Spill

So if today went well in all senses,
And (at least from the sounds of it) it was something we were both looking forward to,
Why does it feel like I've missed something?

And why does it feel like I've done something to mess it up, again?


Sent from my iPhone

Soon.

What's gotten me through most of my goodbyes is being able to make peace and let go.

Maybe that's why this is harder.

There is a lot I want to say, but my words, they're caught up in a tangle in my throat and I'm not quite sure how to start. 

Yes, I know he is better off this way. Yes, I know he has lived a good, long life.

And yes I know that he was very, very loved and that he knows this too.

All of that matters to me.

But I struggle with the knowing of all the things he meant to me, all the things he taught me, and this in-between/not-quite-there-yet relationship I seem to have developed with horses that exists because of him.

With him, I felt like it was okay to stand there for as long as I needed to until I wanted to step closer. With him I felt like I never had to bring anything but myself because even if I tried, he'd see right through me.

With him I found a stillness and a calm that I haven't always been able to share.

And right up til the last evening I saw him, that didn't change.

Here's the thing about Wallaby Joe, as soft as I am for him, he was never something to fix.

I started off, not knowing where I stood with him. And not trying to figure it out either, because I was just caught up with standing exactly where I was standing.

(At that time that was about a metre and a bit away from two bars that kept him in.)

and then.

I don't know how to begin describing the way I felt.

The way he gave me such tiny, tiny moments that I wanted to hold on to forever. The way he made me wish time would come to a standstill, whenever he came and stood with me, or cuddled up.

The way he made me feel like, for a little while, nothing else could possibly matter.

So if I need to be honest, I cannot say that I am alright. Not yet.

But I am grateful. So immensely grateful for the time I did get to spend with him, for the person I grew into, for the little things I learnt (even if I don't know I've learnt it yet.)




Wallababy,
You certainly were something special.

I'll see you soon.

 Love, C

Surely hearts breaking must have a sound.


And surely, there must be something for a pain like this.

Sent from my iPhone

And when she comes

here's a plan-

A wall of exposed bricks in the living room. And in the bedroom. Possibly in the kitchen. So it's always warm. 

Black and white pictures in black frames.

One colored one, somewhere. Maybe of us lying on grass with the Swan River at the edges of our feet. 

Music. Everywhere. The sort we can hear and the sort we can't. 

Fruits on the counter.

And promise we'll never put away the juicer. Or the coffee machine. 

Or our promises.

The ones we're saving up in a jar to keep. 

maybe, hold me. Hold us both?

Sent from my iPhone

Surely it's not supposed to feel like this right? I thought Sundays were always.. Well, Prettier. 

And I've always promised, that I'd be right here when you wake up. 

But I'd never thought about waking up to find that you've been gone. 

Sent from my iPhone

The halves of me that hold me tightly together

They'll also tear me apart

_______________________

The thing I've always loved about music is its ability to bring you back to a place in your memory. And it doesn't leave you watching through the window either. No, it welcomes you in and you're far, far away from where you were just fifteen seconds ago.

And even if it's a sad memory, to be able to stand where I am and know that I've come away from it, makes me a little bit less sad. 

It's one of those things that've kept me so in love with music- how it wraps itself around you, fits against your skin, fills your head with a familiar smell and leaves you running your fingers along surfaces you thought you'd forgotten the feel of. 

But then, too quickly, I forget what it does to me.

The thing I've always loved about music is its ability to bring you back to a place in your memory. Except, it doesn't always have to be a memory that is your own. 

Suddenly I'm an intruder to a memory that is not mine. 

And here's the thing I hate about music- 

its ability to bring you back to a place without letting you stand on the outside, To watch through the window. 

And you're always too far away for me to save. 

_____________________________

But Actors,

actors aren't allowed to get lost in a memory. So they fall into a memory  with a fishing line attached, and let it float us to a different place. A place that is heartbreakingly close, but not close enough. 

But then by then, you're floating. 

Your actor is present, which makes your character real. 

But you,

Oh you are just floating. 

____________________________

"I'm flying," she says, "I'm flying, flying, flying."

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Ssh.

But she sings me to sleep, with the sound of her crashing waves.

Sent from my iPhone

A little rain

But she falls asleep in my arms and I realize, all over again,
How i am the luckiest girl in the world.

Sent from my iPhone

Christmas & New Year's Afterglow(:

So the new year came and went, and before we've properly settled in, it seems we've already arrived at the end of our first week of 2013.

