Sometimes

Sometimes you just need to make the best of your situation because it's not always as bad as you may think it is. Maybe you're stuck in a rut. You may be struggling paying bills, worrying about your children, hating yourself for getting so out-of-shape, or dealing with any other variety of ugly shit in your life. Sometimes, just dragging yourself out of bed and attempting to put real clothes on seems like Herculean feat. Sometimes, you may feel like you are entirely alone and have no idea where even start. But struggles at the moment don't HAVE to mean struggles for the rest of your life.

Do you guys think I relish waking up every morning to a husband who resents me, a sister who thinks all the decisions I make are bad, and a stepchild who loves calling me a "fucking bitch?" Do you think that me feeling like I've lost all of my closest friends makes me jump for joy every day?

Because in reality, I wake up some days feeling completely lost. I'm in my own bed, wrapped in my familiar tartan sheets with my cashmere-soft dog giving me all the warmth he has to offer, and still, I sometimes feel like I have no idea where I am. I feel like I'm a stranger in my own life. I will sometimes look in the mirror and see a complete stranger looking back at me. And I hate that. All of that.

What do I LOVE though?

Sometimes, my husband will roll over in the early mornings on a weekend he'd rather sleep in, our eyes still bleary from another restless night's sleep, trying to adjust to that beam of hot, Texas sunlight peering in through the tiny crack the curtains above heads. In those moments he will hold me, kiss my face and tell me not to worry about making breakfast because he's got it. And it's always the best fucking breakfast I've ever had. Every time. And sometimes, completely out of nowhere, he will clutch on to me as if I am his life preserver, kissing my forehead and reminding me that despite the occasional lull in our marriage, he is so, so thankful that we've stuck it out.

Sometimes, my just-discovering-himself step-son will sit and quiz me for hours, as if he is trying to construct his own mental encyclopedia of all the things I can tell him about skin, zombies, computers, and the way the world works. And in those conversations we learn about one another and find one more small fiber of respect and appreciation for one another. Sometimes, he will offer to help with the dishes and my incessant compulsion to reorganize our many overflowing bookshelves, pantry, and fridge. Sometimes, he will do everything he can to make me laugh because he can see that I need my chin lifted up.

Sometimes, my blue-eyed, growing-too-fast step-daughter will just text me to tell me she misses me and all the baking, painting, and Minecraft we do together. Sometimes, she'll call me just because, and she will tell me all the things she's learning or looking forward to.

Sometimes, every now and again, one of my bffs throws me a bone and we talk like miles and months and years and deaths haven't ripped us too far apart from one another. Sometimes, they make me feel like they care about the things I'm going through and struggling with and those times ease a tremendous amount of my stress and anxiety.

Sometimes, I'll finish a piece of art, or cook a meal that has superseded the last one as the new best thing I've ever made. Sometimes, I wake up so energized that I immediately get to cleaning the kitchen, mopping all of our millions of tiles, and even find the energy to take a photo of my face that I don't hate.

And sometimes, I will have to stop myself and really evaluate how many of the small, hundreds-of-times a day beautiful things fall into my life. The things that are easy to dismiss because there are "bigger fish to fry."

And that's not okay, guys. I know that. I know that spending more time focusing on minuscule bank account balances, overdue bills, and how we're going to buy groceries next doesn't make my heart feel better. Those big things take over some days and I feel like running and never, ever looking back. But what will that solve? At the end of the day, I'll find a false sense of relief for about three weeks and then realize that I am missing all the gorgeous things in my life because I decided to run from them.

Sometimes, we need to pause and realize that maybe we're too close to the situation, and that the mountain of things in front of us isn't made entirely of ugly things. We need to remember all the people who love us, the fact that we're still alive and breathing, and that it isn't always as bad as it may seem. I get that occasionally life can get in the way so much that you feel nothing but frustration and disinterest in the things or people you usually love, but that doesn't mean that you just cut them out. If you love playing guitar, fucking find new songs to learn and play them. If you are passionate about cooking, get a new cookbook and find that spark again among the new ingredients and flavours. If you have had someone in your life for almost two decades, go on a freaking date and take time to discover the things that made you fall in love with them in the first place.

Sometimes, it's okay to just allow yourself be happy and find your way through the shitstorm in front of you when you have more strength and maybe even an extra hand or two to save you from getting lost. You aren't alone, even when you feel like you have nobody else that you can rely on for positivity. There are people that love you despite all the things you may hate about yourself, and sometimes, THAT is enough.

it's gotta get bad before it gets good...

so, the other night i'm laying in my bed. i'm laying there and doing an intensive internal assessment. checking in with parts of my body, to see if they're all still there, working and not needing any sort of medical attention. this need to assess my physical well-being comes from the fact that America is AWESOME and unwilling to provide any kind of socialized healthcare to people who need it despite certain individual's needs.

i checked with my legs and instinctively began scratching. since my first trip back from England in 2004 i have suffered from a horrible case of itchy legs. i would scratch and scratch until i bled. there are countless scars all over my legs from years of scratching. actually, little known fact, the main reason i originally started to get my legs tattooed was because i hated seeing the scratches and scars all over my legs.

moving on, i checked in with my belly by giving it a squeeze with both hands. trying to compare the size of the amount of fat i held in my hands to some sort of fruit or vegetable. it used to be a grapefruit and has, over the last several months, morphed into a large honeydew. i frowned and hated myself silently for a moment, thinking about how much weight i had let myself gain in the last year. i have literally put on over forty pounds. seeing that number even just now makes me wish i was willing to lie, but i know it won't do much good. i need to be able to see that number and know that i need to do something, that i need to change my way of living because i'm not healthy and i'm only going to become MORE unhealthy if i don't sort my life out.

i checked with my back. presumably as a result of my weight gain, my lower back has been killing me. i can't walk for more than ten minutes at a moderate pace without needing to stop and complain because my back literally hurts THAT MUCH. i worry about my back because the last time i experienced a pain like i am right now was when i had a kidney infection. i can't afford to have any kind of illness right now, but a kidney infection would literally be the worst. i've been VERY careful monitoring my internal organs because i can't even imagine what would happen if i fell ill with a kidney infection again.

finally, i made a stop in my head, checked how my mental health was doing. this is always the most fun for me. i'm now hitting the last of my supply of the anti-depressants my doctor prescribed me before our healthcare ran out and i am to the point now where i've got so little Ritalin left that i have to ration it to days that i know i might want to be more active.

anyways, the internal mental health check was alarming. i'm a mess. i'm existing in this place at the moment where i'm completely unwilling to pretty much do just about anything. i don't want to get up in the morning, participate in anything during the day and CAN'T sleep at night. i'm depressed. again.

i've been dealing with this very special bout of depression for several months now, which has resulted in the elusiveness on my blog, along with other things. this depression has been crippling in a whole new way for me. i'd gotten myself into such a fabulous cycle of self loathing, indifference and cynicism that i'd just completely given up on literally everything. i'd stopped doing my hair, wearing anything other than sweatpants, crafting, writing, talking to people and worst of all, communicating in an age-appropriate and conductive way with Muffin. i had just set myself up in a horrible little hole of misery that was made up of nothing but sadness and disappointment (pretty much all of which, i must add, was self-induced).

to be fair, my entire adult life has been made up a string of situations that have left me feeling HORRIBLY disappointed. i have spent a great deal of time wondering why i constantly felt like i was existing in such a massive state of disappointment; why i just couldn't be happy.

wait, i want to start this miserable part of this post saying that i love Muffin. i love him so, so much more than i think anybody could ever understand. the love that i feel for him, it goes beyond any means of description or explanation.

anyways, do you know that feeling after an argument where you feel like... sigh. you feel completely deflated. no matter how amazing your day may have started out, everything is gone after that last snide, shitty comment. i've got that right now, kinda all the time. lately Muffin and i have virtually lived exclusively between a string of FABULOUS arguments that are born from simple, piece of shit comments that turn completely out of control VERY quickly. i won't bore you with the details, but there tends to be IMMEDIATE escalation and doors are slammed and i am just so tired of feeling that horrible smug, yet ashamed feeling in the pit of my stomach that i inevitably always experience after every single argument.

so tired, in fact that last Monday i just got so, SO tired that i just gave up on any even sort of rational arguing and i reckon Muffin felt the same, because we pretty much broke up for about two hours.

yeah. my life's been THAT magical.

we've both just been walking on an emotional tightrope with our own personal battles staring us down every single minute of every single day. we're both tired, uninspired and angry. not at anybody in particular, but every single tiny bit of anger, sadness and frustration that we had burst into a horrible, disgusting relationship-shifting bubble that i think we kinda needed...

