Ode to albatrosses

Breaking Up

2009-12-12T21:56:00.001Z

When I set out on my path to find true love I never considered that I could find it so soon. Falling in love seemed like the difficult part. In reality life doesn't work like that; falling in love for most people is remarkable easy, its the not getting your heart broken once its taken the leap that is the problem.

My sister regularly has her heart broken. When I see her I try to understand her need to put herself out there but I just don't get it. She falls in love, has her heart totally trodden on, mopes, whines and begs, and then when things are so totally over even she starts to admit it, she falls in love with someone else.

Someone asked me once, if you and your fiancé broke up, you wouldn't be like that, you would survive wouldn't you? I guess the implication was that she couldn't survive a break up. I could survive a break up, I wouldn't want to, but I could and I'd move on. I'm a survivor, my heart gets hurt less because even when I'm in love, my heart is still closed.

We argue and he says horrible things, and I say horrible things and I can't cry. I cry afterwards, on my own, when I'm sat in an empty room after he's left our flat in anger, but I cant cry in front of him. If he broke up with me I wouldn't do the usual female litany and beg or stalk or cry and scream. I did all that once when I was seventeen and too young to know better. I learnt from my mistakes. But sometimes I wonder if I could be too closed off.

Right now he hates me and I don't blame him. I'm pushy, aggressive and demanding. I hold all the power in the relationship and right now I'm stressed out and making him miserable. I'm terrified that I'm leaving him behind and I can't talk to him about it because he just won't listen. I'm just about to get my BSc and he hasn't got anything to show for the last three years together. We adore each other when we have any time to ourselves, but he has to work full time in a crappy no hope job just to pay the bills and I have too much coursework and revising for exams at the minute to find time for dates and being loving.

Everybody has faults, I more than most. Someone once offered me a bracelet that apparently would give me good luck in love. I told him that thank you, but no thank you, I don't need luck in love. I am lucky in love, I've found the perfect man for me and there's nothing that is so wrong with him that I need to worry about my relationship. Unfortunately there's a lot that is wrong with me.

I would survive a break up. He wouldn't survive as well. I don't worry any more about our relationship ending, I worry that if it does, would he survive it and retain his innocence? If I could go from a whiny pathetic regular girl to a callous bitch in the space of one break up, I don't think I could live with watching something I did do that to him.

On Missing Persons and Becoming Wiser

2009-05-02T19:23:00.002+01:00

I like to think that I’m wiser than my years. I guess that sometimes I just feel like I’ve lived slightly more than most people of my years. It’s probably just vanity, but it leads to the question: what do we have to endure to say that we’ve lived life more than most?

Do you have to endure great hardship? Can a person who lost their child say that they have lived life more than someone who never lost anything? Or does it rely more on reaching the point where you can say that you are truly happy with your life, happy in your own skin? Is it none of these and based on how much a person has travelled, how many different jobs they have done and languages they speak? Is it just a matter of perception: if you believe you’ve lived life to as full as you could?

At Christmas my mother went missing. If you’ve followed my blog before this won’t come as a complete surprise. I’ve never spent a huge amount of time with her as she left the country when I was six and I hadn’t lived at home with her until I was five. However, as awful as abandoning your children may sound it was the kindest thing she could do for us as she suffers from schizophrenia and her and dad had very loud, and sometimes almost physical, fights literally every day they spent together. So causing quite an unpleasant atmosphere at home.

I forgave her everything years ago because of her illness so when she went missing I was very worried. In late January after numerous missing person’s ads, and phone calls around every hospital and morgue in the city she surfaced in a mental ward under a pseudonym. She had admitted herself under a different name and when queried stated that she was no longer my mom; she had undergone a transformation and was twenty eight years old and Latina rather than Chinese. According to her doctor while it was good for us to speak to her and that her fantasy would allow her to still recognise us as her daughters regardless of age discrepancies, we were not allowed to tell her that her fantasy was not real. We couldn’t call her crazy.

She’s still in hospital five months down the line and the doctors and nurses caring for her have only just started calling her by her real name. So far I have not managed to visit her as a cross-continental flight costs more than my student loan and supermarket wages allow for. Somehow, as much as my mother has been through, I don’t believe she’ll ever reach the point where she can say she’s lived life fully. Giving up seeing your three children grow up will be a lot to come to terms with if she ever gets through this. She seems slightly less insane every time I talk to her but she’s probably past the point where they can properly cure her, and way beyond the point where if she were cured she’d be able to find happiness.

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself. Growing up without a mother made me become a lot more mature earlier, a lot more neurotic generally, and made me search for a mate who was so stable he couldn’t even comprehend the meaning of the word dysfunctional. Mostly I feel sorry for her. I can find happiness, she has to create fantasies of billionaires falling in love with her and magically altering her to become younger and a different person to cope with her unhappiness.

One day I will be a better daughter. Going through all this has taught me that as awful a mother as she was; I’m a much worse daughter as I don’t have a psychological illness to blame it on. I know I will be a better mother than she was. But, I have hopes that even if she never becomes a better mother to me, with continued treatment she will one day become a decent grandmother and that my children will not hate me for letting her back into my life.

Weekending to Nowhere

2008-10-08T23:09:00.003+01:00

For our two year anniversary we decided to go somewhere different, somewhere completely new. We decided to go to a loch in the centre of Scotland, a few miles away from Loch Lomond, and a train, bus and taxi ride away from civilisation. My sweetheart’s initial idea was to go camping; however this did not fit in the least with my ideas of cleanliness or comfort. So, instead, we stayed ensuite bed and breakfast in a village that consisted solely of hotels, bed and breakfasts, and was approximately fifteen houses big. It did not however have any mobile network reception with five miles of it which unfortunately meant that I could not use my laptop or phone as planned. It also didn’t have any TV other than channels one two three and four, or a DVD player. What it did have was amazing scenery, ridiculously loud deer, and a shop that mostly sold wellie warmers and was so used to customers that we had to wait five minutes for the owner to realize he had customers and unlock the door.

It was beautiful if isolated and cold. We walked fifteen miles, failed to find a tea shop anywhere regardless of promises that the scenery was inundated with them, and drank the local bitter in a pub that had only three other people in it on a Saturday night. And, more than anything else, it was strange. To a girl who believed that she had been brought up in the middle of nowhere, I found myself having to readjust my idea of what exactly constitutes nowhere. There wasn’t even a bus service, there was little other than a couple of fishermen and some deer. While I was completely enamored of it, and loving having the complete and unwavering attention of my sweetheart for a weekend, it was a little too different to be completely comfortable with.

I learnt something. I love the outdoors, I love being where there isn’t anything else. I never thought I could appreciate those things since I rarely appreciate life without a starbucks in my hand and a place where I genuinely can’t get away with wearing any of my enormous shoe collection seems a waste somehow to me. I love four inch heels, I love takeaway food, I adore regular bus and taxi services, I can’t live without Saturday afternoon clothes shopping, and I wouldn’t be able to live without a Sainsburys, Asda, Tesco and Morrisons all within fifteen minutes of my flat. But, regardless of the lack of every single one of those things, I enjoyed myself, and almost saw a life without those things, and with a couple of replacements. It’d be a good place to raise small children.

But that’s not for a good ten years yet. I may not have been single for a long time, and I may live with my (I assume) life partner already, but it’s too early to decide what will happen next. So, a little regretfully, we returned to the city, put the walking boots in the back of my shoe closet where they belong, and cuddled up in our centrally heated flat in front of digital television- the least number of channels I believed anyone could survive on until this weekend.

An element of trust

2008-07-19T23:05:00.001+01:00

I saw him for the first time in over a year. I was sat in my dad’s car with my sweetheart nuzzling at my neck having just picked him up from the train station. I wasn’t expecting Him.

There wasn’t anything to it. I used to envision the time when by some small twist of fate we managed to be in the same place at the same time. I’d be loved up with my boyfriend on my arm and he’d be just as he always is, we’d exchange small talk and meaningful glances and then I’d walk away with no regrets. That was a long time ago.

Instead I stayed in the car silent. I waited until he’d got into his car and driven away before I left it. There’s nothing left to be gained by deliberately causing an encounter, and too much to be lost if I were to somehow appear even vaguely reminiscent.

I move in with my sweetheart in September. Or, more correctly, he moves in with me. My flatmate is leaving for reasons not entirely unforeseen and we’re going to see what it’s like to live together properly. We effectively do it now anyway. I told him everything before he agreed though. Once upon a time a girl made a mistake with a boy she’d loved for a long time, while she was starting a relationship with another man. And it was a long time ago, over a year and a half, only three months into our relationship. I still thought I was in love, and the other relationship didn’t seem that serious. That night I realised I was wrong on both counts, and regretted it almost immediately. But I stayed silent because what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, and hurting him seemed like such a waste when I’d realised I could never do anything like it again.

But he always wondered about that month I was away from him. I knew it, he knew it, and we just avoided talking about it. Mostly I forgot the experience entirely. It wasn’t until we started talking about living together that I started thinking about it all again. I felt horrible, immensely guilty. I even started having dreams in which I was almost on the point of infidelity with various nameless men, except just before the point I would push them off me, plea I was in love with someone else. It doesn’t take a dream dictionary to work out what they were relating to.

Sleeping around has never been a big deal to me. Sleeping with too many who had commitments was to be avoided simply to prevent complications. And sleeping around and causing hurt is always the biggest of sins- it’s a pleasure not something to cause pain. But it was a big deal to him and that’s what’s important.

So I told him. I told him I thought I’d been in love; I told him the circumstances and my reasoning at the time. I didn’t make any excuses, I hadn’t been drunk, and I wasn’t going to try and make it sound better than it was. I told him why I hadn’t told him until now, and I told him why I was telling him at all.

It was simple. I hate lying. I don’t feel that you can start a life with someone without complete trust and while he trusted me, it was a misplaced trust rather than something earned and worked at. However had it been just by my judgement I may not have told him even then, and everyone else told me not to. But he’d told me that whatever happened, if someone cheated on him, he’d want to know. He hates lies, and I trusted him. So I ignored everyone else, and trusted his judgement. He forgave me.

So I didn’t get out the car. I watched him and even felt a vague tugging to get out the car and go to him, but it was not due to attraction or even a small place left in my heart for him, but due to a wish to greet someone who had been a good friend. But nothing is worth hurting someone you love. So I watched, I waited, and when he’d finally gone I pulled my sweetheart out of the car and walked along happy knowing I was with the right person for me.

All over again

2008-04-21T16:34:00.001+01:00

I wouldn’t go back and see the psychologist. Sometimes you’ve gotta keep looking back over your shoulder, constantly vigilant, worried that if one little thing breaks then it all will. My mum wasn’t so vigilant, or, if she was, then something got through and it all broke apart. I’m too scared of that happening to me. But I can watch on my own, I don’t need some awful woman watching for me and adding extra pressure.

When she left she spat words in my face. I had my arm trapped in the door trying to stop her, begging her to stay, promising that I didn’t mean it, that I was sorry, hysterical. But she left anyway screaming at me, clawing at my arm. And afterwards for four days the words just repeated over and over in my head, echoing.

“You’re just like her; you’re mum all over again.”

There are so many people so much more screwed up than me. And so many people who are less. I don’t know why I am the way I am, I don’t know how my mum ended up the way she is, and I’m not sure whether I can change any of it. These last few months I’ve been completely lost. I can’t change any of it, and I can’t prove to myself that I will never turn out like her, I can just promise myself that I’ll try to hold it together for as long as possible. Though, for some reason right now, that isn’t working. Maybe I’ve already past that point, maybe I’ve already lost it all.

I’ve altered every feature that god if the bastard is real gave me. I even got jet black hair to go blonde for a while. I can look like my mother, or I can look more English like my dad. None of it really changed anything at all; it just made for some interesting variation in my different forms of ID. I dunno, somehow I thought that maybe changing the outside would change the inside too. I suppose I really never completely expected it to work.

I dreamed of growing up, escaping it all, and I did. It just wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.

No Trouble Sleeping

2008-03-11T13:50:00.001Z

I don’t miss it. I honestly don’t. I don’t know what to tell these people. Sometimes I can see how it would be easier to just give in and tell them what they want to hear. But I don’t need Prozac. I don’t need a therapist or so many drugs I have to alphabetize and cross reference before I can remember which I’m meant to take on that particular day of the week. And I’m not in denial. I’m not even sure what I could be in denial about.

I’ve been having trouble staying awake recently. Trouble waking up in the mornings, trouble staying awake once I am awake, and trouble keeping awake after that. If I rest for too long, or eat too much so I feel satisfied and comfortable then suddenly I’ll be knocked out. For someone who’s always had problems getting to sleep this whole situation is slightly surreal. So I saw a doctor, had the requisite blood tests, and booked myself in with a psychologist to rule out any psychological reasons I might be feeling permanently fatigued.

I’ve never had any problems with shrinks; in most circumstances I’m sure they’re useful. My mom needed one, I was more than happy to accept that. But I’m not crazy. I know what it’s like to be crazy, I’ve seen it up close and personal, and okay, I’ll accept that everybody has something wrong with them; no one can be completely whole. But I know what my problems are.

I have abandonment issues, I hate being alone, I’m stubborn, shallow, and I have so many different mood swings even I can’t keep up. I don’t let people see the real me for a long time after knowing them, and even then generally I just keep up a façade because it’s easier. And yes, the reason I didn’t like talking to her was because she kept on asking me questions about me which I object to because honestly, I just don’t like talking about myself unless I’m feeling in a particularly introspective and open mood. And even then, I’m disinclined to fess up to strangers.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and I wish I could concentrate on staying awake as my whole life seems to be falling apart at times and the constantly being unconscious is hardly making it easier to keep appointments. I’m getting threatened by our previous landlord even though we’ve finally escaped the hell hole, and I’m pretty sure my lecturers are right now torn between convincing me not to drop out and kicking me out themselves. I’ve got more holes in me than a pin cushion from all the blood being taken and I’ve had enough. I had to go eighteen hours without eating the other day. I’m not fat, clinically I’m underweight I’m that naturally skinny so I’ve never had to diet in my life before. This whole going without eating when I’ve never before had cause to cut back was awful, within an hour and a half I was clawing at the walls trying to stop myself from opening up a packet of crisps.

I’ve had enough. My mother left fifteen years ago. I’m not suddenly reliving the experience, nothing has happened that could trigger that same feeling of loss. So I’m grouchy and sleep a lot, I’m getting tested for diabetes and everyone’s on my back. I’m scared about getting kicked out of uni and having to work in a supermarket for the rest of my life, I’m not in denial about my mother leaving, I’ve long come to accept that, I’m just irritable that the shit has hit the fan and that doesn’t make me a head case that just makes me normal.

Valentine

2008-02-12T22:17:00.000Z

Hey sweetheart,

I’m no good at Valentines, really never have been. I was always the girl that watched other girls with hugely elaborate bunches of roses and mountains of cards. I was the girl who called it an over-commercialised waste of time; an exploitation of the media to ensure Hallmark didn’t go out of business in the mid February card sending abyss that is the late aftermath of Christmas. And, while it totally is all that, it doesn’t mean I didn’t check my mail every two minutes from the 10th of February to somewhere around the 20th, or wish that someone would give me just one card.

You weren’t my first real Valentine, but you’re the one that’s mattered. You’re the only person that I’ve ever properly fallen for, the only person that made me say, “I love you.” Even if I mess things up somehow and lose you, you’ll always be my perfect other half, my soul mate. You’re the only person who can make me almost normal, the first person who’s managed to make me happy.

I love you more than I ever thought it possible to love anyone. I adore every single aspect of your personality from your warped sense of humour and complete loyalty to your complete obsession with football.

The first time I said it I didn’t mean to, but this time I mean it- you’re the love of my life and I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with you even if I drive you crazy.

Happy Valentines gorgeous,

Your Harriet

Resolutions

2008-01-21T16:56:00.000Z

This year I never made any resolutions. It came to the right time and I just didn’t know what to say. Usually they seem so… predictable. I must lose three pounds, I will exercise regularly, I will be more considerate of those around me, I will dedicate myself to my career. And how many people stick to them?

I once rejected a boy for the sole reason that he would never go anywhere. He loved his “home comforts,” his job which kept him as close to the nest as possible, I just couldn’t be with someone who never wanted to do anything. A little while earlier, that sweet but hopeless boy not even an issue, I made a resolution.

“[I will] Fall in love. Not just lust or like. Actual love. Somehow I think this one may take longer than a year to be fulfilled.”

It took me five or six months, but I fell in love. He was… I don’t know, just someone there at the right time maybe, or perhaps he was right for me. He was what I thought I wanted but almost exactly opposite to what I needed. He was unsupportive, antagonistic, and made me feel like I was somehow less than I actually was. It ended, as always, badly.

That boy who I rejected, that one who I could never grow to love, he was the one who appreciated me. That one who I loved never could. Of the two, I would now say both were wrong, but wrong for the same reasons. Neither will escape their comfort zones, those homes where they are spoilt and looked after, and I can never go back to mine like that.

I now resolve not to make resolutions. The ones that are forgotten are probably best that way, and the ones that come to pass should never have been uttered in the first place. Events will take place when they are meant to and resolving to do something important can come at any time of the year, while new years resolutions are made solely because we’re forced into saying we’ll do something.

Falling in love is good, and always a lesson. But it should never have been hurried, and while I don’t regret how it came to pass, I’m glad of the fact it ended, and I wish that when it did it had ended more definitely. I have done some truly stupid things. I’ve betrayed people and never been able to apologise because the damage finding out the betrayal would cause is more awful than the lying and hurt from having to lie. Resolutions just remind me of how naïve I was, and how much I don’t want to look back in future and realise how naïve and stupid I am now.

I can never make an apology without causing hurt, and no matter how hard I try I can’t take back the mistakes I already made. But I don’t have to repeat them, and I don’t have to make myself remember them by writing down pointless resolutions that will hurt me in the future.

A better time for love

2008-01-06T21:16:00.000Z

How do good relationships fall apart? Maybe we fall into ruts, get tired of doing the same things, the same people, again and again. Maybe we fall in love with someone else- we don’t mean to, but sometimes you can’t help when you fall, or who it happens to be for. Maybe life gets in the way, a far away job, an illness, even a death. Maybe you’ve just forgotten who it was you fell in love with, and realise that the person you’re waking up next to every morning isn’t it anymore. Honestly I don’t know, if you love someone, why let them go?

I never intended to fall in love. I asked him how it felt to be loved by me once, he replied, “how does it feel to have broken the girl who couldn’t love, who didn’t want to, and who loved being single? It feels awesome.”

That’s how he sees it- he broke me, changed me into someone slightly different, someone maybe slightly better. But I never asked to be broken; it’s just something that happened accidentally along the way. And, occasionally, I wonder what it would have been like if I hadn’t been broken. I wonder what it would be like if I were allowed to kiss other boys, to act a little more my age, and to shake off the ties that are currently holding me back from doing those things.

We have a good relationship. I have a white gold commitment ring that promises, and reminds me, that I am promised to him, and that I must stay faithful. I love him more than I ever imagined I could love anything, or anyone. I don’t think I could ever love anyone more than I love him, but sometimes I wonder if we found each other too young.

Once I made the comparison of love to flying, once I thought love a myth similar, just out of reach, like I were built to love like I’m built for flying. And now that I’ve had experience of one, I think I wouldn’t be able to handle the other. As soon as you think you’ve got it sussed, suddenly something happens to make you think that you don’t know anything.

So how do good relationships fail? They fail when one person wants something slightly more, when everything is no longer enough. They fail when someone like me looks around and thinks that it might be nice to kiss another boy, when someone like me makes the biggest mistake of her life because she thinks there’s a better time for love.

Imagined Happiness

2007-12-01T20:48:00.000Z

“One day, eventually, will you marry me?”

He gave me that look, the one where they’re not upset or worried, just questioning. “Are you proposing to me?”

I giggled, “No, that’s your job.”

He smiled, “Then yes.”

My mom’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia. At last. In my early childhood she was forever in and out of clinics, psychiatrists, therapists, etc. Dad took her to everyone he could think of but Mom’s always been good with people, and totally convinced there’s nothing wrong with her. She’d go in, and an hour later Dad would pick her up and the therapist would look at him like he was scum, like the problem wasn’t with Mom, it was with him.

We knew the bouts of manic happiness and extreme anger weren’t normal; the promiscuity while spouting values on abstinence and no-sex-before-marriage. But we were the only ones who saw it; everyone else just saw an attractive vivacious woman and a jealous angry husband. They didn’t see the children scared, or the man being pushed to the edges of sanity by a woman so far over them that at times couldn’t tell you what year it was or how old her own children were.

She would accuse my brother of stealing her jewellery, or have screaming fits about our selfishness when she made food for herself and we’d ask if there was anything for us to eat. Three months before my grandfather- her own father- died of cancer she refused to see him anymore because she’d convinced herself he was looking at her lustfully. The man had Alzheimer’s and cancer of the liver, he was so drugged up on morphine he probably couldn’t tell when she walked into the room, never mind who she was or what she looked like.

When I look back on my mum and dad’s marriage I don’t have anything good to look back on. I try to, but it always seems to be the bad memories that stick in your head, the good ones just seem to fade away. I never expected anything good from my relationships and found them satisfyingly unfulfilling as I’d always thought they would be. And then I met someone else.

I got a shock, and I’m still in shock. I think he’s perfect, and for some reason he seems to think something similar about me. My mom’s going to get treated now, my dad has been put off women for life, and I’m going to just try and pass my exams without getting too distracted by men who make me happier than I ever imagined.

Once I was, Now I am

2007-10-27T22:45:00.001+01:00

An albatross can fly for thousands of miles without getting tired. I've always thought that love is similar to flying; therefore we should aspire to be like the albatross.

I’m not an albatross. I can’t fly, I’ll never have wings, and I just don’t have that sort of determination. I’ve been told that some people have dreams that they’re flying, I’ve never had those. I’d love to dream that I’m flying, instead I have crappy dreams where I’m riding a bike along a motorway and that I never get anywhere, or that a giant disco ball falls on top of me, completely flattening me, and just as I’m dying Matt tops it all by breaking up with me using the excuse, “I’m breaking up with you before you break up completely.” Apparently my subconscious has a really bad sense of humour.

So anyway, according to me, one day I’ll meet someone, test my wings and I’ll be able to fly. Thing is, I don’t actually really believe in The One. I hear people talk about it, this ideal we’re all looking for, one person who will complete us, our perfect other halves, the one person who will allow me at last to fly. But, while my belief of The One is limited, if not incredulous, I do believe at least in happiness. I believe that you can find someone who you can spend every night with, and still want to see more of. I believe in someone who can make you that little bit better, that little bit happier.

I never believed in him, I wanted to, I craved to. I’ve always found myself to be lonelier than other people alone are, at the time I didn’t know exactly why, I just sort of thought it was me. I’m clearer headed now, less guarded, less troubled by demons; I know what it is that makes me worse. And I don’t need it confirmed and questioned by other people.

Now I believe in that person because I found him. I found someone who I can spend hours with, and still wish to see more. I found someone who finds it endearing that I’m completely insane. I found someone who loves me regardless of my insecurities, and who I love regardless of his flaws. Its that perfect ideal that I always so hated, the people who are happy, the people who don’t need others recognition or acceptance because they have one person who matters, and essentially everyone else who does not.

I am the albatross; I can fly better than any other I’ve ever met. I don’t have the problems of my egocentric schizophrenic mother, nor my jinxed and perpetually lonely downtrodden father. I no longer have fears of both commitment or rejection, I don’t get depressed, and I’ve kicked my alcoholism to the extent where I rarely drink, and when I do, I do so carefully. From a nineteen year old this all sounds a little to middle aged, but from the shit that I’ve put myself through, it’s finally just an acceptance of life, and happiness.

I have my problems, but they aren’t with myself anymore, they’re the small things that hurt me the external factors. Inside myself, I’m always going to get through them, because inside, after all these years, I’m whole. The battle was fought, the war was won, and whatever happens with my sweetheart, even if we end, it won’t matter because he made me better, he made me happy, and it’ll hurt to lose him, but I’ll never lose the gifts he gave me, or the changes I endured. I can’t go back to the ground once I’ve learnt how to fly.

Okay so...

2007-10-22T21:18:00.001+01:00

Yeah, I know, I lied. But christ, I don't have any sofas, now I'm meant to live without therapy via blogging? I don't think so. (Some of the deleted posts may come back if I feel like it over time, but this a stressful time and place for me right now and honestly I can't be arsed.)

Right, so here's the deal.

My flat is a glorified death trap. The bathroom floor is mouldy, as in green and slightly fluffy. I was just lying there on the floor thinking "Woe unto me being hungover" and moaning faintly, when I realised that as ill as I was, the bathroom smelt really funky. So, about two days later when eventually I'd managed to recover, I lifted the bathroom carpet and discovered a colony growing out of the chipboard.

Those of you who know the slightest thing about building, surveying, generally manual labour type bathroom fitting (obviously not me but my dad told me) will know that chipboard is about the stupidest thing you could put down in a bathroom. It's going to get damp, go mouldy, smell icky, and eventually just collapse. Nice.

So, as a rightfully outraged tenant, I phone up the estate agents, bitch and whinge, and beg for the floor to be fixed. And then while I'm on the phone, tactfully remind him that he'd promised me a new sofa set before we moved into the flat four months earlier (that being the one condition upon which I agreed to live in the place), and that said sofa set had not subsequently arrived.

To cut a long, and very much agonising story short, the agency did absolute fuck all about said floor or sofa set, and I got upset. So we phoned the council, and they got upset too, and we wrote the agency a very professional and ridiculously outraged letter demanding work be done within a week. Three weeks later I'm walking back to the flat, and as I'm walking towards it I realise that the front door is open. I'm the only one in Edinburgh with a key at this point and I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be seeing it open at this angle had I been inside the flat. Inside is a rather large Bulgarian wandering around our furnitureless flat, he informs me (there are hand movements involved as his English is less than adequate) that he is there to remove the sofas. I ask him to continue and to bring the new sofas and chairs in. He tells me he doesn't have new sofas, he's just removing.

Phone up agency, sofas will be in the flat within two days according to the guy I spoke to. That was a week and three days ago. I've been sat on the floor to watch TV ever since. I'm not especially impressed.

Anyway, apart from the green bathroom floor and lack of furniture in previously advertised FULLY FURNISHED flat, I'm okay except for the fact that yet again I'm being threatened with being kicked out of uni, and my boyfriend is working with me which is just plain weird. I'd like to tell you things are great, but as per usual I'm on the cusp of falling apart and there's only a very fine piece of thread holding me back. Luckily for me, I have a very good habit of bouncing back, and I can always find someone to bounce on to get there.

So, as sporadically and badly as I will write in this, for now I think I'm here for a little while longer, though I can't really be sure.

I might be back

2007-09-17T16:24:00.000+01:00

For a million and one reasons I’ve gotten rid of the blog. With my absolute inability to just get rid of things, you will notice that I only deleted the last year of my life from it. I’m not good at getting rid of things, I try and it just doesn’t seem to work, so I haven’t, I just deleted the posts that annoyed me.

I’m not going to say that I’ll never write in this again because I don’t know that, and I can’t promise that old posts might suddenly reappear as I go through them better, but for the time being it’s gone.

There are so many ways I want to express myself, and I love the blog because it lets me and I only have to write one entry at a time, it’s so much easier than a book, but it’s more of an unhealthy and egocentric kind of release. I write because I feel the need to have my feelings confirmed by others, that I’m doing the right thing, that I’m not, and I shouldn’t need that sort of confirmation. I DON’T need that sort of confirmation.

I started writing a blog almost five years ago now. I’ve had quite a few, and eventually delete them for very little reason; maybe I’ll create another in replacement eventually. This one has lasted longest.

For now I say a temporary goodbye, I don’t know what will happen and I’m not sure that I can properly say it yet. So think of it as a “see you later,” a sort of half unsure “I might be back.”

Going Home

2007-04-28T01:41:00.000+01:00

I don’t know where home is anymore, there have been so many of them. So now instead of classifying it as one place in particular, I have chosen to classify it as moments where I felt secure, happy, and content; moments where I’ve felt loved and cherished. These are the moments that define how home should be for us, and the moments when I have felt most like I was at home when a specific solid place as home eluded me.

Home is a hill in the dark with sheep on it and so many stars it’s impossible to estimate to within even a million. An expanse of open space filled only with my thoughts, my dreams, my memories, and an infinite number of sparks in the sky to give me the one thing I always lacked: hope.

Home is a boy with dark curly hair and a worried smile. It’s a boy who stays up till three waiting for me to come home, and then spends the next hour patiently listening to my drunken rambles and handing me pints of water. It’s someone who’ll rub my back when I feel ill, leave me alone when I need it, and who’ll walk me to class and take me out for breakfast at one in the afternoon. It’s someone who makes me feel guilty if another man hits on me when he’s not there, and someone who I physically couldn’t hurt.

Home is green jade and glass beads. It’s a dragon tattooed on my hip and a family that I never met. It’s a country I haven’t been to, and another continent I have yet to visit. It’s a slew of postcards, emails, phone calls, and birthday cards. Its un-cashed cheques, and a watch I lost long ago. It’s an apartment in china town an ocean away from here, and a grandfather I never met. It’s squid, crab, and tortoise; it’s Macy’s and Clinique.

Home is a pirate boat imagined between two fir trees. Its sticks as swords and a red squirrel as first mate. Its two young girls whiling away the days with games of imagination. Its princesses, the spice girls, and eels in a stream; it’s daffodils in dappled light and tea parties under tables. It’s playing block with the other kids, hide and seek and mother may I? Its crushes on boys I’d never again look twice at, and friendships with girls who I haven’t seen for years.

