surrender

I've been packing, and perfecting the packing - writing lists and just as I clear one list, I make up a whole other in my head for translation to a post-it note.

Tomorrow is the day.  Tomorrow I fly from home to the big smoke.  Tomorrow night I leave the big smoke for Italy! I can hardly believe it's happening.

When you make these plans for the future, you forget that someday the day will actually arrive.  I guess I've been making fake plans like these for a really long time - this time, I'll see them through.

The packing has been stressful - being limited in how much I can take and imagining how I will manage to carry it, another problem entirely.  I really wish I had worked on my upper body strength, and well, my general fitness; but it's a little too late to worry for that now though.

I can't believe what I'm on the cusp of seeing and doing. Strange, that even after the mess with John, and feeling like I have a crater in my heart - I feel ready to do this.  Don't get me wrong, I'm scared, nervous and convinced I will have forgotten something... but I feel ready to leave home and find a little of myself out there.

I have learnt that I cannot anticipate what is going to happen in the next four weeks - I won't know who I'll meet, what I'll say or what I'll do - but I'm excited.  I'm being forced to go with the flow, and I think it'll be just what I need.

I can't wait to be inspired.

SB xx

I'm all out, for the war

SB xx

play it again, Nancy

It's quite ridiculous that when I got my dreaded reply yesterday, this song came to mind.  It goes to show how much I link music with emotion.

..I hit the ground... bang bang

SB xx

don't inhale

Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

- Adlai Stevenson

This quote cropped up on my calender at work today - it made me smile, and for that I am grateful.


SB xx

quietly devastated

I sent a very brief email to John today - not expecting much. I just wanted to say goodbye really. Deep down, I wanted him to answer, but I didn't know he would. He did, and I got the heartbreak I expected. He tried to be lovely about it, but he wanted to be honest. He said I am "a good friend" and that's how he "wants it to stay". I guess I knew this would be the response I'd get - but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some small attachment of hope that it would go the other way. Because he addressed all this via email - I had to read this in public, at work...and somehow keep myself together enough to continue functioning - or at least pretending. It was one of the hardest moments I can recall.

So, electronic heartbreak - its speed is deceptive - you forget that such a mighty blow can be delivered from such an unassuming act of clicking 'send'. Wow. It was so hard to read; but it was never going to be easy was it? I am torn, and saddened beyond imagination. When I think about it too much, a feeling of nausea washes over me - a heavy stone lodges itself in the pit of my stomach as I recall the dream sequences, that will forever more be confined to my imagination. Ouch. That's a lot of images to re-write.

As the day wore on, thoughts of his email cropped up less and less; until home time, when I knew I'd be free of distraction, free to feel it. Except I stifle it still. If I were alone, or in the company of someone who knew what I had done, I would been a mess. But there is no one to share this pain with. Besides, I created it, I should be the one to carry it to it's grave, on my own.

I don't want to give up - on life and love and possibility. I really, really thought he was 'it' and it's just really hard right now to think about finding someone real to fill that void. If I thought he was real, but he wasn't - how hard is it going to be to find the actual real thing?

I'm so scared my destiny is to become a weird cat lady. Do you suppose this is how cat ladies are made? With stories such as these? I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be second, third best - I want to be somebodys first. Where am I going to find them?

I've been warned a couple of times about the amorous nature of the Italian and Greek men - it's not something I would normally seek, and I have my doubts about my ability to be on the receiving end of such affections, however, at this moment I think I could really use the ego boost. Just a little one.

On the inside I am a little girl crying in a heap on the floor, and all I want is for somebody to collect me into their arms, wipe my tears, dust me off, set me on my feet and tell me someday this will be ok, and this feeling will go away.

I wish I had the ability to split myself in two, scoop my sadder half into my arms and tell her it's all going to be ok, eventually. That this will pass. Except I can't do this, and I don't know if I can see 'ok' right now. It all hurts so much.

We've all got stories haven't we, of the ones that got away? I guess it's whether we let the story define and shape us. Right now, the wave of the emotion is sweeping me away.

I look forward to a time, when going to bed, does not mean crying until my eyes burn - when I can hear his name and not flinch; when I can look upon this and say it's actually ok.

SB xx

This is how the light gets in

I had a family dinner tonight, an early 'bon voyage' for me. It was lovely, to be around people that wish me well, that want the best for me, who want me to be happy. How can I not be, with such lovely intentions and thoughts in their minds? I was reminded of some of the things that I will miss; and I know for certain it will be hardest leaving my little nephew. He is such an amazing, tender little man, getting smarter and more profound every time I see him. I fear missing out on something; I fear being forgotten. But, as my wise friend M told me - this break, the adventure in lands faraway will give me new perspective, will bring me to my best; create a better version of me. And after all, wouldn't my family want me to be at my best? The answer is yes, they would, and they do. Four weeks absence from familiarity, distraction, fear and stress is a pretty good trade off for all of that possibility.

When I was looking down the barrel of another work week last week, I wondered how I was going to get through it, but I am happy to say that this week has been ok. Much to my surprise, I have felt clear headed and productive. So far, the few days this week have been less about wishing someone would notice my hard work, and more about knowing in myself that I have been effective, that I have made a difference and it has been enough. Maybe it's knowing I am going away, or my own strict sense of wanting to leave my place in an ordered state - but I have felt good at the end of each day. Purposeful.

