New Year wishes, plus a little New Year something for all my readers.

At the end of this weird, and very difficult for many, year, I’d like to wish all of you a fun New Year’s Eve – regardless whether you’re doing something to celebrate it or not really. – If you are like my Sofi and really love celebrating occasions like New Year’s Eve, but aren’t able to do so the way you normally do, or perhaps at all, because of a lockdown or some other restrictions that are currently in place where you are, I hope you can still have a great time. Regardless of what this day is going to look like for you, hope it’ll be enjoyable and pleasant. 🙂

And of course me and Misha would both like to wish you a happier, better new year. May it be peaceful, regardless or how much or little you have been affected by various difficult things going on for people around the world this year, and may it bring something good, new and exciting into your lives. 🙂 May you all be healthy and have helpful, loving people around you who care about you, or even just one such person. 🙂 And if you’re a blogger, may it be a good year for the development of your blog and may all your blogging plans work out. Thank you for your presence in my little Mishmashy world this year. 🙂

And now for the other New Year “something”. 😀

I’ve got a spontaneous idea a few months ago that I’d like if all that song of the day archive that has grown on my blog over the last three years could be organised. If not for any other reason then at least just for myself so that I could have it all in one place rather than just scattered all around the blog. And some of you who perhaps like this series could benefit from it too. So I thought it would be fun to make some sort of a playlist with all that music. And now that I’ve got my iPhone, I finally learned how to make Spotify playlists quite effortlessly. 😀 Yes, I’ve been using Spotify for years with very little idea about how to make playlists. That’s because in the desktop app, using my screen reader, adding songs to playlists is quite cumbersome. On iPhone this is much easier.

And so, I’ve created playlists with all the music that I’ve shared in the song of the day series, obviously except for what is not available on Spotify, and thought I’d share with you in case this would be fun for someone. I’ll be sharing a new playlist at the end of each year, or the beginning of a new year, once it is completed.

Apologies for those who like the idea but don’t use Spotify, I do not use other streaming services so wasn’t able to create them elsewhere. Aside from this post, you can always find the playlists in the Blog Playlists page, which is where I’ll be adding a new one every year.

My Inner Mishmash 2018:

My Inner Mishmash 2019:

 

My Inner Mishmash 2020:

Additionally, I’ve made a HUGE playlist for myself which I thought I’d share with you too in case anyone would be interested in such a thing. It is very raw, very huge and very disorganised but who cares. I called it originally Bibiel’s Playlist For Sleep, although I don’t really use it for sleep as it’s too varied for that, but the title kinda stuck and I don’t have a better idea. It contains all the music created by my faza subjects (Enya, Declan Galbraith, Cornelis Vreeswijk, Gwilym Bowen Rhys and all the bands with which he collaborated) that I like (for example you won’t find Enya’s Orinoco Flow because this is the only song by her which I dislike), all the music that I like from artists that are somehow related to my faza subjects – like their family members, so there’s for example Clannad because I like most of their music and because they’re Enya’s family and she had collaborated with them for a while, or a Welsh band Y Trwynau Coch in which Gwilym’s dad was the vocalist – various covers/interpretations of their songs that I like, or even other versions of some traditional songs they have interpreted in other interpretations that I also like, plus lots and lots and lots of harp music, because harp is my favourite instrument, with particular emphasis on Celtic harp, but there’s also orchestral harp, or even autoharp or Finnish harp aka kantele, and also there is some music from people who are harpists but that doesn’t feature harp. So the criteria for something to get into this playlist are rather lax. It just has to have something to do either with my fazas, or harp and harpists/harpers, and I have to like it. At this point there are some things in there that I don’t like all that much because I was adding a lot of things collectively and haven’t yet sifted through all of that, but generally I love most of it. It has no specific order but it doesn’t have to have because I listen to it in shuffle mode anyway. It is still under construction and will probably always be. So if you’re interested in that sorta raw, wild mix of music, come along! 🙂

Question of the day.

Would you rather be hated, or forgotten?

My answer:

Definitely forgotten! Much less hassle in life. If I were hated, people would presumably want to express their hatred somehow and I might have been in a lot of trouble when all the people I know were to suddenly manifest their hatred to me in some active ways. If I were forgotten, I just wouldn’t have to deal with the ones who forgot about me. And if they forgot about me, they probably wouldn’t be worth being remembered by me either. 😀 Of course it would be sad to just be forgotten by everyone like that, but I think my tolerance for aloneness, or even loneliness, and being invisible for my surroundings is better than for straightforward hatred, so I could manage it better.

How about you? 🙂

Floraleda Sacchi – “Nightbook”.

Hey people! 🙂

For the last day of this weird year, I chose to share with you an interesting, atmospheric and quite modern-sounding harp composition of Italian harpist Floraleda Sacchi, which was released a little earlier this year. Floraleda Sacchi was featured on this blog before, but as far as I remember, not with her own music, while this, from what I know, is her own piece. I hope you enjoy. 🙂

Question of the day.

If you could change three things about your country, what would you change?

My answer:

While I think that our current government (United Right) is way better than what we had for years with the previous party (Civic Platform) which was in power, it could still be a lot better and there is lots of room for improvement, and I feel quite sad that for now, there doesn’t seem to be any better option. Lately in particular, I’ve noticed that our foreign politics/diplomacy is totally crap and if only I could, I’d change that asap, somehow. I don’t know if it’s that we have no luck for ministers of foreign affairs or is this seriously intended but it’s really bad, if not ridiculous sometimes.

Another thing I would change is I’d improve the situation of disabled people, but in particular of those who are mentally ill or have some rare diseases. Not that other disabilities don’t need help or it’s less important or anything like that, as a blind person I know that there is a lot that could be done to the blind community, which I’m sure is true of any country, and other disabled communities also have their often more than fair share of problems, but also being mentally ill I feel like the mentally ill community has much less support, and there’s an awful lack of awareness. I’ve heard that there’s especially some huge problem with children with mental health issues and that they frequently don’t get the level of healthcare they need. I once had a conversation with someone – perhaps even here in the blogosphere, can’t remember –
about personality disorders and how they’re stigmatised. And I said that here in Poland they aren’t even stigmatised like they are in the US, because people don’t know enough about them to form some strong enough stereotypes or something. Yes, it is also a thing here that when doctors don’t know what to diagnose someone with, and a patient is somewhat “difficult”, they’ll happily go with BPD, it is overdiagnosed, but an average person who hasn’t had much to do with the field of mental health in their life won’t have much of an idea about what borderline personality disorder is in practice, unless they know someone with it and know they have such a diagnosis. People here don’t say they’re so “OCD”, because while OCD is certainly not unheard of, people aren’t familiar with it enough to just use the term casually like Americans do for example. Stigma is a huge problem, but I personally feel like lack of actual awareness is a bigger problem. Most people know something about mental health and mental illnesses in theory, but in practice not much. There aren’t a lot of resources for mentally ill people, online for example. Or communities, whether offline or online where people could receive some support, unless they’re in psychiatric institutions, or there’s also no support for their families. There are charities, or individuals who are trying to do something on their own, but their outreach is often limited so there’s only so much they can do. It would be great if there was more initiative higher up.