Home is a sofa bed at a friend’s house with a cat on my feet and a dog stupider than me. It’s a younger brother who still won’t talk to me and parents who were stricter with me than mine. It’s a period of time encapsulated in one house, it’s a futon with cushions from Ikea and a bottle of white rum. It’s a girl who I know better than my sister, and a hill that breaks your legs.

Home is… another man I’ll never quite get over. Not one I still love, not one I still need, but one who I am still grateful for. He’s someone I can ignore for weeks and months, and who will suddenly come back in with just a sentence that makes me miss him all over again. Its past sex, it’s past love and crying, and at last its past wishing things could have been done differently. It’s just a time in space, a comment on losing yourself in a crowd, and I suddenly re-remember the reasons why it took so long to move on. It’s having someone wrapped around you and making you feel safe, it’s being looked after and protected.

Home is a series of moments that terrify me. Every single one of them caused me to run away in fear because as much as they made me happy, I was just too scared of losing them. They’re a past I moved on from, or a present that I’m deliberately messing up. But that’s okay. I’m seven months in with Matt and when it ends I’ll miss him but move on. I’ll run away, I’ll act up, and I’ll go back to alcohol and bad men. And then, when I’ve done my acting up, and found somewhere decent to run away to I’ll settle down and get over him. I’ll never be emotionally stable, over my addiction to alcohol, or safe with any man. But that’s not me. I’ll still talk to the numpty, and one day maybe it’ll just stop. I look forward to the day when he finds someone who he’ll be happy enough with to forget about me. But I don’t look forward to not talking to him; I look forward to him being happy. I’m scared of everything going wrong, but know that it will, and I’ll come out of it alright. I don’t need to worry anymore because happiness is just being home, and home is wherever I want it to be. Home is just a series of moments, and while they come and go rapidly, at least I can keep the memories.

Wannabe Casanovas

2006-09-18T15:31:00.000+01:00

I met a guy. Six three-ish, blonde, gorgeous blue eyes. Casually devastating.

We put him on camera. He looked into the lens, gave it a smouldering look, and told it solemnly, “I love you.” To a camera. When you played the film back though it suddenly wasn’t an inanimate object he was speaking to, it was you. You felt like it was real, you felt like all he wanted to do was rip your clothes off and show you just how much he loved you.

That sums him up. He’s attractive in the classically perfect way. When you separate each feature off they’re good, but when combined it’s magnetic. Basically he’s just sexy as hell. But his appearance, while gorgeous, has absolutely nothing on his personality. He’s a man who’s turned charming women into a true art form. The guy does lines, looks, and even the whole knight in shining armour thing to the many women who fall at his feet and happily turn themselves into distressed damsels for his attention.

But it’s to the camera. Every woman is that lens- inanimate. He wants us, he thrives on our attention, and he needs us. He’s a guy who needs women. As in the plural sense rather than singular. He knows what it takes and he does it, but he never does it because he feels like it’s the right thing to do, it’s just there as a ploy to get us. He’ll tell you he loves you, and the only response can be, “Oh yeah? Like hell you do.” He loves every woman he wants to sleep with, but that won’t stop him leaving the next morning, or later on that night.

And I want him. I want him because I already know all that stuff, he doesn’t hide it, but I want him because I’m still thinking, “what if it’s different with me? What if this time it isn’t the lens he’s speaking to, it’s the person behind the camera?” I’m thinking that somehow I can reform him; somehow he might not break my heart.

It’s stupid. It means that I’ll be just another female in a very long line. And that, inevitably, means that of course I won’t reform him, others couldn’t, I’m not going to bring any new ideas to the project. So I played it safe. I flirted, I let him play the knight in shining armour and seducer all at once, and I thanked him when he showered me with compliments. I even managed not to laugh when he did the whole “I’m undressing you with my eyes,” look while drawing out “Good evening” for approximately thirty seconds longer than is really required.

I want him. I think it might even be worth it simply for the sex- god knows he’s had enough practice to make it one hell of a ride. But I’m not going to pursue it. I’ll meet up with the safe guy. The guy who won’t fuck with me. The guy I sat with and lost three hours with in a pub in which it’s hard to make three minutes pass quickly. The guy I went out of my way to make arrangements with after flirting with the wannabe-Casanova and then leaving him standing.

I guess I was cruel. He stuck around for me. He made a fairly spectacular effort. But while I’m sitting here thinking, “at least he liked me more than the other girls who were trying to win him,” I’m also thinking that in truth he probably didn’t. I’m just another girl, so yeah he definitely tried, but he’s tried for so many others, there isn’t anything that makes me special. He’s too practiced, too sure. So yes, I was a little cruel, but if I hadn’t been then I would have slept with him.

It’s nice to think that after that I’d have gone to work the next day and seen him leave without any regret. It’s nicer to think that he would have wanted more and that it would have been longer than one night. But nice isn’t real. He wouldn’t have left a number, and I would have been miserable, pathetic, and worse: used.

But still he’s the one with longevity, if only in my memory. I may not have left with him, but the one I did leave with didn’t come home with me. One was nice, but the other was electric. I’ll see nice on Friday, but it’s electric who’s been giving me such vivid dreams.

Searching for Stars

2006-09-16T00:58:00.000+01:00

Apparently men with really big penises can never get fully hard. This is due to the fact that they are so big and heavy that they don’t have enough blood spare to maintain a full erection. I’m not going to get pornographic with you; I just felt that this information seemed interesting because it explained a few things.

Unfortunately, finding out this particular piece of valuable information has been about as close to sex as I have come lately. Or not come as the case may be. Being single full time is occasionally rewarding, and generally better for me than the boring coupled-up counterpart version of me, but it is a slight strain.

Looking for love is about as rewarding as looking for your keys when you’re late leaving the house. There’s just no way you’ll find them and still be on time; you might as well just give up. Looking for sex in a drought is similar. When you swear yourself off it you find yourself a magnet for attractive, nice men. When you need it all you can find are complete shits and stalker-freaks.

My love life is boring. I’ve got a Best Friend [of the ex] thing which, whether I like it or not, I can’t touch, and a charming, attractive bartender with a girl friend and far too much emotional baggage. Oh yeah, and in the spirit of repeating mistakes over and over and over, the ex (who from this point forward shall be known as The Numpty) wants to know if I’ll be back home [and able to have sex with him] at Christmas.

Casual sex, even with an ex, is fine, brilliant even, it’s just that when you’re planning to meet up in three months time and shift plans and everything, it starts to become less casual and more planned. Planned is less good. Planned means that you’re thinking ahead, you’re committing to a date, time, and practice. Commitment, to anyone, and especially the Numpty, is not good.

I’m in limbo. As soon as I go to uni I’m going to be over-run with people and wishing I was back here stuck in limbo again because it was easier. But I don’t leave until next Sunday so I guess I’ll confront that when I get to it. Right now I want to complain.

But, as irritated with limbo as I am, I’m also slightly relieved. I can listen to Counting Crows- Accidentally in Love again. I haven’t been able to listen to it since April because when you realise how much you’ve lost, that song just sounds so smug and well, irritating. That, my darlings, is major progress. Music is the biggest outlet for my emotions. There is absolutely no doubt about it, you can tell what mood and state of mind I’m in simply by which playlist I’m listening to on my mp3 player.

Single life is boring. It’s incredibly interesting, embarrassing, and eventful at the same time, but eighty percent of the time it’s boring. You don’t have consistent sex, someone to phone when you’re bored, or someone to cuddle up to and comfort you when you feel down. If it isn’t by choice then it’s the most miserable state of being that it is possible for you to be in. But once you choose it, once you realise that real love and happiness is impossible to find properly when you’re stuck in a bad relationship, you start to appreciate the boredom.

It’s like stars in a night sky. Most of the sky is black, empty, dark and dull. It’s depressing, soulless. But without the black you don’t notice the stars. The emptiness emphasises the fact that there are stars. You need the blackness to find them. It helps your search.

I loved the Numpty, and right now I simply can’t abide the celibacy. But I understand the need and I accept it as my due. Being with someone is comfortable. It’s easy, and it’s rewarding. But it’s lazy. I need to find the stars, and I need to be bored and frustrated otherwise I won’t look; I’ll sit at home with the boyfriend who isn’t really, but is just enough to fill the need. I need to be single because that way I might learn how to search.

* * * * *

Kudos goes to blogger for working out how to put labels onto posts. After opening a wordpress account months ago, the lack of labels has been the only drawback to blogger weblogs. Now, due to the new beta version, I am an extremely happy bunny.

Cinderella

2006-09-11T23:00:00.000+01:00

I want what every girl wants. I want to be Cinderella. I want to fall deeply in love with prince Charming, and I want him to want me so bad it hurts. It’s the fairytale isn’t it? Charming, attractive, rich, popular, and the idea that he could love you back… it’s so unbelievably seductive.

But why do we want that? Cinderella, yeah brilliant, you get the guy, you get the castle, and you get the happily ever after. Hey, you might even get a nice warm fuzzy feeling that the guy chose you. Like, wow, you’re so special.

The hardcore among you will already know all about my Cinderella complex. Favourite Disney film, fairytale, and all round heroin. When I was eight. When I got older I started to think that I wasn’t quite going to fulfil my goal. I still wanted to so badly, but reality has this way of sort of letting you know when things aren’t quite going to happen.

Thing is, when I look at it now, it seems silly. Why wait for a guy who’s so wonderful to pick you? Did feminism never happen? Why did the suffragettes bother with their hunger strikes? Women may as well have kept their bras and just got on with burning the turkey they were cooking for their husbands and oodles of children. We’re stuck in the dark ages. We go out, have jobs, act like we’re big and hard and totally together, then hit thirty, nab a guy, and wing it as a housewife for the rest of our lives.

And that’s wonderful. We don’t work; we just do what Mother Nature intended: become walking vagina’s that cook, clean, and have the dinner sharp at six o clock when you come in from work. Yeah, there are exceptions. A lot of people can’t afford to do that, and it’s far less expected than before the suffragettes and feminists had their say. But there’s still this overwhelming thing going on with gold diggers and men who expect women to just be machines to do their laundry and look after the kids.

Gold diggers. God. Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking for a rich husband. I don’t want one who does fuck all and lives off the dole. People who work and still don’t earn that much are fine too, I just don’t want someone who doesn’t pull their weight. If they’re rich and do fuck all then hey, they’re out too. Leeches aren’t my thing; whether it’s emotional or financial, I don’t care.

I just don’t want to be Cinderella any more. Falling in love with the most perfect guy is great, but he’s gotta work for me too. I won’t be walked over, and I won’t be downtrodden; it isn’t my thing. I’ve had enough of pining after men, and I’ve more than had enough of finding that whatever I do, I’m just not enough. How can you be more than they need, and so much more than they ask, and still not be enough? It’s simple, you aren’t what they want.

And I need to be wanted. It’s the one part of the fairytale I’ll keep. I need to be wanted more than I want them. I need to be chased, and I need it to not be one of those things where the man chases and once he’s got, sort of thinks, well, hey, this was nice but where’s the chase gone? I need to be chased, and when they get me they need to feel that I’m more than I ever expected.

I guess right now I need too much. But that’s okay too. A while ago the idea of being single was an idea I did not wish to court. Why would I? I was in love with a boy who made me happy on so many different levels, and I was comfortable in the first relationship I’d ever had with anyone that hadn’t been fucked up in some way. And we’re still good. But the relationship part of it faded.

Being single isn’t so hard. It hurt at first; I guess at first it sort of killed me. But after adjusting it’s kind of fun. Even the oompa loompas. Right now it isn’t time for happily ever after; somehow I doubt that even exists for most people. And needing too much isn’t too bad when I’ll settle for less as long as I still enjoy myself and it doesn’t hurt me. But my forever guy won’t be prince Charming; he’ll be more than that. He’ll be a modern, better adjusted, and all round more fantastic prince, and he’ll not only want me, he’ll fight to get me. So needing too much won’t be a problem, because he’ll give that. And then, though it won’t be happily ever after, it’ll be happy.

Farewell

2006-09-11T19:57:00.000+01:00

Without the pomp and without the fanfare,
I say goodbye with only a kiss.
Without the cries of "you're going nowhere!"
I just pray that I will be missed.
Without the tears and without the sorrow,
I stand alone as I wait to depart.
Without "we'll miss you"s and without the goodbye's,
The only sorrow is within my heart.

Going Forth

2006-09-08T21:36:00.000+01:00

"We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to." -- W. Somerset Maugham

Due to the reintegration on myself back into the working world and out of the rather comfortable realms of unemployment, I will neither be writing because I want to or have to. Possibly an update or two will be sporadically forthcoming, but generally I shall be too damn busy and tired. Working life; it sucks.

Wednesday saw me rushing to Eldon Square to purchase work tops, shoes, and black trousers. Who knew it had been so long since having a proper job (two month nanny escapade not included in this category) that I’d long since lost those few vital things? And I swear those trousers have SHRUNK since I last wore them; I have NOT gained that much weight.

So tomorrow at the completely unreasonable time of nine am, back into the employed masses go I. For two whole weeks. Strange, I’m sure you’re meant to have jobs for longer than that. Whatever, it’s a fifty hour week, though there are only two of them, and I’ve got to wear black and white, and find my make up. It isn’t that I haven’t been wearing make up these last few… months, it’s simply that if left to my own devices I’ll live on a diet of eye liner, mascara, and tinted lip balm. Clubs require more of course, but only really in the way of glitter. For work, that just won’t do.

So, against my lazier judgement, and in screaming opposition to my body clock (make up means getting up at least half an hour earlier than were I slapping on the essentials and running), tomorrow I’ll be waking up at SIX THIRTY in order to enjoy the effects of foundation (grrr), blusher, highlighter, lip stick and gloss, and possibly concealer. It also means digging out some socks; apparently flip flops aren’t appropriate footwear. And, oh god, styling my hair.

It isn’t that I think of these things as pointless. Really, I more than understand the effects of adding them, and also the effects of simply not bothering. It’s just that they’re such a bloody hassle. Men have it easy; women can’t get away with not doing them. Even for the lucky few who look great with or without the pampering, it’s still a form of armour, and of pride.

I should stop complaining. I need this otherwise I’ll never be able to buy the laptop I decided would be bought with this summer’s earnings. The money I got from Germany was spent almost as soon as it was made on clothing, jewellery, and a smoothie maker which I haven’t actually used yet. So now I have to do this or live with the guilt of wasting a whole summer.

Meh. Responsibility, goals, all that jazz; it all sucks.

Pre-Raphaelites

2006-09-07T18:17:00.000+01:00

I love the Pre-Raphaelites. I love the idea of them, and I adore the paintings. The idea is of an artists’ group who fought for the affections of a woman. One woman, a muse, a model, a legend. Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wife, but model for so many. She’s my favourite, but I love the painting (left), William Hunt’s Isabella and a pot of basil.

My sister reminds me of the Pre-Raphaelites. It’s the way you stand in front of the painting and are awed, it’s the way they make you speechless. I fall in love with art, and I fell head over heels for the Pre-Raphaelites. Men fall in love with women, and fall head over heels for her.

When we were little I was always the pretty one. The distinction generally wasn’t made out loud by our parents, but it was made by others. It wasn’t a huge thing, it was just always there. Growing up we went through the phases; gawky, skinny, chubby, ugly, whatever. And eventually, not so long ago, we came out of it nearly finished products.

I’m pretty. I’m attractive enough to keep men, and I’m really good at provocative once I’ve got their attention. My sister? She has a wow factor like the paintings. It isn’t that she’s more gorgeous than everyone else; it isn’t that she’s stunning; it’s just that she can walk into a room and there isn’t going to be anyone else better looking. Maybe there will be someone as attractive, but even when there’s someone conventionally better, she’s still got something.

A few weeks ago I made a comment that could have been interpreted as ambiguous. The comment being: “It isn’t that I don’t want him to see other people, it’s just that I don’t like people who are prettier than me.” I don’t like people who are prettier than me. Wrong. You’re gorgeous, that’s great, I don’t care. The people I don’t like are the ones who act superior because they’re prettier than me. I.e. my sister.

I’m proud of her, I love it that when she walks past a group of men they’ll stand there mutely watching her go by, and then when she’s past one quietly says, “wow.” I’m more than happy with who I am, and I think it’s good that she’s got that, I’d love it. But she isn’t happy. When we go out it can’t just be to have fun, it’s always got to be “I can pull more people than you,” or “the guy I pulled was much more attractive than the one you did.” It’s like somehow I’m a lesser person if I don’t compete and reach the same level as her.

And what kind of level is that? She’s beautiful, why does she need to verify that to herself by being better in some way than me? I don’t want to compete. I don’t want to pull every man in a club just to prove something. If I pull then invariably it’s because I’m too drunk to know the difference, but I like to think that it’s because I like the person. When I’m sober enough it sometimes is.

Like the Pre-Raphaelites I'll watch from a distance. I can’t compete, and I would never wish to if I could because if she ever felt that I’d won she’d be broken. That’s who she is, and I won’t hurt her. But it bothers me. It bothers me that there isn’t room here for the two of us anymore. My father said it; this house no longer has room for two women, we simply can’t live together. Salt and pepper, too different, we don’t belong in the same grinder. And that hurts me. But unless I have some kind of personality transplant, I’m not sure how to change it.

The Second Line

2006-09-06T22:03:00.000+01:00

Today, loneliness for me was standing waiting in the town centre public toilets waiting to see if a second line would appear on the do-it-yourself pregnancy test I’d bought from the local Superdrugs.

Earlier on in the day loneliness had been waking up feeling nauseous and tender at the base of my stomach. It had been looking through my diary and realising that it was the fourth day of getting this exact feeling for the few hours after I’d woken up, and it dissipating sometime around one o clock.

Loneliness was getting out of bed, padding downstairs and dragging The Family Doctor out of the bookcase and looking up “pregnancy” in the index. It was going down the list and saying “yes” to everything on it except vomiting.

Loneliness was going back upstairs and checking my calendar, looking to see when I was last due my period, and finding out that I’m just gone two months late. A lost period is no longer due too much consideration. My weight fluctuates all the time, and last month I was so stressed that when my period didn’t come I was hardly surprised. But it shouldn’t disappear for two months. Specially when I’ve spent so much time on holidays. Specially when there are so many other symptoms.

Relief was shoving the stupid white piece of plastic into my bag and walking out of the toilets. It was walking along with Stacey and finally working up the courage to drag it out and check the results. It was checking that the time had long since elapsed, and the second line being very definitively non-existent.

Relief was sitting eating potato wedges and knowing that the rest of the day was not going to be spent going over and over the pros and cons of abortion, adoption, and having a baby at university.

Relief was being able to think about my ex without following the label with “the father of my child.” Relief was not having to spend hours trying to phone him up simply to tell him those two horrors, “I’m pregnant.”

Relief was throwing the test away an hour later happy in the certainty that that second line definitely wasn’t going to suddenly appear.

Having sex with him again wasn’t a mistake. It was good, it was a relief, and casual sex isn’t a problem if no one gets hurt. The only problem is that what if I’d been wrong? What if I had got hurt? What if that second line had appeared? Then it doesn’t matter how good it had felt at the time. It doesn’t matter that we’d both consented, and were both happy with our separate outcomes. Our decision to be separate entities would have been completely irrelevant as we’d still have been joined by that stupid blue line.

Whatever my final decision, whatever happened to that life inside me, the line would still have been there. In years to come I’d look back and wonder what had happened to that line. I’d either be looking at a kid, I’d have an adoption certificate, or I’d have the mental scar of an abortion.

I’ll have casual sex again. I just can’t promise that I’ll never do it, it wouldn’t be realistic. This time I’m lucky, but next time I’ll be more careful. This time the second line didn’t appear, and now I can only hope that there won’t be a next time.

Walking Away

2006-09-05T16:23:00.000+01:00

I came home from Germany like Santa Claus, only with slightly more… distinctive presents. Jewellery, dream catchers, fluffy sheep, and photos of lederhosen I really would have bought had I been able to afford them.

Texted David, “when do you want your present? x”

In my defence, and this is a very bad defence- it wouldn’t get me anywhere in a decent court of law, I was feeling lonely and pathetic at the time. He replied “anytime” and he came over.

I asked him over because I missed him. I can’t lie and pretend that missing him was the only reason I asked him over, and it definitely wasn’t the reason that he came. And it’s stupid. We’ve not been together… four months now.

But he came over. We sat on the bed. Stupid place to start off a conversation I know, but while there wasn’t anyone else in the house, it still feels strange trying to sit with him downstairs on the sofa. So we went to my bedroom like kids, closed the door, and talked on the bed.

It should have been awkward. It should have been something, I don’t know what. It just should have been different to what it was. It was too easy. We just talked like we used to, called each other names, and promised ourselves the world. He wanted to have enough money so he could buy a new motorbike, a train, an airplane, basically anything big, fast, and dangerous. I wanted the world to play with, to travel the universe, and to be adored by millions.

I called him… something. A numpty maybe, whatever. He tickled me, I tried to escape, kicked out, he moved to stop me kicking and so he could tickle me more. I hate being tickled. I’m the tickliest person in the world, I can’t help it. It just isn’t something you can work up a resistance to. I wasn’t kicking him hard, but he had to move because I was getting dangerously close to somewhere that he definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed being kicked. So he pinned me under him and called a truce.

A truce is all well and good, but the tickling and kicking at least distracted from the fact that I was lying underneath him and his lips were approximately an inch away from mine.

I want to tell you I don’t know why I did it. In fact, I’d love to tell you that. But, the simple truth is that in those few seconds when we were just looking into each other’s eyes, waiting to see if either was going to back out, I took a measure of myself as much as him. He waited for me, he didn’t do anything, he just stopped. Right then all I had to do was wriggle out from under him and start up another conversation. We both would have known that I’d turned him down, but it wouldn’t have hurt anyone.

I made my choice. Tell me it was a bad one, feel free, but I won’t apologise for it. He stopped me later, said that he only wanted to take what I was willing to give, put words to what we’d earlier established just from looking into each other’s eyes.

He's gone back to the navy now. It was fantastic, but made better because we both knew that it wouldn’t happen again so enjoyed each other like we had to take everything because there was no point in leaving anything behind.

He stayed for a while afterwards, but still left me lying on the bed as he had to go to work. We laughed about him loving and leaving me, we both watched the clock, and when he said goodbye we kissed but very briefly. In all honesty I have no idea who used who. But I know that I came out of it with a feeling of conclusion rather of unfolding possibilities.

I do things my own way. A lot of my friends aren’t going to talk to me for a while because of this. And maybe they’re right. Maybe it was the wrong thing for me to do, and maybe I was indulging him and hurting myself to do so. Except that it doesn’t feel like that. It just feels like I had fun, rediscovering him was at least as great as discovering him the first time. And it feels like we both got the best end of the bargain. We both got to walk away.

Teasing Cocks

2006-09-04T17:14:00.001+01:00

I use men. I use them to relieve my boredom, to make me feel better, and as devices to make other men feel jealous. And of that ever increasing (and ever more depressing) list of flings, dates, and drunken incidents, I’ve actually only really liked two of them. I give up working out how many men there are anymore, for some reason the joy that came from categorising mine and Stacey’s lists of conquests started to dispel when she became so happy, and I became so sad.

As a child I dreamed of being a princess. I dreamt that knights and princes would travel from across the world to win me. As I got older it became less fairytale and more modernized, but essentially the same. Instead of being a princess I was simply Barbie (brunette) beautiful, and the princes and knights became rich and attractive.

When life eventually conspired to turn me into the cynical bitch I am today, I figured it might be fun to be an ice queen. To be adored, aloof, and ever slightly detached from every man I met. I always attempted to act the ice queen, the realisation that for the past six months or so now I’ve been living it is somewhat a shock to me.

I look back and come across various blurred faces. Men I’ve ridiculed as puppy dogs, or simply pathetic because they’ve been stupid enough to like me. Men I’ve led on heartlessly when I’ve known from the start that the only way they would ever have a chance with me would be if they either became millionaires or had a face transplant. Problem is, I’m starting to lose track. I’m sure there haven’t been that many. But when I think about it, even the times when I haven’t directly pulled anyone, I’ve acted as a cocktease in some capacity or other.

I don’t set out to break hearts. Most the time I maintain that I’m not capable of it due to the fact that I’m unattractive/ too much of a bitch/ just not a heartbreaker. And I’m not breaking any hearts with what I do. Or, at least, I’m pretty sure that I haven’t got close enough to any man to manage. I’ve only been close to one man, and he definitely hasn’t had his heart broken by me. But though I’m not breaking hearts, I’m not exactly being nice.

If any man did what I do to them (and this includes the one that broke my heart rather pathetically) then I would be beyond pissed, I’d be livid. So why do I do this? Pick men up and drop them five minutes, an hour, two weeks later? Is it some stupid survival reflex from the various times I’ve let someone get close and they’ve hurt me? Am I so self obsessed that men are no longer other people and are simply another form of self gratification for me? Or am I just a heartless bitch who’s never going to be happy with anyone so goes through everyone just to check?

I don’t know anymore. I don’t like myself. And I definitely don’t like some of the things I’ve done.

And I don’t know how to stop…

Maybe its because I'm not a Londoner...

2006-09-03T22:32:00.000+01:00

London has the very best of clubs, and the very worst. My most recent London experience was, unfortunately, the latter.

It started at the apartment in Aldgate. Tired and highly strung from spending four days living in extremely close proximity with my sister (the same bed) was turning into a joke. I love her from a distance, but sleeping, eating, and drinking with her is not exactly my idea of heaven. I layered on the scarlet nail varnish and forced myself to endure the few hours of her prancing around the room in a black mini dress, straightening her naturally poker straight hair, and telling me that my eye brows don’t match, I’m too dressed up, I’m under-dressed, my heels don’t exactly match my belt, and do I think her bum looks big in this?

I downed the Pimms and lemonade and forced myself to carry on quietly without forcing the tweezers down her throat. A painful tube ride later (strip lighting flashing cheerfully), and a rather awful experience involving eight lemons and two bottles of rum in Tesco’s later, we arrived at Hammersmith and went in search of taxis. The first taxi driver was extremely helpful in telling us he didn’t know the area, and couldn’t help us. The second was marginally better, but took us to the wrong street, dropping us down some dark alley and leaving us to negotiate our own way. After walking for ten minutes in six inch heels the five of us arrived at a strip club where the bouncer helpfully ordered us another taxi.

This taxi did, eventually, take us to our destination. Unfortunately he also took fifteen pounds off us to get completely lost, and then make us find the right street in his pocket A to Z. Personally I felt that this was taking the piss, but our relief at arriving quelled a few of my objections.

Meeting up with the rest of the party meant standing in the doorway of a smallish house just outside Hammersmith and enthusing over the birthday girl’s dresses, property developments, interior design, and the fact that my sister really doesn’t look so young. This, coupled with more pimms and lemonade, and possible the worst Mojito I have ever had the misfortune of drinking, was a headache in the making. But it didn’t stop there. From there the party moved via three cabs across zone two and ended up fuck knows where.

This cab was much better. It only cost us twelve pounds and the driver was flirty, complimentary, but never sleazy, so earning my London cabby thumbs up prize. He was the only one in my entire visit who earned this so he was special. The club was the kind of club where you spend a shit load to get in, then find that the place is half empty and really you’d rather stay at home with a DVD than go to all this trouble and then contemplate staying here for another three hours minimum. In a word, it sucked.

While enduring classics such as the Baywatch theme tune and a disco version of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” I downed Sambuca shots, got off with the birthday girl’s younger brother, and sat on the bathroom floor phoning everyone I could think of who might, just possibly (say in an alternate universe) also be awake.

I then ditched the guy (my brother nicknamed him “The Oompaloompa,” and he sang along to Baywatch) lost one shoe (later found), and completely failed to listen to anything that anyone started to try to tell me. I also got asked if I was on coke, and if so, could I get him and his girlfriend some. Surely I wasn’t that bad?

When finally we arrived home, there were only a few hours before I woke up with a screaming hangover, the taste of truly disgusting curry still in my mouth, and the knowledge that I was leaving in two hours, hadn’t packed, and had a seven and a half hour bus journey before home. Wonderful.

What lies beneath

2006-08-28T22:30:00.000+01:00

Her voice is tired, husky and dry. Her hair shows the remnants of styling, but has been mussed up and is now messy across her face. The bed she sits upon is a wreck; sheets twisted and tangled together, the pillows pushed right up against the wall.

She stands, crosses the room, walking over her own clothes as she does so. Looks in the mirror. Makeup smudged, eyes dark with mascara and eyeliner. And for a while, she doesn’t move. She just stands as if mesmerised. Trying to work out whether she’s happy or sad, trying to work out why it doesn’t hurt more. Trying to work out why all she feels is a quiet euphoria, a sleepy contentedness that creeps up from her toes and through her limbs like a dull fire.

Maybe it should hurt more. Maybe it should make her cry. Maybe she should be sitting realising how much she can’t have. But maybe it’s enough to know that she has had it for a while. Maybe it’s enough to get on with being for a while, and forget about the falling.

She drifts. It isn’t that this moment is exceptional; it isn’t that it hurts more than everything else; it’s just that it seems to sum everything else up. Standing staring at a reflection is hard when you realise that you aren’t just facing a façade, you’re facing yourself. And knowing what’s going on inside your head to give you that expression is like staring into the ocean and suddenly being able to count every fish beneath the surface.

