I had to identify a body this morning.
He was known to us and my name was in his file. Therefore I got the call. I took a side trip into my former life for a few hours and found myself slipping into the old routine. I did my part and answered the questions I used to ask. I verified my whereabouts when sheepishly asked and let the black humour flow. It seems callous but the victim was beyond all care now.
We’ll still speak for him.
I often imagine stumbling onto a blog that is written by this single, good looking man. and falling in love first with his words and mind and when we speak we’ll having a connection like no other and then later, for his physical appearance.
And oh, he will be normal, with normal temperaments and not a psychotic, mass murdering serial killer either.
The day my life changed forever…
You were the brightest spark in that chatroom, something about your devilment really stood out and although I met lots of other nice folk in there, none of the others had that certain something that made you stand out from the rest.
I’ve loved you in one way or another since day one, but over the years you’ve come to mean so much to me. You’re my soul mate, my confidant, a man I love with all my heart and could tell almost anything to…but I have the strongest feeling that it’s all one way. We’re in communication everyday, but have you noticed we never really say anything? Looking through my inbox, the most common subject between us is sex and I worry that’s now all there is to us.
There wasn’t an ‘us’ until August 08…and I was perfectly OK with that, happy to roll along as we were – two friends who met online over a decade ago. To move the relationship to the next level has all been driven by you, and I still don’t know why the sudden change of heart. Is it because you’ve been secretly burning a candle for me for a long time, is it because of the situation at home, or is it because your friends are at an age where it’s normal to settle down and get married, and it would be just too time consuming and too much effort for you to go out and look for someone capable of putting up with you the way I do (you’re the first to admit you’re not everyone’s cup of tea)?
Hon, is this romantic, sweet and adorable stuff just an act? I know you’re more than capable of being someone else – that’s why the internet was such a great medium for you – and I just worry that this new you is another one of your internet characters.
We were out on Saturday night – our first meetup in 6 months – and your work colleagues were more important to you than I was. It was understandable that they wouldn’t be interested in me, but a little inclusion on your part would’ve made me feel a lot better. I’d travelled 200 miles to see you, even though I really should’ve been at home because of the previous day’s events. Thank god for G, I would’ve had a very quiet night otherwise. We were at the party for two hours max and I had more conversation with one of the guests than I had with you all weekend…and I’d only just met him!
I’m really upset. I have a horrible feeling that I’m being used for an idiot, being fed whatever stories you think I want to hear for some reason known only to you. I wish I felt differently, that I could be sure you genuinely love me. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think you even like me as a friend, never mind love me as anything more significant.
Congratulations hon…nobody else in the world has the ability to make me feel so good or so bad about myself.
The chicken burned my throat going down and I fielded a question about a book, and then you asked where my blog was gone. Everyone knows I don’t post anymore…but you’ve noticed that it’s actually gone now. The truth of it, which I didn’t admit out loud, is that I got an anonymous comment on an old post which picked out the thing about myself I’m most conscious of, physically, and pointed it out right there in a comment with ‘lol’ tagged on the end.
I wasn’t floored or hurt or gobsmacked. Why should I be? The thing that got me, far from a petty anonymous barb having any effect, was the idea that someone might read it and feel sorry for me. I didn’t want to delete it because more would come – anonymous posters are like that. I didn’t want to leave it there because people would read it and get that pitying look in their eyes. Pity is more terrifying to me than most things. You’re fat, lol. Yes, I am.
Places like this are both a curse and a blessing.
Did I write that and forget, maybe I had on one too many and thought it therapeutic. I’m certain I didn’t.
Or is he toying with me out of jealousy or to elicit some reaction?
Are my thoughts ringing true in someone else’s brain today? Surely not those exact thoughts. Life can’t be that cruel.
Or am I just reading too much into things as always?
Places like this are both a curse and a blessing.
You insisted that whatever happened we wouldn’t destroy the friendship we had with each other or with our mutual friends. But then it ended and I feel like a stranger to all those people we knew so well.
It seems I’m being phased out, like there was a decision to stay friends with one of us and its not me. I arrive out and it seems like the message “all welcome” didn’t include me. More and more often there are “other plans” when I’m looking to do something. Where I would have been welcome 6 months ago, I now don’t hear about it until afterwards.
Sometimes I think I’ll just take the hint and slip away quietly and start all over again, but then I decide I’m going to be stubborn and make someone actually say it. But its taking its toll and effecting everything I do. I’m not sure I can keep it up.
