Veronica Merlin's Blog

GISH is coming up soon. In 4 days, actually. I just logged into the app last night, and accidentally saw the countdown at the top. 4 days.

I mean, I knew it would start this weekend. Somehow it seemed further away, when you say it like that.

I am actually pretty nervous about it. So far, I am not really seeing any difference from the previous years Gishwhes, and till this years Gish. And perhaps, it is just the name change and the app that makes the difference. Perhaps we will all be surprised once the list is released.

I do feel like a bit of the charm went away this year, since we haven’t been introduced to the new mascot. And with the app totally not working for most of us, it has been a pretty frustrating process already, leading us once again to face book and twitter to communicate.

Aside from that, I am absolutely looking forward to it as well. It is going to be fun. Crazy. Sleepless. Frustrating, in a damn you Misha, kind of way. I know it is.

We had a super great team last year. We were good at talking and sharing, and working together, we had tons of fun and everybody let the others be creative. We supported each other all the way, and even though I am sure I slept a little less than the others, because I was the captain, (and the damn escape room..)  there was always someone to answer questions if I was offline for a second.

Most of the team from last year, are with me again this year, with a few replacements. So, the ‘old dogs’ I’m not worried about, they were amazing last year, and they will be so again this year.

But we do have some virgins, and some to who the language might be a problem when it comes to talking to the team, and lets be honest. A HUGE part of Gish, is the team. Your team mates. Sharing the experience with these 14 other crazy souls who signed up with you. We even have one who is not on face book, and even though I made sure that she connected with the part of the team who is in twitter, I am kind of afraid that she will feel very alone in Germany, and not sharing the group experience that the rest of the team is going to have through the group on face book.

The app would be good. If it worked. And if you could share pictures and videos with each other on it. As long as you can’t, and half of the team cant open the app, we are forced to go on face book. It is simply the best media on which to communicate with an international team.

I have a girl from France as well, and one from Sweden. Both of them ‘alone’ on the team, with no locals to play with. I know that it can be very hard to Gish alone. Sometimes being crazy, and brave, is just easier with a partner in crime, and no matter how supportive the rest of the team are going to be, (and we are, I know we are going to bend over backwards to support them,) it is still harder for them.

I am not super worried about the virgins. Just the fact that they have signed up, shows that they have the willingness to be crazy. I do hope that I can be a good enough captain, though, and make sure their first Gish turns into a life long addiction, and not just something they did once, to try it.

The language barrier is a bit of a problem this year, as far as I can tell. Some on the team are very shy to write in English, which makes them go silent when the group talks. I hope that goes away once the crazy begins. Actually, this year, we have no one on the team, to whom English is the first language.

I am so going to miss my Americans from last year. *Cough*Jen*Cough* We had quite a few items last year where we had to ask for help from someone who was born with speaking English. Luckily, I still know where to find them, when I need something explained

I never travel. Like ever. In fact, I can easily say that since Apocalipse was born in 2010, I have not missed a single day in his life. Hell, since I got my first horse in 1994 (I was 12, btw), I have been in Denmark, going to the stable at least once a day to hug my best friends.

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I am not quite sure why I decided to go with two of my friends to Germany for the only Pokemon Go event in Europe, but I did. I guess I could write a lot about that, but lets just say, these guys have to be something quite special.

I counted on the boyfriend taking care of the horses, but of course he was at work one of the days, so I even had to ask my only remaining equestrian friend if she would look after my babies Saturday morning. I never do that. Like, ever. She nearly had a heart attack. (Thank you thank you thank you, btw )

So, anyway, we decided to go. We even had t-shirts made. That was actually one of the best ideas ever.

Pokemon Go is always split into the three teams, and since one of us were on the wrong team, we couldn’t just go as Team Instinct. We had to make our own team. So we did. The Pokemon Mafia. Actually, we have been called that a lot by some of the players around our town so it felt quite natural. For this trip, we added G & S to the Pokemon Mafia, and wrote Gay and Single on our shirts.

I know. I’m not single. I am sure my boyfriend did not find it entirely amusing. Anyway. We had the best time with it, and we even found the ugliest orange half hoodies ever, to write it on. I LOVE them!

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Actually, it was quite an amazing social experiment for me. Just to see how different people treated us once they read the message.

First off, everyone were laughing and smiling when they read Pokemon Mafia, most people we came across read it aloud to their friends with a smile on their faces. That was super fun.

Second, the Gay part brought some reactions as well. Some didn’t flinch. Some instantly avoided eye contact. Some started talking to me, and while I could tell that they were reading it, lost interest, and even looked slightly scared when their eyes reached our male friend.

Anyway. We had a blast being the gay and single pokemon mafia for a weekend.