maybe i'm the only one that needed it, really, but it was big and offered me a lot of insight that i hadn't realized that i'd just shut out of my life because of the mess i'd let myself get into emotionally. 

since the day i met him, eleven years ago, i have been madly in love with Muffin and knew that he was the person that i was meant to see my oldest years with. there's never been anybody that i'd be willing to love as blindly as i have him. in the time i've known him i have seen him cheat on me, lie to me and break countless hearts, and you know what? i'd forgive him anything if it meant just a little more time with him.

at least that's what i THOUGHT i felt. it wasn't until last Monday that i realized that i've been holding him emotionally hostage and it's been destroying our relationship. i've been accusing him and hurting him making being with me nearly unbearable, all under the personal thought that i was making things better. i've been arguing blindly with him, not allowing him to offer me any input because i felt justified after what HE had put ME through. i just bulled on ahead with my own agenda, thinking it was helping, and not at all realizing that i was very slowly chipping away at the foundation that our lives were built on.

for months i've been searching aimlessly through countless internet sites trying to find the answers to questions i didn't even have the words to voice. why he was acting the way he was, why he wouldn't change and why he was so angry when he was the one who made the mistakes in the first place... i spent so much time focusing on what HE was doing wrong that i never took the time to stop and ask myself what in the world i was doing to fix things. i was just sitting back, expecting HIM to change, not even toying with the idea that i might need to step up and help. i was so focused on the hurt that he had inflicted on me that rather than letting the wound heal, i would just pick it and pick it and pick it, never, ever giving it a chance to scab over and get better.

last week helped me realize just how volatile i had become... just how difficult i had made life for the both of us. now, we're working together to make things good again. we're working and taking really great steps toward a better life.


the awesome thing? now, since i've stopped hounding him and feeling the need to monitor his every move, i've found myself feeling so much lighter and less strained. i've found myself with more time to crochet and paint and prepare for school (which starts in just over a month!!) i've found myself with the time and strength i was missing for ME, which is awesome.


things aren't perfect right now, but they are most absolutely on the right track. we hit the hideous rock-bottom we needed to and now we're headed back to where we need to be and i couldn't be happier to see the horizon.

adventures on ritalin

a couple of weeks ago i was sitting in the passenger's seat in our car (aka: "world's loudest car") playing on my mobile phone whilst Muffin dodged traffic with an ultimate destination of my doctor's office.

i'd been meaning to ring and book an appointment for nearly two months, but i had been coping with a very special bout of depression. since i lost my job i had been struggling to find the energy to do anything but move from the bed to the sofa and back to the bed again at the end of the day.

people who've not experienced an extreme depression could never understand how difficult it is to deal with even daily tasks such as signing onto Facebook or tidying up the tremendous amount of boxes that have been taking over our house since the delivery of all my stuff from England.

my depression was spiraling out of control and my entire life has been forced onto the back burner whilst i figure out what the hell i've got going on in my head. i had been to the doctor many times to try to figure out some sort of medication system to manage my lack of sleep, incessant need to eat and ultimate decline of my well-being with little or no result. every single aspect of my life felt like it was falling apart and i needed it fixing.

the most recent visit was set up after my realization that our healthcare will be running out on March 12th. my internal alarm set in and i called and booked in and now we're back to the first paragraph... i was in the car, playing Robot Unicorn Attack when we pulled up to the office.

we checked in, the nurse came out to get me and we sat in the office discussing my smoking habits, physical health and general mental state. i indicated my lack of interest, attention and sleep on a scale of one to ten to the nurse whilst Muffin sat across from me looking like he was trying not to be alarmed. i had become so depressed that i had completely closed down and stopped talking to friends, family and my own husband. he had no idea how bad things in my head had actually gotten.

after i received a terribly high score on my depression scale the nurse went and got my doctor (who is one of my favourite people in the world. he's like an american version of Harry Hill and i adore him). he came in, asked how the old anti-depressant i was on was going and went on to explain how difficult it is for a doctor, particularly when they have only a certain amount of time with a patient. he told me that he sometimes feels like he's failed a patient when he's unable to fix what they need fixing in the time he has with them.

after i reassured him that he had helped and reminded him of the fact that i only had three weeks left of healthcare he started the long process of thinking out loud. we discussed the medications i've tried that haven't worked and he finally settled on an option that he explained was slightly uncommon, but has been known to work.

Ritalin.

he explained that the prescribing of Ritalin, particularly to an adult, is slightly unorthodox, but helps to accelerate the effects of the anti-depressant i take at night. he instructed me that i am only to take it during the day, as it is basically speed for adults, and that if i find myself suffering from any unwelcome side-effects, i should stop taking it immediately and call in for another appointment.

so here i am, two weeks into my new life on Ritalin and i have to say that i am much more stable than i have felt in a long time. the first day i took it i was pumped. i literally couldn't sit down. not like you'd imagine it would feel to be on speed, but just... i wanted to be up doing stuff. i wanted to be tidying and baking and re-organizing stuff. so i did.

since then, i really am grounded now. i am able to concentrate so much better than i can remember being able to in a while and have EVEN learned to knit (which, if you know me, is a huge feat, given that i have been trying to teach myself to knit for no less than seven years with no luck. i would try for half an hour, lose a lot of stitches, not be able to decipher what i had done and throw the needles into the drawer until i accidentally uncovered another knitting pattern that i NEEDED to try.)

also, i've unpacked all of my boxes from England, organized every one of my books (after having to literally get five more huge bookshelves to house them, which i ALSO put together), started re-vamping my crafting area according to craft (knit, crochet, drawing (which is FURTHER broken down by paint, marker, fine pen, broad pen and pencil), scrapbooking and dead animal crafting) and gone through all of my clothes to finally get rid of stuff i really don't NEED anymore (which, again, is a big feat for me if you know me, because i am a goddamned hoarder and hate getting rid of anything, ever).

things are okay right now and my biggest daily battle is just learning to deal with the little emotional curveballs my head likes to throw at me.

so, there you go. that's where i've been, what's been going on and why i've been so wildly elusive recently. i am making efforts to change that and have about five blogs i'm in the process of writing, so keep your eyeballs peeled and be well!

freaking Tuesday

oh. em. gee.

things have not been very sane in the McBlowme household for the last several weeks, which explains my lack of posting. so many things have contributed to my lack of contact, not only on here, but on Facebook, emails and any other type of communication you can imagine. in fact, unless you actually come TO my door and force me to hang out, i can't seem to find the means to conjure up the energy to face life outside my apartment.

i've been rather depressed (again), which is the result of a lot of crappy-crap, including, and not limited to losing my job, gaining even more weight and a fair few arguments with Muffin (which has put a shallow dent in the newlywed armor.

in better news, the dent is slowly being bashed out, i've been applying for more jobs and pushing myself harder than before to get myself to a better and more comfortable weight.

no matter what, though, i am ALWAYS working on lists and i have a list today, finally for this Tuesday. sorry again for the delay, and please enjoy.

cherry cola
aquariums
Grimm... which i have recently learned that this is one of the best shows i've seen in a while... content-wise, that is. the graphics aren't amazing and the acting isn't superb, but the premise of it is really interesting and quite fun to watch in general.
when a young child can point out Johnny Cash... i was out a couple of weeks ago and had a Johnny Cash shirt on and i had a little girl, no older than six, shout out to her mother that he was on my shirt. it is really rare to meet a child of her age these days who is aware of Johnny and i could really appreciate that. i spent the rest of the evening glee'ing all over the store.
having my stuff... probably the best and worst thing about my life at the moment. the day after Super Bowl i literally had forty boxes delivered filled with a combination of books, films, clothes, blankets, cushions and kitchen stuff. our apartment is SO full of stuff that, for a short time, we were unable to move. since the delivery, several stops have been made to Goodwill and the dumpster and since then, we only have a couple of boxes left. it's been nice to be able to go through and recall what things i have been missing for the last eighteen months. i am so happy to finally have it all.
Jeff Goldblum
cream top yoghurt
huge guys with tiny dogs
successfully putting together a bookshelf... and you can imagine there's a boatload, given the amount of boxes that have recently arrived at my apartment.
the books i got... one of which is a journal that says, "i heart everything" on the cover. it's pretty magical.
Smash Books
when cashiers read my order back
Cee Lo
taking the dog on a car ride... because he is just SUCH A GOOD BOY and behaves so well in the car. he gets so excited and looks so happy. i love him so much. 
dog parks... they are just wonderful! we took the puppy there last weekend and i'm sure it was his first time at a dog park. i have never, ever seen him so excited and despite initial concerns that he might be super naughty and run away, never to be seen again, he stayed with us the entire time and came every time we called him. more trips will be taken to the park in the last few weeks we have him.
my pearl necklace... tee hee. i never, ever get over saying that. Muffin got me a set of pearls for Valentine's Day and i couldn't be more pleased. they are beautiful and it's nice to know that he listens sometimes.
the Tacoma skyline
Mike Rowe
my hair right now... which i've been hating a great deal recently, but fell back in love with last night after finally bleaching it again. it's light, soft and just barely long enough to tie back. i am SO happy.
brownies
good dreams
Julie West... who's art i've been reminded of since the arrival of my items and i adore. she is SUCH a talented artist!
Archie McPhee
REALLY hot showers
special effects makeup

eh. Mike Rowe's on right now and i have some cream top yoghurt to eat, so i'm gonna go. i hope you enjoyed this. i'll surely be doing a blog again soon that's not just a list. we'll see though.

have a beautiful day.
 