11 years ago today you took your own life and changed mine forever. Today I am occupying myself and trying to keep busy. You are in my head all day but thats ok. I miss you still and will forever. RIP.
This recession is taking its toll on me. I’m 24. I have an accounting degree. I have had 2 jobs since finishing college in 2007. I was “let go” in January after just 9 months working in my new job. I own a car which I can no longer afford but I cannot sell it as I’d lose too much money and still be left with a loan to repay. The only thing that saved me is that I was able to return home and live with my parents. That just fills me with guilt.
It seems everywhere I go costs money. I’m fed up of it.
I try recruitment agencies but they dont even answer or reply to calls and emails anymore. There are few jobs available and any that are available require 5 years experience. Its like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I know it’s probably not what you mean, but it bloody well sounds like what you were saying is that it’s ok for us to hang out with your friends but not with mine because you’d just feel uncomfortable or like an outsider in the group? I’ve met your ex girlfriends for God’s sake and been to one of their houses, because you’re still friends with them and that wasn’t exactly COMFORTABLE for me but they’re your friends so I just got on with it. I see what you’re saying about how you like it that we each have our own groups and go out separately but it’s surely not too much to ask that once in a while you might just come out with me and MY friends and make the effort to get to know them properly. And why the hell can’t I figure out what it is I want to say until an hour after we’ve been talking about it?!
I’m really confused. I don’t know what to do.
This may not seem like much of a dilemma to some reading this post, but its going to be one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
I currently sponsor two children through World Vision – B is 7 yrs old and lives in Ethiopia and has been my sponsor child for nearly 3 yrs. L is 9 yrs old and lives in Mozambiqu and I’ve sponsored her for a year and a bit. Due to income issues, I have to decide which child to give up. I dont want to give up either. B looked so sad and pathetic when I found her on the WV site – only 4 yrs old and so skinny and sad looking. She’s grown alot in these years – started school and doing well thanks to proper food and support for her parents (they can send her to school instead of needing her at home to help make money for the family). L looked healthy but had brothers and sisters who were younger, and so again, would have had to not become educated due to the parents not being able to afford sending a girl for education. I hand picked L for her name and place of residence – after hearing about a girl with nearly the same name, from the same place, in a song. It took me weeks to find her but I did.
Who do I give up? I dont want to give one up – its only 45 dollars a month to look after a sponsor child – not much. But I cant afford 90 dollars a month for both. Its killing me to even think about it – will they find another sponsor? Will they be able to keep going to school or will they end up like so many young girls in Africa – uneducated and exploited? Years ago, I sponsored a child in Peru, working for 3.00 an hour minumum wage and I still managed to do it (I’d not pay one other bill each month if I had to, just to carry on). Older now, with a credit rating to worry about and different circumstances – I cant do that. I have to choose. I just dont know how.
When I was 5 years old – I took my shirt off in my junior infants class on a hot Summers day. One of the boys in the class laughed at me because I had a flabby chest. Being a young chubby boy, I suppose it wasn’t out of the ordinary but I felt different that day and have felt different every day since. The problem never went away as a grew older so did my flabby chest. I remained a chubby child and grew into an overweight adolescent and adult.
As I grew up I would never change my clothes in front of another boy, I could never go swimming or if I played sport I would never remove my shirt due to the crippling feeling of shame I had towards my body. Even I simple trip to the doctor was nerve wracking – “What if he asks me to take off my shirt”, I would think, it was so frightening and painful.
My mother took me to see specialists as it was thought I may have a hormone imbalance but no matter how many tests and examinations were conducted no abnormality was report. However, I didn’t feel very normal.
When I went to secondary school and started playing rugby, away games were a nightmare. I couldn’t and wouldn’t shower with the rest of the boys. Even if I was caked in mud, I would stick my clothes back on and head for the bus. It was embarrassing and it raised a fair few eyebrows.
I remember that even as a teenager in my school uniform I was extremely concerned that my school jumper accentuated my chest and I would stand at the bus stop with my shoulders shrugged so that the material on my jumper would not be pulled across my chest. I could have stood there for a 20 – 30 minutes at times with my shoulders shrugged just so my chest wouldn’t be noticed, “Please just don’t look at my chest”.
My mother had investigated liposuction as a solution to my problem but it was expensive and I would be left with prominent scars. Finally, a possible solution was found. I paid a visit to a plastic surgeon who promised to remove the excess skin on my chest and alleviate my problem.
