Charles Guay

 The sophisticated side of a cactus - Table of content Foreword ……………………………………………………………………. I- A speculative prelude………………………………………………………….. II- The break-up, Synopsis of an encounter…………………………………………………….. III- The snowball effect……………………………………………………………… IV- Take off……………………………………………………………………………………. V- Zia……………………………………………………………………………………………….. VI- Ariel…………………………………………………………………………………………….. VII- The slow Agony…………………………………………………………………………… VIII- The pet en l’air’s hemline……………………………………………………………… IX- Inner sight…………………………………………………………………………………… X- Him…………………………………………………………………………………………….. XI- Aside from the women of his life……………………………………………….. XII- Punchline ………………………………………………………………………………….. XIII- Rehab………………………………………………………………. XIV- The cosmic faith………………………………………………………………………… Foreword Amidst these lines distilled like so a pamphlet which witnessed my evolution, I attempted to pay tribute to life and give it back its nobleness. My intent is to share with you this soft and delicious feeling of peace that is love in full consciousness without fully grasping its meaning but guessing its nature. “According to an ancient legend, we, humans, were gods (or resembled gods anyway). But we abused of our privileges to the extent that life decided to take this ability away from us and hide it until we were genuinely mature enough. Life’s Committee of Wise Men suggested to blot out this divine power beneath the earth, on ocean floors, on the moon and so on… Life rejected all of these choices: I see that you ignore completely at what extent humans are stubborn. They’ll explore, dig or spend a fortune on vessels so they can attempt to conquer the hiding space. ” The Committee of Wise Men were left speechless. “Based on your assumptions, there exists no location where humans would never think of exploring! “Upon hearing these words, Life’s eyes were opened. “Hear me out! We shall hide this divine power at the depth of the human heart, the sole location where only a few will think of examining “. Boris VIlaseca “The world doesn’t have six or seven wonders, it only has one: It’s Love” Jacques Prevert. Life is filled with an abundance of roads, policies, agonistics, fanatics, religious, curious, philosophers, techniques, scientists, artists, anthropologists… and amidst all of the above, a pantheon of Gods where we, pretentious nanoparticles, auto-proclaimed ourselves as divinities. Zealous without intelligence, human beings waste their lives wandering and fumbling around in ignorance. Forgetting that life consists of an ephemeral chimaera, a fantasy and an unworkable idea of eternity; humans attempt to unsuccessfully copy and paste the unknown while continuing to tinker around the margins without actually confronting them. If only love was able to bring back humanity in humans. If only love would turn out to be the Miracle we expect, seek and hope for. It’s omnipresent when we take the time to dwell on it. Amidst the dancing leaves, at the peak of a snowy mountain, our eyes can set themselves on and contemplate the indescribably beautiful blue dot set in the midst of a vast array of infinite galaxies. It’s reflected through a toddler’s laughter which causes us to wipe a tear of joy from our face, it’s found in innocence, purity, gentleness, it’s life, it’s death as we know it, it’s the alpha and the omega, it’s… We can be rich, famous, achieve success in life, donate our money to the poor, become a martyr in the name of a religion or a cause, but if love is not part of our life, then we are solely the sum of our fears, our sufferings, our beliefs, our lack of infinitesimal knowledge that we confuse as Truth and Wisdom. We are in fact only ghosts roaming through life, non-existent beings in other words, since the essence of life itself is love. It’s the only dust particle which prevails over when our entity leaves this Earth! Love is easily accessible so why does it then get sidelined so often while knowing it’s full potential? I- A Speculative Prelude This is not a novel but rather a blank page, a reflection kept through the years or the moment when the shutter finally opens up to let the light shine in. A focus on the altered field of vision through which I was observing from an ethological point of view. A frozen caption, the object of my story or its fragments… One has to be unique while staying trite. Be conventional inasmuch as keeping her originality. Remain original without being marginal. Stay attractive without being a seductive temptress. Keep yourself chaste but sexy without being a sexual object. Keep up a conversation while staying discreet. Be smart and simple at the same time. Stay simple without acting dumb. Never act like a whore, but make love like a porn star. Be considered as a nonsexual being while prevailing as a multi orgasmic Nun. Have a funny side without being taken for a fool. Conserve your natural beauty while having silky legs. Keep in touch with nature while having a sophisticated side. Wear some makeup without looking like a stolen truck. Act maturely while remaining young at heart. Abide to youthfulness while letting go of childishness. Have a narrow waist and ample bosom. Cook like a chef while eating like a little sparrow. Adhere to Epicureanism while fasting. Be a good housewife without being Cinderella. You ought to have character while retaining your unique individualism. Be remarkable without being neurotic and dramatic. Work full-time without feeling tired and all that while always being willing (It’s obvious it doesn’t leave you much time to start a revolution). Care like a mother while also praising your freedom without having a sense of guilt. Let go, but always keep things under control. Forgive without forgetting and always bring up the past. Wonder-woman of modern times… A weed is a plant which has mastered every survival skill except the one which teaches it to grow in rows. Live like a weed. Douglas Larson Although I rummaged through all psychology books related to pain inducing relations, affective strangleholds, self sabotage, one way out of jails… all these books filled my head while leaving my heart empty! How can one explain the unexplainable? How can we love and lose the love for a person to this point? My friends tell me: “You’re a psychologist, you possess the tools, you’ll pull through, you understand the problem better than anyone”. As if it were this simple! Jean Rostand once said: “Never make use of psychology out of anger, things would get clearer” My code name is fashion victim: “A psychologist and his presuppositions”! There are an infinite number of assumptions, here are a few I came across along my encounters or during one-night stands. “It would be nice if you could analyze me? ” In fact, I was looking forward to pretending to get to know you so you could put your trust into me, you know, so I could get you drunk and try getting in your pants without your consent! Are you up for it? “I don’t need therapy, I’m not mentally ill, I am perfectly sane” “Psychology will never be able to speak the truth before insanity because insanity holds the truth” Michel Foucault A little too complicated for you, right? I know there’s a party going on in my head, I’m a schizo! “Ah you’re a psychologist, let me explain to you a dream I had then. I dreamt of a unicorn farting rainbows. According to you, what does it mean?” Although my nickname is Jane, my actual name isn’t Patrick Jane, I’m neither a magician nor a diviner. Next! “And if not, do you also offer a hug therapy?” If I play tag with someone’s manhood… Yes, I’m a pain in the ass! I know that a couple consists of two neurotics coming together. I know… “Where is your Cabinet located?” Was that a slip of the tongue, the restroom is at the second door to the right! Why, are you a psychopath? You’ll be lurking around dressed up as a clown? “Your mind is not cluttered up with worry when it comes to courtship, you possess all the tools!” Exactly! My favorite is the rake. “You have all the answers yet you are reticent in collaborating and sharing them with me so I could work on myself!” You know, I see clearly but I’m not a clairvoyant, we’re not at the Court of Miracles! “Ok you’ve won, stop embodying a psychologist and playing with words.“ Forgive me for wearing my heart on my sleeve and talking wisely. Promise to call me Doris next time. Whether you like it or not, a psychologist drinks, smokes and fornicates. And as long as our bodies will be made of flesh and blood, the trials shall not spare us either. The fact of the matter is that excellent theoreticians exist which are not able to practice therapy because the latter involves having more experience than speculative knowledge. Even if its practice requires discipline as well as a constant reference to knowledge emerging from scientific research. A doctor is in charge of healing the body as opposed to us healing the indivisible emotions concealed from sight. To be a psychologist is like acting as a garbage collector for the soul. Unloved, scorned even if the foul odor of the garbage gets under our skin at times, we proudly collect the trash and sort waste selectively in order to recycle them better. We’re modern times environmentalists at the service of emotions. But let us get back to the screenshot. There is no argument against love! I must take my distances from the person I love in order to be well. Certain people are only faithful to their needs of you and whenever those needs change, so does their faithfulness. It’s referred as “Chicken Love” in Africa. Let me explain myself: Henry loves chicken and loves me as well. However, if the chicken realized at what extent Henry loved him, he would then be very conscious of the fact that is life would be at risk. Since Henry doesn’t really love chicken, but rather loves the effect the chicken has on his body, his taste buds and his feeling of fullness. When I was asking Henry the reasons he loved me? He simply responded: “Because I feel good with you, you understand Me, you comfort Me and take care of Me…” Actually, he doesn’t love me because every word that comes out of his mouth is negative! No, he loves what my presence brings to his senses, feelings, his body, his psyche and his soul. Moreover, when I’m not fulfilling his own needs, he then enters a certain unsatisfactory mode which creates vile frustrations and which in turn transforms into anguish and fear of abandonment before turning into explosive anger meant to get what he needs or else I Don’t mean anything to him, I don’t bring anything concrete to him, I am of no use to him hence I am nothing, I lose all value to his eyes! But true love means to question oneself and not to have the knowledge of what the other person brings into our life, but rather to understand what our presence represents to us in terms of spiritual nourishment. And thus, this is what I intended of doing during those years. While I was off-track, his happiness came first before mine and I adopted a good-will against this misfortune. Love is free, no sacrifice need to be done in order to obtain it, it can’t be bought, it’s given. Love consists of giving and receiving reciprocally and is the opposite of buying and selling, which are solely contractual. How many relationships are lead astray while both sides are thinking they are in love in spite of the fact that the meaning of the word to their eyes rhymes with complacency… selfishness taking advantage of the other so to satisfy and meet a need, leaving them masters of their own happiness or misery. It’s too heavy a burden than to be treated like an object! When we truly love, the other person doesn’t represent our happiness but is rather a participant in attaining such a goal. Just like sex is not love, but only a way of marking his territory. Love is also nothing like subordination! To be one with the other involves fully dedicating oneself to the other, it’s unity where no dominance is exerted towards the other person and where both are inherently free to express who they are. I don’t have the key to unlock the heart of someone unwilling to be loved, who cannot love or is unable to access it. “No love suffices in filling the void of a person who doesn’t love himself” Irene Orce How can you manage then to be with someone who is nobody? What happened to him along the road to make him become nobody and to find pleasure in being particularly fond of Love without ever living it out? And if I happen to live with this Nobody and that along the way I enter his comfort zone, then I also become a nobody. And if I attempt to co-exist, I then turn into a schizophrenic. I can’t live with him and can’t live without. How many times have I heard this sentence during my counselling? What was my response? “It’s not love but emotional dependency by both sides. Love doesn’t hurt, it’s the lack of love that does that!” If only my brain was where my heart is. That way, I could reflect with love while loving with my intelligence! But things don’t work out that way. I find it amusing to hear, read or see videos on emotion management. The term itself makes no sense because emotions cannot be managed. It would be like saying that we control them! Contrariwise, emotions are free electrons with which we have to deal with and where it is of our best interest to use intelligence while analyzing and discerning these emotions so they come out meaningful and purposeful. But the conscience without emotions is meaningless! I like to think of the spirit as the master of the household, the psyche as its servant and the body as the housekeeper. “Let’s not forget that emotions are in charge of our lives and we obey them without realizing it” Vincent Van Gogh. We clumsily try to tame them along the path of discovering our self-awareness. All through our life and while attaining our professional, affective and social goals as well as family objectives we seek out an existential structure based on a need of recognition. This existential structure is none other than the DNA of love itself. Our personality has an impact on our daily environment and the interacting environment plays a major role on our personality. We could easily compare our personality with our Earth’s structure along with its crust, its mantle, its outer liquid core and its inner solid core. We’re able to acknowledge that the Earth’s crust cannot be smaller than its core, right? This means that it’s impossible for us to be smaller than our potential, that the achievement cannot be less than the decision, because without a decision, there’s no self-awareness and without self-awareness, there’s no real achievement. If the core was located on the outer part of the Earth’s crust and of its mantle, this would mean that the potential would be more significant than the decision, that the decision would be greater than the self-awareness and consequently to the achievement. This would mean that the Earth would be unbalanced. Hence, I will exist by, for, thanks to and because of someone or something else other than for me. A discrepancy will be noticed between my inner and outer self. And if I’m not myself, then I am nobody. It’s like the Earth’s defense mechanism, a volcanic eruption will be needed so it could auto-regulate and rebalance itself. To exist simply involves achieving something from an outward point of view! Self-awareness amidst achievements leads to happiness. Happiness is the active bifidus of our emotions which reflects your inner self outward. Happiness leads to self-esteem. Through achievements and self-fulfillment, one can love others. If self-fulfillment is impossible amidst the couple, then the latter turns out to be fake. I’ve fooled myself many times on what I thought I was and on our relationship! Yet I am one of those who thinks we never meet anyone by accident! Why do we fall in love with a single person while we encounter thousands of individuals? In psychology, we know that even though any encounter might seem unpredictable, each one of us addresses unwittingly this tradition with a lot of conscious and unconscious determinism. Even though every encounter seems to be the consequence of a series of coincidences, the law of mathematical probabilities however exists, even though one must not solely see social affinities. For scientists, the partner’s visual, olfactory and hormonal signals charm us, our heartbeat increases, it races and receptors get all hyped up! Freud said: “We choose not randomly each other. We meet only those who already exist in our own subconscious” The amorous encounter is essentially a multifactorial subconscious collision between two interlocking neuroses. We are attracted to the other individual because we get in touch with what is buried deep down in our inner-self. In fact, the other is behind the interlocking of our symptoms, but doesn’t all this remind us of the alter ego quest? Could I have also been egotistical to nourish my needs because I was nobody? “The morally exceptional are able to fully grasp the mechanism of their distress while avoiding reproducing them upon someone else” John JOOS But where shall I begin while my memory is playing Tetris? Only the stigma and the apparition of a violent, spontaneous and persisting chest pain remains… When I think of it, I have a cactus at the place of my heart! Like a succulent plant which stores in its tissues reserves of juices so to face long periods of drought. Out of memory, I’ve only walked along that path! A thirsting dry land longing for the rainy months long after they have passed. It’s far easier to turn a blind eye to something so not to understand. I still managed to tell myself a few home truths, but I still did not believe myself because they filled me with great sadness. I understood then that we must never pretend to have seen the last of our tears drop… “Nobody loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it” Paolo Coelho. II- The Break-up, Synopsis of an encounter Henry was the boyfriend of Jennifer’s best friend. Together they were like two inseparable love birds… Each dealt with their own issues sustained by a comprehensible and tender complicity. Henry had a disastrous sentimental relationship with Xenna. However, they gave the impression of forming an ideal couple because of the passion which consumed them, or should I say which asphyxiated them with its toxic fumes. One summer afternoon, everything changed when Henry got out of the shower wearing only a towel around his waist… Can you imagine anything sexier? On this day, Jennifer laid her eyes on him in a different way and thus desire had completely set its grasp over her. A desire which she chose to immediately repress like something completely prohibited. She had seen him wear a swim suit many times before without feeling any sort of attraction towards him, why then did she stumble at this precise moment? Jennifer isolated herself into complete sentimental silence for 5 years while attempting to vainly reconstruct herself emotionally by engaging into relationships aborted before they had even begun. While Henry and Xenna’s couple broke down by going through the I love you, nor do I stage, Henry took up residence into an apartment. While they confided in each other in the reciprocity of their sustained heartbreaks, the urge of binge drinking came to them. In between drunkenness and tenderness occurred a wreckage and a disastrous liaison which disrupted their plans and destiny… Bonny and Clyde saddled up once again, the duo erupted with a whole bunch of controversy; and while taking a trip into absurdity, Xenna and Henry swallowed the anger of their numerous clashes, unpacked their suitcases and extruded from them a small and insignificant little man right out from the United States. A child which will never have the chance to grow with both of his parents because an argument will break out on a solemn day, when the baby will come around. While the infant was sleeping on the first floor, they found nothing better to do than to let out their gregarious nature and to strike their heads on the walls. Xenna resorted to calling the police so to make him leave while he was hysterically intoxicated. I knew nothing of it… It was only after a two-year period that the stony silence was broken up while we lived a mere 5 minutes away from one another and when I ran into him on one of the stretches making out the A4 highway, more than 300 kilometers away from our mountains. When I pulled next to him, I made eye contact and recognized him, I waved at him pathetically in a disheartening hand gesture. The road suddenly became a race track. I pressed on the accelerator of my New Beetle, a knot in my stomach as I desperately tried to distance him. He motioned with his hand in an attempt to incite me to pull up at the next resting area. I, on my side, nodded a yes with my head as I swerved onto the first exit I saw so to pull away. The next day, he was coincidently put on my path in a roundabout. You know the saying: “Love can be found in the most unexpected places… Well how do you find it when you live in a roundabout”. The roundabout should have been a warning sign because it’s only purpose is to go… in circles. Cupid is nothing but a douchebag! I should have known better and taken another avenue, another alley or a different road instead of heading-down a dead-end road. Even if my heart suffered from amnesia, the bitterness of my immune system should have triggered a bilious attack. Out of an abundance of love, I was creating a cumbersome complex which made me believe I could save him if I put my mind to it. It was our last ride onto the rollercoaster of emotions, the used-up cables finally snapped under the weight of the pain. As a mature woman, I should have predicted the times of outstanding cruelty up ahead, but it was not the case. For the umpteenth time, after handing my keys back to me, by adopting an inappropriate behavior and with explosive anger and for some odd reason I couldn’t figure out, Henry came back that evening by avoiding the front entrance in an uncivilized manner. Like a free rider reluctant in sacrificing his ticket, he came in by the bay window. He urged me to come back home by having me admonished before the firing squad, he marked me with his love just like a dog marks his territory. Twisting a reluctant person’s arm is a funny way of requesting something from him! This time, I fearlessly looked him straight into the eyes, I who couldn’t bear looking at him anymore, and gathered the courage to tell him I was happier without him than at his side. That in his absence, my permanent emotional strain released its stranglehold on me. I told him “A toxic relationship doesn’t end because you cease to love the other person, but rather because one of the two persons begins loving himself”. To this he replied: “Now is not the time to philosophize Jennifer, stay away from toxic things, love yourself and learn to share” Learn to share! Does he even know what that implies? Like a vaudeville comedy stripped of a coherent scenario and unable to trigger laughter from the audience, he ridiculed me by listing all my flaws in order to blame me and hear me acknowledge them as truths all while putting the final nail in the coffin. Then he told me while doing an about-face: “We could have lived happily ever after and make our daughter happy. What a mess”. Me: “We could have… and when you say what a mess without cleansing me of my wrongdoing, that, when you really make the calculation without flicking your finger on the balance’s needle to your advantage, I consider you to be the main culprit of such a mess and as long as you won’t admit ruining your relationships, you’ll continue failing in love again and again. The problem is that it was the series of errors on your side which contributed to my errors, which combined together contributed to my mistake of forgiving you so not to lose you while you clearly didn’t deserve my forgiveness. You see I’ve always been able to make