There's a lot in this past year that I am immensely grateful for. I look around me now, at what I have and what I am heading towards, and I am so amazingly happy.

Today, just a year ago, I'd have been up before the sun and headed for school-Towards something I knew would be good for me. I think the most painful part of that experience was knowing how good it was supposed to be but never quite getting there. It was always a hit and miss. The ground one stood on would never be level. I wore myself out from the inside, and watched my situation eat away at everyone else.
And staring at me, from the borders of that life, were all the things I knew made me happy.

I still get taken aback by all the changes that the last year has brought about. And even though I'm not there yet, it's nice to feel like I am heading in the right direction again. Yes, it might be a long, round-about way, and also a way that promises to be rather pricey but hey, at least I'm on my way.

That aside!
Here's news about the year's end in all its warmth and fuzziness-

Christmas was quiet but strangely tiring, for some reason.

I spent my December weekends, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve being a Singin' Swingin' Santarina.

This was also the year I chose to make a lot of my presents. Erika and I spent an entire afternoon working our little elf hearts out for one group of friends while I spent two other afternoons working on the rest.

I meant to also make an oreo cheesecake as part of the array of gifts I had to give out but, clearly, had next to no time. The cake however, has finally gotten round to being made just last night. So YAY.

And because all that rushing around and spreading Christmas cheer didn't leave me with the opportunity to write-

from Buttons and I(:

This is what my Morning-After-Christmas brekkie looked like for my fam-

 

(:

Because cute little animals are toootally what anyone would want after Christmas.

As the hype slowed down and we got further away from Christmas, things were made slightly better. It was a rare opportunity to spend off-days together and so, on top of finding time to spend with both sides of the family and both sets of friends, the two of us also found time for ourselves in the form of 

 a duck-robot couple who run a chocolate fondue factory
aaaaand...

Some Lego Technic(:

Now, I am a believer in ending off the year well and sailing into it nicely. I often believe that it says something about the way you'll spend the rest of the year.

So, it being my final performance as a Santarina, the family came down to Downtown East to watch. 

After which, we all went for Bak Chor Mee (I mean, how can your year possibly end badly if your last meal of 2012 is Meng's Bak Chor Mee right?!), and Erika tried her darnest to keep me away from the chilli that lived at the bottom of the bowl.

(My throat was well on its way to dying by that point)

Then we brought a bottle of Moscato over to Sharon's and watched the countdown on telly.

Russ, on the other hand, struggled way past his bedtime but switched between napping and getting very excited about new people coming into the house.

And of course,

as I've learnt from Erika's family,

because celebrations call for good food and good food calls for celebration,

we started off the New Year with an AMAZING Brunch date at Wild Honey with Lucas & Cher(:

So now,

if my 2013 is to be anything like my New Year's Celebrations, it's looking like...

a lot of time with each other, with family, with good friends, the occasional drink and an immense amount of good food.

It also means a healthy dose of work, and time for ourselves (with or without each other).

All in all, that sounds like a pretty damn good plan to me.

Happy 2013, you guys(:

Light.

I want to disappear into the Christmas season with you.

With you bundled up in my arms, your nose cold from the rain, your feet tired from all the wrong turns we took to get to all the right places.
And you, wrapped around us, the perfect distraction, talking about all the ways to make marshmallows explode when we get home to our hot chocolates.

I want to disappear into the Christmas season with you, I say. Into glowing lights, the taste of peppermint and cinnamon, and the smell of happiness warm with the promise of tomorrows.

But it's not just Christmas, I realize.
I want to go home.
I want to go home with you.



Sent from my iPhone

On rainy days you've saved for

Conversations like tonight's, or snippets of it anyway, always catapult me into fretting about my future.
What this might mean for me, how I will juggle rent and bills on a Freelancer's ever-so-consistent pay, whether I'll be able to afford to feed Buttons, let alone myself and whether or not simple necessities like sending my leather jacket to the drycleaners' will even be an option.
And I have officially been left in full-freak out mode.

Never mind that I spent yesterday journalling about how I would just appreciate what I've got now, move along at an even pace and not be alarmed by people hurtling pass me in both directions.

I am afraid.
I'm afraid because the more time I spend here, the more I realize it's about time for me to leave. And I'm not saying it's impossible, I'd just very much prefer a whole lot more stability. Suddenly everything seems so expensive, so difficult and it doesn't feel like one's paycheck, whether two and a half grand or twice that, will ever be enough for anything.

