Youthful Arrogance = Adult Disappointment

*sigh* I'm not in a good place.

I feel like I am well and truly up shit creek without the proverbial paddle.

Things aren't going according to plan A and I don't have a plan B.

Worse I've no idea WHERE to even look for a plan B, or any alternative plan for that matter.

I know I need advice and some help but I don't know where to look or who to ask. The places and people I've tried have been about as helpful as a chocolate fire guard.

The advert made it look so easy with their catchy statement 'Those that can teach"

I want to teach. I want to be a teacher.

Six years ago, during my undergraduate degree, I took a module titled 'Children and Language' At the time I didn't have any particular interest in children or babies, and I was finding the Linguistic part of my degree hard. The Children and Language module spoke to my curiosity though, it called to my imagination and I LOVED every minute of it. I was totally awed and knocked off my feet by how children acquire language.

It amazed me. I got goose bumps, the hair on my head felt like it was standing on end - and not because I just hadn't brushed it that morning - and my stomach literally flipped with the awesomeness of it. I knew there and then that I wanted to be a part of that learning, I wanted to help and play an active role in furthering their pursuit of knowledge.

School wasn't fun for me. I didn't particularly like learning - it has always felt like some kind of test that I feel like I am failing - but that doesn't mean that I'm not passionate about it though. And if I'm honest I don't think it was the learning that I didn't like but more the environment ... my teachers weren't great, one regularly used ritual humiliation and fear as a teaching mechanism. Not conducive to learning or to inciting a person to want to remain in education.

Perhaps it is too idealistic of me but I really do believe that if you can create enthusiasm in children about school and learning, if you can speak to and capture their imagination when they are young enough...may be, just may be we will have more going on to college and university. May be, just may be they won't end like me...going back as an adult and finding it soul destroying to be falling down at so many obstacles.

Better still may be they will have got it right the first time and won't find themselves in my situation; really wanting to be something and not having thought about being anything else only to discover its not going to happen.

Hopefully they won't have to learn the hard way like me that youthful arrogance = adult disappointment.

Wednesday Wonderings

Bit of a slow week this week, have had other things to stress about other than musing about the strange randomness of the world...

Why, when I want to be left alone because I'm in less than a good mood does L think it would be a good idea to annoy me? And people wonder why we don't have children...

Why even my best made plans go wrong?

Why my cooking tastes good (well fantastic actually) but doesn't look particularly ascetically pleasing?

Why my mum asked for a laptop for Christmas when she still hasn't worked out that a scientific calculator isn't a remote for the TV? Bless her.

Why that private school had to ruin my plan to see Mega Mind at the cinema by bringing 63 children to see it, during the week. That is hardly sporting. Saw Harry Potter instead, (shrug of the shoulders) was okay...little too long winded in places. I zoned out, a few times...a fair bit, thought about sleeping once or twice too.

Why I woke up screaming two nights ago? Hhmm what makes you think I have things on my mind????

If the bags and dark circles under my eyes can get any worse?

Who I pissed off in my previous lives to be having such a hard time in this one?

Cheat to...lose because you win some, you lose some

The saying is actually 'cheat to win' but that hasn't happened to me today.

In fact it has been one of those days where everything appears - call me paranoid - to have been against me.

First I decided (in my apparent infinite wisdom) that I would use the personal touch for a friend's Christmas present. I thought I'd make him up a hamper of all the things I know he loves - fine unique ales, different pungent cheeses, random cured sausages and some crackers to go with it.

I know I could just have gone out and bought him one, but that felt thoughtless.

So I have sourced some stinky cheeses, some wonderful ales and some fantastic sausages, cured meat etc but can I find a bloody hamper basket?... NO I CAN'T. I've trawled around more shops than I name, come away empty handed and with sore feet from being trodden on or run over with trolleys. *Sigh* I'm ashamed to say that I've now given up on the friggin basket and decided to just go with a box. It will have to do. I'm running out of time, but more to the point I'm running out of patience and my sanity will only take so much.

I thought I'd make his parents a nice fruit cake, but as we're not going to be home for Christmas we're winding down out store cupboard and freezer, so they both resemble Mother Hubbard's cupboard - EMPTY. Enter stage left Waitrose and Delia's time saving concept of 'cake in a bag'. Basically its all the dry ingredients weighed and measured etc for you. This seemed the perfect - if not lazy and not entirely ethical - solution to not wanting to go out and buy all the necessary bits and pieces to make a fruit cake. And it would have been if I hadn't got on the bus, which was late in minus temperatures (hello I got frost bite in places you're not meant to have frost bite waiting for it) to get to the shop ... and they didn't have any and weren't getting any more in.

Suffice to say I lost what little of my sense humour that hadn't frozen itself at the bus stop at that precise moment.

I came straight home after my wasted and pointless excursion in the sub zero weather and raided my cupboard and good old student vegetarian cookbook. It kind of worked.

I was disappointed (how unlike me) with the cake so I ate the corner and have elected to make another one in a smaller tin in the hope that it will be 'prettier' looking.

The moral of the story is...'don't be lazy and attempt to cheat or cut corners Natasha, cheating to win DOESN'T happen for you' plus to quote L 'proper planning prevents piss poor performance'

Cake tastes...okay though, but has done little or nothing to improve my mood;-(

Love and Hate

A friend text me the other day to tell me her violent and abusive ex husband has ONCE again been let off the hook. No charges. No come-uppance. No debt to pay. No justice.

I feel stunned.
I feel incensed.
I feel powerless.
I feel useless.

I don't know how to react to this news. I've been mulling it over in my mind (and heart) for days trying to make sense of it all.

I'm trying to find the fairness in it, trying to have faith that he will get what he deserves and trying to just be patient.

Part of me doesn't want to be patient though. Part of me wants to use any means of transport to get to the part of the country that is unlucky enough to have him there and...what?

Can I say the things that I want to visit upon him?...

I want to hurt him; I want to hit him and keep hitting him until I feel bone breaking under the impact of my fists. I want him curled on the floor at my feet as I kick his sorry excuse for a man's ass in to A & E. I want to destroy him and I want to strip him of everything that he loves and holds dear and I want him to fold, to crumble under the weight of why.

I don't want his mind or his heart to be able to hold on to anything other than the knowledge of why.

I know he is sick.

I know that he has problems.

I know that he needs help.

I know wanting this makes me as bad as him.

I know wanting it is wrong...

but I don't care.

I don't care that its wrong to want to hurt him, to want him to be less than nothing, to suffer and hurt to the point of no return, and I care least of all that he's sick, has problems, and needs help.

In my mind and in my heart he doesn't deserve any of those things and he never will. Even if he paid his debt, even if he said he was sorry and the extent of his sorrow was written on his face for all to see...it wouldn't be enough for me.

I will never forgive him. I will never believe that he is sorry. I will never accept any reasons that he gives for his actions - past and present - as understandable.

Abuse and bullying - of any kind in any place - is wrong.

He - everything about him and everything he has ever done - is wrong.

And I hope every day of his life is miserable and he never again knows any peace or happiness or laughter or love.

He deserves nothing less and nothing more.

Wednesday Wonderings

I've really only been thinking about one thing of late...what snow storm?!?!?

The little bit we had yesterday can not be taken or named as a serious snow fall, a light dusting, as in the kind you find on the top of cakes as decoration, at best. But that is being generous.

So I am wondering when we are going to get the snow everyone else is complaining about, panicking about, enjoying, negotiating etc. I want to know when I'm going to get my Winter Wonderland.

