ATTENTION PLEASE!!!THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER CONTAINS ROUGH MATERIAL AND DESCRIPTION OF EXTREMELY NEGATIVE EMOTIONS. I DON'T WANT TO URGE ANYBODY MAKE ACTIONS THAT MAY HARM THEMSELVES. THE TEXT'S CONTENT IS COMPLETELY FICTIONAL. I WOULD ADVISE PEOPLE SUFFERING LOW SELF-ESTEEM OR A PERSONALITY CRISIS NOT IDENTIFY THEMSELVES WITH THE HEROINE AND ONLY SEE ANOTHER PERSON'S POINT OF VIEW. SITUATIONS DESCRIBED ARE ONLY SYMBOLIC!
As I said to Dina, in autumn 2017 I decided that all this wouldn't end in such an ungraceful way. But, I wouldn't either come back immediately. During this short amount of time, I used to work as a DJ in a club, which a friend of mine used to run and I was playing '90s trance music. And I can say that this gave me a great joy, because I also had the chance to feel just like the other girls of my age and even dance a little bit around. And of course, I wasn't annoyed by the loud music.
But then, I decided that I had to return to Ireland, to that house. The situation seemed really odd to me, because I hadn't seen the other guys for two months and I felt a little bit as an outsider. Dina was the one who hugged me first and told me: "Don't you dare do such bullshit things again". While I had been away, several things changed. In the summer, Lydia married to Lars, but she didn't invite any of us to her wedding, as she did a civil marriage and she invited only her family. Lars was a figure, that seemed to me a bit obscure, in the beginning. To start with, I never really understood whether he was a musician or a producer, as he didn't make that clear to me at all. Furthermore, as a band, we have the tendency to have sort of family bonds, that's why we spend so much time together. But it felt so weird, because Lydia would take Lars along with her ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE, though it seemed that he was keeping a distance from everyone of us. Whatsoever, before Lydia was married to him, nobody in the band knew about his existence....I guess. Once, I even noticed that he wasn't participating in the discussions held by Dina, Lulu, Lydia and me and I realised that this man cannot understand a thing about what we were saying, as we were speaking in Finnish. He comes from Oslo and there obviously people speak Norwegian exclusively. But even when we were speaking a common language, he seemed like he was sort of...away.
As long as I came back, some decisions should be taken by my own side. However, the most difficult part was the one which concerned our manager's firing. It was me the one who had told the guys that I couldn't keep on working with a manager, so it was me the one who would fire Samantha. And as usually, I couldn't take the situation in my own hands and I needed a help. Dina said to me jokingly: "The next time she'll visit you, throw her out and tell her she shall not even dare set her foot in here". Of course, I laughed, because I knew that Dina was joking, but deep inside I was feeling that I didn't have any other choice. I felt I was stuck between the devil and the deep sea. I once again came down with these terrible feelings of being desperate, lonely and helpless, but in the end I thought that I wouldn't end up having depression (Why? Wasn't I already depressive), because I couldn't fire our manager, who, at the end of the day, was really bad in her job!
So, I found the easy solution and phoned Dina, who was in Heidelberg with Marko and pleaded her to announce Samantha about her firing on behalf of me. Of course, Dina replied: "I don't intend to start doing your own business", as every logical person would say. But, then I fell down at her feet, begging her in sobs that I'm so desperate, because my band and everything I had created since my teenage years are falling into pieces and in the end, Dina told me: "Shut up and stop faking on me! I'll do it. I'll call her." Then, I felt that a weight was off my mind. But not for that long.
One hour and a half later, I was sitting at the backyard, playing Celtic jigs on my Irish accordion. I wouldn't take much notice whether someone was here or not, but at some point I lifted my eyes and my sight bumped into Samantha. (Because people in villages of Ireland turn unexpectedly at your place to pay a visit). At that time, I hit a snag and told her in a completely apathetic tone: "What do you want here?"
Then, Samantha turned to me and told me in an obviously hostile way: "Really? Is this how you end a cooperation? By asking a third person to announce it to me over the phone?"
"Dina is not a third person", I replied, avoiding her eyes. "She's a member of the band".
"But the decision was yours. Why didn't you tell me in person? You were such a coward, isn't iτ so?"
"No, Samantha! I didn't want to upset you!"
"Stop lying to me! You just didn't have the guts to face me. As you didn't have the guts to tell Josh that you loved him, but you just let him die, without saying a word to him, as you always do. You always remain silent", she hissed.
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME ABOUT JOSH!!!", I screamed.
"Why? You know that it's the truth. And yet you can't face it".
I closed my eyes and I felt that I would burst into tears. Without considering what would come after, I whispered: "Samantha, could you just leave that fucking place and never visit me again?"
"So, you now reach the point when you throw me out of your house?". Then, Samantha's eyes were cold and she added: "You're a really cruel person and you'll end up being alone. Nobody will like you anymore".
I put my hands in my face and screamed: "LEAVE!!!"
Then, she left running, without even looking at me. So, this is how our cooperation ended and the way it did wasn't that happy. And I'm sure that my readers, not only will they not feel empathy towards me, but they might even tear away my writings, thinking that I am a great bitch. And I was! Because even your worst enemy shouldn't treat you like that. Not only didn't I have the guts to talk to Samantha to her face, but I even threw her out of my house, because I didn't have the guts to tell her this fucking phrase You know, you and I cannot be working together anymore. The simplest thing in the whole world! And instead of that, I had to ask others to do this on my behalf. If I try to justify myself, though, I can say that all these things happening, were too much for me, I couldn't control the situation and I should somehow escape from all these problems, without considering the consequences of my spontaneous actions.
