Category: Barcelona

I always wrote a lot. Diary, stories, now the blog, masses of slips of paper with doodles, thoughts, memories. I keep it all in a treasure chest. Others maybe put things inside, I have a paper mess. Texts in german, french, spanish, english and sometimes you can also find a scribble in romanian. I call it my treasure chest collection because these collection of papers does present me. My biggest material treasures you can find in my book shelf but the smallest, the tiniest, the details – nobody knows them except this chest.

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My new home Barcelona is missing me, at the moment I’m in Germany for holiday because I still had to do a lot of work, cancel things, control and sort out. While sorting out my stuff I found a text in my treasure chest which I wrote many time ago. It’s the proof how lucky I am with the people around me. That’s why today you can read a blogpost which is kind of different than the others because I share something with you not everybody knows. I already had published this text collection but then borrowed it once again. But now I won’t borrow it anymore, because we all are stronger than we think. And we have the strength and powers we sometimes even don’t know.

Don’t let nobody bring you down to your knees. Nobody and nothing…

Sometimes there is something which throws you out off course. You are standing there, helpless and you can’t hold it or even control it. You even can’t control yourself and you will do things without being convinced to do it right. We are all on a journey. Going a path. Some people have a path of asphalt, with flowers on both sides. That’s nice for them that they chose the easy path. As long as they are okay with that, there won’t be any bloodshed. But of some others the path is made of crushed rock, stony, steep and ruthless. I had to walk this way barefoot in the last few weeks. And blood was shed. “Don’t be that bitchy”, he said, I stoned his words. So many pebbles. But they came back like a boomerang and left more scars than my body already has. It hurt. And blood was shed. I was chewing dirty words and throwing out everything. But before he raged. And he destroyed everything I could call my life. I only can trust myself. I shared lies because I still have to practice this gift until it’s perfect. There are wonderful people who are staying with me anyhow. I’m in Copenhagen right now. The city is cute. But it’s not about the city. Since many months it’s a matter of how I could get on with myself without getting crazy. Because he destroyed everything. And blood was shed. You are fine with brushing all aside, at least for a while. But sooner or later the resistance will be broken. You should listen to your body. When it’s bleeding, crying or hungry. I hate doctors. And I hate bloodshed. I’m not a pro in being strong but I can fight. And there will be a day when he is gonna be small and I am gonna be tall. Then I will be the winner. Wild horses are running through my head, through my brain and mainly through my heart. They give the power which I need. However but I will get through this. You will see.

“Don’t make a fuss”, he said all the time. He was enraged. How can you be mad because I’m tired? I don’t want that. Something broke inside of me. The other day when you hurt me so much. But I’m not allowed to make a fuss. To be tired doesn’t count. But you are able to sleep the whole night after it. We changed parts. Because then I became angry. I threw you out much too late. You slept in blood and tears, I hated it. I hated you in this moment. In my mind I scrunched up photos and deleted memories. They are too dirty anyway to think about one moment longer. And you can strain yourself however you want but they won’t never become clean anymore. Your work is done – but I am no longer part of it. Shut up, I will make a fuss. Time for you to go.

There are many outraged faces. Nobody expected that. Of course not, me either. They are talking to me that I made the right decision. But in my opinion I made this decision too late. We buggered it up. No, that’s wrong. You buggered it up. You on your own. I’m not the one who is looking for mistakes in other persons and for sure I also made enough mistakes. “Stop snivelling”, you said without paying attention to the blood. It doesn’t interest you as long as you can leave the whole story as a winner. You will never do this again. I let many people win. My little brother for example. Always. I’m always the one who will withdraw for others celebrating their triumph. I am able to fight but not to win. Only for you I will make an exception. I will fight until I won. You won’t be the winner because I won’t let you win.

I’m thinking a lot. But never thinking of you. Thoughts of you are forbidden. And a waste. It would make me angry anyway. I’m just not thinking. That’s better. You never made that either. You never thought about how you can hurt me, you just did. You didn’t think about respect. There are many sorts of respect, you had none to be proud of. It’s a really shameful indictment not being able to stand up for the little granny of the neighborhood in the tram. You aren’t interested in other people. They only make you upset because you think it’s nonsense what they are doing. As we did shopping at a sunday afternoon, you was angry with me because I forgot to buy my stuff within the week and wanted to do it on a sunday when the whole supermarket was overfilled. You was upset and ignored me. I never begged you to come with me but it was my fault then that you couldn’t get your favorite crisps due to masses of people. Anyway you are sitting then on my sofa, eating other crisps and still ignoring me even if I paid your crisps. I’m not resentful for those little things, I can overlook that. But we have a different understanding of respect. And as long as you “only” are treating the little granny in the tram without respect, I never said anything and was just angry about it for myself. But now you also lost your respect with me. And I won’t accept that anymore. My world is spinning on, it’s existing at my wall now. But it’s existing without you because I decided to take the respect. Not you because obviously you don’t want to cooperate with the respect. Maybe I should invite the lovely little granny of the neighborhood for a cup of coffee, so she can watch my world, full of respect.

