Ghosts

The ghosts are haunting the attic of my mind again. I hear their voices faintly and often find ways to pretend that I’ve gone deaf after all these years, but I know deep inside myself that I’ll never stop listening carefully to what they are trying to tell me. I believe that since I turned thirty, a new door opened inside of me, broadening my perception of the world within and out, and stirring up some old sediment, right before it had hardened into a concrete mass.

Some call it a crisis, best described by one of my favorite psychologists – Eric Erikson. Even though the timing, just as everything else in my life is quite a bit shifted, I find traits of at least three different crises within my current self: Identity vs. Role Confusion (typical puberty thoughts, moved far, far back within my development, just because I could never decide what I wanted to do with my life, since the one thing I had always wanted to do – I couldn’t – to be with my band, make music and tour the world…so, today I still don’t know whether I’ll be a writer, a psychologist or a religion researcher); Intimacy vs. Isolation ( this one is definitely stressed on the “what am I going to do with my life? Will I settle down?” part, because one thing I know for sure – I am crazy about my family); Generativity vs. Stagnation - the Mid-life crisis (Am I satisfied or not?), others call it – awakening, but whatever it is, I am loving it! I’m diving deep in the waters and swimming with the monsters – fearless and eager.

One of those ghosts was screaming in my head loud and clear tonight, as I was driving home on the way from work: “It’s time you went and put some beautiful scratches on the flawless art on the bottom of your skateboard! It’s time you stopped worrying that you may hurt yourself or get arrested for doing what you love and crave so much, even though it’s not allowed at midnight in the land of the free”.

So I listened!

I went home, grabbed Buddah, grabbed the skate and some protective gear, put HATEBREED on my mp3-player and drove like crazy to the skate-park.
The quiet night was “torn apart by the screams” coming from my headphones and the adrenaline pumped in my veins. I jumped on the board and drained the juice from these rudimentary muscles! And it felt so free! And so relieving! With every jump, with every slide and every fall I felt more alive! It made me happy to see that my body still remembered how to move and the board was obediently following my orders!

I had to tie Buddah up.

She just goes nuts around the skateboard! I absolutely could not get my turn to skate, because she is tireless! So the two of us alternated and took the shine out of that brand new skateboard, which I had proudly bought from one of the HARDCORE Mecca’s of the US – Revelation records – where Alex and I took Sami quite a few months ago. (I've been looking at this pretty skateboard in the garage and longing to jump on it since April and it's now October!)

All this said, I guess my plead to you is: don’t become boring as you get older! Keep the child inside alive and crazy, because this world is already full of grey faces and does not deserve to wear this mask!

My ghosts revitalized me before I’d killed them! I thank them for letting me fulfill my dream – not to die inside once I grow up!

Behold!

Guess who's next!