I'm feeling a little left out.

The Apron

I used to hoard things.

I found it reassuring, comforting. Somehow the things that had special memories attached to them and that concerned the people I loved overwhelmed the rational part of me that wondered if really did need to keep all my birthday cards from the age of 9.

It made me feel safe.

It made me feel closer to people.

It made me feel protected.

The harsh realities of the world could somehow be kept out if I just barricaded myself in in the centre of all the things that I loved given to me by all the people that I loved.

As I've got older and certainly being married to L in the forces, which means we're apt to move around a fair bit, I've learnt that it isn't practical to have so much stuff.

And I've learnt that no matter how well you build your barricade...it doesn't always keep hurt out. I didn't even need to go to university to learn that one.

So I've had to learn to let go of things. I've had to learn to stop hoarding and I'm slowly learning what it means to travel light.

It started to snow today. Not heavy and not enough to settle but its still snowing.

As we're not going to be in our own home for Christmas this year we're not getting a tree. We're not putting up decorations, we won't be here to open our cards and we won't be snuggled up together on our sofa against the freezing British weather watching the same films that they (the grand old boys club that is the BBC) show every year.

Although we're still going to be with family and there will still be Roast Turkey with all the trimmings, brightly wrapped presents, Christmas pudding, mine pies, carols playing on loop and the odd glass of wine...I'm going to miss the things I mentioned before.

Simply put they remind me of my childhood. It wasn't always happy and it didn't last as long as most childhoods but at Christmas time...with my mum and my sister(s) - L was more often than not 'away' as she moved out at 16 - I got to feel protected, safe, secure and happy. If only for 12 days.

Before we fly out to the States to have Christmas with L's parents we're making a flying visit to my sister L and possibly my mum's on the way back home. My sister has promised me that we'll go out pick a tree and decorate it together.

And I can't stop smiling when I think about it.

What does snow and Christmas and my sister L have to do with an apron? One year, I can't remember exactly when, before my parents split I was bought an apron. Just a run-of-the-mill children's apron with a picture of a hedgehog on it surrounded by the alphabet.

Its nothing special to look at.

Except that it is very special to me by what it represents, by what it symbolises. And no matter how often I go through all of my belongings and ruthlessly examine things to discard, to throw away...to let go of...I always tuck that apron right back into the drawer.

And I know that wherever L and I go, to whatever part of the world, and for ever how long, I'm going to be taking that apron with me.

Some things are just meant to be hoarded.

Good Ideas...Bad Ideas and People in White Coats

Could someone PLEASE do me the favour of advising me to err on the side of caution next time I have a bright idea...

Clearly I am like a child and have no forethought and so end up in all kinds of trouble.

Oh and someone should also remind me once in a while, but not in nasty way. that I am in my 30s and really can't do all the things that I used to without my body suffering.

Today I feel like I drank up a storm last night and did ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I didn't do any of those things, more the pity for the first but obviously not the latter.

I'm not particularly good at eating healthy and staying fit. I am good at having 'good intentions' however, but kind of lack the patience to see things through to the end. I blame it on my short concentration span...

I've been trying to lose weight and improve my health for some time, I'm tired of having a 'food pouch' where I believe there should be a nice washboard stomach. And don't be started on the 'bingo wings' or 'muffin bits'.

All that is well and good but working out or raising my heart rate for the recommended 4o minutes a day is...well boring. I can't stay focused for that long on one thing least of all torturing myself and judging by the way that I am feeling today it is torture.

I'm walking like John Wayne.
My back hurts like I'm an old...older woman.
Every time I tried to turn over last night ....the pain woke me up! How can turning over in bed whilst sleeping be that painful that it hurts?!

The thing is yesterday I had the bright idea of making my Wii Fit work out more extreme by strapping 2kg resistance weights to each leg.

The idea was to get more bang for my buck. Knowing I have the attention span of a butterfly I thought I'd probably only be good for 20 minutes of the recommended 40 so the plan (there is always a plan) was to make that 20 minutes really count and be like working out for 40.

What?... I never said it was a good idea and I do know the people in white coats should just come and claim me now.

Clearly the immense pain I'm in today hasn't taught me a damn thing because I'm dressed in my workout gear ready to go upstairs to strap those 2kg weights to my wrists and do a cardio boxing workout.

Just get the painkillers ready and someone please be on hand on a 24 hour thing to help me do the following;
Turn over in bed at night
Get up to pee in the middle of night
Get out of bed in the morning

I will pay anyone who does this in baked goods like muffins, chocolate brownies, pumpkin pies...hhmmm maybe if I didn't bake so much I wouldn't have to torture myself...now there's an idea.

Wednesday Wonderings

I should have posted this one up last week but I didn't feel like it after the loss of Ann. So although this is a week old here goes...

I've been too busy with things like revision for exams, telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews etc to have time to ponder the finer details of life lately.

That said I have been wondering about;

Who L is going to get to do all the little jobs that he gets me to do when I go back to work? Oh little jobs like haul a tyre to a shop/place where they fix these type of things - see I don't even know what the name is of these tyre-fixing places are! By fix I mean mend/plug - whatever - the hole made by the nail that was driven over.

Why wives/girlfriends are meant to be a walking calendar of EVERYONE's birthdays/anniversaries/general special occasions, oh you might as well add responsible for purchasing the cards, writing them out and a postal service too to that list

Why, despite having his own pillow and sleeping in a double bed L has to use my pillow and sleep so close to me - as in on my side - to render having a double bed pointless

Why bad things happen to good people

If women really are THAT stupid that they ACTUALLY believe that a mascara featured on TV will make their eyelashes look like the model and that the model DOESN'T have false eyelashes/extensions on - seriously someone please tell me that my own species isn't that challenged and restore my faith...

Where my sudden adiction to playing Fable III has come from - yup really am that sad

What women find so thrilling about shopping - I can't stand it. I can't think of anything worse than going in and out of a dozen shops to try on clothes that don't fit, need to be altered, look awful on because I am vertically challenged (i.e. short) and have to stare at my own body in mirrors with hideous lighting that makes me look even shorter than I actually am?!

Why the cost of train fares are going up and the standard of the service is declining proportionately - seriously WHERE and on WHAT is the publics' money being spent on

Why I don't seem to have the mystical art of multitasking that other women have. This is no joke I really can't multitask, I think I might have been able to once...but I couldn't say for sure. I do have a tendency to make things up and am so convincing when persuading others that I convince myself in the process.

Why I was born with a trigger thumb or hyperextensible metacarpophalangeal anomaly as its also know (my mum told me I was born like it but some Dr argue its something that developes as an infant)

Someone want to help me up here?...

Rejection of any kind, in any circumstance, is always a challenge to deal with.

Picking yourself up can be more challenging though.

I applied for a job as an Admin Assistant for a private medical group.

Had the telephone interview, during which I was really nervous to the point of being guilty of all the usual things; getting a little tongue tied, rambling a little, going off on a tangent and may be once forgetting what point I was trying to make.

BUT...they were however, impressed enough to offer me a face-to-face (I know I'm surprised too!)

The face-to-face interview was...different. My interviewer was running half hour late, personally I dis-like lateness because I believe it equates to tardiness, however that is usually a rule I apply to interviwees (yeah, yeah I know strict and harsh). Then she made me go through my CV BACKWARDS, as in EVERYTHING that I've done from the age of 18 - 32.