So, it was a 7 hour drive to Dortmund, and since I don’t have a drivers licence, and S didn’t wanna drive, the task fell on L. I can easily say, it was unfair, but she was amazing.

We had planned on sleeping in the car the first night, and arriving early on Saturday, because we didn’t really know when the event started. As a matter of fact, this event was colored by its astonishing lack of information right from the start.

Anyway, we parked on a truck stop about half an hour from Dortmund, because by then, it was 1 am and L could not drive anymore.

It was warm. Like, hot, disgustingly summer night warm. Three people in a car. One who was very tired, two who wasn’t.

By 3 am, L had had enough of us and left the car to sleep on the grass outside. S and I decided to drink some of our wine instead of sleeping. Good decisions.

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We arrived by the park at 6 am, to find people already standing in line. By 7 am, it was crazy. Thousands of people were gathering. Cars were blocking the roads. The line was impossibly long. And no one informed us when and what might happen.

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This is the public street where we stood in line. For 4 hours.

In the shadow.

By talking to some of the locals, we learned that the park did not open until 9. That would have been nice info to have known in advance, but okay. Also, since it was burning hot, none of us were wearing too much clothes, because we did not expect to stand in the shadow like that. I was so cold and tired and pretty much ready to go home already before we got in.

By 9 am, when the park should open, it did not. The line did not move. The police came by though, a lot, escorting ambulances by, because we were blocking the roads and people were clearly already in trouble. And still, we had no info. No one told us what was happening or why we were not let in.

I believe that there were too many of us and that they dared not just open the gates. But not expecting all of Europe to show up, was kind of stupid. This is the only event we get, of course there will be thousands and thousands of people. And even so, TELL us why we are standing in line on the sidewalk. Tell us that there is a 3 hour waiting time so we can go away, stop blocking the road and maybe have fun somewhere else. INFORM people, please.

Once we finally got in, the servers crashed. None of the games would start, the internet were so overloaded that no one had connection.

Inside the park, they had set up free Wi Fi, but they had done it so we had to find 3 spots and connect through a code. EVERYONE were there, trying to get a glimpse of the code, and once you connected, you walked two steps and were off line again. It was so ridiculously amazingly unplanned, I have no words. [image error]

On Sunday, they fixed it with a free Wi Fi and no code, but all of Saturday, it did not work at all.

So, instead of really playing, we kind of crashed on the grass at a spot where we had connection once in a while.

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Did I mention that we did not really sleep at all the night before?

By 4 pm, we had had enough of internet connections and server errors, and we decided to to to the hotel we had booked for a night, and find something to eat.

Oh yeah. That was another thing. We were not allowed to bring food or cola into the park. Clearly we had to buy stuff in there. Free event, huh? Not so much. Also, none of the food stands accepted credit cards and none of the park guides spoke a lick of English, so finding a place where we could withdraw money from our bank accounts were not easy. Again, “we dont take cards” would have been pretty awesome info to have had in advance…

The hotel was great though. Our internet worked again, the game servers stabilized once we were away from the park, and the spawning spot in our room was amazing. We had much more fun catching pokemon in our beds, than we had had all day in the park. As it turned out, the event was all over city, not just in the park.

Nice info to have had in advance… No?

We explored the city instead of going back to the park, for the rest of the day.

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The next morning, we went back to the park for a quick trade. Oh, yes, the first day we had run into a guy from Australia, and he had traded me this;

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Super HYPE!!

Since you can only make one special trade a day, my friends could not trade with him until next day, so we had to go back to the park and meet him again. S got it from him as well, and he had gotten the log in for his girlfriends account in the meantime, so L could do the trade too. This pretty much made it worth the trip

When Poseidon was born, he had a number burned into his flank, marking him as a bastard, because his mother was not approved of by the breeding associations. Yes, back then, foals were still burned in Denmark.

The burn marks were mostly left untreated, so it would scar as much as possible. Heal as badly as possible.

In Poseidon’s case, they succeeded. I believe I have written a book about this horse and the mental scars he suffered from his first two years with those people, but I don’t think I mentioned the burn mark.

When I bought him as a two year old, it was not healed. Part of it was infected and the flank was swollen. Due to how untouchable Poseidon was, I could just watch it, and hope for the best, because there were more pressing matters with this horse.

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Once I did get closer to him, and he allowed me to touch him, we managed to heal it somewhat, but, I don’t know. It never really healed. Maybe because it had been a permanent wound for two years.

Some days it was better than others.

In time, it became a perfect symbol of every thing that was done to him, how neglected he had been, how scared, wounded and bleeding he was.

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How, no matter what I did, I could never quite help him escape the demons in his mind.

15 years, we shared. 15 years, I asked myself every single day, if today was the day, I would fail him for real. If it was today, that he would hurt someone, and I had to put him down. If it was today, that he would hurt himself so badly, that I could not treat it. If it was today, I simply owed him, to let him have peace.