But we all need to get started somewhere eventually I guess.
I don't want to write about it anymore, simply because writing about it makes me more afraid than I need to be. Whoever said I still had time, maybe wasn't counting right.
I thought I did too, but it's starting to feel like no matter how fast or how high I climb, I'm still falling short in some way or other.

I want to go crawl into a hole for a little bit.

Heart

I couldn't walk away,
Even if I tried.

Sent from my iPhone

The things you don't see coming

I suppose I did love you quite a bit.
And I'd never quite known or seen what you'd left me with-
This constant fear of tipping balances. Of messing it up.
Of getting it all wrong. All over again.

Sent from my iPhone

Forever

It's bootcamp again. And that means seeing students I haven't seen in two years. Some, longer than that and some less.
Whatever the time in between, suddenly they've all grown two heads taller than me, their voices have broken, they're not 13 and prancing around me. They're yelling at their juniors. They're running warmups.
When?
When did that happen?

I'm sure my colleagues who have been around longer are used to this feeling. But I don't know if I'll ever get over how new and unfamiliar this feels.
I helped Arabelle and Heeraj out with their O level lit a month or so back. I mean, O levels?! When I first met Arabelle she was thirteen and part of a group that did a self-written play about not giving up and achieving your dreams or something of the like.

And the next minute, she's one of the easiest students to work with in drama club, she's a good listener, and she's part of my SYF cast.

Then before I know it, I'm meeting her up at Starbucks and we're dissecting poetry and talking about Andrea Gibson and...
When did they grow up?

When did any of them, I mean.


And then it's gotten me thinking. About how it's been a while. How I didn't expect to fall this hard and this much in love with my job.
How four years ago, I didn't see myself here- right where I am now. And I like where I am, I must say.

Then that starts me thinking...
About where I'll be in three, four years. What I'll be writing about, thinking about, dreaming about. What will I be reaching for, and if I'm reaching for the same thing, will I be halfway there already?

Dusk

The sky's always especially pretty when I know I'm coming home to you.

There are all these reasons to love you,
Sometimes I'm almost afraid I won't ever run out.

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If she could've had one wish

And then that song comes on again and 

Then I'm sitting in the drizzle, by the river, on the eighth day in a row that I've spent with you.

It's a Friday. 

"This isn't good," you laughed, earlier on that day. It was after lunch and we were stretched out on grass. 

Propped up on elbows, I watched you as you carefully picked your words. 

"I really like spending time with you."

That day, I celebrated my three months of being smoke-free by buying a pack, urgently smacking the top of the box against the inside of my wrist. I finished most of that box within the next four hours that I spent staring out at the restless waters, pen hovering over the brown pages of my notebook. 

If I could have one wish,

The song goes,

If I could have some say

I'd keep you far from home. 

You were beautiful, I remembered thinking. You made my breath catch. You were so beautiful. 

I'd roll back both my sleeves

Dig under your skin

And fix your shattered bones. 

"It's so unfair," I'd written, "that life gives us exactly what we deserve."

Hold on,

This may hurt you when I tell you of the truth

We don't get two lives to live

It's funny. Because I thought it was a very one-sided sort of thing. I hadn't expected any more. 

It's true

The only fault I found in you

I thought I'd be happy, but it was difficult for that to be an immediate reaction when actually,

I thought it was tragic.

Was not being free to take what I would give

And it was- for the most part. How suddenly,

There was you and me both, and a muddle of thoughts and feelings. 

If I could make you stay 

Convince you we'd be lost,

If we were torn apart. 

If it remained unclear

Between the two of us

Which one would be the one 

To break the other's heart

But then the song, it starts to fade out. The drizzle lightens.

I've been smoke-free for the last two years, almost. 

You're beautiful, I'm thinking to myself. You make my breath catch.

You are so beautiful. 

And it's a rainy Sunday morning, where I'm waking up to you and I.

I think you're the most beautiful person in the world to wake up to. 

Hold on,

We weren't meant to suffer so very long

Leaving love that's lost has never been a sin

Hang tight,

The only fault you have tonight

Is shutting down so cold til I break in

Pawn

So tell me just who I need to be, how I need to be,
To be exactly what you want.



Sent from my iPhone

Promise

"When you're beautiful,"
She tells me. She whispers this to me at parties when I'm lonely, in a roomful of people. Her words fill the spaces and gaps between me and the person I'm in love with.
"Then you'll be enough. You won't be boring. She'll want to look your way twice. You won't feel like this."

"I don't think you're boring," he chirps, smiling.
I look up. Manage a smile. It feels like I'm wincing.

