The end.

d i s c l a m e r:
If your are too young or too much, please don't continue reading.
If you know me and are going to gossip about what follows, please don't continue reading.
I understand that everything that is written here is singed by me,
so of course people think of me when reading it,
however, if you keep continue reading,
know that what follows is called freedom of speech
and might be personal experiences or it can be fiction.
I use my writing as a form of art, it is not some kind of confession.
I started this when I was 16, now I am almost 20.
This is the final post on this blog.
I think I owe it to all the people who supported me to have a closure,
I never even knew I could write, so this means so much to me.
However, I am deleting it because I am planing to approach my art in other ways,
and I don't want my name on this blog anymore.
I am not asking you to understand, it's my life.
If I ever write again, you will find out.
I probably will because i really enjoy it.
This blogspot will be deleted at the end of August, you can save my writing if you want.

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I slept with someone else.
I slept with a man who was in love with someone else,
and who knew that I was in love with someone else.
Now that I'm thinking about it,
maybe we were out of love.
We were certainly not ready to love each other though.
I slept with someone who wasn't him,
and I wasn't her.
We were there because of reasons I've never been with someone before.
I slept with someone who hugged me the whole night long,
and who kissed me in the forehead like someone else did.
It didn't feel pretentious,
and it wasn't.
I slept with someone who didn't protect me too much,
who didn't care to show me his views even if I didn't agree with them,
but most importantly, he let me have fun.
The whole thing was spontaneous,
a phone call away.
He didn't really realize how emotionally healthy I was these days,
no one did.
For me it was a confirmation though,
that even after everything that's happened,
I was young, I could still have fun.
I could still feel alive,
on the back of a motorcycle,
hanging out with people I haven't met before,
or looking at the stars at a beach with no lights.
I slept with someone who told me he was coming in the city,
he didn't get the tickets for me,
it wasn't like that,
but it made me question why it was so hard for others to do the same,
maybe I shouldn't question and compare,
but damn, nothing makes sense sometimes.

Now I'm back to reality,
feels like I never left.
Was any of it real?
Back in the big city.
Work, school, things to do.
I have these flashes that I'm leaving everything behind and I go back.
I then work to get enough money for a motorcycle
and a small shop that I will turn into a tattoo studio
add some clothing collections once in a while.
Just to feed my appetite of what my dreams 'used' to be.
I close my eyes,
I imagine a world where I am free from responsibilities and expectations,
my only reason of existence is myself.
Freedom.
Away from this bullshit world we live in, built and depended by the fear of the mashes.
God? Government?
Everything.
Then I open my eyes and I'm sitting on my working space,
markers and sketchbooks everywhere.
Cold cups of yesterday's coffee.
I get it, I need to do this.
I have to do this now.
I'm good at it.
I get it.
I am an adult with responsibilities.
I am the lucky one, because I get to do what I want, right?
I shouldn't be complaining, right?
I'm sorry for daydreaming.
I get it.

I know what I will be thinking in years from now,
Someone will come and ask me about my first love, or my first hearbreak.
We ask older people these questions quite often,
thinking they have the answers,
or just hoping they will give us some kind of confirmation that romance exists.
I will be sitting somewhere,
I don't know the country and I don't know how I will look like by then,
and someone I will envy for his age and beauty will ask me to answer this question,
I will probably say something like this:
"Our love story was a great one.
We saw each other and we understood.
Until we stopped undersanding.
I was mad at him, because I believed in love too much.
It's funny, how everything in life showed me that love isn't as powerful as they write in books,
yet, I still believed with my whole heart, that nothing can stop us with being with someone,
only fear,
stereotypes,
ourselves.
Certainly not distance.
You look at the stars every night and you fall in love with them,
you've never touched them,
you will never get close,
they're just there,
you are a part of them anyway.
We broke up because our ties broke,
and the ocean was between us.
Yes, that's true.
But the stars are proof.
Don't tell me that miles can separate two souls,
that talk to each other,
support each other,
know each other,
and know how to fuck each other.
Get your ass up and travel.
I was mad because I didn't believe in the "we didn't work out" thing.
I did believe in the "we just stopped trying out of fear" though.
When you stop having similar views with someone,
that's when you lose the basic connection.
Because think about it,
you have in front of you the person you call the love of your life,
I don't care how old you are,
it's someone who connects with you, right?
And you want to tell me that just because you can't see them,
that's the reason to hurt them, and leave?
No.
Maybe I was in denial.
Our future wasn't heading in the same directions anymore.
But still, something inside me made me believe in us.
So I was mad.
And my ego wouldn't let me give up on it.
Because that is what human beings do,
we love because of how they make us feel,
because we love being loved,
we love the attention and the drama and we love getting paranoid over someone.
I certainly loved being loved by him.
But that wasn't the only reason.
I just couldn't imagine how life would be if I didn't know him.
Knowing him, learning things from him,
our conversations,
that was my biggest addiction.
People couldn't understand that, because no one knew who we were,
until we were together.
And no one has ever seen us together, alone.
So there is no proof of what I'm saying here, but believe me,
like all people who find themselves in someone else,
we filled our empty spaces, it felt good.
So don't give up on love.
Don't you ever give up on love.
I don't know if anyone knows what love is,
I don't know how to explain this meaningless word we use to describe so much,
but don't give up on it, it's the reason we are alive.
Act like you never broke each others hearts.
The good times are more worthy than the bad ones.
Have fun, let lose.
We certainly lose our daydream when we get old,
I see it in people every day who get used to living miserably.
Love, love, love.
Yourself first.
It's the only thing that brings joy to our meaningless, disturbing, existence."