Any one who knows me knows that I have an extraordinary memory, I can remember being in the pram, I can remember precise and very fine details of just about...the oddest things. No short term memory but I have been drunk once or twice (okay ALOT) and I did used to smoke weed - yes this intense control freak, who needs 8 hours sleep a night not to wake up grumpy and with the immune system of a butterfly used, that is USED, to be a bit of a wild child. You can stop laughing, I don't think its that funny or far fetched.

Hhhmm it seems I have the attention span of a butterfly as well as it's immune system. Noted but moving on...

...so this reciting of everything I've done wasn't a challenge in any way, shape or form. I was in there for the better part of an hour and it went well. It wasn't great but it did go well. I liked my interviewer, she struck me as a 'take no prisoner' type of woman; focused, driven, firm but fair up to the point she fells like you have tried to abuse her trust and then its a case of humbly apologise profusely and then hide. Don't draw attention to yourself, keep your head down and work your butt off to regain what you so carelessly trashed. Can't argue or find fault in that.

They were meant to call me Friday to let me know. Friday came and went... and nothing. Maybe instinctively I knew this was a bad thing because suddenly getting it/not getting it didn't matter so much. I was okay with 'what will be, will be' and had accepted that the world wouldn't end.

I chilled out with friends over the weekend and put it out of my mind. Stressing about it and worrying wasn't going to achieve anything, so what was the point?

Monday came...and again nothing. Then this morning I checked and I had an email...I didn't get the job.

Am I gutted?...Well, yeah I am for a myriad of reasons. I did truly think I would be good at it and that they would soon see how much of an asset I am. I'm a really hard worker, I like challenges and I like to roll my sleeves up and get stuck in. I like organising, I like feeling like I am on top of things, I like pre-empting other people's needs, not to please but because I think it shows my ability to think well on my feet and because it shouts perfection to me (yes I have serious control issues). But mostly I'm gutted because my confidence needed this job more than my ego.

Things have been tough and I just needed a little boost. I needed to regain a little faith in myself and my capabilities and my worth. So yes I am gutted.

And I am trying not to let it knock me off my feet so I don't have to pick myself up. Again.

There's no 'I' in 'Team'...

Sometimes - like now - I take a good look at myself and don't like what I see. I don't mean physically but I mean the stuff that's on the inside and goes on in my head.

I've often accused my mother-in-law (in my head and to my friends because I'd never say this to her face) of being a cold fish and of having the emotional depth of a corpse. Yeah I know, I may not be nice but I do have my moments of being caustically funny.

Dry witty sarcasm aside, upon reflection I've realised that I'm actually not that different. Most of the bad things that I see in her...I'm guilty of myself.

My worst offence is being inherently selfish, although I prefer to call it independent, why wouldn't I - independent sounds better than selfish.

I could make all the excuses I like about how my parents split - very acrimoniously - when I was quite young and I learnt that in life no one can be relied upon to be there for you, that no one can take care of you like you and to need someone equates to disappointment and hurt. I could do that and it would be very true - in part - but it wouldn't be the complete truth. And to be entirely honest I only have utter scorn for people who make excuses for their bad behaviour/traits instead of taking responsibility for it/them.

Did I mention I was inherently unforgiving too?

What brought on this new bout of soul-searching? Well the other week L phoned on his way home to tell me there were rumours and strong hints that he was going to get one of his dream postings. That's great isn't it? Erm yes and no. On the surface who wouldn't want to spend 2 years, or at least 9 months in our case, living on a tropical island?...

I guess that would just be me then.

Why? *big sigh and puffing out of the cheeks* because I'm worried about my ability to be independent there (I really do mean independent and not selfish). Its a small island, they don't encourage you to leave the complex or the military parts of it, there aren't that many people there and there aren't that many jobs available. So the tropical paradise in which I can expose my otherwise incredibly white body to the glorious sun, swim in the breathtakingly clear sea and eat all the seafood I want has suddenly become a little bit of a prison.

Plus, its thousands of miles away from all that is familiar to me. I won't know any one, I won't have any friends there, I won't have a job and possibly a very slim chance of getting one too, I won't know how long we're going to be there for - could be 9 months could be 2 years.

If you sense that I freaked out a little bit you'd be right. I thought this option had been taken off the table, not by us but by others. What freaked me out (slightly more than the afore mentioned list of things) was the fact that I'd prepared myself for possibly moving - I say possibly because you can never be sure of anything and the key is to 'remain flexible' - in about 9 - 12 months, not in less than 3. And I'd prepared myself for a different location with more job opportunities, more people, more space, more freedom etc

The point I'm taking the scenic route in making is that while I was completely freaking out not at one point did I stop and digest that it was one of his 'dream' postings. Not once.

I was angry about it being thrown at me right before I sat an exam.
I was angry that the military were changing the plan on us.
I was angry that we weren't being given much notice.
I was angry about not feeling considered.
I was angry that I'm just expected to roll with it and not make a fuss.
I was angry that I couldn't talk to any one about it.
I was angry that it was speculative and I'd (and still don't) have any way of knowing for sure what was going to happen.
I was angry about my lack of control.

Anger is always so much easier to deal with than fear or anything else for that matter.

But I never stopped to really hear the excitement, the joy, the euphoria in his voice.

And now, because of my reaction, I believe he's gone to work and tried his best to side step the posting and argue against it so we can stay here.

I think when I move backwards and try to put things in the way, to use things as a barrier between me and them, I only make things worse for myself.

I am inherently selfish. And insecure. I do mostly, although not only, think of myself and how something is going to affect me. In hindsight its only when I take a step back and stop allowing myself to panic that I tentatively start to think 'it might not be so bad'

Its just that by then...things have already changed or things have been put into motion to change them - there are no flies on L.

*another really big sigh* I think there may be something in L's poking fun at me that I 'don't mix well with others' and in the phrase 'there is no I in Team'

Which Way...

I'm at a cross-roads.
And I have no idea which path I'm meant to take.
I don't know which one I want to take.
I can't see far enough down the paths to know which is the best to take.

I'm scared.
I don't know who to turn to for help.
For advice.
For guidance.

This is important and I have to get it right.
Timing is everything.
If I miss or get it wrong...there's going to be so much disappointment.
Yet the pressue of knowing this...is almost too much.

Doing nothing is not an option.
Doing something...needs to be right.
What to do
What not to do

Should I go left?
Should I go right?
What about going straight ahead?
Can't go backwards...never an option.

Magic Blankets and Vultures

Between Maths exams, job interviews and Luke's news (that I can't talk to anyone about - cheers dear) I'm feeling S-T-R-E-S-S-E-D and more than a little glum.

More to the point I'm not sure that I want to talk about any of it, what's the point when I don't feel lighter afterwards, or reassured, or happier, or like things are any straighter, or any other of the things that they tell you talking and sharing is meant to make you feel.

I can't seem to get out of my head (not in the drunk way, although I could easily be persuaded) but as in escape the hundred of thoughts and worries circling there like vultures.

If I thought my 'magical' duvet, the one that used to save me from monsters as a child, could do the same now I'd happily pull it over my head and leave it there. Permanently.

Any one got a spare magical duvet?

*image from reliefshare.org

In Memory of Ann Clare Smisek

Dear Ann,

Wow. I am utterly stunned that you are gone. I can't believe that I am never going to see you again, it all feels...surreal, like a bad dream that if I just shake myself or tell myself to wake up I can free myself from it. I wish it were so. I feel at a total loss, like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me. I'm struggling to understand what your absence means to me and so many others.