I think the situation is hilarious. But maybe the funny bits just haven't sank in yet.

"You won't have to feel like this. You won't feel like you could disappear into the walls. You won't feel like she doesn't notice you're there, even when you're reaching for her hand...
Sweetie, sweetie, it's very simple. I don't know why you haven't gotten it yet.
It'll all happen when you're beautiful.
Only when you're beautiful."





Sent from my iPhone

dreamed of paradise

When I was nine years old, I wanted to throw myself down a flight of stairs.

I hated that I couldn't. That my body didn't let me.
More than a decade on, I still hate that I can't.

Let's play a game.

It's called fire truck, he told me.

---------------------------------

You start. Three pair.

My turn, three pair.

Five pair. My turn, five pair. 

Yours, seven pair. I throw in two eights.

Then,

Double aces. 

---------------------------------

Red light. Red light!

Oh wait, fire trucks don't stop for red lights. Oops. 

---------------------------------

Pass. 

No? Okay, four pair. My turn, four pair.

---------------------------------

Let's play a game. 

It's called, "Guess where next?"

---------------------------------

Two kings.

Wait. Stop, it's not like that. 

In this game, we keep going. Keep taking back the used cards and reshuffling them and drawing a card with each pass. 

But how about...

Not going? Here's a six. 

---------------------------------

Wrong again baby, now you're just going to have to wait longer.

---------------------------------

Pass.

---------------------------------

Ask.

---------------------------------

Here's a Six house.

---------------------------------

I can't hear you. 

---------------------------------

Um.

Pass,

---------------------------------

Okay, next guess. 

---------------------------------

 I'm waiting to play a five-card.

---------------------------------

Wrong again.

---------------------------------

"Then I'll play you pairs."

All the left sides of right.

She'llloveyouwhenyou'rebeautiful.
Whenyou'rebeautifulbeautifulbeautiful, onlywhenyou'rebeautiful.

There's a voice in my head on repeat.
Cold and insistent, promising. It fades in and out like background music that doesn't quite stop.


And so I swing-
Dangerously, painfully, destructively back and forth between whisperings that creep up my spine in such tragically, suffocatingly comforting ways and moments that I feel like I actually have you. All of you.
"We're okay," you say, forehead to mine, nose to nose.

I don't know where I am, sometimes. And I want so much to believe you but there are moments I catch myself standing in the middle of the room and feeling like I'm fading. It's like I'm bleeding out at the edges and fuzzing out into the space around me.

I want so much to believe you.
For my skin to be quiet and not wish for you. To not think up reasons in my head that couldn't be accurate.
It's not like that with us; we're not made up of games and pretty words.


So tell me how I can stop being all wrong?



Whenyou'rebeautifulbeautifulbeautiful.
Oh,onlywhenyou'rebeautiful.

She'd always run before she knew she was running.

I've never thought myself to be flighty..
But I'm thinking about time differences
Thinking about long distances
And how tempting it is to disappear
Go off wandering streets littered with memories I know nothing of
Leave behind all the little bits of broken that keep getting caught in my hair
So that I could maybe convince myself that I can do something right, that I am doing something right.

I'm thinking about time differences
And long distances
But I never thought myself to be flighty..

Sent from my iPhone

Once the foundation's cracked

Give me a day, Jaime
Bring back the lies
Hang them back on the wall
Maybe I'll see
How you could be
So certain that we
Had no chance
At all.

Down the road

It's funny how you think you can outrun a certain kind of hurt or pain.
You can't.

When it all comes down to it and in the right now, I'm happy. I'm happy with you. And you mean the world to me.

It's just that I've always been a dreamer. And I think up things so I can move towards it. And when it changes, I think up different things.
I've also always been a giver. Wanting so much to give people exactly what they want or need.

There were always things, however, that I held tight to. Dreams that were just my own, and no one else's. Pictures nobody could touch with a ten foot pole because they were mine and mine alone. To go back to, to tweak, to adjust, to add layers and layers and layers and smile at.
Then you came along.


You're enough for me.
And you're worth it. All those tweaks, all those adjustments to plans, all those choices. All those opinions i value and take into consideration. All the wants and needs I'd never want to overlook...
You're worth it.
Believe me, you're always going to be worth it.



But i suppose, simply put,
I wish I was worth it in those ways too.

A letter to old dreams, hopes and things I

Dear you,
I will always be grateful for the time that you were. You've made me the person I am now and even though old scars sometimes sting, Mostly, I am happy.

