I’m such a cliche.

I realised today that in the depths of breaking down and tearing myself apart, I genuinely did find myself.

Maybe I needed the maturity of age, or life experience. Perhaps it was the re occurance of rejection both from myself and the people around me who were supposed to support me without question. But the last occasion where I became so frayed around the edges, so cracked that I thought I was beyond repair… in spite of it not being the worst thing thats ever happened to me, that it wasn’t even my rock bottom, it was where I finally became… me.

(Either that or I’ve become so utterly broken, so beyond repair that I’ve just thrown in the towel but I’m going to run with the former, because it feels more real.)

Tonight I looked back on my past and realised this.

I haven’t sobbed myself to sleep for some time, wondering why I wasn’t enough. Why the people in my life who were supposed to love me didn’t, why I would never be sufficient. I have grown to realise that this is not my fault, but theirs. When before I looked upon myself as not enough – all the ants at the picnic couldn’t be wrong? – that I was somehow so damaged beyond repair that I was unlovable. That anyone who claimed to love me had lied, that they did it simply because it somehow benefited them. I now see that as a lie, one my mind told me because it didn’t understand any better. I’m not perfect, I never will be but I am me, I am whole, and I am worthy. If they can’t love me for who I am, then I will love myself enough for everyone. I don’t know when I came to understand this, but somewhere along the way I have. Somewhere along the way, without conscious knowledge I have accepted myself, and even come to love myself.

I haven’t found myself sitting up in bed for awhile now, hugging myself and rocking in the dark, trying to sooth myself from the rolling anxiety that stops me from being able to sit still, the anxiety from being so entirely out of control and tetherless (amusingly my auto correct wants to change this to motherless?) that I can’t begin to identify where to start. I don’t know when that stopped or why? But it has. I don’t for one second think that I have gained any sudden control over my world – if anything, maybe less now – so I must assume that I have learned to live with the unpredictability of life? I have learned that life is to be grabbed by the scruff, not to be hidden from. At least, some of the time – baby steps.

I no longer own the houseplant that slept menacingly in my bedroom. It was pretty and I did like it, but the mere fact it was poisonous and deadly if you chewed on it didn’t escape me. It up and died awhile ago and I haven’t replaced it.

I no longer hide everything in my life – most of what I have gone through I have shouldered on my own, because of mistrust, misunderstanding, fear, shame… the list is endless. I’ve come to realise that this was stopping me from growing – I no longer hide my mental health issues. I talk to people when I need to. I tell people in my life what is going on, and this makes an enormous difference. For too long I hid my relationships. I hid my struggles. I hid how I felt even to myself. I pretended that it didn’t hurt and I pretended that if I kept trying to please others, then they would accept me. I was raised to put on a brave face and pretend nothing was going wrong, when everything was wrong. In fact, since I stopped hiding everything… things no longer go wrong? It’s like I had to stop the pretence in order to stop the damage.

I’ve come around to loving myself, for who I am – inside. I’ve never been one to compare myself (looks wise) to the girls in magazines, or women on tv. I’ve not been hugely interested in how I stack up – probably because I’ve been blessed with height, an athletic build, and the right look – pretty enough but with enough quirky features that I’ll never be beautiful, but I’ll be enough to get by. I did however surround myself with men who weren’t blessed. I look back now and I realise that my belief that I championed the underdog, that I enjoyed getting to know the sort of people who society shunned was perhaps not 100% accurate – it was my truth at the time, but in hindsight I feel I was probably drawn to these men because I knew that to them, I was Penny from the Big Bang Theory – I was as pretty and good as they thought they’d get, so they put me on a pedestal. I became the puppet master. I surrounded myself with guys who would shower me with attention, not because I really was all that, but because I was all that that would talk to them. It wasn’t until my heart was hurt by another that I realised what I had put some of them through. To this day I battle regularly the urge to simply send them the message “I understand now. I am truly sorry for everything. I didn’t know nor appreciate the power I held over your feelings, and I mishandled them. I don’t expect nor deserve forgiveness, but please know that I understand.” But as I’ve gotten older (yet not old) and my looks have begun to fade, I realised how much I have relied on them – this too has helped me learn myself. I can’t coast by on my looks, and I’m learning how to be a good person. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t a good person before, but now I realise the importance of it, now that society think I’m just another boring washed up spinster.