I went for the surgery and after the swelling decreased, I was not pleased with the results. I went to a second round of surgery and to this day one side remains worse than the other. I remember a particularly harrowing part of the post surgery was the removal of two drains that were to collect excess blood from the area. The tubes connected to these drains were 3 – 4 inches under my skin and when the doctor took them out it remains to this day the most horrible experience of my life.
I still have an extremely dysfunctional relationship with my body. I am very overweight but I’m working on that. I am 27 years old and I am a virgin. I crave affection and touch but shun it at the same time as I could not show my body to anyone.
I don’t know what is next for me – I am always looking for a solution. I know there are many that feel the same and I accept that.
This is just a slice of my life, if you met me tomorrow you would not believe I wore such a heavy cloak. I look forward to the day I can be so much more.
xxx
When I was 11 I bought a bike with my Confirmation money. It was a Friday after school.
I was so happy with it – the first real purchase I ever made – and I spent the whole weekend riding it and showing it off to my family.
I rode it to school on Monday.
I walked it home in tears after a day of teasing, name-calling, pushing, pulling, cornering and yelling. It was a baby’s bike, they said.
I never rode it again.
It had grey wheels and pink trim. Not sure which part was the biggest problem. Or if the problem was just me.
It still hurts 12 years later, but now I don’t know which hurts more. The fact that they ruined it for me or the fact that I didn’t just bloody ride that bike anyway.
It didn’t stop when I stopped riding the bike. It didn’t start with me getting the bike. Why did I let them take it away from me?
I loved it so much.
I miss my friend. He has stopped contacting me for no reason I can fathom. He’s in Europe somewhere. We used to chat every day. Then once a week. He met a girl online and she was going over to meet him. I was excited for him as I had started a relationship too. Our last conversation was ‘have a great week, can’t wait to hear how it goes’. I haven’t heard from him since. He has removed me as a friend on facebook. I messaged a friend of his to see how he was, saying that I hadn’t heard from him. All I got was ‘he’s fine’. I suppose at least that’s something. Doesn’t stop me from missing him though.
“I would never, could never,” I cried in outrage. “Not in a million years.”
It feels like a million years since that lazy afternoon in the bakery chatting with the girls. A million years, tears and tries.
When we married we decided to start a family at once. Two boys, one girl, twins run in the family so who knew what might happen. We were so excited. We read all the books, took the pills and played by all the rules, it was an wonderful new game at first.
With the passing of each month and the confirmation of that single line our discussions grew less animated. The hope once so bright was growing tired and tainted by pressure and worries of something more serious.
For four years we tried. Everything. Injections. Vitamins. Every position under the Kama Sutra sun but still only that one lonely line appeared. Slowly but surely, the cracks began to show and we would bicker over everything and use any excuse for a fight.
“I would never, could never,” I cried in outrage. “Not in a million years.”
Then I met David. David of the isn’t life is breezy persuasion. Lovely lighthearted, adventurous David and somehow things started to get better. I could laugh with my husband the way I used to and we grew closer again, baby talk only raising it’s head after a few drinks or when we would see some new born wrapped up in it’s mother’s arms as we strolled around the supermarket.
Somehow those days of lying in a hotel bed with David were zapping all that negativity out of my marriage and so I let it continue.
“I would never, could never,” I cried in outrage. “Not in a million years.”
Then came April 2nd, possibly the worst, most confusing day of my life. There they were, not one but two little pink lines. I purged my stomach, knowing it had nothing to do with morning sickness. I took the week off work, spoke to a doctor. I couldn’t confide in my friends, they are all “our” friends. I made the decision alone. I couldn’t let him raise another man’s child no matter how slight the possibility of it being so.
On April 14th I sat in a warm waiting room with big comfy chairs and expensive wallpaper on the walls. The clinic surgery behind the big oak doors was another world altogether.
“I would never, could never, “I cried in outrage. “Not in a million years.”
I cried all night in the hotel room. I cried all the way to the airport. I cried as I drove back the M50 in rush hour traffic. I cried when I deleted David’s numbers from my phone and I cried when my husband walked thought the door holding a bunch of daises to welcome me home from my business trip.
How naive we are when young.
“I would never, could never, “I cried in outrage. “Not in a million years.”
I am sinking. Not coping. Outwardly all is fine, but I am about to fail spectacularly. I have let too much pile up without doing anything and I am about to disappoint so many people. I can’t bring myself to do anything about it.
