not a diary

I have ten minutes to write a quick blog. These days things seem to be moving in a very adult and grown up direction for me. I'm moving in with the other half, we're looking at buying furniture - that's very grown up. we're looking at money, and talking about saving, and the future. again, very grown up of me.

question is... when is the right time to grow up? 25? 28? 32? at what point are you supposed to settle down and am I doing it at the right time? my only doubt comes from the experiences of others, not myself - i only ever question my decision when I remember what others have been through since settling down, perhaps too early, perhaps wrongly, who knows.

I find I'm a lot more tired than I used to be these days. It could be from getting older, but I'm not that old yet. it might be that I can no longer eat the vast quantities I've been used to, and that my metabolism is slowing down a bit, but I feel a bit like an every expanding... slug.

anyway, hope everyone else is feeling less sluggish.
off to face the last few moments of the midweek day.

x

The heatwave over the last few days has generally knocked me for six, and I've ended up with some sort of flu bug (I hope not the swine kind) and in bed for about 3 days. I'm glad in a way that I won't be ill when I go off to tuscany for a holiday soon.

My sister has asked that I read something at her wedding. At first she said she wanted me to read 'something shakespeare', but the only proper wedding sonnet is surely 'let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.' and I can't read that. it's mine! (for my IMAGINARY wedding) so I have settled on something else. Ruling one poem out isn't really that helpful though, I need to pick one!

I'm sat on my bed about to start watching the wimbledon ladies final, two sisters playing each other... what a strange situation. I'm not exactly the most 'sisterly' of sisters with mine, she lives in another country and I struggle to feel much of a connection with her most of the time, but there IS one there. my parents constantly remind me that to my sister i'm probably more like a best friend, despite the fact we rarely talk - that's just how she is. and with me, i keep my best friends so much closer so i don't see how she could feel that way. the next year will be interesting, getting ready for her wedding, perhaps building that whole connection again.

later i will attempt to cook a dinner for the other half.
hopefully not pork.

x

Hello. Some recent writing... here we go...

Places I'd Like Us to go.

Boston city centre.
Your eyes wide in Quincy Market
oysters buried deep into the ice.

Holding each other tight at night
in a single hotel bed
off 5th avenue -

You photograph department stores
and pause to wonder
at the scale
of everything.

In Canada
deserted. Snow.
My hand unlaced,
Your hand let go.

Yet with your music in my ears
I can progress,
All heart, I pace through galleries, suspense.

a kiss on London's Southbank,
putting light into the
darkness

countryside at night
and now by torchlight
we are locking up the church

entangled now beside the firelight
I have found -

your mouth
your hands
your arms

my everything.

For some time I have been struggling with what I might write about in my next blog, and to be honest, I'm still none the wiser so have elected to write about a range of things and hope that some sense unravels as I go.

Very recently, a friend I have known my whole life, even before I was born (our parents met at anti-natal), has ended her 5 and a half year relationship with her partner. it was completely her decision and I'm sure that she hadn't been fully happy for a long time. I have another friend who has been with her partner for 4 years, more or less since we graduated, and I suspect in my heart of hearts that those days may well soon be numbered. I may be surprised, I just don't know. When is 'enough', officially enough, then? I know it's a brave decision to end a long term relationship but seriously, when does that final blow thud down, and you just know? there must be a moment, somewhere along the line, when you realise you're happier without that person than you could be with them.

Since I have been with my current partner, I have slowly been able to relax and unpick a lot of the values I held for so long over 'what's important to me in a relationship'. Before I met him, all I really cared about was the chase, the uncertainty, that slight lack of confidence 'that person' gives you when they don't call, or ignore what they should understand of 'your needs'. I put so much energy into the analysis of what didn't happen, things that didn't exist, that I totally lost sight of the real-deal. How much do I actually see this 'important' person? How often do they, spontaneously, think of me?