It’s like the last six years of my life have been the ones that I had to live in order to finally blossom. And the rest of my life has begun, at last.

Long time no write

A VERY long time no write, it feels. It feels like an age. An age where much has changed internally, but probably not much externally.

A quick reflection tells me last September – just over six months ago – I blogged about this very same concept, however I said I was unsure if the changes were good or bad? I now know that they are good. Very good.

I am on my lifes path, I can feel it. I have learnt much about myself in the past few years, and I love this wonderful progression that I’m making. Things are falling into place for me I think, not always in ways that seem positive – my hand is being forced in some ways, I am being forced to make some changes in my life by outside factors – but they’re changes that I had to make in order to grow, changes that are pushing me toward the person that I have always wanted to be.

I think I have found my true north?

I genuinely like the person I am now, and I think maybe I even love myself. I am at peace with me. I have found people who think the same way and accept me, which aides me in accepting myself. I am embracing the quirk. I have shed a lot of the people of my past and I deal with those relationships I am forced to maintain. But I do worry that I am turning into my mother, who is a hard, bitter woman. Not that I think I am hard nor bitter… but I’m caring a lot less what other people think, which is a part of her personality she WANTS people to think she has – she cares deeply what others think, but pretends not to.

I have PP to thank for much of this progression in my life – my turbulent time there has set me up to really move forward in my emotional and spiritual growth.

🙂

• cooler weather
• growth
• taking up old hobbies
• safety
• chocolate cake
• being involved in something bigger
• online shopping
• warm pyjamas
• genuine friends
• finding things you didn’t know you needed until you found them
• finding people you didn’t know you needed until you found them
• acceptance.

Its been awhile.

It most definitely has been some time since I last blogged. Having a peep, it appears like it has been a few months – seems like longer. I’m going to refrain from reading that entry until after I’ve typed this one, lest I derail my train of thought.

My life continues to be this weirdly ever evolving thing, as I suppose everyones lives are. But for some reason mine feels like it is changing rapidly at the present, more so than any other time in my life – and I’m still unsure if this is a good or bad thing? Why the sudden escalation in the necessary changes in life that bring changes and growth? Why am I suddenly ready for this? I do believe that things happen and present themselves as you become ready to deal with them, whether it feels that way at the time or not. Also, I feel like I am ready for these changes in my life, which as anyone who knows me would know is NOT exactly my default setting.

Spring has sprung. The days are getting longer, the weather warmer, and it’s time to get out in the garden again. My favourite time of year. The world is prettier, more welcoming and accepting, and everything seems more attainable at this time of year. Anything is possible! Get out and do the thing!

I’ve taken a huge step forward recently – a change has occurred that forced me to stop doing what I have always done and step out of the zone, and do something different. I didn’t like the concept at the time but the world has not ended. I have cut a thirty-something year tie and stepped out into the abyss to see what it is made of. So far, so good. As a direct result of this change I am now…

… more involved in my previous job – the only thing in my life that has come close to being a ‘career’. The only job I’ve had that I actually felt proud to tell people that I did. Due to changes in circumstance there, my former boss asked me to become involved again to help sort things out, so I’m back. This guarantees a bit more reliable income, and gives me something to feel good about – something that I can go back to, from the halcyon days where I had a better handle on my spazz attacks. It also brings with it all the things that stressed me out the first time, the things I left the job over in the first place. But we have some handy dandy resolutions in place this time, to hopefully stop the negative bits escalating this time to the point where I can’t deal with them. So fingers crossed…

I feel like I’m winding back the clock somewhat at present. Going back to an old job, and my old self (to a point). I’ve removed some of the issues that were upsetting me, and I’ve taken on some new things that make me feel good about myself, and distract me from being caught up in my own head. I’ve also been treating myself better lately, in the form of exercise and what I stick in my mouth which has actually had the fun (and unintended side effect) of reducing me back to my college weight. So another part of my life that I’ve gone back to more comforting times in.