She isn’t happy or sad. She hasn’t been hurt, and she hasn’t felt the need to cry. She’s had happiness, and just because it isn’t there anymore, that doesn’t mean that she’s suddenly going to realise that the loss is any bigger than before, it’s there, it hasn’t changed, how can it be different?

She grimly smiles at her reflection, wipes the makeup from beneath her eyes, and runs her fingers through her hair. It will happen again, and there will be the same recognition. There will be the same joy, and the same pain. Things repeat themselves, and all we can do is work out each time whether it was good it was repeated, or if we wish to avoid it again in future. And each time, we have to work this out for ourselves. Because people will think they know what’s best, people will make their own judgements, people will tell you what they think, and it will make sense.

But the girl who stares in the mirror is the one with the view of the fish. We can stand next to her and stare at the sea, but we’ll only see the breakers and seagulls, she sees what lies beneath. Only she can tell you what’s in her heart.

To clarify

2006-08-25T22:57:00.000+01:00

When I think about life just for thinking’s sake, I envision a sea of sand. Endless piles of shifting sandscape, orange, and dry in the unrelenting heat of the sun. I don’t know why that’s what I think of. It seems such a contradiction when you consider how much life there actually is in a desert. A rainforest would be more logical. But I guess it’s a reflection of my life rather than just life in general. And that is somewhat worrisome.

Why do I envision my life as a desolate wasteland? Nothing grows in sand. Yeah, sure, on a beach you’ll get some marram grass and a few bugs and stuff, but that’s right next to an enormous body of water. There aren’t any oceans in my images, its just desert, and deserts are devoid of life.

Lately I’ve had the same vision when thinking about love.

I asked a question today that I hadn’t even realised was really a question. I used to be so depressed. Maybe it’s just from habit, but I’ve always thought of myself as a happy person. I’m not. Outwardly happy, yes, but I’ve spent a lot of time depressed, unhappy, or just not particularly happy.

But lately it’s been better. It hasn’t just been better, it’s been wonderful. And I guess I made that observation. I might have even phrased it as a question. Whatever I did, the response was that it was Dave’s fault because he fucked me up. And that response shocked me somewhat. It shocked me a lot really.

I don’t blame my relative happiness or unhappiness on the men in my life. I don’t blame it on my friends; I won’t even blame it on my mother. In the end, yes, they’re factors. If I change one then it will make me happy for a day possibly, but it’s like teaching a man to fish, I have to know how to be happy with myself before I can be happy with everything else.

If you’ve read this blog before then you may have heard of Dave referred to as “the ex,” “Him,” or maybe even by his name, though that’s less likely as I tend to avoid names as much as possible to retain a certain amount of anonymity. If you haven’t read it before, then he’s simply a boy I fell in love with for a while. But for those of you who know of him, and have made judgements about him based on whatever I’ve said, I want to make a few things completely clear.

For a while I was messed up about him, but that was less to do with what he did to me, and more to do with the way I am. He didn’t treat me badly; he didn’t ever give me any false illusions of who he was or what he wanted from me; and he didn’t force me into anything or take anything I wasn’t more than willing to give. I want to make this very very clear, he was a bastard, yes, but not to me. He treated me better than I deserved considering some of my antics during the relationship, and we’re still friends. I still talk to him; I still get on very well with him. It wasn’t a bad break up in the end; it was the more than logical conclusion. And it was mostly my fault. If I’ve cried or whined on here about it, ignore that, I have cried and whined on here about it. But it’s my blog, that’s what it’s here for. To take the things I’ve said as fact proves that it was a very bad idea for me to ever write them down in the first place.

I can’t go back and unsay them. I can delete them to an extent, but how many people browse through the archives anyway? All I can do is tell you now that he isn’t a bad kid. He didn’t hurt me, I hurt me. Blaming him was the easiest way for me to feel better at the time, but it isn’t an accurate representation of what really happened.

I have a very unhappy life. I’ve tried, but sometimes it’s hard for me to work out a way to be happy with who and what I am. I’m not insecure, I just dislike the way I live, the way I act, and a lot of my personality in general. For a while I was extremely depressed, and yup that was during and after my break up. That wasn’t him “fucking [me] up,” that was because I did a very intelligent thing which was best for everyone and inevitable anyway, but just happened to take away the small amount of happiness that I’d recently acquired. He fucked me up by being the one person who actually did make me happy. My fucked upness wasn’t him, it was circumstantial.

I guess what I’m trying to say is simple. Yes, in a way he fucked me up, but that was just by being what I needed to make me happy at the time. I was constantly depressed before him, even a little bit when I was with him, and again after him. He made me happy, and I loved him. Here that seems incredibly important as I try to write more about relationships than my life as a whole as that is the purpose of the blog. But my life doesn’t revolve around men, not even him. I was unhappy because my home made me claustrophobic, I argued with my family constantly, I had no job or income, I was more than stressed out with exams, and my friends were utterly sick of me being unhappy and “moping.” Yes, I moped for him sometimes, but just to come and make it better.

I’m not in love with him anymore. And I’m not miserable. My home is more of a relief than I ever thought it could be. My family argue, but I find it hard to argue with people that I’ve missed so much it hurt. I don’t have a job again, but for a while I’m solvent, and I’ve had more than enough of work for a while, I’m happy just to relax for a few weeks. The exams are over, the results are back, and I’ve done better than I should, and will be leaving for uni on the 23^rd. My friends… they’re the best people in the whole world. They care about me, they disagree with me, the call me names, and they let me be me without complaints.

But I love him. I love him in the same way as I love Stacey and Hayley because all make me happy. All stave off the parts of me that want to curl up into a ball, cocoon myself in a duvet, and wallow in my own misery. And yes, there is a much higher likelihood of me sleeping with him than Stacey or Hayley. But I’ve dreamt a dream so vivid that it took me until seven o clock in the evening the next day to work out that it wasn’t a memory; it was only a dream, in which I slept with Hayley. And I’ve pretended to be a lesbian so many times with Stacey that I wouldn’t even attempt to count them. I’m not interested in women, but if I were then I’d fall head over heels for both of them.

I won’t end up in a relationship with any of those three, as much as I love them. I can’t regret any of the things that have happened with them, and I won’t blame anyone at all for my happiness. It’s mine, you have no right to take it away and tell me that someone else gets to dictate when I am or am not allowed to have it. I told you at the time that I’d always love him. I meant it. But you’re wrong if you think that my love for him is so frivolous that I wouldn’t be more than happy to settle with simply being friends with him. I can’t change the things that brought us here; I can’t regret them or wish that they would change. I’m happy with my life for once, and it is only I who will dictate the terms on which I live it.

Home

2006-08-24T19:28:00.001+01:00

I have been home twenty seven hours and have already:

Spent fifty pounds.
Drank thirty units of alcohol.
Confessed all about my lesbian dream to the other participant in the dream.
Left my debit card in two bank machines.
Had my debit card rejected three times.
Been shopping.
Had a conversation about breast enlargement, Wonderbra's, bums sticking out of changing room doors, and pigs in front of an increasingly amused, and incredibly hot, shop assistant.
Eaten sushi.

Things I haven't done:

Unpacked.
Downloaded any of my photos onto the computer.
Taken my phone to be repaired.
Looked for the guarantee to prove that it is really my phone, and wasn't just damaged when I was stealing it from someone else.
Fulfilled my promise of commitment-free, fantastic sex with my ex boyfriend.
Checked my mobile phone bill.
Sent off the application for a provisional driving licence (I actually have enough money too now).
Exchanged all my money from Euros to Pounds.
Slept

All in all, not especially impressive. And actually rather distressing, I mean, thirty units? I literally got home, took my suitcases up into the house, left them in the corridor, and got back in the car and went to the pub.

Nothing has changed. It has in small ways, like Hayley's lost weight and Stacey has toned up so much that I'd hurt my knuckles if I tried to punch her in the stomach. My sister is half an inch taller than me, and Oscar's has changed from icky purple to icky gray. Marks and Spencer's have added a few tables in the food court, and there's a Ben and Jerry's in the entrance to Fenwicks. Morpeth has also gained a Marks and Spencer's food court, and lost an Iceland.

But they're so minute, and so few. Intrinsically the place is exactly the same as when I left. I picked up conversations with friends from before I went away, and arguments with my father that we've been having for years. The old wine cellar has again changed from Fleetwoods to Rumours, but its the same type font, same colour scheme, and same designs on the windows. I've walked into a time warp. A perpetual ground hog day which I can come back to whenever I please and still meet the same people, go to the same places, and have the exact same conversations.

Its comforting.

I've never thought of here as home. The village is... tiny, rural. I hate it. But this isn't about the village or the house. Home is me and my dad arguing about whether I made salad dressing or vinaigrette. Home is giggling with Stacey and Hayley in the Lemon while the dj puts really crap music on loud. Home is gossiping with my sister about who said this, and who did that. Home is going out, getting drunk, and failing to go home with anybody cos they're all ugly, irritating, and generally not worth it even when completely pissed.

And yes, I don't want to spend my life here. I don't even want to spend the next two months here. But it's important that I can come back here once in a while, because there's just too much stuff, too many memories, too many good and bad times, and all of them need to be remembered. If only for a very short time.

I don't want to live here, but I've missed being able to come back.

That's Life

2006-08-22T19:38:00.000+01:00

Packing is like getting dressed before a funeral. They’re both so painful, yet also mechanic. My suitcase is huge, it could fit both children in easily, and it’s still just under the twenty kilos required. Though this is only due to severe abuse of the hand luggage rules. I’m allowed eight kilos hand luggage, I’m not sure if that’s enough.

Whenever you pack you have to say goodbye just a little bit. Whether you say it to a home, a place, or a lifestyle, it still has to be said. I hate saying goodbye. I’ve said it so often in my life that it kills me, it doesn’t get easier, it just goes on hurting.

This one hurts me. I don’t want to say goodbye. I want to go home, I’ve been away too long, I’m too far, and it’s too alien. But I’m saying goodbye to a version of a home. I’m saying goodbye to the only home that hasn’t been completely dysfunctional that I’ve lived in. I’m saying goodbye to a version of normalcy, a routine, a haven. And that’s hard.

I’m going to miss the cries of “Harr-ri-riitttttt” every morning from Robin. I’m going to miss putting Finn to sleep at night, his head resting on my arm as he looks with heavily lidded eyes at the bottle of milk I’m holding in his mouth. I’m going to miss chasing them around the house trying to retrieve the broom that they’ve decided is a great toy. I’m going to miss putting an end to their respective suicide attempts as they jump in the deep end of the swimming pool, dive down staircases, and hit themselves over the head with rocks.

I have a place here. I have a purpose, and I have unconditional acceptance if not love from two toddlers. I go home to a screaming household, crazy friends, and invoices for one thousand seven hundred pounds from the University. And that’s good too, that’s how it should be, and I’ve missed it. There’s an ex boyfriend for me to have tantrums about, a lot of old flings to be avoided like the plague, and a substantial amount of wine, spirits, and beer to be consumed in my own suicide attempt. I haven’t managed the arguments properly this summer with my father; for some reason it just isn’t the same over the phone. And tomorrow I have to go through my sister’s room, retrieving all the things she has “borrowed” from my room while I was away. I might leave that till Thursday, it will take far too long and I’m fully booked tomorrow.

So I have a place there too. As I’ll have a place at uni, and a place in New York when I make the first ever visit next year. That’s what I call progress, who thought I’d ever contemplate setting foot in the place? Never mind actually plan logically, and notify my mother (never a good thing to do, her hopes are so easily raised). God, three months with her… What am I thinking??? But never mind, cross that bridge when its there in front of me, refusing to budge out my way.

Over the years there will be many different niches for me to fill. There’ll be other people who’ll rely on me, and other times in which I’ll be forced to regret saying goodbye. But it won’t hurt less each time I do it; it’ll just be a different sort of hurt, each one unique to the situation.

So tomorrow, when I get on that plane, I’ll be saying goodbye. And it will hurt. But that’s life.

Oddities

2006-08-19T12:48:00.000+01:00

I’ve written my book. It isn’t as written as if I’d actually written it yet, but writing is the easy part of the deal. Ideas, a story line, a decent beginning and end, they’re the things that have previously managed to elude me. But I did it. Sort of. I didn’t realise I had. It was just a notebook in which I noted down a few ideas, etc. But I looked through it last night and was riveted. It wasn’t intended as a story, it wasn’t intended as anything. It is probably the only place I write that I am completely and utterly honest about everything. I’m honest in my blog, but it’s easy to be dishonest by simply leaving things out. I do that a lot.

Maybe it’s the honesty that riveted me. Maybe because I’d started out writing something that wasn’t even about me, and realised how much it told about me without my meaning it to. Whatever, it gave me a shock, and it will work. It’s… different. I guess in a way it’s a memoir, and it’s strange. I love it. I want to write it. And it’s already written. It needs padding, bulking out a lot, it needs to be written in a way that is slightly less expectant that the only person who will read it is me.

I’m not so certain about selling it. Given how revealing it is I sort of don’t want to. There are just too many inadvertent references. To sell a book you need so many readers, and to be properly successful you need to be at least heard of by ninety percent of the population. That’s too many people. It’s too private. It’s too much me. Does that make any sense?

But that’s okay. I can reel off fiction without any problems if only I have the time and energy. But I don’t have an interest in it at the minute. There isn’t anything I want to write like this. So maybe I’ll just write this one for me, maybe I’ll disguise it a little, though I think that would make it less powerful. Maybe we’ll just have to see. But whatever happens, I will write it.

Getting iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin?

2006-08-18T14:24:00.000+01:00

I feel... flat. I'm not sure whether I'm relieved, or miserable, or ecstatic. Somewhere verging on all of them, if that's at all possible.

So yesterday I woke up. Looked at the clock, six thirty am. Hmmmm. So that's... what? Five thirty English time, and results come out at eight thirty GMT, nine thirty here... So three hours. Well, three and a half by the time my dad gets in, gets the results, then finds a phone. Bugger.

Nine o clock (GMT) finds me on the edge of my seat, small bowl of cocoa pops (or whatever they've changed their name to now) in front of me untouched, and another bowl beside that which I am using to feed the baby some sort of cream coloured mush. Cue phone ringing. Drop spoon, push bowl out of reach of grabbing hands of baby, sprint towards phone on counter, pick up.

"Hallo?"

"Hi Harriet, I've got your results here, I don't know what they mean!" Panicked voice of father comes through the receiver. "I can't make head or tail of them! Advanced GCSE grade B? What does it mean??"

"Dad! I'm not taking GCSE's! Are you sure you've got the right sheet there?"

Angry as well as panicked now, "I don't know! It must be this other one. Erm... Biology U, D. Chemistry- D, C. Which one is it??"

"U???? I got an Ungraded in Biology??? Aaaaaaaaaagh! Find a teacher, find someone, anyone, get them to translate! A UUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Okay, I'm going, Bye."

Ungraded. Shit. Thats pretty awful even for me. I expected to just miss the grades, not fail so badly I didn't even get a passing grade.

Phone rings five minutes later. "Okay, Harriet. You've got... a D in physics, a C in Biology, and a C in Chemistry."

Tense, "a C in Chemistry, its definitely a C in Chemistry??"

"Well, according to this anyway. Three hundred and sixty points is a C. Whatever that means."

"Dad! I got iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!!!!!!!!!!!! I needed the C! I got iiiiiiiiiiiin!!!!!!!!!!!"

So, as of the twenty ninth of september, I am a uni student. I did crap, but I got into uni! With practically no work whatsoever. Maybe I should develop some kind of work ethic soon. Yup. Definitely. Very soon. But who cares right now, cos I got iiiiiiiiiiiiin!

Now all I need to do is not die at university. Oh, and maybe not drop out either. Thats pretty important too. But, at least it gives me another month of free time where I can sit back, relax, and smugly know that for a while at least, I don't really have to do that much. Thats what I call happiness.

See-Saw

2006-08-16T21:32:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow I get my A level results.

I've never been so terrified.

I hope I don't fail.

If I fail then I'm stuck in Northumberland for another year. At least. The idea is so depressing I feel phsically sick. I love home. Adore it. But I only feel this way when I've got a sea and a few countries separating me from it. When I'm there I feel claustrophobic, irritable, and depressed. Permanently. I can't go back and do it all again.

But what else is there? The real world? I don't feel ready for it. I don't feel mature enough. I don't feel like I belong in it. I belong in bed with a nice big bottle of sparkling white wine and some Jack Daniels on the table beside me. I belong ten years in the future, or one year in the past, when I've got myself worked out, and have happiness on tap. I can't promise that in ten years time I'll have that, but anything has to be better than this suspended lifestyle I have now. It's been wonderful, but its just been rent-free. A holiday from reality if you like. Waiting for the big stuff, the important stuff, the stuff that changes everything.

Tomorrow is pivotal. It may not be so important that it'll kill me if I don't get the desired results. It isn't neccessairily negative or positive whatever happens, but it's all got to change from now on. Now I have to decide what comes next. Tomorrow I get my results, and from next wednesday I am effectively jobless. Again. If I don't get into uni I don't have any comfort zones. I can't just work full time in the pub for a while cos I gave that up. Its a new start whatever, and I don't know where to go. Tomorrow decides that. And its too much.

I'm scared.

Decaffeinated coffee

2006-08-15T20:49:00.001+01:00

I told him I was going to be a nun.

I just couldn’t think of what else to do. For him it’ll just be a very transparent excuse so that I could get round to the important bit- you’ll have to make do with a postcard sweetie cos I’m not going to sleep with you. I can’t sleep with him. I want to, it was great, but fuck am I going there again. I’m fine. Right? I don’t want to do all that again.

I need to understand the situation better. Apparently he’s been telling everyone that I propositioned him. I just don’t know who he told, and the person I thought he’d told said he hadn’t. Confused? Yup, very. I’m not in the right country to sort this mess out. And to be honest, I’m not that bothered if he has said that. I mean, I know that its not exactly making me look great, but I did it, and I am not so naïve that I expected him to not boast about how he was gonna get his leg over. Men are children, and I’m working with children right now, they like to show off.

When I first heard about it I wasn’t exactly thrilled. Propositioning men is fine, especially if they’re more than willing to take you up on it, but propositioning an ex? We’re getting onto slightly uneven ground here. I have a fantastic defense- I was lonely, home sick, in need of comfort, etc. Truth is, I wanted to, so I did. Story of my life. I’m hardly the first girl to want to sleep with her ex; it definitely wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if I did sleep with him. But for me it wouldn’t be a good idea.

It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not in love with him, I still love him in a way, but not like I did. And I don’t want casual sex right now. God knows why, its great. But for some reason I want to fall in love. Again. And be hurt all over again, its just this time I won’t be as terrified therefore withdrawn.

I love that he can cheer me up when I’m in the deepest depression, even now, by simply talking crap. I love that skip I felt for a second before complete rage when I was told he missed me. I love that he made me so happy for longer than I thought it possible for me to be happy with five men never mind one. And I love that I was with him even though everyone else was unsure, because it meant that I was with him simply for me and because I felt he was right for me.

But I’ve grown up. Not a lot I’ll admit if I’m resorting to telling people I’m becoming a nun rather than facing them off like I should. But the nun thing is just filler. I’m in Germany, I’ve got results to look forward to, and I’ve got a book on a deadline and I haven’t written it yet. I will face him off, but not until I arrive home, unpack, see all my friends and family, and get very very drunk. And THEN I will see him. When sober of course.

Now all I need to do is work out how to stop spending money. I bought four pairs of sunglasses today. Four! Who knew how addictive it could be to shop?

Free-Loading

2006-08-13T22:58:00.000+01:00

I’m being a very bad blogger at the minute.

It’s just, what with uploading the hundreds of photos I’ve got, and emailing people, and being miserable, and NOT starting smoking… Well, you know, I’ve got a lot on my plate.

But, I’ll endeavor to be my usual free-loading self and tell you all whassup in my life at the minute. Take a seat, this may take a while.

The first, and probably least, of my problems (though the one I am experiencing most right now) is the fact that a few moments ago, I came to the conclusion that I strongly resemble a guinea pig. It’s the teeth. For some reason they just stick out that little too much over my lower lip in a few (okay, one) of the photos I’ve been uploading for relatives/ friends to see how I’m doing in picturesque Deutschland at the moment. I find this greatly disturbing. What if as I get older, they stick out more and more in an exponential growth that finally ends with me looking buck-toothed and ugly? I’ll look like a rabbit.

Slightly more stressful is the fact that on Thursday it is Results Day. Very worrying. I’ve been getting nightmares and flashbacks to the exams. Remembered answers I KNOW I got wrong, etc. And also glimpses of myself asleep before the exam, revision guide pasted to my face, clock sitting beside me saying things like one pm, eleven am, six in the evening, times I should be revising. Or worse, sitting in front of the computer playing with blog templates, or hours on the phone fighting with friends (and friend’s mothers) about bitch fights and well, rumors that while unfair, I can sort of derive some pleasure from considering subsequent events.

I hate exams. Truly. But these I really fucked up in. Call it laziness, call it alcoholism, call it depression, all were factors. And on Thursday I receive a lovely phone call at nine thirty in the morning telling me the exact fruits of my labour. I won’t be reaping a huge harvest this year I can tell you.

Lastly, though not least, is the fact that I return home in a few weeks, and have made a decision that while not bad, is going to cause me problems. You remember a while ago I made reference to a conversation with the ex? If you don’t, you can find it here.

Actually, you know. I don’t even want to talk about what I make of it all. Let’s just get down the facts:

He misses me. Apparently.
I miss him. But you already knew that.
We’re talking a reasonable amount, though a lot less so at the minute as I was trying to be mature and finish whatever might have been or might still be before I go home.
He wants to see me.
I feel like I have to see him just to get things sorted out in my own head.

It’s stupid. I know it is. He’s not allowed to miss me. That doesn’t fit with my views of our relationship, or his reasons for wanting to see me again. I just don’t have room for it in my head or something, it isn’t right. It can’t be. But then, what’s going on??

And ignoring that, assuming that he really does miss me, and that I’m not being lied to and having mind games played with me. What do I want? Do I want him to miss me? Do I want him back? How would that even work? I mean, Christ, it just wouldn’t.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. This isn’t allowed to be right. I don’t have enough brain cells anymore. I don’t want to get hurt again. And I don’t even want revenge. I don’t want to see him so I can tramp on him, I don’t know what I want. And what does it matter? I’m well and truly fucked.

Why am I still doing this??

Soul Searching (Fear and Addiction)

2006-08-10T22:30:00.000+01:00

A long time ago I was scared. I was frightened of so much. I feared falling in love because I’d have my heart broken. I feared having anything more than a fling in case I fell in love. I was scared of going into sixth form and not seeing my friends- scared we’d grow apart. I was worried whenever we went into pubs or clubs in case we got ID’d. I was terrified of everything new, while at the same time afraid of missing out.

It’s hard to find something to be terrified of anymore. It’s like wearing an emotional rubber glove. I keep sticking my hands into scalding water, but with the glove on it just feels tepid. In the past few years I’ve done a lot that previously terrified me. In the case of visiting Berlin I literally bought the T-shirt. And I love it, of course. But that rubber glove isn’t just wrapped around my fear; it wrapped itself around my other emotions at the same time.

Kate told me I was unreadable. She’s lived with me for a month and a half now and says most of the time she can’t tell whether I’m happy or sad, enjoying myself or miserable. She says her husband can’t read me either. At my old job my boss was constantly telling he wished he knew what I was thinking, he said I just didn’t show what was in my head. I’ve always kept up this exterior since my father told me never to show fear because showing it was a weakness. So the more terrified I was, the less I allowed to appear on the surface.

Then finally a few months back he changed his mind. When he told me to hide my weaknesses I was only a kid, seven or eight years old, overly vulnerable and very emotional. At eighteen he said I’d gone too far. I didn’t let any weaknesses show, I seemed too strong and it maybe made it hard for other people to get close to me. He said I always had a smart, sarcastic come back, I laughed too much off, and though it wasn’t exactly that I’d become plastic, it was more that what I did let show was a façade rather than actuality.

Now I’m not scared, so by my father’s rule when I was seven or eight years old, for a time I should be able to let a few things past my guard. Whatever I show cannot be the weakness of fear, so there is no problem. But now I do feel plastic. Keeping up the façade went from something practiced to simply part of being me. I’ve done it too long.

And there are so many scars. The only time I allow anyone to see them is in this freaking blog, and that doesn’t help me. If the only time I allow myself to feel things is when I’m writing, then what kind of existence will I have? But I guess it isn’t just when I’m writing. I have emotions when I’m drunk too. That’s why I took to alcohol so easily I guess, it allowed me an outlet, an excuse to let down the guards that so exhausted me. And it probably explains why I reached my peak of pissheadedness when I was in the only long term relationship I’ve ever let myself have. The only way it stayed long term was because I spent so much time drunk, so could actually feel normal emotions.

God I sound like an addict.

But I know I am one. I’ve gone cold turkey. Really cold turkey not just the pretend version I showed everyone when I had exams. This time I don’t quietly when I’m depressed and no one is looking. This time it actually feels hard. Because this time I’m not pretending to myself, I’m not getting by by telling myself that its just till the exams are over, or that no one will notice if the vodka drops a few inches. It doesn’t matter if no one notices because I will, and I count for more than everyone else as I’m the one I’m doing damage to.

I’ll never be t-total. Just forget it. I’m a piss head. Sue me.

But it isn’t about the drinking. It’s about the drinking because I can’t feel emotions any other way. It’s about the binge writing depressing maudlin prose onto my computer. It’s about being constantly asked if I’m alright and enjoying myself, because no one can tell any other way.

I never told you I wasn’t fucked up. And relationship wise, I’m at a standstill. Some may tell you this is because I’m maturing and have gotten over the hitting on/ allowing other to hit on me simply cos I’m bored and feeling depressed. I disagree. I’ve matured, in a warped way I really have. What I did was learned a little about value. I’ve never professed to be ugly. I’ve got an ego on me, and would rate myself somewhere just above average and verging on unusual. Not pretty, not beautiful, but for all intents and purposes, okay.

But though I thought that I wasn’t ugly, there seemed to be some leap in logic that I just couldn’t make. If I look attractive enough, then people would find me attractive. Right? Okay, fine. Its just I find it hard to believe that someone would want anything more than sex. And I don’t know if I figured this was something to do with my appearance that said “just shag me, nothing else,” or something to do with my personality that would put them off. Probably the personality one. Either way, with men I was insecure as fuck, and compensated for my complete belief that no one could actually like me for more than a night by not letting them get the chance. I pushed people away, and only really felt attracted to people who were very obviously going to do so. That way they lived up to my expectations, and because I expected it, it didn’t hurt so much.

I don’t know if this is making sense. The object of this seems to have dissipated as I’ve rambled, but I’ll continue (sorry) because it’s making sense to me and it’s sort of helping.

Recently I figure that I don’t want that anymore. I’ve got a craving. I’ll say it here and now, I’m a VERY addictive personality and if I enjoy it, I’ll get addicted. So men, yeah, believe me, I want them. At the minute, with the stupid numbers of ice cream parlors in Germany, I’ve managed to substitute a lot of ice cream instead of giving in. The kids are helping keep me too exhausted, and all in all I’d say I’m doing fairly well. I’m not saying I’m celibate like I wasn’t saying I was t-total. I’m merely saying that for a while I’m abstaining from as many of my addictions as possible in the hope that I’ll be able to get a better grip on them when I decide that it’s the right time.

From the stress I don’t know how many times I’ve nearly started smoking and then stopped myself in pure horror.

I came here as… I don’t know what exactly. A way of removing myself from the world for a brief time. It was the right thing to do. But I guess I’m still scared. I’m not scared of the same things, but I am scared that I’ll have to stay celibate forever because how can anyone want me? It doesn’t matter what you look like when you’re so screwy that you can’t even tell what day of the week it is. How can someone love someone who only shows emotions when they’re off their head with alcohol? I’m scared that this time isn’t enough to fix me, and that I’ll never work out how to show my emotions. I’m absolutely terrified that someone will finally tell me they love me, and I’ll fuck it all up by being physically unable to tell them it back.

I’m scared I’ll get fat on all this ice cream I’m eating.

It doesn’t matter. I’ve spent the last two years trying to reach eight and a half stone and it’s no good, I can eat a freezer section in iceland and I’ll still be stuck at eight. Emotionally, I’m stunted. I’ve been damaged too many times now. I don’t think I can change. But it isn’t nice to realise that about yourself.

Maybe I should just say screw it and go back to the alcohol. Maybe take up smoking too while I’m at it. At least that way I’ll be able to cope with it all. But, somehow, I don’t think it would make me happy. And unfortunately, in the end, it isn’t about feeling great when the world is fuzzy and everyone, even that strange person who kind of looks odd and won’t leave me alone, is lovely. It isn’t about having great sex with just anyone who comes along. It isn’t about being beautiful or getting whichever man I wish. Drunk is easy, great sex is maybe a little harder to come by, but still not impossible. And men? You’ve just got to wear the right kind of skirt and have the right attitude. Happiness is hard. Happiness doesn’t come along every day. And happiness is so elusive right now that I’m frightened it will never come.

Revelations

2006-08-02T22:15:00.000+01:00

People see me; glance down at the pram, then look up at me again in confusion. Inwardly I’m screaming, “Of course they aren’t mine you bloody eedjits!” but they don’t take any heed to the silent screams I’m psychically sending out, they just continue to look up and down from me, to the pram, back to me, back to the pram. Yeah, okay, you’re confused. Fine, I mean, I’m pretty sure its genetically impossible for any kids of mine to be blonde, blue eyed, and well… not stocky, but you know, normal looking. My kids are gonna be skinny, and, if not dark like me, they’ll at the lightest have brown hair and green eyes. So two Arian kids calling me, “mama” as I push them around the supermarkets is bound to be confusing.

