The modus operandi & the decay of the old structures

 

Poema do Silêncio, José Régio 

Today, July 18th, the stubble groans, still the full moon. The wolf in me howled, listening to music until midnight. After that, my mother wanted to retire and I gave her the medication and I also slept. I'm not willing to study, but that's what my father repeats to me. 

Pick up the book, repeat, pick up the book, Cristina. And I, who like the book, who am passionate about the subject of the book, am not able to read when my attention cannot focus. And I put music to do it, but I go after the music and the lyrics run away from me. It's called concern for the future. Or anxiety. Or decree. Daily and concrete. I have received some messages that I have not been able to respond to and others that prevent me from being silent. And I answer at those times. The world is experiencing the turmoil that we know, that some of us know. Because those who think small and focus only on their own lives or those of others, do not know that the world is a ball of fire. They only want to set fire to the lives they believe they know. It becomes necessary to "destroy" the current status quo or to surpass it, being, linguistically, more assertive. However, the issue remains the same. Not participating in and anarchizing this modus operandi that, in addition to participating in earthly obscurity, celebrating having to the detriment of being, goes further, clipping wings to future generations. I myself, who was born in '68, have been obeying the standards imposed by this old secular and decrepit structure. Don't go to the world, don't go to your dreams, don't fly, clip your wings and stay on the ground. Postpone your dreams, dedicate yourself to others, and I understand well why I did it, and it's never the fault of others, but it's always strong enough in us to repeat patterns. And at the cost of that, in order not to become like my mother, who was a careerist and was always absent from her children's lives, to my children, I wanted to do the opposite. Always be present. I graduated, it's true, I always studied, but I always tried to be present in their lives, abandoning, therefore, my career to the detriment of following their lives and, more than that, preserving the nuclear family and friends. I'm one of commitments. It's not a matter of guilt or regrets, but if I knew what I know today, if I had stopped to think, I wouldn't look for stability in a sandy ground. This is where I find the antiquated and anachronistic structures. The ingrained and decrepit thought that needs to fall. Because the manipulations that are done with the other, the attempt to colonize others, vomit our dreams in the descendants is more harmful than we can dare to think. I was colonized. I tried not to colonize. From my children, I never demanded anything. I wanted them to dream, to go after their dreams, I continue to support their dreams the way I know and I don't cross their paths. My children are not mine. I'm not mine. I "obey" orders from above. Once I am aware that I am not just this material body that the earth eats. And in that register of immateriality that is the soul, my spirituality, lies faith and the construction of it, which is, in a more understandable term, the trials of the mind to experience yourself at a higher level, or if you prefer, to fulfill a greater purpose, which is when the mind aligns with the heart. In that piece of understanding, in alignment, it happens when we feel like we've stepped into our path. My life has been an attempt at hit and miss, repeating all this to exhaustion. Now that I understand that the old structure has colonized me, now that I forgive my limitations and those of others, I do not give up my faith, my opinion, even if the world screams and implodes. I'm not mine. I "obey" orders from above.  On my soul's list of priorities, I'm in first place. Today. And I demand, finally, that. I do not accept limitations or colonization, I do not accept obstacles or walling-in, wherever they come from. You can't give me what I've never given to anyone. This is my position and I am not deterred. I don't accept to kiss people with whom I don't identify, I don't live with toxicity, I don't want people with vision and short tempers close to me, I haven't been captivated, for a long time, by the ailments of hypocrisy and palliative seduction. I already know how to identify them. I'm awake. Listen, I breathe and I don't belong to any flock. I am human, perhaps too human, for them to continue abducting me. 

