A diary
Tell me whom you haunt, and I’ll tell you who you are —
That’s the kind of place one looks for when suffering. A place that makes you feel, somehow, like you belong. That the fight is really worth fighting for and that tomorrow, the sun will rise on something special. Something else. Anything else. Yet it is but a sheet of paper.
The courage needed to run away is too often underestimated.
On the day of the Extinction
“People thought I was at university studying: I was in the library, reading, writing. Little did I know that my whole life would be contained in these two verbs, to the point that it would entirely merge with them.”
— F.H. Désirable
I had established that when things would go (inevitably) wrong, I would cut myself off from the rest of the world. It’s easy, really. All you have to do is shut down your senses. You become like a rag doll, you let your body take control. I used to call that blackout state the extinction. But one fine morning, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was twenty years old. Walking down the street. Dawn was breaking over a city in turmoil. Children were running, cars were honking; it was rush hour and I, inside, was fading away. I knew fifteen minutes later, once again, I would be sitting at school, listening to something I already knew in order to become someone I didn’t want to be. The sky suddenly caught fire and my blood ran cold. I turned around and for the first time in my life, I missed the call. I got in the car and drove. For a long time and with no direction, I didn’t need one. I found a trail on the side of the road — a theme that will often recur in my texts — and I set off. I walked a long time... Until the tears finally flowed and the rage to live returned.
So that’s what had scared me off? Usually, I had control over those blackout episodes. I could decide when to get into that state, and when to come out. But that morning, I felt on the edge of no-return. Like I could remain trapped in a machine-body, capable of moving, speaking, and functioning normally but empty on the inside. So I ran away. I chose life, and all the consequences that come with it.
The trail
It was a gloomy morning. I was a dot lost in a foggy french countryside. Mournful silence all around. It seemed as if, at any moment, a witch was going to appear from among the trees. I was thinking about what I was going to tell my parents when I got back. After walking for several hours, though, it didn’t matter much. I put my shoelaces back in place, mud on my fingers, but still, a little voice whispered: “I dropped out of school, again”. And it was hard not to confuse I’m a failure with I failed.
An existential crisis looks like a long fall. A fall that takes its time. I wrote a poem about that. Like an autumn leaf held by the wind. It’s cruel. And on a morning like this, I needed answers. So I decided that I was going to haunt Him from now on— with a capital H. Him to whom I had spoken every night since my earliest childhood, Him who had unfailingly guided me until now. Him who wanted… what did He want from me, actually? I took a long breath in. Then the mist escaped in swirls from my lips. The cold is not to be feared, I thought. And hunger will disappear.
When the sun rose, I was on top of the hills. The mist cleared and the vines spread out before my eyes. Dogs were barking in the valley and one last time, the trees shook the dew off their branches. I followed the trail with my eyes until it disappeared below the horizon. And somehow, I knew.
To be alive
People who enter this (metaphorical) bookstore that life is are people who have questions. Am I insane? Have I definitely lost my mind? Am I good for nothing? Or is there the slightest chance that someone, somewhere, across the globe and the ages, has had one day the same crazy ideas as me? The answer is yes. We are insane. Because we ought to have lost our minds a little to decide to live — and not just exist. And no, we are not alone. That’s being part of a community. That’s why books are so essentials to humanity.
So this is what this blog is about. The trail, the paper, the ink stains on the fingers, the wind in the treetops... I don't want any other images to appear in your heads when you think of me, your new friend. The little autumn leaf that, under the setting rays of a golden sun, wonders why it falls, again. —
¹ : A certain Mr. Piekielny, François-Henri Désérable, 2017, Éd. Gallimard.
The PDF version here — Print it, save it, share it.
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