It isn’t the confusion I’m bothered about, it’s the fact that on first glance they see me, and a pram, and they aren’t confused. They’re simply accepting. They only start to get a little baffled when they notice the completely opposing features between me and the kids. I mean, I’m bloody Chinese! Teenage mommies are accepted, that’s great. But teenage mommies of two? TWO kids. To have had two kids in such a short period of time (seventeen months between them) I’d either look like a dough ball or at least slightly more drained. I take pride in the fact that I have a completely flat stomach; I don’t have much else to take pride in. Could I have forced two kids out of me and still look reasonably healthy? Do I look that bad??

I asked Robin, “Do I look old enough to be a mama?” He looked up at me from his trike consideringly for a few seconds, and said measuredly, “yes.” I stood and stared into the mirror for about ten minutes. Searching. Searching for lines, for signs that I’d somehow become older without noticing. Searching for anything to show that I’d lost my youthful, “don’t let me into nightclubs,” “people mistake me for being younger than my sixteen year old sister” charm. And the scary thing is that I found it. And worse, I realised that it wasn’t from outside myself that I found it. My face is older than I remember it, and I’ve put on just enough weight for it to be noticeable and to make me feel a little guilty about forgetting to do my three hundred sit ups every night for the past week or so, but that isn’t the reason I’m so different.

I can tell you the difference between the attitudes of the children to me over the past month in a step by step plan of tiny victories. The day I learnt how to change a nappy, the day Robin stopped throwing his food about when I told him to rather than grinning and proceeding to throw it at me instead of the wall. I learnt how to be a mother, I learnt how to cook, I learnt how to get myself out of bed on time, and I learnt how to drink alcohol in moderation. I do housework, I change nappies in mere seconds, I multi task wiping faces, feeding kids, and talking on the phone to my dad about plane tickets. The kids’ attitude changed as they developed trust for me. But it also changed when I started to act like a figure of authority rather than just a bigger version of themselves.

I got a scare when I looked in that mirror. I haven’t actually looked at myself in… I really have no idea how long. You look in the mirror, you see the face in terms of “eyeliner goes here,” “more moisturizer there,” and “that colour really doesn’t suit my skin tone.” But I never actually look in the mirror and really look at myself. Some people do. Some people notice every line, some people genuinely care. But I’m me, I do the stuff that makes me presentable, but it’s mechanical. When I looked at myself, really looked I mean, I got the fright of my life.

In films there’s a moment. This pivotal point where everything suddenly changes, a transition point if you wish. And for me that was that point. I suddenly realised that I don’t write about being scared I’ll never grow up anymore. I don’t worry that whatever I do isn’t going to be enough, that people will be disappointed, and that I’ll forever spend my life being useless and inadequate. I don’t do that because I’ve already worked those things out, I’ve worked myself out. I’m not just a little girl who is only good for waitressing and getting passable grades in academia without too much effort. I found that I could do something hard, I could do it reasonably well and better, that when I become a parent I won’t be my mother. She couldn’t have done what I’m doing now; it would have driven her mad. She was a parent, but looking after two kids was too much, looking after three caused her to move to a different continent to escape.

My biggest fear has always been turning into her. And now I know that I can’t, I won’t, I don’t have to spend so much time freaking out that I will. I don’t have to avoid being in relationships, or any sort of adult situation where I could make the same mistakes. I am not her, and there isn’t any danger of me becoming her. I’m in no way close to mature, but I’m immature in the same way as everyone else is. I have my faults, but they’re acceptable, they’re normal. I’m not a failure because of them, and they don’t define who I am.

Coming here wasn’t a mistake. It made me grow up, and it’s taught me more than I could ever have expected. It diverted me when I needed it most, and gave me confidence that I no longer need to worry about who I am. Yes, I’ll fuck up, and yes I’ll be a complete idiot A LOT. But that’s okay, I’m not abnormal.

Cutting my losses

2006-07-31T22:26:00.000+01:00

At approximately five o clock this evening (four pm GMT), I broke the nail on the thumb of my left hand. To my general irritation and displeasure, it conspired that the nail had not broken off entirely; it had merely broken half way and given up. This gave me the ever fickle gift of hope. Those who know me will probably not think about my nails at all. They're there on the end of my fingers, so what? Well, I don't take great care of my nails in the French manicure and endless stress over the state of my cuticles sense of the word, but I do keep them a pleasant length (approximately five millimeters, but who's counting?) and take some pride in the fact that for minimum care I have pretty good, even, and reasonably clean nails. Thus, the breakage of said nail was pretty catastrophic.

Now, normally I'm a "cut off and cease the problem" kind of girl. But lately I've been taking a little more care over my appearance. I've spent a fair amount of cash and time to get this look (hours spent sunbathing, trips to hairdressers with the pram and praying to god that the kid doesn't wake up while I'm in there, bin bags full of cash on a new wardrobe, jewellery, and the most gorgeous pile of shoes I will ever come across) and I don't intend to fuck up my "actually gives a shit" look simply because of a hang nail. That’s right kids, I've become my sister.

So we started the operation for recovery. First to be tested was the nail bandage. A sweet and easy combination of a piece of weird white stuff that normally can be found under the hems in practically every piece of clothing, and nail glue. I was dubious. The bandage was cut to size, shape, and placed over the nail, but the glue was dried out and so the nail bandage solution was abandoned.

Secondly we went for professional nail acrylics. You take the acrylic on a paint brush then dip it into this tub of white powder until it forms a pearl, then apply to the nail. You paint it on until it forms a pearly film over the nail, and leave to dry. Once dried it must be filed and buffered to the right shine and distribution. Needless to say, it took me three attempts and most of it ended up on the table.

Finally, after filing and buffing the bloody thing until it looked like my nail had weird cross hatchings across it and was about as smooth as sandpaper, I gave up and painted all of my nails in pale pink varnish to hide the damage. Voila, one slightly lumpy thumb nail, but the nail was attached to my finger, and the acrylic was as solid as promised.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought. That’s what I thought right until I turned the computer on using my thumb and half the acrylic and nail varnish cracked right off, leaving a lumpy mess and a still very much broken nail. The moral of the story: cut your losses while you’re behind because nail kits are utter shite and no matter how much you care about something, unless you’re a professional it will all go wrong anyway.

Today on msn’s news was the following:
 Lebanese flee during battle pause
 WP: U.S. risks backlash in Mideast
 Olmert says no cease-fire
 U.N. warns Iran over nukes
 Oil spill on Russian export pipeline

Sort of makes me feel bad that I spent the entire evening worrying about a hang nail.

A little bit disturbed

2006-07-29T19:36:00.000+01:00

I never used to remember my dreams. Generally I told people that I simply didn't dream. Of course, I am pretty close to certain that that is physically impossible, but I never had anything to look back on when I woke up every morning. There wasn't even the remnants of a vaguely remembered piece of imagery, or the echo of something that somehow my waking brain just couldn't seem to grasp.

Recently, in the past three months or so, I have started to dream. More recently, my dreams have been so vivid that I've woken up and been convinced that the things that happened in my dreams actually occurred. Some of them are completely outrageous and I've known that of course they didn't really happen. For example, when I woke up after my dream that I was both Pierce Brosnan, and a boy I fell in love with in first school's mistresses (at the same time, it got quite complex for a while and was highly amusing), I was pretty sure that it hadn't happened. It sort of felt like it had, but only in the same way that you remember something as if it's your memory but is actually something you saw in a film or on TV. It can be a bit blurry and though you can visualise it, it sort of feels like you experienced it while wearing rubber gloves.

But some other dreams have been so vivid, so... I don't even know what the word is... real, that I've woken up and actually thought it had happened. I dreamt that I slept with one of my best friends (female) last week and my ex boyfriend walked in (eurgh, Freud would have fun with my dreams). It took me until lunch time to realise that it wasn't a real memory- it hadn't happened! It wasn't until I was putting the kids to sleep later that evening that the guilt of being a lesbian and being found out by him started to ease off. I'm not a lesbian, and have never until that dream had any sort of tendencies in that direction, but it was weird. It was also extremely disturbing. Don't get me wrong, she's a lovely girl and I do love her, but I just like men that little bit too much and women... well, erm... not so much.

And every single one of the dreams I remember has been completely fucked up. Last night I dreamt I joined the navy and had to shave all my hair off and I cried. The uniforms were awful too, and they made me eat porridge. I like porridge generally, as long as its made in a specific way and is served with molasses, but this stuff was the icky gruel from Oliver, not the way my grandma used to make it when I was a sprog. This fat girl that Stacey and I have hated since food lessons in year eleven was there, and so was the ex boyfriend (from above, featured in the lesbian nightmare too). It was all extremely wrong and I didn't enjoy it at all. Judging by the twenty minutes it took me to just work out how to untangle my duvet this morning (I'm not kidding, I'm not the best at making beds in general, but this morning I was really having problems) I really had a rough night. I must have been thrashing about in my sleep to get pillows down by my ankles and half of the sheet pushed right under the bed.

I don't know what it is. How could I go from no dreams to a horrifying number that I don't just vaguely remember, but still remember vividly (and somewhat disturbedly) weeks later? I don't have a clue how to stop them, where they're coming from, or how I even know how to be a lesbian. But I don't like it.

It's a wonderful life

2006-07-27T23:03:00.000+01:00

My room is in the basement of the house. Its just like the other floors, it isn’t a dank drippy room filled with dusty wine bottles and rats as in Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mister Fox. For some reason ever since I read that book I’ve had the Cider cellar in the back of my mind whenever I envision cellars. They all include a scary farmer’s wife with a rolling pin standing at the top of an uneven stone staircase up to the floor above too. The fox hiding behind the shelves is optional.

The cellar consists of two cupboards, one of which I believe actually is a broom cupboard; a washroom with an old closed up well in it; and my bedroom. Due to the old well it can get a little damp in the hallway, but that doesn’t affect my room luckily and my room serves as the only room in the entire house that reaches a temperature just below twenty five degrees during the night. Therefore, it is the only room in the entire house where it is possible to get a decent night’s sleep. This, of course, I am extremely grateful for.

I’ve got a sofa bed, a TV with DVD player and MTV (in English with German subtitles), and a functional computer. There is also a door and some steps out into the garden which is a useful fire exit/ way in which to escape during the night if I ever actually meet anyone here worth sneaking out to see. Not that I would really have to do any sneaking, but you know, I’m still a teenager and searching out escape routes as soon as I enter a new house is still sort of ingrained.

I think my room may also be the only room in the house that actually has a carpet. All the rest are tiles. Not that that actually has any relation to anything, but it is something I have just this second noticed.

The house is lovely with a really big mural thing up the stairs, and a slightly eclectic mixture of interior design with English, Turkish and German bases. I especially approve of the large fuzzy bean bag in the lounge. I did consider buying one and taking it home (along with a hanging chair which incidentally, I have in my room hanging from the ceiling here) but decided against it because it probably wouldn’t fit in my suitcase along with the huge amount of clothing and shoes I have acquired in the past three weeks. Having money is bad for my outgoings.

Since coming here my gorgeous Sony Ericsson walkman phone has literally fallen apart (the top has unscrewed and separated itself from the bottom- crappy thing, grrrr) and I have been forced to use a waterproof but otherwise boring Nokia 5210 that is never quite sure if it’s sent a message, has a memory of exactly eighteen texts, and switches itself off twenty seconds into every phone call without fail, regardless of how much battery or reception it has. I’ve been through three sim cards, and am now on German Vodafone contract that has no texts or minutes, and I don’t understand the tariffs at all. I also can’t receive or send picture messages due to this stupid phone that advertises being in colour, as long as that colour is yellow. The annoying thing about it being that it isn’t even yellow; it’s more an orangey green colour that makes me nauseous.

The keyboards are also a little confusing as the z and y are swapped over (making yellow nearly impossible to touch type and causing me to go back every few seconds to change zellow into yellow). And the (at) sign is hiding. As are the square brackets now I come to need them. If anyone with an inkling about keyboards is reading this, if you have three different letters/ symbols on one key, how on earth do you access the third one?? For the first you just press it, for the second you press shift, but for the third? I’m completely bamboozled. Why can’t they just have simple QWERTY keyboards, and none of this ö, ä, and ß nonsense? What are these things? QWERTZ keyboards? That just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

My alarm clock wakes me up at half five every morning with Counting Crows “Colorblind” and does so every nine minutes after that until sometime around six thirty ish when I stop pressing “sleep” and contemplate getting up. Not that I actually get up until seven, I just decide I’m getting up, turn my alarm off, and wake up half an hour later guilty and very late. I get dressed in two minutes flat, usually in a mini skirt and whatever top is on the top of my pile, then run upstairs doing my hair, teeth, and face on the way to wake up the kids.

From there it’s a never ending cycle of one kid going to kindergarten while the youngest potters around. Then at approximately eleven thirty I put him down for a nap, spend twenty minutes convincing him he does want to sleep rather than run around some more, run out the house and pick up the eldest at twelve. He comes home, eats, runs around for a bit, then goes down for his nap around half one. The youngest wakes up at this point when he hears things go quiet, and has another nap at three when the eldest wakes up and goes out to play. Both are awake when the youngest wakes at half four, and will either go for a walk or play in the garden (at temperatures of between thirty and thirty six degrees Celsius generally) until six when they throw food around for an hour, then go to bed.

And the stupid thing about it all is that they’re actually easier to cope with when they’re awake at the same time because they play together instead of constantly looking to me for amusement. But this doesn’t occur until half four, by which time I’m ready to murder whichever one cries first.

When I finally eat at half seven all I want to do is sleep. Or collapse in front of the joy’s of BBC Prime (2.4 children and endless repeats of Top Gear).

All in all, it’s a wonderful life.

He said she said

2006-07-26T20:38:00.000+01:00

He said: Yeah, I get leave in two and a half weeks. When will you be back?

She said: I don't know- I haven't booked yet. Sometime around the 26th.

He said: Well we should go out sometime when you get back. I need to catch up on some serious drinking.

She said: lol me too. This trip has put a serious dent in my plans to become an alcoholic good for nothing.

He said: I know, I haven't been drunk in nearly seven weeks! If I get drunk I can be kicked out! Think I'll enjoy getting drunk with you again, it usually ended quite well : )

To which, in the end, there was simply no way for me to reply. I'm a drama queen and an outspoken idiot, but I'm not good at showing my actual feelings. I guess I'm the female equivalent of those macho fools who keep their emotions locked in a box never letting anything show. And anyway, I'm not sure how to slap someone across the face by text.

Assuming that "ended quite well," means sex rather than falling over drunk a lot and laughing at each other, I have to wonder when "going out" was equated with sex. I'm also quite curious as to whether I even agreed that I would go out sometime with him. I don't think there's a "yes" in there anywhere. Though I can't really object that much to that one considering there was definite room for improvement in the clarity of my refusal. Personally I think I just avoided answering the question directly in order to leave my options open, and avoid conflict.

But the assumption that I will sleep with him is barely veiled, if at all. And that makes me wonder. What exactly does he want? Actually, that's a stupid question. I know exactly what he wants. But what? I'm just expected to sleep with him? Like there's just no chance of me rejecting him. I can reject him! I did it once (though only once and it ended up making me much more miserable than him) and I can do it again. Definitely.

I don't know why on earth this bothers me. The casual assumption that I will sleep with him whenever he wishes is irritating, but not entirely new. In fact, it's pretty much the story of the last six months. Or so. It's slightly more irritating now because we aren't together, and until now he hasn't actually said anything so completely impossible to ignore. "Going out sometime," is so easy to take the wrong way. You can debate whether it means "date" or "friendly gathering," for hours. But I know how everything ended with us; that isn't so easy to debate.

Basically he's a twat. I'm easier than I should be, but I'm not going to sleep with someone purely on their whims. I'll admit, I'd love to on a purely... animalistic(?) level. But letting him walk all over me isn't fair trade for an orgasm.

Senility of a sort

2006-07-25T21:22:00.000+01:00

I did the `I’m going for men the same age as me´ thing, and I think now its time to give up on that. It just isn’t a match that is ever going to work for either of us. I go out with them, get bored, and move on. And yes, admittedly I have had some problem with dating guys significantly older too. No names needed but he was so irritating that even the fact he had a Jag and was smitten enough to offer me diving lessons couldn’t keep me interested. But I am going to swallow every post-date thing I said about older men being awful, and write him off as an anomaly that can be avoided in future.

Translated: from now on I’m only shagging older men. I realise that age has absolutely no relation to maturity; that isn’t why I’m making this decision. I just feel that older men are more attractive, and they sort of make me feel virginal compared which is pleasant. I feel like the little girl dressed up in her mother’s high heels with prostitute-red lipstick plastered across my lips. I don’t know why that imagery is attractive to me, but the idea is seductive in more ways than one.

I’ve been doing some research unintentionally by hanging around places I am likely to meet fathers rather than people my own age. At the start it drove me crazy; I guess it still does to a certain extent. But then I realised that okay, the idea of falling for a daddy is ridiculous, as long as he’s still married. But the older you get, the more sensual you get, and the better I get treated. And you never need to check to see if they’ve remembered to bring their ID.

Evidently I’m going senile being forced to go to mother and toddler groups, kindergarten, and food shopping. Food shopping is more than enough to push anyone over the edge- have you seen the crazed people in there fighting over the lettuce and making innuendos to each other about baked beans? And living in the middle of nowhere with no means of transport is putting a serious dint in my social life (boyfriends) that I would normally expect to be having right now.

So I admit it. I’m definitely going crazy. But just look at Pierce Brosnan, Johnny Depp, Sean Connery (possibly a bit too old now)- they’re attractive, mature, and they make me feel a little less crazy than I felt ten minutes ago.

Perfect Nothings

2006-07-23T13:42:00.000+01:00

Think tall. Not so tall that I have to wear heels permanently, but tall enough that I can’t complain. Dark hair, three quarter length combats, and a sleeveless black top. For some reason he reminds me a little of Robert Redford. Except younger, and so much more attractive. Even though Robert Redford is pretty hot for his age.

He’s older than strictly I’m allowed. Thirty five-ish maybe, so approximately double my age. He’s with two kids, a girl and a boy, both beneath the age of ten. He’s a daddy. They’re feeding the deer and he needs some change for the food dispenser thingumy so his kids can feed them more. At first glance as it’s explained we’ve run out of change ourselves, I think he’s good for his age. But I’m not paying attention; I was there to watch the kids not the adults. But then I do watch him a little. He notices and I pull the sunglasses over my eyes and watch him some more. I’m too young for this, and suddenly remember how young I must seem to him. I’m “oooohing and aaahhing” over the furriness of the deer’s antlers (who knew antlers were furry?) and I’m standing there in pigtails after deciding to do my hair ironically that morning. Of course, I’m the only one who knows that it’s ironic, and all he’s gonna see is a big kid in hoop earrings and over sized sunglasses.

Nothing happened. He obviously has a wife somewhere, though he was on his own with his kids, and if I were to play Sherlock to the situation I would make a guess as to them being broken up and him having the kids for the weekend. But that’s still a very bad excuse for flirting with him far too obviously for the next half hour or so. And it was entirely unreciprocated; if it had been I wouldn’t have been flirting, merely watching with interest. But it was still wrong. I mean, the guy had kids.

So this is one of those situations that means nothing. I won't ever see him again, and even if I do there is a very slim chance that we would recognise each other. But it was nice. It was nice to feel that even with my hair ironically making me look twelve, and two bawling kids at both of our ankles, there was still a brief connection. He was probably the most attractive person I've ever met, and it was strange because his face wasn't conventionally attractive (though oh my god his body was) and he was so far off limits that I felt bad smiling back at him. But I couldn't help it.

I hate those moments. The ones as you're walking through a crowd and you meet someone's eyes, or a brief conversation when there is too much at stake for it to ever be something more. But I love them too because even though it was nothing, he was still the most perfect nothing I've ever encountered, and he made me remember that people as attractive as him do exist after all, they aren't just myths, and occasionally they'll give you a short period of time in which the world is perfect, and you feel attractive and wonderful. Even though, in the end, you know it will never happen.

Wanting the man I love to tell me he loves me

2006-07-22T21:55:00.000+01:00

What was the quote? Ah yes, "Nature abhors a vacuum," by the Colonel on one of the many letters that I posted on here rather than actually posting. Therapy via unsent letter writing. If you're reading me, and think that you would prefer something less serious, more funny, and significantly less self obsessed then I would reccomend the Colonel to you. In fact, the mood that I'm in, it's probably better to read anything else other than me. But, if you're hardcore and as obsessive about my life as I am, then sit back, relax, and get ready to hear me whine.

Right. A few nights ago I put the monster to bed. I was just leaving the room and he called out, "night night, love you," sleepily then closed his eyes. A kid on the verge of dozing off. I quietly said, "Night, love you too," like my grandmother used to before she left me to sleep when I was really little. I shut the door. Took one step, and sank down with my back to the wall and cried. Quietly so I wouldn't wake either of them up, but silent tears are the same as every other type of tear, except more frustrating because you know you must stay silent, share your pain with no one.

I can't say "love you." I can feel it the same as everyone else, but I can't act it or let it show. And until that moment when I closed the door on that sweet little kid who has been driving me utterly crazy for the past two weeks, I didn't realise how much I needed to be told that. When everyone thought that I was pregnant they said stuff like, "it'll be good for you," and how a baby would bring me out of myself, etc. And kids do that. They make me cry, and they make me realise that though they aren't my kids, I still really do love them. I live with them, I feed them, I bath them, I change their icky nappies, and when they tell me they love me I say the same right back.

And I'm turning my phone off. I can't think of any other way to do it. Just for a few days. I thought that a platonic relationship in which we talked occasionally would be fine. When He initially started texting me I was irritated, and confused. Then we talked about a lot of stuff, I wasted a lot of money, and I started to remember what it was that had drawn me to him in the first place. The attraction wasn't the first thing with us. When we met I was so drunk and basically sick to the teeth of men who were after me that I really didn't give a shit about the attractiveness of any fucking male in the place. Yet somehow I still managed to leave with him. You work that one out. I told him to go away, I left him twice to go and talk to my friend who was... otherwise engaged. I didn't want a guy, I'd already vowed that I was celibate and off men for good earlier that night.

Okay, I'll admit, our relationship ended up being a lot about sex. Can you fault me? I'm at the age where while I'm not still completely an adolescent ball of hormones, I'm still youthful, etc. But that first night I wasn't drawn to him because of any chemistry between us, the next morning I had absolutely no idea what he looked like, I couldn't even remember if he'd been attractive. I was drawn to him because of the way we talked to each other, the way he treated me, and the way he was persistent while still not acting like it mattered if he got me or not.

Yes, I know. Nature abhors me right now. But I don't like myself either. I've let him talk his way back in when we both know that he isn't in it for anything other than sex. And that's fine. With anyone else male then that accomodation suits me nicely. But not him. With him I guess it's either all or nothing. And I realised that when the kid told me he loved me. I want someone to tell me they love me. But better, I want the man I love to tell me he loves me. But we both know that he can't do that. And while with anyone else I'll do the one night stand, or the meaningless affair that lasts a fortnight or so, with him I can't.

So instead of continuing to promise something that I've just realised I had no intention of ever doing, even when I thought I actually would, I'm turning my phone off. No one else is interested in phoning me since I left the country anyway, it won't make any difference. Because thats what he expects. He expects sex because it's me, and he knows that I'll do meaningless. And I expected that too. It doesn't hurt anyone, we both know how to make each other happy, and we can both wake up the next morning and get on with everything else without really thinking of it as anything more than fun. But I now know that it would hurt me. I've just realised how much it's already hurt me. So I'm stopping.

False Dreams

2006-07-19T21:38:00.000+01:00

I dreamt of love like it was this wonderful ideal- the way things would be if life were perfect and I were more appealing. I dreamt of travel, leaving home, because home has never been where my heart is, it's always been claustrophobic, and the scene of far too many emotional crimes. I dreamt of marriage as this perfect thing that I, as a cynical, unromantic, unlovable, useless child, could never achieve. This myth, fairytale, that only the strongest can make work. I know happily married couples, and I adore them, I knew that they were doing something I could never even hope for myself, and I was awed.

But love isn't like that. Love is awkward, stupid, and blind. Love is where you act like a retard, and let your heart guide your head. Love isn't perfect, it isn't wonderful, and being in it only causes more pain when it ends. Love will work, if not for me, then at least for someone. But it can't always work, and the fact that you are in it has absolutely no relation at all to your happiness or well being.

Leaving home. Well, that worked. I'm calmer, less stressed, and a thousand times more tired. Its a different type of tired too. At home I was mentally exhausted, here it's completely physical. But my dream wasn't so accurate either. What dreams are? Yes, I feel wonderful and have had a chance to improve myself in a few ways. For example, now I can cook, get by in German, and can change a nappy without dying. But I'm lonely. This place is heaven for couples with children, but the kind of place that as soon as the children are old enough, they leave for places more exciting. If I could drive, and had the time, then I could go out a few places myself, maybe go clubbing, or whatever the equivalent is over here, on my own and make some friends. But I have to rely on lifts everywhere, and have no knowledge of local taxi services/ buses. I'm naturally more sociable than this and it's starting to grate.

Marriage. You don't have to tell me. I know that it isn't anything like how poets, novelists, or optimistic film writers convey. But I've always known that. To me it will be as love: perfect and beautiful in the same unattainable way as tall latino men and real italian ice creams. The men are gorgeous, have accents that basically make you orgasm on "buonasera". But behind practically every attractive guy is the mentality of a little boy, and the longevity of a three legged dachshund. And the ice cream will taste wonderful, it'll look gorgeous, and it'll make you feel like you're in paradise. But you'll never be able to finish it because its just far too rich and sweet. But marriage is unattainable. For me, marriage is the beautiful man on the seat opposite you on the train that you can look at but never touch. You can fantasise and try to work up the courage to say "hi," but in the end you know theres just no point because it will never be yours.

But it isn't that. The perfect couples have all the imperfections you think are only true of you. They made me realise that my dreams are false, true only in the brief time I am asleep. All the other times, they're hazy memories that have absolutely no basis in truth, and are unrelated to reality.

Toddlers, cannibalism, and nation-wide perfectionism

2006-07-17T23:59:00.000+01:00

Guten tag.

It has been a whole two weeks since I last logged in. I came back to 1269 emails and a reasonable number of comments. All I can say is that my "spam filter" has a lot to answer for. Quite obviously, the reason I have been away was because I was having two weeks of non-stop passionate sex with a tall gorgeous German with really big feet who wouldn't let me get out of bed, or even off the kitchen table, long enough to come online. It had absolutely nothing to do with me being run off my feet by two hyperactive toddlers from seven in the morning till eight at night, and then being too knackered to do anything other than collapse into an inanimate mush until seven am the next morning.

I adore it here. I actually have money for the first time since... erm... I discovered alcohol? And to celebrate I bought myself the most gorgeous dress in the whole wide world. It's a black and white polka dot halter neck summer dress and though it is slightly revealing, it still manages to be demure. Of course, if I continue I will never be able to buy myself a laptop as intended. And I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to fit my smoothie-maker machine thingy into my suitcase... But, hey, I'm a big girl now, I have to buy kitchen appliances or I'll not be able to make valuable stuff like mango smoothies and tomato soup. It was totally not an impulse buy. It was actually pretty cost effective considering how much I must have spent buying a smoothie every morning for the last year. The Bridget Bardot sunglasses were, of course, completely essential.

The houses here have tiles on them. The sun comes down stronger, and everything looks like its straight from a Hans Christian Anderson story. It's all houses with hats on, and antlers about the front door. Germany is a country of confused identity. The architecture is so random its insane. It all looks so very german, but it's varied, and, well... completely obscure. It's all so very cynical. Religion, architecture, their whole national philosophy. They're a nation of perfectionists. It's weird because I'd heard the stereotypes, and somehow it lives up to them all, and then manages to surprise me.

The kids, of course, are driving me insane. I don't get enough sleep, and changing nappies... I'm eighteen, this stuff just doesn't agree with me. Today I was dribbled on, puked on, had food thrown at me, and carried a kid while he was sitting on his bicycle all the way home because he kicked up such a fuss i couldn't be arsed with him. I then came online for the first time in fuck knows how long to have david and scott making unnecessary comments regarding me, dildos, my ex boyfriend's cock, and various people that I'd managed to completely forget existed. It reminds me why I never logged into msn when I was using the internet on a regular basis. Meh. It cheered me up slightly.

I have a conundrum at the minute regarding when I come home. I have a choice of two weeks in which to return. I'm totally undecided and don't want to go into it yet on here. For the first time in my life I'm going to exercise discretion. Also, there is the probability that if I do go into it here I will be yelled at. It makes more sense to come home later. If I come over on the third of september then I won't be travelling alone, I'll have an extra weeks pay, I won't have the chance to do anything stupid that I would regret for a very long time and would think of myself as pathetic for doing. But if I come home a week earlier then I get to act stupid, I see my friends for an extra week which is good considering how early some of them are going to uni, and i get to go down to london for a few days and visit my brother. I need to make a decision pretty quickly too otherwise I won't have a choice and will just have to take whatever ticket i can get.

