New times

I can feel it inside of me, the shifts and turns; And it burns just underneath my skin.

My job called me today, and told me they were going to have to restructure things, again. And how this would mean a remake of my working schedule. Less days completely off, but essentially same 70%.

So many things have changed in such a short amount of time with work, I don't expect it to find stability any time soon. Which means looking for stability might not be the way forward.

My instincts are telling me It's time to do something else. I welcome whatever the future holds but I feel my time at my current job is coming to an end.

I'm considering letting someone come live in my home, could be nice for a year or so to live a bit differently, to keep expanding as a person, and have someone share some of the living expense.

I'm considering some wild things these days.
I don't only have myself to think about but also my game project, which now is touching more people than myself. It's going to be a new world of opportunity out there, with so many companies laid to the dust, what will rise from the ashes?

Maybe the Twinlake Minstrel will.

The light or the shadows? which one attracts the strongest, which one scares you the most?
The light intimidates, burns, is full of adversity. But it is where greatness is born.
The darkness is solitary, simple, focused, safe. It's a place to grow strong in.

I need both.
But I can't right now, first I require change in my life.
Come Monday (2020-03/27), Is when I'll start this journey. We'll see where the world ends up after I've made my move.

Signed, Mireneye

Catharsis

Truly seeing another person can be hard.
You might wish that your paths did not diverge so much, that there was more time.
You might try to force a change that ultimately nobody wants.
Because what is beuty if it isn't free?
What is love if it isn't given selflessly?

To answer these question you might have to face yourself. This arguably most of us want to think that we are decent at. I think all the time that from countless, countless hours of introspection that I have come face to face with every demon that has ever lived and will ever live inside of me.

But the truth is, I was blind not to see the pattern. The ebb and the flow, there's always a demon growing, there's always a force trying to stop it. Any new tool that you produce to work on yourself ultimately might save you in the moment. The demon neutralized. But we.. are not made to be satisfied. We need to invent and reinvent and in the process of meeting other people, new demons will rise anew.

Demons are a part of life. The challenge they pose can break you on a fundamental level. I've been there.

I don't know if many people know that. I mean, I'm open about my life to anyone who's curious. But I have been, maybe I continue to be fundamentally a bit broken.

It just so happens, every broken piece has found a home somewhere inside of me. And slowly, slowly my mind unravels, as a mystery box, before my own minds eye.

I had a talk with my father recently. We get along much better now than we ever have had. I told him a little bit about my perspective on my not so ideal childhood, and told him that I had forgiven him since long.

After a minute I almost cried.
And he was sad, but also happy and agreed that he's also enjoying having this "Father/Son connection" after so many years.

To be honest, there are things I will never forgive. But I understand also that the guilt should be enough, I have nothing to add to that.

And let me be fourthcoming. The only way forward is through, right? At least that is what I believe.

I also carry guilt.

Before I started thinking for myself about what a relationship is and isn't my only real reference were idealized television and my mother and father.

I had very magical ideals.
My first girlfriend told me that "if we are gonna do this, first we got to take things slow, and do it right". I was too stupidly horny as young teenager to take that to heart.

Nobody ever after that point, ever said anything wise like that too me again. We just assumed, and played a game of "let's be boyfriend and girlfriend" and hope that we understand what that means without any effort.

This left me an incredibly confused lovefool.

Before getting more into this, none of what I say is meant to do any justice to the deeds I carry guilt for. But this is my story and I want you(the reader) to know the whole thing.

One morning, I got home from work, and my then girlfriend, second ex was sleeping. I came in and I was like, hey.. I really need to talk to you. I actually don't remember what it was about but things had been tense in general, in our relationship and also with my family. She was really tired and needed to sleep in and I tried to tell her that it was important. With all the emotions that were boiling inside of me I hit the wall next to the bed, It's basically above where she slept so it really startled her.

This stuff is going to be tough for me to talk about. I have processed much of it but never talked about it in plain text, for anyone to find and dissect.

We had a big fight and It's safe to say that was the breaking point between us. Probably the worst breakup I ever had. But this is not the end of it. It's about to get darker.

Fast forward a month or so, it so happens we are going on a planned trip. Me, my second ex and her best friend. Situation was a bit loaded and my feelings were very confused, it was stupid but let's not linger on it.

