Fudge from the snow

I have a steaming cup of tea and I'm sucking the lingering sweetness of fudge from my fingers after every creamy bite. Things are changing, our group is drifting as expected, I have too much troubling me already to worry myself over this, it's only the natural order of things after all. I do miss my friend, it seems strange that you can maintain a bond with someone who is four hundred miles away but drift from those who are less than five minutes from you in any direction. I guess that's proof for you...that some people are linked to us through time simply because 'it's meant to be'.

I hate to think of how much might be different in September, who may have chosen to forget, what choices will have been made, I do hope that good changes have happened by then though. I hope September will come and I'll be settled. It would be nice that in the eventuality of a full years changes we'll still be as close as ever and I will have some happy changes to report along with the difficult ones.

   I write this blog to put things into perspective, because too often I feel lost if not alone. But this fudge, it tastes like cream and butter, cocoa and vanilla, it also tastes like concern, support, friendship. Friendship that's miles away and half buried in the snow but as powerful as it can be. I needed this reminder. I love fudge, it's one of my favourite things in the world. I'm on my last piece, but it tastes like support and it's support I feel like I need. :-)

Brick Wall

  I feel as if I'm banging my head against a brick wall, thumping my fists into the brick and blood from my split knuckles is starting to glisten on the cracks and crumbs of the burgundy rectangles. All this effort isn't making a door appear in the wall, the ground beneath is too hard to dig through, the wall itself is too high and too long to either climb over or walk around.
   In this world right now, there's just me and this wall. I can't see the grass on the other side, but I know that there's no grass on my side. Nothing grows here, it tries, but then it withers and dies. Because although I watch the sky turn from black to blue to black again I never see the sun, the wall is so high it blocks the sun like a constant cloud. But I wont settle. I will get through this wall. Watch me, and I will get through this.

Trials and Outcomes

When I started work as a waitress I hated it. Down to the core, every shift, I want to leave-hated it. During the first week I got upset before the start of a shift, no one knew, because as I state often: I hate crying, I don't cry in public, I deal with emotional things alone. I went into the toilets and had a bit of a cry and then pulled myself together asap. As I wiped any makeup remains from my eyes in the mirror I remember quite clearly looking at myself and inside my head I said: It's not forever, this is just temporary, I will stick at this, I'll give it a year. I can do that. If I still hate it after a year I will quit.

At the time, I was cripplingly shy, I struggled to keep eye contact, I very nearly hated socialising, and I couldn't hold up a conversation with most people. People don't describe someone as quiet and confident in the same sentence. In my first job I was forced into a customer service role I felt lost in, I had to be the bubbliest, friendliest, most approachable person I could. I needed to serve and serve well, I didn't just hand out plates, I handed out myself. My smile, my enthusiasm, my passion to please. It was all a lie, to begin with. To get through, I told myself in a rather childish way, that this was another game I used to play when I was little. I was pretending, make believing that I was confident and great. I pretended I was an actress, and this was a part to play. Eventually it stopped being an act, it became true, I became the person I was pretending to be.

Today I am still that person, yes I left after a year, but I stuck it out for as long as I said I would. I made friends and I became a stronger, bigger, better person. Someone I liked and respected. The point that I am getting at is: I never stopped hating the job, the heat, the work, the late hours, the everything! But I had a brilliant team of people, cute guys to learn how to flirt a little with (something I'd never ventured to try before) I had certain things I enjoyed, a systematic structure to every shift and I like routine. Even though I fantasied about the day I would leave, even though I had to remind myself it wasn't forever and that eventually I would finish here and never ever go back, the experience there changed me forever. That part of my life was a struggle at the time, and at the time I didn't appreciate everything it was doing to build my character but now I am deeply thankful.

So now when I have trial after trial, and what seems to be spirit crushing, life destroying, soul splitting...I have to look in the mirror again.
This 'ordeal' will not last forever, I will get through this and come out the other side a better version of myself.
Most of the events I class as 'trials' in my life, have all been the biggest events/areas of my life so far. I haven't enjoyed any of them 80%. I'd say I tolerated them and happiness rated at 20% but I want more than that. My Mr Jones is my 100% my 100andEverythingElse%. The girls are my 100% My hobby, and my dreams.
Everything else is really struggling.
I feel as if it's trial after trial after trial...when are the 'wow what a great time of my life' things going to turn up? I know I have something others aren't lucky enough to have, my boyfriend and my family mean everything to me, they've become everything to me the last two years. But I can't balance my miserable-happiness scale on morning-evening Monday-Friday=miserable and happiness only comes between the hours of 6:30-10, and weekends. I can't put up with Part-time happiness forever!!!!
I am going to fix this. I will stick at this new trial for as long as I have to, but I will fix this. I won't settle. I just know there's a bigger plan out there for me.