the difference between your illness and who you really were; I’ve forgiven you on various occasions. I didn’t expect any apology since I had forgiven you, it wasn’t just about wiping the slate clean and start anew like we so often did. No, I was expecting a change in your behavior. You can’t love and lynch someone at the same time like you’ve done in the past or to destroy that person under the cover of righteousness and truthfulness. Because the truth is we’re all sinners saved by grace. Your balance of equity is falsified, you’re confusing love with the absence of love”. I understood one thing by listening to my truths; the truth sets free the speaker of such truth and not the one who hears it because without love, it condemns him, plunges him into guilt and remorse. The truth also does not consist of putting words on sufferings! Truthfulness resides in love! It’s the difference between opinions and facts, between who I believe to be and who I am in, between what I feel and the reality! “Before speaking, ask yourself if silence is not a better option”. Him: “I want to go home Jennifer” Me: “I’ve told you straight into the eyes yesterday, it’s over between us! There will be no turning back this time around Henry. I need to distance myself from you, so I can feel good. And like I said, I am not putting an end to our relationship because I don’t love you anymore but rather because it has become toxic”. Him: “Perfect, yesterday was fun and I thought it was mutual, I only had one thought on my mind, to squeeze you into my arms. I wish you the best in your search for love”. Me: “I think you misunderstood the meaning of my text message”. Him: “Without a doubt, but it doesn’t matter anymore, you were clear, let me give you a last kiss goodbye… I shall stay away from you while respecting you so you can rebuild your life”. Sweet isn’t it? A part of me wanted to hug and comfort him while the other part warned me to run away from such a manipulative person, not to give in, once more, like it’s usually my heart’s tendency. A week went by. Immersed into a painting session along with Zia and her friend while the soup was heating, a fleeting shadowy figure invited itself in front of the living room’s bay window. “Daddy exclaimed Zia, I missed you so much”. A month kept in the dark… but here we are in a remake of the French movie “Fantômas contre Scotland yard”, the final installment of the trilogy, or how to extort a tax on the right to live by subjecting someone to a threat. Him: “I came to tell you that I’m going away Your tears will no longer change anything there As Verlaine mentioned so well in the bad wind I came to tell you that I’m going away You remember the old days and you cry You choke, you wan now that the time has come For goodbyes forever Yeah, I am sorry To tell you that I go Yes, I loved you, yes, but…” Serge Gainsbourg “So she can hear me say that I love her”. Me: “Just like that, like a fly stuck in a soup only because you decided to meet your individual need? You could’ve at least taken her along on a lovely day so to say to her that you wouldn’t see her for a long time”. He then poured himself a glass of rosé wine, then another and another before finally emptying the bottle without leaving me a drop. Minutes went by as a coffee bean going through the sandglass, but I didn’t control time. He then said: “I hate this apartment, its atmosphere is unhealthy, I can feel it”. Disregarding his comment, I swiftly opted to put Zia to bed… to shelter her. I needed to safeguard a 4-year old child’s integrity which without logical reasoning was unfit for pleading anything in return. He took the opportunity to evade as quickly as he had appeared. Wanting at all cost to dodge a disastrous situation, I raced toward the roller shutter to lower it behind him. However, I received a text message shortly after his departure telling me: “Can I sleep on the couch?” Me: “No, sorry, it’s painful enough as it is”. Him: “It’s less painful by your side”. Him: “Everything that needed to be said was said. No fairy tale ends like this!” Him: “If you ever feel like calling me back, it’s still possible. It’s up to you”. Him: “I’m home, it’s only a phone call, get over it!”. Him: “Don’t worry, the toxic guy I am will never harass you again. My daughter now knows that I shall never return and if you have the guts or are honest, call Bea and Xenna. I am almost done taking care of my problems. Continue watching over my little munchkin and I’m happy to know she’s done wetting her bed”. Me: “You’ve made it clear enough for Zia by bidding her farewell. Good luck with your moving. And stop coming by just to disturb her only to satisfy your personal need. You can tell her you love her, but it’s quite vain if those words are not followed by concrete actions”. Him: “Call Bea and Xenna, they know”. Him: “I don’t satisfy any of my needs”. Him: “Take the matter into your own hands and take care of the calls, you who continually babbled about Xenna and Bea, be honest with yourself and call them to understand instead of judging”. Him: “You hold a place in my heart and they’re aware of it. You will never gather enough courage. And evidently, I’ve made it clear to my daughter and as soon as she will need me, I will be there for her”. “All that counts is that my daughter is not miserable”. As soon as she will need you… But you just bid her farewell! I told myself, what’s the point of writing to him as he’s not hearing me. Here you are stuck in your Karpman triangle again Jennifer, Bea, Xenna…I offer you my support despite all the harm you’ve done. And I’m the one who doesn’t understand… Except that I saw Xenna yesterday while coming home from my mother’s house. I had prepared her a clafoutis, in reference to a past that has been fully resolved between the best friends that we were, we then became best enemies since. We talked about you and your illness. Let us say that we’ve come a long way since then, because Henry used to work both sides of the fence by demeaning one to the other and vice-versa, without any sonata at the moonlight. He manipulated the two of us like dismembered rag dolls by turning us against one another like Pit bulls raised to kill. One day I was a good bitch to sleep with and another day she was a vulgar drug-addict. Flashback to the insanity climax. As Henry and I were mobilizing ourselves to a bike rally. As he had went ahead to scout out the gathering, I was to meet him so to avoid a tragedy. He had to call me at the time of the Traviata’s departure. Not receiving any news from him, I decided to go ahead and pay him a visit. I found myself alone with him in the parking behaving as if everything was normal. He kissed me and whispered in my ear while promising me the sun and the moon in an attempt to flatter me. However, Xenna was supervising the scene from afar, she approached me from behind and sucker punched me, but I was under anesthetics and I felt nothing. I serenely proceeded in taking a Reynolds in my hands and shoved it right into her bare stomach. Security quickly separated the both of us and he ended up making love to her on that night. In the utmost act of cowardice, he had his bike moved the following day to avoid dealing with me. Dismasted under the firing of cannonballs, I abandoned the ship of Mephistopheles’s temptation. I’ve had enough of this sadism! This barbaric and lustful exposure should have been sufficient! Apparently not! I had to come across his path amidst the trenches to confuse him as an ally. Him: “Without any foul play, prove to me that I’m really ill. Call Bea and Xenna, like you were always nagging about, you who claims knowing me so well. Give them a call. I think you don’t possess enough courage nor honesty to do so”. “If you have the courage that you claim having, I then shall hear the feedback from them. Otherwise, I’ll make my own opinion of it. Continue taking care of Zia”. Him: “Call me back”. Me: “If I had anything to tell you, I would have said it when you were here. Good night”. Him: “If you want me to improve, have the courage to call Bea and Xenna ”. Courage… Boldness, bravery are resolutions which your soul is not familiar with! Don’t worry though, I’ll boldly resolve to confessing all the degradation you made me endure as a consenting victim. In my forfeiting, I’ll unveil my agonizing heart having lost its integrity to the rivers of insanity. As a strong reminder to my estrangement, I’ve hummed these words deep within my wound: “To reveal your past, my soul has been scarred by the tormenting of your heart, but he had me with nothing to lose, nothing to gain… only one love… one life”. Him: “Prove to me that you’re not one of those two-faced manipulative psychologists by calling them so you can answer my questions”. Him: “I only have one wish upon seeing you and that is to stop this mess and squeeze you into my arms. Therefore, we can’t hug one another anymore and we need to wave our white flag by asking you to call Bea and Xenna”. “So, I can reconstruct myself. Thank you, Jennifer. I count on you to do it and stop the hemorrhage. I thank you from the bottom of my heart” Me: “I’m in no need to answer your question because you don’t have no more questions to ask yourself. Stop the hemorrhage? You did so yourself by telling Zia so everything was clear, daddy doesn’t love mommy and mommy doesn’t love daddy anymore. I’m convinced you’ve stopped the hemorrhage yourself”. Him: “You made your choice”. I felt the urge of letting him know that I didn’t make that choice, it was rather the only way I could survive through this! I knew from the moment he landed on my Normandy beach that the night would be long! I need to be clear enough so he keeps his distances while being careful not to provoke him and see him transform into a dragon similar to what had happened on X-mas day 2010. Having had left early morning to paint the town red, my mother and I on our side had taken advantage of his absence to go last minute shopping for X-mas. We prepared Dinner in the spirit of X-mas celebrations while we indulged into the festivities. We had agreed for 8 O’clock and he appeared pathetically inebriated on the count of 10 O’clock while taking the time in bending his ex, Sophie, over a barrel and showing her the fifty states. Clumsily hiding his felony, he deliberately told a lie while emphasizing on a treason from my part. I had become unfaithful! A scene of desolation erupted on that X-mas day 2010. Henry evoked a fury which was new to me and turned my apartment inside-out. He strangled me against the wall. I encouraged him: “Go ahead, go all the way, kill me”. I felt his hands release their hold on my neck after these words. My dear mother panicked and started trembling before going down to our neighbors’ house to take refuge while they called the police. Merry X-Mas! Instead of reacting in a normal fashion, to end this distressing relationship, feeling remorse over my use of hateful and discriminatory language in an arrogant way, I came to forget the inhumane way he had just treated me. Like an animal being tortured to death, I was going back to my bloodthirsty executioner so he could heal my wounds. By fear of retaliation, I would now have to walk on eggshells and pretend so I could survive. Just like I did as a young kid… When my own spawner, a little thug, would threaten to kidnap us or when my father-in-law would look at me in an insisting way… When he had decided to teach my brother and I about sexuality by posting pornographic images at the school bus stop, thus putting into the hands of 8 and 9-year olds demeaning pornographic material… Marking the start of what will be a good omen… Thereupon, due to the effects of the traumatic infection I was living through my family, I forged myself into a princess with an incredible fate ahead of her. Having found the perfect alibi for himself, two words would define me then: Pathological liar! I would be discredited without respite. Every word that would come out of my mouth would be interpreted and I would incessantly need to justify myself. To be left alone, I even had confessed to it, it was therefore the truth! “Love withstands death better than doubt and treason”. III- The Snowball Effect I Understood further along the way that post-traumatic shocks drive children to make up stories, lie to protect themselves or simply to feel their existence through the construction of their social self whenever they don’t find their place in the world. A pseudo-reality when the truth is too much to handle. A pseudo-reality where I loved to take refuge. Years went by leaving me powerless caught between a borderline father-in-law and a manic-depressive mother. Between the two of them, my heart would play on the sensitive strings and I didn’t find favor in my sight. At the time of death of my father-in-law’s nanny by cause of tuberculosis, the latter was forsaken by his father and handed over to the nuns. At the age of 9, he was raped on many occasions during his stay. He then was thrown from one family to another without any reference points and the utmost carelessness and sensitiveness. Without the smallest hint of affection, he took up residency in a shelter, where during the many years spent alone in his room, he would solely have a sandwich to eat and water to drink in a glass, if it didn’t freeze. Then came the Algerian war and he enrolled in the army where he met a young Algerian girl with which he fell desperately in love, for the first time… Her fate was sealed when members of her family decided to throw her off a bridge. Like Romeo and Juliet and in an effort to join her in eternal rest, he drove his jeep off a cliff… His childhood consisted solely of torment! Must he be blamed? Borderline Personality disorder is marked by borderline states, addictions, risk behavior, impulsiveness, tantrums, anxiety attacks, low self-esteem, alternation of extreme and contradictory feelings and feeling of worthlessness and idealization. They fiercely make use of words which they spit out like acid. They’re hypersensitive people who were skinned alive and which know how to challenge themselves and realize the suffering they just inflicted on someone as opposed to the narcissistic deviant person. This doesn’t prevent them from consistently repeating the same behaviors which they struggle to correct. Oh! The doctor had proposed to my mother to have an abortion, in doing so she would have avoided a long grueling pregnancy which by the time she had entered into labor had completely drained her of her energy. I stayed cuddled inside for a quarter of an hour, cyanotic and asphyxiated… Then I was handed over to a foster family for a couple of months, faced with the risk of being forgotten curled up in my baby coffin at the back of a car parked at the supermarket under the scorching heat of the sun. Considered an unruly and violent brat, my mother raised me along with my siblings by punishing us under the martinet, club and bullwhip, for each season came a new method…It had become so ordinary that whenever we would find a stick we would fetch it back to our mother so she could punish us. One day, when my brother and I were around 3 or 4 years old, as we had had enough of her striking us with the martinet, we had decided to cut off the straps and proceeded to hide the shaft in an attempt to protect our innocent hearts. Instead of making our mother acknowledge the fact that she was mistreating us, she struck us with the shaft and bought a new martinet. Years later, during this anecdotic tale, she laughed at the whole situation! Isn’t it amusing to vent your frustration out on children? My mother ceased all her violence towards us when we reached the age of 12 or 13 years old when we were on our way to rent out a VHS one night and we had forgotten to lock our bikes. Some kids were roaming around them too close and the pharmacist, upon seeing them, had taken the care to keep them safe from harm by bringing them into her storeroom. Upon being noticed of the suspected theft, an epic punishment was handed to us. I still remember my mother breaking an umbrella on us, the authentic solid ones made out of a single piece of wood. It resulted in her breaking it upon my brother’s back after repeatedly striking him. As if it wasn’t enough punishment, she tried to strangle us. I recall seeing my brother turn red while being choked and all of this while starring back bluntly into her eyes and not offering her any resistance. She then realized her insanity after being startled with lucidity. Feeling remorseful, she instructed us to come and sleep by her side so to ask for forgiveness. Like well-behaved robots, we obeyed her without whispering a single word. Teardrops stopped falling from my cheeks ever since that day and only reappeared when I first fell in love. My mama is not as bad as you think. She just mimicked what she had been through in a more docile way. I’m not trying to justify or judge her, but simply attempting to understand the layout of this psychological genogram. Her mother was ravaged by cancer while she was 13 years old. Alone with 5 siblings, from which two of those she had to raise and protect from the abuse of an alcoholic father. At 20 years old, wanting to sleep, according to her side of the story… She consumed a large quantity of medicinal drugs which failed to have the desired effect. I firmly believe it is called a suicide attempt, but she never wanted to admit it. I can’t count the times I heard her complain under the cover of spirituality “I live in this world but am not from it and to die would be a deliverance…”. “What a pity she failed her attempt because I merely exist today due to it” That was what I was telling myself whenever I felt she was making us pay, just for existing. You can’t imagine the number of times I had to ask for forgiveness simply for being alive! My mother was shifting between depressive and manic episodes. From early on, her moods influenced my life. While in a hypomanic state, she extolled in overexcitement and aggressiveness. Like a maestro, she orchestrated our every move with her baton. Without being aware of it, she tyrannized us. I was afraid of her, of her angry outbursts, scared of her digging under my skin, petrified of feeling pain! Her Achilles’ heel was slumber which converted into acerbated irritability. In her depressive stage, whenever daily shores would be too much to bear for her, I would lend her a hand with the cleaning or ironing the piles of clothes lying on the sofa. She slept much of the day and would drag herself around like a zombie wearing her evening gown. I would assist her as a kid propelled into adulthood. I had a purpose. I was doing my best to encourage her, but she always managed to ruin my efforts. She influenced me for a long time until I realized she was ill. Deep within my soul, I knew she was walking lopsided. Winter prevailed beyond summer for her and I was guilt-ridden. While growing up, I copy-pasted her negativity. I was suffocating, I was ashamed of her morbid rigidity, of her sloppiness, of this victimized parent who couldn’t stop criticizing everything carried away by this lunatic objectivity. Fortuitously, time frames occurred in between her immersions into the abyss. Until I was 6 years old, wetting my bed reigned supreme over my nights, nonetheless I was excluded from sleeping into the maternal bed, but not my brother. I tried stealthily to sneak into it on many occasions but was soon after sent back to sleep into my freezing bed when I was discovered. My mother liked my brother better and she made it clear, I suffered from it as a kid. Consequently, when my brother was nearly taken away by a bowel obstruction and a peritonitis at the age of 4, he monopolized entirely her attention. Commuting to his bedside at the hospital while being taken away in my uncle’s red Skoda and seeing my mother disappear made me feel such a profound feeling of abandonment. At the time of my brother’s hospitalization I refused to pay him a visit. His bandages, scars and his suffering petrified me. Years later, he told me how saddened my absence made him feel. My promise of never letting him down again was made to him. That was until it would soon be solicited… He was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 30 years old. He was my role model, my confident, I admired everything about him. He was a radiant being, a beautiful man blessed with an above-average intelligence and sense of humor. He was an all-round artist, a musician, a writer, a painter, a personification of creativity. On a side note when time laid still, I worked at a law firm located in Paris while pursuing a degree from the school of law at the Sorbonne. I ditched everything to keep my promise so I could see him with my own eyes as he laid helpless on his bed while his body skeletonized and his soul was leaving its host. “When your soul weeps, your life’s short film disintegrates into tragic frames, in confused chronological flashbacks”. My brother’s illness had the merit of revealing the true colors of people surrounding him. Determined to square off against my parents, following a chemotherapy, he traveled to meet them and confront them. It was the first act of reparation when he majestically executed a judgment in which he defended my opprobrium. The details of what was mentioned behind closed doors were never revealed to me, but one thing is certain, the fruits resulting from these bore the fruits of the spirit. A few days went by and I received a call from my stepfather and he had this to say: “Do you know why I’m calling?” “Me: No!” “Michael came by this weekend and we had a discussion. Jennifer, I sincerely wish to ask you for forgiveness for all the pain I put you through. Will you ever forgive me even if I don’t deserve it.” I was visiting Amsterdam at this time and I took a seat on the side of the bed to gasp for breath. My heart was throbbing so hard that even the jitters I had were feeling uneasy. Me: “I already forgave you or else I’d already be six feet under. I just needed to hear it from your mouth, so I could stitch up my wounds”. Our relationship would come out changed and I discovered another side to his character as that of a man who told me of his past and its atrocities, a father as well, a caring and supportive man, but it would only last a few moments. He departed once reconciled with himself 3 years after the death of my brother. He died on a perfect day in my harm chair. My mother, on her side, stood firmly on her past references and never permitted him to express himself as she focused on her unhappiness, she would never understand why she had prayed so much… I never obtained a single apology from her or at most a “I didn’t know, why didn’t you say anything?”