There is an ache in the centre of my chest knowing I am never going to see your smiling face again, or hear the infectious sound of your laughter, or feel awed by the wealth of your knowledge and the extent of your kindness. You have always been my fountain of knowledge, the one person I knew who I could turn to for academic guidance and help with my research - your assistance with my Masters dissertation was invaluable, without you I wouldn't have known where to start.

I have never known a woman as kind, generous, forgiving, self-sacrificing and as amazing as you. I feel honoured and privileged to have known you and to have been so warmly accepted in to your intimate circle of family and friends. When I think of you I remember you playfully flicking water at us from the birdbath in your garden, I remember your mouthwatering mashed patoto, I remember you taking Luke and I to the Hollywood Bowl to experience the Tchaikovsky Spectacular with Fireworks in August (which was awesome), I remember you hosting my birthday dinner, I remember the generous wedding gift Dick and yourself gave Luke and I...when I think of you happy memories clamour for attention and I smile.

The loss of you has touched me deeply and I grieve for the space in my life that you once filled. The world is already a much darker, colder and unfriendly place without you in it.

Ann, you have been and will always be loved, envied, regarded as intensely inspiring and you will be sorely missed. Thank you for the love, laughter and happiness that you gave me in the time that I knew you. To know you is to love you and I miss you already.

May you rest in peace Ann Clare Smisek and know we will do the best that we can to be there for those that will miss you most - your loving family.

Love you, love me.

Natasha

Remembrance Sunday

What is Death?
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without affect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.
~ Henry Scott Holland

For every man and woman who has made the ultimate sacrifice for others, and for every man and woman who knows the painful truth of the cost of this ultimate sacrifice.

Thank you to all serving military personnel, especially those so far from home and loved ones.

Wednesday Wonderings

Hhmm, over the last few days I've been pondering the following:


Why us women frantically clean our houses and tidy up before any one comes to stay - no one is fooled that our houses look like that all the time or naturally.

Where men were when Mother Nature was giving out the ability to listen? Coupled with this one I also wonder why I even bother to expect to be listened to?

Why there is no translation between Maths and English - in Maths 2 negatives make a positive, in English 2 negatives just reiterate the point. I mean when you're young and you're after something, you ask your dad and he says no. Obviously this isn't the answer you're after so you ask your mum, she says no too. So if you apply the mathematical rule of 2 negatives make a positive...you should get the answer that you want which is a positive, but you don't, you get a clip round the ear instead.

Wondering where the shock and sensationalism is meant to be in the headline 'Jackson was addicted to surgery' Because no one had figured that much out for themselves had they?

Why I always seem to get sick when Luke isn't here to look after me or make me cups of tea? No wait, that doesn't happen but I'd prefer it if it did because that way I wouldn't get upset and angry about the fact he refuses to acknowledge the fact I'm not well and still ask me to do things like 'mow the grass' or 'weed the patio and path' Hhmm guess I should change this one to wondering where L was when mother nature was giving out sympathy, at the back playing with the Lego I imagine.

What the saying 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' actually means.

Where the common sense is in people saying your lost item 'is always in the last place that you look' Well of course it is. Where would the common sense be in continuing to look?

Why people on day release (i.e. slightly crazy) always make a bee line for me? What is it that they see in my face that makes them pick me to talk to?

What my Creative Writing lecturer was trying to impart to us students by saying 'there's no such thing as an original idea, someone somewhere will have already written a story based on your idea' To then mark us down for being unoriginal.

A Letter to my Immune System

Dear Immune System,

I know you've had a hard run of it lately. Yes Iam guilty of having thrown more than one late night at you, a few drinking sessions, some junk food, sickly children (friend's), long walks in horrible weather, and the usual - plenty of stress. To that I can only hold my hands up and accept the charges. That said I hardly think I deserve this latest, what can only be called at best a leave of absence and at worst a temper tantrum.

I am not pleased that I feel like crap yet again a mere 5 weeks from last having a cold and feeling like crap. I do not appreciate the constant headaches, the tickly and sore throat, the tight chest, aching legs and the backache. Oh and the nausea, let's not forget that, it really is far from pleasant.

I am, however, quite reasonable as you well know, and promise that if you could just come back fighting fit and help me get through the next week or so I will ... be good. I will space out my late nights, exercise more to vent my stress, avoid junk food (as best as I can seeing that I am a woman), wear appropriate clothing for the weather and avoid other people with the plague, where humanly possible. I do draw the line at wearing one of those ridiculous masks. That one is non-negotiable.

Agreed? Do we have a deal?

You're going to have to do your bit first though because I can't very well leap around energetically to vent stress if I am in danger of passing out, nor can I eat healthy foods if they all taste like they've been dragged out of the bottom of my bin. Oh and I might as well add that I can't get fresh air either if I'm not feeling very well, because the neighbours really don't want to see me staggering around in the road trailing a blanket that I've tried to drape about myself for warmth just to get the fresh air.

I'll give you 24 hours to sleep on it.

Yours appreciatively,

Poorly Natasha

Pride before a fall........

I could kick myself right now. Really kick myself for my own stupidity.

A friend of a friend told me about a job for an office manager going at her place of work. I expressed my interest.

My studying is coming to an end and I have to get back out there and earn some money. I know I’ve heard from Luke at least a million times that ‘you have the cards just go out and get whatever it is that you want’ but ... I can’t. I’ve financially supported myself since I was 18 years of age and I find it immensely difficult – to the point of confidence and security destroying – to rely on others for money. It most definitely is a pride thing as much as it is to do with the issue I have of trusting other people to mean what they say and do what they say and to take care of me.

I thought I’d be perfect for the role. I enjoy organising things; I like everything to have a designated place and to be in that place when I or anyone goes looking for it. I like pre-empting other people’s needs before they are even aware that there is going to be a need. I like keeping records of things – I find it reassuring. I like to be busy and I like balancing more than one task at a time. Yes I know not at all normal.

The friend of a friend told me to submit my CV, although she voiced her reservations that she thought I might be bored in the role because I have a Masters. My Masters was hard won, it was the toughest thing (to date) that I’ve ever had to do and it was very nearly the thing that broke me completely. I know this and I wear my scars with some pride but, and now here’s the thing, I don’t for one moment think that a Masters means I am more intelligent than most people. I believe, hand on heart, that a Masters is essentially writing in some length in an academic style about something that you are passionate about with - and here is the key thing that most people overlook - a great deal of help and guidance. I didn’t do it alone. I was offered advice and guidance on what relevant critics, essays, articles etc to read. I had someone proof read my writing and point out any grammatical and punctuation errors. I picked the topic, I argued for it, I chose the authors, I researched it and I wrote it but I did have guidance and help.

So I re-jigged my CV, updated a few bits here and there like my name having changed since getting married, change of address and included my Masters. I submitted it about a week ago and when I didn’t hear anything I wasn’t surprised. I’ve been out of office work for some time and the friend of a friend had sounded (I thought) doubtful of my success when she’d voiced her concerns. I expected to get a ‘thank you but thank you’ letter to receive a message from the friend of a friend to say that they had found someone more suitable. I wasn’t expecting success. I was upset and my confidence had taken a little knock but...I was surprised.

Then I got a call to arrange a telephone interview and I was so nervously excited. I felt so sure that I was right for the role and that I could do it. I’m a perfectionist and I get incredibly upset and uptight about getting things wrong, or making mistakes, or missing something, or not getting things in on time. I take imperfection in myself extremely personally and I berate myself harshly for any failings that I find. Which is many.

