw me as this pathetic ex-rehab patient who couldn't be expected to behave like a civilized human and thus must be excluded from the wedding as much as possible without "setting me off".
He left me, knowing it was the first time I'd be seeing my birth father since he threw me out of MY childhood home so his skanked up barfly HOE could move in. He left me, knowing I didn't want to go alone. Because he "didn't feel like it".
I don't feel like reassuring him a thousand times every time we hang out that he's handsome. I don't feel like hearing that I'm dumb. I don't feel like being constantly reminded "I'm not your boyfriend" every time he decides I've said something too chummy. I don't feel like being made to feel worthless and pushed aside every time someone more attractive walks by him. I don't feel like being paraded around his friends while they look me up and down and talk in Malay about how "she's hot, and you've got her wrapped around your finger? Too bad she's crazy." "she does whatever you want? It's like the perfect relationship, you don't have to do anything and she does everything else!" I'm not stupid and some of the Malaysian girls hate you and will gladly translate for me.
I don't feel like being put on the shelf and ignored every time you just feel like I've been asking for too much lately. But I do it all and I don't even know why. I hate this. I hate him. But I love him. Except I hate him. I hate him for making me feel like I'm nothing without him. I hate him for brainwashing me into thinking this pseudo-relationship was healthy and worth my time and effort. I hate him for gradually treating me like shit more and more at a pace that I didn't even notice it was so bad until I gained a new friend and they suddenly asked, "That guy's a dick, no offense, but why are you dating him?" I replied I wasn't dating him and they responded, "So he's not even giving you sex or affection or anything? Why on earth are you letting him?!" And I fully realized that the gifts had stopped.
The compliments had stopped. The sweet good mornings had stopped. The check in texts had stopped. The random hi's had stopped. The 'I miss you's had stopped. The care had stopped. He wasn't even putting on a front of pseudo-boyfriend care anymore, he was just flat out using me. He was using me for affection so he could feel better about himself. He was using me for love and affection without having to give anything in return and yelled at me when I asked for more. I talked about my problems and he ignored them. He said it wasn't important to him so he didn't want to listen. And I let him. I'm a pathetic loser. And he knows it. And he just takes and takes and takes what he wants and says piss off about the rest, the rest of me he can't get anything useful out of. The rest of me that isn't good enough for him, not pretty enough, not quiet enough, not demure enough, not whatever-the-hell-else-he-thinks-I'm-not enough.
I'm in love with a man who treats me just like my abusive, deadbeat, selfish, pathetic, worthless, horrible, insane, delusional, obese, hateful birth father did. If he slapped me and worded his thinly disguised insults as flat out cruelty, it'd be the exact same. And I hate him. But I love him. Except I hate him. I'm glad he's back in his home country right now. I can't deal with him being near me. I miss his affection so much and he doesn't even care. If I want to see him or talk to him, I have to reach out first. Because he's my one and only and I am nothing but a toy to him. His life goes on and mine is meandering without a destination, because I'm a pathetic loser who wasted a year and a half of my life on someone who sucked all the care, love, affection, and goodness out of me and spat out my empty shell and moved on without looking back.
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