Something changed. And my soul’s circulation is kind of afraid of that because it just didn’t take much time. Actually I only wanted to hole up myself. Closing all doors and windows, not seeing anyone. Forgetting everything. And not talking about it until it’s endured in maybe a couple of years when the wound doesn’t hurt anymore. At leat I calculated with some years for that. Because one day it will burst and hurt again, I thought. But obviously not if someone comes into your life before, using all his strength and power to repair the wound. This person threw me out off course more than everything else before. For sure it wasn’t planned. I closed up my fucked-up heart but in fact there is a tiny back door which he found. I need time. He gives me more than only time. I’m feeling better. Really, I am able to manage my life again. Far away from the german rules. In between of chaos, crazyness and a bunch of emotions of which I thought that I couldn’t cope with them very well at the moment. “You are completely aimless”, he always said, the other guy who must be not named. I am the personification of order since I met my new definition of chaos. We don’t have any ideas where we will end up but we are not thinking and just drifting. Because it’s this new story of chaos what I want. Not thinking about it, especially not thinking about THIS TIME. My soul is eating its fill and my heart is able to breathe again. Because you blew up the chains, you sweet little personified chaos from the other side of Europe.

I don’t have much to say. Only that he made everything better. I’ve almost all of my exams done, he cared a lot that I won’t fail. I directly slipped into something I never had before, something different and bigger than I thought. He is more than medicine. And I think, it might be all said of my personal life. I think, I’m healed. Or at least a lot better.
(unknown date)

Whatever we do, there will be always people who fight against your luck. They try to destroy, to knuckle down, to control and to make you small. We live in a world where you have to be selfish because everyone is selfish and you will get smashed if you put up with everything. Usually I’m not selfish. I hate it to take my own first, I would share my last food, I thought. But I learned that the world wouldn’t share with you and they would steal you the last thing even if you was supposed to share with them. I learned that you always will have persons who envy you and who try to destroy your life because they can’t have the same. There will be always persons who take everything really serious and personal even if you didn’t want to insult anyone. They don’t believe you and they told me that the best thing I know is sharing lies. I learned that I’m not able to make it right to everyone, so I should stop to try it. I will protect myself better. So there won’t be any bloodshed with my life anymore. I take my decisions – and not everybody will like them. I make my life – and not everybody will celebrate it with me. And I will lose my patience for people who let me justify every single step in the past. I’m happy. And I’m happy with the person I chose and in the city I chose. Thank you, life.
(26-08-2018)

Personal diary

I wrote that I won’t borrow this post. I want to keep my word although I withdrawed the post once again and made some changes. The withdrawal was made for reasons and the changes for resulting reasons as well. After the first publishing circa 10 persons wrote me who felt addressed. I asked myself appalledly if I’m such a bad person who just destroys and snubs everything. As such as I cannot imagine that, because I know myself and I’m thankful to the city of Barcelona which gives me every day the opportunity to know myself better than before, so cleaned my mind form this thought and asked myself which problems these people have. Probably you can’t find someone who makes everything right and also I hurt many people in my life and I raged in their hearts like a thunderstorm. It hurts in my soul having destroyed so much and now speaking about the same destruction others did to me. But I decided to push away this destruction because in the mentioned case it happened with envy. As it’s difficult to satisfy envy persons, you shouldn’t even try it and forearm yourself with your selfish side. Not sharing because of self protection reasons is really sad for me, that’s why I left Germany.
I don’t want to blame anyone being the reason of my emigration, only to the huge envy in the heads of human beings. In Barcelona I found my peace with this situation because the people around me want to share with me the little that they have and don’t request more. You don’t need self protection here, you don’t need to be selfish.