There even seems to be some lack of awareness among professionals, or so it seems to me as a mentally ill person and as a keen observer of people. Since I’ve joined Carol Anne’s of Therapy Bits email support group for people with DID, as a supporter, I’ve been wondering and trying to do some, any, research about the situation of people with dissociative identity disorder here in Poland. There are some basically informative pages on health-related websites geared at patients, some a little more indepth but theoretical articles on psychology-related blogs, but other than that… nothing really. The term “split identity/self” is familiar to people and some people say they have a split self when they are of two minds or feel kind of internally conflicted. When I dug deeper I found some trauma specialists touching very briefly on DID in their works or during lectures but I couldn’t even find someone who would specialise in this. Later on, I remember I found some sort of a map or something if I remember correctly, I’m not good with maps and diagrams but generally it was about in which countries this disorder is diagnosed and I did manage to figure out that Poland wasn’t on there. Later yet, I briefly mentioned it to my last therapist that I am part of such a mailing list and trying to support people somehow, and she immediately was all like: “But you know it’s not a real thing, DID? It’s only a sort of psychosis?” I said that it doesn’t seem so to me, but it’s her who is the professional here after all so she should know better, but I didn’t want to get into a discussion on this during my therapy session which should be about me, not DID. That was really sad and kind of upsetting to hear to me though.

Our country isn’t free from traumatic events occurring to little children. And so I feel for all those Poles who do have or might have DID and either don’t know about it or no one really cares, and I’d like it to be different.

Speaking about mental health that would also include the autistic/other neurodivergent people and making things easier for them in our society, especially adults and more “high functioning” children. I’m not autistic myself as you probably know but as you may also know I do have some connection to the autism world, having been assessed for it twice and “accused” of having it many more times, and have a bit of an idea what it looks like here with it. Similarly I feel like we need more awareness of rare diseases, as much as possible given that they’re rare, as I know a lot of rare disease patients here struggle with access to their medications and funding for them.

And lastly, culture, yay! We have such great, Polish culture. So many Polish artists who are undiscovered and often very poor. I’m not talking celebrities, who often got famous because their mummies or daddies had just the right views during the communist period, which helped them reach the fame in some area, or just get enough money, and then their children inherited the fame along with the surname, even if they aren’t all that talented at anything in particular. I am talking actually talented people who don’t get to promote themselves anywhere significant enough. One thing our government really did wrong was with the public media. I’d like to believe their intentions were originally good indeed, as they wanted, and still do, to repolonise our media (because the majority of media in Poland are owned by foreign companies). They concentrated their efforts on the public media at first, pretty much right away after they won the Parliament Election, and changed people in charge of Polish Television and Polish Radio. That’s pretty much all they did really, only now they are kinda, sorta trying to do more and repolonise the press, and it’s been five years since that election if I’m counting right. Anyway, what they did back then wasn’t really a gamechanger at all, because the people they chose to manage the public media are very incompetent for their roles, as it seems. Especially the chairman of TVP (Polish Television) has earned himself a very bad reputation, both from those on the left, and on the right. He’s a real king of cringe to put it shortly, but what saddens me the most is that his name is Jacek, and I really like Jaceks, and he is making a bad reputation for all the cool Jaceks out there, I’m afriaid. 😦 Well no, I’m just kidding obviously, I’m sure a cool Jacek can defend himself, but it’s just sad to see such a cringey guy and know his name is Jacek… The King of Cringe is particularly well-known for supporting disco polo artists and their music (disco polo is essentialy Polish disco, very cringey and trashy). One disco polo artist who is quite well-liked there in TVP once tweeted that disco polo is like new folk music. That Polish composers like Chopin or Moniuszko were once strongly inspired by folk music, so maybe there will be a time when future Polish composers will be inspired by disco polo. You can imagine that really made me – as a folklorophile – go nuts. Anyway, you can hardly see any higher culture in TVP now.

Now that we have Covid and artists all around the world have financial problems, I’ve heard that for example our Polish painters, or independent musicians, have been struggling a lot more than before. Meanwhile, our Minister of Culture and National Heritage had magnanimously decided to help out the artists financially via a culture support programme. It was quite controversial, because some of the beneficiaries were meant to receive absolutely huge amounts of money, and all of them were the famous celebrities, who, totally in my own opinion, aren’t really all that talented in their area as their fame, and even more so the compensations they were meant to get, would suggest. (There were four millions Polish zlotys in total in the whole support programme). People got ragin’, one singer guy – Kazik – who is quite known for strong views even said that he doesn’t want their stolen money, and the Ministry decided to “verify” the list of the beneficiaries. Don’t you verify such things in the first place before anything else?

Aside from the unfairness of it all on average people, which another huge problem, does it really have to be so that it’s somehow decided at the top who should be famous/popular or not? Whose music we are supposed to like and listen to? Can’t it be just people who will choose what they like, rather than have shit shoved down their mouth and be told that they find it delicious? I think there should be more equal chances for artists to emerge, more support in times like these for those who are independent, either because they want to or because there isn’t any other option for them really. I want to hear more diverse Polish music, more young Polish musicians. I want to hear people talk about more ACTUALLY good Polish films. Or Polish visual artists who are actually alive and doing quality stuff. I want to hear about contemporary Polish composers, not because I had to hunt for their music myself, but in the media, or from other people (and for them not necessarily to be composers influenced by disco polo :D). I want a properly Polish talent show on the telly, I mean, we have The Voice (of Poland) and the like, but these are all practically foreign, which is not a bad thing in itself, but why can’t we have one of our own? It would be cool if the contestants, if they’d be making music, could share their own music rather than only cover what someone has already created which is the most common formula of such shows although I do realise there are exceptions, and then actually have some support, whether financial or in whatever way it’s needed for such newly emerged people, that would help them exist in their field in a substantial way, not just for a while after they release their debut album. It would also have to be something good quality, not necessarily somehow super sophisticated because it should be digestible for an average person but something where you could actually find some objectively aesthetically pleasing art of some sort. So yes, I would love to be able to promote Polish people who are talented in some way, but have some external obstacles which make it difficult for them to show it off in front of their nation more widely.

