It’s odd after watching a ton of TV shows relating to crime and punishment I have never actually thought it would be something I’d meet in my own life, but now I suddenly have..

1. A guy from my class has been accused of something quite horrible, but came back to school this week after being in custody for about two months, because there wasn’t enough evidence against him. I won’t go into what he’s been accused of, butlet me put it this way: if he’s guilty I want absolutely nothing to do with him, but if he’s innocent his whole life has probably been ruined because of it. Now, as many leftists, I am a real softy when it comes to things like this and I – above all – believe in humanity (humanity as in the quality of being humane – kindness, benevolence) and that whole presumption of innocence thing. I have heard what he had to say, what the media had to say (not the same thing, I might add) and then what he had to say to what the media had to say, and although there’s still some things I don’t understand I have decided that, to me, he’s innocent. I actually thought it would be hard to force my mind to go all black and white on the matter, but luckily I actually do rather well with being one-dimensional. He’s not a friend (he wasn’t before either), but he’s a guy in a crisis who needs to know that the world is still standing. At least for now.
2. Next week I am witnessing in this thing. Again, I am not going into details, but just let me make it clear that I am not the single key witness to a murder or anything like that.. It’s just a minor thing where I have to say who were where at what time and so on.. But I really don’t wanna do it. It’s sort of hard explaining why (without going into details), but I know both parties and I don’t want anyone to win or lose – especially not because of anything I say. I am of course just going to tell the truth, but it’s been two years since this thing happened and I guess I am afraid that I will be too biased or I’ll piss off one of someone or something like that – as I said I know both parties and I feel terrible by even being in the middle of it. I really wish I had said no when I had the opportunity. And I don’t know how I am supposed to act. Should I give everybody hugs or do I have to choose sides or something like that? Will there even be hugs or just handshakes or nods? Are they actually talking to each other or will they only be sending evil eyes?

(I don’t think I’ve ever actually done this before. This type of blog entry, I mean. Maybe because my life is normally pretty uneventful, maybe because I feel sort of weird dragging other people’s lives into this, but I am thinking this might actually be what a personal blog could be for.. I feel like crap, I share it with the world (well, my four subscribers) and I feel better. Perhaps unprodigal has a future after all. )

When I was younger I wasn’t able to tolerate any type of praise. I would apologize and belittle it, and I was always convinced some sort of mistake had been made. Now: not so much.

Now, I am like a dog.. If you tell me that I did good for getting the ball, I will go get it again and again and again – no matter which thorny bush you throw it into.. This is actually extremely embarrassing when you think about it, because (like so much else I do) it just goes to show an incredibly small amount of self worth. Or an ego that is incredibly large (but that’s a story for another day).

I have a theory that all of my bad self esteem goes back to that time in 2nd grade when we were playing pigerne efter drengene which translated directly means the girls after the boys. The rules were pretty simple: the girls had to try to catch the boys and when they did, they kissed them.

The boys of course had to pretend that they thought it was extremely disgusting, but all around the playground you saw guys tripping, running into a girl by mistake or just running in an absurdly slow fashion. Except the guys who were running from me. I can still see the fright in their eyes as they were running for their lives, rather risking to sprain a muscle than a kiss from me – and through that entire summer of pigerne efter drengene I never got to kiss one boy.

All through my life, no matter how successful or attractive I later become, I have still had that image in my head of Niclas, who I believe was my #1 crush at the time, running like a madman to avoid getting kissed by me. But praise makes the image blurry. Getting told I am good at something makes me feel that even if Niclas wouldn’t want to kiss me I am at least appreciated for being the person who will always get the ball.

If I ever hear my father say “well, if you had gone to med school” again I swear I will hurt someone!