My ‘Coincidence date’ turned out to last the majority of the weekend, and I have to admit I had a really good time.

Not least because the company was easy, I had forgotten what it was like to talk to someone about ‘real’ life. My few years in Spain have passed by in a cloud of drunken hazes, non-stop people and a feeling of being completely out of reality. Being back in the UK has brought home to me a lot that my life there was make believe, the situations I faced, the things I took part in, made part of my life, have very little resemblance to what is judged as normal living here.

I still haven’t found a job here in the UK, though I may have a little one lined up that will help me while I find real work. Its nothing at all great just in a shop, but it gives me breathing time while I continue to send off CV’s and applications for things I actually want to do. 3 years out of normal work doesn’t really help me with finding work here in the UK right now, but as always I have to just keep applying myself and hope I turn a corner.

This weekend has brought me some smiles I have to say, Friday night we went for drinks and just ended up talking about all the years that have passed since we saw each other last. The conversation was easy, was fun and there was obviously still an attraction after all this time.

Saturday we spent the day together, wandering around Folkestone, seafood on the harbour, drinks in little pubs by the sea, exploring the coast, we tucked ourselves up in the corner of a restaurant as night set in and swapped stories as we ate. It really was a pretty memorable day in a quiet relaxed way. I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a lot more of each other. BUT, I also know that before I can commit myself to a relationship I have to face some things about myself.

My drinking habits have to be controlled. I’ve dropped major hints in this blog about my actions in drink, I have literally destroyed so much in my life and in other peoples lives because quite simply, I drink too much and I have another side of me, probably the ugliest side you will ever see in a person that rears its head when I full on drink.

But if that was the only thing then I would be ok, but there is of course more, there is the way I view myself and the way that view of myself comes across in my conduct. I’m not lying when I say the world scares the shit out of me, the thought of living in the real world makes me literally shake, you see all the time I am letting myself go along in my own bubble, all the time I am simply running and not facing up to the consequences of my actions I can shut out the real world, I can hide away from the questions, but its no longer right for me to do that. I have to learn to accept that I am a person, bad or not, and I have to live by the rules to an extent.

I have debated with the notion lately that I may be bi-polar, the shoe seems to fit, but in other ways it doesn’t seem to fit at all. Probably because I know I have a problem while I am led to believe that bi-polar sufferers in the majority don’t. One thing I do accept is there is a side of me that is hard to label. I have heard many times how paranoid I am, I am so highly conscious of what isn’t said in words from other people, I am so hyper sensitive about things that are said to me, or the way I say things to other people. My self esteem is low, its got to be, even though sometimes I can appear confidence, the truth is people scare me to death, I always think I am saying, do, thinking, acting the wrong way. It’s almost like sometimes I mirror other peoples actions so I appear normal. No matter what happens in life I have this voice telling me I will fail. I destroy things before they even have a chance because of that voice, I retreat, I run away, I literally press that self destruct button and explode in front of people…anything to bring on the finish of something.

I don’t want to live like this.

I know part of it is to do with my childhood, I know that, but at what time can I stop blaming the past, at what time can I truly stand up and say no it won’t ruin my present anymore? My real mother both made and destroyed me before I had a chance to grow like normal people, its true that babies are like flowers, without nurture, without warmth, they grow weak and wild. That’s what I am, I am wild, I take chances that most of you will never have too, I make decisions and live moments that most of you would never bring on yourself. I am wild, but its is my weakness that makes me wild. Its not strength that has kept me going, it’s the opposite. Inside I am scared, I am vulnerable, I am lost. I grow half in the light, half in the dark, I wasn’t covered or prepared for the changing of the seasons I just had to battle it out as they come along, there was no guidance. My moods are notorious, I feel pain in as greater force as I feel the highs, but neither of them is rational, neither is calm. I only feel calm when I am truly alone.