The buzz you got when they finally did call, or did respond to me in the way I wanted them to respond, made up for all those evenings where I wondered if they really cared. It seems bizarre to me now that I could have honestly believed their sincerity when all they were willing to do was send me a text message. It's clear to me now that no real relationship can ever survive on the power of media-messages alone. Contact with my partner is incredibly important to me, but not the sort which can be deleted at the push of a button. I mean the sort that's next to you at night, the kind that's willing to hold your hand and meet those other people who keep your world turning, and invite you in the same way to appreciate what makes them tick.

Not only has my new relationship made me look at my friends' situations with a clearer idea of my own values, it also has made me consider the other friendships and contacts I keep with the same clarity. it has made me very gradually consider when 'enough' is really enough in terms of all the people I try to keep close to me. when is it going to be my turn not to respond to the questions they ask me. when will the shoe be on the other foot for them - when will they be scratching their heads, wondering how I feel about them, if I still give two hoots, if there's still time in my life for them. I suppose I can't answer the question of when that will happen to them. all I know is I am finding it increasingly difficult to be on the receiving end of silence - I have less time for silence in my life. I thought that relationships taught you how to put another person first in your actions, but mine is actually teaching me to rank my own head and mental wellbeing a little higher than I had previously.

i think that's a good thing, i'm just waiting for it to lead me to close a few doors on people who for quite some time now, haven't been on the other side.

So, I'm now 24 hours into being 25... and I don't feel particularly different, but then I suppose I didn't really expect to feel older overnight.

Birthdays are interesting things. I've always been quite into celebrating my birthday but this year it seems to have hauled quite a few feelings out into the ether and dragged a few contacts back into my mobile phone which i'd hoped were long gone. at the same time it seems to have highlighted to me even more that those i wish were there just aren't there anymore.

things are changing, for me and for those i'm closest to. i'm starting to get used to the idea of change, but i'm also wishing certain things could have stayed the same.

that's getting older, i guess. maybe that's growing up.

The thought suddenly occured to me, working at home this afternoon and still nursing a slightly painful tummy, that 3D communication isn't what it used to be. It certainly isn't for me, anyway.
The amount of ways we now have to communicate with the people around us keep on multiplying every day. But are we really communicating, or are we just putting our thoughts 'out there' into the ether because what we're really trying to say is 'i still exist, i still exist, i still exist.'? That's an interesting debate.
For people who use social networking for work, I guess it's slightly different. My friend works in social media, not that I know what that means, but she seems to live on twitter (or twatter, as I sometimes refer to it). She recently pressed me to join up, although I don't quite understand what I've joined in with. The same goes for facebook these days. Maybe because I'm starting to have to prioritise my connections in order to fit everyone in, I see the point of social networking less and less.
I can understand a blog, slightly more. at least it give you an unlimited amount of space for what you are trying to s- (well, you get the gist).
So, what are those seemingly addicted 'facebook-ers' or 'twitterers' trying to say to others, then? and since when did all of that 'so and so has poked themselves in the eye' or 'so and so just ate a twix' stuff replaced 'hey, how are you, fancy a coffee?' it seems that's a phrase which has sort of dried up. so... are we using facebook and other media sites as a way of escaping actual (3D) interaction with people we care about? to me, snuggling up on the sofa with someone and going over the events of the day has far more value than whatever I might choose to fire into the world wide web.
3D comms seem to be becoming a dying art. and gosh I miss them.

I love this poem by ee.cummings and am in a contemplative and tired mood so I thought I'd post it:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

lovely.
x

The concept of space, and finding a place in the world, is something which has been on my mind for a while. Since October 2008 I've been living in shared houses close to my job, and discovering both the plus sides and down sides of living with total strangers. Downsides, you can end up with some complete weirdos. On the plus side, you might meet a complete gem, like rich, my ex housemate from over the road who has become a good friend.