walking past the chip shop

Walking home hungry and annoyed and not giving into temptation is an epic win on my part...
On the walk home are two chip shops, you reach a set of lights and the salt seems to be in the air like snowflakes, you can almost taste it on your lips which you catch between your teeth biting down on a wishful sigh. You inhale a deep breath taking the scent down to your stomach which gives a rebellious grumble of appreciation...then the fantasy starts: Rich, oily kebab meat strips d...ipped in curry sauce and wrapped around those golden, oh so glorious, deep fried potatoes. A pie, with dark gravy bursting from a crispy pastry top, and more chips. Salt and Vinegar galore. A hiss, as a can of coke cola steams into the air and the bubbles cascade over your tongue sending an immediate sugar rush to your head and fizzles inside your nose. The most perfect ten minutes, the most simple of pleasures.
And I walked past it all! I could shed a tear.

Life Objectives

Life Objectives:

Number One: Happiness
Number Two: Health
Number Three: Home

Areas of concentration: (* star indicates achieved, >> arrows indicate in progress)

• Happy in love, (better than the best kind of relationship) *
• Enjoyable Career
• Friends *
• Family *
• Own Home
• Children
• Author recognition >>
• Adventure/exploring (Bucket List) >>
• Security (Savings, good locks and alarms)
• Independence (Driving, income>>, Swimming)
• Health (Keeping arthritis under wraps, fitness,fairly good diet) >>
• Hobby (crafts topped up regularly, really need a sewing machine)
• Home (warm, safe, with stuff that works)
• Sex (never boring) *

Ignoring own instincts

I made a decision today. I've actually thought of little else for a while now without confiding in anyone, but now I have officially made up my mind.

You see, I've said it before, I didn't want to go to university, I didn't even want to study English.

There are memorable moments in my short history that stick out so brightly as if printed on glossy new paper in an un-opened book. I wanted to study Art, for a start. I'd already chosen my course of choice, and then an authoritative figure in my life at the time persuaded me, almost with brut force to change to something more 'suitable'.

A year and half later, I didn't want to go to University. I'd grown out of that passion to please in class, I'd stopped enjoying the academic society, I was not applying to university.

My social circle (who thought they were acting for the best, because university was the 'done' thing to do at this time, started hauling on the pressure), an overly controlling boyfriend, and every tutor I looked up to and respected, even those I didn't, wouldn't let the matter drop, they too hauled on the pressure. Even though I was looking into alternative plans, even though every instinct I had was screaming that this was the wrong choice for me, I applied.

I didn't want to stay. My first week I cried in the bus stop waiting to go home my hands trembling on my phone because I did not want to be here and I felt deep down that it wasn't right, and the voice on the other end was telling me to shut up and get on with it.

I got on with it, every last excruciating lecture, every assignment, every book. I trudged through, detesting this choice that had been made for me and to be honest feeling resentful about the whole thing. I knew I didn't want to be a teacher, I also knew that anything else was either out of reach or dying out. Yes I'd happily work in a library all day every day, but in a world where machines are replacing a quarter of us in the workplace, was this realistic? Yes I want to write, I want to publish, but my own work not someone else's. In a world where everyone thinks they have a best seller in them, how realistic are the dreams to be self sufficient on an income from book sales?

I finished university coming out with nothing I hadn't already gotten when I went in, only now I have a piece of cream card that says I'm in thousands of pounds of debt for a number on a page I see no worth in. My confidence, you might say, if you know me well...came from a waitressing job in a restaurant where I worked with some of the best people I've met, and some of the worst. My ability to stand up for myself, my resilience to critique, my bubbly bright personality all came from that job, not university. Friends? My friends are still the same people I knew at school and grew to love at college, the same circle of individuals who had nothing much in common but a high school history and the same table in a cafeteria. I only realised they were even MY friends when heartbroken and crushed they gathered around me, and stuck with me. University offered few friendships I could tolerate, in fact I count only five, and even so facebook friendship doesn't really count.

So I am resolute in my opinion. I knew the best option for myself and time and time again I ignored my own instincts. I shall not be so weak and easily persuaded again.