We got to the place, and while yes we had been drinking I'm in no way hiding behind this. The choice to drink is as much our responsebility as anything, and again it was a bad choice. At this point they are stacking up.

The night was coming to an end and I was setting up my tent when I realized I did not have all the stuff I needed. I asked if I could sleep in my second exs tent, which she agreed upon if our bedrolls remained separate.

During the evening as she was falling asleep, and very gradually I think I wanted to think we were getting closer. There was no way I could sleep with everything running through my head at that point. I was so confused, heartbroken and here I was next to her.

And we inched closer. Probably my unconscious moving me forward. Eventually we touch bedrolls.

I started putting my hand around her, I think I realized she was awake. I touched her, inside of her clothes, her knickers with my hand. She froze to the touch and I didn't get far, and I really can't remember exactly what happened first but I think she broke out of the state she was in, and basically ran out of the tent.

So yes.. I did it.
Something I keep as a constant reminder to never. ever. do again. And nothing I ever do will make this right, and no amount of sorry or deed can ever redeem it. It is guilt, pure and proper.

I've openly told anyone who I've started having a meaningful encounter with about this event, because I want them to know this defining moment.

I thought once or twice, that I should turn myself in because of it.
But maybe this is a better, if I keep being honest and open. If I keep this close as a guiding principle in my life.

I'm still learing so much about people and relationships. What it means to let go, what it means to let things take time.

I found so many tools that worked wonders for me as a person. I found ways to communicate with feelings that felt previously impossible. It's because of a person that made me challenge everything about how relationships are supposed to be.

Enter my third ex.

The first person who shared with me, a structure, a package of how things could work if you take to yourself a few core values.

I ended up having four amazing years with this person.

However, everything about this relationship was not amazing.
During this relationship, I've once hit a wall in agony. I've tossed a chair to the floor.

I think it's important you understand that one thing that made us so strong was because we challenged each other, and we were both very smart and strong willed.

This was also one of our pitfalls that led to so much frustation.

A central theme that ran through many of our arguments was "What can I ask for without putting pressure on you?". The answer was from day one until the end, no different "I don't know".

We lived quite frivolously. Experimenting a lot with different ways on how to maximize freedom, while maintaining a working, very close, romantic relationship.

So, at one point she was away for a week with another person she was building an intimate romantic relationship with. I put a lot of pressure on her during this time because of reasons I won't get into in detail I was feeling incredibly insecure about this, and fear of history repeating itself started to grow.

We were going to meet at the end, and connect but towards the end of the week she started being really shifty over text messages, I sensed something was going on and I think I went a little bit mad.

And I was right. She only returned to tell me that it was over.

I, already having been driven sort of off my rails went a bit ballistic. Sadness, anger, grief has never, ever quite hit me that hard. And this is the second guilt that I carry. The memory of this scares me.

I don't remember it all. But I'll share the highlights.
I remember having a panic attack, I remember it feeling like there was no room for me so I threw off my shirt, like I was burning, for a while I thought about tossing myself out of the balcony, and for yet another while I posed with a knife telling her I was going to hurt myself.. when I saw fear in her eyes I put the knife down. I remember kneeling asking please. I remember screaming from the top of my lungs, feeling that I had fucked up the truest love that I've ever experienced. As she was trying to leave I told her that she promised me to give us time. And when she refused I said I would not let her out. Eventually she got out and even if every fiber of my body wanted to stop her, some part of me knew there was no forcing it even if at the time that is all I wanted.
I followed her out in the blistering cold, shirtless.
I forgot my key, she toss her extra on the ground.

I hate that this happened.

And all of this guilt has to amount to something inside of me. And all the pain of knowing what I've caused need to amount to something good.

This is why I keep this too, as a guiding principle. I'm not sure how but I know I grow as a person. And I grow into someone who can be more productive in ways that I can express myself.

Finally, we have come to the last piece.

Where I take all the good parts, still believing so strongly in the tools I've come to depend on, only to see how they put in another context actually can put pressure on others, who are of course their own unique person.

So what can I learn from this?

That no tools ever work for every person, no amount of tool will work for every personal demon. That every meeting, every person has to be a dialog, with no preconception of how to get intimate, get romantic, fall in love.

And finally after fifteen or more years, listening back to my first ex, hearing her voice telling me "time to do this right, to take things slowly", applying what I know today. It is clear, doing it right means listening to each other, and taking things slowly is just that. Trust, and love will grow, if given the right nutrition, and that's something only others can show you, in time.