Yesterday I went on line and looked up the company. I made notes on their background; how long they have been established, where they have offices, what their mission statement is, what kind of clients they deal with, where they are looking to progress to – as in what’s in the pipeline and the future for them. I looked at their target demographic and took a good look at their website design and branding, asking myself how often and where I’d seen their advertisements.

I was pretty smug with myself because I felt like I’d done my research.

Then this morning in preparation for the interview I pulled up my CV and noticed a mistake. A BIG HUGE MISTAKE. I noticed something that I had omitted ... my most recent employment!

I did what I always tend to do in such moments, inwardly curse and berate myself for my own stupidity and wonder how the hell I was going to fix it.

Anyway, my interviewer called and I immediately confessed to my oversight (what else could I do?) and apologised profusely, while still berating myself that I now couldn’t argue that I do have good attention to detail and am a perfectionist. She gave me a bit of feedback, asked for it to be re-jigged and sent again and the telephone interview has been re-scheduled for Monday.

In my heart I’m disappointed and incredibly upset because due to my own stupidity and failings I don’t think they’ll offer me the position. I know I wouldn’t. I know, in the past, I haven’t even invited people for a telephone interview if I’ve noticed faults with their CV. I’ve not invited people in for an interview if I haven’t liked the sound of their voice on the phone. I’ve not offered people a job if their skirt was too short, if they wore too much make up, or were inappropriately dress (like the one who turned up to her interview in a leather skirt and with more attitude that she merited), or if they were late without calling to advise that they were running late, or not stood up and shook my hand when I’ve entered the room. I’ve not turned people down for these things individually, but generally speaking it has only taken them ticking two or three of the above and it’s a big ‘No thank you’ from me.

I’m disappointed in that I now don’t expect it, because I do genuinely believe that I would be asset to their team. I really am such a hard worker and I do roll up my sleeves and get on with whatever needs doing. However, I’m mostly disappointed and annoyed with myself. For screwing up, for not having my attention to detail hat on and for generally just being that stupid.


* image from syracuse.com

Wondering Wednesday

I've been musing about the following;

Why the postman can't deliver the right post to the right house? Next door had a whole pile of our post. It really isn't rocket science to be able to tell the difference between 41 and 42, and don't even get me started on the difference in our surnames. (I will resist the urge to bellow at him tomorrow that his village called and they want their idiot back!. I will resist, I will resist)

Why when I'm in a bad mood does L immediately ask if I've taken my pills (Agnus Castus to help with the PCOS) rather than think he might be what has upset me? Yeah because it couldn't possibly be his fault!

When manners went out of fashion because no one told me. When did it become okay to not say thank you when someone holds a door open for you, or to not give up your sit for an elderly person, or to not say thank you when given sweets for halloween but rather to whinge about the - and I quote - 'lack of choice' - yes trick or treaters I am referring to you.

What they do with the bits that they don't use in Polo mints and doughnuts?

Why buttered toast always lands butter side down when you drop it? Does it have something to do with being heavier?

How and why do cats always land on their feet? and how did they go about finding/proving that?

Why my Christmas Cactus - that flowers, not sure why that's important - suddenly becomes an Easter Cactus around Easter time? If (yeah right like it isn't a definite) that its just super markets conning us what are they really called?

And that's about it for the time being.

Day 30 A Letter to Yourself, Tell Yourself EVERYTHING You Love About Yourself

Dear Tash,

*big sigh and shake of the head* What am I going to do with you? Okay listen up babe because I'm only going to say this once...

I know the past few years have been pretty shitty and you often felt like giving in...but you didn't. You dropped your head to your chest and battled harder and you got through it. Let's not over look the fact you had some help from friends along the way but the most important thing is that YOU GOT THROUGH IT and its over. You have great strength and determination Natasha, and you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. I just think that you forget that sometimes in your haste to demand perfection from yourself and others.

It is true that you aren't perfect (I might like to add that no one is) but there are so many things that you're good at, so many people that like you - faults and all - for who you are. You have a good heart Natasha and you're always there when people need you. You have a great sense of humour and its a gift to be able to make people smile when just a few moments ago they were crying, don't ignore that.

You have a great flair for creativity and a fantastic imagination, some people don't and can't imagine their life any other way than it is. You don't realise how lucky you are that the same can't be said for you, when things get tough you don't give in, you imagine your life better and butt your head up against whatever is in your way until you get through it. That is not a small thing Natasha.

I have one last thing to say (your standing before yourself now - adult to child - and I'm fixing your (my) collar, tugging your coat straight, smoothing your untidy hair and lastly cupping your chin and tilting your head up to look up at me) cut yourself some slack once in a while Natasha. You don't have to have everything figured out now and you simply can't control everything in life.

Remember, it is a good thing that no one else can be you. Now, go out and play and have some fun.

Love you, love me x

ps you made it through 30 days of truth...don't you feel better for it?...too soon to ask? Okay go play.

Day 29 Something You Hope to Change About Yourself. And Why.

I hope to change the way I seem to store up hurt.

I find it incredibly difficult to let go of hurt and get over it, which means the healing process takes forever. And that is SO tiresome.

Apart from being tiresome it also gets in the way of everything...happiness, laughter, life in general.

So if I could change anything it would be to get over things quicker and get on with...stuff, like living and life.

Oh and I'd also like to be slimmer and taller. I know the question or day of truth was 'something you hope to change' meaning something that is possible but I just thought I'd throw that out there. And it is my blog so I can do what I want.

Day 28 What if You Were Pregnant or Got Someone Pregnant, What Would You do?

Hhmm...interesting.

Well, I don't know. One ovary with PCOS and the other one not functioning aside this is a tough call.

Neither L nor myself are ready for children, and I don't mean that in the 'if it should happen we'd come around because we're going to have them at some point aren't we' not ready. I mean in the really not ready way.

And, to be brutally honest children have never been on my to-do list, the fact I refer to things that I want to do as 'to-do' should be a dead give away as to what type of person I am.

That doesn't mean I don't love children, far from it. I think there is nothing more amazing in this world than them. One of my closest friends have 3 children - 2 girls Chloe 7 and Hermonie 3, and the new addition of a little boy Mason 2 months - and I love them all. Between the 3 of them I've been puked on, peed on and pooped on and they aren't even mine, so I know no one can question whether I like children because there's no way in heaven or hell a person who doesn't like children would allow that to happen to herself. She wouldn't be in a 5 mile radius of children in the first place.

But...I am not ready for my own and I'm very thankful that I get to give them back and don't have to be with them 24-7. I am too selfish a person to have children, I know that and I don't have a problem with it either.

What would I do if I fell pregnant?...I have no idea and I hope I don't have to find out anytime soon.

Wondering Wednesday

I have A LOT of random thoughts throughout the course of a day. Thoughts about things that I notice and day-dream or muse on - things that only be called innane - that also help pass the time of day.

So, to give voice to all the strange things I think about I'm going to save them/write them down and post them up every Wednesday. Yes I really do think about that many stupid things that I can dedicate a weekly post to them.

Here's a taster,

As its getting closer and closer to Halloween and all the shops are full of costumes and sweets, pumpkins, decorations etc I got to thinking about how strange the tradition of Halloween is. Here's why.