He was, and always will be, the person who created me. Everything I am, I am because he needed me to be this person.

My heart, my soul, my star, my endless night. My greatest accomplishment and my biggest failure. 15 years.

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I have not cried for him once, since he died.

It feels like all the tears I had to cry for him, cried when he was alive. Letting him go in the end, was a strange kind of relief.

My pasture is empty without him, let’s not pretend that a persona as huge as his, does not leave a vacuum, and my life has a lot less purpose and direction now.

But I don’t… miss him much. Not really.

I miss us. Who I was, with him.

I am honored to have known him. I am humbled that he chose me and allowed me to love him. I am happy that I saw him through this life and I am grateful for everything I learned, growing up with him.

And I am  relieved that he is finally at peace.

In a strange way, so am I, now that he is no longer suffering. Now that the scars finally do not matter anymore.

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I have been wanting a tattoo for a long time, and I did consider having his name written on me, but somehow that felt wrong. I mean, what of the others then? Apollon, his brother? Legacy, the horse that never had a chance, and shattered me into a thousand little pieces? Amalia, the girl that kept me sane for 14 years? Why Poseidon, and not any of them?

I know that Poseidon was my “special” case, but in truth, so was Apollon. So was Legacy. They were all special in their own way.

And then it hit me. The burn mark. The scar that never healed. The number, that was burned into his skin when he was young and untouched by human hands. The number that was all he was, to the world around us. The bastard foal, that was my entire world for 17 years. (Yes, I knew him for 2 years before I could buy him.)

It’s been 6 years since he died now. 6 years, since he put his life in my hands one last time, and I took it from him. 6 years.

I could have sworn it was yesterday, he closed those huge eyes for the last time and the most amazing spirit, the bravest soul I ever knew, departed this world.

I guess it is my turn now. I had the number tattooed on my arm. Not to remember the damage that was done to him, not to remind myself that I could not heal his scars, but simply because nothing symbolizes us better.

This mark was forced upon us, by a world we never fitted into. A world where we were just passing by, fighting to survive, day by day.

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You may read this and think that this is a sad story, but it is not. We did survive. We were happy. We did good. We got so amazingly far. We learned to live.

That is what this number mean to me.

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Reminding me to live, in spite of everything.

Not just survive.

Live.

I’m going to Be Loud this weekend.

For those of you who don’t know what that is; it is a Les Mills fitness event. I am not sure what possessed me to sign up for that, except that an old friend- my oldest friend, actually- and I have had fun working out together in the past, only… We don’t go to the same gym on every day basis.

Why? Well… She is pretty serious about her training, and the gym she is using have most of Les Mills programs- unlike my gym.

I would say that I am pretty serious about my training as well, and I have considered changing gyms for a long time now.

Don’t get me wrong. I like my gym. I like most of the trainers, a lot of the people who goes there, and we do have some of Less Mills programs. And not to sound snobbish, but I like them more than the other classes my gym offers, simply because when I go to Less Mills BodyPump for instance, I know what to expect. I know what weight to use, how much repetition, and so forth. It just makes it easier for me, to push myself. When I go to another class, where it is up to the instructor to create the program, I never know what to expect.

And changing gyms, would allow me to see my friend more. So why not?

Well… Hands down, because of another friend, who is at my gym.

So, since I am not jumping ship right now, I figured that my oldest friend and I could have a fun day killing me at Be Loud.

She is so tough. Like, really, really tough. While we were growing up together, I always felt inadequate next to her. She was always stronger than me, always braver, always prettier… She was always everything I was not. People used to think we were twins, because we looked so alike, but for us, the differences between us were huge.

I know, that she always felt that she came up short next to me as well, because I did good at school, without even trying, and even though she was the one who ended up getting an education while I dropped out, she still feels less intellectual, because I became a writer.

Friendship is weird, isn’t it?

We have known each other for 30 years, and we both feel diminished in each other’s presence.

I am seriously terrified, going with her to Be Loud. I am sure I am going to die and she is going to be awesome, as always.

With Pokemon Go community day coming up this Saturday, I nearly bailed on her. I mean, come on. I can always work out. I can always try the rest of Less Mills programs. I am not changing gyms anyway, right?

I spoke to her briefly the other day,  confirming a few details about the train and such. Even thought we just exchanged three texts, she managed to mention that at least four of the programs includes choreography and that she expected me to rock those.

She knows I’m dancing, (or trying to,) at my gym, but it just hit me when she wrote that. As much as I feel inadequate next to her… She is kind of intimidated, going with me.

Because we are so different. Because we do things differently. Because people always compared us. WE always compared us.

Friendship is strange. If it really is friendship between us.

She was always more like a sister. Like there is this unspoken bond between us, that life and time cannot break, no matter what happens, or how little we have in common. Or how much we compete.