I've decided where I want to be, what I want to do and how I'm going to get there.
I know it wont happen by next week, but happen it will. I'll spend more money, more time, more hope, but if I succeed it will be worth it to be happy everyday. Yes it's probably competitive, but that means nothing anymore, when a handful of graduates can't even get a job as a part time cleaner, competitive becomes a word of little meaning. Everything is competitive, there's a market for everything especially employment, employment in general is the most competitive game to play. If I don't pursue this because it might be overly competitive I'm holding myself back on a feeble excuse. If my degree is wasted then so be it, it's not important to me! If people think I'm wasting myself then they don't know me. Because I've had it up to my eyeballs with people telling me what I am and what's best for me. I know what's best for myself. I know myself better than anybody! I know I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, I know I have my weaknesses but I also know where my strengths truly are. It's listening to people who think they know me that's gotten me here in the first place; Annoyed, resentful, wishing I could turn the clock back and in no better position or happier than the day I left school. I'm only 21, I have time. The one other person next to myself who knows me well enough is the one person I can guarantee will support whatever decisions I make, the ones I make on my own.

So that's it. I've gotten all that off my shoulders and now I feel much better. I will do this. I will make this happen. Life Objective Number One: Happiness.

425. Life Line.

So it's been 7 months, 7 Pencil skirt days, 6 Phone interviews, 3 un-paid work placements, 2 volunteer from home positions, 2 offers before changing their minds, a few tears, a few broken friendships and 425 applications later...
I've finally been thrown a life line, been pulled out of the water. I may have landed on a pirate ship, I might be about to embark on an even worse situation than the water proved to be, but at the moment I'm on the rope and being hauled up. Whatever happens when I'm on deck, I'll face it hands on.

Life options.

You come to realise at one point that for normal average every day people, we have to choose one path or another. There's only two options and you can't head down both.

1: Work and save until you realise you'll never be able to save enough and still eat

    Equivalency Test in Mathematics =£450 (would probably still fail)

    Masters=£3300, over 2 years part time while you work

    Keep trying to publish books in pitiful spare time and give up because you don't have the brain power left over.

    PHD=5 years, never mind the cost, part time, thinking that now you've failed as an author, you'll eventually be a lecturer and get paid lots of money to teach other aspiring dream-blind kids how to write.

    Throw in trying to get a mortgage somewhere

    Add a car and everything that comes with that

    Remind yourself you're still not in the career you'd like because you're still studying part time and cramming in exams and prep every evening after work.

    Eat crap food because its quick...get fat...try to go to the gym but fail because you don't have the time unless you sacrifice 2 hours of precious sleep on a Saturday morning.

    Attempt to edge in a few holidays so you can pretend to yourself you've travelled

    You want a pretty wedding on the tightest budget you can imagine and still end up being in debt for £15,000 on top of your mortgage and student loan so now any hopes of saving to move to the countryside one day are shattered. Regret wedding. Blame society for expecting it of you.

    By the time you're qualified enough to get a job you think you have wanted your whole life, you work a year realising it's not all its cracked up to be, you never switch off, it effects your semi-happy marriage and you're stressed and wrinkles have started invading your face.

You look back at all the time you've wasted building towards a better life not realising a dream has taken over your actual life which has passed by so quickly.

   Then the doctor says you're struggling to conceive because of this, this and that and you feel as if you've missed your chance. Maybe you finally strike lucky...

 Then you have to go back to work because after all what was the point in all that hard work, money and waiting. You rarely see your kid, who almost calls nanny, mommy, and runs to someone else when they're upset.

You finally think you can start saving a little towards a dream home in the country and an early retirement when suddenly the rest of life leaks all the money you can possibly earn out of you.

You get a painful divorce because of reasons such as: we've drifted apart and not truly spent our marriage together but fucked every once in a while and said have a nice day in the morning.

 Mortgage on a home you once loved goes down the drain.

Dreams of your perfect life are gone

Your kids don't really like you much or bond with you because you're a 'work-a-holic' who never made their Easter bonnets with them.

You're thinking this all over, asking: "What happened to my life?" when you're hit by a car and die. And you didn't even get to dip into that pension you saved so seriously.

Ok...so I'm having a little bit of a down-day, but this is what happens when you try to juggle the idea of doing everything.

Plan 2:
  Work and save
   Publish more books
   Don't bother with the whole career building, using my degree stuff-I wish I hadn't gone, too late, can't change that now.
   Manage to get a small home eventually, and can afford a few holidays-good enough
   If you hate your job, try and get a different one but not so different you have to re-train.
   Alternatively-Train part time in a lower level course than a degree in a new career you've given thought to which doesn't require a degree in that particular subject...that could work.
  Get married but not with a wedding, just a bbq at home afterwards. Use money saved for a little more travelling.
 Work 9-5 and you're not too thrilled with it but you have the rest of your time to enjoy with your partner- relationship stays intact and wonderful because you both respect each other, both bring in an income, and still have time for each other rather than selfish needs.
Have babies before your face is falling off with middle age.
 Change your job to a part time one (whatever that might be) so you can actually raise the kids you've birthed
Kids go to school and you can return to work full time, or perhaps now is the time for career change, you've studied etc in your length of time being a part time home mother. Maybe the cake course, and small business course.
Spend life saving a little and work towards that comfortable early retirement in the countryside somewhere.
Open a shop and sell stuff in country-ish village. Including cake.
Look after grandkids often.
Die.