. She was responsible for letting this man come into our lives, he who should have protected us. I’ve had enough of these half-truths or falsehoods, was fed up with her bad faith in the true sense and the figurative sense of the word! Because the truth was that she knew all along, but never gathered enough courage to confront herself or she should have otherwise requested a divorce! She didn’t choose us but did so for him just like I would do the same with Henry a few years later! I’m sick of keeping my trap shut because she has sore eyes! Kicked out of our home by my father-in-law at the age of 16 and with the tacit consent of my mother, we lived peacefully along with cockroaches populating our apartment. I quit school at the age of 15 for childish reasons… I wanted to get away from the fires of Gehenna. I originally was driven to take up studies at the University of Grenoble, in a sports-study program specialized in artistic training! The case was closed before it was opened, my request was never considered by my mother. Yet, this would have been a life changing experience! But I was broken by the everyday abuse, negligence and sadism. Unprecedented psychological torment drove me right into a major depression. Being completely out of touch with other kids of my age experiencing failure at school, I carried out an apprenticeship which let me deal with my brother until his graduation from university. IV-Take off Having completed my studies and being proud of my brother for obtaining his degree, I decided to give up everything and undergo theological studies to understand the meaning of hatred as well as attempting to grasp this god of eternal love which my mother always talked about and which had cowardly left me on my own as a child. Even at the church pews, I was feeling unease, constantly cornered and stoned for sins which I didn’t even know existed and which I couldn’t understand their meaning. I was labeled as having a spirit of deception, the spirit of Jezebel or whatnot. But frankly, these mystical hermits, under the cover of piety, would prefer, as worshippers of their own homes that they were, to hide behind verses which they could not comprehend rather than to confront their reality so to begin their healing process. My conclusion goes as far as saying that many people of different faith are hiding behind false dogma to avoid being confronted to their inner demons while at the same time being manipulative in a role-playing game by projection while forgetting the true power of divinity, the power of the verb that is to love. In psychology, projection in its psychoanalytical signification is a process in which the subject, not the holy ghost, expels from himself and into someone else’s qualities, feelings, desires or even objects which he fails to recognize or refuses to let linger in his self. This is a defense mechanism rooted in our most basic inner self and which can be found at work in paranoia while also being embedded in ways of thinking such as superstition and mysticism. In order to getting to know God’s heart, the first step begins with learning to know oneself while confronting yourself; by putting an end to denial and evasion. “I believe in the afterlife, quite simply because energy never fades away”. Albert Einstein I then moved out of my native Provence at 18 years of age, ergo I met Fabian. Fabian was a handsome Hispanic and his remote land fired my imagination. I discovered these fascinating and wild pampas with enthusiasm and passion with which I fell I fell in love with. We lived there for a while. However, I didn’t love him like he would have liked to be loved, no, I was way too torn apart. It wasn’t of this kind of love that I dreamed of. Fabian, to my eyes, was my Argentinian, we mutually were supportive of one another, we formed a family but not in the sense of husband and wife, but rather in the sense of brother and sister because he never was a husband to me in the truest sense of the word. He has this unbearable shitty nature comparable to a grouchy bear, but has a heart, a deep sincerity and an authenticity as scarce as desert water. I then wanted to get back home after feeling like an usurper. I tried to persuade myself that my feelings would change over time, however I failed to convince myself. On the edge of despair over bearing a first-born while being caught between the ability and a desire not to mention dealing with an incompetent uterine cervix, a damaged uterus, I had lost hope in my body and my maternal capacities. I was now part of a statistic in which 2 to 5% of women fall victim to the said late and repeated miscarriage. It had transformed itself into pain, guilt or torture and afflicted my flesh. I had to wait through four long years of fierce battles to finally see Arial emerge. The pregnancy revealed itself to be the bearer of my own personal story and the wait had given a capital vital dimension to the process, a true personal accomplishment. Having a child would signify to me as having triumphed over all… Be that as it may, freedom came with a cost and this cost was harrowing. Thus, at the time of Arial’s birth, a child which I longed for, I cherished her with all my heart and soul. Symbolizing a certain healing from a murderous evil. Birth reveals itself to us in its primal nature which is love. We take into account the value of a life and realize how fragile and beautiful it is, it opens a gate into the Eternal… but the road to my freedom would be a long one. Against such brutal injustice inflicted on my part, anger and rebellion would stir up my life. “You know the smallest details about me, you fashioned my conscience and knitted me together in my mother’s wombs. Thank you for shaping my body into such a marvel, what you have accomplished is prodigious and I am aware of this. My body held no secrets at the time you created me on the sly and knitted me together in my mother’s wombs. While I still was an unformed mass, you would see me, and in your book, you already had taken note of all the days which you would dedicate to my time even so none of them had even started…” V. ZIA Why am I telling you all this? Because Henry factually made it absolutely clear that there was still room on the bullet tattooed to his forearm which brandished the Mandarin calligraphic initials of his loving and legitimate little cherubs in a book of life. On my return from the emergency room after having expelled an aborted life, the nurse with all her indelicacy, wrapped the lifeless fetus in paper prior to transporting it into the next room so to dispose of it into an organic garbage as if it was mere waste (It’s my ninth miscarriage and I still haven’t gotten used to it. 4 months and a half of pregnancy is a little bit shy of being logged into the civil status registry. As soon as she stepped out of the room, I hustled into it to recover this little departed one. A 12-week old fetus which fit right into the palm of one’s hand! His skin was scarlet, the traits upon his face were slightly being designed, he was already well molded. Time froze as I laid there motionless while observing it from my frigid seat. I was out of touch with reality until a nurse brought me back to it. After a short stay at the hospital, resembling an automaton, I returned home with a lobotomized heart. His gaze troubled by the abundance of liquids absorbed, Henry paid his ticket to be part of the showing at the horror festival! Indifferent to my wretchedness, insensitive to my grieving sorrow, his shrieking voice, in an upsurge of solidarity, was heard from where he was taken place on the sofa: “Why do you inflict this upon yourself”? Upon hearing these words, I felt “counter actions” … I realized that playing with my feelings as well as my desire to bear life while trying to tame myself, I had fallen directly into the trap set up by this mockingbird. He had simply gambled on the fact that I couldn’t bear any children. This lie would forever be remembered as his greatest lie. I fell pregnant with Zia soon after having recovered from miscarriage. Having long hoped of bearing a child, I wasn’t protecting myself anymore, what was the use! I’d gobble down some birth control pills not to prevent pregnancy but rather to avoid a miscarriage. I didn’t feel like being touched at the time being… Furthermore, my adorable burgeoning unvanquished sprout, which was treated not like an individual, but rather like an inseparable part of her mother, was now born. Moreover, the bitter taste left in my heart bubbles to the surface. Forever indissoluble, it would leave a mark. “I, the undersigned, Mister Henry S. born on July 5th 1963, waive all parental rights over the unborn child carried by Madam Mallet, Jennifer named Zia, Abigail, Lilou. Under this act, I renounce to all rights of paternity as well as claims and remedies by legal means. In the same way as Madam Mallet, Jennifer waives all claims and remedies by legal means”. On 05/03/2013 signed before a witness, his best drunk of a friend Kiki. Following the announcement of my unwanted pregnancy, as well as other personal circumstances coinciding with Mister Henry Bellow, the latter, as of November 23rd, 2012 under the influence of alcohol, decided to threaten me via his phone by explicitly stating that he would gladly abort me by kicking me in the guts. Avoiding his phone calls, he portended his bullying intentions through mail: “Do you really want me to land at your doorstep so you understand. Right now, I’m drunk and you better answer your phone.” ”I swear upon God, you’re going to open that door or I’m going to kick it open”. He relentlessly tried to bash in the door as I prayed to God to protect me and the child I was bearing. At 11 O’clock, I made my first call to the police, but they didn’t dispatch an officer to the scene until the second call came from my neighbors alerting them of night uproars and death threats and finally deciding to send help to establish the facts of the matter on site. Soon after their departure, assuming Henry had fled from the scene in between two interventions, He came back around to finish what he had started. At 1:11am, I once again contacted the police to warn them about another attempt on his part on breaking into my apartment. It should be noted that this was not an isolated case. Similar facts had taken place on December 24th, 2010 when once again the police had had to intervene after Mister Bellow had ransacked my apartment; submission of complaint on 11/23/2012. Statement on 01/07/2013: “I come before you to report these threatening messages I have received from my ex-boyfriend Mister Bellow, Henry, from which I am 3 months pregnant. Here a couple of excerpts from the messages taken from my phone: “Consider getting an abortion, you have no clue on what awaits you if you don’t. You’ve been warned. “11/28/2012 at 22h52. “You can’t provide a proper education to your son and yet you still want another child. Poor crazy woman”. 01/28/2012 at 22h55. “I pray to God that the next guy who bangs your devil woman’s ass stuffs your cunt so deep that it makes your child disappear.” 11/28/2012 at 20h22. TEXT MESSAGES SHOWN BY THE REGISTRANT COMPLY WITH THE STATEMENTS. Police have already intervened at various occasions following disputes with him. I reserve myself the right to file a complaint if I ever receive death-threats. I have nothing else to add. Upon the announcement of the sex of the baby by my gynecologist after 4 and a half months of a fierce struggle against premature death, an agonizing waiting period and unprecedented emotional abuse, life seemed to have followed its course. Joyful, I shared this post on Facebook on January 24th, 2013: It’s a girl, it’s a miracle. But regardless of true false friends found through the Wi-Fi, and as if it wasn’t enough, here is what Henry’s daughter Lilly wrote to me. Lilly: “Is this act out of true love or pure selfishness?” Up to now nothing indicates the intent, but if you’re going to bring a child into this world without him ever knowing his father and being thrown around like a mere doll, then it’s quite sad! Another miserable child, as if there weren’t enough on this planet.” Me: “You are you’re father’s daughter, that’s for sure! Come and have a coffee over and I’ll tell you the truth instead of gossiping! One thing is certain is that she won’t be miserable”. Lilly: “I’m sorry but please stop acting like a victim, I can tell you the truth if you want. When a man reaches 50 years old, already has 4 children, of which the latest is still at a young age, and he keeps repeating that he doesn’t want no more children, I’m sorry but I don’t see what you don’t understand”. Me: “Your aggressive and violent drunk of a father passes himself off as the victim and not me! Poor little Calimero!” “It wasn’t intended nor voluntary although I desired that child with all my heart. And your father and I knew about it, heck we made the pregnancy test together.” “Therefore, I don’t care and don’t want to hear anything about his distorted side of the story, his betrayals, his lack of respect, his disdain and his constant defamation. If you were a little wiser, then you would have talked to me in private, now it’s too late, but thank you for letting me express myself” “The only difference between him and I is that I couldn’t resolve myself to abort and kill this child like you suggested to me”. Lilly: “My dad has enough problems in his life as it is, he doesn’t need another worry! He’s far from an angel, but not everything in your garden is rosy. The only difference is that he doesn’t hide it. I assume every word that comes out of my mouth, I won’t come and talk privately with you since you like to show off, I don’t see the problem”. “And to again focus on abortion, I can speak knowledgeably about this and can say that when you don’t have a choice and slightly reflect on the life you’ll provide to a child, then you swallow your pride and make a sound decision”. Me: “That’s your point of view and not mine because as of today, abortion is much like an idea of comfort before a necessity especially in Europe where we lack nothing and where heaps of needs are created each day. We certainly have the privilege of bearing life, but who are we to play God?” “Does taking away life to continue one’s life constitute a good choice? Where does it imply that you’ve assumed your responsibility! Aside from rape or children starving in Africa! Or worst still, having health problems! In today’s world good is evil and evil is good, all the eggs are put in the same basket as a malicious normality!” “When you mention your father in that sense, you proceed in victimizing him and I can assure you that’s not the case, especially coming from one of his victims! You can’t really help someone who turns away from a lending hand and sometimes even all the love in the world is not sufficient…”. “To conclude, you dare judge a situation without understanding the ins and outs it involves, of which a fundamental truth is missing and its injurious because the only one who shows off here is you! Your lack of objectivity is solely linked to the fact that you favor your father which I completely understand and don’t blame you for it”. LILLY: “Perhaps a mistake indeed, however it’s like using Beelzebub to cast out the Devil… If I take your very own words into account and quote them: “a Miracle” reveals that this situation is convenient for you, you who so wanted another child” “Therefore don’t try to justify your behavior with fabricated reasons, by saying you don’t want to commit a murder, because it only serves as a mean to ease your conscience”. “And if I may add something, having an abortion doesn’t rhyme with comfort because it’s far from being an easy decision to take, you need to look at the broader picture!” “It’s selfish to absolutely want to bring a child into this world when you knowingly are not able to raise him in good conditions. And as opposed to what you may think, I’m not saying this as a gesture of solidarity with my father, I’m capable of forming my own views and genuinely assume them. To finish off, if I wish to catch up on my father’s news and he responds, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s acting like Calimero like you mention, it’s still considered normal to worry about the well-being of a family member as far as I know. In addition to this, it’s also noteworthy to mention the following anecdote: Lilly will have great difficulty in getting pregnant and it will take her three long years before being able to conceive a child. Perhaps she now understands better the true meaning of wanting and being able. Moreover, she now lives with a man who strangely enough is the carbon copy of her father. Maybe while writing her own story after giving birth, she might be able to obtain redress and gather enough strength to pull herself out of her codependency and addiction. Shortly before labor, Henry attempted to draw himself closer to me, which I swiftly evaded from. In an email sent to him on April 17th, 2013, I provided him with the description of chronological events which had taken place as a strong reminder of everything he seemed to have forgotten. You declined the pregnancy and did everything you could to influence me in having an abortion, you revealed your true colors by exerting wanton verbal and violence to the point that neighbors had to call the police themselves. I had to file two complaints so that you stop harassing me. Then your family, friends and your very own daughters all stepped in and all I did was retaliate to their offensive! It all started with the post I shared on Facebook in which I simply said: “It’s a girl, a miracle!” I was then publicly put to shame by your daughter. It was then followed by a message from Kiki on March 21st, 2013: “Soon to be the bridesmaid at the wedding of my beloved brother and his future wife Chouky (Xenna), mother of his desired son. Congratulations to the future Mr. and Mrs. Bellow”. Very pregnant, lynched by the crowd, mocked, humiliated, scorned, harassed, attacked, you then added an insult to an injury by sending me a picture of you holding Sophie’s newborn in your arms. The decisive blow was ordered by your mother, this old evil witch: “Leave Henry alone, he doesn’t want you no more, he had a few words with Sandrine and has since found happiness by her side”. Fatally wounded, struggling to find an anti-venom to their poisonous bite, I proceeded in writing my epitaph: March 8th ,2013 at 4h39am “Before you judge me or lapidate me, walk in my shoes and go through everything I did.” You only know me through proxy, to your eyes, I’m only a coin which’s sole purpose is to be returned. Must I be the gentle lamb that is led to the slaughterhouse while keeping silent before the abuse, humiliation, disdain, lack of respect and destructive actions while bearing the compulsive and impulsive states of a man which consistently mistreated me? If I need to be judged, then judge me based on having patience, being tolerant and caring, having supported and endured the unthinkable, on keeping faith and having raised anyone and anything without denouncing anything. You rejoice before such an injustice and certainly not before the truth all this while lacking in objectivity and showing no bias whatsoever except towards Henry. Being first and foremost a victim, you twist everything around and make it seem as if I am the executioner! Does he really seem like a victim to you? No act of reparation nor any request for forgiveness has been undertaken to alleviate my suffering towards his cruelty! Then go ahead and blame everything on me! March 8th, 2013 at 9h54 am Maude: “1/ I never judged you before you compelled my father in keeping a child he never wanted. 2/ Your life alongside my father seems like hell or a tragedy, you say to us that you suffer in silence- yadda, yadda, yadda: Then how do you explain calling him 4 times in less than a minute yesterday night! Personally, I run away from problems; but you seek them out. Don’t come and cry like a baby.” 3/ You give yourself the right to call my friends, which you don’t know by the way, to invite them into your pathetic life: get your own friends to do that. Let me conclude by suggesting to you to leave my father alone! He has enough problems already. You’re no better than Xenna on which you’ve spat all your venom over so many times and probably rightly. Let me think the same about you. You’re only a poor girl which cannot bear her life, upon reading what you write, but keeps begging for more!” Me: “You’ll find out in time and with far more insight that all of you are royally wrong because what goes around sooner or later comes around”. Maude: “I don’t care about your life. I’m only asking you to keep away from my father and if he somehow ruins your life, you efficiently get back at him. Now leave me be.” Lilly: “Listen to me carefully, you’re not a victim, you have chosen to be the instrument of your will and your plans. If you really think my father is so noxious to you, then why did you stay with him? Why do you keep the child of such a despicable man? Why do you keep harassing him like you’ve always done? Why would you want him to come back? At a certain stage, when forgiveness is no longer enough then why do you keep on insisting? Because it’s the choice you’ve made! Because you’re ridiculous, you want to take up arms, get beaten and then complain about it? I don’t endorse such a behavior, sorry. If you really want to move on, you can do it on your own because apparently you consider my dad to be a burden. Live your life and leave those who don’t care about it out of it! You’re persuaded we take delight of your situation, but you’ve got it all wrong, we only feel pity towards you! A single advice comes to my mind and it’s to go hang yourself if your life is so meaningless! Me: “You’re not entirely wrong, it’s what I was telling you father at the time, it’s better for my daughter to have a tender and caring father as well as a loving family then to have an opprobrium hanging over her head or to be rejected or worst yet abandoned. You’re completely right!” Lilly: “Who thought of abandoning anyone? Admittedly, it takes two to Tango, yet you were conscious of my father’s take on this. You decided to keep him hence you have only yourself to blame! It’s certainly not your love for my father that’s imposing you to keep this child, it’s your egotism and when you’re selfish, you end up alone!” Me: “Lol. You’ll have to explain to me why on earth would your father’s opinion be worthier than mine? Why would his views be more important than what I can express?” Lilly: “And why can’t you accept the fact that I’m not on your side? Everyone is entitled to expressing their own views. And one more thing, the more you harass my father, my sister as well as everyone I didn’t take the time to mention, the more you’ll insult my dad and the more you’ll encourage me to defend my position. Basically, the more you’ll act like an ass, the more you’ll look like a crazy woman thus giving us more reasons to treat you like one.” Me: “It’s a good thing you have free will… Who’s harassing who? I haven’t understood that part! Objectively, when it’s not one thing it’s another! Who’s insulting who? Because the ball often ends up in my court. I’d have to comply with everything and resolve myself to be treated like shit without defending myself or what? What does all this lead to? We both know I’m not a saint, but neither is your dad!” Lilly: “My father will always be more important to my eyes than a nobody. This doesn’t stop me from having my point of view and letting him know whenever I don’t agree with him. Unfortunately, this means we both are disgusted with you at the same time”. Me: “Your father taught me that we can forgive many times, but never for the same reasons. Because the basis of forgiveness is to let go of a former status and never repeat the same mistake. But he keeps on reiterating! Fool me once, shame on him; fool me twice, shame on me! It’s like giving away your pearls to a fool! If Love doesn’t coexist alongside mutual respect then it is not truthful and in this case your father never loved me!” End of dialogue without any possible comment to add! The weight of words… The weight of words is the most silent type of violence. It’s a powerful weapon which can cause serious injuries without ever touching the target. During this pregnancy, I couldn’t stop myself from crying. I hadn’t wept this much ever before. While I was carrying his child, Henry would bed his whore Sandrine which had undergone an abortion a few years back and which everyone would welcome with open arms. It all seemed surreal to me! Had they all lost their minds. Not a single member of his family, all as equally brainless as the other, had even one moment of clear-thinking. Not one! Just because I didn’t give in to the whims of a man who’d always require of his mistresses to get an abortion after impregnating them. All of them without any exclusions! Were these women in denial of their own story when they were taking Henry’s side? This goes beyond all comprehension! I was cut off from the