So, yeah. I’m going to Be Loud this weekend. And it is going to be tons of fun, and I will be dying, even if I have tried to get myself ready since we signed up. And luckily, I have the best friend in the world, who is going to look after my Pokemon account(s) for community day… (Thank you thank you thank you :* )

And I’m still terrified. And still surprised that she thinks that I will be better than her. At anything.

I guess we should talk at some point.

But we won’t. That is the basis for our relationship. We never talk. Not really. Words always did more damage than good between us anyway.

Friendship is weird.

I’m still alive. I know it’s been ages since I’ve updated this blog. Truth is, I haven’t written anything in months now. I am so unfocused, I can’t even manage to keep up with my TV series. I am even failing on My Little Pony season 8… It’s awesome, btw, the episodes I have watched, but I have no focus lately.

I have tried opening my manuscripts to start writing again, because I know exactly where both of the books I am working on are going, I just… never get to take them there. I cannot seem to collect my thoughts.

I AM doing GISH this year, though, and I am totally looking forward to it. For those of you who doesn’t know, GISH is the new GISHWHES, and yes, it will be a cold day in hell before I do not join that.

GISH has its own app now, (download it in your playstore,) which means that aside from the actual competition once a year, Misha gets to torture us at random, whenever he feels like it.

Seriously, download it. Who doesn’t like a little torture by the overlord?

Well, on this app, Misha posted a challenge, asking us to create a world and invite people to apply for citizenship. I thought about it for a while, I mean, creating worlds used to be my thing. I am a writer, after all. But I kind of dismissed the idea, because in reality, the best world for me right now, would be a deserted island with no internet connection, no Pokemon Go, no society expecting me to be someone I am not; nothing to drag me out of my head, so I could get back to writing.

That’s a bit hard to invite people to join, right? And it defeats the purpose of Misha wanting to create a more open and warm world.

Then a friend, and team mate, of mine asked what he could win if he would do it. I have no idea; knowing Misha it is probably going to be a 4 am wake up call or a pile of kale. But the realization that my friend might do it, kicked me into action. I am the f***** team captain again this year, and so far, I have done nothing at all.

I know, I will, once GISH starts, but why not before? Why leave it to a virgin member of the team?

I knew that he was going to do an amazing job, and I knew that there was no way I was creating anything close to what he would do, but there was one thing I could handle.

I have been asked, a lot, to release the map on which the Starstone series are based. I never did, because I always disapproved of my drawing style, but this challenge seemed designed to kick me back into my world. If not to write, then at least to find the old map and scale it up. Translate it to English as well.

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This map was drawn when I was 13 years old. This is my world. This is where I have lived for most of my life. Sitting down on my floor and redrawing it, was a pretty amazing experience.

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It felt like coming home, even if I managed to forget half of the names of the landmarks, and this world is long gone in my mythology. This is what started it all for me, and I could not imagine another world. Not really. This world is more real to me, than Earth. Welcome to my head.

I know, that using the #GishTheWorld tag, I should invite people to join my world, and you are of course all welcome, but my world was always dark. The Shadow of Time was always waiting to take it. Those of you who read the books will appreciate the pun with the cat, waiting on the outskirts of the map…

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Anyway, thanks to GISH for already inspiring me to be creative. I clearly need a kick sometimes. Hopefully, I’ll pick up my writing again soon too.

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I did know, when I closed the Shadow of Time, and had to move on to writing the Legacy Series, that a part of me would always miss this world. I figured I would be able to move on as long as I had Nahorim with me, and for a while I did.

I guess I’ll have to find him again. He always was my light in the dark. I know that is a funny thing to say about a character I have created, but I need him in my life and the Legacy series might have moved too far away from him lately.

I believe the boyfriend calls it ‘evolving as a writer’ and ‘killing your darlings’… Basically, letting Nahorim go.

I tried. I don’t think I can. Sorry, Naim. I’m gonna have to drag you into it again. I need you.

I think I finally realized that. I’m weak, but what’s wrong with that?

It has been a long time since I have sat down and updated this blog. Lately, I have not felt like writing at all, and especially not about my life, which is usually what happens on this blog.

The truth is, that aside from posting a picture on Instagram or checking twitter for news about Pokemon Go, I have hardly been online at all.

I even, kind of, missed the Mishapocalypse.

Now, for those of you not in the Supernatural fandom, that might mean nothing, but for us Mishaminions, the Mishapocalypse is one of the best days on the internet. April first, everyone is Misha. We change our profile picture, and on twitter and tumblr, we change our names as well, and the confusion is utterly complete when every single notification you get begins with “Misha Collins commented on…”

Adding to that, we post poorly photo shopped pictures and gifs, all of them wearing Misha’s face. And not just any Misha face. It is the same picture, agreed upon world wide. It is one of the most fascinating happenings I have ever witnessed of people all over the world, uniting once a year, to… be Misha.