But I don't want to go through this all here. I'm in another country, I've got a completely different lifestyle, and my skin is a completely different colour. Realising that changing all of that changes so little inside me isn't just depressing, it's pathetic. But I don't adapt like that. My sleeping pattern has taken a kicking- I'm a morning person now (god help us). I've turned from strict vegetarian to, well... someone who can't really call herself that anymore. I mean, it was only a croissant which I totally didn't realise had ham in it. Even though I don't speak german, if something is labelled "cheese croissant" I don't expect ham inside. And then there was the tortellini with bacon in because it was cooked and I was too tired to actually make myself something meat free, plus I'd already had the croissant so who cared? And then it was the sausages cos I was hungry and they smelt goood. And so on until eventually it all just slides away from me and I'm left with the certainty that my dad is going to be really disappointed in me, and my aunt will be disgusted (read "aunt" as "bossy surrogate mother").

Anyway, I'm exhausted and I can't afford to sleep in tomorrow. I can't afford to sleep in at all, but sometimes its unavoidable and I end up going out make-up-less and without suncream which results in me wearing my sunglasses too much and turning red everywhere except for two huge circles around my eyes. Well, slight exaggeration. I mean, I haven't actually turned any colour except from a rather acceptable mocha yet, but I really do have sunglasses marks and if I continue then even if I don't turn into a lobster, I will still die at the measly age of twenty three due to skin cancer. So anyway, will write something lovely and poetic or something tomorrow night. Or some other night when i'm awake enough.

Sluts, Slags, and all things Nasty

2006-07-01T23:22:00.000+01:00

I’ve turned frigid. At least, for the time being. I realised this last night, sitting in a random’s lap, and with his tongue half way down my throat. It was alright, it was actually nice, but only in the same way that cookies and sunny days are nice. There was no accompanying feeling of, well anything. Now, I’m not a slag, I promise, but usually I at least care that someone has their hands wandering all over me. To be honest, I might as well have been sitting having a cup of tea with him for how much I was turned on.

I’m really quite confused. I actually had a guy avoiding me because he though I’d mess him around. Again. Since when have I turned into an icy bitch with no libido? I spoke to Dave about it and he just didn’t understand it at all. I’m not easy, but I’ve really never been frigid.

I’m perplexed. I’ve spent the week promising people things slutty, slagish, and generally all things nasty, and then, as soon as I get into an atmosphere where I can be those things, I just really don’t care. I was reasonably provocative I guess, I don’t think I know how to dance like a “nice girl,” never mind keep my mouth shut when there is the possibility of an innuendo. But I just really could not be bothered with any of it. The only reason anything happened at all was because I was bored and had already tried to fall asleep on a sofa in the back bar. It didn’t work, so I had to find something else to occupy myself. In the end I gave up on the useless Casanova and went to talk to someone about the size of my ex’s cock (not my choice in conversation, but I felt like I should set him straight when Dinky was telling some random person about how small he’d been).

I’m tired. I’m tired, frustrated, and annoyed at myself. I don’t understand me, and I don’t understand this sudden turn towards sainthood. Not that I’ll ever be even close to a saint, but it looks like I’m turning celibate. I’m miserable anyway because I’m packing my life up into a suitcase. Packing is a giant contradiction in my opinion. On the one hand it represents unlimited possibilities and embracing the new, and on the other it means an end to one way of life, the death of something. I hate packing because I hate trying to work out which side I veer towards. Do I embrace the new, or mourn the death of the old? Can I do both while still retaining a reasonable number of brain cells?

I give up. I’ve got things to pack still, passports to check on, and shoes to deliberate over taking. I need to remember to take my toothbrush, and stop thinking everything through because when I do I just end up annoyed at myself. I don’t like the fact that last night I spent the whole time basically unfeeling and ice-queenish, but it’s past and hopefully tomorrow, or sometime soon, this complete disinterest will pass. Unless I’ve really been ruined for good this time.

Don’t wanna think about it anymore. Whenever I next post, possibly not for a while, I’ll be on the other side of the ocean, and a lot less hungover. Until then, auf wiedersehen.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (Updated)

2006-06-28T20:20:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I took a trip down memory lane. We went to North Shields, and while there decided to take a trip past our old fortune cookie factory. I remember the place being dark, cold, and metallic, but now it’s simply dilapidated. I couldn’t believe it. There was actually a big sign on it that said “Warning Fragile Roof”.

It’s been nearly fifteen years since I was there. The last memory I have is of being perched on a cold metal surface by my mom and watching as her, my dad and a whole load of workers bustled around in white jackets and those horrible catering hats where you have hair nets attached. The whole concept intrigued me. You started off with some flour and whatever else, and fed it all through a whole load of mixers and other scary machines, and then you came out with cookies.

But I had my job. I looked after my sister as she slept in her portable plastic cot. She was an adorable kid, and they really did need someone to look after her. I remember the time when I’d been sleeping in the car and woke up to find dad frantically searching the factory while my mom stood by the door to the office saying, “I just don’t know where I put her. I was so sure that she was on the desk here.”

The factory was the reason I was sent to live with my Gran. It wasn’t a good place to bring up a child, and my mom and dad ran it together, my mom would have made a pretty crap housewife anyway. So my Gran took me. She couldn’t take my brother on top of that, he was six years older than me, and it would have been too much for a seventy year old woman to cope with.

My gran had a stroke just before my sister was born. She still looked after me, but couldn’t take my sister as well. I went home at weekends, and started to notice the difference between being at home and being with my gran. I adored living with Gran. You should have heard my bawl every Friday afternoon when my dad came to pick me up and take me home. But I also felt incredibly left out. My brother and sister were so close, and though home wasn’t a happy or calm place to be, I still felt like they couldn’t love me if they sent me away every Sunday night. The logical reasoning behind it was lost on my three year old ears.

I got to move back home again when things started to go wrong. My gran had a heart attack, the company van pretty much exploded, and due to a series of unfortunate events the once thriving business ended up bankrupt. Mom became a housewife just long enough to decide she didn’t enjoy it, and divorced my father.

I remember that conversation vividly. Dad sat down with me, my sister, and my brother in the kitchen. I was rocking on the back of the wooden chair, and he told me to stop, we had to talk. It all sounded so serious when he told us that mum was moving to New York without us, and that the four of us were going to move house, move somewhere else, start over.

If you were to ask me when I was happiest, I’ll tell you with certainty that it was the year after my sixth birthday. My mom had just left, we’d moved to the best house in the world, it had a huge garden and the back gate opened up to a gorgeous hillside, a stream, and basically a huge public woods that as kids we explored and made our own. It was a new school, and everything seemed to be working out.

My dad went back to art. He’d become disillusioned with the field nearly twenty years before when exposed to the politics and the “if you rub my back” attitude behind the scenes. He gave up what was published to be a “promising talent” and went to seek his fortunes in the states. Where he met my mom. And finally moving back home when my brother was three.

In the new house we were living as a family finally. My mom wasn’t there, but she made home a battle field whenever she was around. When she was there it wasn’t home, it was just painful.

A few years later things fell apart a bit again. I don’t know if it’s just that I stopped being such a child, and started to realise what was going on around me. Or maybe things started to get old, my dad started to get tired, and the house with its many wonderful mysteries and oddities, became mundane. Whatever it was, I started to realise that my dad was unhappy, my brother is scarred, and my sister is who she is. She’s superficial, and completely insecure.

And now we’re where we are now. My dad’s even more disillusioned with art, and pretty much despises the fact that he relies on it for an income. I now understand why my scars are there. I know the reason for my cynicism, and I understand why I find it so hard to trust love. It’s all so far from the fuzzy memories of being chased round the factory by my brother. It’s a long way from standing in the garden with mum and waving our van goodbye. And its far from Floppsie the Bunny and playing hide and seek in the grave yard while dad painted the church.

I grew up a little; I learnt that life wasn’t like those cut out moments. And I learnt that grown ups are sometimes less adult than their children. Going to the factory brought back many memories I’d forgotten, and it was sad to see the place I only remember as full of life, to be so dead and decrepit. But they’re just memories. And they’re long gone.

I’m scared. I’ve got to go out there and be an adult. I’ve got to forget someone I love, and I’ve got to give up a comfortable home and life style, to have cooking disasters, wake myself up in the mornings, and stop relying on other people. And it’s made me retrospective. I’m spending my hours thinking of the past with a certain amount of nostalgia, and even though a lot of it isn’t that great, writing it all down frees me to look forward to the future, while still having something that is a firm reminder of how I got here.

Love and War

2006-06-27T18:49:00.001+01:00

On Love - “When I saw you, I was afraid to meet you... When I met you, I was afraid to kiss you... When I kissed you, I was afraid to love you... Now that I love you, I'm afraid to lose you.”

On War – “A contention by force; or the art of paralysing the forces of an enemy.”

Most of the time my life feels like a battlefield. There is always some form of contention. My family, my friendships, the pressure to do well in whatever field, and the constant quest to find both love and enlightenment. But they’re just the external battles. The internal ones are harder because the enemy is not someone you can see, it isn’t something you can hack with an axe, or humiliate with words. The enemy is simply those aspects of yourself that you dislike. The ones you fight to keep control of. The basic instincts, and the emotional scars.

But there is another end of the spectrum. All of those things are what make my life worthwhile too. So my friends and family drive me crazy; they only do so because I care about them so much. Pressure is hard when you feel like you’re trying to meet some illusive idea of perfection, but the few times you come close are the times when you feel the most satisfied, the most victorious. And love. Loving anyone is hard because when you open yourself up to another person you give them the power to hurt you. To truly let someone in is to lie upon the sacrificial alter and hand the priest the knife. With love you will hurt. It’s a simple fact. But to avoid the pain is to avoid losing so much more.

I cannot vanquish my demons, but they remind me of all the things that are important to me. And if you were to take my mother as an example, she scarred me, she hurt me, and the pain isn’t something I can grow out of. But when you question me as to whether I still love her for it, I cannot but tell you I do. She could have beaten me senseless, she could have made the scars physical instead of just mental, and I’d still love her. It’s simply impossible not to.

So my life is a constant equilibrium between conflict, and love. I’m at war with myself, but still find that I completely adore my life. Sometimes I shift closer to one end of the spectrum, but I spend just as much time at the other end too.

I was asked if I had regrets. And I do, of course, have many. But could I go back and change them, go back and right all the wrongs. Could I avoid things, and simply delete significant parts of my life? No. Could anyone? Our lives are a serious of causes and effects. Either the cause or effect can be unpleasant, but then, so much in life always is.

Life is a constant struggle. We struggle to find true love, happiness, ourselves. And eventually we find those things, we’re happy. Some people will never find them. I know so many people who have simply never met the aspirations they set for themselves years ago. But everyone, for even a short period of time, has found happiness, no matter how small. And that’s what we live for; those short periods of joy.

Pointless Rambling

2006-06-26T23:08:00.000+01:00

It’s over. One month of exams, and thirteen years of school has finished. I’m not sad to see either go. The exams… well, the less dwelt on them the better really. But suffice it to say that in that last multiple choice paper a monkey could get twenty five percent by just randomly picking a, b, c, or d. In all of the past papers, I have done worse than a monkey. The real exam was no better.

As soon as I exited the exam (all three hours worth of logarithms, partial pressures, and nitration’s of benzene- eurgh) I went crazy. Crazy even for me. Jenny was rather perplexed when I came running towards her squealing. But I can’t help it, I have never been so relieved in all of my life. There’s too much pressure. Too much pressure to succeed, to get the grades you need for uni, and to not collapse in a quivering wreck in the middle of the exam. I take three subjects at A level, and I had fifteen exams. Fifteen! That’s five bloody exams per subject. Are they totally and utterly insane?

Up until now I have been on a man, alcohol, and leaving the house for anything barely social- free diet. My father and I came to an agreement. I stayed in the house for a month, stayed single, and stayed sober. And in return he drives me to the airport and puts a hundred pounds down on the lap top I intend to buy as soon as I get back from Germany (i.e. when I actually have spare cash). It was hard. Believe me, this has been a very hard month for me. That’s why I’ve been so whiney, boring, and irritating lately. I apologise.

But, I am getting back to my old self rather quickly and enthusiastically. In a night I have drunk nearly a full bottle of weird pink rum stuff, and I will be seen again socially as soon as is humanly possible. Unfortunately, this will have to be Friday as humans need money, and I’m utterly broke. C’est la vie.

And the men. Christ. I have no idea why I allowed him to tell me that I was basically going to spend a month celibate. I guess he just knows me too well. I am a whore for money, or alcohol. He offered me money on the condition that I stopped being a whore. I sold myself to my father. I suddenly feel incredibly perverse. I regretted it pretty much immediately after I made the agreement, but by then I had already agreed. And I do try not to go back on my word. Ah well, at least this proves that if really forced, I can exercise self restraint.

But it’s fine. It’s over. All I have to endure is one night where the teachers and students all get totally smashed, and then go and get more smashed in the pubs right after. It’s great. And this time I really won’t get involved with anyone. The last time I said that was right before five months of being slightly too involved. But I mean it this time. This time I’m not bitter, still kind of stringing someone along, or basically dumb. And anyway, flings are much more fun. Especially when I only have a week left in the country.

Anyway. Enough rambling. I’m sure I can think of plenty of other more important things to be doing. Possibly starting to learn German…

Words

2006-06-25T12:46:00.000+01:00

Apparently Blog Reviews have rated my blog "top of all blogs". I have to admit, when I received the random stars in my comments on my Dating Requirements, I was slightly at a loss as to what they meant. Oh well, as I am never one to dwell upon the reasons for praise, and am more the type to grab the compliment and run off in the opposite direction in case they change their mind, I shall move on.

I’m getting rid of the disorder. It’s hard, but to leave I’ve got to leave properly. I refuse to leave unfinished thoughts behind. I guess I will have to include Him in this. To move past him I’ve got to give him up properly. When we broke up it wasn’t final, when I last saw him it wasn’t final, and right now it’s just an unwanted headache.

But he isn’t the only thing to go. My words, precious stanzas depicting heart break, love, joy, and misery all met the open jaws of my rubbish bin last night. I watched them go. Falling, disconsolately, into the open abyss that is the bin which never seems to overflow. And I could not help but shed a few tears.

Writing is the lover that never leaves me lonely and cold in the night. The pages upon pages of my words are the comfort blanket that no one can tell me I’m too old to have anymore. And, as I watch them fall away, finally leaving me, I catch snatches of conversations, memories, my own thoughts lifted from their place in my brain, and etched onto paper.

I come across a simple stanza:
“I’ll go wherever you want to take me,
I’ll do whatever you want to do,
I’ll smile and tell you I’m happy,
I’m happiest when I’m with you.”

And then the tears really fall. They somersault through the air, tumbling onto and smudging the words I have condemned to silence. These words are the key to my soul. They give expression to a girl whose heart is locked in stone. And they remind her of all she has lost.

They are not the prose I save onto my computer. These are not those that I wish to whore out to publishers in the hope of a more comfortable home, and a more pleasant bank statement. These are the words that I don’t dare let others read. The ones that whisper secrets, feelings, lost memories of childhood. These are the ones that cause the most pain.

I watch them go with regret. It is the same regret I feel whenever I watch someone walk out of my life knowing it will be too long before they return. But at their demise there is also a feeling of hope. Hope that new words will come to replace them. Hope that leaving them behind will allow me to painlessly get on with the future.

Just Because...

2006-06-24T18:04:00.000+01:00

I remember the first time we met. Or at least, I remember not remembering the first time we met. I had to write your name on a piece of paper before I drunkenly collapsed. I knew how drunk I was, and also knew that if I had to ask Stacey what your name was again before I could write it down, the odds were I wasn’t going to be able to remember it in another four hours time when I got up.

You didn’t remember me either. You knew vaguely what I looked like because you know Jack, and you’d seen me waitressing before. But you used a bloody line on me. Told me you’d just got a new phone so couldn’t give me your number. I can’t believe I fell for it either. Yeah, so you actually did call me in the morning; I’m still pissed off that you didn’t intend to. Bastard.

I was horrible to you those first few weeks, I’m sorry for that. But I really wasn’t lying when I told you that I was confused. That night that I met you, I’d decided before I left the house that I wasn’t going to get involved with anyone for a while. I was pissed off with men in general, and then the first person I saw when we walked in was Mark. I ran away and hid behind this weird huge Greek urn thing. It was propped up in the corner and I sat behind that for half an hour until he went away. He may have been a bit pissed off about that. Though actually, he still probably thinks that I was in the toilets or that he just hadn’t looked properly.

So for a week or so I was blanking Mark, being annoyed, and trying to stay single. Which, of course, meant trying to work out a way to reject you. Quite obviously it didn’t work. In the end you just told me to call you when I was less confused. I figured that was it. But then we got talking again, and you took me out, and you treated me like crap the whole night. Admittedly in the morning you were much, much, nicer, but you still acted like a bit of a cock.

When that other guy was hitting on me, Christ, when you told me to go and get in there cos quite obviously he was interested, I was so ready to smack you. But I think we both got it out of our systems when I said okay, and went to dance with him. Dancing with him was fine; he was sweet and actually not unattractive. But really much younger than I generally go for (i.e. my age) and if I can walk over a guy in the first five minutes then what am I meant to do for the rest of our time together? There’s just no challenge.

Then the night afterwards, Hayley, Christine and I came into the pub. You actually went out of your way to see me, and you just seemed happy that I was there. People being genuinely happy just to see me is unusual at best. It was a crappy night, Stacey was pissed out of her brains, and Christine was grouchy. I had such a huge hangover that I had one sip of tequila sunrise and went onto lemonade for the rest of the night. But I still came home reasonably happy. Because of you.

I’m not sure how I managed fitting you in between my exams and everything else in the following weeks. I think that some of the answers to that question would explain my rather disappointing results. But somehow I managed it.

I suppose we had sex too early. You would have waited for a while; you didn’t push me into anything. But we were drunk, me more than you, and I wasn’t in the mood to go home. Well, to go to Stacey’s home as that was where I was meant to be staying that night. So I left with you. I’m still not sure about that. I feel like I should regret it, and after everything I think that it would have drawn the relationship out longer if I had waited, but maybe it was drawn out enough anyway. It was a reasonable length of time; we had a whole season.

Everyone hates you now. Though, to be fair, I’d say that a few of your friends aren’t too ecstatic with me either (*cough*Jack*cough*). There isn’t really any reason for them to hate you. Yes, on occasion you were arrogant, nasty, and altogether useless. But you never professed to be anything else, and you genuinely did care.

You’re texting me as I write this. I think you’ve worked out by now that my heart isn’t in it anymore. I’ve replied, but haven’t been too forthcoming with my own woes, achievements, etc. I’m acting aloof- something I’ve never before done with you. And I’m sorry, I have no reason to. It’s been nearly three months now; I should be past all of this.

But… Look, I was sure that I was over you. I thought that I’d managed to get past all of this crap. And, in a way, I did. But I loved you. And, I guess that I still do. I couldn’t tell you at the time because self preservation told me not to. I was scared of being rejected, of scaring you away, of you simply not feeling the same way. And you don’t. Yeah, you cared enough, but love? Nope. If I told you then I gave you power over me, power to hurt me, power to make me feel like crap.

This is no longer an open wound for either of us. We’re okay, and I can talk to you without it all being awful. But I can’t act like I used to around you, and I can’t talk to you too much no matter how much I want to. You were my best friend, the person who understood me, and still liked me. Scarily you are one of the few, and I’m including my oldest and closest friends in this.

So it isn’t that I want us to be awkward. And it isn’t that I don’t want to talk to you all the time. When something good happens you’re still the first person I want to talk to and say “yay me!” But that isn’t good. So I’ll talk to you, we’ll remain good friends. But I can’t let you in too close; I can’t let us be how we were before. I need the separation for my survival. Now it’s hard for me to just keep you as friend because I know what it’s like to have you as more than that, and it’s a hundred times better.

Seeing Sheep

2006-06-23T18:36:00.000+01:00

Callum: You can’t really live in the middle of nowhere.
Hatty: When I look out of the window in the mornings, I see sheep.
Callum: Oh, well that’s never good.

People in my village are inbred. I mean that in the nicest way possible, truly, but it’s true. In reality, it isn’t just my village; it’s probably more accurate if I say people in this area are inbred. You talk to someone on a bus, mention a name, and sure as hell you know they’re going to say, “Oh, really? They’re my cousin!” It’s a simple fact. Everyone is interrelated or, if they aren’t, they’re cousins to someone who is.

I live in a rural paradise. Or at least, that’s what they tell me it is. It’s beautiful, absolutely heaven if you’re a big fan of squirrels, woodland walks and fields. Squirrels are great; you pretty much can’t go wrong with squirrels. Yeah, they can only talk in a weird piercing cheepy chattery noise, but other than that they’re cool. I like squirrels. And woodland walks are fine when you’re of a certain age, or want somewhere scenic to walk the dog. But fields? Fields I don’t like. They’re either filled with sheep, or that horrible rape stuff that is a stupid mustard yellow colour and flares up your hay fever within seconds of it flowering.

Socially speaking it isn’t so wonderful either. The hot spot is a tiny pub ten miles from anywhere that has so few customers that they’re willing to serve alcohol to someone thirteen years old as long as they look like they might, just possibly, be sixteen. If you want a good party, there is an eighty percent chance that it will not be in a house, but will be in either a field, or a barn. People have weddings in barns around here. Seriously. Yeah, so the barn was a nice one, it was still a barn. And it was still bloody freezing. Gotta say though, I did find the kitchen-in-a-cow-stall quite amusing.

The bus drivers now know me either by sight, or name. I find that impressive considering there’s about twenty of them that do my route. Luckily, though I live in the middle of no where, it is on a pretty useful main road that is on the way to a few marginally better places. If you can call two towns with a handful of clubs and pubs between them better. At least they were never too harsh on ID when I was of the age where that could be problematic. And Newcastle is alright as cities go; shops, pubs, clubs, and most of the people will translate what they just said into English if you ask them nicely.

Yes, we’re all inbred up here, but as none of my family is actually originally from here, no one speaks the dialect. Hence a lot of confusing incidents involving errors in translation. Geordies are all wonderful people, well, mostly, but they’re nearly impossible to understand. The first time I heard “I’m gan yem” I just thought it was a little confusing that they’d started speaking Japanese. Never did I even consider that “yem” actually meant “home”. They’re not even the same vowel sound!

So, all in all, it’s a pretty awful place to live if you only really feel comfortable around lots and lots of people. I can only get signal on my phone in either my bedroom, or front garden. Believe me, for me, this is a major problem. But even though when people patronisingly tell me who lucky I am to live in rural paradise, I’m inwardly substituting “hell” in instead of “paradise,” I’ll still miss it.

I’ll miss the local news letter that tells of the wayward youths that have rebelliously set fire to a haystack. I’ll miss hearing people gossip about who is having a property battle over eight inches of dirt that has someone’s prize begonias on it. I’ll miss all the drunken old men in the pubs that you really can’t understand, but who all really, really, want to buy you a drink. And I’ll complain, I’ll bitch, but really I am touched when the bus driver asks if I’m “alreet” and lets me on even though I don’t have my bus pass with me, just because he remembers the last time I was on and had to spend half the journey chatting to him in the front seat as I searched through my bag for my bus pass. Seriously, I think that thing has the ability to turn itself invisible.

I won’t miss the internal politics. I won’t miss being told off because my dad was told by my aunt who was told by her friend from the keep fit classes, who was told from her sister that I’d not said “hello” to her as I walked down the street one day. But it has its charms. I doubt I’ll ever move back, I’ll see more than enough of the place when I come home for Christmas. But sometimes it’s nice to just reflect on all the eccentricities, and really, they aren’t as bad as I make out sometimes.

And, again.

2006-06-21T14:47:00.000+01:00

Men. You fall in love with them, get cruelly rejected after however many months, despise them, finally manage to say goodbye, and then watch them leave, you think, forever. I said goodbye! It wasn’t even a “hey, have fun, see you when you get back,” type goodbye. It was a full on, melodramatic, “This is it, au revoir.”

Then on Monday night I receive a few texts. Just letting me know, “hey, I’m good, the navy rocks” type thing. Yeah, fine, I can deal. So I said goodbye, I was in a ratty mood when I said it, and being friends with your ex really isn’t so bad. I mean, yes, “I’m bigger than everyone else so no one is going to arse-rape me,” seems slightly strange overall as something to text your ex, but he is strange. I adore crazy people; I’m so damn insane myself. So I sent back a “hi, that’s nice,” and avoided further communication.

And, as always, he was completely and utterly unperturbed. Ten thirtyish last night, thinking of possibly going in search of something to eat (yes, I know, eating late at night is a VERY bad habit, but I can’t help when I’m hungry). Check my phone, “Have to get up at quarter to five tomorrow and no sex for the next six weeks!” Great.

When I want him to talk to me all I can get out of him is one argument, and a lot of pissed of texts along the lines of “go away.” Then, when I get over it and move on, he starts texting me about the various aspects of his sex life. If there is a god, he is seriously taking the piss.

A month ago I would have gladly replied with something cheeky and verging on flirty. A month before that I would have sent back something along the lines of, “Hah! I definitely don’t have the same problem”. I was really quite bitter for a while. But now… I don’t know. Now when I look back, I’m looking back at everything. I don’t just see the good and blank out all of the shit. And I also know that there’s no point to any of it as it is highly unlikely that I’m going to see him before Christmas, if even then.

God knows how often he’s going to be on leave and back up here, but I’m leaving in a weeks time for two months in Germany, then I’m going down to London as soon as I get back into the country. When I finally get back home I’ll have about two weeks before I’ve got to leave again for Edinburgh. Whether he’s considering some sort of booty call, or simply friendship, it doesn’t really matter.

But it isn’t fair. No one from my past seems to just stay in the past. There are always echoes, repeat incidents, and I always get messed up by them. I know, I’ll probably still be getting random crap of various ex’s when I’m thirty and still not contemplating settling down. That’s how they work, and I guess that’s sort of how I work too.

I don’t know. I’m confused, and annoyed, and amused all at the same time. I want him to go away and leave me alone because all he does is cause trouble. But I missed receiving all the crazy crap that he used to send me. I’ve missed the stupid conversations, and everything else that made up the relationship.

I don’t miss him. But the texts make me miss him. So they piss me off and I want him to leave me alone. But I still don’t want that really. I know I don’t want him back, and I know that I do want his friendship. So really, they’re a blessing. Until he starts talking about sex.

I think I’ve learnt to separate love and lust a bit too much. If they were as intertwined as they are with most people, I’d be as wary of the lust as I am of getting even a little bit involved with him again. Unfortunately, I don’t love him, but there are still a few aspects that I miss.

Right. I have succeeded in not only utterly confusing myself, but also completely wasting my time thinking about him. Again. Typical.

I'll write a book

2006-06-20T22:43:00.000+01:00

“Harriet, don’t be a gold digger!”

“I’m not being a gold digger, really.” I promised, “It’s just, well, I’m broke, and sometimes, it’s just nice to have things bought for you. You know?”

“Okay, fine, so what? You want to marry someone rich and famous?” she asked.

I shook my head and sighed, then pressed the phone back to my ear. “No. Rich, yeah, but not famous.”

“What??” she squealed out of the receiver, “What’s wrong with famous?”

“Well if he’s famous, and I marry him, if I later become famous myself, no matter how many merits I have, and how hard I’ve worked, it’ll all just seem like reflected glory. Every woman who has married someone and then became famous just fizzles out. No one fully believes that they’ve actually done it on their own. I want to become who I will for me, and not because of my husband, my family, or anyone else.”

“I guess. I just want to be famous. I don’t care how I got there.”

“Ah. So what do you want to be famous for?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always thought that I would write a book.”

Everyone thinks that. Eventually they’ll write a book. And I’m curious, why don’t you? What is it that’s stopping you from sitting down in front of the keyboard and starting to type the words that are floating around in your heads, just waiting for you to unleash them onto the paper? Everyone has a different reason, and I genuinely want to know. I think there might even be a book in it. The millions of potential writers, the stories, and the things that stop them from writing.

I’ll write a book. The truth is I’ll write many. But I can’t right now. She told me to write it. Told me to stop writing pages upon pages, only to get frustrated and just delete it all. Told me to get the extra money before uni- I’ll need it. But I won’t. She doesn’t write hers because writing is hard, and writing that much requires endurance. I don’t have that problem. I’m a more than prolific writer, and really am happy to sit there for hours on end and come up with a few hundred pages.

Or, at least, I used to be. When I was fifteen I was a better writer than I am now. I had a marginally smaller vocabulary, and far fewer real experiences to write down, but an immense imagination and a will. Recently life has got in the way. I’ve tried and tried, but every time I sit down I write variations of the same thing. The same tale, and it’s nearly enough for a three page short story.

My favourite author is Stephen King. Mostly, I can’t read his books. I enjoyed Carrie, and The Shawshank Redemption, but generally I’m not especially enamoured with the horror genre as a whole. So how come he’s my favourite author? His memoir, and guide to writing, On Writing. My problem with most Stephen King books is not the writing itself, it is the warped imagination behind it. But he does have the imagination. He has an enormous imagination, and that’s why his books sell. He can write about anything, and he’s prolific. I don’t have the imagination. I lost some of my imagination. We always do, if we could combine the extensive originality and imagination of youth, with a decent writing style and vocabulary that is acquired with training and time, then truly we’d make wonderful authors. But three year olds don’t write books, and I guess as an adult (sort of) I don’t either.