I want to run, to escape my life, abdicate my role as me. Can someone else can take over.
Please?
I dont know what to do, I have carried it around with me for years. My dad called me in a panic a few years ago, mum had some sort of a breakdown, told me she had been abused as a child and her parents knew about it – her uncle did it. Her sisters were abused as well – she clammed up and refused to talk anymore about it, put on a face and started drinking heavily.
She still drinks a lot, I dont think shes an alcoholic but then what defines an alcoholic, maybe she is.
She wont talk about it, I have tried to get her to go for counselling or even talk to me but she wont. She refuses to discuss it or acknowledge it.
Im worried as she gets older – what do I do?
I’m 32, I’m single and I’m so broody it sometimes feels like a physical ache – I just want a baby and it kills me to hear that friends are pregnant. Why cant it be me?
We first noticed something was up in 2004 at a family wedding. There he sat, at the same table as me, eating everything on his plate. We thought it was unbelievable and great. He had always been a quiet man. A gentleman. We assumed that as he was such a timid man that he was eating all this food to be polite. He was such a picky eater. Everything was plain and simple for his plate. Its just the way it was. But at the wedding all the food was pretty fancy and he ate the whole lot of it much to our shock!
After this, it was all downhill. Like a rollercoaster. One thing after another disappeared before our eyes. The next few years were full of tears, fears and sympathy. We watched this fine man fall away before our eyes. This damn disease was taking him away from us..bit by bit… day by day…
Keys got lost, he asked to go home, spectacles went missing, false teeth were gone, new walking stick was nowhere to be found. This was how the days were filled. Full of torment and frustration for him. He didnt understand why. We told him but he didnt know who we were or what we said.
Over the last 5 years, i think on about 3 occasions, he got a moment of rare clarity. He would come into the house after been looking for “home” all day long and he would be crying and he would come into the kitchen and say he was sorry for doing all he did, saying all he said and forgetting who we were.
He now has to live in a nursing home. We could no longer give him the care he needed. And to be fair to him, he needed extra care. There are no more moments of clarity. He smiles when he sees us coming. He doesnt know who we are yet he knows our faces. Which is good. He cannot walk much anymore. He eats little. He drinks little. He is fading and fading fast. He is in a dead mans queue. But he is already dead. He died in 2005 when he first got alzheimers. He died the day he didnt know who we were or where he was. Yes, he is alive and sitting up as we speak but he is dead.
Will it make it any easier when the time comes? His body will die, but he himself is already dead. I struggle to get my head around that. Would you be upset if a body were to die? Is it the person we miss? Their personality? Their love? Or is it their flesh?
All i know is, there are worse things than dying! Alzheimers is definitely one of them.
The secret has been there for so long. Keeping it has never been hard. I know you have suspicions. I know you second guess you’re self. But what would happen if it came out?
Sometimes I think of cutting all connections. Moving to somewhere very far away starting fresh with no secret.
There’s no way I could ever let it get out here.
They say you don’t miss what you never had. They’re wrong.
My heart is breaking. I can’t stop crying. I hurt everywhere and a knot is tying up around me. Oh God, it hurts so much.
I miss it. I never saw it or held it. I never took pictures of it. I will never take pictures of her.
My wife miscarried last week.
I bought a cot and it’s sitting beside me right now. I can’t bring it back to the shop. I couldn’t deal with the looks. I can’t throw it out. That seems wrong.
I miss her so much.
To you that I wish I could save…
may you find the peace that resides within you,
may your love shines bright,
enough to make you stay or leave without regrets,
may you feel, the darkness in between the folds of love;
the pain before and after the joy
and the peace that comes with acceptance
that part of what happiness is
to relinquish control
may you find the courage to accept
the things you cannot change
may the darkness be a reminder that you are alive
and the light that sheds upon it;
the evidence of Allah’s presence
and His graces and forgiveness
may you realise that life is not about
finding ‘yourself’
that you are already found right here;
in ever breath that you take.
Rough seas
With no sign of calm on the horizon
A fat captain from the midlands seems more lost that us
Passengers?
More like captives who pay for the priviledge
Of being thrown about on this sinking ship as other vessels distance themselves
Jump ship?
Make deals with other captains,
Whose ocean liners have smaller leaks to plug?
Or stay?