Yes, Dad, I'm going to study, but in the meantime I need to take care of all the household chores, recharge the fridge and the satisfactions of others, all the household chores that capture me and blur my vision of the future. I am not healthy for much more and I continue to preserve myself from all the jackals that try to prevent me from experiencing myself in full, which is all I try to do, despite all the energies that want my silence and rejoice in my pain. My faith is personal and non-transferable, in this domain, in that of my soul, they do not enter. You can't destroy who I am, only what I have and what I have, my dears, is nothing. I never intended to have it, if I had to step over another human being. I have never competed with anyone and when it was necessary, I turned my back. What came to be property or possession, came crossed by needs that were related to the urgency of having a roof to sleep and shelter my family and, because the rental law was severe (and continues to be) and, between renting or buying, it was more "reconcilable" to buy. Because of this, all this, this cake that weighs me down, I built my own house on my mother's land, who gave me land to do it and I invested the money I had here, while I worked, giving classes and consultations and all the work activities that brought me here. Today, I find myself unemployed, after being mistreated in my last marriage and expelled from my workplace. I take care of my eighty-year-old mother, and I don't even have the status of informal caregiver because social security told me, peremptorily, that my mother was not entitled to social security support because she had her own income that allowed her to pay me a salary. I don't have a salary. Her pension is not enough to pay me the salary of being 24 hours a day, without days off or vacations, her pension is to pay bills, debts and provide food and basic needs, which have increased visibly, for health reasons. I own a plot of land with a house that I continue to pay for, again, since 2020, when my ex-husband was evicted by court decree. To him, my mother had to pay, not the value of the investment she made, but a symbolic value, because she held the priority and enjoyed it, from 2012 to 2020, without me being able to do so. I had to rent residences, pay rents, in short, be a swindler because my mother was very good friends with my ex-husband. At the time I first filed for divorce, she witnessed psychological and physical violence that happened only once. Still, she told me not to count on her if I divorced. That is, the emotional blackmail I always had from her. She obeyed the standards in force and tried to do so with her children. She herself, I no longer living with her, at the time I had a store in Porto, spent about a year visiting me in the store, crying and asking me for money because the vampires ate her interest, along with her son and mine, with whom she lived. He had no money, even, to buy bread. Obviously, the money she earned in the store was for her, after paying the rent. When I came back from England - I went to work there, to distance myself from the toxic marriage and when I came back from vacation, after having worn myself out doing maintenance on the houses in Penafiel and the apartment in Porto, and due to exhaustion, I had a myocardial infarction. I didn't die. When I woke up and was able to receive visitors, there she was with my ex-husband. That's who she called.  When I told her that I needed me to send my ex-husband away from the property, because he needs my house, and he has been enjoying it for too long, she told me no. And it went back to emotional blackmail, if you go out with that guy guy, don't count on me for anything else. For two years, while I lived in Soalhães, recovering from a heart attack, I never received a phone call or visit from her or my brother. Aunt Carmen was the only person he spoke to every day, more than once a day. It was my mother and my friend, far beyond blood ties. It always has been. Thus, my mother was able to confirm to me what I had known for a long time. Avoid repeating patterns. Do not give in to blackmail. She also stood out from the rest of the family in terms of career and religion. With some success, I must admit, for being the first to graduate, in the universe of 15 brothers and 500 nephews, and not having "forced" us to the cult and religious tradition, because it itself said religion did not say anything to it. 

To say that when I left home, the house where my father and mother lived, before he and my brother passed away, I was seventeen years old. That my mother did not rest until she picked me and my family back, as she already had my own son. Claiming to feel alone. Emotional blackmail has always worked for me, apparently. It no longer precedes. I stopped it. My children do not suffer from emotional blackmail, they are free, as much as they dare and want, with my unconditional support, as long as their freedom is not to override the freedom of others. I did not teach the lack of scruples. Nor of values. The rest is the sole responsibility of each one. There are two men today. They are not the same. They have my father's DNA, the sign on the back. Physically, I find some similar expressions in them. In terms of psychological structure, no. My father was not a role model as a husband, but he was a role model as a father and, above all, as a human being. Generous and cooperative. It was these values that I tried to follow and pass on. 

My faith is a bird that does not take pleasure in each one's life. My "I" is linked to the other through humanitarian values, but not for blood reasons, and even less for lack of values and scruples. For that department, I have never voted and I will not do so. My wings are inviolable. My freedom is, therefore, an intangible asset that cannot be destitute. I'm not for sale. Am. You can try to steal the material from me, but what you do not see, which is who I am, concerns only me and the source. I am not a matter of indoctrination to you. I am one with Zeca Afonso, the refrain of the denunciation of vampires and freedom, as a way of being and being on this plane. I am one with José Saramago, the loan sharks and colonizers do not move me and do not prevail, as far as it depends on me. What depends on me is choice. I am one with José Régio, Natália Correia and all those who fought for the common good, I like to be anti-conformist and of building bridges in the collective. My freedom is to have nothing and my capital is to be me.