My excitement for my trip grows day by day. Even though there are some cracks within me, things unfinished, things that hurt - it is the cracks that make me human, that show the light through - the darkness makes the light all the more glorious when it comes. As has been said before, there can be no light without dark.

SB xx

There is no backspace

I'm leaving in one week. I am starting to feel excited, but there is a piece of me that is absent. I am wanting.

I know that I shall get on that plane, and I will look forward - I'll have to be. I won't know who or what is ahead of me; won't know what to expect. I think that's a little exhilarating. I'm not even sure I've thought about anything that way before. How wonderful.

But right now, there is something without an ending. I am waiting, to hear something about or from John. I don't know if I will get it; I think the universe wants me to be patient. I cannot pretend I'm not worried - I don't know if he got the letter, or if he did, how it made him feel - I'm not even sure he is where he's meant to be. I saw an advert for the exact job he moved away for - the same posting, the same place. What's going on? Is he leaving? I don't know these things, and I can't ask him right now because I have to give him space. Because if I break the silence, I break the promise. God, if he is leaving the state to follow that horrid rotten apple... I'd prefer just about any reality to that one.

I'm scared for very different reasons than I was last week. I am frightened and running out of time to figure out why, or how to fix it. If this is a dream sequence, then I am stuck inside a room lined with closed doors, and I am frantically trying to find the right one to open, the one that will lead me out of this place. If I open a door, and I don't like what I see... Oh God.

SB xx

ooooohhhh of the blue

When there are no more tears to cry or giggles to occupy the mind, there is always dance.



There is something about this song today that makes me want to turn it up loud and dance around with reckless abandon. Don't mind if I do...

SB xx

my heart room

In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.

- Antonio Porchia

SB xx

I'd like a flat white, a day of pale skies and a real kiss

On days like these, I like to turn to friends like Lisa Mitchell and I know I am in safe hands. Suitably called 'Love Letter' this song is another beautiful gem in her fine collection of jewels.

I'd like a flat white, a day of pale skies
And a real kiss

Inside an old house, by the seaside
You can take off my blouse

but take it from me;
I'm disorderly and you'd be off better
writing someone else your love letter
cause I'm always on the road

And of course I wanna know you better
But you know the way it goes

Well a telegram's no substitute
when it comes to living proof

oh go on
and write somebody else,
oh somebody else,
oh anybody...

Your love letter.

So I need a flight home
There's no day to argue
no I need my pillow

Well inside an old house, by the seaside
You can take off my blouse

But take it from me;
I'm disorderly and you'd be off better
Writing someone else your love letter
cause I'm always on the road

And of course I wanna know you better
But you know the way it goes
And a telegram's no substitute
When it comes to living proof

Go on and write somebody else,
somebody else
somebody else a love letter

Oh, living in that chest is a big, big heart
one that I've known from the very start
Living in that chest is a big, big heart
one that I've known from the very start
Oh, living in that chest is a big, big heart
one that I've known from the very start
Oh, living in that chest is a big, big heart
one that I've known from the very start

Go on, write somebody else your love letter
Cause I'm always on the road

And of course, of course I wanna know you better
But you know the way it goes

I think I know the way it goes.

SB xx

blossom every broken part

I'm at tethers end - ready for the world to stop spinning, or at least for me to sub-out for a while; sit on the bench and watch the rest of the team play.  I have so much going on in my head - it's a minefield.

Work is really nightmarish right now.  I've been waiting months to hear about a position I applied for, in the place I already work.  I think they drag it out, because they can - because they don't actually care.  It's an environment at the moment, where everyone is just at cracking point - how long can people expect to sustain that?  You can't rely on 'fight' forever - at some point, you have to take the 'flight' option - right? We aren't designed to fight continually.

I've been sticking it out for the longest time.  Hoping things would get better.  Staying in part, because of laziness - because I didn't want to have to meet new people; because I am comfortable where I am.  I also stay because I like my unique job and I won't find another like it. I don't know what I am going to do, but I don't know if I can put up with much more.

I have one week of work left, before I set off overseas.  Most recently, I had been consumed with nervousness about travelling and packing, and all the other stuff that comes with facing new experiences. But now, I wonder how I'll manage the next week of work.  The distance between here and there seems so vast.  I just want to be gone.

I hope that exploring new places and cultures will help me to figure out what I want - from life; from myself.  I hope that it will lend me a drive to get more out of myself, than just to be standing at the end of each day.

I haven't heard a thing from John - which could mean nothing, or it could indicate everything. But, there is nothing I can do about it.  I express posted my heart on Monday - it may come back to me marked "return to sender"... I guess it's the chance I take.

SB xx

amongst the crowd a heart will break, and a heart will mend

When this song first came out, I loved it from the moment I heard it's swelling beat - there's something about the snare drum that calls me.  It's a fitting song for today, because today I released my own paper aeroplane.  It's only just hit me, I can't reverse it now. 

The game changer has been set in motion. Gotta say mmmmm....



SB xx