Borderlands: The Catcher in the Rye

“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”

When you are born in the borderlands, there are things within your power to do and change, and others that will always remain beyond your reach. I vaguely remember deciding, as a child, that I wanted to be, or had to be, the catcher in the rye. And I have played that role ever since, becoming part of my identity, with all its ups and downs.

We are all little kids, in a way. No matter how old we grow, in our moments of sorrow, we are vulnerable, in need of another human being. Understanding and accepting this means expecting nothing in return. You catch someone when they are about to fall, and when the time comes, you let them go. Because that is what most people do. They come and go.

But what happens when you are the one who needs to be caught?

Perhaps that is the hardest part of being the catcher. Somewhere, deep down, there is this unspoken desire for someone to see you, to recognise the moments when you, too, are standing dangerously close to the edge. For someone to reach out, without being asked, and become, just for a while, the catcher of the catcher.

Leap of Faith

Pentru o buna perioada de timp, acesta a fost anul in care mi-am pierdut cuvintele si a trebuit sa ma gasesc pe mine in naufragiul produs. 

In acest drum inapoi spre mine, a fost si anul in care m-am conectat cel mai mult la partea mea nomada. On the Road, descoperind locuri noi, facand mii de pasi, descoperind oameni noi, colorati si diferiti. Descoperind ca viata nu se termina aici, ca exista atatea drumuri si dincolo de. Atata timp cat te ai pe tine insuti/insati, you are enough. Invatand a sta in mijlocul furtunii pe care nu o poti opri, si asteptand sa treaca.

La final de zi, si la final de acest an de lucru, dincolo de roluri sau proiecte, aleg Omul. Asta este ceea ce am invatat si ceea ce am ales in mijlocul acestui naufragiu. Aceasta a fost epifania din aceste zile. E usor sa devenim persoanele care ne-au produs cele mai adanci rani, sa ne mai oprim sa mai avem incredere in altii, sa mai dam spre ceilalti, sa mai credem in ceva. Sa ne oprim sa mai spunem ,,multumesc", sa fim recunoscatori pentru cei care ne-au ajutat, sa recunoastem unde noi am gresit. 

Detasarea nu inseamna a nu mai simti ceva. Inseamna a constientiza ceea ce simti, a sti ce e in puterea ta si ce nu e. To let it go, fara resentimente. Si de a te ridica de jos, integrand naufragiile interne in perspective si forte noi. 

The Year that Hit Home

2025 was the year where I tested my own limits and showed myself what I can do. It is the year where I embraced my independence and fully enjoyed it, professionally and personally. It is the year, that conscientiously, I started growing and wishing more.

It is also the year that hit the hardest in the last couple of years. Yes, right now I feel like sitting in a storm, in the middle of the sea, staying on my feet, but surrounded by huge waves of water, ready at any moment to swallow me. And I keep on fighting this, scared at the same time that this time is too much. It is the year that hurt like hell, and opened that locked door, where my hypervigilance was locked. Didn’t miss it at all.  

And here, down, in this abyss of the sea, I saw and felt that there are still humans who can see me. Some of them, old friends, here as pillars of my foundation, present here, maybe not as intense as in the past, but as a “pain in the knee”, knowing that you can count on them. And I am truly grateful for that.

2025 has been the year when I finally made that step towards Home, towards others like me. Because the bottom of the sea is full of people who struggle. With the past, with their traumas, with their pain. People who don’t want to talk about the core, their roots, although they we are highly defined by it, since it’s the source of our energy. The greater the Super-Ego, the greater the ID.  

And this is the lesson, the reminder, that 2025 brought me. We are all energy, both positive and negative. And we all have the agency to choose between these two. Empaths and narcissists are on the same line, born from the same chaos, but each chooses something completely different when it comes to the vulnerability they see in others. One creates and becomes a wall of protection for the vulnerable, while the other uses the power of others’ vulnerability as a source for their own power. Because paradoxically, vulnerability is power. It is we who choose what to do with that chaos/that Beast inside of us, to flip the coin or not: to change that tremendous pain into a tremendous positive (or negative) energy, into something that we keep on building (or destroying), keep on giving (or taking). And paying it forward, teaching others to do the same. 

