I Wish You Knew Me Then...

I used to be different. I used to be so very different from the person I am now, the one that you know.

There was a time that I was the life of the party, the ringleader, the catalyst. I was the fun one, the funny one, the one who could do small talk and people listened. I could tell a story, relay an anecdote, walk in to a room and have people turn to look. I could talk to strangers, even though we’re told not to. I wasn’t afraid of the dark or the light. I used to embrace all hours of the day and night. I wasn’t scared to wake up in the morning, knowing I would have to do it all again. I also wasn’t scared of not waking up because I knew that would be okay, too. Whatever the end point was I was fine.

I used to cop things on the chin, confident that the next great thing was coming my way. Because before you knew me there was always a next great thing to come.

It would be crazy to think that there’s not another great thing to come. I know that there is. I’m not yet quite so far gone that I’ve given up altogether. But it seems that I am just far gone enough that I need to know where it is, when it’s coming; what it looks like and how it will get here.

Before you knew me I knew how to be happy and smile and laugh. Mostly at things of my own making. Perhaps because back then I was self-sufficient. Perhaps I was more giving. Perhaps I was just younger and more naïve. I think I miss being naïve. I was probably just more resilient. I was more willing to be hurt because I knew that it wouldn’t be the end of my world, I’d bounce back.

Now, I live with more fear. Less back-up plans so that the plans I have have to work. But for that to happen you have to make the plans… you need to have faith in things working out and faith in things being okay even when they don’t go to plan.

I wish you’d known me before, when I knew myself. I wish you’d seen me as I was then. But at the same time I’m so glad you didn’t. I’d hate for you to have known who I was as compared to who I’ve become. I think now I’m living in hope that I can become the person I was again and you can meet her. I think you’d like her.

I Want You To Know Me

I want you to know all of me. I want you to know the thoughts that go through my head when I feel at my lowest point and I'm petrified I'm never going to recover.

I want you to know that I have a panic attack almost every time I drive by a particular spot while listening to the music that makes me sad. I want you to know that I couldn't just switch off the music and try driving through in silence because I want you to know me well enough to realise that that would be an impossibility.

I want you to know when I'm hurting so badly all I want is for you to intuitively know that I'm sad and in pain, and to come over and just hold me for a little while. Without me thinking that I'm manipulating you in to coming over and spending time with you, whether you believe that too or not.

I want you to know when I'm so scared of seeing daylight because it means that I've survived another night and now I have to survive another day.

I want you to know these things about me because I want to stop lying. I want to stop lying to you about the person I am and start being honest about all the parts of me. I want you to know me because I want you forever to be my friend, and I won't be able to keep up the farce.

I want you to know me and still think I'm worth knowing.

The Plan for a Birthday Resolution

I don't do New Years resolutions. I don't like them. Never really have. I just don't think they make sense... An arbitrary promise on an arbitrary date? No thanks. And I understand that when you make this vow to yourself it's not arbitrary or disingenuous, I just think that it's too hard to decide that this is the day that your whole life changes when you're meant to be drunk and having fun. Or something like that.

So, I do birthday resolutions. And I remember them for the year... The last birthday I was to try to speak more kindly to myself. It is absolutely a work in progress and one that I need to continue trying to master. But I'm trying, and that's a pretty big thing, too.

This year, I've figured my birthday resolution pretty early in the piece but I'm going to try to remember it, and make it happen. This year, I am going to...

TRY TO TAKE THINGS ON FACE VALUE.

Stop over-analysing everything. Not every single thing has a deeper meaning, or a hidden agenda. Not every single thing has to be rolled around my brain like you roll a lolly on your tongue. Sometimes people just mean what they say and say what they mean. I don't know that I'm quite ready to do that myself but I think I might be ready to accept that other people do it.

I just hope it sticks...

Darkness

I'm sick of sunlight in my bedroom. I want to live in the darkness. I want it to be the place that I'm allowed to live because right now it's the most comfortable place to be. Let me sleep forever because so long as I'm not dreaming it's the only time I'm at peace.

The Fine Art of Friendship

09.12.2015

There is a perfectly valid reason that people don't stay friends once they've broken up and it's the exact same reason you should never fall for someone that you're already friends with: because it hurts like fuck when you have to see or hear about them with someone else. Though sometimes I think the latter situation is worse because you don't have the option of saying, "Sorry, this is all too new/hard/fresh for me to deal with right now, I need to take a step back".
Because you're friends. That's the essential basis of your relationship and to admit to hurting because it's not more would be tantamount to saying that you can no longer be friends because that's not enough.

And it is enough. Because you always told yourself, promised yourself, that if all you could ever have with this person was a friendship then you would take it with open arms and eternal gratitude.

But even that stings. Because whilst you can't lie to anyone else, about anything, you can manage to lie to yourself. Because this beautiful, wonderful, honest and true friendship that you harvested and cultivated so carefully is at once too much and not enough.


10.12.2015

The thing is: friendship is more than enough. It's not about the person, it's about what they've found with someone else. I want to find that, too. And I'm jealous. I feel like I've been alone for so long I don't know how not to be. And I'm so scared I'll fuck it up.

I don't want a relationship with this person. I just miss having someone to sleep next to.

Musings

I've had some musings recently. I've written them down in  a thousand different places and lost most of the loose pieces of paper. Because that's what you do when you have a mind that doesn't stop and an obsession with stationery. Some have been written in to my notes section on my phone, though, so I'm going to have a go at transcribing them.

There may be some sheer lunacy, but it's my lunacy. And it was my lunacy at the time...

29.08.2015
It's not that or nothing; it's that or something better.

This one wasn't actually me, it was my best friend Poppy. She hit so hard home with this one that I couldn't imagine living without this bit of wisdom

15.11.2015
Hurt, confused, unaware and unsure. Why would you ditch an event and not say something? What changed? How bad is it that you couldn't even deign to be with your friends? I'm sorry she fucked you up so badly, but stop letting yourself take it out on everyone else.

Angry munchkin, there... and drunk

19.11.2015
"...you're unwilling to go out on a limb because it might just break underneath you." - Jodi Picoult

28.11.2015
I need to stop spending my life pining after idiots who don't want me. Because one day someone will and if I'm fixated on the one who doesn't then he may well pass me by.

30.11.2015
Being in love with someone who doesn't care about you isn't the worst feeling in the world.
The worst feeling in the world is being in love with someone who cares deeply for you but doesn't love you.

Incidentally, NOT in love with this person.

02.12.2015
I wonder if you make the same associations I do. I wonder if you associate anything with me at all. Do you think of me when you go to the Japanese place for lunch? Do I enter your mind when you drive to my side of town? Do you think of me when you don't have anything else on your mind?

The problem is, I don't think you do. I don't think you ever will. I don't think you ever have.

Will you be around for my next birthday? Will I be around for yours? Again, I think the answer is no. And that hurts me just a little bit every time I let myself think about it. All of it hurts me just a little bit every time I let myself think about it. But I can't stop thinking about it.

So very drunk on vodka. In Bali. Feeling zen.