Ersatz Danie

Ersatz (n) Serving as a substitute; synthetic; artificial.


a few facts about my recents and things i've clearly just been too fucking lazy to just sit down and post in the last several months, meaning that most everyone who USED to read my blog most likely has gotten bored with and forgot about me?


i've put on very nearly forty pounds... this leaves me completely unwilling to go out into public situations where people may notice that i've put on weight. i refuse as wildly as i can to go see friends or go to open mic nights. i post very few photos of myself. i take even less. i hate looking at myself in the mirror and avoid it as often as possible. my hair's ugly. my face is ugly and pudgy. my belly is embarrassing. when going out i layer as much as possible to make it look more as if i'm just sheltering a thinner body with tons of layers... nobody else needs to know that most of those layers are made of fat. i hate for Muffin to see me and am stifled only with shame when he DOES catch a glimpse of me in any state of undress.

i have a job now... which is actually going astoundingly well. i was officially offered the job on my birthday, which worked out to the best birthday present i could have imagined receiving... even if it DID have to come from a chain retail store. i work at Kmart as a cashier and have been kicking so much arse and taking so many names (literally, for rewards programmes) that they have told me they are ninety-eight percent sure they will be keeping me on after my original strictly-seasonal hiring scheme and they have already begun training me to work the service desk. it's pretty thrilling and no, it's not what i imagined my future would look like, but if it DOES work out, Muffin and i have plans that will boost our future into a fabulous superdrive... until then, i ring things up, stock shelves and maintain an energetically friendly demeanor.

my stuff is finally coming home to me... after a long and very painfully drawn-out several months, all of my stuff from England is officially in the United States and undergoing customs inspections so they can make their way across the country to my very eager open arms. there is no way to actually explain the excitement that i wake up with every morning, knowing that i will finally be able to wear that ONE green jacket, crochet with that ONE skein of blue wool and look through that ONE box of photos that i had sitting quietly in the drawer of my little white desk. on the other hand, i am occasionally filled with dread, imagining the amazingly devastating emotional tornado that will fill the McBlowme household when the first box is opened and i catch that very familiar sent of England and Pow... merely thinking of the way it will feel offers me a very special nausea in my stomach that terrifies me. it'll be a blessing and a final closing of a very, horribly painful chapter in my life that i am not looking forward to.

                                                                                                                                               

so, when you no doubt ask yourself what the title and definition at the top of this post have to do with anything... i will tell you that just these small examples of my currents, they are what are making me feel that i am existing completely not as myself... i feel completely alone, empty and lost right now.

the only time i feel grounded is with Muffin. he makes everything in my aching heart feel perfectly okay. i seem to have finally passed that huge, hideous hurdle that was thrown up last February into a place that feels safe, honest and completely real and i find myself more and more often dumbfounded for all the luck i have to have finally been able to start building a life with him.

but when i'm at work? when i've woken up and he's at school? when he's in the bath? i sit and have no idea who i am or what i'm doing. the level of disconnection i have from everything and everyone at the moment is completely foreign to me and i have no understanding of how to deal with it, except to ignore it.... ignoring it seems to be the only way that i might be able to get past it... except for when people point out that i seem to have died, it's then that i feel fucking retarded because there SEEMS to be no reason for me to have literally fallen apart, i just have. it just feels like it was overdue for me to.

people, very few people have reached out, but not far enough and i've just not their grip too.

i seem to have lost my grip on everything.

the loss of friends, the lack of inspiration, the excess of stimulation over the last several months (travel, visits, sights, sounds, smells) seem to have left me raw... and that's all i can say to explain it... everything happened in such a short span of time that i lost touch with reality and sanity. 

so please, don't give up on me... reach further and help me if you wish, otherwise, i really will be back, eventually.

a gentle kind of cruelty...

 

i've been feeling. 

i was reading. 

my general day-to-day has been empty. i've no desire to do anything or see anyone. my depression has reached an ugly, hideous place that is not all too welcome. it's slumped me with the burden of pain, paranoia and discontent. 

primarily, i move on auto-pilot. my actions are those that i know should be taking place, ones that make me look normal and sane and "okay." i do the laundry, cook, blog and smile wearing a mask that helps people to believe that i'm okay, just slightly sad. in this fantasy world i have created i am FINE. there's no problems to talk about and at the end of every day, i am FINE (a word that treatment trained me to associate almost nearly as a curse word purely because it is typically used by individuals only to placate any possible concerned passers-by. a word who's acronym tends to explain that the said "FINE" individual is actually one of four not actually FINE things: Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic or Emotional)

in reality, i hurt. god i hurt. but only on good days do i hurt, most days, i don't feel. i seem to have lost the ability to feel mostly anything. it's almost as though someone came and took everything out of me. my thoughts, hopes, dreams and desires. i just feel like an empty husk of nothing.

i went through all this same crappy-crap when i moved to england... no friends, no family, no job, nothing. i literally feel like i have nothing anymore. nothing to aspire to, nothing to push for, nothing to get excited about. alone and finding myself writing ideas for blogs but not actually finding the energy to sit down and write them.

the other night i was reading an article about an artist by the name of Ray Caesar in a magazine called Hi Fructose. there was one single piece of his art that took my breath away and in the middle of reading his words i had to stop because it hurt. his words touched me a little too hard in a place just far too sensitive for me to cope with. i have to admit that it felt nice to feel, but the feelings, they virtually murdered my tiny, fragile emotions. he discussed his psychological disorders, some of which i also have and he discussed the way that he feels when forced to deal with his past and emotions by way of creating art, which very boldly paralleled with myself and my writing.

and i relay his words... 

"a disorder helps you through childhood but can cause great difficulty as an adult. i must say that making pictures is one thing that has helped me cope and brings all aspects of my personality into play. 

making art is so difficult as well as healing and joyful that we/i need all of us in order to make it. the very act of making pictures for me is a form of compartmentalization that allows me to deal with overwhelming emotions and memories. i create a window into a peaceful world where the 'emotion' or the fragile part of me is protected... i make something gentle but also something that shows a dark side to it and strength. think of my pictures as a sanctuary where one can take out a small piece of pain and allow it to be free -  a place to confront that pain and even care for it. a protected place of color and happiness much like a christmas morning  for a child who is allowed to open the difficult gifts he or she has been given in life. 

it's a double edged sword for me that my pictures are so public as there is a part of me that would rather deal with all this in privacy but my pictures are also who i am in so many ways that i have to wear my life on the walls of a gallery or in the internet...i suppose art for me is that process in which we bear our inner most feelings, trouble and pain; happiness and joy... it's an important form of communication and that is more important than my need for privacy.

