Sleepless

I woke in the middle of the night with a start. A noise had disturbed me. Was it the front door, a window? Someone in the house? I gave myself a fright. Panic.

I'm sure it was just my mobile phone battery dying, reminding me to plug it in. Another lost hour of sleep.


Sometimes I hate living on my own. I light candles and switch on the TV or radio in order that there is something living and bright and noisy.

An introduction

Some time ago I explained my reasons for writing here. My blog is anonymous to all, apart from the friend who's been mentioned here previously. It is a space for thoughts I have nowhere else to put or struggle to say out loud. It is a diary of sorts and a world apart from reality.

Somewhere along the lines I became a person who performed for those around me. I learned to conform to expectations, learned to please, and hid myself away. I felt like a fraud.

After crumbling last year, I started counselling to help me sort through the quagmire of broken bits. I could never have anticipated the journey that process began. It was a journey that started with external influences on my life, and then turned inwards. Through turning inwards, I am beginning to learn to share what I found there. I'm learning to give a bit of myself, take risks with my emotions and let people see the 'weak' version of me. The two selves may emerge one day as a whole, mask removed and integrity in place. I hope so. I'm trying.

A conversation has made me want to share a little of the external self here too, and give this a context.

In real life I work in the not for profit sector. I am privileged to work in a world of passionate and committed people who really do believe they can change the world bit by bit (so do I).

I am an outspoken, clever, compassionate girl with good friends. I am active and busy. I volunteer. I play the fiddle. I have fun and interesting times.

All sounds a bit conceited. The next bit? Sentimental, trite perhaps.

But, I'm a bit like a three legged dog. I live life and pursue my career reasonably well, but I often stumble. I am inhibited by the part of me that is more present in these pages than the everyday me. They are both real and true, but quite different. The scared, vulnerable, hurt me is here without the façade.

Not embracing the blogging 'me' has caused me to damage many things. I am a procrastinator as I'm scared of success/failure. I argue over things that are seemingly insignificant because a button has been pushed by someone to whom it is invisible and fires up things in me that are terrified. I run from emotional intimacy because I'm scared that if someone truly knows me they will dislike what's on the inside and on, and on, and on....

I am doing the best I can to reconcile the two. I will get there. I could not continue as I was. So, some days are good, some days are bad, sometimes I just want to record a moment in my day. For years I have told everyone what I thought, not how I feel. It is time for this to change. These pages are part of my journey.

I neither need nor seek pity or praise, just somewhere to explore.

One day, I would like to learn to write.

Tomorrow

Yesterday was not a good day. I was distracted and exhasted. Today is a flat, non day. Tomorrow I will do better.

Too much noise

I'm never sure what I should do with so many of my thoughts. Where should I put them? Where do they come from? I just sometimes want some peace from my own head. I just want to feel safe. And loved. And calm. Just a little bit of quiet.

I don't trust many of those thoughts. I have sabotaged myself so often that I worry about which I should ignore and which I should listen to. In many ways I know myself well, and sometimes I think I don't know myself at all.

Once a thought plants itself and grows roots, I can't let it go. Each day or week something gets stuck in my head that dominates all other thinking and gets in the way. I would like to be able to choose. Do we all do this? I don't know. I don't like it.

Today I am distracted, absent. The thundercloud is present and I have behaved like a bitch.

I went for coffee with a man who I had a reasonably successful date with a few weeks ago, but had decided I didn't want to see again. We had an evening of interesting discussion, and of talking music, and laughing a little. He is intelligent, tall and creative but something about him was missing. I wasn't attracted to him. I am attracted to his beautiful photography, not to the man.

I did the decent thing and told him afterwards that I didn't think there was enough of a 'spark' for me. The dater's euphemism for 'I don't fancy you'. He had emailed telling me how wonderful I was. It made me uneasy. A couple of weeks passed and, bravely or stupidly, he asked me out again. I agreed to see him because I felt bad. A very poor reason for going on a date. I'm supposed to be focussing on what's good for me, on emotional integrity in my actions, and learning not to do things because they are what other people want. This situation is one where I've not been so successful. Self sacrifice in action. Marvellous.

Today was the day. I didn't want to go, because I knew it might mean having to through all the polite declining all over again. Last night I had some friends round for dinner, so this morning I was tired, fuzzy headed and not much in the mood for being beguiling, witty or even just a little attentive to a near stranger.

I struggled to make any kind of reasonable conversation, he made an effort. I apologised for being on bad from at the start. Less than an hour in I had to make my excuses and leave. He deserved better. He deserved someone to make an effort for him.

Do I now email and apologise for being useless and agree to see him again or do I just let it go? Is this now the thought that will occupy me for the next few days?

It seems that my scribblings of late have been quite focussed on men, and my questions about relationships. I trust this phase will pass as I don't want this place to become some low rent, Bridget Jones style rambling about the woes of a single girl. If it does, shoot me. There are enough women despairing of their single lives and spewing forth on the subject already.

I am lodger free for the first time in six months, and feeling weird about being home alone again. I should be excited about being able to be naked, play the fiddle, make mess, or live tidily, bathe endlessly, instead I am a little jumpy.

Smiling?

I am confused by anyone who is enthusiastic about me, or tells me I am beautiful, or tells me I 'can have anyone I want'. How can I respect someone who holds these thoughts? I cannot believe them to be true, I struggle to respect someone whose opinions are so strange. So I seek out, unknowingly, men whose feelings reflect my own. Any man who feels the way I do about myself can never love me. I sabotage my connections with those whose spirits otherwise could make me sing.

