not a diary

the song 'best of you' by the foo fighters has never been one of my favourite songs. but i heard it on the radio today on the way back from a friend's house and i suppose the way it starts, with the line 'i've got another confession to make' sort of 'got' me and i found myself singing it as i crawled to the right junction on the m25 and ended up at home.

so, my friend and i didn't get that flat. instead, we were gazumped. more so than anything, i wish that 'gazumped' was actually some sort of code word for 'cuddled'. nope, some people decided it was worth more to them a month. on reflection, i'm ok about it. i know there are more places out there and possibly there are more flats with a better character than that one. when we find what we're looking for, my friend said, we'll just know it.

people say that 'you'll just know it' about a lot of things, don't they. houses, jobs, relationships... 'you'll just know'. well maybe i've got news for all those people. you don't just know. i'm pretty certain, more certain than i've ever been, actually, that instead of the right 'thing' coming along and hitting you in the face (however much you wish it would) you actually have to start from somewhere and end up somewhere else. you don't just land in the middle and let out a sigh of relief.

i let my brain sort of get carried away with the idea that you just 'know' for a while. but i think that about a year ago i started to think, particularly about relationships, in a different way. i'd just about got over what i saw as my most 'powerful' partnership with another person, and it allowed me to reflect. nope, you don't just know. nobody does, actually. in fact, loving someone else made me feel utterly adrift, a bit sea sick i suppose - and probably my most lonely. whenever it happens, i lose complete track of myself in everything. my chances of 'just knowing' and managing to connect with whatever sense of human instinct i had left, were nullified. i guess i was swamped by the other person, the intensity of it all.

so, what happens, then... when i'm driving slowly around the m25 singing 'best of you' and thinking 'bloody hell these words really do mean something to me at the moment and i've heard them so many times'...? what happens is, i am more and more drawn into a sense of panic that i'm going backwards. and it's funny saying that when we all know the m25 is a huge circle. everything connects. if you carry on driving you'd end up where you'd started. if you start driving the wrong way you can be screwed up for hours. the m25 plus 'best of you' really isn't that much of a good combination.

the song says
'i'm no fool
i'm getting tired of starting again
somewhere new'

but does anyone ever really end up somewhere new when they start again?
i don't think i have.

x

I'm looking for the escape hatch at the moment. does anyone know of an escape hatch? quite a strange thought, actually. i'd quite like an escape hatch to exist. there are only very few times lately when i'm able to completely remove myself from whatever issues are running around in my head. it would be quite nice just to sit somewhere where nobody would know where i was and nobody would wonder what i was thinking.

this week has been quite momentous. i've decided to move into my own place. i think that having my own four walls will provide me with some much needed time to focus on something else for a change, to take some of the power back over what i do on a daily basis. i suppose being at home with the folks i get too many opportunities just to sit alone and think. and think. and think some more about people. people, people, people. other people dominate my brain at the moment. lately i haven't even been able to eat properly because of fears for other people. it's becoming quite ridiculous.

i even have terrifying dreams where i wake up and i think 'holy crap, is THAT what i really feel?' dreams where i yell at the people i love the most, dreams where i am perhaps doing things i shouldn't be. well, they do say that when you are asleep the parts of your brain that you force to stay asleep most of the day wake up, and run riot.

Here is something I wrote recently. That's me, yes.

Where are you tonight?

I let out a jagged sigh
And do the collapse
I plunge my fists until they mark the sheets
I am surrounded by a screaming need
For the comfort of you, your breath on my neck
For the gentle cover of your darkness.
I fizzle out under pressure,
Any strength I did have disappears.
I long to be refreshed, or reinvented, and
I wish I was waiting for you
To come home.

I’ve started to believe in destiny
More recently than you would think
And even as the sounds of traffic on the street
Die down, I still desire this silence
To be broken by your key, or
To feel the way you might discuss with me
Your day, while I rest in your arms.
I wish I was waiting for you
to come home.