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As silly as it may seem, I met some of my best friends on twitter, while we were all Misha.

And this year I was just… Offline. I will admit, it hurt. But I accidentally made plans with some of my friends, to go to the gym, play pokemon, and spend the evening playing board games. I have no idea how I did not realize that I was going to be offline all day for the Mishapocalypse, when we planned it, but once it hit me, I did not want to change the plans.

You have to be in the fandom to truly understand how amazing it is, and as much as I did not think that my friends would get why I was bailing on them, I guess there was another reason why I did not.

I actually like these guys.

Imagine that. Me, liking people. Enough to miss one of the most important internet things of the whole year. I like spending time with them.

I think I’m going soft. Am I turning normal? Or have I just found a few people, as crazy as me?

Our day took us by the stable. I had actually planned on making the boyfriend take the horses, so we did not have to, but my friends wanted to meet the kiddos.

I am always a bit shy about showing off my horses. I am so used to having crazy horses, and to having to tell people to stay out of the pasture, like, “don’t touch the red one,” “careful with the fat one, he looks nice but he will go through you,” or simply “no eye contact,” and here we are. My gang is the cutest, most embracing horses.

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I still warn people to make no sudden moves next to Marble, but the truth is, I don’t even think I need to anymore. Maybe, I shouldn’t. Maybe I am putting people on edge around her, making her more likely to get upset.

What really hit me that day, was Saleem.

He has not been doing good for a long time now. He has been struggling to eat, not every day, but it is a recurring problem, and he is still way too skinny. On top of that, with the changing weather, his hooves has been a nightmare, and we have fought our way through two hoof abscesses lately.

I will admit, looking at this horse, I have asked myself some rather tough questions lately.

If he can’t gain weight, if his teeth are too much of a problem, what do I do then? Do I drive him to Sjælland, and leave him at the hospital, to have his jaw broken and his teeth extracted? Do I drag him through that kind of pain and slow recovery?

Maybe, he would have 10 happy, pain free years, afterwards and it would be worth it. Maybe he would die from the anesthetics during surgery.

Maybe his hooves would be too much of a problem, or something else would get to him, making the painful surgery and slow healing process seem cruel, and selfish from my side.

I know that in life, there are no guarantees. It is completely up to me if I decide that he needs surgery, or if I decide that he doesn’t. It is also up to me, if I decide that the best thing for him might be to not be here anymore.

I am so tired of asking myself these questions. I lived for 15 years with Poseidon, asking myself if today was the day, every single day. I am not sure I have it in me to keep doing it. To keep making it through another day like that.

Saleem is pretty tired of me as well, which is not helping our case. The truth is, most of the time, I don’t see him as a happy horse. Most of the time, he walks away when he sees me.

Saleem has always been closed off. I always felt that I had a hard time connecting with him, and I know, rationally, that I am the one who cleans his wounds, cuts his hoof abscess open, administer antibiotics… I understand why he is tired of me, because it feels like the only times I am interacting with him lately, is when I have to do something mean to him. But maybe that has made me believe that he is unhappier than he is.

Once my friends showed up on the pasture, Apocalipse were first on the scene, of course. Always curious, always ready for new things, he brought Ablaze along too.

They lost interest pretty quickly, both of them. But Saleem lingered. And talked to my friends.

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He let them touch his face and everything.

Saleem is a headshaker, touching his face is not something I do a lot, because he never seem to like it. But these guys got to pet him. And he stayed with them for quite a long time.

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I guess that I have been so focused on him, losing weight, and having problems that I forgot to see the light in him. The will to live he still, absolutely has. The open and kind heart, that is in no way ready to surrender.

So what, if he blames me for everything that is wrong in his life? So what, if he walks away when I show up? As long as he is happy, when I am not around, I guess I will just have to make more of an effort to spend time with him, where I am not doing something he don’t like. I can handle not being his favorite person in the world, as long as I know that it is me he has a problem with, and not life in general.

Seeing how he interacted with these strangers I brought into his life, I am pretty sure that he IS happy, most of the time and that I have no right to even consider giving up on him.

It turns out, that missing the Mishapocalypse to hang out with my friends might have been the best thing I have done in a long time, because it made me see Saleem in a new light.

Now, I know, that I will continue to wonder about him, and I can’t quite stop me from thinking that he has suffered through a lot already and everything has its limits, but I know too, that if he had been truly sick of this life, if he had been in real pain from his teeth for instance, he would not have showed up to talk to strangers.

That, more than anything, is reliving me of a bit of the guilt I feel when I look at him and think that he is not doing well.

He is doing well enough to not isolate himself, except for from me. Noted. I guess that is something to think about.

