Women living in airports

The newspaper said that there had been another woman living in the airport. She refuses any kind of help, she doesn’t really talk to anyone. A couple of years ago a woman from Finland lived in the airports in Berlin for months. 

So, you need to get out of the place you just came from, and not yet sure where to go. You are in a transitioning position, armed to the teeth, battling with the concept of “free will”. 

Not as well as the women who live in airports, I do sense being in a transitional position quite often. Maybe what I experience doesn’t even count as transitional, because it’d imply changes, whilst I am uncertain about the odds of that happening (not anytime soon at least).

I have been a student all my life (although I have never been a model student). There hasn’t been ANY day where I don’t hold a student ID. Life outside of being a student puzzles me and yet not necessarily fascinates me. As a student, one of our most important focus would be grades. After high school, my grades have been slightly above average, and yet not good enough to get a good-sized grand. Almost graduated with M.A. without a consecutive B.A. Too old to get 30% on my train ticket and yet not old enough to have any work experience. Speak officially 5 languages and yet without a real mother tongue, which has been a real pain in the ass here. (It is not like I speak terrible German, I don’t speak it perfectly, but that’s why you have EDITORS!) I am over qualified to sit at a cashier, under qualified for a real job. But who knows, after March I am no longer a student. For the first time in my life, I will officially be a non-student. Without a concrete further plan to go back to school, this last remaining month makes me feel like living in an airport --- one day I will get there, but not today. And I am not sure if I am ready to take that flight yet. I am not even sure if any of these offered flights is on my list. Maybe none of these places would be my desired destination. Thus before I get kicked out of the airport or pushed into one of the airplanes, I have a month to be in the main hall with my luggage. Just really need to sort my tangled brain out. 

One of my therapists in Idaho used to ask me this question every time I tell her an event:”How does that make you feel?”

Being 17 and first time in therapy, I was confused about the question: Are you serious or is this a vocabulary test to see how many adjectives I know?

After months of working with one therapist, I would imagine that she knew me a bit already. I spoke broken English with a strong accent, but I was fairly sure that I made myself clear. I already asked myself the same question a thousand times, the problem was not that I didn’t know how I felt or couldn’t find a fitting adjective; the problem was: I didn’t know how to live peacefully with these feelings. The therapist was nice, but kept giving me formulas:

Angry -- take a walk

Sad -- listen to music

Vulnerable --- be with friends

Happy --- great

Confused --- wait it out

Depressed --- hug a pillow

That’s why her question felt like a language test to me after a while. When the talking method was not working, she opened the top drawer and gave me a month’s worth of Prozac. 

I like to play with my hair. No, I am addicted to the sensation of fingers twisting locks of hair in ways no other human being does. I have more than 20 years of experience in twisting hair involving all ten fingers, with various length and colors of hair. I do it when I am doing homework, during exams, in the cinema, on the couch, awake in bed, at the dining table, under a tree, as a passenger in a car, waiting in line to get into a zoo or just bored. I do it so frequently that it had long lost all psychological significance. I don’t even do it consciously. And yet, some people are convinced that it made THEM nervous because such gesture implied the discomfort within myself. That’s right, any unusual ticks you don’t exercise means a negativity in other’s life. If it’d bothered ME, I’d stop. But if bothers you, I’d stop when you are around although I never understand why -- it’s a harmless habit, not like smoking or being obnoxious in public; it causes no damage to anyone, not even to my hair, and it is not vulgar. But whatever, I’d stop because I couldn’t be bothered to argue about it. After being asked a question, sometimes I need a very long time to come up with an answer, and I get nervous when the other person thought I was ignoring the question:”Talk to me!” They’d say. But I can’t talk to you right now, I haven’t fully understand the (sense of the) question and give me time! Thus I abuse the following sentences:”Yes, I am thinking about your question and I haven’t gotten an answer yet.” or  “I am content and having no particular trouble. If I happen to forget to smile, it just means I am lost in my tangled mind that my facial muscles become sedated.” 

I wonder if that therapist would never approve such method: just justify yourself in the most Platonic way.