rest of the world, placed under quarantine and feeling a profound sense of loneliness at this moment. My hump was getting bigger and one moment I was ashamed of it while another I was cherishing it. I’d whisper to Zia all the love I felt for her, that I couldn’t wait to welcome her into this world and explained to her that the reason I was crying so much had to do with her father and that she had nothing to do with it. Indirectly, Henry forced me into making a choice between him and her. Faced with so many abominations, I unconsciously took a decision which’s outcome would progress throughout 3 years of constant wishing for repentance. Having to deal with such violence, my defense mechanism kicked in and improved my detective skills, I proceeded in stalking him. Call screenings, mail, text messages. I wasn’t seeking the truth because I already knew it. It was another kind of story. While on survival mode, I was desperately trying to trust him all while creating a sort of Stockholm syndrome. A method used to adapt oneself to a very traumatizing experience. I was seeking out a positive feeling towards my tormentor so to justify his actions. I was attempting to compel his sympathy to feel safe, a reconciliation to be saved… However, the danger was real as it could be! The birth of Zia was hardly a secret, but Henry wasn’t informed. Just as a small unfunny anecdote on D-day, while I had just come back from the extraction room, he called me and begun his disjointed narrative. A strident voice broke the silence on my end of the phone and I hung up the device. He came around the maternity ward unannounced, but was turned away at the entrance. It’s not surprising when you’re not suppose to figure in someone’s destiny and may have been wrong all along! Beyond the tensions I had glossed over, he exhibited himself in front of Zia’s gaze exactly 3 days after her coming into this strange new world. He then persevered on with his past mistakes as my life continued to run its course like the river Dranse. Despite my insistence to have him recognize Zia as his legitimate child, he declined. During my long sleepless nights of weeping, I meditated on the outcome which would leave me face to face with my maker. On April 10th, 2014, Fabian, my Argentinian, recognized Zia and legitimately became her father. Before this outburst of objections, in the inland part of Patagonia, a revolution began with this adoption. With a certain modesty, the gratitude of a woman who had been put to fire and to sword was emerging. As intended as a solemn tribute to everything he had previously been, appointing Fabian as the foster father was by far the wisest choice I could have made. Caring, protective towards me, covering my back and making a total mockery of my wildest condemnations, trustworthy, sincere, always speaking the truth, devoted and generous and whatever life threw at him his heart remained happy and pure. My eyes, no longer affected by the fun-house mirrors, could see that he was the legitimate choice to make when it came to watching over me like a sentry standing guard over a kingdom. However, amidst my pilgrimages while attempting to reconstruct my life after the passage of a devastating tsunami, I hadn’t spared him the least. But he came armed and ready with a certain nobleness and gentleness which only the most valiant hearts can manage to draw up as their last reserve of forgiveness. Notwithstanding the fact that he intelligently was willing to maintain this bond which was uniting us in a much different way. During one pizza night, he suggested to me: “Find yourself another man different from me, different from El Zorro, find yourself a normal man”. “The existence of God is still not clear in my mind, but since forever, I’ve been praying that he’s real”. Jean d’Ormesson Fabian executed a real tour de force. All his family as well as mine, like the prodigal son coming home, put on their best robe at the birth of Zia. This day will be remembered as a chorus of praise. Before this lecture on the dichotomy of good and evil, I made a leap of faith. VI-Ariel I read a newspaper article which turned me upside down. The reporter described the following fact: Yesterday morning, Mister X went outside for a walk along with his 5-year old son. They went towards the small forest near the village. After a long walk, Mister X sat down under the shade of a tree. He’d watch over the comings and goings of his son who didn’t stray too far; each time he’d come back to his father, he’d bring back a bunch of flowers which he’d picked for his Mother. The man in question later told police on what had ensued. He reported dozing off to awake later while calling for his son after realizing he had disappeared from his view. He immediately went looking for him and reached the edge of a cliff bordering the forest trail. He found at the bottom of the ravine his young son laying amidst thorns and stones. He hurried next to his son’s lifeless body, took him into his arms and rushed back to the village to find a doctor”. Sometimes negligence, even though they might be involuntary, may endanger children’s lives. Taking care of them doesn’t necessarily mean to have them clustered inside the house and never letting them leave it; it rather signifies to warn them of the cliffs bordering life’s road. On June 22nd, 1934, the thirty-one-year-old gangster John Dillinger was shot down by the FBI. In the months that followed, an old man filled with remorse came each Sunday to grieve upon the gangster’s grave. He was the father’s boy! While weeping, this man would say: “Forgive me son for neglecting to raise you as I should’ve have. You wouldn’t be lying here if I had taken good care of you all while educating and offering you guidance like the Bible I just recently discovered asks us to do” Come to think of it, this severely affected my son’s life to the point of having a negative impact on him, this sensitive boy, who up to this point had only known love. We were so intensely close to one another. How did I come to neglect him to this extent? How did I let him be the subject of his mother’s mistreatment? How could I let him embark on a trawler which was taking water and which its wreckage was inevitable? I then got hold of a letter written by the hands of Ariel in which he explained his anger and distress. I fell on my knees when I read it and implored the Heavens to save his soul because I was responsible for his destruction. I don’t believe Henry could fully grasp the extent of the damage his inappropriate behaviors could cause. Of all the collateral damages he’s been responsible for. “You think you know me but only know the rubbish being talked behind my back. If you only knew how bad I’d like to wipe you off from the surface of this planet. I’m willing to do anything to annihilate you just to know the feeling. You’re only a scumbag to my eyes. You surely came out from an anus at birth. I don’t love you I merely tolerate you. Can you please stop talking to me! You say you never dropped your pants, which is completely normal when you don’t have a hose! You talk way too much. You’re wasting fresh air! What motivates me every day is to one day give you the beating of your life and don’t worry it’s bound to happen, I’ll shut your mouth up. I’ll end up behind bars, locked up for six months or a year with probation. I’m a minor! When I’ll be laying in my cell, I’ll ogle at your body in the local paper. I haven’t lost my mind at all, I’m from department 74. I only respect those who don’t lack respect towards me! You wouldn’t last a round in my ring. Your maximum is my minimum asshole. You must know that you mean nothing to me, I only stare at the floor in front of my father. And the only reason preventing me from killing you is the fact that my mother raised me better. They stare at me and think that I’ve changed! But my legs are always shaking after a rumble. I’m coming for you little whore, don’t worry I’m well prepared. Oh God did I suffer from your own fault, but now I’ve grown enough to take my revenge. Stop acting so innocently! Your actions filled my heart with hatred and have robbed me of my youthfulness. You need to stop pretending to be good while in fact you’re rotten to the bones. You’ve insulted my mother. Son of a bitch how dare you treat my mother this way. I’ll kill you. You think I’ll keep silent solely because I’m a kid. You take me for a fool, but every night, the angel of Death will be your only friend”. How do you gather enough strength to forgive oneself against something bad you’ve triggered yourself? I plead guilty to these accusations. Please spare him, he has done nothing wrong! I’m the one who should be condemned! I thought I was protecting him but all I did was expose him. He was bearing my pain, my dissimulated anger and each time I was injured, he was the one being scarred. How can I forgive myself for having offended the life I bore for so long, of having little respect for him, I who was convinced of loving him? I hope forgiveness won’t be lead astray. Allow me another chance to be your mother. I’m not a perfect being and you know it. Won’t you please love me, I have so much love to share with you. By losing myself, I lost you, my own extension, my soul and blood, my grievance! On the hostel of Love, I sacrificed you my firstborn! “Forgiveness doesn’t help you forget the past, but it does enlarge the future” Paul BOESE Forgiving oneself isn’t an easy task. It takes time, patience and courage to admit that there’s an issue and to implement a solution. The road to self-forgiveness isn’t a simple exercise. One needs to develop self-awareness once again, to become aware of his wrongdoings and to accept them so to channel his guilt into something positive. Perhaps it makes me a bad mother, but not a bad person. I want to learn from my mistakes to better myself. I’m not responsible of the actions taken by others, I’ve been responsible of inflicting it upon my son without realizing the mental distress it caused him. Caught in the web of my weakness, or this complex, while only living with the selflessness, I would be considered worthy of love, it blew right past me! I can’t rewrite the past. The past belongs to the past, but in the present I’m able to build the future and hope, if you welcome me with open arms, we’ll console one another, we’ll find ourselves together. Your childhood laughter still echoes in me. You were the embodiment of bliss as a child. I remember that until the end of my pregnancy, your father and I still had no clue on which name we’d give you. Then upon listening to the Ritchie Blackmore’s group called Rainbow, your name resounded into our chaste ears like a divine intervention. While wallowing in nostalgia, I reflect on the song’s lyrics, which were an exhortation to my ignorance. “I search for her in the dead of night A silhouette lit by candle light In a whispered word she is gone Familiar stranger without a name In a darkened room they all look the same Like the sand of time she slips away so far away In the mirror you can see her face An angel dressed in the blackest lace A sip of wine and the game can begin Just an image lost in fantasy Then you touch her and you can’t break free Till you see your fate written there in her eyes Oh Ariel, Lost in a distant dream, take me home Ariel” Today Ariel is all grown up, he understood the story of my life, of his own life, of what united us. One evening while bathing away from prying eyes, he let out his pain, his hatred and his anger as well as all his bitter poison. And like an ufologist in a final attempt of communicating, he shouted to God, this alien which he knew to be so wonderful. “Freedom is being able to live and love without opposition, obstruction or hindrance” Ariel I learned that loving doesn’t mean to alienate oneself, I learned from my failures, that they were simply setbacks, challenges which I was not able to take on due to being submerged in the sorrows of my childhood. I learned that forgiving means to take back one’s freedom, I learned that the value of free will is having the discretion of choosing instead of suffering, I learned that humanity’s hope resides in the smile of a newborn, I learned that an extended hand is worth more than decrees, I learned that regardless of external influences, your altitude will depend upon your attitude, I learned that enjoining a child from dreaming will make him fade away. I learned that cultivating anger will pay tribute to cruelty, I learned that loving isn’t sufficient enough if it isn’t nourished by faith, I learned that the anti-venom also resides in the venomous bite, I learned that affliction is a master to which we are apprentices. I learned that pain is a prophet of doom and that only love can teach to a heart. “Courage is to understand one’s own life, to love life. Courage is to attain the ideal of understanding reality” Jean Jaurès VII- THE SLOW AGONY But why did we in fact arrive at this point of no return? The only thing that remains of my love is the aging rusty body of my car. “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.” Anais NIN Monday November 6th, 2017 Me: “I’m in no need to answer your question because you don’t have no more questions to ask yourself. Stop the hemorrhage? You did so yourself by telling Zia so everything was clear, daddy doesn’t love mommy and mommy doesn’t love daddy anymore. I’m convinced you’ve stopped the hemorrhage yourself”. Him: “Yes even Zia asked with whom you were in love with and you answered of you my little girl. But you always find an easy way out. I said to my girl: mommy loved dad a little more at the beginning and after that it was only to make things a little simpler. You forgive but don’t forget. Why do you ask me the reasons I was motivated to break everything on Christmas? I can’t answer you precisely, alcohol, my excesses or you. You for me, and myself for you. I don’t know Jennifer”. Me: “My memory unlocks before what I had eclipsed from my mind. It’s worthless to call Bea and Xenna and tell me what I went through! Regarding forgiveness, it’s only worth it when the behavior changes, which wasn’t your case in any way! I’m going to bed!”. Him: “I already forgave you. I understood early that you only need people for what they are USEFUL for. The endnote reverberates like a flat E. Our fear of losing one another was the reason we lost ourselves. It’s quite sad!” Tuesday November 7th, 2017 Him: “Good day Jennifer, I am only calling you to let you know I’m thinking of you. I only have one question to ask you, aren’t we spending Christmas together? And would you like to go to Disneyland along with my little pumpkin?” Me: “Good day to you, no we won’t be spending Christmas together and I already booked a trip to Disneyland… As I recall, you’ve bid farewell to Zia yesterday!”. Him: “I told her I was going away. Thank you for your response. There’s only one thing left to do in that case and it’s to wish you the best for the future. It’s so dumb to say farewell seeing we both are bound to one another. To tell you the truth, I have a couple of administrative issues to take care of and after that I’m off to detox. So that’s it. And even if you don’t love me anymore, I’ll always love you and my munchkin too. I’ll never forsake her, I want to take care of myself.” Me: “You’re absolutely right and you can be proud of yourself!”. Him: “Take care of yourselves and find the love you deserve. I think you convinced me in the end. Belonging and intertwining together means absolutely nothing. Let’s mingle together and share. They’re but mere bodies. Thank you Go ahead take everything. Lol. You’re right, the mind is fascinating and so is its ability to do right or wrong and manage to take out old files from the file cabinet before processing them like it should be done. Analysis and drawing conclusions is the way to go. Thesis, antithesis and conclusion. A story before or after so many others. There’s an end and a beginning. A beginning and an end. A story”. Wednesday November 8th, 2017 The following morning, Him: “Do you miss me? Are you up for some love making?” Me: “I won’t change my mind Henry. You’re making a fool of yourself”. Him: “Maybe you’ve hit the jackpot by meeting a man who makes your heart throb, you’re right it’s better if we leave it at that. Anyway, I won’t put anyone else first before me ever again. I leave you at peace with my point of view. You already don’t miss me anymore and desire has left the building, it’s like so. Farewell”. And he added: “I put my commas and my periods at the right spots. My point of view isn’t lacking anything nor is it about desire, that’s another thing. Let’s leave it at those other things and if you’re a free radical then so am I. Enjoy the remainder of your days on this planet". “Luck” operating so magnificently and mysteriously as well as knowing full well how I loved going regularly to Emmaüs found it funny to put Henry in my path on that day… I waved coldly at him while keeping a safe distance from him so not to let ambiguities settle between us. Zia on the other hand ran to him while exclaiming herself: “You haven’t moved away yet?”. Thursday November 9th, 2017 Him: I understood yesterday when we ran into each other, that I can go peacefully on my way now, there’s nothing left between us. You’ll be free to use whoever you want at will that way, but I hope you find a soulmate. As for me, I finally understood who you really were in the same way you said you knew me. If you had the slightest idea on how to listen to people and if you felt love for me, you would have understood everything. You’ve repeated yourself over and over without trying to understand Bea, Xenna and Sophie, with whom I exchanged a few words with and we all agreed that you were far from the truth. You’re solely near the one you consider right for you from the cozy side of your mind. My daughter Maude is the best. I needed answers, I partially got them, it will be enough for me…It’s so toxic. I accepted everything from you because I truly loved you. Your small bullshit and your loads of crap, your farts at night, your loud snoring able to wake up the dead, your stretch marks on your tummy as well as your booty and your thighs, your fake breasts which nearly never served, your idleness, your tantrums, when you flew out into the wide blue yonder, everything about you because I loved you Jennifer even with your imperfections. I truly loved you and found you beautiful even without makeup. I was filled with desire for you on mornings, afternoons and at night. I loved you so dearly. You may interpret my words like manipulation coming from my perverted and narcissistic side, but you’ve completely missed the mark. Really. My daughter Maude will be able to explain everything to you and teach you something without a doubt. You were only on the lookout of what could be beneficial to you. Disposable tissues you throw away like condoms, I use it once and throw it away. There you go, the truth sometimes hurts. I’m done”. Me: “Listen to yourself whining about how you love to hate me, I am fed up with your anger, your hatred for me as well as your pseudo love you. Clearly you haven’t paid a visit to a psychologist and you’re desperately trying to comfort yourself at the expense of people who are not emotionally neutral. This makes me realize that you will never question yourself and the fault is entirely mine as I don’t understand anything, I don’t forgive people, I lack judgment and overall, I’m a manipulative person who also turns out to be a total idiot…In short, I’m the bad guy of the story. Then yes, under these conditions, the best option is to run away from you as far as possible”. Him: “You already ran away”. Me: “You failed to notice that I was beyond injured from being constantly demeaned under the guise of truth and I can’t take it no more, yet you worsen things by aggravating me so tirelessly… STOP IT”. Him: “I always admired you, but you misunderstood and now it doesn’t matter anymore, both you and I are injured and all we can do is recover from our wounds. Okay I’ll let you off the hook. Think about it if you want to share Christmas and Disneyland with me”. Me: “I think you don’t pay attention to a word I’m saying and to the words that come out of your mouth as well as a matter of fact. I reckon a few days ago you came to bid farewell to Zia by telling her you wouldn’t see her for a very long time. STOP IT. I’m done with you changing your mind back and forth. I’ll tell you once again, I already made a reservation for Disney and I clearly don’t want to spend Christmas with you. It’s over Henry whether you like it or not. I can’t wait for you to meet someone new so you finally leave me alone once and for all.” Him: “Fine! Go fuck yourself. Wherever you want to…Already did that. Your wish shall be granted. Spend your vacation with some replacement lover. I am of no use anymore, go shake your booty elsewhere because I never had the chance to tame it. Sorry for dedicating so much time to building you a comfortable home with my own hands. All you ever wanted was to be charmed by some useless smooth talker. Damn it, I don’t fall under that description. Sorry! Good your house was build and you only need to seek a smooth talker worthy enough to make love to you and move in with you That’ll be easy since you have access to an endless list of them. You should open a dating agency instead. Lol. A psychologist having three quarters of her patients as friends, who would have thought. You need a psychologist as a boyfriend. Darn, it will probably turn out to be part of your plans. You denigrated yourself by sleeping with the entire planet. Bye. Take care of my baby girl and the rest is up to you”. Me: “Barf, you make me want to puke. How did I put up with this situation for so many years?”. Him: “The truth is that I also endured this situation during all those years, now you can have it your way and have sex with whom it may concern whenever you want it. So long! I wanted to end it with a competency in which you possessed great skills since sex is the only thing that mattered to you. I kneeled before you for the very last time. Now we both know that the only thing that matters in this shitty situation is Zia’s well-being. It’s all that matters. We both will likely be able to rise ourselves from the ashes from our own perspective. In time, you will agree with me by realizing you weren’t fair with me and despite this I still love you. Would you like to hear what my heart has to say to you?” I didn’t answer. Although I felt like telling him no, please spare me your bullshit. Once again, I was perplexed by the way he was able to twist things around to the point of having to question myself and rewind to find out what had really happened. Every Friday evening while making our way to the conservatory located a few blocks from her daddy’s bachelor, Zia would burden me by putting me through a questioning period: “Daddy doesn’t live here anymore, he moved out? It’s strange mommy, one day he lives there and then the next he’s gone. I’m confused. I love my daddy”. I’m aware that the situation is getting an upper hand on her! Then in a solemn attempt of clearing things out, I stammered: “Your father’s behavior confuses me as much as they confuse you. But one thing is certain, he loves you in his own way. It’s not your fault Zia. I’m by no means responsible for any of this and you’re not responsible as well. Dad loves us in a clumsy way, but I know for sure that deep down he loves us more than anything in the world”. In the spur of the moment she got angry and reiterated: “No, it’s your fault, you don’t love daddy anymore.” Me: “Things are complicated between your father and I, Zia, you know daddy is ill, he needs to take care of himself”. After slamming the car door shut, Zia cuddled me while sucking on her thumb and rubbing her ear before telling me: “You’re my mommy, I love you mama, you protect me.” I drove her to her dance class with a smile on my face and a riven heart torn asunder. Reality, without having received any kind of invitation, took the lead! As usual, after dropping her off, I went to the tea shop, where I loved to enjoy a good book while taking a pause from my daily routine; face to face with my ego, I took extensive measures so not to exhaust my brain cells unintentionally while sadly looking back at the chronicles of my trivialities. During the first year of my relationship with Henry, the latter took the time to tame Xenna. The second year, he proceeded to shagging her. I learned this from Yannive’s mouth which with the innocence of a three-year-old asked him: “Why aren’t you sleeping in mama’s bed no more?”