On the odd occasion mum was forced to take me to a friend's house, her friend not mine, because she had to pop in on the way home this is what would happen. Around the corner from said friend's house she would pull me to a halt, straighten my collar, use mystical spit to clean my face (yuck) cup my chin in her hand and tell me sternly 'Okay when we get in there Natasha I want you to be on your best behaviour, don't embarrass me. Sit nicely and quietly and don't ask for anything, no drinks or sweets or anything ok?' I'd usually nod my head and think longingly of dinner. Now, the tradition of Halloween is essentally the time of year where your parents dress you up in something ridiculous in the guise of it being 'cute' and they take out to what basically comes down to begging. Now here's the thing that gives me pause for thought - how is that you're not allowed to accept or ask for food from a friend but its perfectly acceptable to dress you up in stupid clothes and take you out begging from strangers?

Equally I never really got the Santa thing either. All year round at school and at home you'd be lectured until your ears bled about accepting sweets from strangers, going off with them, talking to them etc and then comes Christmas time. Again you're dressed up in something awful taken to a shopping centre, where you que for forever. Finally you get to the front of the que and you're told to sit on 'Santa's' lap, smile to have your picture taken and to tell 'Santa' if you've been good and what you'd like for Christmas. And then, and here's the best bit, you get given a present. So just in case you're missing the point...you sit on a strange man's lap, have your picture taken and get a present. And your parents think this is okay.

Talk about mixed messages;-)

I'm also wondering why the other day a lady who I really don't know that well felt it was entirely appropriate to tell me that since having her children she can't cough, sneeze or laugh without peeing herself a little. We were in the middle of the street and she wasn't particularly quiet about it. Charming.

Why are all the things that taste good bad for you? Chocolate, tastes good but bad for you, crisps, tastes good, but again bad for you. Cakes, biscuits, muffins - all taste good yet also bad for you. Brussel sprouts, taste like trump but good for you. Where is the fairness in that?

Also, one last thing, why is it considered good luck to either step in dog crap or have a bird crap on you? From where I'm standing neither one of those is much fun to have to deal with, and personally I'd consider myself lucky to NOT step in it or have it descend on me from a height.

Am also wondering why dogs have to try to carry mini trees instead of going for a reasonably sized stick. I've been looking after a friend's boxer - Bella - and walking her every day. Today, third day of hour long outing together, just as I was wondering if it's a male dog thing to pick up a stick that is far too large and will just knock me off my feet as they go passed, Bella did the same thing.

Admittedly her chosen mini tree didn't have as much girth as the ones male dogs seem to pick...but it was incredibly long. She lost interest when it snapped. But why do they do it? Are they compensating for something - male dogs that I've seen doing it have all had the snip?

Day 27 What’s the Best Thing Going for You Right Now?

Erm, don't know. It's hard to pick one thing or to pin point something that stands out from everything else.

Thinking, thinking, thinking...and still drawing a blank. I don't mean that I'm drawing a blank because I feel really hopeless and like I have nothing going for me at the moment, I mean that in the this question is a bit vague. And pointless.

What would be the right response a roof over my head because there are plenty of homeless people without this, or perhaps food in my fridge because equally there are people out there starving. Or how about that I have some great friends who are there for me when I need a cup of a tea, a table to talk over and a shoulder to cry on? Or may be its the husband with the patience of a saint (he needs that to live with me) and a great, if slightly odd, sense of humour, which come to think of it is also a pre-requisite living with me. Or may be, PCOS and psoriasis aside, its my good health?

Do you see where I'm going with this? How could I possible pick one thing out of everything that is the best thing?...it isn't possible. All of the things I've mentioned are something to be thankful for, and depending on what is needed at any given time, it's going to be considered the best thing.

Right now I'm thinking of my nice cup of tea and maybe, if I had any, how nice a a chocolate biscuit or muffin would be to go with it, so the best thing going for me right now...my nice cup of tea.

Day 26 Have You Ever Thought About Giving up on Life? If so, When and Why?

Well, there's no easy way to say this but yes, yes I have.

I have gone to bed, in the past, and not wanted to wake in the morning. But I have never thought about taking that desire in to my own hands.

When and why? *big deep sigh* err well I felt besiged on all sides by everything and like all the most important people in my life had abandoned me in my time of need.

Simply phrased I couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn't talk about how I felt - and even if I could there was no one for me to turn to - I didn't know how to get myself out of what I'd got myself in to.

In the space of 18 months here's what I went through;

1. I moved house
2. Started a new job in a new area in a company where the women I worked with make me ashamed to be female
3. My husband went away for 4 months
4. My husband came back and had shit to deal with at work - people making his life hell and trying to damage his career
   
5. I fell out with my mum over getting married
6. I fell out with my sister over getting married
7. I fell out with the rest of my family over getting married
   
8. I got married on a Saturday, any way (see stubborn)
   
9. I buried my nan on the following Monday
10. My husband's grandfather was diagnosed with cancer
11. I started my Masters
12. I moved house again
13. My husband went away, again
    
14. His grandfather died
15. We buried his grandfather
16. I struggled with my Masters and rallied again conforming to the university's dictations on my writing style, topic and presentation (more examples of being me being stubborn)
    
17. My husband went away, yet again

Oh and I failed my driving test 3 times as well in and between those above. I really am a good driver though;-)

And I was diagnosed with depression that I point blank refused - good thing or bad thing I don't know - to take anti-depressants for.

So, there you have it. The whole schbang.

Am I ashamed that I thought about and wanted to give in? A little yes. I don't do weakness and that's what I felt above and beyond all else. Weak and pathetic and like a better person would have coped.

Day 25 The Reason You Believe You’re Still Alive Today.

Simply put because I'm stubborn.

I refuse to give in or up on things, the harder something is the more I dig my heels in.

Whenever I'm having a hard time and it feels like the best option would be to just let go, give up the fight and accept that it - whatever it is - can't be done or achieved ...I snarl, frown and swear before just get on with it and attack the problematic thing even harder.

Yes I really do snarl that wasn't a typo.

Day 24 A Playlist to Someone, and Explain Why You Chose all the Songs. (Just Post the Titles and Artists and Letter)

I should have posted about this one yesterday but...I wasn't in the mood.

My play list ...
Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer
Sometimes - Gabrielle
Tainted Love - Gloria Jones
Please Don't Leave Me - Pink
Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Dear L,

These songs make me think of you
Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer because whether we accept it or not it's our song. Its the song from when we first started seeing each other and everything was new, when we were bashful, young and just getting to know each other.

Sometimes - Gabrielle because as the song aptly summerises 'Sometimes I love you. Sometimes I don't. But I never ever, never want to let you go and We're both guilty of mistakes. Though you rarely take the blame. All you put me through, Sometimes I hate you. Oh, of all the crazy things in life that's been it's you and me. We've come so far sometimes I can't believe, But I wouldn't change a thing.' You make me unbelievably angry and you hurt me when you let me down by not being there for me. But despite all that the thought of leaving you...tears me apart.

Tainted Love - Gloria Jones because 'Sometimes I feel I've got to Run away I've got to Get away. From the pain that you drive into the heart of me. The love we share seems to go nowhere and I've lost my light for I toss and turn I can't sleep at night' It's true, when everything - me, you, my turbulent emotions that I can't resolve, my anger, my hurt, my confusion, my need - gets too much I do want to run away. But I don't, where would I go and what would be the point? It doesn't matter how far you run you still take these kind of things with you and I don't really want to. The moment and need usually passes.

Please Don't Leave Me - Pink because I am exactly like this - up and down. I snap at you and push you away and withdrew into myself and you take it all. And because 'I always say how I don't need you/But it's always gonna come right back to this/Please don't leave me.' When I'm reacting emotionally, when I'm angry and stomping around the place like a bear with a sore head I'm telling myself that I don't need you, but when it does come down to the bare basics I don't want to be without you.

Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol because when I get scared all I want is to run to your arms and hide there. At such times when I feel stress crowding me and suffocating me all I want is lay down and to ask you to 'lay with me and forget the world' and because most of the time 'I don't quite know how to say how I feel. Those three words are said too much, they're not enough' I do say those 3 three words too much, often as a throw away thing but they don't begin to really express all the things you make me feel and I feel about you. You are the person holding me (a snow globe) in your hands, you are the roller coaster that I - the coward - is on scaring herself half to death.

Love you, love me x

Day 23 Something You Wish You Had Done in Your Life.

Erm I'm only 32, okay so nearly 33, but I'm pretty sure I have LOADS of time left to tick off all the things on my 'To-Do' list like...

Have my own cafe where I can bake to my heart's content and other people get fat from it
Buy a camper van/RV and wing it around the States for a while
Write a book
Stay in one place long enough to have a dog or two
Learn to be more patient - good luck with that one Natasha
Become a teacher
Design and make my own jewelry/greeting cards

Besides those I think I'm * ahem* too young to have any real heartfelt regrets for things I have or haven't done.

Yup, and I'm just going to keep telling myself that.

Day 22 Something You Wish You Hadn’t Done in Your Life.

Hhhmmm...thinking, thinking, thinking....

I guess the award for this one has to go to...drinking a bottle of Southern Comfort and then eating fried chicken and chips with my cousin.

IT WAS NOT PRETTY. Boy did I throw up!

I can't smell a glass of Southern Comfort without heaving and being all dramatic about it.

Huh, if only drinking too much Vodka, cider, wine or beer - not together at the same time, oh alright who am I trying to impress I have drunk them ALL in the same night, not in the same glass in my defence - would generate the same affect...Yeah but then I wouldn't be enjoying the glass of red that I'm having now.

Can't have it all I suppose.

Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?

This doesn't require any thought...I move heaven and earth to get to the hospital. It doesn't matter what I'm doing or what we were fighting about I would do everything in my power to get myself to her side.

Once she's better and everything is okay we can take back up whatever it was that we were arguing about.

Isn't that what friends do?

A letter

Hi Monster,

I thought writing this letter to you would be a good idea but... now that I’ve started my confidence falters. I’m balking at the things I want to say and need to say, afraid of what happens when they’re out there and I can’t take them back. I am, in short, scared. I’m scared of how I feel and of the things that I think, I’m scared of admitting them out loud to myself as much as I am of admitting them to you.

I don’t know where to start really, I don’t know how to tell you what’s wrong with me because I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Lots of things, lots of little things, have been bothering me. That said they are things that have always bothered me, only for a short while before I let go of them and forgot about it all. This?...This feels bigger, so much bigger than that.

I’m angry with you. I’m angry and I’m hurt because you’ve let me down and you’re still letting me down. I don’t feel important to you L. I don’t feel like you notice me or that you notice when something is upsetting me. When I am upset and I ask for a hug its because I need one and not because I want one. Do you think that I like feeling so vulnerable, so weak, so scared and so emotional that I resort to the primal need of having someone’s arms around me to make me feel comforted and secure? Do you think I like having that need ignored? What do you think that does to my confidence?

Truth be told this isn’t anything new, you consistently let me down L, time-and-time-again. You really are just never there – physically or emotionally – whenever I need you and I am just so sick of it. I am fed up of reaching out for you and finding that you’re ...absent. You have something else on your mind, something more pressing, something else that you are focussing on; work, lists of chores that you’ve asked me to do while you’re geographically away, researching flights to the States to visit your parents (your mum really), pushing me in the direction of becoming a qualified teacher...with a view to getting a visa to the States. Ask yourself why you’re so desperate to get to the States, is it for us? Is it so that we can have a better quality of life together? Or is more about joining your family? I feel and think that it’s more about the latter. I’m not suggesting that you don’t love me, I believe that you do but I think your need to be with your family out weighs your love. I feel like your family are more important to you than I am. I feel like you put them above me and your need for them before me. I can understand the latter but it also makes me very sad that you don’t extend the same courtesy to me...has it occurred to you that I might also need my family? That I fell out with them for you, that I hurt them for you and that I would be leaving them behind for you?

Some times L I am so hurt and so angry with you for letting me down that I hate you. I really hate you and wonder why I ever married you. I mean think about it...this isn’t the first time that you’ve let me down, this isn’t the first time that I’ve needed you and you haven’t been there for me. You let me down and left me alone to cope during a difficult time before we were married after mum and B split, you did the same when I moved to Needham and was diagnosed with depression...and it hurt. Yet I loved you that much that loving you far out weighed the hurt...now? I don’t know Luke. I know I still love you but I love you less than I did before and that hurts too because you have no idea how much I wish things were the way they were before this new round of hurt and of being let down. You aren’t my special boy any more, you aren’t my sanctuary and your arms aren’t the one place that I go to when I need to hide, you aren’t perfect in my eyes any more and I’m grieving so much for the loss of these things. It feels like a loss. I don’t want to look at you and not see what I’ve always seen, you perfect, lovely, special and mine. I want so desperately to get back to that, to looking at you and seeing those things and feeling my heart melt. I don’t know if that’s possible, and even if it were I don’t how to get back to that and that scares me. I’m scared of what this means for us. I don’t know how to move forward from this and that makes me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

I’m lost for words now. I’ve finally run out of things that I can say although I don’t feel empty or purged yet.

I want to tell you that I love you but saying it hurts and the only thing that comes to mind is that it shouldn’t hurt. Love isn’t meant to hurt, not like this any way. So now I don’t know how to end this letter, just saying bye doesn’t feel right but I can’t tell you that I love you either...

x

Day 20 Your Views on Drugs and Alcohol.

Isn't this a loaded one.

Always one to court controversy I'm going to be honest and say I think drugs and alcohol use is about choice.

Let me unpack that for you a bit, drugs and alcohol are always used with an end in mind and by that I mean they are consumed with a particular result desired.

Some drink for the pleasure of the taste of the drink, their end is pleasure. Some drink for the affect, their desired end is to be drunk. Some drink to forget, their end is oblivion. Some drink to be sociable, their end is appear like everyone else. Some drink to relax, their end to feel less stressed.

Drugs aren't any different. Some take drugs to get high, they want that affect of the rush. Some take drugs to sober up, they've drunk too much and they want to regain control. Some take drugs to become someone else, they don't like the person that they see; she is too boring, she doesn't take any risks, she doesn't know how to let loose and have a laugh, she isn't confident enough, she isn't pretty enough etc. Some take drugs because everyone else does, their end is to fit in. Some take drugs because they have simply become addicted, be that chemically or emotionally.

It doesn't really matter why drugs and alcohol are consumed they are still being used with something particular in mind - change.

How do I know this?...because I've used drugs and alcohol for those exact reasons. I chose to use them to help me forget, to be someone else because I wasn't loved for who and what I was so therefore, surely, I must change. I used drugs and alcohol so that I could laugh and stop feeling so awful all the time and through that laughter convince others I was okay.

Truth be told I still use alcohol for all of those afore mentioned reasons at some point or another.

So you're asking my views on drugs and alcohol? I maintain it's still about choice the individual knows why they do what they do, when they do because its their choice - I just don't want it dressed it up as anything else or anyone else's fault.

If you think I'm being evasive and not answering the question you're right I'm not because my opinion or view shouldn't influence your decisions - if you want to drink or take drugs...its your choice.