I know it’s all probably incredibly idealistic if not utopian, but oh well… why not?

So how about you? 🙂 You can dream big if you want like I did. And, aside from the main question: besides those three things you’d like to change about your country, do you like it overall, or do you feel like you’d be better living somewhere else? I definitely do love Poland! 🙂 Just felt like saying it because it was quite a negative post and I didn’t want anyone to think I’m dissatisfied with my country overall, there just always are things that could be better, some a lot better.

Lleuwen – “Cawell Fach Y Galon” (Little Cave Of The Heart).

And for today, I picked a Welsh song, from quite a well-liked and known singer on the Welsh-language music scene. Lleuwen Steffan, also mononymously known as Lleuwen, is the daughter of Steve Eaves – a Welsh poet and singer, heavily influenced by blues. – So she grew up in a very musical household for sure, and one filled with love for her native language. Her sister, Manon Steffan Ros is also well-known in the Welsh speakers’ community, as an author. She’s also very popular with beginning learners of Welsh as her books are very learner-friendly from what I know.

I heard this song today in the morning, and thought it’s really cool, so maybe you’ll like it too. 🙂

Question of the day (29th December).

Would you take a bullet for someone in your life?

My answer:

If there was an actual reason for that – absolutely yes! – I don’t like when people make such foolish declarations “I love you so much that I could die for you” when there is totally no need for such radical acts, and even less so for empty words like that. But if someone I loved a lot, like my Mum or anyone in my close family or my online friends, or perhaps even Misha (although why would anyone want to kill or shoot Misha, and who would be capable of doing this, I have no clue? The only reason I can think of why someone might even consider that is if they somehow really hated me passionately for some reason and were desperate to make me miserable, and I am not aware of having such desperate enemies) or maybe even people whom I not necessarily love but who are somehow important to me and who I care about, or whose life I think is very important, if any of them were in danger where their life could be at risk, and my death could make the situation better in any way, then hell yeah, I’d do that, although it surely would be scary. I think it wouldn’t be quite as scary though as living the rest of my life with a consciousness that I could help save the life of someone who was dear to me in some way or who needed it, but did not do that. It would be more difficult if it was a shot that would only impair me in some way, as that would have some longer consequences for me and I’m not sure how I’d deal with that my whole life, but I’d try to think about how I was able to help someone through that and I suppose that would be at least a bit of comfort for me to know that I somehow helped their cause. My Mum recently asked me what would I feel like living in a country where Christians are persecuted in a major way, where their lives may be in danger because of their faith, and how I’d feel like about giving my life up for Christ, because she read a book about Christians in muslim countries and that made her think about it hard. Now this is such a difficult thing to think about. When you read about the martyrs in ancient Rome for example, and the ways they were tortured, I’m really not sure I would be able to deal with that and keep being faithful. On the other hand, it’s not really these people’s merrit entirely that they were strong and brave enough to go through it but they were supported by God’s grace, I don’t think anyone would willfully agree to such suffering and not give in at some point without some help. But I think I would at least try my best if I was in such a situation and try to have as much courage as possible. And in the case of this question, if I was in such a situation that I would have to take a bullet for Christ, I feel that would be easier than the fancy tortures people had to endure ages ago, so I would take the risk, I think.

How about you? 🙂

Song of the day (29th December) – Ailie Robertson – “La Gueussinette”.

Here is another very lovely harp piece, a waltz, this time from Scottish harpist Ailie Robertson, accompanied by cello. It was was composed by Stephen Jones for his son, before he was even born, and apparently inspired by Gustav’s Klimt painting of a pregnant woman.

Question of the day (28th December).

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever been through?

My answer:

I think the most difficult thing for me was the recovery after my Achilles tendons lengthening surgery, which I had when I was 10. Basically I spent six weeks with my entire legs in casts in order for them to heal properly, although my surgeon was a bit overzealous apparently, because from what I know now my casts were way bigger than it was necessary, which meant I could barely move my legs at all, and had to have them pretty much in the same position all that time and then later throughout physiotherapy until my muscles got used to working all over again. That was of course a fair bit of discomfort and then later also pain but that wasn’t really why I found it so difficult, rather, it was because I was totally unprepared mentally for what was going to happen to me after surgery, I had totally no idea what it was going to look like. My family weren’t really prepared either, we didn’t even have a wheelchair for me or anything like that so my Dad had to carry me to the loo when I needed it, and people had to help me out with the most basic stuff which I found incredibly humiliating. But what was challenging even more than that was the sensory deprivation. I didn’t have a computer back then nor any other devices really, and my room wasn’t adapted to my temporary condition. Sofi was very little, had about six months maybe, and my Mum was very busy with her plus with the new house my parents were building, people were going on with their lives and I was really bored most of the time. Sometimes my Mum would get me some talking books from the nearest library for the blind, which wasn’t really all that near, and I had a lot of Braille magazines for children, but they were on the shelves so someone had to give them to me. There was a limited number of them to begin with, but they also weren’t really labelled in any way in normal print, so I would often get the same magazines all over again. I also had a radio and listened to my favourite radio station at the time – Polish Radio BIS. – My class teacher visited me a couple of times to somehow help me catch up on the school work but that was only at the beginning. And other than that, I didn’t really have much to do at the time. My brain was in an awful mental state already prior to that due to a few different things, I was really anxious all the time, and that only worsened then. And because I was so sensorily and cognitively understimulated, my sensory anxiety was sky high all the time and that was simply really difficult to live with. I was also really depressed and suicidal and my sleep was all over the place, because of the lack of stimulation of any kind, anxiety and because my calves were hurting a lot for some reason after surgery, not somehow extremely bad but bad enough that it would prevent me from sleeping well. I still sometimes have that pain even these days, although it’s lesser. And of course the lack of sleep didn’t help in making me feel any better and my brain any more rational. And then physiotherapy was also quite yucky, as at the beginning it was rather painful and quite unexpectedly again. Most ironically though the surgery didn’t have any lasting effects, although because I’ve never really seen my shortened Achilles tendons as a real problem that would hinder me in any significant way in life I can’t say I care about that a lot.

What is such a thing for you? 🙂

Song of the day (28th December) – Lynn Saoirse – “Lord Massereene”.

