(here I'm allowed, everything all of the time)

So, let’s get this started. My name is Miranda Michelle Lalinde and you can (and should) call me by my middle name, otherwise I won’t answer. I was born in August 1990 in Bogotá, Colombia. I’ve lived here since birth and I’ll probably keep on living here until I graduate. Currently I’m studying a Bachelor in Arts in Modern Languages at a “prestigious” college in my hometown. Right now, I’m sort of in the middle of the Bachelor. I’ll probably finish around July/December 2011. But that’s only estimation. I must admit I’m not crazy for this major, however I already committed and I’m very firm with this kind of things. But, enough about school.

Let’s begin with personality features: I’m a very homey girl. I don’t go out much. I live my life between campus and home. I know a lot of people, but the people I call “friends” I can count with only one hand, since I find that not a lot of people deserve my trust. I share my life with my family and my friends in a very tight (sometimes suffocating) circle. Being as homey as I am, of course I feel that home is where my family is. My parents and my siblings (who happen to be older than me) are the only people I can surely say I feel safe with. My friends are a “place of belonging”. I’m not saying I don’t belong at all without them, but that I feel much more comfortable than with anyone else.

Why is that important? It’s not. I’m just writing stuff down.

If I go back to my childhood, I can find an explanation for my so beloved solitude: I was homeschooled since I was nine, which made me an extremely lonely person. I don’t mind it, though. I like it this way and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I must say I feel comfortable being with myself. I don’t depend much on people and my solitude is a state I cherish and keep safe. I crave solitude whenever I feel sad. Some people need other people to stop feeling sad; not me. I need my alone time before I can be “a person” again. I never, ever, reach out. I’m not very reflective on life, but I reflect a lot about myself. I’ve found that I’m in a never-ending on-going quest for self knowledge and that’s the only certain thing I can tell you about me. As you can see, I’m also incredibly auto-referential.

When I was a kid, being lonely was somehow an issue and I guarded myself in non-stop reading marathons to escape from loneliness. Somewhere something (or someone) changed me. I started to understand that it’s neither a sin nor a punishment to be alone. Few people have the opportunity to build such a close relationship with themselves. Of course that took a lot to time to sink in and for many years I felt neglected and I abhorred my parents for making me live like that.

Young as I was, I found a wondrous thing: music. I started to play the violin at the age of nine, but I totally sucked. Nevertheless, I found the flute when I was eleven. It was a strange discovery, but I think it was looking for me too. I have a Yamaha 261 since 2003 and I call her Miss Amaranta Blockenffeffer. I play horribly the piano and I also try to sing. The truth is I want to be a singer.

Why did I end up studying a Bachelor in Arts in Modern Languages? I know no-one asked, but I want to explain myself: The thing is I wanted to “break the mould”. My parents would have supported me on whatever I decided, but I didn’t want to study music, like my brother and sister did. Yes, it is my passion and yes I want to be a singer, but I’ve always been afraid that if I start seeing it as a subject, as a study; I just might not love it as much. Anyways, I don’t have talent either. When time came to decide what I should study (which was around 2006) I was taking German lessons in the Goethe Institut. I discovered I wasn’t all that bad for languages and that I loved to learn them. I also thought that even though I love music, it would be really hard to live from it (yes, I’m that vain). Even though language teachers come by the dozen, I thought it would be a good profession. Another contributing factor could be that my parents are both teachers and they have lived from it all their lives. So I guess is not that bad.

When I started college I realized how much of a loner I really was and, paradoxically, how dependent on people I was too. It was a hard blow to discover that not everyone was, well, like me. I’m not saying I’m better than anyone else, but I am different, in both good and bad ways. I discovered that not everyone has to be a friend. Not everyone is as passionate or artistic and I shouldn’t judge or be sad because people can’t understand why I cry at the sight of a butterfly in the middle of the cafeteria or why do I cry with a song or why do I feel my heart races at the sight of dim sunset lights. At first it was difficult to adjust to the idea of being misunderstood (yes, I’m a annoying little emo) and then I realized that I was being unfair to people too and that it wasn’t their problem but mine. I had to adjust to them, not by changing how I was, but by not “overdosing” them with all my quirkiness. My being dependent has to do mostly with the fact that I can’t seem to know when to let people go. I keep giving second; third; fourth (and so-on) chances to people. I also used to try to impose myself to people who simply didn’t respond to what I wanted them to.