The Suits.

The moment you don't want to think about something too much, it becomes all you can think about.
The ghost of broken promises, the memory of hope, long gone and lost down a drain on a rainy day when I had no umbrella. The Suits seem to find too much enjoyment in picking up your puppet strings and dictating the steps you dance, until your feet bleed and then they drop you, heavy as a burden, as insignificant as a gust of wind.

I don't believe you. I set no expectations of anyone but myself because I know I'm the only one who won't disappointment me. I wont take anything from myself that I can't give back. I am the only true friend, the only honest answer, and I will trust my judgement. I have my best interests at heart.
You, may feel a sense of ownership towards people like me, but one day You will be easily replaced. While I am one of a kind.

Rooftops

There are certain things you only learn later on, and by then it's too late. All you can do is keep moving forward and take what you've learnt with you, teach it to the younger generation and pray they do better than yourself. You can hope for new bridges to cross and decisions to make that you won't screw up.

I didn't know myself back then but now I do, only because of the various trials I've come up against. I know roughly what I want, more importantly I know what I don't. I've gotten this far and that must mean something is on this path for me, though it doesn't feel that way right now.

Everyone wants to fly, I once touched the sky, felt it rushing through my gloved hands but then I fell back down. How do I keep afloat? Not in the clouds or the stars, but just above the rooftops? I'm on the ground now, and the rooftop seems to be a great height to reach with no ladder. If I could stack up enough books, maybe I could climb up those.

There's time.

He's in the shower. That's twenty minutes of utterly dangerous alone time. Power ballads from the 80's are playing and she cranks up the volume to the dirty dancing theme tune like a woman on hyper-drive. Ripping her own clothes off, casting what's on the bed aside, work can wait, she's already wasted four minutes, how long will he really take? Fifteen, half an hour tops! That's long enough when she's felt hot all damn day. She throws herself across the bed, and ear trained on the door if he gets out early. She needs this private moment, she needs to get the job done herself and quickly if he's going to be too busy for a few days. Some things need to happen or you'll go crazy. You'll end up getting ratty.
She rushes the first one, working herself up and hurrying it along with the practiced thrumming of her fingers, the brief thought of 'why didn't I ever learn to play guitar' scattering across her heated brains. She thinks about a desk, it's always a favourite, a hard wooden desk and a pencil skirt, he rips the skirt in half tearing the slit at the back until he has full access to all regions. Her breasts are spilling out into his hands as he fucks her from behind and she bends over the desk embracing it for support like an old friend. harder, harder, and breathe....
She takes a few minutes to relax, lounging on the bed, giggling in the badness of it. On his bed, in his room, a little secret.
 Is there time? There must be time, the second time was a little slower, better, no need for the fantasy this time just a few dirty sentences whispered in her mind she craves, filthy, dirty, no choice about it sentences. Through two doors she can't hear the water running, she's no idea if he's doing the same thing to himself in there. The thought pushes her over the edge and she comes gripping the pillow and stifles a groan.

Afterwards she gets up and stretches, always feeling sexy in front of the mirror afterwards, never before but afterwards...she drinks orange juice from a wine glass and eats a bite of chocolate walking around the bed and catches a glimpse of her half naked form in the mirror. She laughs at the wine glass, and recklessly turns her attention back to the computer. A good seven or so minutes goes by of cooling down from the high before he comes back in wearing a towel, smelling of fresh summer scents. He disturbs the peace but it doesn't matter. She tries not to laugh because he doesn't know and its fun. The next time he wants her she'll be overwhelmingly into it, she always is after she's touched herself. Touching herself makes her feel sexy. And she thinks...thank god for that.

Reading and writing

Jones bought me a kindle for Christmas :-) I'm finally a modernised reader. Which means I've had the opportunity to read for pleasure conveniently. I'm a fast reader, an avid reader however I started four books and only deemed one tolerably worthy enough to finish since Christmas morning. The lesson I am quickly learning is that my own writing, my own imagination and storylines are remarkably better than most of the crude already published out there. I am beginning to think everything worth reading in my favourite genre of fantasy I have already read. I am beginning to truly believe in myself and my writing as having true potential to be great. I know I sound like I'm rooting my own horn but I'm fully convinced that I have something special here, something real. I won't ever give up on this. I know I can succeed.