Let’s listen to some more harp music! This great Irish Celtic harpist – Lynn Saoirse – has been featured on this blog before, I really love her music. And this is a piece from her that I listened to recently, so thought I’d share. I don’t know who lord Massereene is really, I guess there is a place in Ireland called Massereene…? or am I wrong? I think there is. And I know there was such an aristocratic title in Ireland as viscount Massereene, so it most likely refers to one of its bearers, but which one, and why it honours him, I have no clue. It is a beautiful harp piece though, and that’s what matters to me the most in this particular case. 🙂

Question of the day (27th December).

Do you think there is a god?

My answer:

Quite obviously I guess for anyone who knows me at least a bit, yes, I do believe there is a god. More exactly, I am a Christian and a Catholic, so I believe that there is only one God who at the same time is three Persons – the Father, His only Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit – is almighty, eternal, perfect, just, forgiving and of endless mercy. He has created the world. He loves all of His creation, but especially us humans whom He has created in His image and likeness, by giving us immortal souls. He is our Lord but at the same time we have the privilege to call ourselves His children and He cares for each of us as His most beloved child. I believe that God in the Person of the Son came down on Earth to become a human just like all of us except not sinful, and save us from our sins (which is why we celebrate Christmas, by the way, but I suppose everyone who celebrates it knows about it). He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary who agreed to become His Mother. He was crucified and gave His life for all of us. He was buried, but on the third day after His death he rose from His grave, later ascending into Heaven which was witnessed by His Apostles. He will come again on the day of the final judgment and will judge us all fairly and mercifully. During His life on Earth, He said to His Apostles that after His ascension, the Father will send Holy Spirit to them in His Name, as a comforter, who came onto them in the form of fiery tongues, and who has the power to inspire us all in our daily lives.

So yeah, if you’re familiar with Christian beliefs, which I suppose a lot of people are even if they aren’t Christian themselves because this religion is so widespread and kind of rooted in our western culture, this is probably all or almost all known to you and very basic stuff about the Christian faith. Obviously it’s just God in a nutshell, as there is so much more that could be said about Him.

How about you? If you do think there is a god, what do you believe him/it to be like, and is it just your own personal belief or do you identify with some specific religion, or maybe you are somewhere in between? 🙂

Song of the day (27th December) – Lisa Pedrick – “Fel Yr Hydd” (As A Hart).

Hey people! 🙂

I decided that, since it’s Christmas time, I’d share a hymn with you – not such that would be particularly connected with Christmas, but any Christian hymns really seem very right to share at this time of year to me. –

Lisa Pedrick is a relatively new artist to me, I come across her music listening to Cymru FM and quite liked her. Lisa was the winner of the first series of a Welsh music talent show Waw Ffactor – the same one that Duffy competed in, in case that tells you something more. –

This song, as you may easily recognise if you’re a Christian yourself or somehow acquainted with Christian hymns, is just the Welsh version of the English well-known hymn “As The Deer”. It’s also known here in Poland, and here it’s neither the deer or the hart, but the doe. This hymn was composed by Martin Nystrom and based on psalm 42. I really like the way it sounds in Welsh. I think generally Welsh is a great language for praying in.

Question of the day.

If someone you loved was killed in front of you, but someone created a copy of them that was perfect right down to the atomic level, would they be the same person and would you love them just as much?

My answer:

My first thought in reaction to that question: that would be creepy! 😀 But Sofi says I’ve been overusing the word creepy lately (which is true because since my last sensory anxiety episode everything still seems kinda creepy) so I should probably come up with something more original. Okay… um… I don’t know really. 😀 I mean, I guess it’s the sort of situation where you’d have to actually experience it to know what it feels like and what you’d think about it.

I often think that I’d like if cloning animals was a legal thing to do, because then I could pay any money for someone to clone Misha for me, but on the other hand even my own conscience is against it so I’m feeling very conflicted about it and would never actually do it even if someone came to me offering to do it, if it was legal and if I had the money.

With humans it would be even more of a problem. I had a brief period when I got interested in cloning after reading Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis, about a woman who decided to clone her own grandma. It was ages ago so I don’t remember the plot line very well now, but what comes to my mind now is that while she wanted to get her back as her grandma, that is at the age at which she knew her, the genetic material she had available was of her grandma at a much younger age. So, while you could consider her the same person physically, she was actually a different person than the one her granddaughter knew.

Also there is that quote saying that “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”. How would that new person be the same as the one I lost if we always change?

Also cloned people don’t have a soul. Surely that would be seen somehow in that new person’s behaviour or something, or even if not, that would make them different. It just evades my mind how can someone be death and then someone else can be put in their place who would be exactly identical in all spheres – well, except for not having a soul. –

Maybe if I didn’t see any huge differences I would be able to love them in a similar way I did the original person, but I am pretty sure when thinking of it now that they would be like two distinct people in my mind. Perhaps incredibly similar, almost indistinguishably, maybe somehow not distinguishable at all in a straightforward way, but still distinct.

What do you think? 🙂

Anuna ft. Lynn Hilary – “Codhlaím Go Suan”

Hey people! 🙂

So I was looking for something that would be in line with the current period and that I haven’t yet shared with you, and finally I did find something that I’m quite surprised I didn’t share with you before because I really love this piece, it’s so beautiful. I’m generally surprised that I’ve never shared anything from Anuna on here.

This is not necessarily a Christmas carol or anything like that, but it comes from one of Anuna’s Christmas albums and is like a contemporary Christian hymn, so I thought it still would be very suitable. It was composed and written by Michael Glynn – the musical director and founder of Anuna – and the soloist is Lynn Hilary who also used to be part of quite a popular Irish Celtic group Celtic Woman and has released some solo music as well.

Anuna is a very interesting project, they do choral music that is very much based on Celtic elements but also draws a lot from the Christian choral singing tradition. I am not a huge fan of choral singing but I like what they do.

Here are the lyrics to this song in English:

 

He comes with the wind

He goes on the waves

He hears my prayer

When I call Him in the darkest moment of the night

 

Softly, softly, softly

I sleep softly, my Christ

Softly, softly, softly

I sleep softly in Your heart

 

Naked He stands at the dawn

In the new-born child

He is there at the end

As the soul parts from the body

Softly, softly, softly

I sleep softly, my Christ

Softly, softly, softly

I sleep softly in Your heart

 

There is no one so full of mercy and love

There is no way to understand Your goodness

You are my teacher and guide

I sleep softly in Your heart

 

Softly, softly, softly

I sleep softly, my Christ

Softly, softly, softly

I sleep softly in Your heart

It doesn’t seem to be on YouTube, so below are the links to Spotify and Songwhip, and on the latter you can find all the other streaming services where it is available:

Anuna ft. Lynn Hilary – “Codhlaím Go Suan”.

