Diary Entry One: Where the Story Begins
Every hero needs a story, and a story needs a start, or so they say.
Although I am not by any chance a hero, if someone would ask me about the start of my story, I can recall it quite precisely.
To be perfectly fair, I was quite a problem child. More than often I would cross all sorts of lines just to get more, to live more, to see with my own eyes what lies beyond. You can surely imagine the situations I found myself gotten into thanks to that.
Due to the fact that I went to the elementary one year sooner than expected, I was preordained to be the youngest in every class ever after. And as I was also the smallest in most cases, I have quickly learned to employ the means of persuasion, manipulation and deception to my advantage. However, ultimately, I have always assumed the role of some sort of a white knight. Maybe that's why I loved the “hero stories” as a boy, or maybe it was the other way around.
One thing was for sure, I clearly wanted more from life. And I wanted it to be on my terms.
So I've gotten myself into arts. I played the piano, composed, danced, sketched and painted, wrote a lot, as poetry as prose, later even went to a film school. Then, science has won over my heart as I went to university, and although I was also pursuing screenwriting, film directing, acting and a composing career, I've come back, at last, to the roots of my childhood, when I was buried deep into the encyclopedias, dreaming of being an inventor. As I did not study any mathemathics nor physics in highschool, and decided for the engineering major last-minute, I managed to catch up on the subjects in four days, the week before my first day on the university, and passed the entry tests with excellent results.
I lived over truly an everchanging youth up to the point, not so long ago, on which I now look upon as the kind of experience that at last shaped who I was to be from that point further.
THE NIGHT
It was in the middle of summer after my second year on uni, when on a perfectly quiet night I suddenly could not bear on my feet and I just sat in a complete horror on the sidewalk near my home. Something was terribly wrong, although I could not quite put my finger on it. But it sure felt like I was going to die right there. I will probably remember the feeling of everything so quickly becoming so dark and quiet, for the rest of my life.
Heart racing, sweat in my eyes, breathing with utmost difficulty, the emergency operator thought I was severely dehydrated, but did not send an ambulance, thus I had no choice but to took a cab to the hospital.
There I went through an EKG and I began to feel a bit better. Looking at my cardiogram, the doctor, whom I have obviously woken up, judging by the spots under his eyes, bed hair and the lack of focus, just got annoyed and while administering me with a mild sedative, told me I am perfectly fine. So I went home, sedated and with the rising question of what exactly happened, if it wasn't the heart.
The next day I went to my doctor and did undergo a general check-up. Then the next day, it happened again. And then again and again, every other day, while I went through six months of sailing from a doctor to doctor.
Everytime I got my "everything as it should be" results, I was simultaneously at peace and more concerned than before. Then, after those six months, I could at last establish that I’m perfectly fine, physically. But the attacks kept coming, without no apparent reason and without warning, and it quickly became so overwhelming that I could not really function socially as I was hardly able to go even to the store without a threat of an imminent attack.
As I could not sleep quite well, I have started to spend my nights studying psychological disorders. After couple of such nights, I have come to a certain conclusion that I suffer from a severe panic disorder, which also caused a strong depression upon me.
I immediately researched the best doctors in the field, turned to a psychiatrist which I assumed to be the best of them and soon after, started my treatment.
After a few weeks, the attacks slowly faded and when I was once again physically able to go out into the world, I continued with my studies, returned to my filmmaker part of life, even met a woman.
THE MORNING
Nevertheless, the treatment was only a part of my recovery. As I spent six months in isolation, seeing more doctors than family or friends, I kept ruminating over my life and the future it holds. The thing is, I realized that when asked who I intend to be, I could not make a clear answer. I had many skills and even more talents, which I could not bear to just abandon.
So I have decided to find the answer, but I had to first get myself upon my feet again. As a part of my rehabilitation, I took Wing Chun classes, which provided me with some sort of regularity, and a small circle of truly warm people with whom I have even started to socialise again.
The evenings after the classes were more of a meditative character. I have cultivated this little custom of a late english tea and Classic FM. There in the armchair, drinking my tea and smoking my tobacco while listening to the music, happened that I've come to the conclusion that the only profession I could stand to be a part of, is a private detective. The reasons for this realization were quite simple. I could put to use any knowledge or skill available to me, employ my own methods and choose on what I want to work. But the most important reason was that the profession promised to be ever-challenging.
That being said, I'm now aware that I cannot live without the rush of adrenaline. The mundane bores me and the boredom kills me, as my mind craves for a problem to be solved. Without it, I am just a shadow, slowly fading away.
It was not long until I enlisted for a licence in private security and investigation. I started to spend my evenings studying the law, criminalistics, criminology and investigative psychology. I went through a course for my licence, which happened to be consisting of primarily the law, a course on criminalistics, fire and health emergency course and a course on the means of security, defence and arresting techniques. The courses were banal and on the second day I realized that they will not provide me with anything of use, as I already studied the subjects on my own. Thus I flied through it and soon after, passed the final exam before the representatives of Home Office and the Police Force, and got my licence.
After, I continued with my studies of detective fields in my own time, because unfortunately, if I was not to enlist to the Police Force, I did not really have a choice as there were not many oportunities for me as a civil figure. But a week or two after I got my licence, a friend managed to get me to a course on credibility assessment and current methods of investigative and criminal psychology. There, again, to my disappointment I found out that I have already covered the subject in more than sufficient manner.
That is how I found myself back on my feet, continuing with my studies as on the uni as in my spare time, while occasionaly diving deep into the filmmaking world for a bit of change, composing again on the quiet nights to soothe my mind and slowly forgetting about that dreadful summer night.
At the end of the beginning, there was another part of this story I was meant to forget about as well. The woman that stood beside me through the night and the morning after. And although it was very brief and now it feels almost like a memory of someone else, she always will be part of this story, which I am only about to see where it ends, for she made me who I am today.
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