I am jealous of those who know love, I am jealous of the stars, of the moon, of the random man on the street, I am jealous of each of you that has love in your life. My adopted parents have tried hard to love me, I know, even when I have made it incredibly hard for anyone to like me let alone feel love towards me. But always in between their love is the fact that they love my real mother more … simply because she is their natural offspring. No matter how much she has destroyed me their love for her is unwavering, is real maternal instinct. An instinct my own mother never possessed. The day my real Mum first abandoned me to their care, she took her dog and left me, I am jealous of that dog, where she would have a kick for me, she would have a pat for the dog. All the years afterwards with her in and out of my life, even as an adult when she still feels the need to slight me at every turn I make, still I let her, still I feel each pain as if its new.

I want to know about this thing called love, but I need to learn it from inside, I need to heal, I need to learn to find something to love inside of me. I just don’t know where to start.

Paper diaries long since stored away in the attic of the home where I spent most of my time growing up, diaries not looked at, not thought about for years. I take them down and look through, searching for my entries about him. So few, so typical of me never to write about the day to day happenings, so typical that my words are kept for times when I simply don’t understand, when I want to reflect or grieve or put to rest.

I read the first entry, my words seem to fit with my eighteen year old mind, I was so naïve, so vulnerable. Turning 18 to most people means being given the keys to the city, first legal drinks in bars, finally being a fully fledged adult. 18 to me meant something different. It meant I have survived the stormy childhood years and more deeply to me, it meant I had survived the solitary times that come after my 15th birthday, times that I know in my heart I need to write about, to set myself free from, but I have never in the years that have followed managed to find the words, I am still not sure if any words would be enough to tell you how the forgotten girl really did become forgotten.

But I am swaying … back to when I was 18. Living in my maisonette I shared with a friend, running around wild, I was alive, I was free. Hair down to our waists, gold jewellery, frilly gypsy tops and floating skirts. A mark 4 Escort … constantly grinding my gears, Whitney Houston sang My love is your love as we passed the joint around the room and we lived on curried spring roll and chips from the chip shop downstairs.

17th August 1999

He’s so handsome, just a fraction taller than me, dark skin with eyes as dark as my own but bigger, its like he has stepped out of one of the books I read and right into my path. When he came and sat next to me in the car today and started telling me how pretty I was and asked me to be his girl I thought I might have to pinch myself to believe it, how could he possibly have noticed me?

Fast forward a few months, surrounding by empty bottles, half smoked joints, dramatic comings and goings that seem so normal at that age, snuggling in single beds, eviction orders, sleeping bodies in the bath and on the stairs, one day I noticed he was no longer there amongst the debris of our assorted lives. He just vanished, I never knew where and I don’t remember trying too hard to find out.

Who would have thought back then (we didn’t even have mobile phones!) that one day we could just log onto a social networking site like Facebook and find people so easily. Which is exactly what has happened. And strangely (check the dates here) ten years on I receive this message through facebook

17th August 2009

it’s mad that we have found each other on this! Look I have really enjoyed catching up with you through these messages and was thinking since we’re both in the country right now how about we meet for a drink? Completely up to you, no pressure but thought it would be fun to have a proper catch up! x

amusing coincidence no?

I seem to have come full circle. These last few months I seem to drift from day to day with no routine and certainly no aim. I am back in the UK, I spent a month licking my wounds in Spain, staying here and there, trying to find some sense of purpose, of reason, a lesson that I could take with me after the craziness that Andrew brought to my life, to my mind. I found very little, instead I found myself yearning for home.

So I came back, tail between legs to the people who are as good … no sorry better … than my own parents ever could have been and here I am. I have licked my wounds, I have moved on from the time. As I always do, no tears after the initial drama, no long conversations with people about the ifs and whys. Just matter of fact me. It happened, life happens, let us all leave it be.

Now I found myself feeling stagnant, I have no job, I have no money, not used to relying on people to help me, not used to feeling so claustrophobic I seem to find myself looking around me a lot trying to keep my running shoes in sight even when those shoes need repairing.