I have a photograph of myself aged about six or so. I am untidy. Someone has tried to sort my hair out, straighten my school tie, make me acceptable. I am trying to smile whilst covering my squint brown first teeth, they have no enamel. I cannot close my mouth properly. I cannot smile properly. It is a sort of awkward grimace instead. This picture makes me weep. I pity the little girl who cannot smile like everyone else. She is not beautiful, or cute. She is loved. And lost. She knows she is not the same as the rest. We are none of us the same though. I hate the lie of our society that celebrates sameness, and punishes those of whose faces do not fit.

My father, when he could still speak, would tell me I was beautiful. I never believed him, but appreciated the gesture.

Logic dictates that I am not fat, nor ugly, nor unacceptable. That I am fine, perhaps even attractive in some ways. My personality is built on rising above the bullying and shame. Have I become externally invincible, impenetrable? Whilst all the while still trying to hide my fear and ugliness. The person I have grown into is capable and independent and worth knowing, but inside I am still the little girl staring back through the years.

Some days I accept myself, even have moments of pride. Today is not one of them.

Friends indeed

The strange gift that comes with having crumbled is that one becomes far more aware of the signs in others, and you recognise those who have come through the other side.


I have a very good friend who is coming apart at the seams. Sadly, in the process she is alienating all of the people who could and have supported her this far. They only see the bad behaviour, the selfish ramblings and cancellations. Three of us, thanks to bitter experience, see her differently.

She lives at the other end of the county, so talking seriously isn't easy. When I saw her last I did let her know I had been worried about her. She brushed it off, saying that our last meeting had just been on a bad day. End of conversation. I wonder what I would have done if a friend had suggested to me a year ago that I wasn't ok and that perhaps I needed support? I imagine I would have said that I was fine, just tired. I would have been a bit angry, and denied they were right. Brave face and proud.

I want to do something but am a bit lost. Watching her fall to pieces is hard and logic seems to have gone from her relationships with friends, family or otherwise. She is alienating those close to her. She does not see it. We have spent many hours trying to think of what to do or say. She is prone to exploding and blaming. She will not let us be the friends she needs.

Perhaps the only option is to stay present and be there to catch her when she finally falls. She will fall hard.

Restless nights

For one reason or other I'd kind of let this slip for a while, but sharing it has reminded me why I started out in the first place, and has got me thinking again. Odd how small conversations can lead into a chain of thoughts.

How many millions like me are there out there? How many blogs and the words that they contain? I am fascinated by what people choose to share anonymously, publiclay shout about or quietly record whether read or not. One thing I do know is that writing these things, any things, helps me focus on the 'now'. I have, for a long time, been looking over my shoulder or wondering what's next. This at least means I turn to the present.

I am learning to enjoy and appreciate what I have, and reflect a little to recognise what's going on. Not always understanding why, but acknowledging nonetheless. It is a small and active thing. I am learning not too worry too much about tomorrow, but instead just slow down a little with fewer expectations and less concern about the views or actions of others. There is great joy in it.

Last night I dreamt about my father and my grandfather. Somewhere in the chaotic thoughts of a restless night my father was talking, walking, smiling, being a Dad. It has made me think of him as him, and not as he is now. I am glad that somewhere in the vestiges of my mind that these images and the sound of his voice are still with me. He is present still. For a moment or two, I do not need to grieve him and I had his company again.

Small steps and revelations

Last night I did something that scared me, and something important. I let someone in the real world, a friend, read what is written here. It another small step towards letting the world see who I am, truly and not the facade that is so often presented, or the person who tries to please, placate, support or give people what they want. There is an honesty in it, and my words found acceptance and support – I think. Letting people see me as I am, exposed and vulnerable, terrifies me but each time it happens I am finding my way towards a more satisfying existence.

Sometimes I wonder why I do this, blog that is. Two reasons, I guess. Firstly, an outlet for thoughts I have nowhere else to put and, secondly, to remember. I can't bear to read the diaries of my youth. They are few though. I don't own a camera. So much of my life is unrecorded and I have either forgotten how I got from one place to the next, or I look back with the proverbial rose tinted glasses or with sadness. Those perceptions of my past have an unreality. I hope, one day, I will be able to read over these words and recognise things as they actually are now and not what I thought they were looking back from a different paradigm.

Hopefully I will see myself for who I am and what I've become, and remember those who have touched my life along the way. I am blessed that they are many in number, and include some very special people. I am blessed that I am loved. I need to remind myself of that in dark days and memories, and in the happy and sad times that come along. I am no longer ashamed of myself, and trust that openness and honesty will enable me to find the intimacy and companionship I seek from friends, family and lovers. I want to give them something of me, as they allow me to see them. Small steps and revelations.

here I go again

back to clean slates. All changed. More to the point beginnings that I ended. Sad, but truer than than creating situations that can never be. At least I have found new friendships along the way.

Small things

Yesterday my father smiled. A rare and precious moment. Insigificant to anyone else, but a reminder that my Dad still exists somewhere, somehow within the shell of man whose Alzheimer's now controls his life. A reminder that the hospital visiting and sadness of watching his decline are worthwhile, that somehow, he is still there. He is still my Dad.