Bunny boiler

Were you ever the geeky kid who had problems finding friends because everyone thought you were a bit strange?  I was, but I’ve grown up now and i’ve accepted my strangeness and have found friends who like that quality in me.  I’m lucky.

I recently met this girl, same age as myself, who doesn’t seem to have a friend in the world.  Her boyfriend is pretentious and smarmy and extremely condescending to her, but she doesn’t see it.  He made a very obvious pass at me once when we were alone, and although I didn’t give her the details, I told her he wasn’t to be trusted.  He dumped her soon afterwards, but she begged constantly until he took her back, and now she’s his doormat once again.

When I first met this girl, she latched on to me, labelling me her best friend within two days.  She bought me gifts and sent me several texts a day.  It was quite intense.

My husband met her and reckons she’s a bit dim with nothing to offer, she’s just a desperately lonely person and ‘it’s a mistake to be someone’s friend just because you feel sorry for them’.

He’s right, it is.

Here’s my problem… I don’t want to hurt her, she seems like a nice person and has an extremely hard life.  This life has robbed her of a decent education and normal experience and it’s not my place to say who does or doesn’t deserve to be her friend.  I quite like her, and I’m finding myself defending her- someone I don’t really know, to the rest of my peers despite her wetness.

If I told her to fuck off, I’d be negating everthing I believe in, and I’d be betraying myself as a young kid who was in a similar position.  I’d love to get to know this girl, I know there’s more to her than meets the eye, that she’s not the potential bunny boiler everyone’s making her out to be.

Why are the people I love so shallow?

I’ve given up Jellybeans…

What I’ve learnt in the past week, since I wrote the Jellybean post is that there are some things you can’t give up. There are some things you can’t walk away from.

All my life, I’ve been more or less able to walk away. I’ve walked away from jobs, I’ve walked away from relationships, I’ve walked away from friendships.

I know that walking away is not the answer. But the ability to walk away is a comfort.

I’ve discovered a situation where I don’t get that option. And somehow, I’m better for it.

I haven’t answered the questions about work and how to focus, but I have answered one big question and I’m staying in it. I’m not giving up and I’m not walking away. The rest I’ll figure out.

Thanks for the kind words and the advice. I’m sure I’ll be back for more

Give a little respect to me…

Dear boyfriend

I am not an unpaid maid with whom you occasionally get to have sex. I am a complete human being, with feelings and opinions and it’s about time you recognised that.

I’m sick of living with you. I’m tired of picking up your underpants, following you around the house to gather up cups and glasses, and then having you wonder out loud why the floor isn’t freshly swept or the backs of the curtains have cat hair on them. Saying that you don’t like how the presses are organised when you barely even look in them is just being an ass.

I do all the laundry, the vast majority of the cleaning, a huge amount of cooking and baking, I clean the cat’s litter tray, I hoover and dust, and all you can do is criticise. By the way, the reason your Mom was able to keep your house spotless is because she didn’t have an outside job. Also, she was terrified of your father; not exactly the most conducive environment to taking it handy.

When you joke about “allowing” me to do things I want to break your fingers. When you drop stuff for me to pick up, I feel like a skivvy. When you mock me because I have a “hand-to-mouth” existence, I realise that you have no clue about how the world works for people who make less than €40,000. I pay my bills on time and I have a budget. That’s reality for the vast majority of the world’s population.

I’m sick of you not taking me seriously. I’m sick of you ignoring my feelings, my thoughts, and my opinions. Mocking me for liking chickflicks/dramas/comedies – who does that help? Feeling the need to correct me on every little thing? Makes me want to kill you. And another thing; those mini-lectures on topics I’m already familiar with? Way to make me feel like an idiot, about 2 inches tall.

I want out but I can’t afford it. So I’m stuck.

My current plan is to go ahead with marrying you next year, then divorce you and take half of everything. You can keep the cat; try cleaning out his litter once in a while.

Love,

Me.

Eating Jellybeans (and running out of steam)

 

My life has been turned on its head in the past couple of months… I’ve had to adapt to several strange new situations, which should be positive, but I’m really struggling with.