Question of the day (25th December).

Does fate exist? If so, do we have free will?

My answer:

As a Christian, I see fate as God’s will. Both God’s will and our free will definitely do exist. I believe that God is the one who takes care of what we call our fate, He is the one in control of our life and death, and He has a plan for our lives that’s best for us. However, we are also able to choose freely whether we want to live our lives according to His plan or pursue our own ideas and go against His will and He won’t stop us from that, although He can make different circumstances happen in our lives, which we may not necessarily always perceive as positive ones at the time when they happen, but which are meant to have positive outcomes for us eternally and maybe even during this life and which may prompt us to come back on the road that is the best for us or give us different kinds of grace that will help us with that in whatever way a specific person needs to be helped, but essentially the choice is ours whether we’ll choose to ignore/waste it or not and how we’ll use all that. I think it’s a huge responsibility. God of course knows in advance what decisions we’re going to make during our lives but that does not mean that everything that happens in our lives is God’s will simply because it happens.

How do you see it? 🙂

Song of the day (25th December) – Lisa Angharad – “Waiting”.

Hey people! 🙂

It was Christmas yesterday, so I probably should have found something Christmassy for this day, especially that this Christmas season we only had one Christmas carol in Advent and another one on Christmas Eve and nothing more, but I sort of didn’t have very many Christmassy ideas in mind.

Lisa Angharad is an emerging Welsh artist, and this is her first single. I think it’s really cool and it’s gotten some popularity as I’ve heard it played a lot both on BBC Radio Cymru and Cymru FM. Enjoy. 🙂

Question of the day.

If you were given an envelope with the time and date of your death inside, would you open it?

My answer:

Yes, ‘cus why not? I don’t have a fear of death or dying and, while I am not actively suicidal or anything at this point, I don’t feel very strongly attached to life in general, I for example don’t really understand people who want to live and live and live, like my Dad who says that if he’d be healthy, he’d like to live even 200 years. I think that would be super tiring. Knowing the date of your death could be also motivating to do more things that you actually want to do in life. Knowing that you have 25 years, 9 months and 13 days until you die I guess may be somehow more motivating than knowing that you are going to die at some point in your life, it makes it feel more realistic.

On the other hand I am also not sure whether I’d believe whatever would be in that envelope, because how would another human being know that for sure? When I was into all the esoteric stuff years ago, while at the same time I felt very unmotivated to live, I did have someone tell me my date of death. I don’t even remember the year now but I know it was 23rd May and some sort of an accident of unclear nature. I took it very literally then and really believed in it, but these days, I just don’t think I would or at least not as confidently for sure.

You? 🙂

Merry Christmas wishes to all peeps and pets & Christmassy song of the day – Jackie Oates – “The Worthy Wood Carol”.

Hey people! 🎅

It’s only Christmas Eve today, but here in Poland Christmas Eve is the most festive day of Christmas – a little absurdly maybe – so to me it feels more natural to wish people merry Christmas today, rather than only tomorrow.

So, I’d like to wish you a very happy, joyful and cosy Christmas. I hope that it won’t be difficult for those of you who are particularly affected by Covid this year, and that you will still have someone to spend this Christmas with, albeit it may be less people than usual, I hope you won’t be feeling lonely. I wish you lots of inner peace and joy for this time, whether you actually believe in the whole thing for Christmas and it has any special meaning for you, or it’s just a fun festive time for you. I also hope that you get to eat lots of yummy food and enjoy other pleasures of this time.

If you don’t celebrate Christmas or celebrate something else instead at a similar time, of course I hope you have great holidays or just a pleasant, chill time.

Misha is wishing all the best to your pets as well and lots of nice presents. 🙂

Okay, so time for today’s song of the day now. Since it’s Christmas Eve, this will be a Christmas song, obviously, one from a lovely English folk singer and fiddler Jackie Oates – a beautiful lullaby carol. – Such Christmas carols which are at the same time lullabies are my favourites.

This one is called “The Worthy Wood Carol” and, according to Jackie’s own website, was written by an Exmoor gypsy in the 1920’s. I hope you like it. 🙂

Question of the day.

If you died today, what regrets would you have about your life?

My answer:

If I died, I don’t think I’d have any regrets afterwards, because I think our perspective on things must change quite a lot when that happens. As a Christian and Catholic, the only thing I can think of that I could really regret after death would be any sins that I didn’t do anything about in my lifetime, didn’t confess or regret them earlier or expiate for them or didn’t apologise to people who might have been affected or didn’t try to compensate them in any way, maybe even didn’t accept that I was sinning, as well as good things I didn’t do that could have helped my soul grow and be somehow beneficial for others around me. Which would mean I wouldn’t be able to enjoy being in God’s presence until my soul would be cleansed of all that yucky stuff in the purgatory, and purgatory souls do suffer a lot, not because they are somehow tortured in exquisite ways as some people imagine purgatory, but because they are separated from God, and they have a deep longing to be near Him but at the same time don’t want that to happen any sooner than when they are completely pure. Must be a strange state of being to find oneself in, when the whole perspective in which you look at yourself, the world and everything is no longer the same which you had when you were alive, but you see everything the way God does. I find it difficult on a cognitive level and as it seems it’s not just me. Anyway, since I’m still alive, I do try my best to do what I can not to have such regrets afterwards, although of course we are all flawed, make mistakes and all that, so we all will have some regrets of this nature when our time comes, I believe. Helping and devotion to purgatory souls is quite a thing, you could perhaps say a tradition, in my maternal family, as my great grandma had very close contact with and apparitions of them from what we know and she passed her passion for helping them onto her children, and it’s still alive. I have a fair few souls that are dear to me and whom I try to help by praying for them and offering up what I can, so that in case they are in purgatory, they can be released possibly soon, and I trust that when it’ll be my time to die, they will be there to help me too, I already do feel their help in some ways in life.

As for what I’d regret at the time I was dying or knowing that I’m going to die soon… I don’t really know what I would regret. Probably also those thoughts of spiritual nature would pass through my mind so I’d try to prepare my soul for death, but other than that… I’m thinking hard now and I have no idea at this point, so it’s possible that there wouldn’t be anything more. Oh wait, there is one thing! This is a thing that I already regret and have been regretting ever since it happened, and so I may be regretting it forever in this life, because it was really awful. It wasn’t even really my fault or my decision but I was involved in it anyway, I witnessed it and sometimes I wonder if I could stop it in time and it was so sad I haven’t fully gotten over it yet. I regret that it had to happen, the whole thing. I’m talking about Sasha – a Russian blue kitten we bought I guess two years ago, and had to rehome after two months. Some of you who have been around on here then may remember him, there even are some pics/videos of him on this blog I believe.