. Henry told me: “It’s not what you think”. Which words come out of a man’s mouth when they’re caught red handed? Finally, his response was: “I felt like it”. He was able to generate an altercation only to have an excuse to go home. Dubious of his behavior, I drove to his place. Not seeing his car, I hurried to his window. I honked so to get his attention. Not wanting to wake up his precious, he came to meet me in the parking. Infuriated, I remember hitting him. He didn’t come home that night like so many nights. I passed myself off as crazy and having the nerve to tell me shamelessly that everything was my fault and if I hadn’t stalked him, he would have came home that night. The third year he copulated with both Sophie and Xenna. On a Valentine’s Day, Sophie in pure happenstance, barged in on us. They languidly danced and embraced one another while not paying attention to me. An altercation ensued and while the security guards were desperately trying to separate us, they benefitted from my inattentiveness to elope themselves from the scene. A long pursuit followed, but my tire burst in a roundabout. The following morning, he asked me to come and pick him up at Sophie’s and at the height of ignominy, Sophie had the nerve to share these wise words with me: “Nothing happened between us. He insisted, but I refused”. Of course not, do I look like I was born yesterday! He then resumed his affair with Xenna. As I recall, during those 10 years with him, I’ve never experienced a birthday, a Christmas day, a New Year’s Eve, or a Valentine’s Day being worthy of such important days. Between making up and being single, I met a charming man who made me feel like a woman, beautiful, intelligent, desired and desirable. The opposite of a loser as I so desperately attempted of convincing myself. This romance ended after six months when he was caught having a blowjob from a succulent Barbie doll in the bathrooms at an after-work party. Was the world becoming as hideous as it was luxurious? Anyway, I hadn’t the strength to reinterpret myself. Right from the moment I was born, the game hadn’t been loyal to me. Sacrificed, I abdicated. Lobotomized by the pain, I went on with my arduous life alongside Henry. Then, the following year in a slow agony, I extracted myself from Henry’s grasp. VIII- The Pet-en-l’air’s hem Like every single hem of my pet-en-l’air, Oliver, my first crush, appeared from nowhere and worked his magic on my matter. He was surreal, although being as real as they came amidst this reality which only him could make me forget about it. At the time, music and dancing were acting as a mean to escape my vital prognostic. We were part of a group of artists which its maestro was none other than his father. A young lady madly in love, he never even noticed me. To tell you the truth, I was as thin as a postcard coming straight out of a Varsovian ghetto; I waited patiently by, like a judenstern, making myself invisible before onlookers. The years he had added only made him more handsome to my eyes. At the end of the day, while his kids were asleep, I distracted myself in front of the television set alone in my room. “Her: I thought of him in ways beyond my understanding. I was behaving like another woman and yet I felt I knew myself more than ever (…). In four days, he gave me an entire life, a universe, and made every part of my soul complete. Him: This is my fate on this planet, now, Francesca. I was not put on this earth to travel or take pictures, but to love you. I know this today (…) With all those years passing by, I grew closer and closer to you. I think we are both forming a being which we created and that we call “Us””. Robert James Walter (Madison Road) He knocked at my door… And he wasn’t up for a simple cup of tea! This precise night we consumed our love. Confused, I had to offer my apologies the next morning while still hitting on him: “I reiterate being really fond of your friendship, I hold myself accountable for failing to say no to you”. But in front of your power of attraction, my sex-appeal had no chance the second time around. I again found myself at the starting point, paralysed with fear in front of love. On the way back, feeling weightless, my pain resurfaced upon getting his call. To his eyes, our affair was nothing more than frivolous and short-lived moments spent in each other’s company which were to be taken lightly. I represented a consolation prize because he tried his luck for a second time around with Mathilde and failed miserably. Amidst this sublime fairy tale, fifteen days went by before I crossed Henry’s path heading back home on the freeway. But fate hadn’t had its last word. Like a spell cast upon us every time lust came around after our misfortunes, and of course apologizing to me, we took back where we had left off, but on a rather friendly note, from a distance and with lots of distortion. We were two beings intertwined, unable to tame one another while still wanting to cohabit together, you could cut through the tension with a butter knife, but fascination peeked its head through the hole; I declined to this situation. If I wanted this friendship to prevail, I had to put my foot down. Not to mention Henry was quite the invasive one that never in my life would I have conceived the idea of being unfaithful to him… During the entirety of my pregnancy, Oliver turned out to be a supportive and respectful friend. However, due to the jealousy of his spouse, based on the fact he had a propensity for being a compulsive cheater, we put our relationship on hold to her demand for nearly three years. It wasn’t until last year, when Ariel had to travel to Strasbourg to undergo an aquaculture training course, that we got in touch with one another for reasons still unexplained to this day. Idle and lonely, we were for the first time happy to reconcile with each other. He invited me over to his place in the most simplistic way. And he caught my unawares by giving me the choice between his bed and one located in a spare room. Did he propose this to every girlfriend he’d invite over? Like a slap to life’s face, I consciously opted out for his bed. From his embrace, sincere feelings arose as I desperately fought to stay away from Morpheus’s soothing touch while desiring to extend the moment until the crack of dawn. I had hoped for such an everlasting moment all my life. We didn’t close our eyes during that night and our walk in the clouds came to abrupt end as the alarm sounded at 5 am, dictating the time for us to drag ourselves out of bed. That night he only cast his embrace on me as a spell which was enough to abdicate me. Since forever or rather an eternity, I let my guard down for the first time and fully devoted myself as I was. I hadn’t resented my nudity figuratively and literally. In record setting time, he won a spot on my friends’ list as never before and for nothing in this world I wanted to hinder this bond we had. Our conversations were spontaneous and in-synch. I could chat with him on any subject. In front of him, I was reborn. In December while getting myself ready for the change of season and the beginning of a new life, I welcomed him with open arms. This time around, he was the one who opted for my bed. I showed him around Geneva and introduced him to my friends. His behavior was somewhat uneasy and distant and I felt the urge to scrutinize his every action under the magnifying glass while reactivating my hazards and slipping into my full-metal jacket once more. One morning after a night of debauchery, he made love to me without lingering so much on the preliminaries. Then as I knew something was creeping up all while trying to maintain some dignity, he justified the meaning of his behavior by taking flight… No, I beg you not to tell me this! Not you! Don’t run away by pretending you’re not clear-headed due to all the alcohol you had in your veins!!! At this precise moment, Oliver treated me in the same fashion as Henry so commonly did. The look upon my face mirrored my extenuated soul, but I wasn’t going to let a mere moment of utter madness ruin our newfound complicity. It wasn’t until I confided myself to a friend on this unexpected adventure that she then made me realise how he had scorned me once again. Rancour filled my heart. Knowing full well the prosaic behind my daily routine, how could he dare take what was to take without seeking to understand. He desacralized himself. By reloading his gun he made sure to finish me off. Bloodied, I had more than my share of questions that needed answers! Yet to cap all of my ridicule, I who didn’t insist on casting any suffering upon anybody, I humiliated myself more than he previously had by offering my apology in these terms: “Forgive me for being everything I wasn’t. Forgive me for activating a defence mechanism which I thought was gone for good, the same mechanism which led me to sabotage our love by fear of loving, I who loved too much”. He deigned to offer me a response. “To respect a woman is to envision a friendship with her… And for some of the most courageous ones out there, seduction, desire and love. Without respect, love and friendship are non-existent. Between love and respect, I choose to respect because it’s the highest distinction of love”. And then one day while opening my email account so to consult it compulsively, I still to this day have no clue of what miracle happened, but I was logged into his own personal account instead. I thus fell upon revealing messages sent to a married woman. I was rocked off my chair, under his costume giving him the allure of a romantic, his tender side was brushed off and his true identity was revealed to me, he was nothing less than a looter and a bastard. IX- Inner Sight I don’t know what drives me into these relationships and make me still want more even though I am molested and casted into a ring of hatred. My wounds speak for the constant humiliation and the justified or unjustified rebuke I had to endure at a younger age! I ended up losing all control and right to subsist due to my tendency to repress my frustration, disapproval of my mother’s authority and taking too many blows without fighting back as I never really expressed what I truly felt. A conflict within my gut had erupted between my anger and my feelings, assimilated to insurrection, it was repressed by fear of being exposed to the anger of the outer environment. Thus, awkwardly enough, having had enough of enduring the lack of respect and injustice I vehemently pushed away all those who dared risk themselves at love. However, in my mother’s case, it felt like exasperation and a feeling of disgrace as this conviction became impulsive: “I am not worthy of being loved”. A masochistic tendency that would lead me to develop empathy along with its need to be validated, an urge of belonging so to feel loved, respected and alive. Then, Oliver’s words resounded in my head: “I don’t have the same conviction as you” Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies” Nietzsche It will have taken me all those years of being exposed to disrespect and mistreatment to understand the difference between both sides of the realm. One of destruction and the other being constructive or able to bring oneself to new heights. Two realms which one is nothing but a pale carbon copy of the other, a matrix which has fallen through and in which subtle rules too often merge with love. “You’ll understand that the people which we take the most lightly are in fact the ones that matter the most to us and this is the reason why we must tell these people we love them because we never know if it’s the last time we’ll see them…You’ll discover that, simply because one such person doesn’t love you as much as you wished he or she would, it doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t love you as much as he or she’s able to”. Jean d’Ormesson Henry steps into the ring once again for another round. He must be seeking some sort of “chaos”. How can someone say I love while at the same time depreciating you? Monday November 13th, 2017 Him: “Good morning, I hope you’re doing fine, and so not to beat around the bush, do you miss me? Because I really miss you”. Me: “I just sent you a mail on a reflection, I’ll await your thoughts on the subject”. Him: “I started reading it, but you won’t have my thoughts today, I have to really think about it. Your intelligence is quite striking. You were the brains and I was the vessel, as little as I have left, I won’t undererstimate myself. I send a kiss your way in the meantime, I’ll share my comment or blank page with you soon”. He should have ended it on this note! His message was perfect, balanced, filled with sense. But of course, he had to add his nonsense being the king of twisted words he is! Him: “The worst is that you don’t even know me that well and that you know I couldn’t hold myself from getting in touch with you again and I’m sure you had everything planned out all along. You’re the brains and I’m the little hands that do everything”. Him: “I hope you don’t mind me taking up an interpreter’s services as I am too much of a fool to understand. Anyway, thanks for your reply. It’s cool” Me: “I only mean to be objective to what I represent amidst this memory without having to listen to your treacherous lies which would make me pass as a liar once more. Thus, your enlightenment shall be considered precious only if it remains truthful”. Him: “To my eyes, it’s only love fleeing like time while I wait. I’ll wait for it to come back around. I hope you won’t hold it against me for forwarding everything to Bea like you did with Rick, I need her help to clarify things. Thank you, Jennifer for taking the time”. Me: “Of course I’m mad at you for sharing our conversation with Bea! But anyway, I’ll just have to stop sharing anything with you furthermore”. Him: «I understand the same way as you’d understand. The essential is to obtain the answers to the questions. Once again, I thank you for your time Jennifer» Me: «Won’t Bea be disappointed by all this!!». Him: ‘All she’ll have to do is give me her thoughts on this, like Xenna. I’ll simply have the answers to my question and all I’ll have to do is to draw my own conclusion after». Me: I think you’re completely off track. Whatever! It will be the last of your estocade, I’m done on my side» Him: «Jennifer, I wasn’t trying to use estocades, all I wanted to do was to understand, you already knocked me to the ground».. Me: «All you had to do was to read, I don’t give a hoot about what others think! Arff! Tchouss». Him: «The page will remain blank and this story will end like so. Black ». Tuesday November 14th, 2017 Him: «I really hope you won’t have to lie or lie to yourself with your next lover, to lie to him like you constantly did with me. The pillar of a great relationship is faith. You didn’t need to act this way with me. I simply loved you. Now all I’m left with is the feeling of being used and being played with». «I love you with all my heart, I feel good with you, I have nothing to reproach you, I love making love to you, I love to rest my head on your torso and listen to your heartbeat, it’s the most comforting place in the world. It all sounds out of tune to me today». «All I was asking of you was to keep things balanced, to have a couple of rules destined to the well-being of everyone, especially Zia, and to share great moments together. A family. But you wouldn’t budge from your comfort zone and you didn’t want to live under the same roof in any way. You didn’t care about I having to shuttle between each place everyday just to get a sweater or my mail and so on». «You convinced me, I have nothing left here. I’ll await decisions and to know when I go on trial and I’m out of here ». «Didn’t if suffice you to know your man found you so marvellously beautiful. You needed to lure more men into your bed, so you could fulfill your needs». «I only wish for you to find love with someone meeting your criteria. It wasn’t me. That’s life». «AND thank you for you mail which greatly enlightened me. I know now where my place is in this world. Thank you, Jennifer». Me: «Okay please remind of the lies I’ve told. I find it pitiful that you don’t realise at what extent you’ve also been untruthful and at what point you’ve been dishonest to begin with». Him: «It began way before me. In fact, all through your life. The most recent one: «The Voice contacted me». It started that summer Jennifer my love, you didn’t need to boast yourself. I loved you the way you were, no tricks, no gimmick. I’m so sorry you don’t know me well». Me: «Oh no, not the Voice again, are you kidding me? At the time I was disappointed for not reaching farther in the selection process especially when it was the second time I make it past the 1st selection before heading to Paris. Anyway. And when you say that I don’t know you well, I base myself on opinions rather than facts if you’ve read me correctly». Him: «l certainly would have the pleasure of being enlightened furthermore as well as acting decisively by getting as far away as possible from here like I’ve been thinking of since forever, I was too proud to be by your side and I didn’t ask anything more. Sorry. Do yourself a favour, you may now subside to your needs as you wish. Just look at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to facts. We surely don’t have the same vision of things you and I. A rose is a rose, dung is dung and we learn from each one of them. I leave you the daily mail from the CNTFS, 15019 plus 3707 in debt, it makes me cringe and I haven’t won the lottery like you might pretend. I only wanted to make you happy. I’ll await your reply. You took what had to be taken without trying to fully grasp the meaning behind everything». Me: «Never in the world did I think you’ve won the lottery, it was metaphorical meaning that a lot of money was coming and going around. Nothing less, nothing more. Good luck with the rest». Him: «Understood, I’ll take care of my things and I’m out of here. I don’t need some ecological house and so on… We need to take real decisions». Me: «I saw the documents you sent me. 20 000 euros to take out. Good luck. A F1 will be sufficient enough for you to live without kids or perhaps a bedroom for Yannive, your latest child». Him: «I dedicated my life for others. STOP». Me: «Decisively you won’t be questioning yourself». Him: «Of course Jennifer I’ll question myself, I’ll start thinking of myself. For the time I have left, the time that’s left. See I realized at 54 that I’ve been working my ass for others. STOP». Me: «More precisely and mainly for yourself». Him: «Trust me I don’t know how I’ll pull it off, but I’ll learn. My main concern was the well-being of others and every time I was broke I didn’t know what else to do than binge-drink and scream at the top of my lungs for no apparent reason. I’ll learn to live on my own or not. Born to be alive. I didn’t desire Zia, a child conceived behind my back like you could have done with all your other lovers, but I truly love her. When the time will come, her time, my door will be open. You and I was nothing but a lie». Me: «PTDR! The first one to lie was you and unfortunately there are witnesses and I won’t be held accountable for lying this time around. First one to lie by telling me you loved me while you still loved Xenna. First one to lie by continuing to sleep with Xenna and Sophie. First one to lie when you said at the same moment as showing me your forearm, there’s still place for your name. There wasn’t one Christmas, one New Year’s Eve, no birthday or even one Valentine’s day in which you didn’t stab me in the back in every possible way. Good luck to you in your denial.». Him: 14:03 «Yes Jennifer, go ahead and persuade yourself. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, I’m out of here, it’s quite clear in my mind. Make good use of your 95 000 Euros by starting with buying your mother a car. A little help would be greatly appreciated on my side. I thank you in advance. I’ll await your answer». 14:07 «For once I ask of your help, the least you could do is give me an answer». 14:09 «Still no answer, you’re exposing yourself now». 14:13 «No need to say anything more». 14:43 «If one day you’re interested in buying my motorcycle, it’s for sale». Me: 16:21 «I find your questions ridicule and inappropriate. You criticize me for having spent 8000 Euros this year alone between house work and piano lessons. Which I did use, I don’t deny it. OK. I’ll just lay some facts on the table for you who affirms your love for Zia without being present for her or have been effectively there for her for no more than a year. Indeed, you didn’t desire Zia, you who doesn’t recognize her as your child as well as doesn’t participate in any way to her education. Then that’s 8000 Euros divided by 48 months, since Zia is 4-years old, which makes 166.66 Euros per month which adds up to your monthly expenses towards her well-being. Remind me of the total spent on a monthly pension on Yannive? Oh right! It’s true that the difference being you desired him, we both agree with this and the facts clearly denote this. Since you insist on running away at 54 years old since you don’t have the courage to take care of your own flesh and blood, I know for fact that the 20 000 Euros you ask of me will be of great aid towards Zia’s education». Him: «You miscalculated. Anyway, I’m simply asking for a little help from your part, I’ll refund the full amount, it’s no big deal. And it’s only 8000 euros over a couple of months, I don’t include the rest. So, can you help me or not? 8000 Euros on 95000 is not going to affect you that much knowing full well you’ll have it back within a year. I need help». Me: «The rest… you played a part in the family life as much as I did!!!». Him: «Can you simply just help me? ». Me: «I think your mother can lend you a hand since she takes so much pride in possessing a pair of woolen socks». Him: «ROTFL! Can you help me? Yes or no? » Me: «Aren’t Bea or Xenna able to help you? ». Him: «So is it a yes or a no? ». Me: «NO». Him: «I just needed help and an honest answer. It’s done, I got my response. I thank you for it.». Step: Who am I? My neurosis and my symptoms «The future is nothing but the present to tidy up. There’s no need to foresee to it, but solely to let it be». Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Why do I feel guilty after not giving him a YES as an answer to his demand? Why do I get the feeling of being the bad guy by saying NO to him? How do I get away from the need to help him out? I’m not Wonder Woman! I don’t fit in her suit! I’m nothing but a hero with a tragic side to it. I personally need to be saved myself. I had run into the perfect partner, which had to be rescued, then time went by and I became more and more depressed, helpless against consequences of a harsh past. At the beginning, I showed my strength when I was down. However, my saviour syndrome’s only purpose was to annihilate the shadow of my past. In return of giving away everything, I expected to nourish the inherited narcissistic wounds suffered during my childhood, while in admiration, in approbation or even in love. Nothing happened apart from reinforcing the same distress felt during my childhood and instead of restoring my self-portrait, I simply humiliated myself more to the point of losing my identity. I found myself lurching back and forth between adversity and dependence, of some sort of confusion felt while in love and from low self-esteem. «I only give out my approval, so you love me more» was the answer my torn heart would have loved to give. I was perfect to the Karpman chart! Hoisted by my own petard! The root of it all is as might be expected to be the entirely erroneous parental love model, in which I, from a younger age, was a spectator of a toxic emotional codependent relationship, where alcohol and verbal violence reigned supreme. All I did was duplicate what I had seen and lived through while surely but not least trying to remedy this painful past I had endured. I am in no way blaming my mother which only mimicked what she had seen as well, this is what we call genogram (The genogram or genosociogram is a variation of the genealogical tree used in psycho-genealogy. It establishes besides the classic family tree, psychological ties having affected the ancestors of the person being studied, or even key events or emotional ties). We care more for our parents than we might think of! Every single one of us tries his best and during her life, my mother was brave enough to address her own challenges so she could pursue the path to resilience as well. I love her, we are both alike, we recognize one another. She still holds dear this verb as a defence which infuriates me deeply and still to this day aggresses me whenever I hear it. But I don’t question her beliefs, her resilience, her defence mechanism which clumsily and scarcely conceals her generous nature… Empathetic. I think we managed to say the words I love you to one another on the day I turned 30, since the day my brother’s illness made us realise how much life can be fragile and that we shouldn’t mourn the dead, but rather celebrate the living. It’s exclusively from being saturated with violence that I taught myself about self-pity. It’s uniquely by allowing myself to feel emotions, by accepting them and by expressing them without pointing fingers that I drew an important lesson and learned to love myself. Jennifer Mallet, L'élégance du cactus/ The sophisticated side of a cactus In the end, the role of being a rescuer wasn’t as gratifying as I thought it’d be! I admit feeling quite fragile at times. I still feel selfish sometimes when I bestow upon myself the right to being happy, alone with myself. I learned to get along with solitude, the silence of my deep reflections. I love to wander in the forest, marvel at the wisdom of the trees, of its splendor without anyone around to startle me and perturb my inner peace. I choose, who, when and how I let someone into my life. Which door to close to conceal my modesty… My value. I won’t be a pearl thrown to a swine no more! “People were conceived to be loved and to love. On the other hand, objects were created to be used. The reason why the world is in ruins is because objects are made to be worshipped and beings left to be used”.  And even if I reached the peak of my Everest as slowly as a snail, the missing pieces of my life have been recovered and the puzzle has now been completed. Whatever one may say, it’s a masterpiece for it made me into what I am today…A heiress of love. Dealing with my pseudo symptoms I had the tendency to cling to those despising me as well as fueling my advocating beliefs of I am not worthy to be loved. I felt even more alone, misunderstood and stigmatized. The climax of my pain revealed itself to be abandonment, the rejection, the disdain and the humiliation suffered while pregnant. I still can’t hide a couple of tears upon writing these few lines. I think the moment is well-chosen, it’s time for my soul to enjoy itself and for myself to go through another phase of healing. How can a being be considered as an abomination when you’re belonging totally to him and while the fruit of your womb bear his very own DNA. When giving life comes as a present, when you inherit this breath of life from Mother Nature which instills this spiritual heritage, abundant with unconditional love, within its heartbeat. That such a miracle be recognised as an atrocity, balderdash or a scalawag? How could I remain indifferent before this! My understanding in the wake of love was clashing with stupefying cruelty. A repudiation, unable of demonstrating the least amount of affection in infertile relationship. And yet again, amidst my vagrancy taking after a softening of my brain, I still conceded him the grace of knowing his daughter. I had nothing to do with this fight, that was another story! Henceforward, everlastingly dishonored while showing her my love, I climbed out of my trench and stormed no Man’s land so Zia could know her Father. To give her at whatever cost it may be the father I never knew. This family that I longed for, that I idealized for and did my very best to invent for her. I took no notice of my pain, dissimulated my face and covered my wounds with bandages so I wouldn’t have to look at them no more, but over the course of time they got infected. I could have opted to forgive all but he didn’t let me, instead he insisted indefatigably on destroying this marvel and little by little, while I was set adrift from the shore, I still managed to attain the other bank on the other side of the river, while on his side and with his irresolute attitude, he decided not to abandon ship which was sinking! It’s suicide and the worst of all is that he knows it well! You can’t lend a helping hand to someone reticent of grabbing it! And if we try, he’ll undeniably drag us along into the abyss with him, amidst the torments of his heart, his bemoaning children’s heart. X- Him Everyone is entitled to their own point of view, but it may turn out that everybody is wrong. Gandhi How can I live with you while you’re struggling with your manliness, by switching either from love to hatred with inconceivable suffering by forcing me on-board your binary vision of nothingness or transforming yourself into a Shakespearian playwright gifted with unbounded creativeness; I’m madly in love with you, passionately or not at all! Like a child walking on a tightrope with no safety net below, you drag me right into your emotional free fall in which your impulsiveness is nothing more than a primitive self-defense technique inducing flight or fight. For your part, the concept of favorite vice quickly loses its alluring side on the grounds of moderation not being your ethos. Anger is nothing but a mere ailment to you! An alter-ego issue! To vanquish or to meet one’s end even if it means destroying everything in your path or when your compulsiveness ripens into addictions (sex, drugs, tobacco…). And wherein, in turn, I become the object of your obsession, an addiction. At times Doctor Jekyll and other times Mister Hide, I was buffeted from excessive idealizations to feelings of worthlessness amidst your gelid emotional states, your lightheartedness, whether they were real or fabricated. Dealing with you in these times was unfeasible. You rocked back and forth from profound anxiety to irritability whereas extreme anger and a severe depression were almost certain to appear. Thus, ensued feelings of chronic emptiness, blameworthiness, shamefulness and of obloquy and abandonment. And then we’d hop on the rollercoaster once again for another ride. I relentlessly had to reassure you that I loved you. An aborted childhood straight out of a disaster scenario! Thereupon, you’d make me pay for the fear I had of being forsaken, you used it against me like blackened clouds vehemently discharge their lightning bolts. In a toxic mist, you’d set up a sufficient amount of tension between the two electrons we were at the time so to create an electrical discharge and feel alive at my own expense, you made me into your own personal scapegoat… Lousy rescuer syndrome… Take Isis for example: “Dropped off two times at the Humane Society, she suffered physical abuse and was poorly loved, doomed simply due to her pedigree, I adopted her. Take a closer look at her behavior, she suffers today from emotional dependence by perpetually following me around and clinging to me for fear of being abandoned. She’s unable to trust people, she either loves them or fears them and be weary of trying to pet her if she hasn’t given you permission. She’s jealous and would love to have me all to herself. She does everything in her power to attract my attention. She’s so stubborn while relentlessly testing out my authority. She behaves like a puppy struggling with a lack of affection, it’s never enough for her, she swings back and forth between overexcitement and depression, laying in her bed while not having the courage to drag herself out of it. I incessantly need to encourage her with positive energy, so she can win her confidence back and dare face the world once again”. A heart can be tamed with lots of tenderness! The diagnostic is made, Isis is borderline! And you’re a wounded dog ready to bite the first person prone to lending you a helping hand! Henry was conceived behind the church where is mother had herself erected the brick wall of the catholic school she was attending at 18 years of age. In order of concealing her pregnancy, her hand was given in a forced marriage and Henry’s birth passed under the radar as a premature delivery. Then followed denial, violence and the assault and battery of a man which he though was his father and which did not love him. The man in question died in a car accident while Henry was 20 years old. It wasn’t until he turned 47 that he uncovered the biggest lie of his life and would learn that the man who beat him all through his childhood wasn’t his biological father. Henry’s parents divorced while he and his sister were infants, their mother indulged herself in the practice of voodoo and orgies while they were left on the back seat of her car during winters, so she could get her leg over… They were both exposed to fondling and participated to the orgies as involuntary victims and under the watching eye of their mother which took pleasure in seeing them being treated as objects. Before the physical and mental incapacity of her daughter, their grandmother took them under her wings. Thus, Henry grew up having access to all the material well-being he needed, but unfortunately without some tender loving care and while enjoying the dangerous life. He won himself the reputation of being a hot-headed person as well as someone having been skinned alive. Rocking back and forth between bulimia and anorexia, without mentioning dysmorphophobia until he met the love of his life… Alcohol. You’re right Henry, I don’t know you that well! It’s not easy for a borderline to live as a couple and the same can be said about the partner. The main problem of a Borderline person is that he has no recognition of the other person’s implication amidst the couple. Whenever I read over Henry again, I realize he’s always seeking a validation for his delirium or for what he does or says around his daughters or some ex-girlfriend. A relationship is the root of a lot of suffering for him, which he’ll try nonchalantly of bestowing upon myself. I’m making you suffer so you feel the same as I do like a common identification which will forever link us to one another. Identity unconsciousness, chronic void, fear of abandonment, he will incessantly need to be reassured. He’ll then make relentless efforts so to avoid being forsaken, whether the fear is real or simply a figment of his imagination. Then being unsure due to his irrational thinking, he made his getaway while suffering from a panic attack succeeded by a violent fit, addiction, decompensation or deep depression. He suffers from recurring behaviors, actions and habits which he fails to notice! And he permanently inflicts auto-sabotage upon himself. Henry suffers from emotional instability marked by his mood-swings which alter from depression to anger, from anxiety to irritability and from valorization to devaluation. «We break up with each other to get back together, then we get back together so we can break up with one another». We were both dealing with a low self-esteem issue when we orchestrated which we feared the most, rejection. Henry doesn’t split to break up but rather to avoid being caught red-handed after smelling the slightest sign of rejection for fear of drowning into unreality. The goal of this behavior is to leave him under the impression of being in control while attempting to reassure himself amidst the rupture so to see if I care about him. Subsequently to his acute crises, a few days or months later, he acknowledged his errors and would agonize over the fact that I wasn’t going to do everything in my power to dissuade him from leaving. Then would inevitably ensue a long waiting period when the Penelope syndrome would arise (the fact of repeatedly doing something over again) … auto-destruction. The background which he incessantly reproduced was the feeling of not being worthy of love and acting with sheer doggedness as he did, not to mention with a sense of superiority and of sterile and naïve perfectionism, he often ended up being hated, rejected, devalued and unconsidered. XI-Aside from the women of his life And then I began to reflect on the women of his life, Bea, Xenna and I. All different and yet sharing something in common… the absence of our father. And as in the article written by Géraldine Prévot-Gigant, all three relationship models in the Borderline pathology are found. Bea: «she prefers brown hair over grey, having a yearly subscription to tales of impossible romance, often represented at the movies, and which transcend her, but never lasts too long. Originating from a great lack of emotions with a visceral fear of abandonment as well as a raging shortage of self-love, she will unremittingly relive her personal tragedy while systematically placing herself in a situation deemed to fail. A risk to be taken like a daily intake of drugs where the dearth is replaced by the enthusiasm of a new relationship. At the root of an unresolved Oedipus complex. Bea lives on her own along with epistolary relationships reproducing the family genogram with and through her son». Xenna: Or more precisely when a borderline person meets another borderline: «you mean the world to me». A pairing of two hypersensitive and insecure souls, an alliance which will peremptorily lead to fireworks. The partnership kicks off in high gear where fusion and idealization are the foundation of this new love affair. Consequently, this passionate relationship shifts from idealization «You’re the only one» to derogation «I’m disappointed in you» or rather «you don’t reassure me». Both shall find their drug in this love felt for one another and attempt to seduce oneself looking at their own reflection in the other person’s mirror. In this relationship, idealization morphs into denigration, the Prince Charming reveals himself as Sleeping Beauty and the femme fatale turns out to be an ordinary lady. In either case, both are mesmerized by the mirage defined by this thought «this person shall grant me all the love in the world. This lack of love that has been forever at my side». Eventually it proves to be a case of «you’re the person who has made me suffer the most in this world» An ineradicable self-destructiveness in which both being immersed into a state of limit will push back the other into his retrenchment to the point of causing a total meltdown. Xenna will opt to intermittently share her life for the good times, without any unmanageable emotional commitment with a tolerable and versatile devotion instead. Me: I chose to stay away from love. And instinctively from the reflection of this unrequited self-love, I would run into people unable to pay attention to me and give me affection, begetting solely upon myself a continual stumbling upon the detached and cold attitude of the lovelorn beings coming across my path and which I considered as normal. And as a demand, my need to feel loved would be considered as an exaggeration. Consistently settling for the crumbs and feeling as though my hunger and my thirst were never quenched, I’d perfectly fit into the mould of codependency. Having limited expectancy, I’d let my agony accentuate itself. My syndrome inflicted on me the tendency of forming attachments to people who didn’t love me or that had the inability of forming ties with anyone which would uphold my belief of «I’m not worth it, I’m drowning in hopelessness. My love turns out to be unmeritorious». All this leaving me even more alone and misunderstood. During my pregnancy, I stood at the crossroad of two routes, one leading to life while the other paved the way further down a dreary path. Rejection and disengagement reached such a climax that before the coldness, the dishonor, disavowal, treason, absence of love, mockeries and humiliation, either I committed suicide or chose life. XII- The last word Him: «I carefully reread, Jennifer, crying our eyes out sometimes and turning against one another at other times while experiencing a wide range of emotions. One thing is certain, we fell in and out of love with one another. Obviously, it’s over. I don’t blame you for it Jennifer, but I will need time to forgive you. You can be proud of who you are». I would have loved to see our story have a happy ending, but you need to play to win! After 3 months of being apart from his daughter, all while he had just reconnected with her by babysitting her on Wednesday afternoons only, he brought her home to me while he was in an altered state of mind with his breath reeking of alcohol and his unbearable attitude… Zia had talked nonsense about me so to make him happy, utterance formulated with the help of words emanating from her own 4 year-old mouth! Coming home for a 15 minutes break in between two clients so to take care Isis’ needs, my Amstaff dog, he brought Zia back home along with a whole bunch of controversy. Despite her father’s restlessness, she wanted to stay by his side while repeating to him: «daddy, I love you, I want to stay with you» and amidst her gut-wrenching cries added: «Daddy, I promise to stay quiet». Acting out of solemn idiocy, he proceeded in abandoning her like a crib ditched on the steps of a church, leaving me throwing up my hands in despair as 5 minutes of my time was all I had left to adjust to the situation. Rage took hold of me and my heart was overwhelmingly torn between my professional duties and my daughter. While my head was upside down, I was off to work. It’s difficult to be actively listening while your emotions are free-falling! I have no clue on how I can manage to absorb my emotions without repressing them just enough to switch hats and completely forget about myself just in time for another session. It wasn’t until I got back home and proceeded in having a discussion with Zia that I confessed to her: «Daddy is not thinking straight and his behavior his abnormal, there’s no need for you to put up with these absurdities so you feel loved or make someone happy. Take me for example, I love you even though you’re sulking, you’re angry or you’re getting in trouble. You have nothing to do with daddy’s behavior and you certainly don’t need to suffer from it, change your attitude to please him or say whatever he wants to hear as a matter of fact. Mommy tried this previously and it never worked! Be yourself and express your feelings whether they like it or not» Zia: «Only God can heal daddy’s heart, then I get down on my knees and pray». Me: «It’s the best reaction you can have in these circumstances, when you feel sad, just pray, when you feel happy, pray, in any circumstances, just pray». Zia: «God I beg you to cure my daddy’s aching heart, to console him from his sadness and his anger. He got mad at mommy, deliver him from his illness». I always had the conviction that children were not hostages and that we needed to act towards them by taking their happiness into account while keeping everything balanced. Some decisions are harder to make… I asked Zia what she preferred. Continue to see her father or stay at home. Without a shadow of a doubt, she answered: “Stay at home”. We came to a common agreement to allow some time to her father, so he could heal… Me: “Taking a 4 -year old’s statement at face value, being unable to rationally forget oneself and make a well-considered decision while only focalising yourself on your own unhappiness isn’t acting like an adult. 