Time is an interesting aspect of this. I have always felt like rushing into love, partially because of a fear of missing out. But perhaps the rush also means I'm missing things, by pushing what will come naturally.

And so a new demon appears before me. This time new tools will be made, I sharpen my mind. Hunker down, focus on what is important.

I already know the first tools that are going to be paramount in this endevour.

Wish me luck.
This is my silverlining,
I've found it.

Signed, Mireneye

On the long road back

It feels so different to live in a world without Ladie, my grandmother and Björne.

In a world without a stable social circle.
I thought I would survive 2019 and feel stronger and feel that I had processed the bad that happened so I could enjoy everything amazing that happened.

But I don't know. I mostly feel changed.
Because I got to encounter most of it alone.

It sometimes feels like the universe owes me something, like there is an infinitely large hole in me. Unfortunately this has had an adverse impact on loved and close ones when I asked for help.

I am often treated as if I cannot handle it on my own then I am trash. No one wants to be with a weak person. They don't say it, but it obviously feels like they're pulling away. And people who "care" suggest that I need to fix something in how I think. Is it so strange that maybe I just need a hug and someone to listen?

I tried to hold on harder and harder, because I don't want to lose more this year.

And then I lost even more.

After everything, being able to trust once again that I can let go, and people will come back if I give them space and time; is so difficult.

I plays a music playlist, which happens to contain songs from all my past loving relationships. Songs too good to take away. It feels like all the bad things of those happens to me happens at the same time, as if my life consisted of four separate timelines that simultaneously meet in a head-on collision.

All mental wounds bleed simultaneously.
And my, not so ideal childhood makes itself heard.

But I try not to define myself after this sacrificial gown.

I always have a silver line. I have always been attracted by the idea that whatever you do, there is always something to build on.

This should not be an exception.
So that's why I'm looking for what my silver line can be.

(This is a repost from Facebook, where it was first published 13th of November 2019)

The ugly

I don't know where to start.

My journey to Urkult had a series of events that unfolded that put me in a very vulnerable position. And in that position I think I was furthermore hurt a few times. And furthermore, I probably went into Urkult, already carrying a lot of recent burdens.

I feel betrayed.
But the smart thing would be to separate the feeling of being betrayed with the intention.
And I think I can be certain that no-one meant for this to happen. No-one means me ill. I think. Their intentions good.

I think the cases can be distilled into the categories of 1, miscommunication and 2, me wanting to believe, therefore not seeing the full picture. (misinterpreting by choice).

I think that would make an accurate display of what transpired.

Going into it, I know I'm still fragile from the death of a close ones dog, and now I'm carrying a new sorrow that I aquired during my journey. The death of my granny. Last of the close relative in the older part of the family line.

My dad was also at the hospital, they are still figuring out what is wrong with him, but he is home now at least.

And my mom, well.. Her condition isn't any better. I feel sad that I don't see her that much. Life seeming so fleeting these days, maybe I won't get the chance to really talk to her about all the things that actually matter.

I don't know what's happening to me. I feel exhausted, like I can't take any more.

I want to be the person who can infuse good things in my relationships. Not the one spewing venom. But I'm screaming on the inside, a baby scream. Afraid that these feelings I have will ruin the few good things that's going on in life right now. Maybe they already have. Maybe this is just the cascade. And I'm powerless, watching the bricks fall like dominos that I have no control over.

I fear that I can't make someone feel appreciated. I fear that I'll do more damage than good.
I try to be transparent. "Hey, I'm sort of a mess right now, I'm sorting things through, I hope you can be patient with me".

I hope my words will be more than an echo. I need to be heard, need to be felt.
Surely these feelings are mine to process, mine to get through.

But as it's all coming down around me. I can't help but feel, I might need some wind under my wings, so I can take off and fly once more.

Signed, Mireneye

The lies I told

And worst of all is that I believe in the lies that he tells me.

Always. he tells me "Always." when asked if he would stay with me to watch the end of the world.

To be witness to my fall. But no.

He never did, and still I believed. I believed in someone who smiles in the rain."

"Perhaps he smiled because my skirt was all wet, perhaps he smiled because the way i looked, stumbling into him. Or the way my makeup ran down my face. All i know is that it was a smile, a lie, belonging to a person I would follow anywhere, until today."