-----------------------------

Have a good and creative life y'all,
you'll hear from me soon.
xx Faidra

Call it love if you want.

    It feels so odd not knowing what to say to the person you used to tell everything to.

    from one day to another the simple "goodnight, I love you" 

    becomes a goodnight whisper to your pillow.

    You ask yourself if you are ready to let go

    and it feels like asking if you can let go of your own self.

    Do we ever let go, 

    or is everything just an illusion for our own comfort? 

    Do we say to ourselves that we are going to be loved again,

    because we believe that it is true,

    or do we just try to convince ourselves of things that cannot be done?

    Even if you love someone else, does the image of that other, precious person goes away?

    Who grands a big happy finale to it all? 

    It is almost three years now that my head is spinning.

    Call it love if you want. 

    Now things are kinda over and I feel like a five year old who is left in a dark room,

    without a small light next to the bed.

    Just plain black nothingness. 

    I wake up in the morning and make my coffee.

    One brown sugar, a splash of milk.

    Yes, coffee, that you always told me not to drink.

    It's not good, I know. 

    But everything is tiring these days,

    and who said that even love is good for anyone,

    we did it anyway, right? 

    That's my excuse. 

    I have always been the person who shut everyone out. 

    It is funny how people think I am social,

    It is generally weird how people get mad at me when I'm mean to them,

    how they have so many expectations from me

    Reality being, I don't give a fuck about anyone when I am sad.

    I love myself so much that I don't really care being alone.

    I enjoy my existence.

    I know, it is weird reading this from a woman right?

    But I never had a problem with myself.

    But you? oh dear.

    I always made room for you.

    Sometimes I stop to ask myself if you ever realized that. 

    Maybe you walked out without even really knowing me.

    Maybe you thought I am weak in the thought of you.

    And maybe you were right.

    Maybe giving you everything shouldn't be the case.

    Maybe I should have asked you all these questions I was so afraid to ask.

    Back then, when you could reply to me by looking me in the eyes.

    Maybe knowing these answers would have helped.

    But you see, I was afraid that they would hurt me. 

    So I kept my mouth shut and I kept loving you, and loving you.

    It was easier this way.

    Maybe no one can ever really know anyone.

    Anyway back to reality,

    while drinking that coffee that I waisted a part of my poem to talk about,

    I can't even listen to my music.

    Because my music, is your music.

    And your music hurts.

    I can't really eat food because I just don't feel like eating food.

    I cannot describe how much I hate feeling sorry for myself.

    I try not to.

    So I sit in silence with my underwear on, and that coffee of course,

    thinking that my apartment it's cold, but fuck it I don't really care,

    I might put some feministic podcast on the background, 

    draw a little bit,

    I get my work done,

    and my day goes by.

    I guess that the moment we see each other everything is going to change again.

    And then we will be apart and things will go back to this.

    I know I shouldn't be thinking that much,

    but believe me when I say that it is not my intention.

    I need to focus on my art, because nothing else can save me from my thoughts.

    I need to be the woman my mother raised me to be.

    I need to be the woman I swore to myself I would be. 

    I hope you are okay with that. 

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you can listen to this. (click)

or this. (click)

or don't listen to anything. drink that coffee in silence dear reader.

My blog reached 11.000 views, so I know there are people out there reading this.

First of all thank you.

Second and most important: 

-To all girls out there reading this,

that coffee underwear scene in that "poem",

don't romanticize this, like it's some kind of indie cool girls way to live while having a broken heart.