Faults

2006-06-19T18:09:00.000+01:00

Intrinsically, I’m flawed. I don’t mean flawed in the every day nobody-is-perfect way. It’s like there is just something that I’m missing. Something that when I was made, someone left out somewhere. It’s like a drug addiction; they get to the point where they need the drug just to feel normal. They can’t be normal without it, they drug makes them whole.

I have this recurring nightmare. It isn’t something I get every night, or even every week or month. But it’s happened every four or five months for the last eight or nine years of my life. Not often, by still recurring.

I’m sitting on a cold marble floor. I’ve got tears and mascara running in rivulets down my face, and my face is ugly with rage and emotion. One hand is curled into a fist, the other clawed, and I’m sitting there with my legs pulled up to my chest, just rocking. Rocking myself, and crying.

There’s a sharp pain at the back of my head where my hair has been used to tug me upwards. I’ve got a bruise on my arm where it’s been gripped, and one side of my face stings. My thigh is painful where I’ve been kicked.

And I’ve been left there, in pain, alone, and livid. Angry that it had happened to me, and angrier at the futility when I’d tried to fight back. The complete inability to either fight back, or protect myself at all. I can’t stand being completely powerless, and in that room, I couldn’t even stand up without being knocked back down. So I sat, miserable, and rocked myself, quietly whispering the same phrase over and over again, “it’s all my fault.”

If I’d done things differently, if I hadn’t provoked them into anger, if I’d been good, it wouldn’t have happened. There are always consequences; the consequences of my actions left me bruised. If I wasn’t so flawed, it would all have been alright.

These things happen once, maybe twice, and though the actual bruises heal, somehow they still manage to leave a mark. It isn’t about the pain, the pain is sharp but it doesn’t last. It’s about the memory of the futility. It’s about knowing that if it were to happen again, there would still be nothing you could do to stop it.

It’s my fault. If I was whole, if could love someone properly and unconditionally, then I’d provoke the same unconditional love back from that person. If I was better, if somehow I improved, then people would treat me better, they’d care.

If I’d been a better daughter then my mom would have stayed. If I’d had fewer tantrums as a kid then my gran would have lived longer and I wouldn’t have had to move back in with my dad. If I’d been good then they wouldn’t have sent me away.

And then, of course, the final irony. If I wasn’t constantly thinking I was unlovable, so trying to make people love me, find me attractive, then they wouldn’t get bored of me and think me pathetic. But the constant rejection just causes me to try harder.

Sometimes I can be normal. If the relationship doesn’t mean anything, then I act like a normal human being. But if I let someone get close, or I grow attached to someone, then it’s already over. I push them away by needing too much. I try to hard, and everyone knows that the only time that things happen is when it isn’t important, when you’ll be alright either way.

Things aren’t going to start changing now. I’m still too internally bruised to change, heal. No one can love me, and its all my fault.

On Father's Day

2006-06-18T23:55:00.000+01:00

Today it is Father’s day. Well, in ten minutes time I shall have to change that to “yesterday was father’s day”. But we’ll ignore that. I think that my family is rather retarded. And not just for the many reasons that I have stated in here previously. Father’s day is supposedly a big deal. It is something that is important and wonderful in that Brady Bunch candyfloss ideal family type way. Which would explain why, as a family, the whole thing went right over our heads.

My mom can be left out of the name and shame as she lives in New York where they celebrate it on a completely different day. And also, she doesn’t particularly like my dad so wouldn’t wish him a happy anything anyway. Unless it was something like an enjoyable eternity with Satan, or a nice disfiguring disease.

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to put my dad on this list. He didn’t realise that it was Father’s day, even when my brother phoned up to wish him it, and only worked it out when I came confusedly into his room and said so. But I guess that’s allowed as he’s a) completely ditzy, b) naturally blonde, and c) senile. Plus, he was the one meant to be receiving thanks and presents and stuff rather than remembering to remind his children to remember it. Too many “rem”s in that sentence…

My brother probably comes out best. He gets the credit of actually knowing what day of the week it was; that as well as it being a Sunday, it was also fathers day; and he phoned up and wished Dad a happy father’s day. Basically the perfect son. Well, minus the present and card that are generally acknowledged to be compulsory. However, even though quite obviously he is wonderful, when he did phone up, he managed to confuse my dad into thinking that it was Father’s day in South Africa rather than here. This, I feel, is a rather astonishing feat as I have no idea why anyone would wish to phone up and say, “Hi, in South Africa it’s father’s day, so Happy fathers day!” when both the father and son live in England, and I am pretty sure neither actually know anyone who lives in South Africa. Or have ever been there.

It took me till half way through a conversation with Stacey to realise that it was Father’s day. She had been talking for a while about the great present that she’d bought her Dad, and when I inquired as to when exactly father’s day was, she told me rather disbelievingly that it was today. To sum up: Bugger. I had neither card, present, nor way of somehow making myself look semi-decent as a daughter. It had gone eleven o clock at night by that time, and he was already in bed.

My sister is in bed, and as she hasn’t mentioned anything about it today, and earlier was asking me what day of the week it was, (she thought it was Saturday), I would assume that she was as clueless as the rest of the clan.

So out of all five of us we have:

Overall, I would say that this was pretty typical family holiday and I hope that we have many more just like it. For one thing, it’s much cheaper than actually remembering, and having to go to all that trouble of card and present buying, and then having to pretend that I like my dad for a day.

Bring on Father’s day next year. I look forward to it.

Because a girl needs a mother

2006-06-17T14:26:00.001+01:00

We hid behind the sofa when they were screaming at each other. We had these plastic guns, and we’d aim them at them. Whenever they shouted too loud, made us scared, we’d pretend that we’d shot them and they weren’t there anymore. We’d pretend that they just disappeared. That we were the only ones there, and that we were going to look after ourselves.

They were always screaming, always at each other’s throats. I once measured the time that there was calm, between fights. We got to thirty four minutes. There was just always something. She accused him of taking something of hers, said that he had to have moved it because it wasn’t where she’d left it and she hadn’t touched it. He got pissed off when he came home at eight o clock and found that she hadn’t made dinner for anyone and there were three whiny, hungry children. It was marriage, but it lacked happiness or harmony.

They got married initially because she got pregnant with my brother. They stayed married because she had me and my sister. They got divorced when she realised that she wanted to be single again, had enough of marriage and children, and wanted to move back to the states. So Dad got custody, mom got her life back, and we got a reasonably happy life. Cue end credits here.

Except not quite. She visited the second year after she left. She brought back weird fish and encouraged us to eat the eyes; she gave us presents, and took us to China town to eat noodles and sorbet. We got jewellery and giggled when she showed us photos of her boyfriend, and then later shyly spoke to him on the phone. My brother taunted me for liking her boyfriend too much when I spoke to him, made me feel guilty, told me I should just go and live with them and make his life happier. I ran crying to my room and refused to talk to him when he next called her up.

It was eight years before her next visit. I was fifteen and embarrassed by this short, loud woman who tried to charm my friends. I sat awkwardly through “The Talk” that I’d already had about eight years earlier with my dad, and listened when she told me about the evangelical Christian semi-cult that she had got involved in. We heard tales of her various boyfriends and of her friend who’s children all go to Harvard, Yale, or are in the Olympics. We got an over-sized “I love NY” t-shirt, and more arguments between her and dad. She tried to poison us with stories of how much of a bastard our father is, and generally rubbed my grandfather up the wrong way.

And she phoned up. My sister picks up, “Can I speak to Harriet?” This is an anomaly; in the past ten years I have not known her to be interested in speaking to me over my sister even once. I understand completely that I’m totally hung up and believe that she loves my sister more than me. But really, it hasn’t ever happened before, except maybe on my birthday.

She’s coming over. She needed the dates of when exactly I’ll actually be at home this summer (a measly period of three weeks) so she can decide when to book her flight. I’ve known for a week now, and I haven’t discussed it with anyone. I didn’t even mention it on the phone to my brother. I don’t know what to say. I’m pleased that she’s coming, but there’s so much other shit that we have to deal with when she does. And I’m the only one who’s pleased. Everyone else just doesn’t want her here. Which makes things awkward. I can’t argue her case because what else can I say other than, “she’s my mother”? Apparently that just isn’t good enough a reason for her to visit.

I’m not even sure how much I want her to be here. I don’t want my dad to turn into that argumentative asshole he becomes. I don’t want to be faced with just how many flaws she really does have, but aren’t as noticeable down the phone. And I don’t want to confront my own insecurities, all the old hang ups that make me special in that horribly messed up way.

But a girl needs a mother. I don’t need her to do the mothering anymore. I don’t need her to stand in front of me and protect me from the world. I don’t need her to make my meals or comfort me when I’m scared. I’m past that. But I need to make peace. I need to know that for her flaws, and for mine, we love each other enough to be okay. Before I can fully accept myself, I need to accept the woman that made me this way, and I need to accept her without hating her for it.

Superstition

2006-06-16T11:04:00.000+01:00

My horoscope tells me that Pisceans have split personalities.

"One fish can be seen to be the fish that wants to return to a state of deep unconsciousness. This fish wants to go back to the deep sea, where all there is to do is to eat, procreate and sleep.

"The other fish wants to swim to the light. It senses that to follow this longing to return to the state of oneness, as felt by them in the womb - with the added ingredient of awareness - of conscious knowing - is their potential awakening."

I'm superstitious. I generally don't pay much attention to horoscopes because I'm a scientist too, the astrology of it doesn't work with the universe expanding. But if my tarot cards tell me to watch out for having an accident, or there are a number of things that happen consecutively like breaking a mirror and falling flat on my face when trying to leave the house to go there, I take them as signs.

That horoscope worried me though. I guess it makes sense, occasionally you have to come accross one that sounds like you. If just because there are so many variations that it is impossible for there not to be one that sounds vaguely right.

Today my tarot card was the chariot. "It means a union of opposites, like the black and white steeds. They pull in different directions, but must be (and can be!) made to go together in one direction. Control is required over opposing emotions, wants, needs, people, circumstances; bring them together and give them a single direction, your direction. Confidence is also needed and, most especially, motivation."

Tell me I'm insane. Tell me my superstition is idiotic and that there is no such thing as serendipity. Yesterday I told you I was torn. Today I'm no better, in fact I'm probably worse. I'm torn in half, torn between which one of me to listen to, and torn between a lasting friendship and just throwing it all away. And I don't know what to do.

Which one of me?

2006-06-15T16:59:00.000+01:00

I’m… not happy. I haven’t been happy for a while. I don’t know exactly how long I’ve been unhappy for; going backwards I guess this has been for at least three months now. Probably more. And I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know why I’m unhappy. I feel… bereft. I feel like I’ve lost someone, and I think the person I’ve lost might be me. I’m not the same person I used to be, we aren’t even similar. And I have this huge, horrible feeling of loss, like I’ve lost someone important, like there is this huge hole inside me and no matter what I pour into it to fill it up again, it just won’t.

I look out the window and I see sunlight. I see kids coming in on the school bus, walking past the house and chattering to each other. Happy. I hear dogs outside in the garden, playing with each other, yapping, and I go to look. It brings a smile to my face. A small, bitter, smile. Like they’ve got something I don’t, like there’s something that I’m missing.

I’m crazy. Sometimes I am happy. Sometimes I genuinely feel joy with myself, and the people around me. But there are other times. Times when I’m sitting there with my friends, and I go silent. I look at myself, I look at them talking, giggling, and I just think, “What’s the point?” I love them to pieces, but sometimes I can’t work out why they care, why we need to have stupid conversations about food colouring or chalk, why we bother with each other when I’m pretty sure that most of them don’t even like me. I look at them and I realise that I’m only there because they’re used to me being there. Because I drag them out of themselves, I call them up and organise things, and in clubs I drag them onto the dance floor and make conversations.

And I’m tired. I’m tired of chasing people to work out a situation. I’m tired of people telling me that I’m doing things wrong. I’m tired of being told that I’m a bad friend, when they aren’t doing so brilliantly themselves. And mostly I’m tired of feeling like I’m alone.

This is stupid. I sound like a little kid screaming at her parents that everybody hates her; the whole world is picking on her. It isn’t like that.

I don’t know. I have a good life. I’ve got everything I want, and more. And if I truly want to eradicate the loneliness then there are numerous ways of doing it. But I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t work. I’d be trying to make myself better on one level, by giving myself more on another.

My problem is that I feel like it’s all superficial. You get men, talking to you, flirting, watching you, blowing kisses, whatever. And they don’t know you, they see meat and that’s all it is. Christ, I play to it. I let them think of me as meat, I objectify myself to the extent where if they were ever going to consider me as something more, they can’t. I’ve done this to myself, and suddenly I’m not happy.

I feel superficial. I feel like I’m a dumb blonde who no one actually cares about other than for stuff thats completely shallow. I’m not blonde. But I’m going to go through life with meaningless relationships with men who use me up, then get bored. And generally I’m okay with that, mostly I chose this. But underneath everything I question it. I want to know what it is that makes me act like me, and if I have to put myself through this, then why can I not be content with it?

I feel schizophrenic. I feel like there is this layer of me on the outside that everyone talks to, that smiles and flirts and acts confident. And that girl on the outside is happy. But there’s another one. Another girl on the inside, deep deep down who barely ever gets noticed. But she’s screaming. She hates how shallow the girl on the outside is, and she hates that the girl is the only one people see.

So I’m torn. I’m torn between a life that makes me happy and sad all at the same time. And I’m torn between which one of me to listen to. And all I really want, what I want most in the world out of everything, is just for a little while, to be happy.

I'll dance again

2006-06-13T23:33:00.000+01:00

The music fills my ears, my brain, as a smile comes to my face, my eyes, as I spin. I spin with the breeze, my arms open wide, head thrown back, looking up to the heavens. The sun streams in through the window bathing my in a warm honey glow. I feel like an angel, a goddess, I feel like I could fly.

My bangles clatter round my wrists. Only my toes touch the floor as I pirouette, my long skirt spinning with me. My scarf whips in the breeze as my hair flies back from my face, curly tendrils falling everywhere.

When I was little we used to play a game. If the sky was pretty and the grass was dry, we’d go outside. We'd dance in the garden, climb the trees, and then when we were done we’d spin. We’d spin to celebrate the beauty of the day and the joy in our dancing. We’d spin until our heads spun with us, till our skirts tangled at out knees, and until we fell down and could spin no more.

It’s the same child-like joy that I derive from making snow angels. Throwing myself back into the snow with abandon. It’s the joy only a combination of a beautiful mood and gorgeous weather can bring. It’s a pure, unadulterated love of life. An acceptance that what is to come, will, and what is past can no longer hurt me.

And so I dance with the windows open wide and the smell of summer saturating my thoughts. The sun, the heat, and the breeze filling me with a feeling of content that neither love nor alcohol will ever bring.

Eventually I’ll fall. My head will pound, and I’ll spin no more. But that will not happen today. And when it finally does happen, I’ll be fine because I know that one day, somewhere, I’ll dance again.

Sun shines out from behind gloomy clouds

2006-06-12T20:50:00.000+01:00

This is hard for me. But it’s easier than I expected. I’m not pregnant. The relief at that news was nearly overpowering. I’ll admit, the idea of living at home and dumping the baby on my best friend every morning while I went to uni was starting to sound appealing to me, especially when I found the website devoted entirely to baby names. But a baby? No. People can tell me congratulations, and other such morale boosting things, but Jesus Christ was I relieved to see blood. My history is not such that I would wish to pass on to a child. Maybe some day when I look out my window onto other oceans, and when there is someone in my life that I could actually contemplate raising a child with, but until then, I’m happy without.

Everything seems so final at the minute. I’m planning my leaving party. I know that I’m actually only going for two months, and that after that I’ll be back and in everyone’s hair as much as I am now, but it’s me. I’m not too fussed about the excuses- any reason to have a party is great. So we’re borrowing my aunt’s field and taking advantage of the astonishingly beautiful weather. It does mean that for the last weekend that I am in this country I will be either hung over or drunk due to the Leaver’s dinner for our final goodbye to full time education on the Friday, and then my goodbye party on the Saturday. But at least it starts the summer with a bang and means that I’ll have something to occupy me on the plane on the Sunday morning, even if that something happens to be a headache.

I said goodbye to him. And not just in here with a long essay on my mournful loss, but actually. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, not to his face. But I wished him luck, told him to try not to come back too camp, and told him to take care. And I said goodbye. I finally managed to do what I’ve been wishing I would let myself do for months. And I changed my mind.

People told me, “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.” But I despise cliché’s with a near psychopathic passion. When recently on the phone to a friend, I had to hang up on her because she could have been reciting from “100 most overused cliché’s in the English language,” and I wouldn’t have known the difference. I despise them, and they’re worse when you are having an argument. How can you argue with someone who is talking in cliché’s? They don’t mean anything! It’s like expecting to win an argument by not saying anything, and then getting confused when the other person gets frustrated.

Anyway. Lost myself on a slight tangent there. I never believed the people who said it was better to have loved and lost. It didn’t make sense. How can you celebrate losing something that important? I mean yeah, you have the memories, but the happier those memories are, the harder it is to get over them, and the more pain you feel when remembering them. But I finally got it. I loved him, I lost him, and now I’m okay. I miss him slightly, his crazy sense of humour, and the way no matter how stupid my comments were, he would always respond with something equally or more stupid. The boy had imagination, and that I respond to. But it’s made me more adult, it’s made me more independent, and it’s made me become more the person that I will be, as opposed to the person that I am now.

So while I loved and lost, what I lost was made up for by the experiences gained. The wounds aren’t still open, and I can talk to him now and only feel a faint twinge. There is still the twinge, and always will be probably. But I don’t feel wrong when I flirt with others anymore, and if I behave scandalously then I know that it is only me who will get hurt by it. I’m happier, and finally, genuinely happy to be me again.

A lot of things have gone wrong recently. For a while I truly began to hate myself. That’s one of things he gave me that I’m glad I lost. But it wasn’t just him who was to blame for it. I’m not like that anymore. I’m less needy, more self-assured, and far more confident (though considering my confidence needed little boosting before, that one isn’t necessarily so wonderful). And while it feels like the end of something. While it is the end of a lot of things really. It’s also the beginning of more. And that I could really grow to enjoy.

Anyway, enough, I have a party to organise, host, and most of all, enjoy. :D

The Final Chapter

2006-06-10T13:15:00.000+01:00

Everything is about him. My hair colour, my lucky charm necklace, the way I still check myself whenever I walk past the pub. He’s in my thoughts, my dreams, and the way I refuse to delete him from my phone book. He’s in my memories, and the perfume I wear. He’s in the eyes of other’s, and he’s the reason I have to grow my hair.

I know that I don’t love him; the intensity isn’t there. But he will forever be my Peter Pan; the boy who can’t grow up. He is my first love, my biggest obsession, and the one I gave the most to. He was a good lover, just not such a great love. He fit my requirements perfectly, he fit me perfectly, but sometimes things just don’t work.

I’ve survived. It killed me to, and I think the last time I cried that hard was at my grandma’s funeral, and that was seven years ago. I can’t pretend that it didn’t hurt me, and it took me longer than I’d admit for me to move on. I still missed him when I was dating others, and no man measured up when I was in bars. And not just because of his height.

When I was given a week to make my decision about Germany, there were many things that I thought about. One of them was him. I found the idea of sticking around here, where there are so many memories, frankly horrifying. I’ll admit that were it not for him I would not have been as anxious to leave the country. My family, my friends, my own stagnation, and the increased opportunities were I to go were taken into account too. I made my decision not because of him, but I won’t lie and say he wasn’t a factor.

Were I given the choice now, I would have made the same decision, but for different reasons. He wouldn’t have been a factor. In my mind I’ve said goodbye to him. In my dreams I’ve talked everything out with him rationally, and we both moved on. I don’t need to actually go through it anymore; that would cause more harm than good.

And the pregnancy thing helps. It’s made me realise that the idea of being tied to him in such an absolute way, even if we were not in a relationship, scares the hell out of me. I love him because he’s my Peter Pan, I won’t love the adult, and I don’t want to have my children with him. Yeah, I know that if it turns out that I am, and we haven’t yet established that, then he’ll know. I don't want him to, I don't want him there, and for him alone maybe I wouldn't tell him, but I guess for his family, for everyone, for everything, I'll have to. Though I still don't believe that I can be, and he really won't want to know.

After that I realised how pointless it would be were I to get my wish and we got back together. If we drew it out longer I’d grow to hate him. Better to keep it short and keep only the nice memories. I can never regret a minute of it, even the times when either of us made drunken idiots out of ourselves. But I don’t need to keep reliving every painful second. I don’t need to keep him in my heart; he’ll last longer in my memory.

So I say goodbye my love. You are no longer held in the confines of my heart; I set you free. When my memories fade, and my pulse grows slow, another shall be at my side. My heart will belong to someone else, but I will always have room in my memories for you. It would be impossible to forget the crazy boy who always dreamed of flying.

You’ll fly, that I promise. You’ll get the beauty who wishes to carry your slippers. And you think that you’re immortal. You’re right; to me you are. Even if emphysema and alcoholism claim you as I always promised they would, your memory will be immortal, and it’s something I shall cherish.

Moral Dilemma

2006-06-08T23:59:00.000+01:00

The idea of me being pregnant is preposterous. Firstly because my recent celibacy means that of course I can’t be. And secondly because the idea of me being a mother is simply laughable. I wouldn’t trust me with a potted plant, never mind a developing child.

Of course, if it turns out that due to some weird biological fluke that I am, then I’ll just have to deal with it somehow. I’ll truly consider all the pros and cons of both abortion, and adoption. I’ll do some research, talk to a doctor, consult a psychiatrist. I’ll phone up and find out the privacy laws for adoptions these days, and I’ll talk to someone about benefits for single, unemployed mothers.

I’ll do everything I need to for me to make a logical, considered, decision. Then I’ll phone up UCAS and tell them I’m deferring entry to university for a year, then find out about day care for babies in Edinburgh. I already know that I would neither kill it nor give it away. If I have to have it then I’ll change Northumbria to my first choice of university, and live at home. It’s a lot to ask, but I have a hugely extended family and yes, they’d be put out, but no one is going to want to send one of ours off into some random person’s arms just because I’m an inept mother. I’ll go to uni, get a degree, get a job, and be a working single mother. I’m not exactly the first.

I’ll tell you now; this is frightening. But I work best under pressure. It’s the only time I work. But I already know it’s nearly impossible for me to be pregnant, so this is entirely hypothetical anyway. It’s barely worthy of consideration at all except that planning for every eventuality means that I won’t be unprepared.

And the father. Would I tell him? I don’t know. I guess that I would have to. It’s too small a community for me not to. But that’s only if I stick around here. Would I seriously consider just not telling him? Yes. Definitely. I’m not going to ask him for anything. What could he really give? He has many good points, and eventually he’ll make a wonderful father. But tying him to me in that way would cause him to hate me.

I disagree with the type of men who say a woman “got herself” pregnant. In 99% of cases that isn’t true. I can’t say all because occasionally a broody woman will stop taking birth control in order to become pregnant. I didn’t “get myself” pregnant, but I take responsibility for the child if it exists. As a partner I miss him, but neither of us are mature enough to look after a child, and I don’t wish to force him to try. With the right woman he’ll do great, but not with me. It doesn’t matter that I expect nothing; there will be a certain responsibility if I tell him. Whether he accepts it or not, it will still be there.

What’s the point? He’s as broke as me, he’s leaving, and I know I can cope. I have the means to survive, I have my family, and I know that whatever happens, we’ll both be fine. I may not have the future I planned for myself, and I’ll have to make a few sacrifices. But happiness is subjective. A child is worth more than whether or not I sell a novel or get into university. I’m already lucky and happy enough without that.

I don’t want to stop him from seeing his child. But I don’t want him to have regrets about us either. I think I just want to do what I always do: adapt, cope, and get on by myself.

Is that wrong?

Dating Requirements

2006-06-07T17:31:00.000+01:00

My previous blog was simply a way for me to find enlightenment. It ended when the anonymity had gone, but I’d been thinking of killing it for a while before that happened. Mostly it just had to die because I got my enlightenment; I worked out who it was that I am.

This one is my search for love. Or at least for romantic happiness. I figure it’s a better thing to search for because it lasts longer, and there is less chance of me finding it. So it’s actually worth writing about. Anyway, if I am to properly search, then I should at least work out what it is that I’m searching for. So I’ve made a list. It's slightly longer than I intended.

My ideal man would be:

Tall. Height is important. It’s one of the few physical features that I ask for, so I’m not being shallow here. Or at least, not especially shallow. I average five ten/ eleven in heels, and I always wear heels. But I still enjoy looking up at a man, so short is out of the question.
GSOH. But by good, I mean my sense of humour. I want someone who is slightly ironic, and slightly nasty in their sense of humour.
Off the wall. The last guy I went on a date with was lovely, but boring. I said I was insane; he got confused thinking that I was insulting myself. If you think insane is bad, it just isn’t going to work. Crazy people do crazier things, and crazy things are fun.
Good sense of fun. I don’t mind someone who’s a big kid at heart, in fact, I prefer it. Serious types don’t do it for me; I need you to agree with me when I decide that it’d be cool to go for a walk in the rain, or try to escape out of the window. I love heights, I love rain, and I don’t like people who always need to do what’s normal.
Creative. Be it artist, writer, musician, actor, dancer (as long as he really isn’t gay, rather than gay but not quite out of the closet yet), or simply someone who just enjoys making things, or fiddling with them. It’s important.
Passionate about something. Even if that something happens to be Led Zeppelin or Exxon Mobil’s conspiracy with aliens to destroy the earth.
Strong enough to lift me up and carry me if I break a heel or twist my ankle. I’m barely over eight stones, I’m not asking for a steroid driven Sylvester Stallone type, I just want someone who isn’t weak and pathetic. Christ, I can carry my sister around and she weighs more than me.
Intelligent. Being crazy is great, and having fun is wonderful, but having conversation is good too. I don’t want an airhead, or someone who is insecure about their IQ so tells me that they never paid attention at school anyway. Einstein isn’t what I’m looking for, just someone who reads a newspaper (broadsheet, not The Sun) occasionally, and can laugh at me when I’m being obtuse.
Someone driven. To do anything. I don’t care. But telling me that you’re quite happy in a dead end job, or living with your parents for the next few years because you don’t want to miss your “home comforts”. That isn’t for me (and that isn’t nice either. I shouldn’t have mentioned that). You don’t have to want to get as far away from your parents as I do, but some ambition is important.
Someone who wants to travel. This isn’t code for someone who is rich and will fly me around the world on his private jet. I’m happy backpacking and staying in hostels, I just want to see the world. I don’t care if I don’t have a penny to my name while doing it.
Someone who understands that I have two levels and can deal with me on both. On the one hand I can act like a petulant child, and will do on fairly regular basis if I think that I’m not getting what I want. But I can also act like a self-possessed woman when I feel like it. I may act like a child at times, but I’m independent, confident, and am strong enough to go after what I want when I need to. I don’t want someone who will hold me back by treating me like a child all the time, or who expects me to always be an adult.
Someone slightly commitment phobic. If you start professing your love for me and the wish to stay with me forever in the first two weeks, I’ll either run away terrified, or laugh in your face.
Someone who can put up with my mind games. And better, someone who can play them with me, and win. I’m going to try to put you under my thumb, I want someone who’ll sneakily put me under theirs when I think that I’m managing it.

I will settle for less than is on the list. Although the height thing is compulsory actually, and the intelligence, creativity, and ironic sense of humour. Actually, most of them are pretty important. I can't help it, I know what I want, and I'll actually put up with quite a lot as long as my requirements are met. At least I'm not a gold digger.

Exhaustion

2006-06-06T23:24:00.000+01:00

Twenty six days before I leave, twenty four days until I can truly say goodbye to high school, and twenty days until my last exam. Everything is on count down, my body most of all. I’m finding it practically impossible to make the seven o clock wake up that is required if I want to get into my exams on time and unpressured. And getting a reasonable amount of sleep on top of it all just isn’t happening. Today I wrote seventeen pages of chemistry notes, and that’s just for my exam tomorrow. I have another ten exams after that. Putting everything before my scholastic endeavours is catching up, and it’s catching up now.

Caffeine is my saviour; it’s the only thing that keeps me awake through the endless onslaught of redox reactions, nuclear fission, and cereal adaptations. I’m taking it in pills and in strong cups in the morning, and at night when my eyes are starting to flicker. I’m not stressed out. I’m not worried about doing badly because I know that the amount of work that I’m putting in has to get me decent results. I’m just tired.

Procrastination is something I’ve developed into an art. I’m intelligent in that I have a reasonable IQ and can pass exams even without the work, but I’m not clever because I could be getting much better grades, and more sleep if only I had done more work last year. I won’t tell you that were I to go back I would do it all differently. I’d take advantage of the stuff I know now and go out partying. There would be a few relationships that I wouldn’t do over, but the revision? I don’t know, maybe I would. Right now I’m starting to think it might be a good idea. I can only leave the house in a pair of shades because my bags are that huge. I’m starting to look like a vampire. A vampire that isn’t getting enough sleep.

And I need a lap top. I’m going to Germany on the second of July, and I’m not coming back until the start of September. That’s two months without a computer, or any of my friends. And maybe without basic amenities like alcohol, toothpaste and hair serum if I don’t start learning the language sometime soon. But every second of my day I’m either sleeping, panicking that I don’t own concealer due to me never having needed it previously, or learning two years worth of biology, chemistry and physics. I’ve got a lot to learn without a language on top of that. I’ve got five days until I leave after my exams end, is that enough time to learn German? Somehow I doubt it as I did a year of it in year nine and all I can remember is “Ich heisse Harriet.” But then, as I said before, I’ve never been scholastically motivated. Academically motivated maybe, I’m stupidly interested in truly uninteresting things like organic chemistry and biotechnology, but put me into a classroom and even those put me to sleep.