6 weeks, at the beginning when I still had some money I kept up my façade of being a social butterfly, sure I laughed in the right places, told the right jokes, drank the right drinks – I’ve gotten good at pretending. But as the money dwindled away and the nights out become less and the quiet time crept in I found myself reverting to my own mind for company and that’s still where I stay.

I am still in the wilderness. I know I should be trying to find my way back home to me, trying to gain some sense of direction so I can lead myself out of here, but instead I seem to be dreaming of impossible things, of people who don’t and never will exist, losing myself in sweet yet destructive day dreams.

My friends here seem to be simply people of the past, moving backwards has never been an option for me and now I am trying it I understand why that was, the past is simply that, the past. It is not in align with the present.

I wish I could write when I feel upbeat and positive but as each day passes I feel a little bit more of that fall away.

Its my season to be alone. My time in the wilderness, and why happiness is far out of reach, I must learn to be content.

Andrew tried to hurt me, physically. Feet kicking doors, fingers around throat, I was scared of him. So much has happened that I cannot put into words for you right now, so much in the intensity of those months. So much trying, so much pain, then the last night, that look in his eyes that I had not seen before. The gentleness that he had always shown to me, the feelings I had been so sure were still there, vanished. He wanted to hurt me more than emotionally.

I fled, as I know how to do, within 2 hours my whole life was in my car and I was driving. I left at midnight and drove overnight, for those hours, those solitary hours, just me and my the assorted debris of my life in the car I felt free.

Funny isn’t it? how we put so much so value on the possession of gadgets, or the company of others, on love, on friendship, but it is only when I am running, when I am alone that I feel truly free.

I am staying with my sister now, once again bedding in a spare room, claustrophobic with having to be around people all the time, no space for myself, no privacy to gather my thoughts. I feel lost. I don’t want to be here, I cannot go back there. Canada which is still within reach if I should want it, does not hold that same excitement.

What to do now? where to go? I need a job for a few months to get some money together to make some decisions but I can’t find the fight to get out of there.

I have told people little, just of the last night how he turned violent and they condemn him for being like that I agree with them, say how I cannot believe it.

But the truth is inside, I just feel sad, not angry or bitter. Sad with regret, with wanting, sad that something that had so much possibility could not learn to fly.

As I once again am borrowing a spare room containing everything I own in the world, 7 hrs away from where until a week ago my whole life was. I realise I will always have that flight instinct.

I have always dreamt big. I dream about far off places, faces and situations. I dream I am everything and anything. I have lost myself in dreams, I have found myself in dreams, I have spent a lot of time shutting the world out by dreaming. For a while my dreams stilled.

For someone so enthralled with dreaming of far-flung , impossible situations, my biggest wish in life was to full in love with the moment I was in, without dreaming of being elsewhere. So in that dreamless stillness, all I saw was my wish finally granted.

A moment in time, a small moment that I had been striving for my whole life seemed to come to pass and for my untrained and often colour blind eyes it seemed like the most beautiful time that I would ever truly see.

I had found my moment in which to fall in love; I had stilled the endless impossible dreams.

But after the stillness, after the dreamless state of being, the words that have always come from me so easily when I write seemed to run dry. The words, that I misuse so much in real life, but brought me so much peace as they danced on blank screens and pages, seemed to be confused and muddled.

With my dreams so quiet, with facing the real world in such a magnificent and then such a harsh way, I found that all words from me became untrustworthy, as if I opened my mouth to speak all that would be there was pain, was anger, was a deep rooted fear. Expression became almost a torment, as if each day I was being strangled by the same words that I once loved.

I had found my moment in which to fall in love; I had stilled the endless impossible dreams.

Then I found my words; but it was not my words I needed now. I needed to hear someone else’s words. But those words came so quietly that against my anger they seemed so silent I could hardly make them out.

So we were just left with my words; my assurances, my opinions, my thoughts. But no longer were there any thoughts for myself. I was trying to use my words as weapons in a war that was not mine to win.