A long time ago I found in this city the person with whom I can learn, share, live and cope with all these things. He gives me the peace after all this nonsense. He is the chaos, the biggest mess, the thoughtlessness, the love, the honesty and a little volcano. He is the enthusiam, energy, the aimlessness, the satisfaction with the little details and the affection which doesn’t fit in any jar of the world, doesn’t matter how tall or large it is. He is the drunkenness which is not alcohol-related, the laughing of a child and the attention you can’t find in many people. He is the philosophy, which is missing and lost in the religion, he is the outburst of fury, burning down the forest once and being calmed with a silent and soft rain, he is the voice which cleans your conscience. He is the heart which doesn’t know any borderline and the ear which tells you the story of “Momo”. He’s everything for me and we started to build up our life in Barcelona.

Concerning to my life in Barcelona, we still have some start difficulties, but soon we get through it and then I can tell you more about crazy catalans, tapas-evenings, until you burst because of eating and latinos who love each other because they insult each other – or maybe they insult each other because they love each other, who knows. In the middle there is a barefoot walking german girl who can live without it anymore.
*By the way, the picture of me was made by my “little Söckchen”, Patrick Mader,who is traveling through the world, writing everything down on his blog and making me crazy with his “could-you-correct-that”-actions (no problem, cutie, I like to correct it for you, but sometimes I think you played skat in the german lessons). But you should read it anyway. Cheers and talking soon.

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To do things “just like that” is a scary theme for the world. We are afraid of the consequences, because they are mostly more far-reaching than we suppose at the moment. But there are so many things you should do just like that. Just like that calling the parents to ask if they are fine, just like that helping the old lady crossing the street, just like that smiling at a person you don’t know. And then there is me. I change just like that my life.

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It was more than one year ago when I wrote something for the last time. More than one year when I travelled trough the Balkans which also said my last post. It’s strange to have a blog to assimilate such huge trips but in the end you do it in a different way because life changes basically. My life changed. I made decision which caused a headache in other heads and feelings of excessive demands in my one. The excessive demand is still there, but also something different. Gonna try to strip down this puzzle.

After the Balkan trip I made things I shouldn’t have done but I don’t have any regrets. I also made other travels, I went to Romania, to the Ucraine. Poland, Mallorca and Russia. Probably I will write something about Russia because this trip meant a lot to me but I should stop announcing something without doing it at the end.
But I did one thing. I did it for me, just for me. Nobody helped me to take this decision, nobody was there. Only a lot of people just listened. But it’s mine and I don’t give it back. Sometimes you have to be selfish. And I was selfish enough to do something for me, just for me.

I MOVED TO BARCELONA.

Just like that. It was my decision and my friends congratulated me while my mum got almost a heart attack. Meanwhile she calmed down and also accepted my plan of not coming back to my home country. Of course you never can talk for the future and who know where I will wake up tomorrow but I made plans. Plans for a new life. Although you cannot make plans in Spain.
But now I’m here. Just like that. I work, I have a place to live and a national insurance number. I want to finish my studies here. And I don’t want to go back. There are many things I gave up in Germany and I’m very aware of the consequences of this step in my life but until now I only observe positive results. And not only the fact that I speak better spanish.

Germany didn’t make me happy. Maybe it’s my fault as well. And maybe deep in my heart I belong to Spain like all my friends always were saying it. Romy – always late, doesn’t have any plan and walks barefoot above the asphalt. Romy appears with all the unimportant stuff and forgets the important one, Romy is like that, I remember of my first teacher in elementary school who already told me my character when I was 7 years old. Romy, our dreamer. And I like it.
But it’s not possible to manage a life in Germany with this attitude. How often I buggered appointments, how often I forget to return borrowed things, how often I lost my pens. Came late to the exam in university, forgot the appointment in physiotherapy and left my semester ticket at home without noticing that I went without ticket in the tram.
I assume that these things happen to everybody but not in this quantity like I do. My friends call me a hairstyler (I don’t know the reasons for this association in the german language but we use it for a really, really forgetful person) and I dance through my life, sometimes with the biggest mess, the biggest thoughtlessness and only the half of the stuff in my bag. It’s not always good but at least I got quite far with my 24 years and I handled it to cope in diverse places in the world.
There always was one place where I could cope better than at other ones. Where I could be myself and where it’s no problem to go barefoot through the streets and forget all the pens. And there I am now. I breathe again, I enjoy the spanish sun. I could cry of happiness waking up every morning in Barcelona and I smile to the people in the metro when I go to work. Sometimes we drive by motorbike through the streets of Barcelona in the middle of the night  and I never feel so free and light like in this moment, this feeling I hadn’t anywhere and anytime in Germany. And I already passed a lot of hours at my favorite place.
My maltreated bones feel better to move again and leave everything behind. It doesn’t matter if they can’t keep up with everybody sometimes. They don’t have to give 100 % anymore all the time and it’s easier for me to allow myself some breaks, to stop regardfully, breathe and not try to do everything the fast as possible. Perfectionism is good, unperfectionism is better. My body likes this place, the german chains were blowed up. I don’t have to jail my broken feet into shoes anymore, I can stop to work against my heart. I’m happy here.