When I was left alone, I burst into tears and I even started thinking that I am such a shitty person, that the only thing I was worth of was either dying or killing myself. I went to the bathroom and locked myself inside. I looked at my face in the mirror and all I saw was a homeless woman's profile. This is only what I would see lately. A neglected thing, which has no self anymore. I was crying alone for hours, locked in the bathroom. Eventually I realised that I had to put an end to all this turmoil. A murderous end. I opened my first aid kit and found some tranquilisers and sleeping pills. I held them in my hands and for a moment I thought that I have a family and people who do love me indeed. But my thought instantly changed: I don't give a fuck. I should have been a better person. Now I'm not worth to exist at all. However, while I was opening the pills, the phone started ringing. At the beginning, I was completely lost by the thought that I was about to kill myself. But then I realised that the sound was coming from the phone and I thought: Holy shit. The phone now?
I unlocked myself and picked up the phone. "Hello, Ingrid here", I said in a hoarse voice.
"Hey, there! It's Vivian".
"Good afternoon", I replied in a dead tone.
"Were you...crying?", she asked. "Why do you sound like that?"
"No. I was only sleeping", I lied and I pretended I was yawning.
"I just phoned you to tell you good news. We received an e-mail by a teenage girl, who writes that we saved her life and that before she first listened to our music, she wanted to kill herself. She says that our music gave her further hope".
"Wow! What a coincidence", I exclaimed.
"What is the coincidence", Vivian asked suddenly.
"Errr....you know what I mean", I tried to make this up. "Existence issues, low self-esteem. I feel great empathy towards this young woman". I wanted to burst into tears, but this time for totally different reasons.
"Yes, of course, she wanted to give herself one more chance".
"Hope is always an incentive to life", I said.
Picking down the phone, I said to myself: Stupid! What did you try to do? No, I had changed my mind and I wanted to live. Everything was shit, deep inside I was hating myself, but I wouldn't reach a point where I would kill myself. I would try to express myself through Art and tell the world what I feel inside (without asking for pity), give them what they want, that is stories and music. But far from that, I had to do something with my face. And I did! I ripped EVERY mirror in my house, except for the one hanging above the bathroom's sink. Whatsoever, I should somehow understand my movements, when I wash my face in the morning, but this wouldn't mean that I would look straight in the mirror. Anyway, when I did, I couldn't see anything more than an outline, a shadow or a ghost, empty inside. It's like those girls you pass by in the street and you can never bring their face into your mind, because they hadn't ever neither a personality nor a self. However, I once did. And that was what most of all hurt me, that is to remember how you were back then, when you were happy and you had a self, whereas now you're nothing but a blank thing. This is what I was. A blank silhouette in an empty reality, because I was leading a life, belonging to other people.
I wasn't feeling well at all. I was suffering depression, no matter if I was trying to deny it. It was really difficult to realise and admit that I hated myself and that's why I was writing macabre stories and songs. But everything was happening, because I didn't like what I had become. At least not anymore. Back in the days, things were different. As you can see, in previous chapters I wrote that the happiest days of my life were during the end of High School. Then, I was listening to Alan Parsons, I was reading scientific books, we did two albums, where we were criticising society. Then, I was living a happy and fortunate life. Then, in the last grade of High School I used to read Whitman and I was thinking that being alive is the biggest present existing in the planet, that's why we have to live every moment, as if we knew that tomorrow we'll be dead. Even my motto was Every day is a gift, that's why we call it the present. But then? Then, what happened? Why did I cease to smile? Why did I cease to feel emotional by all these beautiful works of Art? Where did this artistic orgasm go, that I was feeling every time I was reading a Poem or listening a sweet melody? Then, a downfall came and I became this black shadow, that ripped all the mirrors, because I couldn't stand seeing this freaking face of a homeless girl. Why did all this happen? What was I to blame for and I had started crying all day long, instead of showing people my childish smile? It was not for the death of my two beloved persons, that I was devastated. It was not my love for Josh, whom I couldn't have anymore. Alas! If two deaths or a romantic failure destroys a person's whole life, then how could we stay alive? We're not living in the Romantic era, even though my whole Art (and to a great extent, my life) was inspired by Romanticism.
However I knew. I could clearly see what had happened. And no matter how difficult for me it was to realise it, that was the hard truth. It was me the one with the problem, not the others. And until I moved to Ireland, I used to live a happy life. But then I had left mother's arms, home's warmness (even though temperatures in Kirkenes during winter can reach even -40 degrees Celsius!) and in general from this safe and protected environment, in which I used to live. I was taken care by everyone there, whereas in Ireland I didn't have a single person to look after me. I was feeling so lonely in a foreign place and I had to cope with every difficulty. And as I was pampered, having lived a totally naive and innocent life inside my own cosmos, now I had to realise that the world is full of suffering and not everything in life is a walk in the park. Of course, the possibility of returning home was something totally inconceivable. I would stay there, because I caused all this only on my own, I decided completely on my own, this Ol' Autumn Night, drinking beers and playing music with my friends, that I would come to live in Ireland. Now I had to face with the consequences and deal with these spontaneous decisions of this Ol' Autumn Night in Ireland.
But realising life's troubles doesn't mean that I would cope against them successfully. Quite the contrary was happening! I didn't know which decision I should take and during difficult times, either I would take my things and leave or I would make one stupid thing after another. And during my depression days I decided, before starting composing our fifth album, well....I decided to start writing my following book, which was the darkest thing I'd ever written, since then.
Indeed, I would like to apologise to my own readers, because I kept on describing my negative feelings and I was involved less with the facts happening. But sometimes these things should be screamed out loud, so that you can understand the whole truth and what has led me to write all that I have written.
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