The problem is all of these new things are on top of what was my life before. It’s impossible to maintain all of these things at once and I’m absolutely and utterly exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally.

I don’t know what to do either, or how to cope. I know that my work performance is a shambles, I’m not concentrated, I’m avoiding projects and ducking responsibility, because I cannot get my head into gear.

I’ve started that thing that I know I do, where I daydream of escaping – imagining a new or different job, because I’m hitting a solid brick wall – like Jeff Bridges in that movie where he doesn’t die in a plane crash – can’t think of the name of the movie, but I love that scene – It could be “Fearless”

But the real problem isn’t work - the problem is everything else, a tidal wave of responsibility and anxiety. It got to a point tonight where, I just couldn’t cope. I was empty. I had nothing left to give. Now, I find myself outside, in the cold and with no idea whether I want to go back or not.

This is not a good thing, I’m fucking up. But I am so tired of it all, so worn out with the effort of keeping everything on track, that I just don’t care.

 Should I care? Should I just keep walking? I don’t know

Josh

Just because I need him tonight

enough

All I can here is white noise.

The soun of blood pumping through my head.

I’m scanning channels ataying no nore than a few secondson each.

There are times when it seems the easiest thing would be to just not be here at all.

My kids are the nly thing holding me here.

I know

I know a secret.

It involves an old friend of mine and it’s a big one. He doesn’t know that I know, but I do.

He thinks he got away with it and every now and again he gets smug over it, unaware that I’m in the same room and could easily rumble him and possibly ruin everything for him, quite literally.

He ruined somebody over what he did and he never feels any regret over it. In fact, he feels very justified in his actions. I wait in the sidelines for him to really fuck up and then I’ll pounce.

Or maybe I’ll use it to blackmail him to gain from the situation, that would wipe the smile off his face.

I say he’s an old friend and that’s true. How can you remain friends with someone who wrongs you and thinks you know nothing about it?

I’m the man he wronged.

I’ll have my day.

He doesn’t think I know, but I do.

Money

I don’t mean this post to sound angry or bitter so don’t take it that way. All I want to know is why is there such huge inequality when it comes to money in the world. After financial responsibilities, my phone bill, loans from the credit union, I have no money, well pretty much no money. Enough to tide me over from week to week and go out a little but nothing more than that. I have no savings. I don’t remember the last time I had enough to buy some new clothes. I owe the taxman money too, he’ll come to break my kneecaps eventually, bills are bouncing every now and then. I get angry phone calls to the point where sometimes I’m afraid to answer my phone. I’m not repaying for celtic tiger excesses, I just don’t have enough to go around. No, I can’t ask my family for help.

What I say about inequalities is obvious – the big ones where you have to stand in the rain waiting for the bus while big, new car after big, new car pass you by, hundreds of them. The smaller situations are harder to see from the outside. When the people in work almost obsessively asked as your annual leave drew near where you were going not fully realising you might not have the money to go anywhere. So you have to make something up about deciding at the last minute to make it sound exotic and mysterious rather than sad. While all the while friends are deciding on whether it will be America or Thailand this time around.

It’s almost enough to make you want to turn to socialism as I would totally kill for a redistribution of the wealth right about now. I say all this here now because I can’t say it openly in front of my friends, we don’t ever do that do we? They have no idea, I hide it so well.

And all it is is little pieces of paper or zeroes in a column. One swipe of a virtual pen and my life is changed utterly and I can get on with living. But that never happens and sure anyway isn’t that the dream the lottery sells us every week? When all it would take would be a few of the Michael Smurfits and Sean Quinns of the world to get together and give us all a few extra zeroes from their portfolios. Nothing to them, everything to us.

I’m not looking for financial advice so please don’t leave it. Just need to type it out loud.

Concentrate.

Hate this time of night.

That’s when Can’t concentrate on anything else. That’s when Can only think about some tiny, stupid things that I wish sometimes I could just get rid of. Know will go to bed and lie awake thinking about those things.