3 months without seeing her, drowning your sorrows before her and acting the way you did isn’t suitable in any way. It’s self-destructive! Not to mention I had warned you beforehand. So please take time to resolve your internal conflicts, leave the past behind, but for the moment and until further notice, I strictly forbid you from seeing Zia while you’re in this state and I’ll clearly explain everything to her. Nothing is set in stone, but you’re unable to cope with your emotions and take care of her at the same time. Once again, I had to compensate for your ineptitude. The fact that I had to work never crossed you mind or worse yet that your disproportionate and inappropriate behavior have consequences for a 4-year-old. From now on, I’ll never put my trust in you when it comes to Zia”. Him: “I simply want you to know that I’m saddened for everything my little girl has to put up with, she doesn’t deserve any of this, especially me acting like a fool of a father like I am. I can’t find the strength to bounce back, I have too much weight on my shoulders. I’ll try and draw on my last resources, but it’s easier said than done. Tell her that despite appearances, I love her with all my heart and think about her every second. And that she’ll need to gather up the strength to carry on. Give lots of kisses to my princess”. “It’s more appropriate to withdraw from a situation and leave a fond memory than it is to insist on staying and turning into something unbearable. We don’t lose what we never had, we don’t get to keep what doesn’t belong to us and we can’t hang on to what doesn’t want to stay. And if we gather the courage to say farewell, well life will reward us by replacing it with a new Good Morning”. Paulo Coelho Thus, with the remainder of my courage, I will advance my pawn on the chessboard with a strategy consisting of abstract combinations leading up to fate and firmly believe all the bullshit ending with a “It’s for life”. I refuse to let expectations die off! I understood that many times, I confused hope with illusions. Hope is illusions’ antonym. To hope for is to consider oneself being able to stay true to oneself or to carry out something, an act or something else. Illusions, Illusions are nothing more than the inevitable result of vileness, deception and of a long and pious intentions. Being an heiress of love doesn’t satisfy me and I want more. I never get fed up of loving and prioritize the latter before a wait. «Life is too short to lose ourselves in it and to lose our time with it because while waiting it’s our soul that we lose along the way». Jean-Michael MALLET  XIII- Rehab During my emotional rehab, I went through a delicate stage in which I fell under the charm of someone I didn’t know. I’m not a die-hard fan of his like some people, in fact I saw at most 4 of his movies, but I persuaded myself that we were made for one another! I’m 41 years-old, I’m no longer a teenager living out her sexual desire by taking a virtual love potion that her idol dripping of testosterone handed her through the screen. Both of my feet are firmly on the ground! Anchored in real awakenings, making out with cold ashtrays while I do my utter best to stay fresh, aside from the rosé wine I indulged in the day before which makes it hard to recognize myself under its influence. From these underpants where medallions are always found, the masculinity proudly displayed in the last drop falling into the basket. Or whenever you find yourself under the covers, while both bodies are heavy like the ones of stallions which ran out of gas, surrendering into Morpheus’ arms, they’ll enter into a gas warfare instead of making love. But then what is the consequence of this reality amidst my fortified psyche? What is this unreasonable love? Acting as my own eagle-eyed detective, I immersed myself between reason and passion. And this time, I didn’t reach the disillusionment of an early conclusion by declaring myself as a non compos mentis girl. I then started watching methodically a few of his movies so I could understand his artistic background which I didn’t know. To be honest, up until now, I had only seen 3 or 4 of his movies. I watched his interviews to see him enact and so to decrypt his personality traits found in his non verbal behavior. Why him and not another? Why does Keanu Reeves, depicting an idealized love or a compensatory fantasy, morph into the silverback of my dreams? Well determined in conducting a full-fledged inquiry on our commonalities, I aspired in confronting myself in ordinary fashion to the point of reverting back to the standard definition of the verb to love. Despite embodying the object of my escapism in front of the deplorable reality of my love situation, my overflowing erotic energy launched itself in search of the next pretender which would satisfy my needs. Is it his notoriety, his charisma or the social recognition to which he is subjected that fascinates me? Why do normal men of every day life fail to give rise to any interest on my part? Is this long-distance love affair a way to prevent me from not exposing myself to the torment generated by a genuine relationship? According to F.Alberoni “The feminine reverie, so to speak, presumably has the awareness of containing amidst its core something valuable, something that every man desires” Like an actress pretending to fall in love with her screen partner while attributing to him the mental traits of the hero elaborated in the script, each one of them respectively a captive of the characters they bring to life with their own perception and recognition, it’s with great skepticism, I infiltrated the discreet universe seen through the eyes of a fan. I then sought to understand and decrypt the universe of a groupie so I could analyse my emotional progress, to better tame these emotions and understand them despite being unreasonable and deprived of sense… What does it mean to be fan of someone we don’t know? What is this devotion for a public figure? Is it because he is handsome, despite being a question of subjective appreciation? Because we like to see him incarnate a role onscreen? Or because he’s a human being and is close to his public or to people in general? I never understood how a fan of a celebrity could be subjugated to someone who is unaware of his existence. One needs to know that the feeling is not reciprocal, unless it’s a romantic comedy. Why would someone need to take a picture with him, why do paparazzi chase after him in order to get the scoop that will sell big? And above all, what purpose does this serve, what is the goal, the interest? X is bored, X has a new girlfriend, X takes off on a road trip, X barfed, X looks extenuated... Objectively speaking, who the hell cares! What does knowing all the details of his life bring to people if it’s only to be part of something through proxy in a way that is as random as it is unrealistic. Wanting to know more about this erotomania, I indulged in social media to attempt to understand and decrypt behaviors often ferocious as well as the interest which the most common of mortals have in having their picture taken alongside their super-heroes, half-Eros, bearded greying semi-Gods elevated to the status of star. An actress or a singer can both be loved. You may also admire them and take example on them. However, being a fan is more than meets the eye... It’s a one-way relationship in which you spend the time and energy on someone who loves you very much... Amidst a multitude of other people like you and which that person refers to as his fans. That is the plain truth: by taking on the role of a fan, not only do you stop being an entirely unique being, but you also become a group or a multitude. Thus, ensues a psychological narrowing on your part. After a certain age, being a fan or a groupie transcends into a realization of a deep feeling of unease and of an inferiority complex. The star then mirrors your aspirations. He doesn’t incarnate a source of inspiration to which you want to reach out. He’s a consolation prize: what you are not and will never be either, you’ll only obtain this prize through him and alongside him as well. It’s the reason why you live by proxy. Remember: his feelings, successes and failures become yours. You also end up imitating him: his attitude, the way he dresses, his haircut, his makeup, the way he talks and it may also go as far as loving the same type of women or men as that person. He’ll settle comfortably inside your psyche because you are incomplete. You have a void to fill and need his presence in your life. But what you need to understand is that only you can fill in that void. Keanu Reeves doesn’t relate to the image of the mysterious and handsome dark haired man as seen in the Matrix, or simply the actor he is, but rather to a memory I forged at the time I was still married to Fabian and at which moment I made his cousin believe that Fabian was his cousin, due to their physical resemblance and thus I depicted him as something reassuring. Furthermore, according to the general public’s portraying of him, he would be meek and humble of heart, altruistic and generous, impassioned by martial arts and a motorcycle enthusiast as well as a talented artist. He has a calm temperament, enjoys a good laugh and loves to tickle other’s fancy, simple yet sophisticated, at ease with his solitude while hating to be alone. I needed no more to identify myself with him and to find my kindred spirit! Or even worse yet, the hardships and emotional difficulties he suffered along his life trajectory… “Most people know me, but don’t know my story. At the age of three, my father left us. We stayed in touch for a few years, but after the divorce and moving from city to city, we fell out of contact. I attended four different high schools and struggled with dyslexia, making my education more challenging than it is for most. Eventually I left high school without earning a diploma, though sheer will, I became an avid reader now. At the age of 23, my closest friend River Phoenix died of a drug overdose. During a Reddit AMA last year, Keanu said: “He was a remarkable human person and actor. We got along very well, and I miss him. I think of him often.” In 1998, I met Jennifer Syme. We fell instantly in love and by 1999, Jennifer was pregnant with my daughter. Sadly, after eight months, our child was born stillborn. We were devastated by her death and it eventually ended our relationship. 18 months later, Syme would later die in a car accident. My youngest sister battled leukaemia. She has fully recovered from the illness. I gave 70% of the amount collected for my role in the Matrix to cancer research. I am one of the few Hollywood stars which doesn’t own a manor. I have no body guards and I don’t wear fashion clothes. And even though I’m worth well over 350 M$, I still take the subway and I love it. So in the end, I think we can all pretty well agree that even in the face of tragedy, a person can still thrive. Whatever life throws at us, we are able to prevail over it. Life is worth living.” Keanu Reeves On my side, people don’t know me and don’t know my story, not for now anyway. I will certainly not attain 2 million views, but: I don’t recall having memories of my father other than the act that we were struck by fear when he’d come around ringing our doorbell as we’d hurry to hide under our beds. When my mother remarried herself with my father-in-law, we’d wander from city to city while being unable to take root anywhere. Dyslexic and dyscalculic, I remember learning dictations by heart while repeating the same mistakes over and over. I’d recopy the words 100 times without remembering how to write them. My father-in-law would make me read Molière, Balzac, Hugo and Baudelaire and would punish me by making me read the dictionary. This enriched my culture and today I thank him for it, but it never helped to fix my dyslexia just like making me recopy multiplication tables never helped me either. I was a turbulent and violent child. My best friend died in a motorcycle accident when I was 18. I went through 9 advanced miscarriage from which I suffered greatly. On top of that, my brother had his cancer which took him in the end. Despite all this, I never once gave up on love. And in spite of the uncertainties of my story, I always thought the best had yet to come, I always looked on the positive side of things even though permanent marks are left. Without drama or tears, because it is made out of sufferings which only cry from within. In your exile, learn to come back around without being late… Keanu Reeves while being emotionally exiled in this avowed fantasy went through several ephemeral relationships while persuading himself he was fit to love like a procedure of avoiding an intimate reality far too painful to bear, a series of unconcluded bereavements without the possibility of privately connecting with someone due to an engine failure caused by fearfulness. Was the solution lying in getting out of a relationship to build another on steady grounds or building a stable relationship to get out of another? He then proceeded in cleansing his body with the help of evening romps while trying to reclaim his soul, from which his heart had regrettably fled from. He then finally proceeded in erecting a mausoleum amidst it in remembrance of all the cherished souls he dearly loved whose lives were brutally taken away from him. Sex clearly not emanating from the same semantic field as love, but rather being a territory which he appropriated himself with, Keanu Reaves clearly believed he would be able to love again while caring about love itself. As an injured man, he never reclaimed his territory, this small parcel of happiness to which our hearts belong. He also indefinitely mistaken love with the absence of love. Under these conditions, it’s far easier to give than it is to receive which gives rise to a well appreciated partner but also turns out to be the easiest way of forgetting about oneself, of not confronting ourselves to our reality. Being uneasy about being an avid womanizer seeking happiness, he is also such a perfectionist that it makes him choleric while never holding back on expressing his own truths. However it doesn’t affect the fact that he is a protective and big-hearted man as well as one which possesses immeasurable emotional and intellectual strengths. Or at least I’d like to think of him that way! Here I am mistaking my anthropological adventure for reality... But let us get back to our sheep, why did I focus on a man which seemed so familiar to me and which I shared a common identity in his brokenness. Was it my Mother Theresa syndrome barging in on me once again as I felt the urge to save him from himself or the fact that he would make me realize that perhaps he’d be inclined to heal me through his own misery? Not at all, the fact of the matter was that he could prove himself to be far from an absolute ideal, because even if I started developing an interest for his trade and what he does as an actor, he is far from representing my ideal man. He’d rather turn out to be someone with which I could share so many similarities to the point that we’d recognize one another in a respectful feeling of mutual reciprocity towards each other in an inherently fashion, a way to safeguard our differences or our authenticity all in all while remaining unscathed through the journey. Considering that we are dead to our eyes, the other person no longer represents our happiness, but participates to it. In my mind, he could turn out to be the person with which I could live a balanced existence knowing now what I’d be worth or what I was.... Amidst this reconstructing process, I’m preparing myself to welcoming not a lost soul to save like I did in the past but rather an alter ego which’s life experience will not act as a hindrance but more likely like a force of love. And I firmly believe in this regard that Keanu Reeves fought as best as he could while always keeping in mind despite the adversity to keep on loving. It may be the basis of my sweet daydreaming because my gut feeling tells me he is a man reaching emotional maturity like myself, which makes him furthermore human and accessible, a simple man because on one side or the other of the screen, the problem remains the same, just as the quest. I set the bar high, not in the sense of being a public persona, but in the sense that I identify him as an alter ego. Like someone suiting my needs in terms of faith, intelligence, passion, reflection, maturity and emotiveness. Finally, unconsciously, I’d like him to be an oaf to avoid wasting my time by devoting my kindness to his cause and in return he’d clutch my soul to his heart like a tractor wheel crushes dung under its weight. A certain validation or proof that my love radar is definitely out of tune. Illusion or reality... Only the future can tell me because in order for me to edit this book where I am as bare as an earthworm and openly reveal my imperfections, I’ll have to gather all my courage to hand it over to him personally. Either he’ll turn out being a big idiot or either I’m correct and if so, my firewall will kick into high gear… Here I just identified my problem… Fear is behind this sweet reverie. I’ll need to advance while exposing myself because love dispels fear. And that’s what my heart tells me to do. Thus, just in case... « I’ll dress up as if I was meeting the love of my life, my ex and my worst enemy». The best possible recognition I may get today has to be being loved for who I am along with all my flaws so everything that is pristine amidst my soul’s temple may be cherished as a treasure instead of something bland. «It takes lots of courage to love women scorned by the past, especially the ones which are strong of nature while having a tender heart. It takes a great deal of love to heal their wounds and disillusions. But above all, one needs to be witty while dealing with them due to their maturity and to the experience they’ve gathered simply because they’ve lost faith in their feelings and only pay attention to what you’re ready to do for them». Walter Riso According to a British study, actors have a particularly strong personality nearing psychosis in its healthy form which gives them the ability and the resources to play around with their characteristics with ease. Being a comedian would in fact turn out in being a form of auto-medication. If the chance to please a vast audience has no known equal in the acting trade, ego along with the love and affection of the scene on the other hand turns out to be a favorable environment to reap their dosage of acceptance. The truth being that narcissistic people have the tendency to believe in their creativity. However, narcissism conceals a multitude of weaknesses. “We become egotistical or rather self-centered. Since we constantly need to focus, control, to watch and study ourselves so we can put the best of ourselves to use. By constantly pampering ourselves, the danger of falling prey to narcissism becomes increasingly real”. Catherine Deneuve. I have no intention of becoming an actress, it’s complicated enough as it is to act out our own life! No I have other kinds of questions! How do actors and actresses manage to pull through while shooting love scenes, especially when they’re in a relationship? Because after watching everything I could put my hand on the subject, I still cannot manage to differentiate the simulation and the real act... What’s the difference between caressing and licking? Is it simulation? I call this preliminaries because when my vagina is exposed to such gestures, it contracts itself and it excites me to the point of reaching the orgasm. Or whenever two bodies rub against one another so to simulate the act, I call it a collective act of masturbation. Besides, when we observe their faces, they don’t seem to simulate anything... Some things cannot be mimicked! Moreover, some scenes are authentic... And they’re more and more frequent the although always evidently being portrayed with a cinematographic care so to transcend the 7th art and being as realistic as possible... I absolutely love Yvan ATTAL, a marvelous actor and brilliant director, but above all a man which confided himself to Vanity Fair during an interview while talking about the jealousy he felt while seeing his wife share intimate moments with her screen partners: Oddly enough, I kind of felt unaffected with Lars Von Trier (Antichrist, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac). But seeing her with Romain Duris in the movie Persecution directed by Chérau, even though it was nothing compared to the scenes observed in Nymphomaniac, it happened at a moment when it was too much to handle. Enough. Yvan Attal then took the decision to never again look at his wife at work on screen. I’d approach the subject on a fun not, but seriously, I was fed up with seeing her with other men in movies. Some individuals feel jealous of their lover’s colleagues while I, on the other hand, need to cope with seeing my wife, being the actress she is, at work right before my eyes: I identify the enemies right away. I don’t know why I should inflict this upon myself. What a funny job it is to see one’s wife or husband make love to someone else before our very own eyes! No? Does it serve the movie’s veracity? Or is it not just voyeurism or exhibitionism on one side or the other of the screen? What happens to this sense of belonging that is intimacy and which unites two beings? Isn’t the body simply seen as an object to their eyes? And then if sex is nothing less than an instrument to desire, what is left to share when words are not enough for lovers to express their love? Might as well masturbate! Yes, I know I can be quite a romantic one! I then make pretend by imagining our first meeting to be symbiotic and that amidst the magic of emotional cinematography shared by two homo sapiens, we’d be able to read one another’s soul to perfection. But then I realize that I wouldn’t like to be seen in public with him so to avoid making the front cover of the scandal tabloids where you could read: Another girlfriend for Keanu Reeves, a stranger... How humiliating! There’s nothing gratifying to be labeled as a temporary toy! Or yet again, They’ve split!, while hearing someone scream out: Look it’s the girl who wrote a book and got dumped by Keanu Reeves, no but honestly, what went through her mind? She must still believe in fairy tales! To live a happy life is to stay clustered up in between four walls, that is my motto! Yet again hidden... under a helmet, we can’t really see anything! What I’d like to express it that notoriety distorts reality when you’re attracted to the human being behind it. In my case anyway it’s a dead-end! I’m not a giddy little teenage girl seeking to getting lost in his eyes, I’m a man... If many prefer to fantasize instead of dreaming, Picasso said: To have a successful life, one must not betray too much his childhood dreams. Thus I clearly say to you, I don’t believe in prince charming, I believe in love! It’s true that by accepting notoriety, he saw his life become infested with paparazzi on a daily basis. And I find it surprising to see him so close to his public while remaining the simple guy he is. I believe he needs a lot of patience at times and that he often needs to take a stand in order to keep the little intimacy he has left. In regard to the fact that he like to lead a normal life by taking the subway or drinking a coffee sitting down on a terrace without protection... either it’s extremely wise of his part, or it’s recklessness to think that everyone will be friendly with him, even if it’s true most of the time. But imagine Keanu Reeves sitting at home with his family and that suddenly someone breaks in, like it happened in the past...His reality is simple, he only has himself to manage! However, having the soul of an artist repressed into a profound part of myself, I can understand in a certain way, their urge to scream out “Love me” whenever they’re onscreen. I had nevertheless too low of a self-esteem to take the leap, notwithstanding the vast array of chances that were given to me. Mediocrity was dearer to me, I looked on from the sidelines as I undermined my hidden talents. At the beginning of the 80’s, I remember being approached by a lady with greyish semi-long hair, she impressed me by her determination and her charismatic personality. I found out much later that the devil wears Prada just like Grace Mirabella. She had spotted me on the beach and had drawn herself near me while uttering these words. “I had to go on vacation to cross your path. How old are you? 12! You’re still too young, but I can keep an eye on you for a couple of years because working with minors is highly regulated. Are you’re parents with you? Where do you live?” I felt uneasy about being questioned so intrusively. Then she handed me her card while suggesting to me to talk about it with my parents. I was surprised anyone would be interested in me, I mentioned the encounter to my mother which gave me a weird answer. -“If someone wanted to hire you at the Crazy Horse, would you go?” Knowing full-well her religious background and the fact that she has a problem with nudity and sexuality, her question was closed-ended! And that was the end of the story. The problem with my mother is that she didn’t believe in me. The same scenario occurred when I shared my intentions of learning to play the piano starting when I was three-year old. Problem was that this instrument was quite noisy… I then made one out of a box, so I could practice and appease my need. As soon as I found myself facing a real piano, I’d play frenetically on it like a prisoner who just regained her freedom. Feeling demeaned by my uncultivated knowledge of the instrument, I’d admire those who had mastered it and could stay countless hours listening to them in total awe. It’s thanks to my stepsister, which recognized the failure of an artist I was and dragged me to the entrance of Geneva’s conservatory, which I later dropped out of due to the lack of means of subsistence I had. My dance teacher, which had studied in New York and worked on Broadway, told me: “I’ve never seen anyone progress that fast in all my career”. It’s easy to be wrong when you only take feelings into account and shove the facts aside. I certainly didn’t think I had a talent for it. During class, she’d always stand firmly behind me while being highly demanding towards me while I interpreted her actions as aggressiveness towards my nullity. Then after 5 dance lessons, the diagnosis fell: “I have nothing more to teach you, you’re a coloratura soprano, you can sing on 5 octaves.” In order for me to become a singer, they insisted on flying me into Germany, but I was personally more attracted to jazz… Thus, I wandered from pubs to karaoke bars or some deserted concert venues where I’d have but a mere walk-on role. I assumed the role of a choreographer for a few events, became a dance teacher in a private school in Geneva and choreographed some fashion shows for young talented designers with a very bright future. What I enjoy the most in art of any kind is to be exceed one’s expectations. The sky is the limit, you constantly learn, it’s a growing experience in which you