(in discussing the above painting, "Revelation") the Sailor is my own kind of metaphor for a traveler or one that explores... she is in a fog; something i have been in for most of my adult life. the light is that sudden knowledge... that overwhelming piece of the pizzle that explains so much, that confrontation with the astonishment that takes you to a new level of understanding. 

most astonishing about these periods of foggy missing time or periods of wasted time is that it felt as if some other thing had taken me over. a realization of having not one but several personalities so i could see and feel them when they appeared, usually in a moment of stress. 

i am then more effectively able to use these diferent parts of myself and that to me is a "Revelation," like living in a fog for many years and suddenly finding you are more than the sum of your parts. 

i think everyone has aspects of what we call "disorders." we all get depressed or manic or compulsive but some of us have such things magnified, sometimes to the power of 10 and others to the power of 100. i think we all have some parts of ourselves we know better than other parts of ourselves. all i do know is art is a great way to sail the seas of the subconscious mind and make a map of that strange world. my work is the map of my mind."

and now, i am here today, feeling raw and emotionless. reading his words helped me to at least find the direction that i need to be going in, but i have no idea how to get there. i have no idea how to turn the lights on and i'm mortified to do it alone. 

i feel as though i've no choice though, seeing as my stupid emotions and mood swings have shunted everyone else out of my way, leaving me feeling like a child who's thrown a giant tantrum and was left alone to deal with it on their own as a means of self-soothing. 

right now, i just want to be held. i am so terrified that all of my pieces are falling apart and i just want someone to hold me and make sure i don't lose myself. 

last night i held Muffin and was terrified to let him go. i held him and he kept attempting to escape but i just pushed my face into his chest harder to stop him from leaving me and seeing my tears. i don't want to lose him, i don't want to lose myself. i am so terrified that he will see me as this broken thing and not want to wait around until i put myself back together again. i just want someone to hold me. make me feel okay. i don't want words, i don't want eye contact, just a cuddle.

eh. i don't know why i've posted this. consume it how you will.

ouchies...

lately.

hrm. lately i feel very much like i'm learning about everything again.

that's to be expected given the state of my life in the last seventeen months. i've been on a road of constant change since even before Christopher and i split up. mental changes, physical changes, address changes, hair colour changes. the list of changes i've seen take place in my life is vast. sometimes i think about it and become so tired that i need to take a break from even just listing the ways my life has altered in the last year and a half... it's astronomical.

right now though. well, in the last two or three weeks; i feel very much like i really lost who i was, or more like... hrm. it's hard to describe. it's like, you know when you go to your iTunes playlist, the one you use for everything... cleaning, sleeping, driving, working out? the playlist that you (if you're like me) spent HOURS tailoring around your life... painstakingly picking out every single song that will light up your activities so you don't have to accidentally stumble across any ugly memories that you just don't want to have to deal with mid-push of the hoover or halfway through your ten-mile hike on the treadmill.

i've got one of those. my epic playlist that i had originally made back in october 2009. the playlist that i had very, VERY stringently created over a series of days. the playlist that, at the time, i created to be both uplifting, but also remind me of some of the less hideous memories i had had with my then-estranged husband. the playlist that, after i was finished compiling it, became a constant source of emotional strength for me, with songs that made me feel like a stronger woman (i still find it weird to call myself a "woman," but i guess at twenty-six i really have no choice, hey?), allowed me to be silly and slowly eased me into the fact that i was now being forced to forge a life on my own and without the boy i had been planning a forever with for nearly seven years prior, all of which could be carried around on a tiny four-square-inch ipod with ease. it's fairly magical, really, to know that i could so easily toss the very core of all my emotional everything into my pocket.

anyways, that playlist was my everything. it really helped me through a lot of dark times. it supported me and never treated me wrong. it was always there when i needed it and occasionally prodded me to feel or re-live things that i didn't, at the time, know i needed, but was very grateful for in the end. in a way, that playlist and those songs, they were ME. they defined me in all my emotional, quirky, dancy glory...

i'm aware all this sounds like the ramblings of a fucking mentalist. i get that, but i'm slowly making my way to an excellent point, i promise.

so, back to the third or fourth paragraph... i feel like i've lost myself. the reason the playlist makes sense is because the way that i feel, in a metaphor, is like my computer got some sort of horrific virus that deleted all my favourite things, including, but not limited to my playlist.

i can imagine not everyone is as neurotic as me and when they lose their playlists it doesn't ruin their lives, but for me, danie, the girl who is overly dramatic about every single tiny thing in the world, when a playlist is lost, i completely lose it. that means that i have to spend another goddamn eight or so hours individually picking out the songs that will be housed in my ipod again.

so. all of this, this losing of myself, it feels like that. like i had this amazing playlist that defined me and helped me get through my days that was very suddenly ripped from me and now, i am here today (and have been for the last several weeks) attempting to FIND that playlist again before i am forced to buckle down and create an entirely new one.

now, i know that just making a new one would be good for me. a lot of people do it and it's cleansing and healthy and blah, blah, fucking blah, but i LIKED my playlist. i LIKED my life and now that it's lost, i just really don't know what the fuck i'm doing every day.

i wake up and don't want to move, i lull around the house until i can muster enough oomph to throw some clothes on for a fag and then come in and look around the room wondering what the hell i'm doing with my life. the excitement i had for baking, crocheting and doing laundry has dulled to a low roar and the things i used to find myself doing every day are now only done when i absolutely can't stand hearing Muffin complain about it anymore (well, that's not entirely true. it's actually more dramatic than anything. i do stuff, just not every day now.)

i've mostly stopped eating and i can't sleep without the aid of a cocktail of melatonin, valium and some other off-brand sleeping medication. i go through short phases occasionally where i literally just don't care about anything. i would take my pills at night hoping that perhaps they would just stop me from having to wake in the morning, only to have them offer me more and more upsetting dreams to wake up and reel back from.

i know, that sounds horrible and ohEMgee dramatic and like a call for help. i don't want anyone to worry, which is why i haven't brought it up before now. i never actually planned-out any suicide attempts or anything, i just really, honestly don't want to have to exist anymore sometimes.

i feel like right now i'm not me. i'm just some person who is completely dependent on Muffin (which completely devastates my confidence) and who nobody wants to hire (despite the five to ten resumes i send out a day, every single day). i feel like i have few friends, a strong but very small support system that's decreasing in mass by the day and just not enough strength sometimes to do anything but sit and snuggle the dog. i don't feel like i benefit anyone's life and only exist to make Muffin annoyed and... well, that's it. my self-confidence is completely non-existent. i've not taken "face" photos in about two weeks because i can't bare the sight of it and i'm just... i don't know. i don't feel like dressing up or putting makeup on or anything.

all of this, this heavy, horrible came to a head a week or so ago when i just completely lost it with Muffin. there were tears, raised voices and a lot of honest realities expressed that worried him. since then he's tried, bless him. he's really making the effort to hold me tighter and for longer. he's really showing me that i have at least one person that loves the shit out of me and wants to see this over so i can resume normal activity.

and can i just say? all those stupid goddamn films that try to make it look like it's a fucking relief to have these little outbursts are lies. i felt worse. i felt like i had laid yet another burden on Muffin, which is why i hadn't said anything to begin with, to him or anyone. i've just kept my silence and hoped this storm would pass or something magical would happen that would pull me out of this stupid, ugly slump.

alas, no. i'm just eating less and waking up later as a result of the extra tablets i'm taking at night, leaving me sluggish and blah throughout the day.

wow, now that that depressing shite is over, i can say that i'm trying. i'm honest-to-goodness trying to make this hurt stop. if Christopher taught me anything, it's that i can't count on anyone else to make this hurt that i have less... the only person i can count on is me. the thing is, how am i meant to count on me when i just don't feel strong enough to do this? i get up and force myself to maintain a routine, i coloured my hairs, i've been putting makeup on and trying to put on a brave face, "faking it to make it" as we used to say in treatment... all of this is doing something, but i don't know what. i'm attempting to re-build that "playlist" in hopes that this new one will make the days easier and will make me slightly stronger if anything, which is all i can hope for, that i will come out of this at the other end with a thicker skin and better head on my shoulders.

we'll see.

parp. i need a fag.

sorry.

a kind of "BWEEEE" tuesday...

hrm. never posted that other blog, did i? well i WILL, in time. perhaps today? but also perhaps not. there's a lot on this little girl's dinner plate today and i need to get them done before i can sit and go on more than i should about my life in a blog that, more often than not, is not being read and therefore is fairly useless.

alas, i have a list! a glorious list! please enjoy!