Go to sleep at night wishing that today had been the end of it. Wake up in the morning hoping that day will be the end.

It’s usually fine in the middle because Can think about everything else, anything else, concentrate on other things.

Can’t trust myself not to get like this.

Just When I’d Given Up…

… I meet someone.

I’d given up on men, sex, life even, only to meet someone this weekend. He’s smart, funny, handsome and actually seems interested in me.  He’s also not one for the casual sex culture, which I cannot stand.  Am seeing him again soon.

Perhaps it’s a lesson to all of us. Don’t write yourself off… it’s never too late.

Everything that needs to be said

To my husband,

It’s time we stop kidding ourselves.  This marriage is over.  There’s no fighting or upset, but we are kidding ourselves if we think this will ever end well.

When we met, we both were in a situation that the other needed something from.  You were about to off yourself and I needed somewhere to stay because I couldn’t go back to my parents.  I had the weed necessary to help you forget your troubles and you had a place I could crash.

We were friends, but we were in the right place at the right time for what we needed then.  We should have left it like that.  We weren’t a traditional rebound relationship as in we were just out of other relationships, but we were a way out of the issues we had faced before.

We loved each other, and I think still do, but I don’t think we were ever in love.  We needed each other and thought that was enough.  We wanted to build a future and quite fucking up our lives, so we got married.

A year in I knew it was wrong.  I was unhappy, I knew I had made a mistake.  If you look back, you might remember the huge fight we had before the eldest was born.  I was pretty sure it was over then. But then I was pregnant. It was a new start.  We gave it our all, we wanted to be good parents and have a good marriage.

We did fine for awhile, but again the baby filled in for the gaping hole we had.  We thought moving to Ireland would be a good idea when it was really another chance to excape.  We use our “life experiences” to deal with the fact that we are not the one for each other.

Second child came along two years later and hear we are another two years on and we’re both at rock bottom.  You’re on medication and I’m drinking too much.  You come home from work and we just turn on the telly and ignore each other.

Sure, we get along just fine and have good times, but let’s face it, we’re just drinking buddies who have the occasional shag. We’re plodding along in jobs we don’t like, thinking we’re doing the right thing.

The practicalities of a separation are iffy.  Hell, I don’t even know if our marriage is recognised in Ireland, but I do know I can’t go on like this.  I am living a lie and so are you.

It is better to do this now, when the children are young enough to not be too traumatised.  We owe it to them and we owe it to ourselves.  We will never fulfil our full potential if we go on like this.  Neither of us are happy and it’s time to move on.  If we’re not happy the children won’t be happy and that should be our primary focus.

You of all people know how hard it can be to grow up in a house of tension.  Our kids deserve better.  We owe it to them to get this sorted now while all four of us are still young enough to go on to find our true calling.

I like to think we’ll always be friends, because you do know me better than anyone and it would be the best for the kids.

You know counselling won’t help.  It might make things more harmonious, but nothing is going to change the fact that you are not the one for me.

You know everything I’m saying is true, you’ve said as much yourself, although perhaps not in words.

The question is, where do we go from here?

Your wife,

Me

happy birthday to me

I’m feeling blue – not really, more like pale blue. my friends all forgot it was my bday today – all except for two. friends that have been friends for eons. even my partner forgot. truth be told though, he did remember 4 days ago that it was close to my bday. my mom of course remembered, moms always do, but i even got a card this year from my dad which is amazing seeing as how he moved back across the pond two months ago and i havent heard word one, not even an email from him, since.

i had a few myspace people wish me bday wishes, which was kind of cool… people that i dont even know! i guess when you hit a certain age, bdays dont mean anything anymore.. until you suddenly get back up there and hit the 70’s, and 80’s and if you live to be 100+ our local tv news people will wish you a happy bday on air! too bad most people that age dont know whats going on around them at the best of times

so, here’s to me. happy 46th bday, and many more to come. may the rest of my years mimic the best of the ones  i’ve had thus far.