My Mum – who is famous for impulsive decisions on the spur of a moment – was thinking about getting another Russian blue cat, in addition to Misha whom we already had. We were all thinking that Misha was feeling lonely when we weren’t home, or even when we were. That perhaps he needed a playmate. It really blows my mind how we could be so daft, but now I’ve read lots of things about feline behaviours and brains so it’s easy to say to me that it was daft, but it really was. I liked a comparison I’ve read at one cat behaviourist’s blog – imagine you have a very loving partner, whom you love to, and who really admires you and thinks you’re beautiful. And one day he/she comes home and says: “Oh look, I was thinking you were so beautiful, that I decided to get myself another one, just like you. Now I’ll have two real beauties/handsome guys to sleep with. And you guys will be having real fun times with each other too, won’t you? You won’t mind sharing the same rooms?” 😀 Rude and selfish, right?

The more we all talked about it, the more Mum looked at Russian blues breeders’ websites and pics of Russian blue kittens, the more we felt like having a mini copy of Misha in our house.

And finally Mum learned that the breeder from whom we got Misha is going to have little kittens super soon, in the matter of days, I mean of course his cats were going to have them, not he. So Mum called him right away and he said that one is still free so she can take it when it’s born.

I did think it was really rushed and had mixed feelings, although mostly also for selfish reasons – because I thought Misha will spend more time with this other cat than with me/us and will no longer sleep with me – yet the perspective of having two Mishas was so pleasing that I couldn’t oppose for too long, and Mum’s arguments were very convincing as she was very sure of her decision and thought it an inspiration from God. I wonder what God was thinking of this accusation.

Whenever the topic of Sasha comes up now, I wonder, if I tried more to stop her from doing it so hurriedly, would it make the situation any better? Maybe if I tried, I would manage to change her mind, or at least cool her head off enough that the whole procedure of introducing a new cat would be better planned, not just: “Misha, this is Sasha and he’s going to be your new best friend from now on, deal with it if it doesn’t suit you”. Because when Sasha came it was nothing what it should be like and even the breeder, when he learned about the failure of the experiment, was shocked and kept saying that he did tell us how we should introduce them to each other, that it should be a gradual thing and all that. Maybe then at least they could live together in relative peace.

But it was as it was, and a few days later, Mum and Sofi went to the breeder and took Sasha home, and Sofi almost immediately brought him to Misha. Misha got super mad so that me and Sofi were scared, and Mum even accused him of being mentally ill because he can’t just react in a normal way to any change, even a positive one. 😀 He hid under the sofa and hissed and made such low noises all night. Good thing that at least Sasha had a bit different temperament, or very different in fact.

He was super cuddly, bold, happy-go-lucky and very extroverted. We were laughing with Sofi that just like Misha has his birthday two days before me and we are both incredibly similar to each other, Sasha was born just a few days after Sofi’s birthday and, like her, was a typical Gemini and very much like her. His outgoing personality and cuddliness made him even more likeable.

In the coming days, we saw very little of Misha, he was usually either hiding, or chasing and scaring Sasha, letting him know that it’s his – Misha’s – house, and Sasha has nothing to do in here. At some point, from what we’d managed to figure out, he must have scared him in the loo, HIS very private loo, because Sasha had a deep fear of doing his thing in the litterbox, but until we figured out what was the problem with the help of a behaviourist we were thinking he was just doing it on purpose for some reason, because there was no way to persuade him to do it in the right place and we had poo surprises everywhere from bathtub to wardrobes to pillowcases, which didn’t make the atmosphere any better as you can imagine.

Sometimes we stupid humans were treated to a special performance by Misha and Sasha implying that they are very good friends, so that’s what we liked to believe in.

Finally the loo situation was getting really out of control, unhealthy emotions were rising, everyone was stressed out and tired, Mum was near depressed, blaming herself, or being angry at Misha for being “antisocial” or Sasha for pooping, I was blaming Sasha for everything because if not him, Misha wouldn’t be going crazy and the whole situation wouldn’t have taken place, so I wasn’t treating him as nicely as Misha even though he was clinging to me as much as everyone else, and then after five minutes I would be very nice to him because he was so cute, after all, that you couldn’t resist for too long. He must have been super confused I guess. The culmination was that they both got sick. The vet said that there isn’t anything wrong with either of them physically, but they had high fever and other awful symptoms, Misha was throwing up with some gross, foamy stuff, Sasha was barely in touch with the world, so he said it must be stress and, after being told the story with minute details, he said it can’t go on like this and said they could even die if it would be dragging for too long. So we finally saw this too and started doing something about it.

We had to rehome Sasha, which was a great pain for our selfish brains. But at least he had real luck with his new family, or so I like to think. They’re very interesting, artistically inclined people, and months later I learned that Sasha’s new mummy is actually a children’s writer whose books I used to read, what a cool coincidence!

So the situation generally had a happy ending, although I can only hope that Sasha doesn’t have any bad memories or anything like that and that he has a better life now, but still… this situation would be so easy to prevent, or make it take a slightly different route. That’s why I regret it. I regret that Sasha couldn’t have a happy childhood right away, and that it had to be us with whom he had such a difficult start. I regret what we did to Misha, that we betrayed him in a way, as Mum says. Even though Misha seems like the biggest monster in this situation because if not his “antisocial” behaviour, we could have two cats, in fact, after Sasha left, we all only fully realised how virtuous Misha has actually been all that time. He forgave us what we did. He recovered and keeps being the sweet, good-natured Misha for us. Even while Sasha was with us, we did see much less of him but when we saw him, he was never aggressive to us and was very tolerant of all our whims at that time. Mum says he has a very noble spirit, and I think that describes him very well.

Okay, so how about you? 🙂

Leah Nobel – “Coffee Sunday NYT”.

Hey people! 🙂

Today I’d like to introduce you to Leah Nobel’s music – if you haven’t known her before, that is. – I haven’t until just a few weeks ago. Leah is from Phoenix, AZ.