Going Home

"Think you're escaping and you run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home". 

I remembered this today. I kept on running for years from this feeling, from this story, from myself. Until now. And today I met myself in the story of others. Instead of burden, it felt like home. And instead of storm, it felt like peace. 

And I started breathing. 

Emotional burnout

It feels like a deep will of feelings where you search for some water, but you really have to go deep into it. It feels like exhaustion. Like every action, that you used to take so easy now it comes with thousands of chains and questions. It feels like begging for help, but no one is hearing you. I just want to stay, to rest, to take a break from life, and just stop. Just for one moment, just for a day, but stop. Breathe. Away, in silence, away from the crowd. It feels so deep and you have to fight it so hard. And you wish for someone, anyone, to give you back that 1% of empathy by just telling you "I can see you, it will pass". 

Untamed

“I am enough”. I have been hearing this phrase several times in the last months. People struggling to find themselves, to be enough for themselves, able to live in a world without others.

There are times for me when I need to be alone. To breathe. To enjoy the silence. To listen to it, to unplug from the hustle and buzzle of normal life, of deadlines, of always taking care of others, of thinking of others. Those times when you finally are in a pool of strangers, only you and your silence. And in these times you actually see the Others, you feel them around you, you feel that you belong there, being part of a larger group, although all the people around you are strangers. Perhaps they don’t even see you, as you used not to see them - the grey ghosts in a sea of blind colours. It is the moment when you go back to your inner self and enjoy your own company.

From a time that I actually don’t remember, I have been enough. No need of talks, of pseudo-books, of confessions. No need of relieving traumas, because they are there, in the core, but incorporated in your DNA, acknowledging your own limits, gaining strength from it. The Shadow Beast from which everything else emerges.

We have always been untamed. Always wanting to belong, seeking connection, always dreaming of a normal life, but always wanting to keep our core, our independence, our wilderness. Untamed.

Murakami and Our Uncertain Walls

I truly believe literature and children are at the core of who I am. They're my square one - where I find my peace. All the time, in any second, these two aspects are in my DNA. Life seemed to have had other plans for me, and I don’t yet know what this newly forged "I" will look like in the future, but whenever Life pushes me too far – into its chaotic mazes, its never-ending working hours, when I feel like a marionette, I pull the string and try to go back to square one, to my real sanctuary.

Style has always been something that I look for in a book, and although I have always enjoyed Murakami’s writings and his ideas, I have always felt something missing in the language, something that felt false, like it got lost in translation. Dialogues that sound unnatural in Romanian, descriptions that lose their meanings, and so on. So, with his latest novel, I tried the English version, which I think sounds much better than what I have read so far by him in Romanian.

Reading this novel felt like sitting in a quiet place, jazz playing in the background, rain tapping the windows. It’s like stepping out of reality, of how the world goes, and enjoying the other World that is in all of us, surrounded by our own Uncertain Walls. The borderland, the place where fiction and reality, conscious and unconscious, meet and have a drink together, where no one has a Name, and it’s ok, because here, in this place, there is no time, no hands on the clocks, no running, no egos, no shadows.   

“In my head, there was a battle going on between reality and unreality. At this moment I was standing right in the interstice between this world and the other world. There was a fierce split between the conscious and the unconscious, and I had to choose where I should belong.” (121)

“The flow of the river became an elaborate maze, and, just as it traveled deep underground, our reality, too, seemed to proceed inside us, branching out down several paths. Different versions of reality mixed together, different choices became intertwined, out of which a composite reality – or, what we come to understand as reality – took shape.” (131) 

“Single people need those kinds of modest rituals in their lives. To get through each day.” 366

“I shut my eyes and thought about time. In the past – for instance, back when I was seventeen – there was literally an inexhaustible amount of time. Like a huge reservoir, filled to the very brim. So there was no need to consider time. But now was different. Time, I knew, was limited. And as I aged, considering time ahad even greater implications. Time, no matter what, ticked away, ceaselessly. (370 )

“However, there isn’t just one reality. Reality is something you have to choose by yourself, out of several possible alternatives.” (423)