french toast and bacon cupcakes... so, for "research" purposes i went to a new bakery that opened up down the road from our house. we went in and i immediately fell in love with the idea of french toast and bacon cakes (complete with a piece of candied bacon on top!). my pout came into effect almost straight away as i began pawing at Muffin's collar, making sure that there was NO DOUBT that i would want a cake and OMGCOULDIPLEASEHAVEITRIGHTNOW?! anyways. i got my cake and good freaking jesus in a handbasket it was beautiful. it was like a tiny bit of heaven was cut from the skies and churned around in a mixer with bacon bits, sugar and maple syrup. it was the most perfect store-bought cake i'd ever had. ever. PHWOAR!
daytime drinking
talking to Carmen... my other sister and i are not too terribly close. we rarely speak and typically when we do it's just not overall very nice. it's usually very mechanical and painful. like pulling teeth, but friday... friday i had an amazing conversation with her that left me heaped in a little ball of weepy in a too-hot-for-me bath. it was a conversation that made me feel like we actually had a connection and that she really, honest-to-goodness cared for me, which i've never really felt before. it was nice. it made me feel nice.
new jewelery
photo collages
valentine's day... which was unbelievably magical this year. this has been the first valentine's day that i feel like i've been really, absolutely in love. i spent the entire day in complete awe of how much i love Muffin... i stared at his hands and feet and nose and literally couldn't believe how much i love him. it hurts, how much i love him. he made it a perfect day and i can't seem to find enough words to thank him for giving that to me.
the fact that i'm fairly spoiled... mmm, i really am. i pretty much get anything i want. mostly. my wants aren't huge, but Muffin tends to oblige... he takes care of me by way of cupcakes, baking trays, shoes, hamburgers... he's magical.
pine nuts
random phone calls
my hairs
oh my LORD sex
tandem showers
the johnny cash project
finding an awesome bargain
mary j blige
julia roberts

completely, absolutely unexpected surprises... after receiving many, many magical gifts on valentine's day i felt relaxed and pleased. i occasionally prodded Muffin, saying that he SHOULD have gotten me flowers, as EVERY girl likes getting flowers. it wasn't until i was about to begin cooking our amazingdindins when he asked if i needed anything from the supermarket. i grinned at him, knowing that he was going to go get me some flowers and used my need for prosciutto to be able to away himself to a local florist to find me some sort of lily. whilst he was out i readied the supplies for the chicken parmigiana. i laid out the breasts, cheese, basil, bay leaves and olive oil when booger went nuts, signaling the return of his father. Muffin walked into the kitchen with one hand behind his back and the other holding a supermarket bag with my ham. he mumbled about flowers and how he hadn't gotten me anything huge and then pulled me close and handed me a cutesy ceramic cupcake with five carnations and a heart in it. i was immediately delighted with the glitter, cupcake and flowers and sat the gift down to kiss his face off for being a good listener when he pulled away and said, "oh dear, it looks as though this came with a ring." it was at that moment that i forgot how to speak and how to not weep. i just smiled and saw the tiny glittering ring being held in place by the heart. he proceeded to explain to me that this ring meant that he was mine. that he would be mine and nobody else's and that one day we will, when the time is right, become engaged and wed. he then removed the ring from it's flowery bed and placed it on my tiny finger (which seems to have become even tinier since it was measured last, as a spacer had to be purchased today so as to avoid the loss of said promise of foreverlove). literally, receiving a ring from Muffin was the last thing in the entire world i expected and i have spent the last twenty-four hours in a state of excitement that cannot be contained, staring at my hand, but doing so in secret so as to not look like a goddamn weirdo. just, SQUEEE!
mozzarella cheese
bill murray
valium
honesty
cardigans
clearing out the garage
cooking magazines
william elliot whitmore
love songs
marvin gaye
coming out of dark places... i'm going through dark places. places i've kept secret because i don't want people to worry. even Muffin has been mostly kept out of the loop. i've wanted to travel them alone and came dangerously close to losing myself, but i feel like slowly, right now, i am making it through. it feels like, but still slightly unstable.
inappropriate post cards
taxidermy
finding dead animals on the side of the road
blueberry cakes
angel hair pasta
how tiny my hands are
cleavage
chewing plastic
how sexy a simple pair of underwear can make me feel
cupcakes that are so beautiful it makes my head hurt... like these:

mmm, that's good enough. i have a romantic dinner to prepare for. have a lovely week. <3

i will never accept defeat, i will never quit...

wednesday night became the night that i officially learned how hard it is to be the significant other of someone in the ARMY.

wednesday night i made Muffin ring his commander back, which forced him back into work.

wednesday night i hated myself so much for having him ring his commander back that i drank half a bottle of rum, took a two-hour long bath with the music playing loudly and then spent the following three hours in between vomiting sessions.

today. i still want to die.

i never realized it was so hard. i never realized that i would feel so lonely and i never, ever realized how much his job would affect me.

not all of it has to do with his job. a lot of it is me. like, 3/4 of it is me, my womb and my overactive imagination, but because of his schedule, i am forced to be home, alone, constantly during the day and in the evenings he is just too tired to have much to do with me beyond eating the meal i've cooked and lying in bed with the telly on until he falls asleep within half an hour.

i try to occupy myself. i work out. i jog. i play with the dog. i tidy. i cook. i bake.

none of it seems to offer me any sort of comfort or relief though. at the end of every single day, i still feel the same amount of lonely that i felt when i woke up. the kind of lonely that completely consumes you. the kind of lonely that is stripping me of any desire to continue the routines that i had built up for myself during the days. i've no desire to do the dishes anymore. the laundry only gets done every other day now. i just feel gross and don't want to do much more than smoke and sleep. constantly (but not at the same time, mind, as i am VERY health and safety conscious and am aware that smoking AND sleeping, whilst done in tandem do not mix well).

my bath wednesday night was a drunken release that i've long needed. each of the songs that swirled through the air gave me a different set of memories and images to mull over and pine after.

first was Give and Take by Broken Family Band. a song who's lyrics feel incredibly apt currently. i listened to it on repeat for twenty minutes... the lyrics taking me on an emotional rollercoaster, thinking of Christopher and the destruction of our relationship and thinking of the route my relationship with Muffin is taking now, which leads me to become terrified that i might be the girl described in the song.

second was hit or miss by New Found Glory, which was always OUR song... the song Muffin and i would listen to on repeat until the CD skipped from overuse. i remembered the way we used to sing it and the night, two weeks ago that it came on whilst we were in bed... the way he looked at me and the way he held me as we sang along to the lyrics we had memorized long ago.

third completely took me by surprise in the form of here's what's left by RJD2, a band i'd never in my life heard of, but instantly made me hurt for Bar One, Nick, Franny and everyone that i spent of my evenings with. it's a weirdly beautiful song that even now i find myself traveling back to to wrap myself in the lyrics of.

fourth was to be expected, and was wild is the wind by cat power. the instant it came on i died. the song that jaacqy and i bonded over and the song that reminds me how much i love him and how beautiful he is. it's such a delicately beautiful song with lyrics that make me long for his hugs and kisses.

fifth, as per, ruined me a'la Mr Powers... it was butcher's girl and took me immediately back to eleven in the pee em, six days before i left england. it took me back to the playdate we had with graham that was used as a bit of a practice session for them, but also as a chance for me to film Pow one last time. i cried as i watched him perform, as i usually do, because he is such a strong performer. i cried wednesday because i miss him. i miss having THAT as a best friend. i hate how things have ended and i hurt almost constantly for my Pow Pow and all the things that made our friendship what it was.

as i was pulling myself drunkenly out of the bath the final song came on... one that instantly destroys me on site every. single. time. i hear it. always by bon jovi is OUR song... janey and me. hearing that song brings back so, SO many memories of our first playdate ever, ruining Poison Bear's will to live and... everything. i miss her so much and in the drunken state i was stuck in, i found myself particularly fragile and needed a hug... something i did not get. not even from Booger, who seems to hate it when i sing loudly and obnoxiously.

today... i am still in that fragile hungover state where eating is difficult and all i want is to OMGDRINKALLTHEWATER! i feel lonely and am stuck home again because Muffin has to pull an overnight shift... i just want a hug. i just want to feel okay again. when will that happen?


perhaps after some homemade cookies and a boardgame night with the Lunas. meh. we'll see.

could you...

no matter how may cuddles, sexytimes or amazing kisses, i will always wonder how much commitment is behind it all. i've all this before, only to have it stripped from me and to have to wait eight years to have it again.

it's not a trust issue at all, not even a little bit. i trust Muffin. it's more about me wondering how serious all of this is, anytime i bring up the marriage or kids he and i spent so many hours planning over the phone... the topics that were the basis of almost all of our conversations whilst he was in iraq, he tends to get moody and defensive, which has left me to just stifle any thoughts or feelings about it because i am sick of him being moody about something as beautiful as our future.

i feel stuck in this place full of mixed messages and general confusion.some days he's really, super, megaexcited about our future, and others... he's just, not.

day after day i get up, make his lunch, start a load of laundry and proceed with my day once he's gone with little or no certainty as to where this is leading. the random texts throughout the day make me worried that things are slipping, but i promised. i promised him this would be it, i would stand through everything. i would make him KNOW that he was loved and deserved to be loved for forever, that i would make up for all the eight years in love notes, kisses and cakes.