But just before I’m drifting off to sleep
My memory reaches in and slams the door
Reality of course, is very different
I don’t know where you really are tonight.
And someone put the chain on
Before they went to bed.
And praps the way I need you from afar
Is stronger than the way I would up close
Regardless of all that
I can’t resist.
I am waiting here - for you
To come home.

-

I wish you'd hurry up.

I've discovered lately (well in the last 8 months) that I dislike being a manager. In fact, there are several things I dislike. Ooh, here we are again, the blog becomes the dumping ground for the things I don't like about something. Yet more dislikes! Ooh interesting. Perhaps I'll start with dislikes and end up with likes and it won't feel quite so much like a rant.

1. I dislike being a line manager.
2. I really don't like itchy sunburn and knowing i can't scratch it
3. I hate chopping garlic and onions
4. I never did like Oasis in the slightest. Sorry, Oasis.
5. I can't stand when someone is off-key at choir practice and it's all I can hear. I'm intolerant, ok, I admit it.
6. I don't like being let down. Well, nobody does. But I like it less than other people.
7. I can't stand secrets.
8. I hate work politics and I work for a political organisation... work that one out if you dare
9. I don't like being uncomfortable at night
10. I don't enjoy sea-travel. In boats. Ugggh.

More of my little likes...

1. Breathing out into someone's shoulder
2. Clean sheets on the bed
3. 'I know what you're thinking' glances
4. Large black coffees and the sunday times
5. Brilliant brunette hair products
6. saturday mornings between 9.30 and 10.30
7. large unnecessary meals with friends
8. body shop body-butter that's been in the fridge onto red shoulders
9. Urban Outfitters in Covent Garden
10. Cheese and crackers

Oooh i like my likes much more than my I dislike my dislikes. That's good, I suppose.

K

I'm worried about a friend this evening and however hard I try to convince myself to stop worrying, it seems I can't. I suppose normally when I'm worried about something i'll just wade in and 'sort it out', and with this, I can't. so it just builds up.

When I was studying, if I ever got myself into a situation where I was lying in bed thinking 'oh shit i haven't read that article' i would just switch on the light and read the sodding article and then I'd sleep, wake up the next day and contribute in the seminar. i much prefer worries that are confrontable, that have an aspect of 'well, ok, we'll sort it'. i think i even prefer worrying about my job or my money situation to worrying about those i care about. and the reason why? because i have many more powers to fix my credit rating than i do to fix situations which are happening far away from me, over my head.

people always say to me 'don't worry about things you can't control, worry about the things you can' and in a sense they are right, it's pretty much futile to be in the situation i'm in at the moment as i don't hold any of the strings, but it doesn't mean i can stop wishing i did. what i'd actually do if i did hold a string is anyone's guess. probably give it a huge tug. it's funny, actually. if i did have any control over the situation i'd probably do even less good at making it better.

i feel a little bit locked up in the way that i feel and unable to blurt it out - because when people have their 'own shit to deal with' adding a bit of my own luggage into the mix will only drive them yet further away. i imagine people telling me the contents of their head and then me saying 'ok, cool, i've got that. now... here's something for you' and them saying 'what, more? are you actually serious??'
therefore, i tell myself to give the people that i love some space, but every time i back away it's almost like i've failed, failed to help. or maybe, if you looked at it objectively, i want people to turn to me when they're caught up in situations. maybe i'm just desperate to be of use to someone. it's funny to 'need to be needed' but also quite disturbing.

i think the situation i face at home right now makes it worse for me. i really need my friends at the moment. i wish i could be honest about that.

i've found a poem which someone (not me) wrote that stirs me up on this subject, and makes me think.

Many who say friend,
friend, clutch their balls like prayers
for fear something of themselves
may break loose and get away

many who mumble love,
love, keep an eye fixed for the fire
ladder, the exit hatch and at the first
sign of trouble do not hang around to chat.

many who talk of community
called the real estate agent last night
and the papers are drawn up to sell their land
to a nuclear power plant that shows dirty movies.

Don't count your friends by their buttons
until you have pushed them a few times.

-x-