"What is special about today you ask? Well if you don't know, I'm not really too keen on telling you. All you have to know is that the lies began and will end with me, today. After the gift that is today is unwrapped, everything will become a mystery for someone else to stumble upon. With this final note, I'm done."

"It's been five years. That smile still haunts me everytime I look into the mirror. The greatest lie I told myself was that by ridding myself of the past, I could be free. Little did I know that the holding cell kept my mind moreso my body."

"I died twice, I lived one life for myself and one for my dream. What is left now? What have become of me? I found some old notes I don't even remember writing. The writings match my style perfectly, so they must be mine. I've asked father. But he remains silent, like always. Glorious bastard that he is, ever since that day."

"I found a rock with your name written on it. No I mean it, your name, as if written by your hand but that can't be. You are so far away and I'm only as close as you told me to be. If you're here that means... you've found my old texts. Did someone give them to you? Was it a tall, dark haired man? This can't be, yet it's perfect. Exactly like something he would do."

"I believed in him once more when he said he was dying. He gave me everything, his house, his car, access to all of his money, his internet codes. This was the dream. It was lonely but it was appropriate. Who else, his family? His wife? No.. He trusted me more than anyone. Was this just another sham?"

"And so I smiled through this twisted fantasy of his. And so I saw him every day in the mirror. His lies alive through me. I was just a suit carried by him, and I believed myself to be free, until you came along."

"Speaking to you now has made it all very clear to me. If you are here it means he has succeeded. The dark haired man knows that you will read this, he knows that you know that you are next and there is nothing to do about it.

Just believe and smile while the tears fall down your face."

Ivory Moonflower

Ivory Moonflower

Drowned in Evernight
Walked a thousand miles
Just to have a taste

Alas it was a fools errand
As reality fell apart
My mind ensnared by an ancient art

Cut my way through the forest
as it cut it's way through me

As I cometh from the dark
I'm not the same.
Something wicked that way came
That didn't even know
The nature - of its own name

-Common Ode to Evernight

Ivori Moonflower:

Originates from Evernight, It's seed have been carried by winds to also grow at places on Dynasthir. The central piece of a Moonflower looks like a white bell, it's leaves large and greenish, protruding from the root, growing up along the stem. The Moonflower blossoms in the presence of Shade.

If harvested in bloom and steeped it is incredibly sweet, and in high concentration the taste assumes a hint of liquorice. This is why liquorice has been nicknamed "Shadesight".

Steeping the flower before blooming reveals a strong bitter taste.

Properties of digesting the flower: Calming, aphrodisiac, induces a sense of focus and control.

Signed, Mirenye

In pursuit of imagination

In pursuit of imagination
A chronicle of a journey twisted and violent, sometimes downright freaky. Close to my heart, at the core of who I am and why.


From the first conscious moments I can recall, I've always sought sanctuary in the form of imagining something that needed to be more real than what was right in front of me.

I even used to tell my parents that I was going out to get lost in the forest. Believing it to be just a childish game they told me to be home by dinner.

More then often I wasn't.

But when I was home I either constructed various contraptions either taking the form of tiny hideouts out of blankets, pillows and strings, or I built entire cityscapes or scenarios with legos.

Sometimes I even tried making lego armor for my cat. Much to it's dismay.

At a fairly early age I got my own computer after showing an immense interest with the computer at my cousins place and the computer at school. This along with a growing interesting in playing and not only watching people play games became my new obsession.

In a weird almost dreamy way I started conjuring game like scenarios and worlds, applying them to the real world. I would assign roles and scenarios to the few friends I had. Never did I ever question if they saw what I saw, or understood my visions. And somehow we still played together. If this fantasy wasn't real in some way, I don't know if anything is.

I distinctively also remember building one or two whole forts out of bales of hay with one of my few fickle best friends at the time, while playing a sort of war game between us when they were finished.

I was told watching the movie Alien II (I believe) by myself late at night on TV when I was quite young, that I have to understand the difference between what is real and what is not. And for whatever bizarre reason that has stuck with me through the years as something I've questioned time and time again but always revisited when I needed something to fall back on. Ever since then, I've always found an almost sick pleasure in visceral content. But even before that point I seem to have always had a deep fascination with taking things apart, like toys or actual broken down cars (or whole ones, sorry Dad). Destruction being the focus of the fun rather than construction. As even if I wanted to repair things It was a bit too finicky for my taste. Even if I did have and continue to this day to be quite patient.

