to bury a castle (engelskuppsats)
To bury a castle
I am ashamed to tell you how long my castle has stood it´s ground now, and even more so to admit how unwilling I´ve been to let it fall into ruins. I only do so because I know that you would never understand, guess or even have the slightest clue as to what I´m talking about.
That, however, must be changed to make this text worth reading. Well, the castle I´m referring to is by no means real with towers and jewels, but a fictional castle made out of feelings, imaginations and a wish to become something other than what I am and was. A nine-year-old´s trembling loneliness, a thirteen-year-old´s confusion and a fifteen-year-old´s desperate desire to feel something made it stand, resisting all pressure and hatred. For more than six years now I´ve been trapped inside a world that neither exists nor is that pleasant, and the impact it´s had on my life is somewhat frightening.
I think everyone´s done it, to some extent. When you read a real good book, you tend to slip into it and feel as though you´re actually standing there yourself. For most people it ends once you´ve shut the book, but for me it just never did. I grew so close to the characters that they seemed perfectly real to me, and also developed a personality that only showed when I was “with them”. It infiltrated everything I did; how often I washed my hair, what language I spoke, what songs I sung and what upset me or made me happy. To be honest, it practically took over my life until it tormented me more than it ever amused me. I started hating this world I lived in, and wished instead for that other, magical world full of wonderful people. In that world, I told myself, I could always be happy; and when I wasn´t, that could always be fixed in some way. My other personality was an upgraded, much cooler version of me and I would have given much to get to be her. That there was an in my opinion gorgeous, nice and loving man in that world just goes without saying, don´t you think?
Now, what I´m going to tell you is not exactly a happening. More adequately I can say that it kept creeping up on me for a long time. Finally I started realising that maybe this wasn´t good for me, and that I should try and get satisfaction from the world I had been placed into instead of one in my head. It strikes me now, as I´m writing this, that it ended just as it started; with a phone call. I was talking to a very close friend when I told her that I would bury my castle, which is a quotation from a song about just this problem, and try to move on with my life. Her surprise to this was genuine, but by no means disapproving; I think almost everyone felt the relief rushing through them when I told them. The exceptions are those who suffer from the same problem as I do, because they still cling to it like ivy to a brick wall. Maybe a part of me still does that too, but I cannot ever let that part, my iner demon as I call it (it might sound a little mental, but that´s how I see it), take control and posess me again. Now, maybe I make a big deal about nothing. But don´t people always do that with castles?
I am ashamed to tell you how long my castle has stood it´s ground now, and even more so to admit how unwilling I´ve been to let it fall into ruins. I only do so because I know that you would never understand, guess or even have the slightest clue as to what I´m talking about.
That, however, must be changed to make this text worth reading. Well, the castle I´m referring to is by no means real with towers and jewels, but a fictional castle made out of feelings, imaginations and a wish to become something other than what I am and was. A nine-year-old´s trembling loneliness, a thirteen-year-old´s confusion and a fifteen-year-old´s desperate desire to feel something made it stand, resisting all pressure and hatred. For more than six years now I´ve been trapped inside a world that neither exists nor is that pleasant, and the impact it´s had on my life is somewhat frightening.
I think everyone´s done it, to some extent. When you read a real good book, you tend to slip into it and feel as though you´re actually standing there yourself. For most people it ends once you´ve shut the book, but for me it just never did. I grew so close to the characters that they seemed perfectly real to me, and also developed a personality that only showed when I was “with them”. It infiltrated everything I did; how often I washed my hair, what language I spoke, what songs I sung and what upset me or made me happy. To be honest, it practically took over my life until it tormented me more than it ever amused me. I started hating this world I lived in, and wished instead for that other, magical world full of wonderful people. In that world, I told myself, I could always be happy; and when I wasn´t, that could always be fixed in some way. My other personality was an upgraded, much cooler version of me and I would have given much to get to be her. That there was an in my opinion gorgeous, nice and loving man in that world just goes without saying, don´t you think?
Now, what I´m going to tell you is not exactly a happening. More adequately I can say that it kept creeping up on me for a long time. Finally I started realising that maybe this wasn´t good for me, and that I should try and get satisfaction from the world I had been placed into instead of one in my head. It strikes me now, as I´m writing this, that it ended just as it started; with a phone call. I was talking to a very close friend when I told her that I would bury my castle, which is a quotation from a song about just this problem, and try to move on with my life. Her surprise to this was genuine, but by no means disapproving; I think almost everyone felt the relief rushing through them when I told them. The exceptions are those who suffer from the same problem as I do, because they still cling to it like ivy to a brick wall. Maybe a part of me still does that too, but I cannot ever let that part, my iner demon as I call it (it might sound a little mental, but that´s how I see it), take control and posess me again. Now, maybe I make a big deal about nothing. But don´t people always do that with castles?
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