Square One

I'm not having a good time of it at the moment. Today, along with yesterday, the day before that, the day before that, the day before that, the day...you see where I am going with this I have been very tearful.

Worse still yesterday I was in a perfect RAGE. I wanted to smash things, to kick things, to punch things, to destroy just about anything I could get my hands on. I didn't though. I went round a friends house and sobbed in her arms for about 10 minutes. A good cry is meant to make you feel better but it didn't, I don't feel any better than I did yesterday.

What started me off? Everything and nothing and the usual.

I know I need to get to the bottom of what is making me feel so stressed, tearful, anxious, withdrawn, vulnerable and overwhelmed...but I'm afraid of what I might find if I do.

So that leaves me right where I started, square one.

Day 19 What do You Think of Religion? Or What do You Think of Politics?

I'm not in to politics - I only voted for the first time last year and I'm in my 30s. I know my apathy is appalling...but moving on...religion. What do I think of religion?

I think it isn't for everyone...And I think its a great deal like Love...as destructive as it is nurturing.

If I think about the things that we, the supposed civilised human race, do in the name of religion I do begin to question it. I question its goodness and the rightness of its influence in our lives.

But...then I think of holy scripture like it is any book of literature - to be entirely reductive about it - and then it becomes a matter of interpretation. A room full of people can read the same chapter but you'll be hard pressed to find them all in complete agreement as to what it means, how it makes them feel, how it speaks to them and what they take from it.

And it isn't any one's place to force their opinions or interpretation onto others. Not ever and not under any circumstances.

Day 18 Your Views on Gay Marriage

I don't have any problem with gay marriage or gay relationships, why would I?

And if I did, why should how I feel or the things I think about something that doesn't concern me be more important than the people it does concern? It strikes me as being incredibly arrogant to be under the impression my thoughts and feeling should matter or be taken in to consideration. Its so judgmental and...wrong to think you in someway have a right to tell another how to live their life and to expect to be obeyed. You have a right to an opinion and to speak your mind... but that is precisely all you have and where it ends.

I am one of those people who really does believe you can't help who you fall in love with and so long as it doesn't hurt anyone - I'm talking about deliberately breaking up marriages - then go ahead be happy.

Perhaps that is too naive and reminiscent of Disney, but it is true none the less. I really do fail to see how dictating to someone who they should love and marry can possibly be right? Who died and crowned them fit to play judge and jury?

Day 17 A Book You’ve Read That Changed Your Views on Something.

Every book I've read changes my perspective on something - isn't that what literature is about?

Every book I read - even if its for the tenth time - I take something new from it or learn something. Take for example the novel The Story of O by Pauline Réage (1954) I learnt about the complicated nature of love, lust and the struggle between independence and submission in the world of sado-masochism. I learnt that s & m is not all about chained men, rubber latex suits and whip wielding dominatrix. I also learnt it was fun to watch the faces of people on the train, to watch them squirm uncomfortably thus revealing they'd read too and or to change carriages completely apparently disgusted by my choice in literature and reading place.

Reading Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (1848) taught me something else entirely. It taught me that just because something is considered a 'classic' doesn't mean it is enjoyable. I couldn't finish it and it is the only book I've started and never finished. Quite a prestigious title really when you think about it because I have read A LOT of books.

Day 16 Someone or Something You Definitely Could Live Without.

I could most definitely live without doubt.

Its dark and insidious and like a cancer. Once it infects one part of your life it spreads to all areas. I hate it.

From doubt comes confusion, indecision, fear, insomnia, and withdrawal.

I can live with a degree of confusion, indecision, insomnia and with withdrawal. I can even live with fear because it can spur you on and give you just the right kick up the backside to get moving but doubt...it undermines everything and constantly living with it is exhausting.

Day 15 Something or Someone You Couldn’t Live Without, Because You’ve Tried Living Without it.

My answer to this one is 4 fold. I can't live without the following Imagination, Literature, Disney - it had to get in there somewhere - and hope.

Here's why...

Without imagination life in bleak and dull and empty. If you possess imagination you possess the magic ticket to anywhere and to everything.

Imagination gives life to literature and to Disney, without it neither one of these things would or could exist. Imagination is the mother and father of all creativity.

When life throws you some...snow globe moments - think about what you do to a snow globe - and you're devoid and empty with no imagination, no magic ticket, no ability to lose yourself in literature or Disney what are you left with...hope.

From hope and with hope you can find your way back to just about anything.

Day 14 A Hero That Has Let You Down. (letter)

And there I was thinking that this was easy...

This is a hard one not because I've been let down by so many people and am feeling 'woe is me' No, this is hard because of me and what I do - I put people up on pedestals. I hero worship all the usual suspects; my husband, my mum, my two sisters, my friends and that is a recipe for disaster and disappointment. The higher you place someone the further they have to fall before you realise that they are human.

So without further ado here's my letter...

Dear hero of my heart,

Firstly, thank you for loving me. I know I haven't always made this an easy task and there have been times when you felt like you couldn't do right for doing wrong, or that just when you thought you understood what I wanted/needed...things changed. I'm sorry I put you in that position so frequently.

Secondly, I really do know how much you are stuck between a rock and a hard place during the times that I need you. And yes, you would be forgiven for thinking that there is some kind of conspiracy against you when your two worlds collide. Its almost laughable that I do only ever seem to need you when you aren't here or able to be there for me, I promise I don't do this deliberately.

I know you didn't set out to hurt me or let me down but you did. I was going through a very tough time - physically and emotionally - and you failed you notice. It felt like having got what you desired and had spent years pursuing you disappeared, just checked out - metaphorically speaking. Although I am the one who made the decisions I made I made them for you, I made them to be with you because I needed you. I needed you more than I had ever needed anyone in my life. Yet once I'd given you your answer...you stopped noticing me or what I was going through. Not at one point did you become aware of what it cost me, or the impact it had on me emotionally and that hurt. I felt like I had turned my world upside down for you, to be with you and to make you happy and all I needed in return was you, yet you weren't there for me - you let me down.

Perhaps if I'd opened my mouth and said something, told you how much I needed you, things might have been different. I couldn't though, I was so lost and so emotional that I failed to see that I needed you to see all of this for yourself and without me having to point out the glaringly obvious.

Looking back I can see that a huge part of my hurt isn't just from needing you and feeling that you weren't there for me, but also from feeling like you don't want to see me or what I was going through. Seeing that hurts as I can always see and recognise when you have a need for something and I fulfill it instinctively. I do this because I want to and because I love. I hate saying this but I don't feel like you do the same. Sometimes I'm not sure if your failure to see when I'm not coping and am vulnerable is a case of you not being able to deal with side of me, or it is just that you genuinely aren't aware that I'm not coping too well. I can't say that I want to look too deeply at either of those for fear of what I might see and not like.

I guess there is still a part of me that feels a great deal of anger toward you for all of this; for letting me down, for not being there for me when I need you, for not seeing that I needed you in the first place, and for not accepting that it hurt and I couldn't cope. When things got rough for you I sidelined what I was going through and did everything that I could to be there for you and for whatever reason you didn't do the same. And that hurts. It makes me feel hollow inside.

I'm still dealing with this and attempting to negotiate my way back to not feeling angry, not feeling hurt and not feeling like I can't trust you to ever be there for me. I am, at the heart of all of this, just trying to negotiate my way back to you.

I cling to the hope that it's merely a matter of time before I realise that I've arrived and everything is going to be okay because I don't want to be anywhere else. I never have.

Love you, love me x


Oh boy do I have issues;-)