May 22, 2007
Either there is a ghost haunting me in this house or I am going crazy. Over the past couple weeks I have been hearing odd noises late at night. And not your typical, old creaky house noises either. One day I was trying to get to sleep and I heard footsteps on the ceiling above our room. Even though I was terrified beyond belief, the next day I convinced myself that it must’ve been my imagination.
Then about a week after that Seba and I were both in bed and I heard a tapping noise on the window. I sat straight up (of course Seba didn’t move, he could sleep through a hurricane) and froze. About five minutes of me not moving passed, and I finally relaxed. I thought it may have been somebody just walking by (our window overlooks the street). But just as I let my guard down, I heard the noise again. This time it sounded like somebody’s hand was pushing on the glass as if they were trying to break the pane. It was a very distinct noise, not at all as if it were an accident. I definitely felt as though someone were trying to enter.
The day after that, very late at night, around 4 in the morning, when Seba was already sleeping and I was at the computer, I heard the doorknob turning to our bedroom. I thought, “Well that’s weird, it must be my imagination again because I’ve been so on edge.” And then the doorknob creaked again as if it were turning and as if that weren’t bad enough, the windchime that we have hanging next to the door rang a little bit. I screamed out, “Seba!” and he jumped out of bed and looked outside the door but there was no one. Besides, if there would’ve been a physical presence near our room the floor creaks so loud there’s no one anyone can get near without warning us.
Today I went to the back room to put some laundry away, and next to the back room is a door that’s always kept locked because it leads to the upstairs which is uninhabited and completely detoriorated. If there are ghosts, I would bet my life that they are living upstairs because that place could definitely be haunted. It certainly looks as if it were straight out of a horror movie. Anyways, when I went back to put the laundry away, the door next to the room I was in suddenly began banging back and forth. I swear, it was like something out of Poltergeist, the movie. I dropped my laundry, sprinted back to the room and began bawling my eyes out. I was that scared.
I’m not a person who spooks easy, nor do I have an overactive imagination. I mean, its possible that I’ve become really on edge from all these strange happenings but I know what’s real and what’s not. These events are not all in my head. And I’m FREAKING OUT!
May 21, 2007
Today walking down the street to go get Chinese food, I had a thought. Yes, I know. That in and of itself is amazing. It just awes me that a human being can adapt so well to any circumstance. I looked at the sidewalks that were, not just cracked, but filled with holes so deep I could step into one and die. Seriously. My neighborhood is populated with mechanics’ workshops and bus garages. The houses don’t look like what I think a house should look like. Each house shares a wall with its neighbor, there’s no space between and there’s no yard, back or front. There’s not a free spot here that’s not completely covered in grafiti. The streets are dusty and dirty. There are piles of trash all over the place with stray dogs ripping the bags apart looking for something to eat. Each person we pass is short and dark skinned. Small foreign made cars whiz by, models and makes that I had never seen until I moved to Chile. Everything is different.
Even Chinese food doesn’t taste like Chinese food.
For a year’s time I wandered around this place with my eyes wide. I was constantly surprised and amazed at everything I saw. Even though I had lived in the country for more than 12 months everything still seemed exciting and interesting. The newness seemed to never wear off.
Now nothing can faze me. I don’t know what’s better or worse. Now I see things as they are. Instead of some exotic location, this is just another dirty city. I don’t think the dogs I see are cute anymore, I don’t feel bad that they eat trash. Instead I just wish that Chilean people would wise up and get them all neutered and spayed. But, no, they don’t believe in that. So they have a dog and cat infestation problem and its disgusting. Instead of thinking the graffiti is colorful and gives the city personality, I just wonder why people don’t respect their country more and stop destroying public property. I see things for what they are.
I can no longer ignore the problems. I am no longer a visitor passing through, so these are now my problems too. This is home.
May 20, 2007
Lately I’ve become totally addicted to reading other people’s blogs. It all started when I was looking for weight loss information and I stumbled across Half of Me. Her style of writing is hilarious and her story is really inspiring. I am fascinated by weight loss stories, maybe because I myself have fought that battle most of my life, although not to the same extreme (Half of Me is about a girl who has lost literally half her previous body weight). Anyways, after I started reading Half of Me, I followed her links and began reading other people’s weight loss blogs as well. Now I’m addicted! Every day I check up on the dozen or so blogs that I have favorited. I wait anxiously to see if they’ve had a weigh in, how they’re doing, how they’re feeling. And when I began to do this I remembered something important.
Writing is cathartic.
I used to have a LiveJournal, in which I actually wrote pretty religiously. Then one day some soccer moms from the small town in Michigan I’m from discovered the link. Pretty soon I felt like half the town was reading about and therefore they felt free to stick their nose in my personal business. This little town is extremely religious (no offense if you’re a church goer) and has a tendency to take things to the extreme. They found it particularly scandalous that I’m a liberal who’s friend with *gasp* gay people, believes in rights for migrant workers, even if they are *gasp again* illegal, that I’m pro-choice, and drink alcohol, etc.
One day, I wrote a short post. I believe it said something along the lines of how I was happy to have left Michigan because the city in Florida that I moved to was more liberal and had really helped open my mind. It gave me a different perspective on the world. I said I enjoyed meeting new and different types of people, especially because my university was so diverse that it gave me a chance to expand my horizons, and I had not previously had this opportunity in said small town. I closed the journal entry stating I was happy to get out of “the bubble” that was my previous life.
When word got out that I had dared to challenge the ways of life of my old town I started receiving comment after comment on my LJ. I was told that I should “move to Mexico and go hump the damn latinos if you love them so much.” I was called a “rich bitch,” and told that I shouldn’t offend people who were “forced” to stay in the small town because they didn’t have rich parents who could pay for them to go out of state (I paid for college by myself with scholarship and student loans, FYI). I was told that I was a “fat, stupid loser,” among other things. Someone even went so far as to create a website called thebubble.com (the site was taken down like two years ago so don’t bother to check it out). The website said more horrible things about me and had pictures of my face posted on obese women’s bodies. (I was overweight in high school so I guess that was their ammo).
I wasn’t too upset, just a little surprised because some of the people who were among the first to cut me down used to be friends of mine. But, I kind of felt like a celebrity. After The Bubble Incident, as I call it, the readership of my LJ probably quadrupled overnight. People were watching my every move. My mom had mothers of kids from my high school that she didn’t even know come up to her and comment on my life. I kept up the LJ a little longer but it really was too much scrutiny so I just stopped writing altogether.
Now that I have started reading so many people’s blogs, I see how much it helps them. Whether their blogs keep them on track with their diet, sort out their angry feelings towards a spouse, let them vent about work, or just plain record their daily adventures, writing is therapy. And I need that. And I have way too much time on my hands.
Needless to say, I’m going to try and keep this blog a little more private than my Livejournal was.
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