12 things I learned in 2012

1. Safe as houses is the most untrue saying of them all. We were robbed last year. It still doesn't feel safe anywhere near the house. 
2. If someone tells you they don't believe friendship exists, don't expect them to show you loyalty and support.
3. A person can only give you what they've received and have in them. It works both on physical and emotional level. 
4. There is nobody else in the whole wide world that can give you the emotional range that your own kids can. 
5. No one will ever understand you the way you do, so don't expect them to.
6. Don't try to prove anything to anyone. 
7. Life is too short to still be bullied and manipulated by public opinion like when you were a child.
8. I have grown out of religious forms and into more need of God Himself. 
9. Sleeping sometimes is art, and sometimes it's science. 
10. Constructive criticism builds and gives you faith in your abilities. Anything else is plainly destructive, beware.
11. Sometimes we choose friends, and sometimes God chooses them for us.
12. We all need someone to believe in us.

En garde!

When a man tells you he (being a man) is just as bad at cooking as you (being a woman) probably are at maths you don't know whether to be offended, to take it as compliment or to empathise. Caught me unprepared and left me confused for hours!

Got your back covered

Only a man can offend you and then get offended by you being offended by what he just did. My husband has polished this art to perfection...
Kids asked him to put forward the recorded film so they wouldn't have to watch commercials. The remote control was on the table right in front of him. His reaction? Repeated yells about them needing to learn patience and waiting till he finishes to type in his game chat... How ridiculous is that? At that moment I happened to be passing by and put the film forward, saying there is no need to wait till after the commercials only to put the film forward when it doesn't need forwarding any longer. Another "rational" reaction from the other adult of our family? Rage and fury about me not covering his back. Really??? Do we live in the same reality and participate in the same events? More than that, he said that from now on he will not cover my back either. Ha!
Other pearls from life and works of my significant other? Once he grabbed a dirty spoon from the sink and ate something with it tasting the food along with the soap in which spoon was soaking. FYI, utensil drawer is right next to the sink. Let's see if you can guess whose fault it was? Nope, not his. As if it's normal to keep clean and ready for use spoons in sink among dirty dishes.
Another time he made me lose my sleep after he stormed into bedroom and accused me of being careless and not charging the battery of electric toothbrush (which was still charged and worked just fine when I brushed my teeth an hour prior to that). These are just some of his latest outbursts.
Why is he still with me if I'm pissing him off so easily sometimes? Because a man needs someone at hand who could be blamed for the vast range of small misfortunes that fall upon him.
Why am I still here beside him, you might ask? Because often I feel like I've won him in lottery, and you do not just throw away your winnings, even if it's just a green sponge in shape of an elephant!!!

42

Smell of freshly laundered bed linen. Warm feet. Warm knees, surprisingly. Earl Grey tea with a spoon or even two of sugar. Warm palm of hand pressed softly to forehead. A pillow, a teddy bear, anything soft and warm pressed against the chest near the heart. Deliberate absence of thought. That's my personal prescription for those moments when the bottomless hole opens in my heart and I can't see further than the black nonexistent wall right in front of me. We all have these moments. It's so human. What is the meaning of life, Universe, everything? It's forty-two, Douglas Adams would have said.

The secret of emotionally engaging writing

"People have come up with all sorts of explanations for Harry Potter's popularity with grown-up readers, from the obvious – the escapist attractions of the minutely invented fantasy world – to the grandiose: western adults are stuck in an eternal adolescence. But one of them, I suspect, is that people still enjoy reading about good people, and seeing them rewarded – something that more respectable novels seldom offer these days." Theo Tait, The Guardian

Misplaced

And here I am again, taking full swing into sentimentalism and emotional crisis. On the visible level there is no reason for it. If you scratch under the surface there are plenty of small reasons to be uncomfortable in my skin. One by one these reasons may seem insignificant, just like each puzzle piece alone doesn't show you the whole picture. I've realised, the longer I live the sorer my soul becomes. People closest to me say I'm an idealist, too honest for the ways of this world. Couldn't agree more. The truth is I am not adapted for life on this planet. I'm a lousy liar, too compassionate, too empathetic. Worse than that, I don't know how to become tougher and insensitive. I am a misplaced object that doesn't know where it really belongs.

The blind spot

I am fascinated by mind, human mind in particular. It is the most powerful tool we possess. It can work either as a poison or an antidote, and only mind itself can decide which one it will be. No one can oppress or uplift a mind if the mind itself doesn't allow the corresponding information to be processed into thoughts. And what a subtle self-preservation mechanism it is gifted with!
What is all this poetic rant about? Nothing special, just a trick my own mind played on me. I went into a room to take my headphones, instead after a blind spot lasting 5 seconds I found myself standing with a white bra in my hands. Had to return to that room to deposit the bra and pick up the headphones I needed in the first place. Very funny, mind, very funny...