Ode to albatrosses

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.

Labels: A field of poppies, Flying

Sometimes you can walk through a field of poppys and feel like they're on fire. They're so red it hurts your eyes. They're beautiful. Other times they look so pale. The light is all wrong and though you know that they're beautiful, that they are flawless, they just don't look so arresting as they did earlier. The beauty is wasted and over looked.

Sometimes there's beauty and you don't notice it at all. Sometimes you know that you're happy, and that everything is so good, but you take it for granted because it won't go away. It can't go away. But nothing lasts forever. You can have one perfect night. One moment that you know will stay with you forever. And though it was perfect, who knows what can happen the next day, week?

The poppy dies. The light fades. These things are inevitable. But the memory stays. It lasts for as long as you do, and you don't need it to last longer. For you, specifically, this is forever. And a memory that lasts forever is as perfect as the moment. You may know that you woke up the next day and walked away, that afterwards life continued to go on. But the memory got up and walked away with you. And if it was that perfect then it'll last for as long as you need it to.

I can still feel his hair, spiky beneath my finger tips. I can remember every taste, every smell. I can remember the sound of my laugh in the silence. And yes, in the morning I woke up and I walked away. Like this will all go away. There's a time limit to this, I can tell you the exact date. And that date was a bit of a shock to be honest, like a punch to the stomach when you aren't looking and don't expect it at all. And I'll be upset, but I'll cope because no matter how much I fall in love with him, I always do.

And if we finish it before then at least it'll be a lot easier in the end. Saying goodbye always hurts. Every time I stand at the airport and see another person leave it causes a little more pain. Because it isn't that you can't see them, it's just that you don't. It's that you know that more than anything else you want them to stay where they are. You want them to stay with you even though you know that it's a bad idea and selfish and everything else. I can say goodbye though. I've got good at it. I sometimes don't cry anymore. But at least the memory, if nothing else, will last.

Labels: A field of poppies, Flying, Poetic licence

Sometimes it’s hard for me to sleep because I feel so lonely. Sometimes I have to find something to occupy my mind because if I don’t, I’ll think about everything and all I’ll want to do is cry. Sometimes I feel like talking to someone, anyone, just to feel like I’m not the only person around, like the world isn’t just a big empty space with me standing there alone. Then other times it isn’t like that. Other times I’m made claustrophobic by my life and just want to leave and find an unoccupied beach somewhere. Other times I feel like it’s better to be alone.

The thing about movies is that you never see what comes next. A man kisses the woman and the end credits come up. But you don’t see what comes after that kiss. Maybe their teeth clash and they don’t talk to each other for the next year out of pure embarrassment. Maybe they have sex and then he doesn’t call her again. Maybe they have a very fulfilling, meaningful relationship for a year or so then get bored of each other and break up. With lives it’s different. You can’t know when you’ve reached the happily-ever-after point. Does it even exist?

A few days ago I would have sworn that I’d reached that point. Not forever, but for just now. Something to make me happy for the next few months at least, something to make me human. Something to make me sleep easier at nights because the aching lonliness wouldn’t be there anymore. Someone to keep me company on that beach, but not bother me if I needed to walk a little way down it alone. And I knew that there would never be one point in my life that I could label “Happily ever after” but maybe there will be a few and I can say that if nothing else, it was a good time.

But I’ve changed my mind. It doesn’t exist. It’s good and I’m happy enough. I don’t need someone on that beach with me, I never have and never will. The one thing about me is that I am, intrinsically, independent. That doesn’t mean that I’m stubborn or that I have to have my own way. It doesn’t mean that when I was a baby I had to use the fork myself- I wouldn’t let my parents even though I couldn’t lift it properly. It means that I’m just more comfortable on my own, independent of other people. I’m not happier on my own, believe me, it’s just the default my life falls into. Some rely on their partners, even in a relationship I will rely on myself first.

Happily ever after is as mythical and false as the fairytales from which it originated. It isn’t a state you can aspire to, and if you think that you’ve reached it then you’ll soon come to realise it was fake. But even though I’ve not reached happily ever after, I have reached happy. It’s come as a shock after the last few months. All I wanted to do was party, pull, and forget everyone’s names the next day. And, but for one person, it would have all worked out fine for me. I’d probably be as man-hating as my two best mates, but I’d be relaxed and feeling pretty good regardless. It didn’t work out.

Happily ever after doesn’t exist. But I’ll take happy without the ever after. Life couldn’t just be filled with happiness, it would get boring. For now I’m just happy to spend a few weeks without the lonliness.

Labels: A field of poppies