Weather the storm of miscontent
Hope that the seas calm and the shore comes into view soon
Rough seas
Ill at ease but too apathetic for mutiny
And no viable alternatives should we overthrow our fat captain from the midlands
my grandmother came to visit me. ‘i’m very happy’ she said, cutting up her sundried tomato and cheese quiche. ‘i’m not going to think about [names of her sons, my uncles]. they are bad people, who have given me nothing but grief. alcoholism, drugs – i wash my hands of it’.
i couldn’t stop staring at her teeth. i have always adored my grandmother, seen her as nothing less than perfect. her teeth are shiny white in my head. in real life they are yellow, black, grey. and in the clear grey light of that day i could see her as she really was – scared, lonely, afraid and in denial of it all.
‘i’m cutting everyone out of my will but you’, she said, as we stood in the rain on o’connell street. i didn’t have anything to say to that so i hugged her goodbye. then i went to penney’s and cried while trying on cheap shoes.
how can she not see that cutting her own children out of her will is a sign of deep happiness. how can she not see that i don’t want her money. i want her to build bridges. i want her to get better. i want her to understand that her feelings are real, and they are universal. people get depressed. but the only way to get out of it, is to admit it to yourself. i want her to listen to me, to hear me when i speak. but she only hears what she can let herself hear and i worry for her. and for them. and for me.
and my uncles are alcoholics, it’s true. and that terrifies me. terrifies me that i will turn into them. that i will drink myself so far into oblivion that no one will be able to reach me. i was meant to see an addictions counsellor last week, but i skipped it. as i write this, i am opening my second beer. i drink until i get sick. then i drink until i pass out. i drink so much that i had to come off the anti-depressants i was prescribed, because they wouldnt work with the amount of alcohol i was consuming. my legs and arms were covered in bruises, i slept all day, wkaing up just in time to start into my vodka.
i have a wonderful immediate family. i have brilliant friends, some of whom i can even talk openly about my problems to. but still, i cannot seem to help myself. still i remain so bloody frightened all the time that sometimes i can’t catch my breath. i try to make myself cry in the hope that it will release some of the sadness but it doesn’t work. instead i lie in bed watching the clouds, sometimes thinking, sometimes just listening to the sound of electricity, sometimes imagining what it would be liek to sink into the wall, among the pipes and the rubble.
it all sounds so dramatic, so forced. and i think – people have felt this way before. they are feeling this way right now. i am one of many. i will get though this, like so many others. everyone wants the bus to hit them sometimes, it doesn’t mean this is forever.
but i can’t make myself believe it. and the counsellors, the psychiatrists, the doctors they all say ’stop drinking’, as if the drinking is what started the depression. but the depression came first, and i dont know where it came from. there is no reason for it, no Big Problem. it just is. and i want someone to help me work through it, i want someone to say – take your time, take it easy. dont worry about college, you can fix that later. fix yourself first.
but they dont. they say – get through college. get a job. and all this…all this – hushed whisper – depression… it’s bound to pass, isn’t it?
but it doesn’t. and the days tumble into each other and all i have to show for it is bruised legs and empty vodka bottles and the feeling that people are meant to be having more fun when they’re 20.
You said you were depressed, but you did not want to talk about it.
I just wanted you to talk with me about what bothering you.
I guess it’s :
a) It’s bothering you too much that talking about it would just bother you more
b) You’re too tired to talk about it
c) I’m the one who’s bothering you
d) You don’t want to talk to me anymore about personal stuff
e) I’m just paranoid
Maybe not asking about it anymore would be helpful for you.
.. but I want to be able to do something about your problem.
I guess I’m just selfish.
My best friend/business partner is asking my family to keep secrets from me, and they are.
As is the way of families I found out anyway and I don’t care about the big secret.
Sure, when your brother in law starts dating your best friend one of them should probably tell you about it. When your other brother in law set them up, he too should probably have mentioned it. But when your best friend swears them all to secrecy and they keep it secret, it is more than a little hurtful.
It is annoying and hurtful watching my brother in law struggle with not telling me and just flat out hurtful watching my best friend act as if nothing is unusual and happily lying to me about the what she is doing when she is spending time with him. I have all the details and I am regularly updated.
The longer it goes on the more hurtful it feels.
Why is she asking my family to keep stupid secrets from me? Because this is truly a stupid secret, but that doesn’t make it any less hurtful.
When it all comes out I’m looking forward to seeing her face when I tell her I’ve know from the first date. There will also be words about messing with my family like that.