most of the time, when he holds me it feels... hrm. not as close. it feels lonely and like he's doing it more out of habit than anything else. the cuddles in bed have dwindled, only to be increased by a little grumble on my behalf. if i grumble, he tends to react with all he knows, and that's to hold me and tell me he doesn't want to lose me. that he feels like he's losing me.

i feel slightly similar to how i felt just before chris and i split, barring the fact that i still love Muffin like you wouldn't fucking believe. i love him and would do anything for him. and i do. i do everything for him. i cook, clean, bake, sew, lose sleep and generally wear myself to a little, tired nub, just so i can make sure that he's happy. but when does danie get to be happy? when does danie get the love notes, surprises and promises that he spent so many months making to me?

i feel taken for granted and hurt.

a lot of this, i guess, as per, comes from my endless days at home alone, which should hopefully come to an end next week or so. it comes from my thinking and thinking until the thing i am thinking about is dead from all the thinking.

i miss england.

i miss Pow.

i miss having friends HERE.

i miss cider.

i miss certainty, of which i've none. i don't know where we're going or when we're going to go there if we do. i don't know if or when we will get married, i don't know how much of what he says is to placate me, or how much of it he actually means.

i feel like i need a sweeping gesture. i feel like i need something big to prove to me that this is IT and i don't need to worry about any of this stuff.

i feel stupid, again, for feeling.

recycled air...

today, i've no energy.

i'm ill.

i caught Muffin's ill and now i kinda want to die.

to battle this illness, i've decided to tidy. i've planned a day around severe steam-cleaning of the carpets, hand-mopping the floors in the kitchen and bathroom and re-washing all the dishes.

all of this will happen in between the cooking of a massive ham stew and baking cornbread and cookies.

clearly, i'm not doing all of this only to attempt to thwart my illness, i am also doing this because i feel lost and a little blarrrggghhh and need to do SOMETHING otherwise i will go crazy. i was up all night with horrible thoughts and up all yesterday after a series of incredibly distressing dreams that have still left me feeling beat-up and sore.

my beat-up and sore is more than emotional though. alongside my ill, i am also still suffering from what i can only guess are bruised ribs after seeing Gogol on Wednesday.

we (Muffin and myself) arrived in Seattle after a day of me trying to get him not to go. he'd been ill and i knew that if he went he'd just complain the whole time and not enjoy the music as much as i did. he insisted on going so we arrived and i immediately snuggled myself directly in front of the stage, against the railing, between a very large girl that looked alarmingly like Origami and a tiny girl who looked alarmingly like one of Muffin's friends. the large girl was pleasant and spoke to me until the bands started... Muffin was situated behind me, protecting me from the masses of fans behind us until, after about an hour of Gogol performing, he was shoved aside and i immediately became crushed.

the top of the railing was situated JUST below my tits, allowing for it to apply ample pressure on my ribs and lungs anytime the hundreds of creatures behind me shifted. the pressure became more and more until, after about ninety minutes of them playing, i felt i was going to vomit and then i collapsed. i didn't even realize i had collapsed... i fell forward on the railing and the large girl next to me asked me if i was okay. my brain immediately clicked in (without the rest of my body) and i realized i do not have health insurance, money or means for being seen-to at a hospital, so i shouted i was fine and lifted my head and waved my hands for water from the mullet-ed bouncer stood in front of me. it was only after the drink of water that i realized i couldn't see. i had no idea how long i'd been out and i had no idea what was going on, but there was a lot of noise and i was still being crushed. i turned my body to attempt to reduce the pain in my chest and to find Muffin (which, btw, the BEST way to feel guilty, is to have your boyface go to a gig with you whilst he's ill, only to find that he looks bored and completely miserable every single time you look at him). i grabbed him and said i had passed out and needed to go to the toilet. i could only make out vague shapes and the stress of the noise and movement was making me more wobbly by the minute. he guided me to the toilet where i washed my face and stood until i could see more than shadows then we left.

worst. gig. ever.

so i'm still sore and... meh. it was scary. i've never passed-out before and i never thought i'd be one of THOSE GIRLS that passes out at a gig, but now, apparently, i am.

physical things aside, Muffin and i have been talking, in a very pixellated and frustrated fashion, but still talking.

there are still a lot of topics i refuse to approach him with, because i know that it just won't do any good and, i guess, given my history with Christopher, i feel like i HAVE to deal with all of this alone because they're MY PROBLEMS and it's not Muffin's job to fix me. when i ask for help or love or support, his shit's always bigger, so i never really feel like the stuff i feel is very important. and then when i get a little emo about it all, i just end up feeling stupid, as per usual, for having felt something questionable or wanting a little more.

i can see, right now, how i am falling into the same patterns that i fell into when i moved in England. the depression and helplessness. i don't know anybody, i don't have a job, i don't have any money and a lot of my favourites, the people i loved the hardest, they're gone.

i seem to have completely lost the will to fight. like a dog who's been given that final shot to be put to sleep, but still has the little bits of energy to kick or flail its limbs. i remember this feeling in England. i remember the helplessness and i want to stop it now, because it almost killed me then and right now, it seems to be accelerating and feeling worse by the day. it's stressing Muffin out and... i don't know.

he feels like he's losing me. he held me so tight last night and said he didn't know what to do. i don't even feel like it's appropriate for me to ask for anything specific anymore... i just feel stupid when he gets like that. like i've done something wrong. i feel like i shouldn't have to ASK him to do nice things... i feel like he should want to do nice things for me if he feels like he's losing me, that i'm not going to tell him what to do.

eh. this isn't going anywhere. i'm gonna go for a fag.

have a better day than me. please.

i worry...

things in the Muffin/Honeybun household have been tense over the last five days. i've only recently arrived home and Muffin has been dealing with a lot of personal shit. things have been a little too much to handle,for him, mostly, but also a tiny bit for me, because i don't know what to do or how to help. when i try, he gets defensive. when i don't try, he gets defensive... i just don't have any idea what to do... i feel quite stuck, but not so much that i can't find tiny little fibres to grasp onto to hold myself above water. 

i worry that over the last several weeks, whilst i was away in Cheyenne, i processed a lot of things alone and have not had any form of a safeplace or soundboard to help me to make any healthy or conscious decisions, leaving me wondering if the decisions i've made are okay and will benefit ANYONE, let alone me.

like, i worry i may have missed-out on important things because i've been processing solo... things like speaking to Ryu's grandmother made me really see things. it hit me in the middle of the face on a sunny tuesday afternoon whilst watching Ryu zoom back and forth on his bike. we talked about her deceased husband and how she finds it hard most days now because he was the one person that, no matter what happened, no matter what their moods, he would listen to her and help her process even the most minute of details.

this hit me hard because i have all these stupid things swirling around in my head... Pow things, Origami things, England things, kid things, future things, things that involve me being an actual, real, live adult.

this hit me hard because in all the time i had away in Cheyenne, and even now, five days later, i have yet to tell Muffin everything that's on my mind. i don't feel like i CAN. he just has so much going on at the moment and i don't want to have to add to it with all my crap.

when i DO try to broach a subject, he tends to become defensive without hearing everything and the end result usually just looks like me, curled into a heap on the sofa or bed, feeling slightly weepy, but not wanting to cry, JUST IN CASE he might see me cry and the process with have to start again. i've felt like i need to cry for the last three days. walking around wal-mart, gigs and taco bell with tiny, itty-bitty wells of water in the corners of my eyeballs, ready to erupt given any random assortment of variables that could hit me.

i mean, brief outlines of my junk look like this:

Pow: we're not friends anymore. we have had a huge fight that has resulted in him saying things to me and acting in ways towards me that i have never, ever seen. losing one's best friend is quite possibly the most horrific agony in the world. i've been trying to keep positive, hoping he'll come out of it, but i really, honestly don't think that this is going to happen.
driving: yeah, i've been studying for my driving test. whilst this doesn't seem huge to anyone else, this is gigantic to me and makes me want to die. it's just ANOTHER adult step that i am too tired to have to deal with right now. i WILL do it and i am sure i'll do fine, but it's just another stress i don't need.
Origami: that's a fun one. the entire time i was in Cheyenne, when i explained the situation re: the stupid triangle that is made up by her, Muffin and myself, they just scrunched their noses and asked me why i was putting up with it... i would immediately become riled and wonder WHY i was dealing with all her crap. why all her stuff was still in the house i live in, why she can come over as and when she wants, why she won't sign the paperwork, why she is fucking creepy and weird and...the whole thing is incredibly unnerving and i've no idea how to deal with it because when i DO bring it up, Muffin typically defends her or goes quiet and i'm left wondering if it's ever going to happen. it's one of the topics i've decided to just STOP bringing up because it just bums me out. bums me out and makes me resentful, which i don't need.
England: i'm not coming back for a while. that's the first thing i need to say. it's a hard decision that i've not been able to properly process but seems to make Muffin happy because it means he doesn't have to do much more than move house rather than country. for me, it means i have to completely shred my dreams of living on a cobble stone road again for a very long time which makes me hurt more than anything else. ever.
work: blah. i've applied and applied. even wal-mart has nothing for me. i feel inadequate and really just not good enough for any job.
money: i feel pathetic and useless because i've no money. i hate when Muffin spends money on me because it just makes me feel so, so worthless. i just want to have a job and be able to contribute and buy a bloody chocolate bar when i want to, but i can't because i've nothing. i just hate it. all of this.
dog: Muffin told me i could have a dog... so i have been looking for one. i've been promised three, all of which have fallen through. this is because of the stupid money situation. i've no money. there's SO MANY dogs i want and could have, but the money thing just completely stops me from getting anything, so i'm destined, it seems to be jobless, petless and alone for the eight hours or more a day that Muffin is away at work.

eh. i'm just complaining.

this tuesday... THIS TUESDAY!

i know it's early, but i know if i don't do it now, i will never, ever do it. the last week could be compared to a cake. a fabulous cake made of magnificence, win and glory sprinkled only lightly with a little morose.

the week saw me go out for a night out that ended up being unbelievably wonderful, saw me finalize all plans birthday-related and saw me attend my first official day at the Resource Centre Day Hospital.

a full and concise list of things i have hearted over the last week can be seen below...

• seeing things i've sent to someone arrive to them safely... one of the three parcels i sent to Him arrived safely into his arms today. luckily, it was the BEST of the three parcels. it contained the wee creatures i made and a special 'letter' i embroidered onto a piece of felt (yeah, i did the lines and EVERYTHING). it is just like... this little thing has brought us even closer if that's possible. i held these items in my hands a mere twelve days ago and now he has them. i was kissing the nose of that giraffe twelve days ago and now i can watch HIM kiss his nose. He cried and i fell in love all over again. He is just such a precious face and it makes me so happy to see that something i do can make someone THAT happy. (SIDE NOTE: the reason He seems to be smelling things a lot is because i infused things with the scent of danie so's He could associate me with another one of his senses.)

• nights out... very rarely does a night out go as planned... very rarely does a night out actually end up being as glorious as you originally plan for them to. this last saturday was a massive exception to this rule. i had planned this saturday with slight hesitation, given the fail most of the nights out i've had recently have been made of. i went out with a cautious head, determined to at least get a little tipsy and cuddle pow pow's face off. my arrival saw me cuddle many, MANY faces off and prance a great deal with chris tree (of the most youthful face in the world and amazing musical skills) and see many faces i didn't expect i'd see ever again. pow pow was off his face most of the night but he still gave me amazing cuddles and performed amazingly well. given that i had nothing in my belly, i was VERY concerned about drinking, but somehow, by midnight-thirty, i had eleven rum and cokes in me and felt amazing. after multiple photo sessions with multiple beautyfaces i decided to cut my losses and run. the night was amazing and i can't even describe how much fun i had. thanks to everyone. it was perfect and just what this divorcee needed.

• watching pow pow perform... granted, i love watching ALL people perform, pow pow is always at the top of my list. he pulls some amazing faces when he sings. saturday saw me watching one of his newer bands, hot japanese girl, play. it was my first time seeing them and i was immediately judgmental when i saw him arrive with a ridiculous amount of face paint on. i am a floozy for acoustic music and ali's voice when he is only accompanied by a guitar has the ability to make me weak in the knees, but this... there are no words. they were fabulous. the energy that ali puts into his music is just so intense. it makes me SO happy to see him in his element. 
• gogol bordello... oh yes, i have fallen in love with them again, in a big way.  it all started last thursday when they posted some photos from their most recent gigs and i couldn't help but re-hash that love affair via youtube. i watched loads of acoustic sets they did for a show and totally remembered why i fell in love with that big-nosed, blue-eyed beauty named hutz. they are such an amazing band. i can't get enough of them and NEED to see them like, now. 

• my beautiful lee lee... mmm, sunday saw the return of my lee lee for a flying visit due to some magical scheduling at his shop. i was the only individual a privvy to this confidential information and was therefore designated as the orchestrator of people so many deaths-by-glee could occur. i pranced into town sunday morning to meet him and perched at a table at our allocated meeting-spot. i was soon drawn to a whistle stage-right where i was greeted by the most beautiful of little faces. i didn't realize how much i missed him until i saw him and immediately felt the need to grab him and hold him forever. he smelled just like i remembered and during our walk to hannah's i kept having to stop and grab him and squeeze him. he is so beautiful and one of the creatures i will miss most when i move back across the pond.
• OMGMYBIRTHDAY... oh yes, in a mere five days danie will be celebrating her twenty-fifth year on the planet. i am very aware that this MAY be my last celebration in england for a while, so i plan to make it massive and perfect. all things have been arranged and creatures will begin arriving on thursday, which i am SO looking forward to. it will be a stupendous night and MANY photos will occur. OMGSOMANYPHOTOS!

other things, you ask? oh yes, there are some... please has them!
having a really long and restful sleep, grape soda, lindt lindor truffles, valium, looking at other people's journals, making money doing what i love, maral, reading through all my lists, danishchats, writing up itemized lists, the magnetic fields, cinnamon and sultana bagels with cream cheese on, trying out new cupcake recipes, the skill with which i can crochet, re-connecting with old friends, looking at old photographs, the smell of clean laundry, watching people paint, when i'm able to eat without feeling ill, tandem bicycles, meeting new people and really connecting with them, rob padley, girls with shaved heads, how amazingly wonderful and supportive danish is, when time passes really quickly, skirts that fall below the knees, tights with excellent prints on them, eccentric old women, scottish accents, pulling funny faces, danish videos, chicken sushi, alastair's handwriting, the smell of lush, wellies and mustangs.

so yes, i started the day hospital today. i went in not really knowing what to expect but thinking i had an idea of what MIGHT occur there. hey, i've been in treatment, i know all about groups and all that malarkey... but i must say, no amount of groups could have prepared me for the fail that this day hospital is made of. it was just... it seems to be a place that was created for people that are suffering from much more debilitating mental health problems than me. the people that were there were just so out of it. i arrived an hour early and sat and read... someone came and gave me a tour of the day area and i sat and read some more.

once the day officially began it was just... i don't even know how to describe it. just... i don't know. i participated in two groups today, the first being 'health and wellbeing,' which saw about eight of us sat around a table tasting various different fruits and discussing their texture, colour, flavour and price. danie, being the very worldly and self-aware girl she is, was able to discuss all the fruits in great detail, which left everyone staring at me like i had two heads...

it was like, 'o hai! i has blue hairs, massive holes in my ears and will talk excitedly and at-length about any topic you can throw at me!'

so yes, needless to say, i got stared at a lot by the other inhabitants of the group who were really not well and therefore did not want to participate in the groups.

i just want someplace i can go and actually talk about stuff. i don't want to sit around and do arts and crafts or eat fruit... i want to talk and work through my problems. i am aware i have them and want them to stop. i want to learn how to get through them, not learn ways i can ignore them.

i shall give it another day or two and then ring my consultant and tell him what i reckon. who knows, perhaps tomorrow will surprise me and will be really helpful. i'm not holding my breath though.

not-so-happy halloween...

so, this is the first halloween i have ever been alone in my entire 24 years. it seems silly, but of all the holidays, this one is bothering me the most... today is the day that danie and chris would ALWAYS host the best of the parties. the day that we would decorate and prepare and hold the most extravagant of soirees.

it hit me today and i am getting a divorce and it fucking sucks.

sure, i had offers to go out tonight... i could be out getting shitfaced with some rogue acquaintances, but i didn't WANT to. halloween for me has always been about being with all the people you love the most. prior to england it was always about prancing with the kids and helping them prepare for their tricking and treat-receiving.

post-move it was always chris and me. us against the rest of the ghoulish world.

tonight, it's danie against the world... and the world feels huge. the world is winning tonight. i am tired and... and lonely.