What caught my attention about her is that she seems to be a really interesting person, with a lot of ideas, a lot of sides to her personality, and – yes – a lot of projects. Aside from creating music under her own name, she also has an alter ego – Hael – making more electronic music, and as Hael her music has been featured in quite a few ad campaigns for different companies, like Apple, Motorola and Toyota. She is also known as a rapper under the name of Lil Cheesecake. I like versatile people and this is a pretty wide spectrum of musical interests!

But what I find even more interesting is what she did last year. She interviewed 100 people from all walks of life, and used it as a material for her new album – “Running In Borrowed Shoes”. I like to listen to people, I like stories about people, and even more so I like to people watch and observe people and the dynamics between them, and I found that such an intriguing idea! Rather than focusing on herself, her own feelings, thoughts, interests, which would be totally fine and justifiable since it’s her album and her artistic expression, she decided to become a voice for all those people, and to inspire herself with their stories. Definitely an interesting source of inspiration and I guess not all that common in the songwriting world. I like interesting lyrics, or even just lyrics with interesting backgrounds. Leah says that it is a “‘hybrid creative endeavor’ combining journalism, empathy, advocacy and music. I really like the idea of such a combination, especially the empathy and advocacy part because you don’t normally think about them in conjunction with music even though they could complement each other so well, and I also like the results of this combination.

The song I want to share with you comes from that same 2019 album, and is all about having time for yourself, self-care, even self-pampering or maybe even laziness, being alone with yourself and chilling. I really like it and the vibe of it itself really makes you feel more chilled out.

(Do) I have people I trust.

I thought I’d use some journal prompt for some longer writing today, and I found one in The Goddess Journaling Workbook by Beatrice Minerva Linden which got me thinking, so I chose it.

“I have people I trust. Who are they? If they haven’t appeared in your life yet, imagine that person from your future vividly. Imagine the feeling of talking to a true friend. Imagine what they look like, their gestures and how they look at you as you talk to them.

Rather than strictly following the prompt, my post will be more like raw (more or less) ramblings about the whole trust thing in my life, just based on this prompt.

Because I am disabled, and so can’t be as self-sufficient in all areas of life as are people who do not have the disability and difficulties that I do, and because I am not very autonomous in what I believe is neatly called independent living skills in the Anglophone disabled community, I’ve naturally had to learn to trust people in a strictly practical sense. I mean in everyday situations in which I may need another person’s assistance or help. And I have, although obviously I also do have my guard on in case I need any help from people I don’t know all that well or have some sort of doubts about, whatever their nature might be. If I didn’t take the potential risk and didn’t assume that all people are trustworthy in this sense, my day to day life would be much more difficult to manage, having only myself to rely on all of the time. Luckily for me, I’ve never had any particularly adverse experiences from taking this potential risk, largely because I try to, and have such a possibility, to rely on people I know well, like my Mum, for example.

I’d never really dwelled on this topic much, simply because there’s just no other way so I never thought there’s even much to think about, until my last therapist (for my regular readers/those who know me off blog, the one who was so obsessed with my blindness), made an interesting observation right after our first session, when she was guiding me out of the building, that I must be a very trustful person because I have to rely on others in daily life situations like that one. So that got me thinking because, aside from that practical stuff where I’m basically forced to trust people a lot of the time, I’m not really all that trustful at all. Although I didn’t tell her that, which perhaps also tells something about my degree of trust towards people whom I met for the first time a little more than an hour before. 😀

As I’ve already mentioned before, the person I definitely feel the most comfortable trusting with daily life stuff is my Mum, since we know each other very well. I also know that I can trust her with more private stuff than just guiding or describing something or other such stuff you could potentially ask a random stranger on the street for. Recent example – the MIMRAs (My Inner Mishmash Readership Awards). She had been helping me a lot with these, this year, and the year before. And I had no problem trusting her with the MIMRA cards, for which she did some initial designs so that the company who were making them would know what I wanted exactly, that she did them the way she told me she would and more or less how I explained to her I’d like them to look like. When the cards were ready, I trusted her that they look just like she said they do, and even trusted in her opinion that they are really nice and better than last year. I didn’t even think about not trusting her. I could be more wary of her intentions, get my iPhone, open one of the AI apps for the blind and see what colour it is, recognise the text on the cards with it to see whether there is really what I wanted to be written on them, but trusting her takes much less hassle, plus the app could get confused and say the wrong colours or misread something and then I’d be in a real conundrum as for who to trust. Then I even trusted her with addressing the parcels and sending them while I was writing the MIMRA post myself, without double checking if she didn’t mix the recipients up, on purpose, of course. 😀

So, yeah, with daily life stuff, I think there isn’t really any other way being disabled, so that it isn’t even a personality or character trait, but simply a coping/survival strategy you have to use.

Let’s talk now about this other type of trust. There are people in my life with whom I openly share a fair bit of personal stuff, including this blog, and really like doing so. For that reason, some people even think I’m open or outgoing or some other things like that. I like to think I have a rich and varied brain life, so even when I do not share a lot, there is still a lot I can and do share about myself and my life. 😀 Also what I share with people is always, well, usually, carefully filtered beforehand. If it’s not, it either means something unusual was going on either with my brain and state of mind, or in my life, at the time of sharing, or that I felt reasonably comfortable sharing it. Online, the third option can be that I somehow forgot to edit something out but if I’m writing something personal or deeply emotional I spend ages editing it, which minimises the chances of it happening. 😀 I still sometimes regret things I shared with people intendedly though if I come to a conclusion that I “exhibited” myself too much, especially in person. I kind of envy people who can just spontaneously pour out their brains “live” to someone but on the other hand I’d never actually want to do this I guess, there is something creepy about it. That’s probably why therapy has always been a difficult thing for me, you’re supposed to be an open book there, I just can’t do it, it creeps me out. When I was a kid, one of my weirdest fears was that I’d be sleep talking and say something that I think about or just have in my mind but would never ever want anyone to know. I didn’t have anything specific in mind that I wouldn’t want people to know, no dark secrets, just not having a filter while dreaming was a scary prospect. It still is although I’m not quite as concerned with it because as far as I know I’ve never sleep talked and I sleep on my own these days, as opposed to having roommates in boarding school and sharing one big bedroom with my family until the age of 10 when we moved. And now I dream a lot in other languages so chances are even if I sleep talked and someone heard it they wouldn’t have a clue whatever I was saying. 😀 Another handy advantage to being multilingual that I never thought of before, especially when living with monoglots. 😀

So, as you can figure out from that, there aren’t many people I could say I actually trust, and even if I do, it’s not like what some people say about their friends, that they could tell them just about anything and confide in without any worries or self-consciousness or anything.