I’ve been home alone for quite a lot of days lately. That is kind of new for me, to be just me, the cats and the horses. Usually, I’ve always been living with someone, somehow.

Right now, the boyfriend is in Austria with his work, and it is freezing cold in Denmark, so my usual time killer, Pokemon Go, has been toned down a bit.

As an added complication, I messed up my one hand somehow, effectively preventing me from going to the gym all the time, and landing me on medication, which completely knocked me off my feet. I have been almost unable to get out of bed in the morning since I started on those pills, and they are not making my hand better.

So, with tons of alone time, and unable to do the two things I do the most, I defaulted to being creative. Once upon a time, music and writing was what I did when I was alone. I then started working for a movie company and became a photographer, learning to enjoy framing and telling a story through images.

I will say, with my left hand swollen, I was a bit scared that I could not play my guitar anymore. That has been one of my deepest fears, through all of my life. Losing my left hand. Every time it has been broken in the past, I have been terrified that I could no longer play my guitar. Luckily, the pills I’m taking are also painkillers, so it was not a huge problem.

I wrote Desolate Heart quite some time ago, mostly with Nahorim in mind, as I was changing his story in the Legacy Series, and the lyrics for it was published in Rockstar in 2016.

It’s been a bit of a struggle for me, to make the music fit the lyrics though. It is one of those songs I have kept trying to make happen and I have never felt too happy with it.

But, being alone and with a lot of spare time on my hands, I sat down in my hallway, (the sound is better in an empty space,) and recorded it. I am not even sure why. It just happened. Maybe I wanted to hear it, when I was not playing it. I sometimes do that, if I want to work on something.

But as I watched the recording, I knew that aside from being home alone, I also had access to the Dark Mare computer and the Permiere Pro, and I could not help it. I put together a video for Desolate Heart.

Within a day, I had the footage I wanted. So, yes, keep in mind that everything is shot on a Samsung Galaxy s6 edge, so bear with me on the sound and to some extend, the picture. Desolate Heart is © copyrighted to The Legacy Series, Rockstar, by Veronica Merlin, where the lyrics were first published in 2016.

Thanks to everyone of you who has asked to download it so far. I’m sorry, but I have no clue how to set that up and I will say that if I were to make that happen, I would have to make a better recording. This is a simple, just for fun, video, describing a song I have struggled with for a long time.

I have thought a lot about the images, though. As much as they came naturally to me, when I started shooting for the video, there is a point to every shot. I’m not sure if it comes across, but at least I know what I wanted to say.

The picture is unedited, by the way. No filter or color grade. I am pretty impressed by the quality of a cell phone camera…

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. And of course I had to share it here.

I think I had about two New Year resolutions this year. I normally never have any, but this year there actually were things I wanted to change.

The first one was to maybe spend a little less time at the gym dancing, and more time actually working out. Last year, I got into a weird pattern of going to zumba almost every day, and fitting actual work out around it, which was so not why I joined the gym at all.

I will say, that joining a local dancing group is kind of messing up my “dance less” plans, in some ways, but it has been a lot of fun, meeting these guys and getting challenged in ways this one zumba instructor I’m stalking, don’t challenge me. But aside from joining them, I have actually begun to let go of my obsession with dancing at the gym.

For a long time, I felt that it was too many hours of my days I spend on it, and that it was not exactly giving me the work out I wanted. I am, first and foremost at the gym, to get stronger. To preserve my muscles. To keep my body working. To keep my spine carrying me. It’s not a game for me, or a need to look good and lose weight. I know I lost sight of that for a while, when I started dancing more than working out, and I know that I can’t keep doing that.

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For a while, I just made sure to do both then. But that means that I was spending 2-3 hours at the gym every day, and adding to that, some days we would hang out afterwards and talk for hours.

Between that, and the horses, and the boyfriend being away at work so much, I completely stopped writing.

Which would be my second New Year resolution. Start writing again. I am working on no less than three books at the moment, (four if we are counting The Kiss, which I have been writing with Noel Heart for years,) and for me to just quit all of them at the same time, is new. I have never, since I started writing on the Starstone series, 17 years ago, had such a long break.

So while I have managed to dance less at the gym at the moment, I still, have not managed to open my drafts. And that is not entirely true. I do open them once in a while, and read through something, checking facts, stuff like that. Mostly, because while I am not writing, I am still working on the story in my head. But the longer the break I’m taking, the more of the story I forget, and the more I need to read up on it before I can sit down and continue the story again. And I’m just not doing it.

Instead, I play pokemon again. I did that last year, around this time, as well. There is something about the cold, dark winter nights, that just makes me want to walk the lonely roads of the city and the local parks, chasing digital monsters, not having to be a responsible grown up. But if I make it to level 37 before the 10th this month, I’ll have managed 2 million xp in 2 months… That’s kind of okay with me. And I’m so close. I can almost taste it.