learn to live differently. However, who teaches us the art of love? XIV-The Cosmic Faith I’m like a bird which learned to sing from the gloom. Silence represents an open-sky prayer to my eyes, my consciousness shuts itself off to let my emotions as well as my spirituality take over. Solitude unfolds upon me as a dressing. I tamed it, it no longer scares me. I take pleasure and delight in this universe which is scrutinizing me. It has nothing to do with self-sufficiency, in fact it’s quite the opposite as it lets me discover the needs of others amidst sharing, reciprocity and authenticity. I refocus on myself amidst it, contemplate my surroundings, observe the world, analyze everything, I discover things, I laugh, I cry seemingly without moral concerns and even-tempered. «Sadness comes around whenever the inevitable imposes itself upon us, when we lose something or someone and that nothing can bring them back». Tiffany Watt Smith I express my sorrow without guilt nor belittling . Because even though this sadness is hiding, suppressed and scorned, it plays a role which is more likely to let us give up certain things in order to move forward. This meant that the emotional blockage I was caught up in was slowly but surely collapsing. By accepting to live out this sadness not only do you move through your grief, but you allow yourself to heal, to bid farewell so that you may give a warm welcome to something new. Sorrow is good for the soul, it’s poetry in itself and we need to get along with it. To live out one’s emotions lets you get closer to yourself because they are pure and primary amidst unconditional love. However, in a world where the absence of love is king, to love is synonym with going against the tide! As a result of a lack of proper education, I had to learn to give on my own without exposing myself to plunder, theft or violence. To avoid coming to terms with our past translates into a failure to reconcile with oneself! And behind this factual background lies the verb to forgive. Being unable to forgive consequently channels circumstances along with their respective grips before self-respect. Because whenever we are able to forgive, we let go of negative references in order to let new ones in. The purpose of forgiveness is to win ourselves back. Without forgiveness, love relinquishes voluntarily. Love does not yield forgiveness, it is rather forgiveness which generates love! -“Father forgive them for they know not what they do”. By pronouncing these words, Jesus then created love where only desolation and death reigned! Now put yourself in his shoes, or rather in his sandals. This man got lapidated, was slashed with a whip 40 times minus one before he got humiliated… How on earth did he manage to say such a thing? Well I believe he pronounced such words while letting love into his heart to make way for forgiveness. A lot of forgiveness is needed to heal, a lot of courage to forgive and a lot of willingness to move forward. As I am concerned, we will each be confronted by three challenges over the course of our lives, the ones which we go through in punishment and the ones which are imposed upon us through learning or while being raised. The ones which bear fruits as well as the ones acting as pesticides to them... And finally the ones which we inflict on ourselves. Learning to differentiate them marks the starting line of reclaiming oneself... In a relationship, it’s the same as saying the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence when all you need to do is water it so it stays green. Naturally you need to have a sufficient water source at your disposal. It’s quite clear that green grass is rarer on dry lands. However, upon contemplating the desert following the rainy season, we realize at what point it’s a natural reserve filled with seeds awaiting the smallest drop of water to emerge from the ground. I had to face my biggest challenge yet by taking on the filth of my life and forgive him in order for me to move forward and recreate love amidst a poisoned and infertile land. We haven’t discovered every resource which our planet has to offer to us and which solely manifest themselves through respect. Thus, if forgiveness leads to love, then it incarnates itself in respect and the highest form of self-recognition, showing us the true form of love... Finally, if being yourself means to be a nobody amidst Sweet Fanny Adams? What if our passage on this Earth was nothing more than a nonsensical fantasy where many were taking themselves too seriously? What is the very essence of life’s meaning in its eternity? When we consider Earth’s sized compared to the immensity of both our galaxy and the universe, we can easily ascertain that the infinitely large and the infinitely small intermingle amidst the human being. To be insignificant in his corporeality while nonetheless containing a treasure which he ignores completely. Amidst his frenzied quest concocted from someone’s deceitful intent, Man completely desynchronized his reality while wreaking havoc on his path, this path that he had to keep an eye on as a priest. Unwilling to sacrifice himself, he instead offered up humanity to avoid sanctifying himself… Tomorrow never dies! The three S theory is quite simple and has nothing to do with a catholic doxa which like any other religion comes from the State and was created by men and for the needs of men while appropriating itself with unconditional love as well as cosmic faith, which both belong to everyone, by using it as an instrument amidst a dichotomy between good and evil. All this while in fact only two kingdom govern us: love and the absence of love. Religions put forward the work and all the sacrifices in order to attain a spiritual elevation, a reward as a mean of negotiating a spot in heaven or its redemption. Which consequently consists in the destruction or the suppression of the natural and gratuitous thing that is love. Sacrificing something in the religious sense means to destroy or to put to death which in comparison with the terms of love is incoherent. Religious sacrifices are a state of deprivation, of displeasure and drudgery, it’s even displeasure which establishes the sacrifice’s merit. I think that if God exists, he has no need for that. It’s as though we wanted to influence him! Society dwells on this model in order to operate, we live in a world run by influences… In the three S theory: 1. The Sacrificer or executioner: he’s in charge of manifesting the very root of love unlike post-flood religions, Muslims, Judeo-Christians, Buddhist, Hindus or Satanic cults pretend to rather see it as an atoning sacrifice of blood. Let us give back the role of executioner to Man, the very same role which lets him dominate through love, goodwill and protection in preference to slavery, terror, hatred, violence, massacre, ethnic cleansing and enslavement of the population. 2.To sacrifice oneself: “If praying is indicative of what Man thinks of himself, then sacrifice reflects what God thinks of Man…” In human reasoning, to sacrifice means to forsake something or someone in favor of something or someone else to which we grant primacy to, for instance letting go of your friends to fulfill your ambitions. In psychology, a sacrifice reveals itself as surrendering or negating oneself. Religiously speaking, that meaning transcends itself as a ceremonial offering to a deity in order to keep a good relation with the sacred order, reset it when Man has strayed away from it or even open his eyes to its existence. However, if by any means the sacrifice is put back in context with love, then it turns out as being a gift coming from oneself. I think that seeing the sunrise everyday constitutes our life’s sanctification. I live everyday to the fullest by telling myself: the earth is still going round, everything works today, as long as it lasts Olivier de Kersauson 3.To sanctify: It’s a state of grace. It translates into a wake-up call of the position we hold with all due respect to love. This process will inevitably lead us to the realization and give rise to feelings of joy, happiness, inner peace and completeness. As opposed to the way religion wants to enforce it, as a spiritual discipline consisting in purging one’s sins from his soul. The worry being the difference observed from one kingdom to the other. Thus, the same words will be used in their dictionary, but their significance will take on another meaning. The lie therefore comes from this discrepancy! If God exists, he doesn’t care less about all this! If his DNA is within us, then only love should be obvious to all of us. In this way, as sacrificers, sacrificed or sanctified beings, we are benevolent protectors to the eyes of humanity itself by revealing ourselves as self-gifts to others or a state of grace with full consciousness (mutual respect). This is what we commonly call universal love. What? Another fake statement! We don’t need universal love (which can be recognized globally and which is being used). No sir! What Man needs is unconditional love (to give someone the freedom and free will of being happy without us)! Isn’t it what God has done and so much more? In my mind, you can accuse him of being responsible for every crime in the book, but in return, what use did we make of such freedom? In contrast, what is the absence of love? I wrote a text message to Henry leaving him to meditate on these words from Fiodor Dostoïevski which resume themselves to the following: “When a woman becomes indifferent, then you’ll know you’ve lost her. No hatred, anger and certainly no love resides in indifference. When indifference sets in, you know you’ve reached the point of no return. The opposite of love is not hatred but rather indifference”. Thus, the absence of love turns out to be indifference. We don’t feel concerned anymore! Unfortunately, it’s exactly what our society’s going through, we’re comfortably numb behind our televisions while watching the latest news as if they were cartoons! I believe pride isn’t humankind’s biggest act of disobedience, but rather being indifference! It’s blasphemy to the divine power which is love. Thus, let us not sadden this particle for fear of losing it because it’s the most beautiful treasure contained within the heart of Man! Baudelaire once said: “Satan uses sly craftiness by making us believe he doesn’t exist”,  did he also fall victim to a mystical r? Or did he simply just take a look around…when does loving stop being innate and becomes a choice for which we need to fight for? Thus, the action of seeking out of justice and truth, at whatever cost needs to be paid, becomes a giant leap of faith… Is it far-fetched to think that within our sacred and articulated vehicles having at their command a computerized cerebral matrix which in turn coordinates the stardust that we are, believing in God would be completely barking mad? “Not believing in Satan will not protect you from him. And whether you believe or not in God will never prevent Him from existing”. Or simply interpreted otherwise and devoid of any pointless ecclesial dross: “Not believing in love will not protect you from him. And whether you believe or not in love will never prevent it from existing”. We live in a world infused by powerful vibratory energy. Without realising it, human beings in their constantly evolving form swims amidst a vibratory ocean because everything which surrounds him is emitting waves. In the seem of our depiction of today’s society, our physique as well as our psyche are under constant solicitation which consequently makes us lose our roots, our gut feeling, our conscience and intelligence in exchange of things and events surrounding us. Le Cern upon researching on particles wrote the following in an essay: «What seems to us as solid matter is only in fact constituted of vibrating particles turning in a great void at a speed which gives us the impression of forming a solid. If the rotary movement of such particles would abruptly stop like a fan ceasing to rotate, then nothing but emptiness would prevail. We are nothing less than information-based energy in motion». But what caused the emergence of such energy? The Big Bang? To my eyes the Big Bang theory resumes itself like so: Place a dismantled watch inside a box. Close that box before shaking it in every way. Now open that box. What are the probabilities that your watch is now reassembled and reinitialized? Like the scientific community which is constantly trying to figure out the origin of Earth as well as life on it by closely researching on the Higgs boson while acting as sorcerer’s apprentice in the same respect as using nuclear power without knowing how to recycle it. I firmly believe that in order to fully understand unconditional love which governs our galaxy, one needs to get to know oneself. Amidst each and everyone’s heart lies a notion of the eternal and confronted to death that thought grows exponentially! Everything we go through involves a purpose either meant for the present moment or for somewhere else. And if fate is eternal, then we totally missed the target by working unflaggingly on making a lasting impression on this planet. Learn to take in everything you go through in your life and reflect upon every aspect while adopting a perspective of the eternal. You’ll soon realize that you’ve set yourself off course in regards to eternity! You’re consumed by daily worries which are leaving you irritated and which waste all your time and energy. The popular notion on how we perceive human beings is in fact a dualistic concept. Because studies on personal growth mainly focus themselves on the concept of the psyche being an invisible inner part of ourselves while the body being the visible part which reveals it in the end as consisting solely of the body and the psyche. We distinguish Man as a bipartite being instead of a tripartite one and this may shock purists but this description is more than insufficient and is in fact quite limited! The misconception which integrally links the spirit to the psyche rather than being disassociated with it is quite damaging to personal and spiritual growth because each time one of the three parts comprised in Man grows excessively, the other parts are equally affected by it. When tears of joy or sorrow appear as emotions which the heart is unable to translate into words, a vast array of methods exist which are said therapeutic and act as a mean of healing the diseases of the human spirit which are expressed through manifestations of physical sufferings. However, to claim benefiting from a good quality psychotherapy, it is vital and mandatory that the methods used act upon the psyche only for therapeutic purposes. The term psychotherapy is made up of the words therapy and psyche. Psychotherapy is thus defined as a mean to heal the spirit. If it’s not the case then it’s probably not psychotherapy! And in order to efficiently heal the spirit, Man in his completeness has to be taken into account; his spirit, his psyche and his vessel. Resiliency stems from the fact that we are able to resist to shocks and changes occurring in our environment, it’s the reason we’re in a position to triumph over suffered traumas. According to Boris Cyrulnik: Misfortune has nothing to do with fate, nothing is irremediably inscribed. If one can retain a positive experience from his misfortune then he creates a positive reinforcement. This may seem shocking when speaking of rape, martyrdom and violence, but in front of my own life experience, my basket is filled with ripe fruits of the Holy Spirit all of which I had the chance to enjoy. In front of this substantiated destruction, my heart uncovered the power of love, the capacity to forgive, to care, to hope even amidst this ugliness. Taking its root from this compassion which make me cry before so little humanity, before all the absurdities. By becoming sensitive towards injustice to the point of feeling personally concerned, I discovered the bold woman I was along with her goodwill, her joy, her temper which takes delight in nothing and which is amazed by everything. Happy to see the sun come up, to live the present moment to its fullest while not knowing what tomorrow will be bringing. To have never given up nor backed away facing adversity. Having had the strength to get back up on the battle field because like Nelson Mandela’s wisely said: “Failure is not to stumble to the ground, but to remain on it”. Being fragile and assuming it. Being hypersensitive without being traumatized. To still believe in the essence of life, what makes it so beautiful while only having known its opposite. To recognize it wherever it is found. To acknowledge that we are only dust, but what inhabits us is either shadow or light. To have taken into account the notion of eternity. To know that when we are under its humility, no one can destabilise us. To understand that this particular chapter which we are living at this moment had already been written in the book of life. Man is so predictable in his transgressions as well as being so unhopeful through his love! To know that life doesn’t belong to us, it has been appointed to us for a given time in order for us to glorify it as opposed to wrecking, killing, raping and messing it up. To learn something from it which we ignored about ourselves. To let it bring us back to the essential of the very own particle which never dies. Life has taught me to be forgiven, to cover my faults and to give myself a second chance. To recognize opportunities and identify the ones that I’ve missed out. It taught me to have no regrets, to never point the finger at myself as well as never enduring the hardships which were not my own. To never condemn because until our very last breath, we have the choice to love. Life instructed me on protecting myself, to know how to give, to know how to rest and to recognize the hazards and keeping away from them. It taught me to disallow abuse and to know when to say NO. Life made me find out the true value of life. It taught me on how to still love it despite the prejudices. Life made me realize my importance and that love is never out of our reach. Is life worth living? I think I’ve managed to answer that question, as far as I’m concerned anyway. I wanted a perfect ending. I’ve learned now the hard way that certain poems don’t rhyme and that certain stories don’t always start the same way as others. Life is about not knowing, making a change and taking the moment to live it to the fullest without knowing what lies ahead… In the end everyone turns out to be their own childhood’s hero. We are the saviors of our very own story in which we need to square off against our past in order to find peace amidst ourselves. We must indeed learn to familiarize ourselves with our reality as opposed to understanding what we are in order to dig deep within our inner strength so we sufficiently love ourselves and begin to feel our “I AM”. Solely survivors of stolen, plundered and ransacked lives lie within this tragedy in which the blame is cast upon no one and none are condemned, each having handled their childhood fears and despair to the best of their abilities. What I retain from this is that the same person can make you fall in love twice. First with themselves and next with yourself. Nothing in life should be forced, time is our best ally, you have to let its course run! If coincidences do not exist, but solely predestined encounters, then everything happens for a reason. The acquaintances set out on our path are then no longer incidental. If a person is not made for us and we try to preserve by hook or by crook this relationship for the wrong reasons, then life shall somehow or other reject it or if by contrast she’s destined to be a participant in our life despite the struggles and skirmishes endured, then that person will still reappear at some point in our life. There are thus no good or bad decisions. “I do not turn the pages”, I despise this unsophisticated expression, I forget not, I do not zap anything away, I don’t press the restart button on my life as if it hadn’t existed. My life rather consists of a continuous thread which I am weaving, no one gets caught in it and no one gets blotted out, I am made up of all my memories, my loves, I’m a living patchwork made up of moments of my life, I am made by others, for others and every single one of them has either molded my personality or scarred and bruised it. I do not turn the pages, I write them”. Charlotte Valandrey I have a final thought for all the actors of my tale, for all those which I wiped out from my life. I would like to dedicate this pile of garbage to them. To you, who shall recognize himself amidst his childish tragedies, his wanderings, his mistakes and his suffering and which managed to achieve the impossible by giving me a view from above in order that I could be born again. Thanks to you, I understood that by leaving an individual to dwell on the past is nothing less but putting the present moment on hold. Preventing someone from evolving, rendering the relationship as to be untrue because some data hasn’t been updated, not concerning the person he was, but the person he is at the moment. Thus, to whom gave me life, I would like to thank you for being whole-hearted, generous and being the wonder mother that your are, thank you for your kind words, the support you gave me every single day. Thank you for renewing yourself to the point of becoming the woman you are, to have become, through time, my MOTHER that I love so dearly. Once I love someone, I love her for life. There are many ways to give, but only one way to love. Thus, if my way of giving has changed, it doesn’t mean I’ve become indifferent… I am quite skillful in loving from a distance because that distance is nothing but a trial with a purpose in knowing how far that love is willing to travel. “Hunch-backed, holding a cane to help my feet pace themselves, I try to recognize my shadow in these old shoes. Them which carried me as far as I could make them go, They seem as wrinkly as my face. I still ask myself if I was the one who guided them all along? Side by side, my heels tell themselves of their tales. One has a wounded flank from countering my weaknesses, my unexpected variations while the other has some wear at the rear: Did I take a step back at one point while I had to move forward? As far as my toe puffs go, each pondering a different path since forever, I can almost hear them fighting between themselves. -”I put my trust in you when we traveled down stony paths where rain soaked our soles, all this while I was dreaming of nothing less than red carpets and luxurious shoe-shines…” To which the other reiterated: --”Those were hard times, but we lived to tell, and nothing is more important than living!” As old as these shoes are, I just can’t seem to part from them, every night, I lay them to rest and each morning I put them back on. Yet during the past couple of days, while sitting on the edge of time, I leaned over them to take a peak and saw a few salty teardrops slide down their hollow cheeks. Are those tears mine or theirs? Have I followed my own destiny or theirs? And what if… What if I was merely but someone else’s shoe? If this were to be the case? If neither my shoes nor myself had chosen our own fate… Thus, a deep sigh as vast as the firmament which I am contemplating escaped from my cavity and I hoped to have been the right size to whoever laced me up”. Jean-Michael MALLET -) Revealing herself as a hardworking humanistic investigator with her holistic approach to beings, Jennifer MALLET, through her story, her conscious and unconscious heritage, personal memoirs, psychoanalysis and her behavioral approach positions herself as a support worker for the cause of women spurred on by hope. It’s her heart which guides her! Author, composer, performer, she composes the soundtrack to her autobiographical movie as an entirely self-taught artist. ”