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I know I need to get to the bottom of what is making me feel so stressed, tearful, anxious, withdrawn, vulnerable and overwhelmed...but I'm afraid of what I might find if I do.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