I’ve been doing it for weeks now. Cleaning, reading books too fast, motoring through TV shows like there isn’t enough light entertainment to satisfy me in the whole world. I write the beginnings of stories, make lists of things to do and buy and write. I don’t dwell, because there’s an unsettling thought dangerously close to the surface, like an inconvenient periscope. I make plans, always plans…and still, too frequently, there are minutes that I have not given over to work or whimsy, and reality bubbles back. It is not that I am sad to be single. I am quite alright about it. What’s altogether devastating is that there isn’t a single person I’m lusting after. Six years ago I realised that boys were interesting, and for the first time since then I can’t think of a single one I’m interested in. Never dismiss the importance of the staple crush. Without him, there’s no aspiring toward perspiring.
i was worried that once i started writing, i wouldn’t be able to stop. i imagined the words tumbling across the page – scared, alone, worried, i miss him, help, help, help. now here i am, little white box waiting to be filled, and i don’t have much to say. i am running out of words already. turns out the trouble isn’t when to stop, it’s how to begin.
(and my shift key isn’t working properly so i have let capital letters fall by the wayside)
I am between a rock and a hard place…
I am a one parent family and have been very unlucky to have bad neighbouirs please people understand that they are nothing short of scum..
They adults allow their children to torture my children by calling names, spitting and generally make my kids lives hell and seeem to encourage this type of behavouir..
Now i am the first to admit that no one has angels for kids but my kids will not fight back and I wouldnt want them to stoop to their level of living they try their best to ignore the bullying which is very difficult for them to have a peacful childhood..
I have tried to seek help and assistance regarding this problem but to no avail I am running out of places to turn to except maybe social services and the police..
Now i know that there are some of you that will read this and wonder why I am making such a big deal regarding this but honestly when you see your children lives being made hell as a parent it is our duty to provide a stable and safe enviroment for them to live.
I just want peace for me and my kids I dont think Im expecting too much…
I want to start an intensely personal blog about the suffering that I am going through at the moment. I’d love to be able to share what is going on with me with the world and get some support. There are huge things happening in my life and I’ve no-one to really share it with. I do write which helps, but there’s no-one to listen. I’m a very open person and happily share my story with people who ask, but no-one asks anymore.
I think there is space for an online diary of what’s going on but i’m too SCARED to write it. People WILL find out it’s me, WILL judge me and WILL read all of my inner most thoughts for giggles. I still want to share it though. How possible is it to be truly anon online? Is it wish to bare my soul when I am already a very fragile person? I’m liable to fall of the wagon any day now, and don’t want the internet to push me off.
I’ve started this project several times but have been too scared to really go for it. Now, I really want to commit.
Am I crazy?
I knew it from the very start that I may end up like this. Still, I took the risk. I can even remember me saying “LOL. Impossible.” And I just laughed everything out.
But I’m wrong.
It was Valentine’s Day and I’m dreading over a failed attempt to have a group date with someone I like when I receive a message. It was her. A Valentine greeting. Sweet. It somehow made my day. And I don’t know why.
Since that day, thoughts of her has been running on my mind. And as days passed, it became harder for me. I finally realized that I’m falling in love with a close friend. Everything felt so wrong. “I can’t fall in love with her. We’re friends.” I tried to keep my distance but, it feels like I want to be with her all the time.
No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t stop loving her.
There are two types of day.
The days when she looks at me and I feel as if I can’t catch my breath. When the love in her eyes shines like that of a lighthouse to my boat, guiding me home. Those days when we need no words, when she puts her arms around me and nuzzles her face into my collar bone and we stand in the kitchen, quiet and peaceful and one. Days when we dance to imaginary music and she falls onto me crying tears of laughter. When our every thought is synchronised and we make love, love not sex, like it’s our last day on earth. When we will lie in bed and I smell her hair and watch her run her painted nails over my skin. These are the days when I feel that nothing can ever touch me because of her love.
And then there are days like that. When I look into her eyes and she’s nowhere to be found. When those pools of blue hold such sadness distancing her from me, dragging her back to where she came from. Those are the days when I reach for her she recoils and makes some feeble excuse that she’s tired or busy or not in the mood. Those are the days when she’s thinking of someone else but I can’t bring myself to ask who. Those are the days when I realise that I could never survive losing her but know that someday I will and that breaks my heart.
I sent a letter to this postbox about our common friend wondering if you guys are already a couple. Perhaps I’ve thought too much about it because it followed me into my dreams.