I had found my moment in which to fall in love; I had stilled the endless impossible dreams.

and a piece of tin foil.

And everytime I am defeated in the war.

It’s amazing really, the lengths we go to, to hurt ourselves. The way we take our own lives and all the pain, confusion and heartache that others have caused us, pain that was out of our control when it was given, then we keep it, we turn it around inside of ourselves and use it as a mask against the world. We never wanted the pain in the beginning but after we have been forced to take it, we take ownership of it and never let it go.

For a long time, I have taken ownership of my pain, I have held it up against the cracks to stop the light from shining in and if light does manage to shine on me I run, I hide, I push it away until the familiar darkness once again becomes my friend.

They say that lovers take lovers because they see fragments of themselves in each other, that the chemistry that passes between people is deeper than just attractiveness, deeper than that initial feeling of wanting to be near to someone.

I never thought I would fall like I have for Andrew, I never though he would be the kind of person I am looking for, I never expected to feel the way I do. I never expected him to be as lost as I am, just in a different way. I spent my life running, and now when its down to something that I know the world will tell me to run from, I am finding it impossible to run.

Andrew is a heroin addict.

In the last years I have become good at standing back from the crowd. When I was younger and still not quite questioning the destructive of my temper or the hurt that my actions could cause both to myself and to others I would crash headlong into new friendships and adventures. Being solitary was my quiet time, my own time, but I partied hard and I pushed the boundaries at every given opportunity.

The last years however, maybe it is as I head towards 30, I have looked at myself more, where in earlier years I could pick myself up, brush myself down and just keep moving to the next crowed scene without taking blame on my own shoulders, its not so easy now.

I am much more aware of my own shortcomings, I am much more aware of the catastrophes I have caused.

I, despite my ramblings here, am not an isolated being, rather a solitary figure who passes through the crowd. I stand apart from the crowd because I never feel I fit in, which has meant that I have hundreds of mates all around the world but never a true best friend, never a group of people who I can call on to ground me, though that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who think they know me, because there is. Many of them. they just don’t realise that they each know only one of my aspect of me, and rarely do they know the truth of me.

 Andrew, I think, finds me confusing. The shades of colours I bring to a day, the never quite knowing which side of me he is going to wake up too. He hears me laugh and thinks I am the funniest girl he has ever met, he hears me talk about my aspirations and feels confusion as to how they change all the time. He listens to how I talk about my past in such a matter of fact way and doesn’t realise how hard I have battled. I guess he thinks my life has been easy, because that’s the image I project. Sometimes when he sees me weak, when I am worrying about money or something going on with a member of my family or a friend far away, he tries so hard to reach me, to help me. That small shred of weakness makes him think that his masculinity is being redeemed, he feels like he is looking after me. But when I pull away just as quickly, when I just continue on, when that independence that has been mine for so long starts to show its head he is left feeling bemused.

Its like he has takes two steps towards me and three steps back and I feel sorry for him, I am not the girl he thought he had met. He saw me in bars and cafes with my ready smile and quite chatter for those who keep their distance, I am the drinking buddy who can chat to you all night, talk funny, talk deep, talk culture but when the party is over, I retreat back and he is trying so hard to find a way to figure out how my mind works. I guess I should be grateful for his strength of character, but mostly I feel guilt for his confusion. If I can’t even work myself out how can he expect too.

Things are strange for me right now, in one way I am the happiest I have been for a long time, in another way I feel like I am drowning in unknown waters. I have days when I wake up and look at my world and feel like the luckiest person there could be, I feel safe in this private world I seem to have created. But then other days, like today I feel trapped, I feel that by sharing my privacy, my complete life I am nailing my feet to the floor.

I want to write more, but my words are just not coming right now. my feelings are confused and muddled and I am uncertain as to what I really am thinking.

Life’s strange, and to someone like me, this whole trying to live a ‘normal’ life is strange.