I can always write in notepads. And if nothing else I’ll have plenty of time to learn the language when I’m over there. What else will I do? Looking after toddlers is tiring, but not exactly taxing on the brain. My blog will, unfortunately, suffer. But hey, who even reads this thing? I doubt that I will be missed particularly. All that I’ll miss is a lot of drunkenness, partying, and working at a local pub. Not certain which one yet, but waitressing is just one of those jobs that you can walk into anywhere if you’ve already spent two and a half years doing it, and it’s the holiday season.

I know that the next thing I am going to do is get into bed and lie awake for the next three hours wishing I could sleep, but I’m going to do that anyway because my eyes are tired, I look like Dracula, and I still want to sleep after three cups of coffee. That’s a pretty good sign that it’s time for me to at least try to sleep. Plus, I have three hours of chemistry to look forward to tomorrow, it would be good if I get enough sleep to survive those three hours without falling asleep in the middle of the exam. I'm pretty sure that's something they don't approve of.

Searching the Horizon

2006-06-04T21:39:00.000+01:00

When I was really young my gran gave me a jewellery box. It was a sort of strange purple colour, but pretty. When I opened it there was a ballerina that popped up from a spring at the back, and she’d twirl to a twanging xylophone type music that sounded maudlin at best. You couldn’t see her features, the box wasn’t expensively made and I’m guessing they just couldn’t find a paint brush that was small enough to do justice to her features. I always imagined that she’d be crying though. I know that if I had my feet glued to a spring and had to dance every time such sad music came on, I’d cry.

I knew that she was beautiful too though. The music had a slightly ethereal quality to it, and for music like that you can only envisage the figure to be like Liv Tyler in Lord of the Rings; ghostly, but beautiful too. She’d have her hair whipping in the wind, face looking steadily into the distance, searching for something, maybe happiness. I had a dream of her too. I dreamt that one day she found her feet free, she could escape, lifting the lid of the box silently and running away into the dark to go and find what she’d spent so long looking for in the horizon. One day the box broke. The music just stopped playing, she stopped her faceless twirling, and while there was still the little plastic figure in a tutu there, I felt that its soul had fled. I kept the box for years and years longer than I really should have. It was broken, and started to get tatty. But I couldn’t throw it out, even with her soul gone; it felt like I was somehow not honouring her memory. A child can dream.

We’re all looking for something. We’re waiting for our princes to find us, for the time that it would be right to escape into the sunset; we’re hoping to find ourselves. And, over time, we find what we’re looking for. We get our chance to run, we escape, experience new places and people. We taste new cultures, and look in wonder at the beauty of everything we experience. We meet many princes in our travels, and realise that just because they’re princes, they aren’t always as wonderful as we first believe. And sometimes, they’re even better than we first suspected. We grow, gain knowledge, and one day realise that we are the person we were waiting, trying, to become. We learn wisdom, and we learn how little it is that we know.

Lots of people have helped me become who I am. And at least twice that will help me become better in future. My gran gave me everything that is good about me, and my mom taught me tolerance. My sister taught me that it’s easy to be duped and about ruthlessness. She also taught me the fragility behind even the hardest, strongest façade. My dad taught me the most probably. He taught me that creativity doesn’t equal riches, no matter how good you are. He taught me how to be an adult, and how to survive. He’s also taught me that those you believe to be infallible are rarely ever so.

My most recent lesson was Dave. He taught me that I have a heart. And, subsequently, taught me that it could be broken. He taught me that it’s possible to find joy in sitting inside a train station, he taught me to notice the stupid things that we normally overlook, and he taught me that even though sometimes we lose things and that it kills us when we do, it’s possible to be okay at the end of it. I was beginning to be scared that there wasn’t going to be a time when I would be able to look back without wincing, without reliving every single aspect in painful detail. But it is, I can, and next time I have my heart broken, it won’t be so horrifying because I’ll know that it’s possible to get through it all. I can survive, be happy, and I don’t need to be in a relationship for that to happen.

So, I stand before you now. The people who have taught me in the past can only watch from the sidelines now, they are no longer the major players. My childhood has come to a rather abrupt end, and I’ve got to go out into the world on my own and pretend to be an adult. I’ve got to wake myself up in the mornings, make my own breakfast, and walk out the door without anyone to wish me goodbye. I’ve got to take heed of the lessons taught me, and hope that they make me a decent enough human being to interact with others. And I’m scared that I’m not up to it. When I turned eighteen people made reference to me being an adult, then laughed. I know I’ll never grow up; I’ll always be a child in so many ways. But maybe I’m mature enough to be adult too when it’s important. Maybe it’s enough to be who I am and carry on anyway.

A figment of my hypochondria

2006-06-02T20:49:00.000+01:00

I'm not pregnant. I know that it is physically impossible for me to be pregnant. I mean, I've put on a lot of weight, but that's normal for someone my age. If I was pregnant then I would have missed my period last month as well. I have absolutely nothing to worry about. It's just that I haven't looked at my calendar for a while, and when I looked at it today, well, I'm actually pretty late. Like really quite late. It was due on the twenty second. And normally my predictions are a day off. At most.

Normally I would say that it was probably me stressing that had caused it to be weird. But I haven't stressed. I forgot about it entirely. And I'm not really that stressed with anything else either. I'm scairily unstressed considering that I'm going to Germany in a month and have my exams in three days time. The last few weeks I've been really relaxed. Though very hungry. I'm always hungry. Could that cause me to miss it? Putting on weight? That would make sense. Probably.

I'd make a terrible mother. I can't be pregnant. I'd kill it. Or forget about it and leave it somewhere. Look at me! I'm referring to the kid as an "it". Though now that I try to stop calling it an it, I can't actually think of another name for it. Jesus, names. I'd have to name it, and feed it, and... well whatever else you do with kids other than yell at them and break your back carrying them around. I'm good with children, yeah, but I can't have one of my own! I'd get drunk and stand on it or something. In stillettos. That would really really hurt. This is not good.

What if I am pregnant? Beccy was six months gone before she realised because she kept getting her periods. She only found out about two weeks ago when she went to talk to the doctor about methods of contraception, they did a pregnancy test, and suddenly, "did you know you were pregnant?" It's possible. My period was pretty soon after we had sex, and it was actually really strange. And it lasted about two days, that's unusual even for me.

Right. I am not going to stress about this. If I am pregnant then I shall deal with it, but otherwise there is no point. I don't need to worry. It will all be because I have put on weight recently. The weight gain is not because there is an embryo developing inside me.

Aaaaaaaaagh! Horrible thought. Me and Dave as parents. Christ. A few months ago we actually made a list of all the resons why we should never have children together. We're immature. We don't agree about anything. We're both crazy alcoholic idiots. We didn't add that in sixteen days he's going off to the Navy, but then, at the time it wasn't sixteen days away. Not that it really matters. If we have a kid then it won't be "us" having it. It'll be me. I mean great, if he wants to have anything to do with it then fine, I'm not gonna keep the kid from seing it's daddy, (this is all under the assumption that the kid exists and is not just a figment of my hypochondria) but I'm not going to expect that either. We had a scare before. I wasn't this late last time actually, but whatever, I have never seen anyone go so white. He was freaked.

I haven't even talked to him since the start of last month. And then we were just fighting. What do I do? Randomly phone him out of the blue, "Hey, good luck with the Navy, try not to come back too camp, and by the way, you're going to be a father"? Nope. Not stressing remember? I've really got to get round to learning meditation or something. I'm sure I've made some kind of resolution to learn either yoga or meditation. That would really come in handy right now.

Okay. Breathing deeply. I need a mantra. "I am not pregnant, but if I am it will not ruin my life. It will be an asset and a gift." Are mantra's allowed to be longer than one sentence? And should I be repeating this while sitting cross-legged, or is it okay to be in a chair? Do I need to face the east and say a prayer too? Christ. Now I'm starting to worry about whether or not I'm highly strung. It would seem so from this, but is it really something I should be worrying about when potentially there is a mini-me growing in my womb? I don't think so. I've really got to get a grip.

I could always get an abortion. Though killing my first-born before it's even born seems slightly too Old Testament, and the reason I'm a vegetarian is because I'm against killing. I can't kill my own kid! I may already be convinced it's going to turn into a whiny brat that will probably get taken away by the social services, but even a crappy life with me as a mother has to be better than simply not existing. I don't think my parenting skills will be that bad. I hope.

I don't want to be pregnant. I want to be eighteen, about to go to uni, and single. I don't want to be stuck with a blood tie to the ex that made me cry, and I really don't want to have to look after a munchkin on top of trying not to be kicked out of uni. I'd never be able to go out. I can't afford a baby never mind a baby sitter.

Damn. I'm going to go and either cry, or find a book on meditation. Maybe both.

Reverting to the Ice Queen

2006-06-01T23:59:00.000+01:00

I don't want to be alone right now. I guess I don't want to be alone a lot of the time. But right now somehow feels different, worse. This is when my resolve is slipping. I'm starting to think of calling someone in my phonebook, starting to think maybe that being with anyone would be better than sitting here on my own. I'm starting to think less like myself, and more like the scared, lonely, little girl.

The thing that I most hate about books is that nine times out of ten there's a happy ending. Everyone falls in love, lives happily ever after. But we don't. It isn't real. Not just that it's fictional, but in real life we break up, Prince Charming can't keep his eyes from wandering and Cinderella keeps on going way over on his credit card because of her love of Jimmy Choos. And in the end there is a nasty break up, they miss each other, but fuck if they're going through all that heart break again.

And there are so many men out there. So many untried, like a huge buffet and you've only started to taste the apetizers. But we can't go through every man, and if you get a stomach ache after your first bite, do you really want to come back for more? With people of course it's different. We have to come back whether we got food poisoning and couldn't get out of bed for three weeks solid. There's always celibacy in the name of religion, but most people don't truly want to give up on love, we just want to hate the person who made us doubt it for a while.

I don't doubt love. I guess I did before I met him, but now I know that I can fall in love. So if I've done it once, then I can do it again. Theoretically. We have a debate. Jenny is with a friend of mine, and they say that they're in love. But they've only been together for a month now, and only see each other once a week. The debate is whether or not they can actually be in love. I won't say who's doing the debating. And maybe it is love. Who knows but them? It took me a long time to work out that I was in love, but I wasn't feeling anything different to what I felt in the first three weeks, I just didn't want to admit to myself that I loved him. Honestly, it scared the hell out of me, and I didn't want to love someone who didn't love me back.

I can't judge whether they're in love. I can tell you that what I had initially was mutual lust, and it turned into love for me, and disinterest for him. But I can't judge others because when I see them together they're with other people, they aren't alone, and I don't know the dynamics of the relationship at all. I can say that in my opinion it probably isn't, but who am I to judge that? I couldn't say that to her, and I'm more than willing to reconsider.

I've spent a very long time believing love to be a myth. Obviously a nice myth. I guess I've just treated it in the same way that I've treated religion. Both seem nice theoretically, but are they real? And finding out that it was, that hurt more than my cynicism. My cynicism protected me, and when it left it was like being stripped naked, but not in a good way. Needless to say it was a very bad relationship. Another thing that I learnt was that even though love is nice in theory, it isn't always nice, sometimes it's a complete bitch. You don't want it, and when you really really don't want it, that's when it decides to come and fuck with you.

Love is supposed to be everything. It's supposed to make you wake up one day and think everything is beautiful. It's supposed to enrich your life. And from what I see of other people, I guess it does that for them. My cynicism had an unexpected side effect. It meant that when I did fall in love, I was completely and utterly unprepared. Next time I won't be so much.

I've been naive and stupid. And for a a long time I really stopped acting like myself. But this isn't better. I'm out, I'm free, but I'm not happy. I don't understand why it's so impossible to be happily single anymore. I hate that I envy those who are happy. And I despise that I've become bitter and lonely. I'll have many relationships, I'll be fine, and I won't be lonely. The lonliness is temporary, and not something I worry about, I just don't enjoy coping with it at the moment. But trust in love is something I've lost. I believe that it exists now, and as far as I'm concerned it can fuck off. I don't want it, I'm happier without it, and I act like an idiot when I'm in it. I'm not doing it again. It's been two months and I'm still totally fucked up about it. I've had enough. I'm going to go back to being the ice queen, at least then it was me who was in control.

When I Grow Up

2006-05-30T18:30:00.000+01:00

Foam runs down the outside of the windows as I write. There's a dull roar from the jet wash as it sprays water at the car. It reminds me of carwashes when I was a kid. My sister and I used to sit in the front seat and pretend we were driving through a storm. We had overactive imaginations, as kids always seem to have, and there wasn't any situation we couldn't turn into a make believe disaster of some sort.

At the bottom of our garden (we had a BIG garden) there were these two trees. One was a really big fir, and the other was an old oak. The branches would cross over and formed a huge canopy that blocked out the sun. We'd climb up into the branches with long sticks and pretend we were pirates fighting off the enemy. Generally the enemy was the red squirrels for whom the trees were home, but occasionally my dad or brother would take the role when telling us to come in for tea.

As I sit in the car I can nearly feel my sister sitting beside me, telling me to drive faster, that if we weren't careful the lightening would hit us, telling me that we need to get home. She'd squeal in mock fright as the huge fluffy rollers came down over the windscreen, and we'd both giggle when our dad told us to quit playing around. Giggling was a large part of being a kid, and I guess it's the one thing that I don't think I'll ever let go of. I still giggle like a school girl given the chance, and though it's time to move past that, grow up a little, I don't think giggling is something I'll let myself give up.

She asked me the other day: "We used to be such great friends, we were so close, what happened to that?" And for a day I thought about it, went over all the reasons why we weren't close anymore, and then as we were getting ready to leave the house today I found the answer. I was sitting on the window sill looking out the window, and she was standing facing the mirror in the centre of the room preening.

"How do I look, does this top work? Am I showing too much flesh?" It isn't cold outside, but it's cool. There is a wind, and I chose to wear a scarf along with my layers today. She was stood in a black halter neck that showed both her navel and ninety nine per cent of her cleavage. Along with hipster three quarter length jeans and flip flops. You wouldn't say that I'm one who is scared of showing flesh, far from, but I am susceptible to the cold, even though I was brought up in Northumberland and girls around here are practically immune.

I didn't point this out to her though. I learnt long ago that telling a fifteen year old to wear a jacket is about as worth while as telling a morris dancer that the bells aren't actually compulsory and really they're starting to give you a headache. And anyway, I was pretty much the same at her age. What I realised as I sat there watching her getting ready was that I don't have anything to talk about with her anymore. We used to have insanity and a crazy imagination in common, it was us against the rest of the world- the grown ups, and we were all each other had. Now we're doing so very different things. We're still both incredibly creative, but she channels it into her appearance, whereas I use my writing as an outlet.

Friendships always seem to fall apart because people just drift. We do different things, meet different people, I spend very little time at home, and because of it our friendship has suffered. When you add in sibling rivalry it all just seems to collapse. And I miss it all. I miss being a kid, I miss playing at pirates, or princesses or dancing around the garden in summer singing along to the Spice Girls. I miss it so much, but it's never going to come back.

One day I'll be able to watch my own kids acting like loonies, and I guess that will make it better. Being an adult makes up for it, not thinking of men as something you either run away from or attack is pretty good. And being able to order coffee without the parent/ guardian frowning at me is good too. Though really I could do with someone to hamper my caffeine intake. It's getting silly.

Growing up is something that I'm starting to come to terms with. Leaving home being the biggest problem for me, but as I only have a month left... It has its perks, and I wouldn't go back no matter how much I miss it. I can't just stop myself from reminiscing whenever something jolts my memory.

Plasticity, single life, and suicidal tendencies

2006-05-28T01:16:00.000+01:00

I’ll cry it from the roof tops with a smile on my face and joy in my heart, then I’ll down my double vodka, turn around, and fall backwards. It’s a double edged sword, to quote, trample, and obliterate a cliché. See, the thing is, no matter how happy you are, you still hate going home to an empty bed, being able to mark in your diary when the last time you have sex was, and the realisation that it was nearly two months ago.

And of course it isn’t (and this is a direct quote from Stacey, not cliché) all about sex. But when you don’t have to go without for longer than two days at a time, then yes, you do have the luxury of saying that. She is, of course, completely and utterly correct. But then, you could also say that life isn’t all about breathing. Breathing isn’t even something you think about until you stop being able to do it. And then it sort of catches up with you a little bit, you know? You start feeling a little light headed, you get tense, and you really can’t stop thinking about all this breathing you aren’t doing. A slightly exaggerated case I’ll admit, but the results are pretty similar.

Let’s put this in language that any lame brain can understand: being single, in a word, sucks. It’s wonderful; I adore it, the freedom, the not having to worry about your boyfriend getting jealous, the not getting jealous yourself. All of that, great, isn’t it? But if it’s so fantastic, why are all these people going out there, being single, and trying to pull people? Surely if you were so fucking ecstatic with your status, you wouldn’t do anything to risk it? Yeah you can date and be single, I’m good at that. But if the date went really well, really really well, then you’d want to see that person again and enjoy their company for a second date, and then maybe a third.

And suddenly you end up realising that you’ve just spent the last however long with someone and that you’re going to get married. You loved being single so much, so you’re starting to wonder what happened to that a little bit. Not that you’d risk this utterly fantastic person for being able to sleep wherever you wanted, and eat pizza at two am with the random drunk person that you met five minutes ago who also didn’t pull this evening. Being with this person is worth more than that.

Who, more than me, has made being single into such an art that it’s practically a religion? I love my life. I adore it, and I wouldn’t give it up for anyone. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel slightly put off when I’m sitting on the bus alone, going home while my friend sits behind me and texts her boyfriend. You realise that the closest you’ve come to intimacy that night is a guy in the seat opposite you blatantly trying to see up your, admittedly too short, skirt.

You’ve gone to all this effort, tried to turn yourself out to look half decent, and you’ve got no one who cares. I don’t begrudge her having a boyfriend to text; I just wish that it could be as effortless for me too. I won’t give up being single right now. But that isn’t because I don’t miss the companionship. It’s for practical reasons like me having exams for the next month, and then me leaving for Germany five days after the exams finish.

I enjoy the life style, and I know that changing it is beyond stupid. I know that it isn’t all about sex, and that I’m still far too young for it to be of any consequence at all if I spend a few months dating a few people rather than in a proper relationship. Yeah, rational thought occasionally does take a detour through my brain. But I have my cracks; I can’t be vivacious, crazy or drunk all the time.

Sometimes I have to sit here and wish that I was more “plastic” so that if I did something as demanding as expected someone to buy me a drink, they wouldn’t run off after someone else as attractive, but less demanding. Call me sexist, or a gold digger, or just plain ugly, but that’s what I expect, and that you wouldn’t expect that too… I’m not sure whether to be insulted, or well, insulted. It’s actually pretty hard not to be.

So, while I keep being demanding and over confident in my appearance, I’ll also have to be sad. Sad that I’m alone, lonely, and hating coupled up people everywhere. I don’t hate you personally, I just don’t think that I want to leave the house or be subjected to your happiness for a while. It’s all very anti-social, but fuck it, if I’m going to be miserable, then I intend to do it properly.

This is me crying it from the roof tops. “I’m siiiiiinnnnnnnnnggggglllllllleeeeeee!” And it’s great. I love it, but yeah, sometimes turning around and seeing what it would be like to just fall backwards, that doesn’t seem so bad.

P.S. this is more metaphorical than real. I don’t hang out on roofs, and it isn’t in my nature to be suicidal.

Remember Me

2006-05-25T16:43:00.000+01:00

When I’m cold and lonely, when only the local vicar visits me on a regular basis. When my face is not wrinkled, but so far past that the wrinkles have wrinkles of their own. When the world is a completely different place, where technology that seems miraculous to us now, is the norm. When my six cats are my constant companions and my grandchildren suffer my company with a frown.

When I live in a bungalow, and have my food made for me by a nurse. When I write my signature with a wobble of my wrist, and sorrow in my heart. When sitting down hurts, and standing up seems impossible. When I walk with a cane, and leave the house only when I really must. When every room smells of old people, and I grow to despise the young. When I feel awkward and useless, when I doze off in the sun.

When those I know now are all dying, when I throw out my clocks to forget the ticking. When children laugh as I walk by, when a slight fall could end my life. When arthritis is the devil’s work, and hospitals a regular drop in. When I turn to religion as a last resort, to hope that when it’s over, there is something.

When I genuinely forget important dates like my anniversary. When I keep a photo above the fireplace of the husband who is no longer with me. When a cake is no longer big enough to even hold half the candles that my years require. When a cool breeze sets a chill to my bones, and freezes my soul in summer. When forever becomes a myth and right now is not enough. When the immortality of youth seems a distant and pathetic illusion.

Remember me.

Ode to Albatrosses

2006-05-24T12:33:00.000+01:00

She sits on the edge of the seat. Her back is as far from the cold metal as she can while still technically sitting. Her fingers are clenched around the edge, balancing her as she perches. Her feet are held of the freezing concrete, bare and boasting manicured, though now slightly chipped, nails.

She’s going home. Her blistered feet look bruised, purple, strange in the morning light, and out of the heels that are now held in her hand. The skirt and top that made up her outfit last night now look crumpled, bare minus the accessories that are now stuffed in her bag. The unmade-up face is pale, miserable with her hangover.

I’ve done it so many times. Hair scragged back in the clip I remembered to cram into my bag two minutes before leaving the night before. Feet bleeding, the soles on fire. That’s why I hate winter so much- the number of times I’ve walked barefoot through snow rather than brave my shoes again. Rain is pretty awful, but snow is the worst.

So we sit, cold, miserable, and regretting the circumstances that put us here. We have flashbacks in our delirious, hung over state. Memories of misery, embarrassment, of the men who still lie in their beds content, but refuse to lie in ours.

I never seem to make the right choices. Love is like flight. It takes a while, and sometimes it can be hard work, but if it works then you’ll go places that you’ve never even dreamed of before. Albatrosses can fly for thousands of miles; they can go for however many kilometres without even flapping their wings. I’ll never be like the albatross, love is hard for me, awkward, in the flight scenario I’m probably going to end up more like a big clumsy duck than an albatross. But at least a duck can fly. I hurt too quickly, and every time I start to think that I might be taking off, something goes wrong.

I’ve chosen the wrong men, I’ve chosen to do things too early, too late, and with some I act too much like myself, with others not enough. It’s all too hard, too painful. I don’t want to try again, the first trial hurt too much. So I’ll sit here on my bench, in the cold, and waiting for my bus to arrive with the driver that barely speaks English and doesn’t know the difference between a single and a return. This is easier, this I’m used to, and though this is utterly killing me, its physical pain rather than mental, and that I can handle.

Time flies when you're having fun...

2006-05-22T17:28:00.000+01:00

"I wouldn't like to think that this had been one of those dates where you knew within the first ten minutes that it wasn't going to work out, and then spent the rest of the date looking at your watch and feeling really uncomfortable."

I immediately shifted my arm so that it didn't look like I'd been about to check the time, and flashed him a nervous grin. "Of course it wasn't like that! I've had fun."

He smiles, "Good, I didn't think, I was just checking, you seem happy enough."

Well, he was at least good at summing up the date in one sentence. Though horribly wrong at both body language and having even a bit of a clue about me.

It dragged. He was lovely, Confetti was hilarious, though marginally inappropriate as a first date film really, and the atmosphere was good. The only thing lacking was any chemistry whatsoever. Evidently he didn't feel the same. His parting comment: "All good things must come to an end... unfortunately." To which I hastily kissed him on the cheek and then ran down the bus with as much poise as I could on a moving bus and approximately two minutes before I would normally even contemplate getting up and wandering down the aisle. Generally I just press the button and make the driver wait for me, this time we had a nice chat about driving in the dark before he pulled in.

I was ready to go home at nine. I was tired, we'd seen the film, and I knew that it wasn't exactly a Romeo and Juliet match. And we would of, we were within metres of the bus station and freedom when he decided, "I feel like going for a drink." It was blurted, quick, he didn't want to go. So I let him drag me in for two hours. Two hours so that we could just catch the last bus, two hours of awkward silences and me inwardly berating myself for flirting with other men over his shoulder. And that was the worst thing about it all. Every other man in there could tell that I was bored stiff and cold for his company, except him. People were laughing. And when he started leaning in closer and steering the conversation towards sex, normally I'm in my element. Even my dad thinks I'm queen of the innuendo. But all I could do was nod, look uncomfortably about me for some sign of relief, and then decide it was time to take a toilet break. And come on, when someone starts talking about how they're really quite dirty...

So I sent Stacey a text saying that I wasn't going to earn my double points on this one, and then went out, downed my drink, and said that we'd better go catch the bus. Which meant another hour of awkward silences and me edging away from him in the seat, but at least we were in the home stretch. I did, admittedly, contemplate getting off the bus on the A1 somewhere and walking it when he brought up further dates, but I contained my urges to run, and not-so-subtly dropped hints that I had too much going on with the exams, and that my break up with the numpty was still fresh in my mind. Bullshit really, but even that was over his head. "You'll be able to get at least one night off sometime, you can't work all the time. And you need someone who will treat you better than he did." All true, so awkward to argue with.

And now I have to think of some way to let him down nicely. I can't just ignore his texts and phone calls because he's Stacey's boyfriend's best friend. Or one of them. And I see him in the pubs all the time. A lot of the time he's in the group that I'm going out with. He's going to be impossible to avoid, and he'll be crushed that I'm not interested. Damn.

Why even bother?

2006-05-18T22:20:00.000+01:00

I used to sit waiting for my phone to ring. I haven't been doing that recently. I guess He weaned me off that. Lately I really haven't cared. I guess it's due to my own insecurity, but I needed it to vibrate, I needed to be reminded that there was someone out there in the ether who gave the tiniest amount of a fuck about me. But recently none of it has mattered.

And the irony is that now someone actually does care about me. I've always got someone who is talking to me, someone who cares that little bit. I don't have the Bastard who made everything go wrong, or Him anymore. The Bastard made me insecure, but it took Him to make me cry. With Him everything just sort of fell apart at the edges. Everyone seems to be under the impression that with us it was just sex. And I don't know, it seemed more than that at the time.

There was a LOT of chemistry. But he also made me be myself. With others I'd felt so fake, like I was trying to be this person, this outgoing, happy person, who everyone would like. With him I could be the pedantic whiney child every so often and he didn't mind. We both let each other act like kids or adults depending on our moods. And sometimes it was too good, it felt like I could lose it at any time. We were good in a sort of explosive way. We didn't fight, but we were both moody and sometimes fighting can break the ice rather than have us both boiling under the surface, but not actually saying anything to each other about it. Not that it helped when I really got annoyed and told him who he was. That pissed him off more than anything else. He suddenly became too "busy" to call me, he only paid me any attention when he wanted sex, and he couldn't be arsed to see me for periods of up to two weeks at a time.

I look back with wistfulness at the good stuff. The ways he could make me feel when he was being nice, the times that we really clicked mentally, and the times when we joked around. And I miss him, but I always said that I wasn't going to let him make me cry. When he did I knew it was over. He made a lot of apologies, and excuses, and he did all the stuff. But he didn't care anymore, it was as fake as it had been with everyone else. And I guess that's what hurt more than anything else- that someone could just stop like that. The sex was still good, better even, but falling asleep afterwards, and waking up in the morning detracted from it all. I guess that the sex was only better because I felt like I had something to lose, so I tried harder to keep him there. And the mornings were so shit because I knew that it wasn't working. It was better, it was really good, but in the end it wasn't enough.

Thinking that it could be was naive, being hurt when it wasn't was stupid. It was a losing battle, and then I'd lost. I knew I'd lost when he went to his friend's, but he didn't want to see me. It dragged for a week and a half after that, but I knew it was over. Admittedly I didn't make things that much better. I treated it like it was over, and I had a flirtation with someone else that I wouldn't have let get that far had I not decided it was over. But he didn't know about it, and as it ended four days later I don't really think it was that relevant.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I feel like I'm drifting through men simply so I don't have to sit back, look at myself, and realise that I'm alone. Every time I receive a text, or phone call, I'm just thinking "what's the point?" It isn't him, and he's the only person that really matters. I've got a date tomorrow and I used to be enthused. I used to have hopes, I used to care. Now I'm only thinking about it in an "it's going to cost me this much for this, and more for that" way. I haven't even thought about what I'm going to wear yet.

I can't say that I don't like him, and that I don't like the idea of spending a night with him. But he won't be the same, he won't be as good, and I'm sitting here wishing for someone else. Why am I doing this at all?

Things I miss

2006-05-14T19:42:00.000+01:00

Holding hands
Sex
Phoning up and boasting about how brilliant I am because I've had a great interview, etc.
Having someone tell me I'm sexy.
Acting smug around my friends (who are now getting it more than me, so returning the favour).
Looking into their eyes and thinking "I love you."
Kissing in the rain
Kissing over the bar
Kissing anywhere
Laughing at him for loving his car too much.
Telling him you'd love a threesome: does he know any men who'd be interested?
Getting Valentine's cards (though I know it's not February).
Having to put heels on to kiss him.
Falling off the bed and him pulling me back up with one hand because I'm so light.
Being carried home on a saturday night because my feet are all cut up from my heels.
Having arguments about which is better: Guinness or Southern Comfort?
Him criticising me for reading Terry Pratchett, me criticising him for his inability to read the DaVinci code without falling asleep.
Drunkenly both singing along to Wheetus "Teenage Dirtbag", and Guns 'n Roses "Sweet Child of Mine".
Being hit on the head by my friend for acting indecently in public.
Having someone hold me round my waist and putting his head down on mine so we're nose to nose and looking into each other's eyes.
Being kissed at the base of my neck.
Waking up with someone's arms around me.
Playing with the dogs and him laughing when one jumped on to me and pushed me over.
Walking through the snow together.
Conversations about how I'd like to own a farm and he'd like a zoo.
Arguing over where Portugal is.
Me sitting under his arm while he played on the playstation, and him keeping me there even though I'd offered to move and it meant that he lost, just because he liked me being there.
Deciding that for his next birthday I would buy him a train.
Cooking pasta together.
Him.