Coming into the teens I started having a mild obsession with making my own games. Starting out with building overly complex and disorganized board games that too some extent remind me of the hybrid board game/roleplaying games of today. Why? Because what was still too complex to do on the computer I found other mediums to express myself with.

I also started to get more and more serious about writing. Finding that after having passed a very strange barrier where I could barely write and spell correctly that I had a knack for language. Perhaps because of my early exposure to computers and the internet?

At this moment It's important for you to know that my mother is an artist. A painter. And my dad is a carpenter. And me? I happened to fall into a weird things betwixt.

For various game related reasons I became quite obsessed with modifying their content. This led me to my passion for 3d graphics. And spawned my frist juvenile attempts at creating new games within existing ones. I even wrote a guide after a few years of fooling myself that I knew the pitfalls. It even got pinned on a forum for being informative. It was a weird time, because I was still finding myself and I didn't know I was lost (Thanks Avicii).

One time in the haze of being a teenager with hormone imbalance and a messed up circadian rhythm I spent perhaps two days just sitting with my computer, bunkered up with food, while trying to become a 3d artist. By the time I got away from the monitor my brain was basically wired to think if only for a while that I could change things around me like in the computer program. It was weird and wonderful and a bit disappointing to realize that it was merely a hallucination of sorts.

Growing up in my teens I think my artistry was never quite appreciated. And so I probably isolated myself a lot, and just enjoyed creating for creations sake. At about the age of fifteen I was tempted out of the comfort of the darkness. I was shown a sliver of light and I've pursued that sliver ever since.

The light was passion, the light was a burning will to prove that my life was an adventure. Something worthy to tell a tale about. And that I was someone worthy to share life with.

At the age of ninteeen I moved away from my parents to start make a living of my own. It was during this time when money was scarce, my home was a messy chaos, because I never found the time and energy to learn how to be a responsible grown-up. I had been too busy up to this point taking care of a sick mother and an occasionally (all to often) drunk father. The way I look at it, at this point in my life I started making up for lost time, which meant domestic cleanliness was of low importance.

Somewhen after that I was lured to Umeå to continue pursuing my dreams of contemporary circus while living in a collective with other artists but this is a chapter all by itself and I might cover that in another post. Needless to say this was a poi(gnant) and productive moment in my life as I believe I probably practiced an avarage of three to five hours every day.

Fast forward a few years. I'm in my own apartment finally again. The highlife had introduced me to a demon called alcohol. One that I had feared for so long. And I was living a life that I in some ways had coveted in my younger years but never explored.

It is within a daze of not being quite awake, not being quite asleep. Out of money and food for a prolonged period of time but with a bit of alcohol in my body, and within the frame of having watched existential movies like Casshern and playing games like Planescape: Torment from beginning to end without much rest in between that I concocted my most philosophical work known as Hexagonica (Which I have talked about in previous posts). It was a mindstate that I came to seek more and more. Eventually leading down a pretty dangerous path. Realizing one morning when proper awake that the kitchen was almost chuck-full with bottles of cider, that I had to change course in the pursuit of imagination.
How could I alter the state of my mind, without supplements?
Sleep deprivation have been my best ally for almost as long as I can remember. And it remains to this day the one thing I can not see myself without. I'm there right now, typing this very sentence.

But to substitute the other pieces of this dangerous but creative mindset I had to go on a journey. One that I'm still on to this very night. Along the way I've found a number of tools I'd like to share in a future post.

Remeniscing about the past I realize I've always been dreaming myself away I became attatched in my mid teens to Psychadelic Trance because it took my imagination to places I could not comprehend. I've escaped reality only to build a new one. I've loved and made love to build fantasies.

And so perhaps it's not odd that now that I've started facing reality, remembering all of these details about my past, forgiving my parents that I can see that there is true magic and wonder in the world. I've always been one for silver linings but they have always talked of subjective experiences, or asending points of view above and beyond their original scope. Today I stand before you not with a silver lining but with proof that there is something special within us all.

All of these worlds I've fancied were always real. Because they are my narrative. They are my legend. They are interwoven with the fabric of who I am and why I am the way I am today.

I stand before you as myself. A symbol of a life lived within the worlds of many.

In pursuit of imagination...I found salvation.

-Signed, Mireneye