Who am I?

Who am I? IMMAH VIVID ILLUSION!!!         

Actually, there are two of us. Immah and Vivid Illusion. And this is our feeble attempt at cooperating in order to create something (as opposed to our usual destructive habits which will surely be explained in a later post).

We’ve been each other’s best friends for most of our teenage and adult-ish lives, which seemed to be an unlikely occurrence at age 15, when we first met, at the very beginning of high school.  Back then Immah was a happy-go-lucky, pink-clothed with blond highlights, overly-friendly, hyperactive little… thing (she was a bit like a chibi, if you want to get a better image). While Vivid Illusion was gloomy, anti-social, wearing tons of eyeliner and mascara in order to look like a badass kind of creature (she also tended to growl at people that tried to come to close to her, although no reports of bites or scratches have been filed).  That should explain why this friendship was unforeseen, unplanned, unrecommended (I know it’s not an actual word; bear with me, ok?), but later on highly appreciated by both sides, right?

That just about covers who we used to be; I still haven’t explained who we are now though. We’re students, dreamers, girls, humans, airheads and a series of other, more or less obvious, things. Our current country of residence is The Netherlands, a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (which also includes Aruba, Curaҫao and Sint Maarten; that’s a useful bit of trivia, right?), but our point of origin (geographically, we’re not involving our moms into this) is Romania, the land of plenty (not going to mention plenty what, that’s to be covered in a bit more detail later on). We traded off warmth and familiarity for cold winds, bucketloads of rain and adventure. Was it worth it? We don’t really know yet, but we’ll be damned if we’re not going to do our very best to make it well worth it.

We figured that it would be nice if we started by introducing ourselves. Then we realized that we don’t really like talking about ourselves. Quite a conundrum… until we came up with a way of making things easier (although I think Immah kinda hates me for this idea): Immah as seen by Vivid Illusion and vice-versa.

 Ta-daaah!

Immah as seen by Vivid Illusion

I’ve already described Immah as she was in the beginning of her teen years, now I should cover her current form and a bit of her evolution.

If her 15 year-old self was easily describable as a Chibi, then her present one would most certainly be a pixie. She outgrew her pinkness and replaced it with a polychromatic prism to view the world through. Her mischievous nature is toned down by her OCD-ish tendencies; she’s sarcastic and a borderline cynic, but loyal, reliable and empathetic (I would definitely know, she’s been my shoulder to cry on for years now).

She’s prone to hyperactivity, so, for the love of all that’s holy, do not feed her sugar, coffee, chocolate, cake (especially not chocolate cake!), pie, muffins…well, you get the picture. And if you think this warning should be taken lightly, just remember the gremlins…

I have a confession to make… when it comes to the visual arts I’m about as knowledgeable as a bat (how does that work? “Yes, that’s a lovely painting, it sounds incredible”). However, even I can tell that Immah is nothing if not a kick-ass artist. She’s mostly a graphic designer, currently extending her talents into the animation area as well.

She can be quite deep at times and she worries about things that are out of her control (as we all do), but the one thing that never stops amazing me is how the outside world can only hope to catch glimpses of this “darker” side she has.

Often I’ve tried imagining how the insides of Immah’s mind look like. I imagine it beautiful and scary (and a bit perverted, but who am I to comment?). There’s colors that no one has ever seen, ideas so thrilling and captivating that they might just be dangerous, shapes and patterns so intricate that you can’t even begin to examine or understand them, all you can do is sit back and admire… and there’s cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

That’s Immah, the person I call my mommy and the most awesome person in the world.

Vivid Illusion as seen by Immah

 

She is Vivid Illusion and she is my best friend. Oh wait! I have a vivid illusion as a best friend!!! 

(* forever alone face *)

If I had to be serious for a moment and think about words to describe her, I couldn’t find my words. Not because of her, it’s simply because… yeah, it’s difficult for me to find them. That`s one of the things that are radically different between me and her: she always finds the right words to say or write whenever it’s needed, whether it’s in Romanian, English or maybe even … Dutch soon?

Vivid illusion is one of those rare, dying breeds who can spot humor where everyone else fails to see it. If some people put fun in funeral, she takes it to a whole new level (funeral on the roof everybody!!)!  If I were to guess, I’d probably say that it’s her “fault” that I remember high-school as this awesome comedy show where we were constantly at risk of getting kicked out of class because we kept on laughing our asses off.

As she admitted previously, she wasn’t too be much of a people person when we first met; however, things changed a lot over the years and she became this friendly, outgoing but still selectively sociable person. I’m proud and sometimes – I must admit – I envy her awesome people skills

Her dreams and aspirations?  Well, a few of you might know I don’t really say this about many people, mostly because I think the world is full of incompetents, but when it comes to Vivid Illusion I really think she could achieve anything she puts her mind to. That only if she would stop procrastiiii...OH LOOK AT THE KITTEN!

..speaking of, I should have warned you from the start: Vivid Illusion is a cat person. Hence the cat-like personality that is visible since the first day you meet her. She’s nice and cuddly when she likes you… but please try not to step on her tail, will you?

It might be just me but I always think she gets over-excited over any new shiny thing regardless of the prospect of future. Despite the fact that it makes me crazy-worried, I think this way of being is part of her own personal charm – she reminds me of how important it is to enjoy the moment.

All in all, Vivid Illusion is a great REAL person, and I’m lucky to have her as my best friend… and daughter, and sister, and … we`ll see :>

The love is unbearable, isn’t it? All jokes aside, this explains mostly everything. We see each other as a constant, necessary and adorable presence in our lives. All the more reason to embark on this whole new journey called “Life in Holland”. But that’s for next time ^.^