Creep

I want to write so many things about them. About her. About the last two years. More specifically, about the last couple of months. About what I’ve done that I can’t ever come back from. About the love I’ve destroyed and the love I’ve created. About where I am now and where I could be in the future. I need to write it all down but I can’t find the words. This is the fifth post I’ve started here in the last couple of weeks and I never get beyond the first paragraph so I just never click publish.

I feel like I’ve changed in some fundamental way and I’m waiting to find out if it’s for the better or the worst. This is a start. I’ll be back when I’ve found some words and/or balls.

On Getting Older…

I’m not especially old, but I have been married for a long time and have children whilst most people my age are just beginning to settle down.

My husband is a good man, but so unromantic, grumpy, boring and predictable.  Our sex life is pretty boring too.  Once a week, if even, always the same.  I am an outgoing spontaneous person and am going stir-crazy.

Recently a younger man has been paying attention to me and complimenting me and flirting.  He’s so funny, clever and handsome that I’m going crazy.

I would never leave my family, but would it be so bad to just have a mad, sexy affair with this fella, even just one night?  Not like my husband would even notice I was gone.

I know it’s wrong, but I can’t get it out of my head.  I’m going to see him in a social context this weekend and I’m sure I’ll behave, but one can dream, right?

Self Medicating

How do you know if you’re an alcoholic?

I say this, because up until this weekend I was drinking way too much.  At least 5 units a night.  At home, alone or with whomever was around.  I was still functional the next morning and never woke up especially hungover or wanting more drink.

I don’t think I’m an alcoholic, because if it wasn’t booze it would be something else.  I generally have an addictive personality.  Also, I don’t crave drink and can happily go without it.

I stopped drinking this weekend and plan on leaving it for at least a month.  I find it difficult to sleep, but other than that feel fine.  I think personally I might have depression and the booze is my way of not dealing with that.

Anytime I mention my concerns to someone, they tell me to go to AA.  But as much as I know AA has helped many people, I can’t help but not agree with the theory behind it.  I’m not so sure addiction is a disease as a cry for help.  I also hate the whole modern attitude of playing the victim.  I was sexually abused as a child, as was my mother.  Growing up with her she constantly played the victim and let that event shape who she was and to this day she still can’t deal with it.  I don’t want to be that person and my children deserve better.

One of my friends had a lot of success with AA, but she seems to have replaced her booze addiction with meeting addiction, and a sort of AA evangelism.  Not to mention the fact that she started smoking and now smokes a pack a day.  I am happy she feels better and feels her life has been turned around, but I just don’t feel it addresses the root cause.  I also don’t like the whole “submit to a higher power” bit, being a staunch atheist and all.

I’ve tried therapy before, but I can’t afford it privately.  All the HSE appointed one wants to talk about is my abuse, which is something I dealt with years ago.  No one seems to want to help me with the here and now.

I am hoping getting this down on “paper” and giving up the booze will help.  I would appreciate any advice.

a message for the blog owner

This was left for me in the “drafts” section of the blog and seems a good idea. I’ll be honest, I don’t have time to run another blog in my life. Anyone wants to take up the baton? Please do so with my blessing.

 

Hi, this is in draft format only, I am not publishing it. I figured it was a good way to leave you a message without anyone else seeing it, and without having to figure how to email you etc… you can delete it once you read it.

WordPress allows you to  make other pages or even other blogs, within your log in name and initial blog. I had an idea for another blog that might be interesting, sort of along the lines of this one – stricly anonymous I mean.

Random Acts of Kindness – ever hear that phrase? I’ve practiced random acts of kindness in the past and gotten great satisfaction from it. The one thing that you cant  do though, is tell anyone what you did or how you ‘made’ someone’s day – if you do its not random any longer. Not only that, the person you tell, feels that you are bragging about being kind and it defeats the purpose.

The thought was – what about a blog where people can brag, shout out, share about their random acts they’ve done? Not only would it make them feel good to share their small joys, but it might give people reading the blog ideas on how to go out and do their own random acts of kindness as well? 

You’ve done so well setting this blog up for us all to use, and it seems to have struck a chord with people world wide – maybe a random acts of kindness one would too.