And my involvement in the local thing I referenced before has also ramped up, and I’ve become the second  most important person involved. Which makes me feel good – I’m enjoying being able to contribute towards something bigger. I’m loving being able to use my skills I’ve learned/developed through life experience to use, and I honestly feel like I’m making a big difference. I know I am. And it feels great. And I can do nearly all of it from the comfort of my own home, and hide here behind my laptop. Which means no extra stress and no awkwardness of people complimenting me, and watching me stumble over that. I can do what I love best – help, contribute, work hard and get no attention or celebration for it. And being involved in something bigger and contributing towards projects – another way I’ve gone backwards to a comfier time.

So life is moving along ok at present, but I’m loathe to say it’s well as that always provokes some disaster or another to occur. I feel like I’m in an enormous learning section of my life, and that life lessons are a thing right  now.

I also feel like I may have finally gotten past the PP component of my life – I realise I’ve said this before, and that it may or may not be true this time… but I no longer think of him that much, check for him, feel compelled to contact him. I feel like he is now in my past. That acknowledgement wont stop me from missing him, or feeling that pang (there you go) when I think about what could have been, or when we do speak from spending a few days feeling ruined… but I know there’s another side and that I will be on it. And that I already am.

Time to feed the zoo.

Onwards and upwards.

Ugh

The undulating beast in my brain is at it again, who knows what has inspired it tonight.

My life is a constant swoosh swoosh of things at present. I keep trying to reduce my responsibilities and stop filling my days with items to tick off, but as soon as I remove one I add two.

I know what I’m doing… I’m filling the space in my head which remains empty of all the things society says I SHOULD have at this point in my life. And I don’t have them. So instead I cram my life full to the brim so that I just don’t have time to think.

I am so massively over involved in yet another charity project at the present. This one I am in at a very grass roots level, and we’re doing good things. But it can be so exhausting, and so ongoing. And I’m putting my neck out to get my head chopped off again, only the person I’m working alongside takes things more personally than me, so instead of getting annoyed I find myself placating her instead…. a nice turn of events for me.

I have changed a lot, yet again, in the last year.

I am trying to get into mindfulness. Which is ironic given that I’m packing my days full at the moment. I am trying to practice just being… instead of constantly doing. I want to learn yoga, and practice mindfulness, and stop being… so me?

A major part of my life will be ending soon in all likelihood. A major part of my days, and to a lesser degree my identity will pass, and take with it a good portion of my income. On top of losing some small parts of my income, it’s about to become time I stopped wasting money and started working harder on earning it, and making sure I save it. I’m tighter than a fishes arsehole with money so that part wont be hard, but finding paid work around here is never easy.

My #1 boy is most definitely in his twilight now. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it, so I wont.

Life is just… wash rinse repeat. I’m doing a lot of good but feel like I’m contributing nothing. In spite of this fact I don’t FEEL bad. I just feel tired.

On an interesting note I have a few people in my life at the present who want to be closer to me, as good friends, they want to involve me in things and ask my opinion and be my buddy. And I really like them but for some reason I’m putting up this massive wall. The more they want to be super chummy with me the less I want them to. It is pissing me off because I really like them… and they’re not being overly needy… but there’s just something there stopping me. I don’t know if I’m throwing up barriers because I’ve been hurt in the past by being too involved in someone who has thrown it in my face (PP anybody?) or I feel like they’re pressuring me to develop past my spazz attacks (which I need to do in my own time) or both or neither of these things.

I used to be able to be friends with people and now? I just… don’t care. There’s too much pressure. Don’t buy me presents and want to socialise and say you’ll come see me. I’m not your project. I’m not much of a person and you’ll just be let down so just let me be my weird self, enjoy me from the sidelines and don’t ask much of me.

