Ocean full of Secrets

Part I_17

14th of March 2014

Neil gave me a book yesterday evening. "Restoring the shattered Self: A Christian Counsellor's Guide to complex Trauma." I'm sure he meant well and I did my best to act excited and happy about it but I just can't help thinking that by now he should've known that I don't believe in god. Or Christian counsel for that matter. Still, I didn't want to disappoint him. When he showed it to me his eyes were beaming with joy, thinking that he might have finally found a way to help me. And not wanting to burst his bubble, I pretended to love it and immediately started to read. Until he left my room again that is.

I feel so incredibly bad for not liking it. Especially since he was so convinced he had found the perfect gift. But it's not as if I didn't appreciate the thought. I'm just a little hurt that he obviously still hasn't accepted my choice not to believe in god. Or simply chose to ignore it. But then again, maybe he figured that my recent "Complex Trauma" might've changed my opinion on the matter, that maybe this could finally help me find to god. Does it make me a worse person? Not reading it? And then even lying about it and pretending to love it?

At breakfast today I sat down with the my face hid behind the book, just like I used to almost every morning with a different book every day, but this time not really taking in a single word. A, to show him how much I loved the book, and B, so he'd think I was too immersed in it for him to other me with vague attempts at conversation. It worked. He let me fake read in peace until I set off for school, or so he thought. Actually though, I came straight to where I am sitting right now. The "Elephant House", also known as "The Birthplace of Harry Potter". Sometimes I forget how privileged I am to live here. In Edinburgh. This hauntingly beautiful and beautifully haunted, old city. The city of writers and of festivals, of Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, of Shortbread and Dolly the Sheep.

I suppose I should appreciate all that a lot more. Appreciation of the little things is, after all, what every magazine or blog article or advice-giving whatever states as the key to happiness. So yes, maybe I should've appreciated Neil's attempts at cheering me up a lot more as well.

I just can't stand it when someone tries to force their religion on me. It physically hurts. It makes my eyes itch and my throat burn and my palms tingle. I'm sure that's not what he intended to do, but still.

I don't care about other people being religious as long as they don't care about whether or not I am. Wait, no. That's wrong. Even if they care, I still don't care about them being religious. I care about them judging me for my beliefs. I wouldn't even call it caring, but rather I'm sad and hurt about them caring. But it has nothing at all to do with their religion, only with their opinion about mine and therefore with their personality. Which, in my humble opinion, has nothing to do with religion at all.

This is also how I feel every time I have to defend myself for being a feminist. I simply don't understand why I always have to accept everyone else's opinion and say that whatever they think is okay, when nobody ever says that what I think is okay as well. That I, too, have a right to say my opinion.

But no. All I am told is how annoying and unnecessary feminism is and that gendering our language is nothing but a useless waste of time. Why do I always have to be the one to give in and tolerate every other opinion when nobody ever tolerates my point of view? And those people, sadly, are not only conservative, close-minded jackasses as you might expect. No. They're kids at my school, they're teachers and relatives and sometimes even my friends. And the saddest thing is, they're mostly girls and women. I've been thinking about that and I've come to the conclusion that girls are often more against feminism than men because they're scared that if they don't get annoyed by it, people, and especially men, might think that they are feminists themselves and therefore be annoyed by them. When really, the only people that would be annoyed by them are other girls just like themselves and for the exact same reasons. Men don't need to do that. They don't live with the fear of being called a feminist. When a man is a feminist it's not annoying, it's admirable. I think we should all be feminists. I mean, isn't it just a more specialised form of common sense, after all? And isn't the fact that people are still ashamed and reluctant to call themselves feminists the best proof that society is still an extremely patriarchal constitution?

Speaking of society, let's talk about sex. Now you might think "Oh my god, what's gotten into her?" But the truth is, in my opinion, everything in today's society is about sex. And still it remains a somewhat "forbidden" or "taboo" topic that isn't talked about in more sophisticated circles. People still blush or giggle when saying words like "penis" or "vagina", but nevertheless everything is sexualised today.

Why are love and sex so incredibly inseparable nowadays? Why can't I look at another girl and think, "God, I love her" without thinking I must be lesbian? Why can't I love people without automatically thinking I therefore have to be sexually attracted to them? Because I'm not. I'm not sexually attracted to anyone. Ever. And I don't want to have to feel ashamed of that either. I don't want to have to think I'm weird or that something must be seriously wrong with me because of that. I just want to love everyone in a completely platonic way. Which, in my opinion is the purest and best love of all. I want to love people simply because they're amazing and great human beings, because they make me laugh when I didn't think anybody could and because I smile when I think about them and not because I want to get into bed with them.

Actually, the idea of having real physical intercourse with someone kind of freaks me out. A lot of physical contact freaks me out, really.

When I think of kissing someone, I think of their saliva and what they ate over the day and whether or not they brushed their teeth sufficiently. And when I think of their faces, I get caught up imagining their pimples and pores and nose hair and snot. Have you ever really thought about how weird and disgusting noses can be? Like, really thought about it? It creeps me out. Or their eyes. Eyes can be the most beautiful, but also the weirdest and most repulsive parts of the human body. Depending on how closely you look at them. And don't even get me started on fingers and toes.

Maybe I'm just not the type for physical love. I don't think I could ever even have a child myself without having all these thoughts lurking in the back of my mind. It's confusing, really, how everything in the world can be both disgusting and creepy as well as amazing and beautiful, depending on the observer's viewpoint, attitude and mood. I guess beauty really does lie in the eye of the beholder.

You probably think I'm a crazy lunatic now, or that I'm making all of this up to justify my virginity. And maybe you're right. Well, think what you want. (I still do believe in the unconditional freedom of thought.) I just felt like this had to be said sometime. I suppose all of these things have been bottled up inside me for far too long. And what better way to let them out than in a private journal that nobody will ever read. Right?

Yours,

Cassie