It's not. Don't romanticize anything from my social media pictures and posts. Nothing of what you think I am is true. I am so much more than that. If I inspire you at all, I want to inspire you to be strong and work hard. Keep fighting for the things you love, for equality, and keep being awesome.

bye for now

xx Faidra

FAQ: Rhodes or New York?

Faidra M. Piliou      
Mon, Dec 7 2015    
EN-121
Compare-Contrast Essay

     There are several ways that people can feel their lives drastically changing, and one of them is by moving to another country, a big town for example. Having vacations and actually experiencing the life of a citizen are two very different things. There’s a certain spectrum of emotions anyone can go through, from missing home to finally feeling free, to going out, party and explore with the independence they just earned, to crying while eating whatever there is to eat and watching pictures of their hometown.  Moving from a small Island in Greece to New York City, I can say with confidence I’ve been through everything that was just mentioned, and it was hard. There was a lot of crying and drama, sometimes there still is. But at the end, I learned things, I’ve noticed things. Things I wouldn’t have experienced if someone erased this part of my life. Things I’m glad to know.

  Manhattan as a place is very different than people who have never been here believe it is. As beautiful as it can be, or as different as a small town can be, it still is a place with dirt and gums stuck on the streets that can easily destroy someone’s Louboutins. And let’s not even start on the subway situation. But this city has everything. You name it. There’s nothing you’re looking for, that this city does not have. It’s not only pretty, fashionable women leaving their successful lives in Upper East Side. But we can’t say that it’s not that either. There are so many cultures mixed in this one place, so many neighborhoods and streets to explore. This city might not be made of gold, but walking down the streets, looking at the horizon before a car hits you? It feels special.

 In contrast, Rhodes, my hometown, is a very small place. By living there, people miss the feeling of exploration. It’s a healthy environment, but there’s not a place its citizens have not visited. We’ve all been everywhere; we know every street, and every mountain, every beach there is to know. It’s a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.
   That’s probably a lie because I grew there, but as far as the place itself, it has been the same for a long time now.

   Education in New York, or generally in America is very different than the way I knew it before moving here. The schools are bigger, students have the opportunity to start doing things they love from high school and they also have the chance to start working on what they love from an early age. There are a lot of museums and people have the chance of meeting or seeing the work of someone who inspires them up close, which is such an important thing in order to really realize what you want to do in your future! Education has never felt so good but at the same time it has never felt so expensive either. Learning can actually be something that people enjoy, if they have the money to pay for it.  The biggest disadvantage of America’s education is that people have to pay for everything, even state universities.

  Other than that, the most important thing about New York, for me, is that they respect the artists. A place that respects art the same way it respects history, law or science, is a city that grows more day by day in my opinion.

    Make no mistake, Greece has amazing schools too. The Universities are really good and education is free, something I find very important. It’s such an advantage to be able to study without having to graduate with the weight of the loan your government’s provided for you on your shoulders. 

    A downside of Greek Universities is that art is not a priority. Growing up, kids have the same schedule until they graduate. Everyone has to be good at math, or science or ancient Greek. Everyone has to know everything, except from having some basic art education. It’s funny how a country can be dying economically when we have so many people who study economy, law and business management, but it does. Maybe because all of its artists have been brainwashed to study something “important”, that “makes money”.  Whatever anyone’s reasons are, I do believe arts have to be recognized as something important everywhere.

  Last but not least, one of my biggest and most important things that I realized during my stay here, is the difference these two places have as far as community goes.  The life pace is so different in the city. People usually have a schedule for their whole lives here. They know what time they wake up, what time they take the train, what time they have their lunch break. When they finish work when they go home, when they sleep. When weekend comes? Weekend is party time. That’s pretty much life in New York. The way I see it, family is not an important thing. Even if people have it, they just have it. It’s there. Mother’s hire nannies, kids grow up eating food  that has not been made for a healthy lifestyle, parents make enough money to send their kids to a good school and then the circle goes on and on and nothing really changes. Talking about the robot life drinking Starbucks and eating McDonalds? Maybe.
The majority at least.

  In Greece people take family very seriously. Mothers wake up before work to cook food for everyone; Kids go to school even by walking in some cases because it’s so close. Parents go to work for eight or twelve hours a day and we usually don’t have a lunch break, or a Weekend break. Holiday break? No, not that either. People generally might not have the money for a luxurious lifestyle, but the way they love and care about each other, the way the whole family comes together on holidays, and the way they grow, I believe it makes a big difference. Greece might not have a lot of opportunities for someone who is young and thirsty for their future, but as far as community goes, at the end of the day your neighbor will knock on your door and invite you to eat food at their table if you don’t have some on your own.