Based on this, you can imagine how disastrous my love-life can be. I give too much and I don’t know how to take what it is given to me, because I have an ideal that, probably no one will ever be able to fulfill. Though disastrous is not even close, seriously. I seem to be a bad-timing machine and a dependent love-machine. It has always been hard for me to overcome heartbreaks, compared to overcome anything else. Being honest, I can handle death, but I can’t handle heartbreak. I can accept the fact someone’s gone for good better than the fact someone’s gone, not so much for good. I can’t handle rejection, or abandonment. I build walls to see if people care enough to knock them down. I won’t call anyone to discuss my problems, because, once again, I don’t reach out. I hate showing myself all weak to the people I love, out of the fear of disappointing them. I, too, am the most auto flagellating human being I know. I have zero tolerance for failure and I rarely finish what I start. I’m flawed as every good middle-class citizen.

I also indulge myself with “normal people” traits every now and then. For example, I don’t drink much, but I get wasted once every six months. Usually around my birthday and when the first semester of the year is over. The thing is I get stupid when I’m drunk and, trust me, you don’t want to encounter the stupid me. So, now that we’re talking about vices, it is widely known I smoke. A lot. At first, I started as an act of rebellion towards my parents and then, I don’t know, I just ended up liking it. Cigarettes are my one and only true company at my alone time; they’re a placebo for company. They feel like good, silent, friends. They also take the edge off; whenever I’m feeling extremely anxious or emotional. And if they kill me… hell, they did their best.

Now, talking about mortality, I can say I’m not that scared of death. I don’t believe in an after-life whatsoever. Call it Hades, hell, reincarnation, Pearly Gates; I don’t think I’ll be something or get anywhere after I die. Taking this into account, I think that if I can’t be really conscious of what my previous life was, so what’s the point on worrying? I must say I was raised with all the good Christian values, even though we’re a “laic” family. You know, all that stuff that forbids not kill or steal or… ehm, you get my point. Anyway, what’s important is I’m not really afraid of death. However I am terrified by pain. I’m prone to cancer on both sides of my family and I have seen family members suffer and ache. I honestly think that physical pain and the impossibility to live life at my fullest is the biggest of all my fears.

Moving on to physical features (cause I’m that narcissistic, too), underneath all the chemicals I submit my hair to, I’m dark-brown haired, I have honey-green eyes, white-ish yellow-ish skin, I’m 1.63 mt tall and I weigh a little bit over what is considered to be “hot” or “nice” or “pretty”, but I don’t really mind. I used to be quite sedentary until I decided to get my ass to a gym. I’m not very into being or having a perfect body, I just want to have a healthy life. I try to eat well and work out regularly. My only vice is smoking, but I really don’t intend to quit anytime soon. And no one is going to convince me otherwise. I’m a shadowy girl. It’s quite natural for me to use dark colors. I dress mostly in black (some days entirely in black), though every now and then I like to spice things up and use something pink or yellow or orange. The truth is that I feel real comfortable in black, more than any other color. It’s as simple as that.

The most important and strongest experience of my life was to meet the sea for the first time. I spent a week at the beach and it was the most amazing and wonderful week of my life. Half of my love was been given to the sea.

I’m not all that easy to find. If I don’t want to talk, I won’t answer my phone, I won’t return e-mails, or messages, or comments on my blog, or anything. That only happens when I need and want space. Those crises come every other month and it’s never personal; it’s just me against the whole world, not anyone in particular. I am what I like to call an acquired taste, because you don’t really like me until you actually know me. I’m like a first pack of cigarettes to someone who’s just starting to smoke. At first it’s all dizzy and confusing, then the smoke clears and I can be your best friend. Like your placebo for company.

I’ll listen. I’m always willing to do so.

Always.

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