At the moment i'm living with a couple who work odd hours, which means that most of the time, if i'm home they aren't, and the same goes for when they're off work, which tends to be week days. that's all fair enough but i do still get the distinct feeling that i'm living in someone elses' house (which I am, despite paying shed loads of rent). it's a great house with loads of space, a huge kitchen i could have a barn dance in, and i look forward to nights to myself here, but it's not mine.

my partner also has a shared house. add this together with my shared house scenario and it seems more obvious than ever before that neither of us have a space which is just ours. His house is slightly more relaxed and there's more of a feeling of shared ownership, but still neither of us have decided what our houses look like, and i think we'd both like to get there at some point. This weekend, we retreated to my folk's house because they were away for the weekend. It was a total release to be able to say 'i'm going to dump my shoes there, my bag there, and sit here' and not have to think about things like shower timings, mess in the kitchen etc. We both agreed it felt like being on holiday.

So, when is a good time to head into your own personal space? When will it be the right time for me to make my first steps on the property ladder? Is that a ladder I particularly want to look at right now? and if I did decide to get my own space, does it make sense to move in with him, stuff the consequences, compromise on location for the sake of more time together in our own space? who knows.

or is personal space or 'place in the world' about more than sofas and showers and bed linen? is it really about feeling at home with yourself, not your belongings? is there really a right time to make any step in life or do steps in life just bash you over the head when you least expect them, again I'm not sure.

i suppose i'll continue hunting.

Hello everyone

I have very few words lately. It seems the more I say, the less I achieve. Everytime something is gained these days, something else seems to be lost. I've never asked for everything around me to stay the same, but I suppose I'm struggling to get my head around the fact that I'm not in control of peoples' feelings towards me. And, in reality, it matters not two hoots how much I care for others, or even what I feel in my own head, if they don't want to care or feel anything in return, they just won't.

Elizabeth Bishop wrote a famous poem called 'One Art'. It's beautiful, and I love it, and it's about losing a friend. It's a poem which is full of 'I don't care' bravado, but the depth of how alone she is feeling is clear. So, I'll leave the rest of this blog to her, as I'm unable to articulate things these days.

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-x-

Hello

I've been doing a lot more 'staying put' than before in the last couple of weeks. I've moved house and the new place is a lot nicer. It makes me more inclined just to 'veg' on the sofa or in the garden. I have housemates who don't behave like maniacs (so far), although I don't know how they could with the hours they work, and I have neighbours who I can chat to, and several fat-looking friendly cats who creep into the lounge when the back door is open and settle down with me and my marmite on toast. I also have dave, who makes me happier than I've been in about 5 years. I had a thought the other day that he makes me happier than I've EVER been but then I realised that's not the case, it's a happiness I could probably best compare to that happiness you have as a kid which you don't appreciate because you have no sadness to compare it to. So, I've come to the decision that i'm happier than I've ever been as an adult.

He has a good balance in his personality. he is capable of being crazy but also of calming me right down. we're both a bit of a mish-mash i suppose. we both like the same things and think in the same ways about a lot of things, but then we disagree on some fundamentals, like religion and music. the whole thing seems to work very well.

He makes me think about things which aren't all that unpleasant to think about too. It's lovely to imagine some sort of future with someone, and experience things with someone. Although I love spending time with my friends and my folks, it makes a huge difference to me to have a saturday to myself but to think 'well shall we go out for lunch? shall we go see a film?' it's just those spontaneous, unplanned good times that previously would involve copious amounts of planning, now they just happen. Also, I'm starting to look at people around me in a slightly different way, and perhaps understand a little better people's motivations for doing the things they do. The picture is getting clearer.

I have made a huge effort since dave came along to sort out things with my friends at the same rate as a used to so i don't get accused of what I used to accuse them of when they were first with their partners. but actually, i've found that it makes me more stressed than i should be to have to worry about that sort of thing. I haven't abandoned anyone, and nobody means any less to me. Some friends have changed their behaviour towards me which is sort of saddening, but i suppose i didn't understand their motivations in the first place.

right, am off to look at places to have lunch today.
i think i'm entitled to the first 'mushy' blog post since january.
x