   At the end, what I truly believe is that as a person, someone has to put their priorities straight in order to understand where would be the right place to live. Every place is different and every city or island has its own advantages and disadvantages. Personally I feel so lucky for being able to grow up in such a beautiful place. And I’m fortunate to be able to travel and learn things. Wherever we go, the most important thing is to carry ourselves with us, to never forget where we come from. Never forget how important it is to pick ourselves up and make every moment worth our time.
  

the city thoughts

I'm living in New York.

I arrived here 6 months ago, approximately. And I will be here for the next 2 years of my life, at least, If not more.

I call myself an artist. I call myself art.

I found the confidence to call myself that here.

The city is black, and there are days when I want to go to the airport and get my one way ticket.

That's only when I miss him terribly. And that feeling for bad or for good it's not on my chest all the time anymore. 

The city is grey, and there are days when I want to leave.

Too much noise for a loner, too much dirt for a girl.

The city is turquoise, and there are days when I look at the sky, and want to stay.

I imagine myself in a studio doing my art, with that clear sky coming in the room through the window.

The city is infinite, and there are days when I think this is the only place I belong.

Every morning when I cross the street to go to school, the streets are quite, there's this November cold touching my cheeks that I love, and I look on my left and right as I walk, and I see the streets going on and on till my eyes meet the horizon and I feel like I'm just sitting on the top of this world.

 It's hard for me to explain what the city really is. 

Or how I feel about the person who I used to inhale life from. 

My lungs were always filled with him, him, him.

And there are days, very often, still, when I remember his touch and my spine cries lullabies.

People say that we forget things as the days and months pass, 

that 6 months are enough for someone to forget how we look, how we walk, the sound of our laugh, our voice. 

I don't believe in things like that. I can't forget anything. I don't know how and I'm not trying.

I remember how we stayed in bed and we spoke for everything and for nothing. 

And how we went for walks almost every day last year, because I wanted to go to the city all the time after I found out I'm leaving. 

I remember how he didn't like going because there's nothing that we haven't seen before and I remember how I was thinking that it didn't matter because every moment with him was always different than the previous one. Always different than the one that was coming. 

I remember things that he has forgotten. 

I realize that at times when we talk or argue about something.

It doesn't hurt so much that he forgets the things that I fail to let go.

I will keep everything in me for the both of us,

I promise, I promise what lives inside me, it's more than enough for the both of us.

The city changed me, but it didn't take away pieces of me.

There's nothing people left in me that I don't carry with me to this day.

The city gave me more.

I guess I'm stronger now. I have the knowledge of my own self.

The city made me love myself enough, to fight for me and only me this time.

It's the first time that I feel so good about me, and about what I'm doing.

It's okay if we changed in the process, if we became more.

It's okay, love.

We still have the light of the day to remind us who we used to be.

We still have the starry night to reming us of each other.

We'll meet again. I know it.

And when we do, I hope we're still enough. 

xx Faidra

DOWNTOWN PHOTO DIARY - NYC

WEDNESDAY MORNING.

It's Wednesday morning, I'm working a night shift today and I'm just sitting in bed 

enjoying the fact that I don't have to interact with people right now.

I'm thinking about how angry I am with you at this moment,

how many mean things I can write to you in this stupid place called the internet 

where most of the time I can't even see your face.

You hurt my feelings pretty bad, my love. 

I just think that if I let myself, I'd tell you things I would regret later on.

People shouldn't speak when they're angry, when they don't have a face in front of them.

When I can't see your eyes everything changes.

The pain is more than enough how it is, we shouldn't make it more difficult.

Then a few moments pass and I think that if I saw you in front of me right now,

I would hug you really tight.

I would tell you how sorry I am for all the things that I put us through,

that I never wanted to leave you,

to leave us.

I would cry.

that goodbye was just the edge of something else

I found myself in the streets of New York,
wandering around new places,
observing faces I didn't know and didn't recognize me.
I walked around like I didn't own anything and anyone, and nobody owned me.
I stopped, I thought I saw your face, but I didn't,
of course I didn't.
There are miles, lands, seas separating our bodies.
This constant need of you against my skin has somehow made my mind paralyzed.
"Oh, there's a boy who has your hair", "there's a boy who has your skin tone", but not exactly.
Not exactly.
See, I know exactly everything there is to know about how you look,
even if an inch of you is missing, I will know.