I want

I know that I’ve been beating about the bush lately. I guess I will continue to do so, because I don’t want to give everything away.
I’m not too sure of myself anyway.
Maybe it’s the forty-something, maybe something else, but I kept on wondering what I am doing with my life. And if what I had thought was what I wanted, did turn out as something else. There were (and are still) moments of doubt and regret, and although I know that it is not really helpful to give in to those feelings, I also know that I have to live through those moments because they, too, are part of my life.

Last year, there were moments when I felt a great strength within me. And on the other hand, other moments when I felt like falling without end.

Now, I’m floating, somehow. Floating, or bobbing up and down in some shallow pool where I was washed to by the sea of life.
I would love to regain that strength I felt last year...

Some people say that you need goals in your life, targets. But I feel that it is difficult for me. I have wishes, things I’d like to see or encounter.
I have achieved a lot, I have a family, we are healthy, we are employed, we have a house, car, etc..
And yet... something's missing. Something seems terribly wrong.

I can’t really get to a point (concerning "targets"), except for some things about me...

I’d like to be happy.
I want to.
I want to be happy.

I want to be able to say what I don’t like.
I want to be able to say what I want.
I want to say what I want.

I don’t want to be afraid.
I don’t want to be alone.
But if I were, this shall not make me feel inferior or make me want to adapt, for others.

I want to be strong.
Strong and wilful.

I want to live my life consciously, not like foam high on a wave, washed away without means to navigate, only able to look where the wave took me to.

I want to have some privacy.
I want to have some quiet.

I want to be taken for serious when I mean to be serious.

I want to be accepted the way that I am.

I want to remain my true self.
I don’t want to have to bend.

I want more from life.
Actually, I hate the fact that I have to act to achieve that (yeah, I know that I am lazy and it somehow feels egoistic to me and I always had the notion that egoism is bad – until now. Can you learn to be egoistic?).
But apparently, there’s no other way.
I’ve been the good girl for too long.

I know I can do better.
I want more.
And I know that I have the right to expect more.

I want it all.
And I want it now.

The name is Hog. Hedgehog.

It’s been quite dark around here in the last few weeks, isn’t it?

I’ve been wanting to hide up in a ball, spikes outside, and sleep and dream through what they call winter. I feel like I had wanted some kind of hibernation state and didn’t get it. It was too warm for winter and too dark and soggy for spring.

No rest. No recreation.

I felt like I wanted to run away, yet I didn’t. Where to?

Where am I heading?

I feel tired.
I need some time to rest.

Now, I’m sitting in the green grass, hiding.
Spikes outside for protection.
Listening.
Waiting.
Contemplating.

The house of me

I’m trying to look through the window.

From where I am now, I can only see the glass reflecting things behind me, because I’m standing outside.

I have to go inside... It seems to me as if I had been standing outside of the house of me for a very long time, watching, observing. I had other people paint my walls. I should never have allowed them to do so, although they might have meant well... The house was not me and I didn’t feel comfortable in it.

I have to get in. I know that from the inside, I will have a better view. I will paint my own walls, and the house will be me; the windows will be my own eyes.
I will paint my own walls.

The shutters are open, now I can let the sun shine in. I can open the windows and let in the fresh wind.

Let the house be filled with life.

Mirrored doors

I’m still searching for the door I know I have to go through.
Which door is it?
Where will it lead?

Reflecting. Looking. Contemplating.

I’m catching a glimpse of myself, trying to get a hold of who I am.

I see beauty.
Before me.
Behind me.
Around me.
Within me.

I see myself in a mirrored window, looking back at me.

The photos were taken in the summer of 2006, in Monaco, Monte Carlo, in front of the Casino.