I dreamed of us having a chat and I asked you whether you guys are together or not, and then a lot of things ran through the mind of the “me” in the dream. I’ve thought of us skating together as you said we would, eating in a fastfood, having a good time together, me visiting your house, sleeping in each other’s arms and a lot more.
Then I snapped awake, breathing heavily, heart aching when I read what’s on my screen.
“Yep.”
I am trying so hard to prepare myself with all the hurt but I never imagined it would be so bad, and that’s just from a dream.
It hurts.
It hurts me to see you guys together.
It hurts me to see you guys hold hands.
It hurts me to see you sleep on his shoulders.
It just.. hurts.
But you know what?
I can’t let you go and my heart won’t let me.
I hate what you’re doing to me, but I don’t hate you.
I love you.
I know that I love him. I know that I love him because the thought of being without him makes my stomach sick and my heart ache. And yet….
the doubt niggles.
I was talking to one of our common friends (yes, we have so many!) and she suddenly said: “May I ask, are they a couple now?” and I suddenly the last time we were together — that day when I ran away from the pain.
I suddenly remembered all the small things I noticed then.
How your sister seemed to be more familiar with him.
(Though I know you introduced them to each other already)
How you were more comfortable with him.
(Though it has been your nature to be cuddly with anybody)
How you were holding hands.
(Though I know it has always been one of your habits, holding someone’s hand)
How it seemed like the way you said *he* or *him* had a certain tenderness about it that was never there before
(Though I might just be hearing things)
I realized that it may not be so far-fetched.
But, I pray that it would not be so.. not yet.
No matter how I rationalize, one thing is clear.
I’m going to get hurt.. real bad.
And I’m not ready for it yet..
Make me numb first..
I beg of you.
I killed my cat. She was old and getting feeble and her teeth had fallen out and she couldnt eat and was losing weight. Even soft food wasnt going down well enough to nourish her. Her brother had succumed to lung cancer, or a lung tumor (according to the vet) only a few months earlier after having faithfully laid on my sickbed for a year while I recovered from my own bout of cancer. Irony at its worst.
We took her brother to the vet to put him down, I didnt have the money needed to do it again for her so soon afterwards. So we fed her milk laced with sleeping pills, and when she was too doped up to know what was going on, I put my hand over her nose and mouth and held her and stroked her and whispered to her and waited until she stopped breathing. It only took a few pathetic seconds and it was over. I dug a hole in my back garden, next to where I thought I remembered her brother to be, and wrapped her in one of my old sweaters and buried her. I didnt cry, until much later… months later in fact. Had a dream about what I had done and then of course the guilt. Funny thing – my rural friends didnt think much about it – life on farms is such that a bullet often does what a vet will do for inner city folk. My urban friend was horrified and looks at me differently than before. I’m not sure these days how I feel about it.
I’m afraid to write here.
Afraid because anything I would write would genuinely be something I would not want anyone to recognise.
Afraid someone would recognise my style of writing no matter what I did to disguise it.
That’s why I don’t write here.
I love a man who i can’t have.
He is weak and he is married and when i think of the woman who has everything i want, i want to cry because i know he loves me but i don’t think i can have him
I’m scared i will get sick again and i won’t have known what it is like to be a wife or have a child with someone you love who loves you ..
I want to have a son..
I want to get the happy ending ..
I think about dying too much and it scares me..
I lost my joy in being alive somehow ..
I want him to choose me ..
I’m terrified of them sometimes.
It’s always in their eyes. The haunting look, dark pools of things I don’t imagine, and they’re asking me, pleading with me to help, and I tell them to wait… and I can hear them, in the other room, sitting, shuffling their bodies, over and over, sitting, standing, and their breaths tight, anxious, woven, captured.
Sometimes they have to wait a long time, and even from behind my own door I can hear them speak… to themselves often…. to each other, rarely.
They sit like ghosts in the other room and I can feel them through me… and I sit alone, and wait, unable to do anything but silently beg that help will come and take them away from me.
Alcohol pervades this post. For whilst I lie I to myself, I can’t lie to you. Under certain circumstances I may have written this and for that there are many reasons. I’m not someone who gives themselves a lot of chances. A higher standard is expected, at least in my mind. She was an anomaly. A guestly ghost to break through my version of reality. It was but a fleeting encounter for hers was a mind set astray by others. For that I won’t forgive that guy. She deserves more. For that he should hold his head low and know.
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