Poetry

2006-05-13T18:13:00.000+01:00

I have a large red folder marked “Poetry.” In this folder there are approximately two hundred different poems varying from crappy to relatively readable. I don’t write poetry that often as I find making up worlds and sticking them down on paper is preferable. It helps me to escape better. But poetry is better for summing things up. Over ninety per cent of them are to do with relationships, longing, lust, love. Most of them are miserable.

There’s a guy. He’s… sweet. I met him back in September, but at the time I wasn’t interested. As usual I was chasing after someone who was bad for me and generally turned into a disaster. I didn’t even start to get to know him until I was with Dave, another disaster. Now I’m changing my mind. But I’m also incredibly confused. I’ve never even considered him as potential boyfriend material simply because he’s nice, and nice isn’t exactly what I go for. It is in fact, the complete opposite. But I’ve got to the point where I’ve realised that I can’t complain about being treated like shit when I deliberately go out looking for men who are going to treat me badly. I’ve got to change the men I go after.

But he’s too nice. Waaaaaaay too nice. And I couldn’t just have a fling with him. I don’t think I’m ready for anything more than a fling. I hate looking through that big red folder and getting flash backs. I hate being tied to one man when what I really want to do is act completely scandalously. But I prefer to have certain things on tap, and I miss the companionship.

I’m being horrifically selfish. If I didn’t think that I could leave it for a few weeks and still come back to him then I wouldn’t be taking so much time deciding. I’d have already made a final decision: yes or no. I guess what puts me off is that I’d have to chase him. Generally I like to be chased to a certain extent. But again, look at the men that I’ve been with before. They chased me, but in the end…

I’m thinking things through too much when what I should really be doing is just seeing what happens. I’m breaking all of my own rules by agonising over this, and I’m not really acting anything like myself. But the poems have worried me. I’ve put everything into them; every stupid piece of imagery. Every bloody sentence shows how hurt I’ve been, how much in love, how fucking stupid. I don’t know if I can do that all over again. This time it isn’t the rejection I’m scared of. It’s the fact that if I let him in then I’m giving him permission to hurt me. Permission to cause me the same pain all over again. And I just don’t know if I want to give anyone permission to do that ever again.

Distractions

2006-05-06T11:34:00.000+01:00

Woke up and the phone was ringing. Looked at the clock, ten thirty. On a Saturday morning. Caller ID: Ryan. Huh??? Do I know someone called Ryan?

"Hi, do you remember me from last night?" deep male voice. Ah.

It was eleven o clock. Katy had phoned her mum and we had half an hour before we had to go home. Why do I suddenly have a flashback to when I was fifteen? Katy had had too much to drink, and wasn't really up to standing up without leaning on something, and dancing was out of the question. I was still sober.

He was shorter than I usually go for. By five inches. Actually, that isn't fair. I have a history of adoring men who are stupidly tall. The last three were 6'5'', 6'4'' and 6'3''. He was the acceptably average height of approximately 5'11''. The same height as me in heels basically. Dark hair, maybe a seven out of ten. An extra few inches and we could up that to an eight and a half. Though I usually make a point of avoiding men who have piercings, especially two. But they were on his ear (one ear, not a piercing per ear). I'm not sure how acceptable that is. His defining feature was that he was watching me like cats watch ducklings with broken wings.

He'd walked past me a few times with solid eye contact, but we'd been there for about forty five minutes and it looked like it'd take him at least that again before he got the nerve to come and talk to me. I hate men like that. Though apparently not enough to stop myself from turning to Katy, "I'll be back in a minute."

Edged myself in between his friends, "Hi, I'm Harriet. You got a girlfriend?"
Large smile, "I'm Ryan, and no I don't. You got a boyfriend?"
"No. I..." changed my mind about admitting how recent that particular change in social status was. The last thing I want people to think is that I'm on the rebound.
He looked shocked and puts his arm around me, "Really? I can't believe that. Are you sure a girl like you doesn't have a boyfriend? I've been watching you for the last two hours."

He obviously wasn't much of one for accuracy as I hadn't been there for two hours, but I gave him my number anyway and left with a falling over Katy. He's going back to work on Tuesday. I don't know where work is for him, but I'm assuming that it means that I won't see him for a while. The information I got was sketchy due to him having absolutely no reception wherever he was calling from, and also the fact that he was horrifically hung over. He wants to see me before Tuesday.

There's a house across the way from me. The guy who lives in it pulled last night. I know this because we're directly opposite and there is a girl standing in the window in a top that she quite obviously was wearing last night, applying make up. I miss that guy laughing at me when I said goodbye on the doorstep to Dave on a Saturday morning. The privacy isn't spectacular for anyone around here. But I miss having reason to wish that it was better. Later I'll laugh at him.

A relationship is the last thing that I'm going to allow myself to get into at the minute. But celibacy is pretty high on the list of things that I don't wish to be at the minute as well. So maybe I'll see Ryan before Tuesday. He's nice, and he phoned me at half ten in the morning. The morning after I met him. He's either insane or extremely interested.

I need some kind of distraction, and if he takes the form of a distraction for me then, for a while, that might be alright.

My Life's Soundtrack

2006-05-01T15:56:00.000+01:00

If my life were a movie, and not just a giant disaster, these are the songs that would be featured on it.

Bittersweet Syphony - The Verve
Colourblind - Counting Crows
I don't want to miss a thing - Aerosmith
Gone Going - Blackeyed Peas
Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls
Dancing in the Moonlight - Toploader
Like a Star - Corinne Bailey Rae
Mardy Bum - Arctic Monkeys
Stop Crying Your Heart Out - Oasis
Everybody Hurts - REM
Even Angels Fall - Jessica Riddle
Song 2 - Blur
Forever Young - The Youth Group
Buck Rogers - Feeder
Hurt - Johnny Cash

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

2006-05-01T15:35:00.000+01:00

You know you're still in love when:

You still read his horoscope right after yours.
You dance outrageously where you know he can see you just so he knows that you're over him.
You still get happy, though now slightly bitter, flashbacks of sitting on the train with him, waking up in his arms, getting into mock fights with him, etc.
You have to delete a whole load of songs from your ipod because they remind you far too much of him.
You cry when you hear a song that reminds you of him.
You sit around all day making stupid lists.
You turn your phone on silent and turn vibrate off just so that if he calls you, you aren't tempted to pick up.
You dye your hair a stupid colour just because it would really really piss him off.
You're listening to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack while writing this.
Somehow you can manage to hate him completely, while still miss him so much that it physically hurts.
You really want to punch the monitor right now.

Drifting in the Ocean

2006-04-25T21:57:00.000+01:00

They threw clods of earth at the walls, the windows, the door. Not one square inch was left clear of the mud they threw that day. Broken prams appeared overnight in the centre of the lawn, bricks broke the car windows. Graffiti on the front door. It was an endless onslaught.

My brother would go out for a few hours and come back bruised. A black eye. A broken nose. He learnt to be a survivor, grew up too quickly. Lost his childhood to common racism, xenophobia, and an inept mother. His story is sadder than mine. As a writer I'd give everything I own to tell it, as a sister I'd give my life to take away his pain.

I wasn't allowed outside after dark. Not even in the garden. He took my hand. Told me I was pretty, said he wanted to play. He led me down the garden path, stroked my arm, said that we should play "mummies and daddies". He was only a kid too. Fifteen, sixteen years old, a fucking child himself. They say that your sexuality is expressed from childhood so, then, is paedophilia? He got me as far as across the street before he was stopped. I'm still not sure whether it was my dad or my brother that stopped him. But for his sins, my brother nearly put him in hospital. And that kid was three years older than him. At that age three years makes a difference. I hope to god that kid is in prison now. And I hope he was just trying to get what he could, where he could, rather than it being an expression of paedophilia at a young age. Maturation would not make him better.

I haven't been back there in years. A few years ago I read about an Asian boy being knifed on the main street, and then after that there were the three Pakistani kids that were beaten to death outside the chip shop by a gang of kids. A gang of kids who probably lived on the same estate I did. A gang of kids I probably knew and was ridiculed by.

Now I'm just as likely to get asked for sex because of who I am. But even, "I've never had an Asian chick before" is better than leading a four year old, who doesn't know what's going on, away into the darkness. And mud isn't thrown at the house here, I can walk down the street without people looking at me or my family with disgust in their eyes. I still get the occasional person making a derogatory comment about the "fucking Chink," but it isn't that common.

I know racism. I know it inside out, upside down, and from the very worst perspective. And Jesus Christ do I know pain: both my own and other's. But pain is an ocean. And when you're left drifting in an ocean you have one of two choices: sink or swim. Maybe you won't find the shore in time to survive, and maybe you'll have to beat off sharks along the way. But surely it's better to fight, surely its better to at least try.

Demons

2006-04-24T20:39:00.000+01:00

She sits in the middle of the room, tears run in mascara-black rivulets across her skin. On the cold, white, tiled floor she looks small, maybe some kind of porcelain doll, maybe just a little girl. Her hair hangs in a cascade around her face, the pretty face that is screwed up in agony as she sobs. A bottle lies broken on the floor across from her, and her phone lies next to it ignored. She doesn't care what's around her, she only cares about her own grief which comes in heart-wrenching pain from inside her until she's crying like a child. That impossible type of pain- where you can't do anything to stop it and you just feel inconsequential, out of control, and small.

I don't know why she's crying yet. I just know that she will. Her head will be aching from over indulgence in alcohol, and her brain will be scattered like the contents of her handbag. Which, incidentally, is probably left on the floor, open and upside down somewhere where it's going to be stood on, or forgotten about entirely. Who knows what the hell has gone wrong this time? With her it could be anything from a one night stand gone bad, to realising that she's pregnant. Maybe her father has died, maybe she's just done something so stupid she feels like she's lost control of her life.

It's probably got something to do with alcoholism. And with her, I'd guess that a man had treated her badly in some way too. She's superficial, she's flighty, and she's too easily obsessed by things that cause her too much pain.

And she's damaged. She's been damaged for a long time. Once she was even told that she was damaged property. It was flung in her face by a boy, a boy who didn't like rejection. But the knowledge that it was only said for the revenge of his bruised ego didn't cause the insult to hurt her any less. It still stung right down to her very core. The worst insults are the ones we secretly whisper to ourselves in the darkness, the ones we never admit to and fling out at people around us in the hopes that calling it out in others will somehow make it alright to be that too. He was lucky, he chose the right insult, never realising how much he had it right, never realising that he'd engraved himself into her memory forever over such a small thing.

I think she's scared. How can you be so messed up if you aren't scared? It isn't possible. You drown yourself in alcohol and throw yourself at men because you're scared. You're scared that if you don't get the men you'll die alone. You think that being beautiful and always having someone somehow makes you better. It means that no matter how many men you go through, how many recognise you for who you are and drop you, you still have someone. There is still some idiot out there who will fall into the trap. And one day you'll meet someone who will understand you, who won't run away at the first sign of the underlying madness. But you're scared because you know that its entirely possible that that person doesn't exist. So you'll live a lonely life with only inconstant companions, men who will satisfy you for a day, but forget you in a week.

The alcohol doesn't stop you from being scared. But occasionally it numbs the pain a little. You learnt long ago that it won't make you forget, none of the important things anyway, but for a while it means that you don't care. You can get on with simply being without the hassle of remembering too.

But you can't run away forever. When you realise who you are, or you do something so outrageous that even you are disgusted with yourself. When you realise that you've turned into that most horrifying concept- your own mother. That's when you cry. You cry because you feel cheap, used, dumb, pointless. You cry because you haven't done anything worthwhile. You cry because you look in the mirror, and are forced to acknowledge yourself.

For Ever or For Now

2006-04-23T19:41:00.000+01:00

We had sex eleven times. For a three and a half month- long relationship, I found that pretty pathetic. I mean, maybe if I'd wanted to make him wait or something, but I just don't have that kind of self restraint. To be honest, I don't really have any self restraint, or self control. I'm pretty much ruled by my whims.

And in the end I did fall in love with him. But we came from completely different backgrounds. I come from a tribe of polygamists whereas he was steeped in monogamy and "Thou shalt not commit adultery". Don't get me wrong, if you're looking for multiples or whatever, I'm not your girl. My ancestry is more than enough to put me off that stuff. I don't do open relationships (except when I really have to), and I don't cheat (unless I'm really pissed off). But I'm not subject to the green eyed monster and I've been known to get wandering eyes.

He got jealous. I never did anything wrong, well, nothing really wrong, but he still got pissed off. To me that's actually quite sweet. I mean, on occasions it did annoy the hell out of me. But he went for that macho I'm-not-gonna-show-any-of-my-feelings thing so it wasn't ever too outwardly obvious. It was just there when I talked to a guy and he'd interrupt his own conversation to come and protectively put his arms around me. It was only there in little things like that.

We were good together, our personalities were so similar, it was just where we were coming from that was so starkly different. And our sex drives. Mostly we didn't really see each other, but when we did I was just about ready to jump on him, whereas he could take it or leave it. That I couldn't understand. It wasn't that he didn't like it, its just sometimes he couldn't be that bothered. Being too lazy for sex is a startling concept for me.

On most levels he understood me, and he respected me. He seemed to like who I am. I cared about him so much and I loved him. But it was the wrong kind of love. He's the type of man I'll marry, but he isn't the type for right now. That kind of understanding, is the kind that you build houses on and raise children. It isn't the kind of tepestuous relationship a girl fits into the months before she goes to uni.

There was a lot left unsaid due to my inability to speak my heart, cos've my utter fear of anyone getting too close. And also due to his stupid male pride. But we got along. He didn't open me up and most of the stuff I got out of him was simply from being fluent in the art of manipulation. But we worked. It was rocky, and sometimes it wasn't as fulfilling as I'd have liked. But none of that lessened the number of tears that fell when it ended.

The girl he marries won't be me. She's called Claire and she's the closest I've ever come to jealousy. I only met her once, but heard about her much more than that. I was sitting in the pub when I met her. She was pretty, very pretty, but in an ordinary way. They had a banter. It didn't worry me, I was happy just to sit back and watch.

He wanted me. That I understood completely, finally. He liked the Chinese thing, and he liked having me around. But like he's my forever guy, but not for now, I was his for now, and she's his forever. She'll stick around, get a job locally, be the wife, get his slippers. I can't do that. He'll keep my memory as the independent opinionated girl that he cared for, but he won't keep more than that. We're too different in our goals.

I can't do the slippers, and I can't do the cooking around an aga or whatever else they decide in an eccentrically coupley moment, it would be nice to buy. I'll just have to live with missing him and remembering that it's happened once, and can happen again. I can be tied down, and I can forget for a while who I am. He taught me that I could love so for that I'll be eternally grateful. He may forget me, but I can't forget him. Not now, not ever.

Under your skin

2006-04-05T15:48:00.000+01:00

Girl, you act like a child and tell me that so much is wrong. You wear your heart on your sleeve and react without thought, because that’s what you’ve always done. To others you may be a woman, to most you’re strong and self-assured. But I’ve seen who you hide beneath your skin, and she’s a girl who just wants to cry. Dry your tears and forget the past; I understand your pain. I’ve been there too, I know how you hurt, but now you must accept your life.

You’re hiding from reality because you’re scared. You’re doing silly things and breaking your rules. I’ve tried to hide in a bottle, it doesn’t work so don’t do that too. I can’t know every thought you have in your head, nor predict what you’ll do to escape. I can just see you as all others see and know the waste and ruin you’re trying to bring.

We’ve both been through so much heartache. We’ve suffered blows from other people’s hands. We’ve been neglected and rejected by those that we love. We can’t trust the people who care. Confidence is not something you’re born with; it’s something you must learn to posses. People don’t see what you hide on your skin if you brandish it in the light. Once I was a scared little girl, I’ll always be her and know that she’ll always be me. But you can grow out of it, fight your battles where you’ll win, stop trying to relive everything bad, and stop messing with your future.

Don’t think I say this because I don’t love you. Don’t misinterpret nor think I’m not on your side. I wouldn’t say this if I wasn’t worried, but if you carry on it is you who will hurt. Forget about putting your trust in men again. They have a lot to answer women for and that I physically cannot forgive. But you don’t need to trust them, you just need to accept that you might be wrong. Not every man is a monster, they won’t hit you or mess you around. They’re stupid worthless idiots, but some are human as well. You shouldn’t blame all men for the one who has hurt you, be wary but not necessarily afraid.

You need to have more tolerance, not everyone is so much like you. You need some more self-confidence, you’re beautiful, I wish I was you. You need to honour your word when you give it, a contract is something you keep. And you need to accept criticism when we give it, not take offence from the insult it hides. Sometimes you are egocentric, and act like a petulant child. Just pay more attention to the stuff around you, and hold less grudges for nothing at all.

You’re intense and you are self-made. You’ve been through a lot so I’m impressed that you don’t run and hide. I’ll love you whatever and stick with you through everything. Just don’t expect me to listen when you whine.

Stupid Loves

2006-04-02T20:37:00.000+01:00

He was tall and I was drunk. This is a scenario that repeatedly causes me problems. I have such a weakness for anyone plus six foot two that it’s stupid. I was feeling lonely (also something that gets me into trouble) so when he approached me I was like play doh. He was gorgeous, and there was something about him that I found completely and utterly irresistible. He just made me melt.

The first time I met him I wanted him a lot but nothing ended up happening. The second time was… more eventful. But nothing came of it; I assumed it was a fling. And it was, completely. So I was mildly put out that nothing really happened, but being single suited me and I got over it quite quickly.

It was the third time that completely ruined me. After that I really did expect something to happen. He kept on making promises, but never actually doing anything. Somehow we didn’t see each other and I dated a few different people, eventually ending up with a boyfriend. Then I saw him again. My friend was a bitch to him, she’d never liked him and knew that he’d hurt me. He went away pissed off at the end of it which I think hurt me nearly as much as it hurt him. I saw him later, without the friend, but with the boyfriend. I apologised for her and we were alright. We chatted about some random crap and that was pretty much it over.

So nothing actually happened with him. But we never really got closure; we just didn’t see each other for a while. I see him quite a lot though now. It’s a small town and we keep on running into each other. For a while he had a girl friend. I still have the boyfriend, but he’s going away in a month or so now. I don’t know if he still has the girlfriend. He wasn’t with her when I last saw him and he was giving my looks. But I wasn’t with my boyfriend either and I was giving him them right back so who knows?

I was with Scott, a friend of my boyfriend’s, and he had his arm around me. So he stopped me from going and talking to him (or throwing myself at him). If he hadn’t been keeping hold of me I don’t think I could have kept hold of me because I was just that drunk. And I’m an absolute idiot for men who give me the right type of look.

I just truly don’t know what he wants from me. Does he want anything? Was he just as drunk as I was and feeling a bit lonely because his girlfriend wasn’t with him? I need a self-help book, or even someone who can simply explain. I hate that he makes me this confused. I hate that I have a boyfriend and I’m thinking of someone else. I hate that my boyfriend is leaving and I’m going to be stuck single again. Being single isn’t good for me. I end up with shit heads who treat me very badly and cause me too much confusion.

Eternal Youth

2006-03-25T16:02:00.000Z

Some people live forever, some you forget the instant you turn your back after meeting them, others you will never even meet nor hear of so are, effectively, not even real to you. I'll always remember my first boyfriend. We were six, maybe seven, it lasted a day and we had to break up when I went home because we were both on holiday and didn't feel we could manage a long distance relationship. Plus, he tried to steal my ice cream and two timed me with my sister so I wasn't really that happy with him anyway. I can't tell you his name, nor what he looked like. I can tell you that we had a blanket in the car that day and that my mum and dad fought the whole way there and back. I can nearly visualise his face, but my memory isn't that spectacular so I only have a vague Peter Pan-type image of a boy with a pretty face and a penchant for mischief.

I'm in that relationship now, all over again. He isn't pretty nor seven years old, but he has the same appeal. You're more likely to find him near some mischief than anything else, and I definitely wouldn't put it past him to try to steal my ice cream before I had given him permission. He'll never really get old for me, no matter how long I know him. If I know him in fifty years he'll still have that special place in my heart for the Peter Pan type figure of mischief; the boy who has made me stupidly happy, but also permanently pissed off. I have two levels, the girl who needs that idiot child to make her happy, and the maternal, slightly more mature, woman who wants to make him act with more responsibility, like a bigger, better, person.

He's so separate from everything else; he has absolutely nothing to do with anything that was in my life before. I guess it's the same as being a super hero at night, but having a mild mannered alter ego during the day. Except a lot less dramatic. I see him late at night; I can only count a few instances when I've seen him before eleven o clock. And I think that was the best bit about us; it makes things easier not having to cope with all the everyday stuff. He doesn't come into contact with my family, and he isn't anything to do with school. He fits; it sounds really strange, but his personality fits into mine. We can have stupid conversations about buying a farm, about the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And we can talk about artichokes. I love that, but I don't need that. I need someone who I see on a regular basis, who reassures me when I feel sad, and whose there when I simply need to sit quietly with someone's arm around me.

What I need doesn't matter, not right now. For now, what I want is much more important. So I see him when I can, and I mope in between, wishing I had a more constant stream of happiness. We'll last forever. That cut-out moment at about three in the morning where we're lying there wrapped round each other in the dark, talking about stupid things; that's us, and that's what lasts. But the relationship is already dying. I've grown up a little; we need different things, yada yada yada. But we'll be okay for a while. For a while we'll go on as we have done, I'll probably let it last till June when he goes; there isn't much time left anyway. He makes me happy, but any illusions of love, or anything else even slightly meaningful, are gone.

The Price of Everything

2006-03-11T14:36:00.000Z

“The best things in life are free.” The Beatles, Money.

She was fifteen. Barely that, having only just had her birthday the week before. He was twenty three. It was, as these things always are, at a party. She’d been drinking for six hours, he was probably worse. I knew she’d gone, but I couldn’t find her. A pretty large part of me didn’t want to find her. When she came back I’d collapsed.

We haven’t had a mother. I couldn’t be a mother to her, she was too strong willed and stubborn. But I was her confidante, I looked after her, stuck up for her, helped her whenever I could. But I couldn’t stop her, and I couldn’t leave her. So while I waited I drank. I drank away the memory. I saw her walking out the door, hand in hand with him, into the darkness. I just kept seeing it; over and over. And every time it came back I’d drink more, faster.

She came and lay next to me, “I’m sorry Harriet, I’m so sorry, I know its cos’ve me, I’m just so sorry.” I cried. I cried as she told me all of it; I didn’t want to know, I didn’t want her to tell me. It hurt too much- I understood. She went to the hospital the next morning and took the morning after pill. When she got home she cried too. She cried for hours with my dad shouting in the background, wanting to know what the hell was going on. I told him she was feeling really ill and that someone had rejected her the night before. He believed me unquestioningly.

I knew it had to happen eventually. She looks old for her age, and she dresses provocatively. She wasn’t ready. I knew it, she screamed at me when I approached the subject with her months before that. She knew she was ready, how dare I try to influence her life like that, it was none of my business. But I knew what would happen, I went through the same phase at her age, and I knew how much she would regret it.

The best things in life aren’t free; they come at a high cost emotionally. It took her weeks to recover, and six months later she still hasn’t regained nearly half of her previous confidence. She regrets it. I don’t tell her, “I told you so.” I barely tell her anything anymore. We don’t talk; I find it hard to get on with her at all. I love her, but ever since then I’ve found it increasingly hard to communicate with her.

Yesterday she cried. She told me that she feels like she can’t talk to anyone anymore, like I hate her. She feels lonely and hates it because she’s always fighting with both me and dad and there’s no one on her side anymore. I can’t explain why I’m not on her side anymore. I know that I stopped sticking up for her, I stopped covering for her. In a slightly vindictive way, I guess I’ve made things harder for her recently. She was hurt that I’d returned from my interview and she’d had to hear what had happened from dad as I was on the phone to Stacey.

I don’t know. I guess I just gave up. I still remember feeling completely powerless, it’s the one feeling that I can’t physically tolerate. Whenever it happens I do something incredibly stupid. Since that Saturday night I haven’t been properly drunk. I have had only one hangover, but it didn’t even compare to the one I had at work the next day. They nearly sacked me for that one shift alone. Since then I haven’t been sick while drunk or hungover. So it cured me of binge drinking, it cured her of casual sex, and it stuck a gradually widening rift between us. I knew there was nothing else I could do for her. And I don’t know what I can do now.

Emotional Abyss

2006-03-05T16:43:00.000Z

I said that I’d never cry for you. I’ve been fucked over too many times for that. I don’t know if I’ve even told you how fucked up things really are. I guess it’s too early to tell you all the baggage I come with. Though to be honest, with us, if it isn’t too early then it’s too late. We can’t get to know each other enough to delve into the weird psychological problems that I have, and I know that you must have, because everyone does to some extent. We just don’t have time for that. I can’t let you see it all, I can’t let anyone see it all, the abyss is just too steep, too dark, there isn’t any going back after that.

I’m not crying over you. I’m crying over everything else. My patheticness, the way we all pretend that we’re people we aren’t. You can’t lie to people unless you fully believe the lies yourself. And I believe my lies, if only for the time that I’m saying them. But sometimes I believe them for longer than that. I believe them until someone suddenly wakes me up, confronts me with the truth. And then I’m standing on the abyss again, knowing that it’s going to be there forever and there isn’t anything I, or anyone, can do about it.

I don’t want you to tell me I’m a psycho. I don’t want you to scream at me in frustration, I don’t want you to see what’s under my mask. I know what happens to people who see beneath the mask, they retain a little bit of the madness. I don’t mean my mask, anyone’s mask. You just physically cannot see into someone’s soul that far. The key to making a relationship work is to bare your soul to someone, but to still be able to keep your secrets, the big ones. If someone knew all the secrets it wouldn’t work, there would be too much to come back from.

But I won’t let you lie to me either. Don’t tell me that everything is okay, or that I’m over reacting. Don’t expect me to listen to you if you tell me one thing, then tell me another five minutes later. Don’t ignore me in the hope that when you next see me I’ll have calmed down. I don’t work like that, I get angrier, and then I get livid, and finally, when all my energy has gone, I don’t care. But if I don’t care then you’ll never find a way to make me care again. Or maybe you will, who knows? I forgave my mother after eight years, I can always learn to forgive you. But she’s my mom, I don’t know if the situations are similar enough. And eight years is a while.

I won’t ask for commitment. I won’t tell you that I’m too pissed off to have sex. I won’t listen when people tell me that you’re not good enough for me, or that you’re an arrogant bastard. I won’t cheat, and I won’t lie to you about anything that matters. But I can’t tell you all my secrets, and I can’t wait forever for you to explain. And if you make me cry over you, then I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do to fix it.

Seasons

2006-02-15T23:45:00.000Z

Winter is endless. The frost on each blade of grass every morning when you wake up. The snowdrops along the borders of the garden. The churning grey clouds that cover the sky as far as the eye can see in. There isn't even a hint of the daffodil in the air. Spring is a time for new beginnings; birth and rebirth. Spring is an emerald green. But winter is a time for reflections; for coveting the old and harbouring your memories. Winter is a gun metal grey. We long for the spring to arrive, but without the winter we would never appreciate it's arrival. We would never look back and contemplate on everything that has been. We need it as a contrast to everything else, and we need it as a time to rest. It can be harsh, it can be cruel, but it's unchanging. It's as inexorable, as unstoppable, as an avalanche.

I wrote a letter to my mom. It wasn't any great literary achievement, it was just unusual. She hurt me a lot. But upon reflection, the time when she really hurt me wasn't when she left, it was when both her and my dad hurt me. It was when they excluded me from their lives, separated me. By the time she left everyone, I already felt exempt from her heart. But that rejection didn't come from just her, dad was equally responsible, yet somehow I forgave him. Hating her had turned to habit, something I had to do, just because. I've always blamed her. Blamed her for all my weaknesses; my overpowering fear of rejection, my inability to love just for the sake of it. I blamed her for every time I looked over my shoulder to check that no one had a knife to stab me with. And that isn't fair.

Had I been a stronger person from the start, maybe I wouldn't have been affected. Had she stayed, had their marriage worked and her lack of maternal feeling not been a problem, I would still be as insecure. As sure that something had to go wrong because it is completely impossible to be happy. I don't mean for me to be happy, I mean for anyone. I'm a cynic, but I'm cynical in the way that only someone truly messed up can be. There are layers. On one layer there is the constant amusement, the joy from anything new, or merely old but forgotten. And on another layer lurks the cynicism. The belief that I have to take joy from the simple things because they are the only constants. The only things I can keep close to me without fear of them suddenly disappearing, leaving me.

I've had a lot of time to reflect. It's too cold to do anything else. And she hurt me, she always will. For everything she did, for everything she said. But maybe I can forgive her for a while, move on at least. She hurt me, but I can't hate her forever, it just isn't in me anymore. Things change.