I AM HAPPY – ARE YOU HAPPY?

It’s really easy and at the same time kind of difficult to say that you’re happy. People do it all the time without meaning it. Before my moving I spent much time with thinking about it, writing lists, gathering pro’s and con’s, talking all friend’s ears off. Especially the lovely Lauri and the genious Lydie went with me through this phase of finding a decision from beginning until the end. It wasn’t a easy decision and no crazy “booze idea” like we call it in german which has been haunting in my head for one week before being decided. I was occupied for more than two years of thinking about my personal form of happiess and luck.
I think, I found it. I never would have thought that it will be a city one day any maybe it’s completely starry-eyed to fix your life and your heart affairs onto a special place but at the moment I think I did the right thing. I’m happy here and I don’t write that like all the others who tell you something about happiness tjust to tell you at least something. My heart and my body are happy in this city. And there is no other place, no other city, no other country which could establish the same feelings. I feel alive here because Barcelona doesn’t forbide you to dream and to forget all. I’m allowed to come late, I’m allowed to stop and to take a deep breath. I’m allowed to buzz a little song while standing at the pay desk in the supermarket without being looked strange of everyone.

Of course life in Spain is not “peace, joy, pancake” (I love german sayings, that’s a synonym for “everything is fine”) and there are things I had to get used to or I still have. Things I have to learn, things which are producing a mind change and things I can’t leave untouched. The fame of spanish organisation (if we can call it like that) is wide-spreaded and to be honest you need at least a little bit of order in your life without getting crazy. I have to learn here to put myself and my stuff bitter into an order, I have to do things completely alone which are working by system in Germany. I can’t get dependent or hooked of somebody, I have to keep together all my documents without losing one. I have to get used to the fact that in Spain nothing works “fast”, “really fast” or “really, really, really urgent fast”. Spanish people take their time for everything, always looking for reasons and festival days to not go to work. They are dated back immensely in things like efficiency and structure like it was my habit. If something doesn’t fit, we’ll make it fit. Sometimes it’s nerve-racking that you have to care about every single thing but the others don’t care if you don’t. When I apologized in the social security office for my delay of five minutes, they gazed at me really dumbfounded and a bit amused.
I have to admit that I like it. I like this easy-going attitude of the people, probably because I’m the same. I needed some chaos in my life. I want to find a structure for all by myself and I don’t need a country which wants to force me to take its structure. I don’t want that cold of the hearts anymore, only because the own structure collided with the german one and the country doesn’t agree. Spanish people are so friendly persons and finally I can build up a life with my own setted benchmarks.

“But then you are so far away!”

Of course I already coped with dark sides and problems, too and there are things passing here I struggle to get used to them but I was completely aware of the negative facts before and if my list of the pro arguments wasn’t be as twice or more as long (even after writing it many times), I never would have done it. By the way, the most important point was that I can be myself in Barcelona, best argument at the top of all. I can live with all negative points.
There are many lovely people here who help and support me. Many friends I found and met in all these years, love, feeling of security and a serious meant laugh. Nobodys lies into my face freezingly. And of course I gave up a lot in Germany for the life I want to have now. I will my family and my friends for sure, although there isn’t any price difference anymore between going by train or going by airplane, thus the sentence “but then you are so far away” (my mum while having her heart attack) is no argument for me. I will miss some specific ways to think and objects, I will learn to appreciate my country like you do automatically when you are not there. Otherwise you only curse it. Actually Germany is a safe, solid and also beautiful country to live in and I will lack in many things – from the system of the lawful health insurance passing pver green forests until sour cream to bake tartes and cakes. But I want it like that because the things I won don’t make a tragedy out of the lacks. You also can bake without sour cream.
I want to live in Spain and I will keep my country in wonderful memory and appreciation because it brought me up and made me to the person I am today. I always will be typical german, with all these german whims and tics (only we take away the white socks with the sandals), I won’t hand in my german passport either. I am German and maybe my country and I find each other again one day but for the moment the breakup was necessary and beautiful. Just like that.

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