chris is with man-face and danish is asleep and i cannae get a hold of ladonna. i rang and spoke to paige for a little while, which was glorious. when i told her i was moving back she was more than elated. i could hear her bouncing with glee.

i miss my family. i miss my family and the normalcy. now every day just feels like i am stuck in this stupid limbo where i have nowhere to go and nothing to do but bide my time until i can move back to america and get on with the rest of my life.

all of my friends here have seemingly disappeared. everyone's busy with their own lives and i am just stuck here with the weight of this stupid divorce on my shoulders. i just want it to be over and to move on with the rest of my life so i don't have to have this hanging around my neck.

i went out last night and all everyone wanted to talk about all night was the divorce. it was horrible in that aspect, but also quite nice. nice because people were willing to talk to me about it. also nice because people saw that towards the end of the evening i really needed cuddles, so they gave them to me.

i had a chat with pow pow, who didn't end up coming out. we chatted for a little while on the phone. he said that he was worried about me. said that when he got his divorce his first instinct was to contact his 'first love' and try and re-kindle those feelings, which ended in more heartbreak. he didn't want to see that happen to me. he also said that he doesn't want to see me make a decision that would result in me not living to my full potential, which was great. he wants to see me do great things and if he ever feels that i am doing something stupid, he will tell me. i told him i want him to. his opinion is one that i value a huge amount. we are going to try and have a date soon so we can talk. i haven't really had the chance to properly talk to him about all of this. i really feel like i need to talk to him and get his opinion. i really value the things he has to say and to get that validation from someone will be really good for me. i feel like... like i am making all these huge decisions and am making them alone, without thinking about anybody else but myself, which in some ways is what i need. i haven't made decisions for just danie in so long. and i feel in my heart, as a first instinct that this is perfect and just what i need. i guess i just need to bounce it off someone else and get that validation from them.

i haven't actually sat down with someone and told them about all of this. like, i HAVE spoken to pow pow about Him and me... and our history. this was ages ago. so he knows but i feel like i need to sit down with him and really get a feel for his opinion.

none of this is me saying i'm having second thoughts, because i'm totally not. i just want someone else to tell me it's right, tell me i'm not making a mistake and just acting on an impulse after ending a very long relationship. you know what i mean? i KNOW it's not an impulse, but something deep inside of me needs someone i'm really close to to tell me that this is going to be okay. that i'll be okay when all the dust has settled.

**sigh**

i saw my friend george last night. he saw me and immediately gave me a massive cuddle. he is one of the big ones here and i didn't realize it until tonight. when he grabbed me and cuddled me i immediately remembered what a magical person he is. he has altered my life so massively. i love him so much. i feel this intense desire just to hold everyone i love dearly here and tell them how much i love them. i feel like i have to start i now because 18 months is just NOT going to be long enough to tell some of them how important they have been to me. i just held george for ages and told him how lucky i feel to have met him. told him how much he means to me. he is such an incredible man. he's just full of this amazing spirit that resonates off of him and you can't help but want to hold him for dear life for fear that you may never be in the presence of such raw beauty again.

meh, stupid holidays. if halloween is this bad for me, what is christmas going to be like? 

sneak attack for the I love you more win!!!!!!

god... i want to do this now because tomorrow i will be a busy, busy bee... things in the last couple of days have been made of glory and magnificence for the most part.

like, i still feel quite low and am not really eating or sleeping. the divorce is still really affecting me in a big way but there are these magnificent little balls of glitter that are growing ever-larger each day...

let me show you them... things danie hearts...

• Him... literally, i feel like a schoolgirl again. the excitement and glee and OMGYAYness that happens just when his little icon pops up when He comes online makes my heart ache. He makes me laugh until i cry and makes me feel so loved and special and magical and... it's just magical. we talk throughout the day and we talk about EVERYTHING. i can talk to Him about my family and work and my illness and my clothes and my everything and He listens and actually acts interested. we are still at 85% for Him coming, but it's all down to if He gets His passport in time. god... He has just made all of this crap that i'm going through here at home so much easier. He is just a glorious creature and i am so happy that He seemed to have magic'd His way back into my life just when i needed Him most. 
• Dexter... for FUCK'S sake! i downloaded all the seasons aaaages ago and finally got around to watching the first season a few days ago. OMG. i literally can't get enough of it. it's like desperate housewives and csi had a beautiful baby. i heart it ever-so much and am in the middle of season two now... **squee**
• MY BIRTHDAY!! oh yes, it is a mere nineteen days away and i am literally crapping my pants with excitement. every day i get a little more excited because something else comes together or someone else confirms they're coming. it is going to be a night of epic proportions and will be talked about for years to come. 
• smoking fags... oh yes, i know it is a terrible vice to have, but i loves it ever so much. i am trying to get as much of it in as possible now as i plan to quit the monday after my birthday (so as to allow me ample chainsmoking time with my janeyface before she leaves!)
• stretching my ears... this has always been a favourite, but today it reached new highs when my ears became the new owners of the sexiest tunnels that were ever made. they are covered in rhinestones and make me feel all glitzy!
• talking to my grandparents... so yes, i am the prodigal granddaughter. they love me and dote on me, so my telephone call to them last night was a magical experience for all involved. it was the first time i had spoken to them since i was in america last and it was really nice. typically, when i ring them they get all awkward and hate that i'm spending money ringing them, but this time was different. i talked to my grandma for a while and then she passed me on to my grandpa. he's quite ill at the moment. has something called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), so he's all wheezy and coughs a lot. i told him i was getting a divorce and he immediately asked if i was moving back. i told him that i would be, as soon as i had the money saved up and he was all but glee'ing over the phone. i told him i would be moving back at the end of next year and would most likely live in colorado, to which he exploded with delight, saying that would mean he'd get to see me more. i'd like to see them a lot. that's one of the reasons He and i want to live in colorado, that way we're close to His kids and my family. my grandparents are old and i'd want to go visit them as often as possible. it will be lovely. 
• embroidering... oh yes, embroidering has become my new bff... i have been working on an amazing little project for Him and it is almost finished. it has taken all of my freestyle embroidering skillz to the next level and for that i am pleased! 
• washing my face... nothing is quite so relaxing as washing my face at the end of the night. pulling out one of my gloriously-scented face wipes and giving my cheeks and forehead the old once-over. mmmmm... 
• waking up to His voice... a few times over the last week He has graced me with a phone call first thing in the morning, waking me up and making my day just THAT much easier to face. i don't think He realizes how much He helps me... it goes back to making me feel like a little kid again... like, in the evenings before, when He tells me He's going to ring in the morning i crawl into bed and snuggle in with my 'mink' blanket and just can't sleep. it's like when you were young and you couldn't fall asleep on christmas eve for all the excitement of santa and his magical sleigh... urgh, that just makes me sound gay, doesn't it? 

things that i heart that i don't want to write about? 

carmex, lush products, planning parcels, louisa, julie west, janey, jaacq, taking baths, popping spots, getting emails, facebook updates, doing my makeup, payday, my new mobile, taxidermy, planning my move back to america, cold pizza, knowing that work is falling apart without me, lists, the eels, danish photos, the fact that my ring line from my wedding ring is almost gone, my tattoos, planning my next tattoos, playing the 'i love you more' game, texting, taking photos, my blue hairs, planning crafts, my dymo machine, my external hard drive, desperate housewives, felt, etc...

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so, things have been... OKAY. things could be better, things could be worse.

i went to the GP today to see if i am 'fit to return to work' and the outcome was that they wanted me off for at least another two weeks. post-GP i decided to prance into work to give them my sick note and sort out some things that had fallen apart since i've been gone. i sat and chatted with judith for a while and then was told by multiple people how sickly and thin i look, which was nice.

just after i left workies i got a phone call from my consultant saying, and i quote, '...as far as i'm concerned, to hell with work, we need to get you better.' he is referring me to the day hospital and, well, we'll see what happens from there. i will have an assessment and see what they suggest. dr gillespie is really the best thing that could have happened to me. he's so pro-active about my care and has helped me more over the last five months than dr denny did in the three years i saw him. so, hopefully i will have my assessment at the day hospital this week and see where we are from there.

let's see...  with my time off i'm being encouraged to try and get out and do things as much as possible, so i am planning to have a serious playdate with pow pow this week and MAYBE go see my lee lee soon. we'll see though. i need to start saving monies for serious now in preparation for... well... for a lot of things. danishvist, christmas, moving house, moving back to america... i just need to save money.

meh, there we are... danie in a nutshell.