Ode to albatrosses

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.

Labels: Flying, Introspection

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.

Labels: Introspection

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?

Labels: Introspection, Theatrics

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.

Labels: Demons, Growing Up, Introspection, Past tense

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.

Labels: dynasty, Introspection

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.

Labels: Introspection, Theatrics

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.

Labels: Being the Duck, Falling, Introspection, Theatrics

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.

Labels: Flying, Introspection

“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.

Labels: Introspection, Past tense, Poetic licence

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.

Labels: Demons, Introspection, Past tense

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.

Labels: Introspection, Superstition

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.

Labels: Falling, Flying, Introspection, Past tense, Poetic licence

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.

Labels: Demons, Falling, Introspection