Out of all these people, I trust my Mum the most. I know she also trusts me too, maybe even more than I do her because she shares a whole lot with me and always asks me for advice with really personal stuff. So I really value the bond we have. Since we are family we naturally have a lot of similar experiences or traits so that also makes it easier to trust her. But I never feel like I can be open with her regarding my mental health issues, and all the related stuff. Because these are not things she has any personal experience with, and she seems to find it very difficult to relate to/understand, and often reacts very emotionally to what I share with her about that, which typically doesn’t make me feel any better. She is very supportive in a practical sense, but she just simply often can’t understand what I’m dealing with. Combined with the fact that I have trouble sharing such personal stuff and even when I want to share something, it takes some effort from me, which means it might not always be the easiest to absorb for the other person or might make them feel somehow uncomfortable as well, it doesn’t make her a go-to person for me when I need some support because I’m particularly depressed or something. Such convos are tricky so we both prefer to avoid them if possible, which doesn’t mean she is in denial of my difficulties. But we can talk our faith, interests, though we have very different ones but still having deep interests overall is something that brings us closer, relationships with people and people in general, like neither of us can do with anyone else. That’s really nice. I also know I can ask her all sorts of awkward questions about life, be it its social side and how to handle a specific social situation, or to do with adulting etc. I often feel like I’m clueless about a lot of things that are obvious to people and I really value having someone who can explain it speaking my language, so to say. 😀 Only because we do share a lot, I often feel the pressure from her to share everything, especially when she realises that I don’t, and that drives me mad and has the opposite effect.

I can also be quite trustful with Sofi and like to confide a lot of low key stuff in her, and I like how it always seems to make her feel older than she is. Being a teenager, Sofi likes feeling older than she is and when someone treats her in such a way, y’know. 🙂 I like talking fazas with her, for example now that I am desperately seeking for a new faza and looking for faza candidates, whenever there is a more serious one, I always let Sofi in on that and seek her opinion on the potential new faza subject, what she thinks about their music, and how they look like. The more disapproving of their music she is, the more happy I am because that means they might finally end up being good enough for my brain as a faza subject. Because Sofi’s and my tastes in music differ diametrically. I also like to know what my faza subjects look like, just for the sake of knowing, and I feel more comfortable asking Sofi who is in the age of crushes, which are a similar phenomenon to fazas in some ways, and additionally is a very visual and perceptive person, rather than bother my Mum with it. We just generally talk a lot with Sofi, mostly very casual stuff but I think we both feel quite comfortable sharing a lot of little things with each other, although with more complex things we don’t really understand each other that well as we’re very different and there’s quite a significant age difference between us. I also wouldn’t tell Sofi anything too serious as she is only a child and very sensitive, plus keeping secrets isn’t her strongest point. I can also trust her to help me with a lot of things like now with MIMRa pictures.

I also have a special sort of trust for my grandad. He has always supported me, no matter in what sort of situation. Even in situations when he doesn’t really know what it’s all about, he’ll always support me as if it was some sort of a rule he never breaks. Even when my Mum isn’t in my corner, he silently is. We don’t really talk together all that much though. We like being together in silence. When I was a kid, I always knew that he wouldn’t judge me if I cried openly in his presence or was super angry. And he always makes me feel safer. I mean physically, sensorily, I don’t know… But we no longer live close and so our relationship is more distanced now. Either way we never had as much time for just the two of us as I’d like, because I was in the boarding school a lot, he worked a lot, and there was always grandma. My grandma is a sweet, virtuous, charming and lovable person but I don’t feel quite as comfortable around her.

I also trust with some deeper things some of my online friends and am really glad I have them since I’ve started penpalling and blogging and like the connection we have. I like how I’ve found a lot of like-minded people on the internet in the recent few years, which means I can talk to them a lot of things we both like/have experienced that I can’t talk to with all the people above. I can talk about my interests or fazas with them more indepth, or the mental health stuff, or whatever else that we both get. This is so cool. Again though, I always feel the need to filter things a lot. I feel like I should mention my late friend Jacek from Helsinki in particular, with whom we had a very strong bond over our interests, which contributed to a level of closeness I don’t think I ever had with anyone else, though our relationship was nowhere near ideal as we both clashed a lot in terms of personality.

So there isn’t anyone I would be able to trust without any reservations. I don’t know if I should see this as a problem, or just as a fact, so I prefer the latter, but generally I just don’t think about it too much on a regular basis cus actually why think about it too much. I don’t lose sleep over it. Only sometimes when I really feel like I could reach out to someone but find myself unable to, even though there are a lot of potentially trustworthy people around me, then it bothers me a bit, but typically not for too long, because then in turn the idea of having such a close relationship scares me.

If it is a problem, I think it’s not because potentially trustworthy people or a potential “true friend” hasn’t appeared in my life or because I have never met anyone I could feel totally safe with and comfortable just being myself, feeling sure that they’ll accept me anyway. Or this may be a secondary problem only.

I know a lot of people who seem trustworthy, a lot of awesome, supportive and like-minded people, online in particular. So, what I think the actual problem could be, if it is a real problem, I just don’t feel safe opening up to people for real, or don’t want to overwhelm them, or maybe I somehow don’t know how to form such close relationships. Oh yeah, and what’s for sure, closeness is a nice concept but it also scares me shitless in practice. I just struggle with reaching out to people I guess, which means the real, strong trust can’t form on my end of the relationship.

But I see yet another option here. Maybe the problem is that there is a fair bit of pressure in our gregarious society to have a lot of friends, and for all of them to be true, eternal friends, with whom you can talk anything under the sun and share absolutely all ups and downs and everything in between of each other, and then maybe even a true soulmate for good measure. As I like to be different, if this is indeed the case, I am pretty happy to be the other way around and stay freely individualistic, not needing to feel obliged to share all the ins and outs of my life with another human being, or even a larger number of them. 😀

That’s why I sorta feel unable to address the other part of the prompt and (realistically) imagine such a person vividly, and especially my very trusting interaction with them.

How is it with you? Do you trust people easily? Do you have a lot of people you trust? Or do you have no one? If so, are you able to imagine someone whom you could trust and what they’d be like? Does it bother you that you have no one like this at present? And, do you have someone in your life that you trust totally, whom you can tell anything or ask for anything? Do you think it’s good/necessary/to have such a person? Or maybe you don’t like the idea for some reason and prefer to rely solely on yourself? Loooads of questions today. But I think this is a wide topic, so just tell me whatever your thoughts are about the whole thing or just the prompt. 🙂