The older I get the more I get like all those fringe dwelling people that everyone knows but very few people *know*.

And that suits me just fine.

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Dreams.

The sheep do not want the dog around. He looks too much like the wolf. He reminds them that danger lurks out there, just beyond the relative safety of the fence. The wolf also hates the dog. He knows that it is the dog that stands between him and his prey. It is because of the dog that he is lean. The dog is the reason the wolf is forced to stalk the darkness. The dog knows these facts. Undeterred, he stands watch, ever ready to do battle. Despite that he is an unwelcome guest in the mists, the dog is ready, at a moment’s notice, to give his life in defense of the flock. It is simply who he is.

I had the strangest dream this morning.

In it, you told me you were getting a puppy, now that you were moving interstate.

But the way you said this was with deep simmering emotion, like it broke your heart to tell me.

And in that sentence it felt exactly like all of our conversations have felt, the deep and meaningful ones, the conversations held at 4am. The conversations that never should have been held.

The catch? None of those real life conversations were ever held face to face. And yet somehow my subconscious knows exactly what you look and sound like. Your mannerisms, your expression, your tone, your delivery. All the things I’ve never seen nor heard and yet I know them all.

From another time, perhaps.

All this triggered by you vaguebooking. Prick. You’re getting the result you wanted and I’ll never tell.

Sometimes, quite out of the blue I am struck by the most intense longing to see you. Tonight, right now is one of those times.

Such a need. I want to see you… to just spend time. Watch you. Hear your voice. Touch you – not sexually but just to feel that human contact. Just to make that connection with you so that I know that you’re still there. That we’re still here. That regardless of everything that has happened, is happening and will happen that we are still us.

Missing you isn’t even something I feel anymore – it just is. It’s a permanent thing in my life now. I don’t notice anymore, not because it isn’t there but because it isn’t ever not there. I realise now that you’re not the first person that I feel this way about. You’re probably the second, and the first I haven’t seen for fifteen years now.

Missing you in my life is like a dull ache that you don’t even notice anymore, except for those brief interludes in life where it’s gone and you realise how much happier and better you feel. Which is great – for a short time – until the pain is back and your attention is once again bought to it, and you remember.

We will never know where this could’ve gone. We will never understand the extent of everything, because we can’t communicate with each other- not fully. I feel like we can’t, because if we tried to, and we did… everything would implode. There will always be those things left unsaid.

I said one of those things recently. I genuinely felt like you already knew. You genuinely expressed that you did not. I would love to know how this news has changed you, what you think, how you think. But I suspect I’ll never know.

Perhaps you’ll never talk to me again and then I’ll have an idea.

Six years. In those six years we’ve covered the whole gamut, haven’t we. We’ve met, we’ve been associates. We’ve gotten to know each other and flirted shamelessly, without concern – as friends. We both tumbled down the rabbit hole and collapsed down the bottom – first you, then I followed. Only one of us got up and dusted ourselves off, the other lay broken.

Tonight I feel a little heart sore, thinking about you. Missing what we had.

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New Years Eve

I normally haaaate new years. With a firey passion. It usually flares up my spazz attacks because I feel an enormous loss of control at this time of year – today is literally a marking point in the year that says YOU CANNOT AVOID THIS. LIFE IS MOVING FORWARD AND YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THAT.

I also hate how it forces reflection over the year that has passed and really shoves into my face all the things that have not changed, all the things that never happened, and how much my life is in the same crappy rut that it started the year in.

For some reason this year I don’t feel that negativity. I don’t feel like I’ve got nothing to show for it, that my life has plateaued (god that’s a complicated word to spell) and that everything is in a free fall towards disastrous hell and there’s naught I can do about it.

And I have no idea why?

I’m trying not to think about it too much, lest I realise there’s no reason and provoke myself into feeling shitty. But honestly, today is just another day and tomorrow will be too.