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I am getting tired of the game again, though. Mostly because it is forcing me to interact with the local players. That is what I hated about it and what made me quit it last year. Twice. I love playing on my own, or with a friend, but having to deal with the drama and the backstabbing, not to mention, having to run into people I have been actively avoiding for decades, is killing the game for me.

I will admit, I would like a MewTwo on my main account, but so far, I have not managed to get an invite. My blue account got an invite instead and while I got to play with some of my friends, we still had to meet up with all the locals who got invited, to take down the MewTwo.

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It is the strangest feeling. Most of them know me, and talk to me as if we know each other quite well, and I struggle to remember them. And then, some ghost from my past shows up with her children, and while we clearly recognized each other, none of us even flinched. I don’t think a single person at that x raid realized that we had a history, and how much we were both struggling to smile.

I caught the damn thing on my blue account, and while I should be happy, I went home feeling strangely shaken. I know that I am still hoping to get an invite for my main account, but the prospect of having to go to another x raid, and of running into her again, is making me kind of hope that I don’t.

I could always hope that my friends gets an invite too, and joins me, so I won’t be alone, even if they have no idea what is going on in my head, but the second I feel like I need my friends to be with me, the second I feel like I can’t go alone, is when I am losing interest in the game. It should be fun. It should make me happy. It should not tear up old wounds.

And it’s not. Unless I let it. I know. It’s not the games fault. Sometimes I just think I have too much history on this island. No matter where I go, there is some kind of ghost following me. Even driving to the gym with the x raid today, watching how the fields Janis and I used to ride on when we were kids, were being paved over and replaced by a hospital and parking lots, made me want to turn and go home. Those paths we used to ride down, gone. I could almost see our grey ponies, standing on the edge of the forest, fading into the shadows of what is left of some of the happiest times of our lives. I could almost see her turn her head and smile at me from underneath her helmet.

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Sometimes, I want to just leave it all behind and move to another country. Somewhere, I have no history with anyone. Somewhere, no one knows me. Somewhere, the ghosts, living or dead, can’t find me.

I know that I am falling apart at the moment, and that everything seems to get to me in a very negative way, and I know myself well enough to know that I’ll find my way out of this again somehow. I know that blaming zumba, or pokemon, when I don’t do the things I should be doing, is super unfair. In reality,I just don’t want to be in my head at the moment, and anything that can distract me, is pretty perfect.

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So, on that note, I believe the local church has been red all day. Time for a change of color. It’s only freezing and dark and snowing. But. They have had it long enough. Team Instinct, (and by that I mean me,) to battle! Luckily, there is like three active players where I live and if I take down the gyms when they have gone to bed, they won’t fight back until I have earned the money I need. Wup wup.

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Wayward daughters FTW

I’ve been sick for a few days now, which means that Iv’e mostly been playing Pokemon Go in my living room. No spoofing, but it turns out, I have the craziest spawning point in my living room and since I’ve mostly just watched two seasons of Arrow, I’ve had tons of time to turn on the game and catch whatever came by. (I need a pokestop in my bed room, Niantic, pretty pleeeease.

I always have trouble updating my blog when I am not doing good in general, because I can’t find something positive to write about and I don’t want this blog to be too whiny. But I guess my silence has become quite ordinary by now.

If anyone was wondering from that start of this post; I am struggling at the moment. So far, nine days into 2018, I am pretty done with this year. Aside from all the trouble with the horses, my scooter suddenly fell prey to the frost. More to the point, the gas-handle froze, opening the gas, keeping the engine running, making me unable to stop the engine except for by turning the key.

I know that it only drives 40km pr hour, (30, but it went to 40 when it froze, don’t ask me why,) and that it is not too fast, but when you can’t stop, it is fast enough. And killing the engine by the key is not exactly advisable.

Of course this happened when the boyfriend and the car was not home, so I was stuck in the countryside, with no means of transportation. Now, I have two things I usually drive to; my stable and the gym. The gym, I can quit for a while, but my horses, not so much. Someone needs to feed them. I even considered walking to the stable. It’s only 5km.

This is where I am, I guess. Its easier to just imagine walking to the stable than to actually fix the problem at hand.

In the end, I did get the scooter to the shop and borrowed another one from them. Because in the end, even if I am struggling, I usually  find my way out on the other side if I have to. Even if it is easier to just… not.

One of the things that kept me going last year, was the gym. More to the point, dancing zumba with a few of my friends. Recently, I lost that, and I don’t know how to recover the spark.

One of my friends and I, well we might not be the best dancers, but we had a lot of fun dancing with each other. And when we fucked up the steps, we made up our own. In time, it kind of became our thing, messing up together. We got quite good at that.