So my 2016? Well I’ve managed to end it with both of the older, health-clouded ones in my life still here and both doing ok in spite of things. So that’s a big plus. My own health is good, and I feel like I’m really starting to extend myself now out of my comfort zone and taking small (but increasingly larger) steps away from spazz city and back into society.

I’ve been steadily forcing myself into broadening my horizons this year and wrestling some control back from… the control. I’ve been trying to make myself less fussy, less of a perfectionist. I’ve been learning the beauty in mistakes (but not flat out failure yet) and deliberately attempting things that I don’t already know to make myself both learn something new AND risk not doing well. This has primarily been in my studies, taking courses that I know I’ll find hard, that I know is a risk of failure. And it has really opened my eyes to new things and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. It’s definitely something I’m going to continue to do into 2017 and I honestly feel like that’s been a big part of my mental improvement.

I also realised this year that PP is gone from my life. I know I’ve said that before and struggled afterwards with the concept but this year… I don’t know. The last convo (which was what, eight months ago? I don’t even remember which says a lot. A quick scan backwards of this blog tells me yes, eight months ago) seemed more final and his behaviour and treatment of me in the lapse between now and then has just pissed me off for the final time. Honestly, I finally feel like I’ve moved on. Now I bitterly miss what we HAD not who he IS.

I had another crack at improving my health with exercise in 2016 and it’s been a bit of a fizzer. But I learned some new things and will use them next time – never quit. I’ll get there and be a fit person eventually but not today, ha ha!

Sadly no progress (almost literally) with MBP which seems to have somewhat massively gone on the back burner.

I’m not one for new years resolutions… but this year I have made one. I will use my diary. I used to be enormously anal about writing down dates and reminders for EVERYTHING and I was the most organised person in the southern hemisphere. As of tomorrow I am going to be that person again – I want to feel like I am on top of my life a bit more, instead of forgetting things, chasing my tail and being unsure. I don’t want sneaky due dates and birthdays creeping up on me, so I’m forced to try and catch up in double time. I want to have more free time and less shit-crap-ohmygod-gotta-do-that-yesterday moments.

Time for my thankful list.

• ongoing health of those around me and myself
• a mild summer preventing bigger issues
• a comfortable financial position
• successfully getting through the holiday season without any spazz attacks or even the hint of one!
• wrestling back control of my emotions
• learning new skills and unearthing myself again
• baking
• fresh produce from the garden
• becoming comfortable in my own skin
• friends who build you up, not break you down
• breathing.

Feeling strange

I’m feeling very… off tonight. Flat. Quiet. Mildly confused and a little bit needy.

I don’t know if it’s because tomorrow is court day for the murderous arsehole who took my friends life, tho I don’t think he’s doing anything other than pleading. I don’t know if it’s because last night I watched a tv show with a guy who reminded me significantly of PP. I don’t know if it’s because PP was then in my dream this morning – and not in a saucy way.

But I just am. Too much thinking about people in the past.

I’ve spent some time in the last month or so thinking about what we leave behind. I’ve learned some things about my friend that I did not know and at first they upset me, or made me mad… but they also made me realise that we are all in the same boat. None of us really know each other – there’s not one person in the world who knows everything about you. Not one person who knows everything of your past, everything in your present, and all the things you want in your future. You’re always going to learn a lot about people after they die… because those around them become more comfortable talking about them after they’re gone. Everyone wants to hold onto the memory for a little longer, so they tell stories to keep their loved ones alive. And sometimes some of what comes out will make you question if you really knew them at all. And sometimes stuff comes out that they’ve been deliberately hiding from you, for varying reasons.

(The song that PP told me reminds me of him just came on the tv. Coinkydink?)

It made me think… if I died tomorrow what would people learn about me that would surprise them? Some would be surprised to learn of my battle with spazz attacks. Some would be surprised that I collect childrens toys, or have been studying at uni, what I do for a living. But mostly they’d be surprised about the variety and depth of the relationships I have online… specifically with PP.

That is the main thing people would be surprised by.