I did know that a lot of the others at the classes found us annoying, because these classes has a very special dynamic. No one makes mistakes. Everyone is deadly serious, standing in lines, taking one step forward, changing lines every time a song is over. Easily pushing the new ones to follow the lines, and keep up. Hardly anyone smiles or have fun. They just go through the motions, day in and day out, same steps, same lines, same songs…

I never liked coming in that group too much. Right from the beginning, I was missing the fun and the smiles. I do love the instructor though, and even if I became quite good at messing up, I never stopped feeling challenged by him and his choreographies. And when I found someone like myself, who actually came to the gym to work out and have fun, I kept coming back.

By December, there was Christmas songs. Now, I have quite an aversion to Christmas, but I played along, and my friend and I, found it easier to get me through it, by joking around even more.

In the end, some of the others stopped us. One of them took hold of my friend while we were dancing, and physically stopped her. After the song ended, another one started screaming at us.

This was in a room of approximately 40 people, all of who saw us get assaulted, and none of them did anything. The instructor, of course, tried to smooth things over, and while the girl who was screaming at us, for not doing the right steps, continued to throw a hissy fit, no one else interfered.

There is so many sides to this, I don’t even know where to start. To be honest, I don’t care that she screamed at us. I care about the other one, the one that took hold of my friend, even if my friend doesn’t seem too affected by that. It crosses a line for me, there is no coming back from.

And I do care that afterwards, every one has been pretending that nothing happened. They still talk to both me, and to the hissy fit girl. I can’t do that. All I am thinking, when I see the girl who screamed at us, is that she has children. Small children. I feel like I am greatly failing them, by letting them be raised by someone like that, but on the other hand, who am I to do anything about it? Someone who knows that she has an impossible temper and that she is easily irrational and even threatening towards strangers for practically no reason? So what?

In my head, if she has no boundaries towards strangers, I find it hard to imagine that she is not raising her children by mental abuse. Not that I know, of course, but just thinking it, makes me not want to be part of her life or her surroundings.

To be fair, she did apologize to my friend, a few days later. Never to me. And even if my friend accepted the apology, so much damage has been done to both of us, in different ways.

If it had been normal circumstances, I would have probably talked to the gyms management about it, but as it is, this particular center is kind of strange. Everyone is face book friends, everyone hangs out together before and after zumba, drinking coffee, or holding Tupperware parties at the gym. This is a tight knit group, of superficial friends, that has seen each other every day for years, and I honestly don’t feel like I would be heard at all.

Clearly, everyone is just ready to pretend it did not happen, while being (not so) secretly happy that my friend and I are done messing up.

While the instructor was on vacation, my friend and I have been dancing in the other centers’,  and we got back to having fun. One of the other instructors even stopped the class and pointed to us, saying that we made her so happy, when she saw how we were playing.

The tone is just so different, in any other center, with any other instructor, and I am having a really hard time going back to military -boot- camp- zumba, when I could just go anywhere else and have fun.

Why would I, right?

Because these particular classes has kept me going for almost a year, and losing them, I feel like I am in a vacuum. There is a lot of great dance instructors at my gym, but none that could keep my interest for as long as this instructor has.

Right now, I am caught between being horribly sad to be quitting something that used to make me happy, and being even more sad at the thought of having to go to those classes.

Trust me to end up in a situation like this, right?

I just never did well with rules and mob mentality and I do think that taking a break from that center is a good idea, even if it has me devastated that I am letting other people affect me. I never used to care.

And I don’t. That’s the annoying part. I don’t care what they think of me. I am just developing a strong aversion to fitting in to their group. I do not want to be part of that center, part of that mentality, anymore, and I have no idea how to come there and… Just have them leave me alone.

I even wrote a long post for their face book group, but I ended up not posting it and deleting myself from the group instead. I don’t want to cause drama. Really, all I ever wanted was to go to the gym for exercise and, yes, to have fun.

I knew already last year, that the only thing that kept me a member of this gym, was this zumba instructor, and now I am not even going to his classes? Why am I not just walking away then?

Why indeed.

Because I know me. I know that right now, everything is piling up in my head, making me overthink things, making me cry, making me feel like I am drowning. I know too, that it will pass. I will find my way out of this as well.

And maybe I’ll quit that gym, maybe that will be my way out. Maybe I’ll come back to those classes and ignore the others. Maybe I’ll find it in me to go back and pretend like everything is fine. Maybe I’ll stay at the gym and just not go to his zumba anymore. Either way, I can’t make any big dissensions right now. I have to let time solve some of these things for me.

But so far, yes. I am so very done with 2018.

I am gonna count on my next post to be a happy one though, so hang on. It might be a while.

Special thanks to Pia and Anni. Without you two, I would have quit the zumba classes even sooner than I did.