And here's a spot of truth-
That I am truly happy for the paths that have been taken, that are being taken, even though they're going in an opposite direction from mine.

You are dreams and wishes and hopes that I am letting go of, that I am not reaching for or heading towards. Not because you were ever useless or because I couldn't make it, but because I found myself propelled towards very different wants and needs and goals.
You belong down a very different rabbit hole, and I hope the Charis in that one will find herself again, will always remember the strength she has, and more importantly, look back and know that it was all worth it. I hope she is happy, or that she learns to be, the way I am learning to again.

We couldn't have reached each other, even if we tried. And sometimes, in all my childish quests to have something to prove, I ache with the wanting us to have been the marriage that fell into place. But we weren't. We're not and we wouldn't have been.
Instead, I have different things waiting for me that I am now making my way towards. They're not necessarily better than you, but I figure they're most certainly better for me.

I'm sorry.
That it didn't work.
But I'm not sorry for where I am now; i couldn't be. There is a way that my dreams and plans now, in all their uncertainty, fit themselves around me.

And sometimes, I will ache for the Could Have Been that you are, but I know that right here is exactly where I am supposed to be.

Love,
Charis


Sent from my iPhone

And that star-flung sky hanging heavy above, was the only witness

I am falling away, willing someone to find me.
But I don't know why I'm doing that when I don't even want to stay long enough to see what you think you might put your finger on.

I'm somewhere between clawing at the dirt beneath my skin and disappearing into whisperings of a voice I haven't yet heard. Except I can't move very far.
So then I guess, when you realize there's nowhere to run, the next best thing would be to
Close your eyes



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I was fading and chipped like rust

There are questions I have. 

Some for specific people and others, for no one in particular. 

There are a lot of whys, a lot of then-what-ifs.

 I've been reading a lot. And I've been getting caught in the torrent of memories. I haven't been writing. I don't know how. Or I'm a little bit afraid. I don't know. 

Then I pull a book off the shelf- one I've written in years before and I understand myself a little better. I understand why certain things make me so sad sometimes now, but render me incapable of responding. And so I press down on a familiar ache and excuse myself to the toilet instead. 

As it's been happening, I haven't understood. I haven't been able to say why I back away, or back down or shirk when your voice hardens or there's a sharpness to your tone. 

I freeze up. And against my will (much to my frustration), my eyes fill and all I need is to get out of there for a second or two. 

But then i tell you nothing's wrong.

Why do I do that? Maybe because when I remember having a voice, I was always wrong. I was always, always wrong. 

I've been a little bit sad of late. In ways that just makes me want to sit by myself in little corners, or parks. Sip on wine. 

I'd say write. I always do, and a part of me wants to but, like I said, I've been a little bit afraid. 

But oh, maybe hearts always break themselves again along the lines of an old scar. 

___________________________________________

And that star-flung sky hanging heavy above

Was the only witness as I whispered words you would not trust

What I said was,

Say to me, all the things that you think I could never handle

I could be the anthem you sing to yourself, 

When you're slipping away into sleep when the lights are so low
it goes
oh

rainy sick days

 So this is what I find myself doing on a very very very sickly day, with lovely weather.
Looking at lovely pictures of homes that aren't mine.

And watching Home & Health's Say Yes To The Dress

and holidaying with my favourite girl.

raaaaaaawr.

a thought; dusty.

I found an old post I wrote.

Slipping.

Here's the problem with quitting something you've been dependent on for years-

You're always going to go back to it.

Sent from my iPhone

Of wishes to be beautiful

There are all these ugly things about me.
And when I see them, or they get pointed out, yes I want to change it. Change me. Make it go away.
But you can't undo ugly moments.


I wish the rest of me made up for Moments like those. But I don't think it does. I don't think it even works like that.

It's a nice feeling, that someone might possibly think you beautiful enough to stay, even just for a little bit.
But we get it wrong sometimes.
And if you're leaving, it's okay to tell me you just figured out otherwise.

Sent from my iPhone

Red wine and Janis Ian

I woke up today tired, unwilling, feverish, frustrated. And more frustrated than grumpy, might I add.

It's one of those days that I just feel like I can't do. I want to curl into a ball and cry. The odd thing is that, today's Supposed to be one of those better days. Actually, to be quite honest, most of my days are one of those better days.
But today in particular. There wasn't a super early morning class, work officially starts at half past noon, I've started on something interesting with the CCA kids in the afternoon...
Not to mention the event I've got this evening to perform at.

It's just one of those off-days, I suppose. But the sort that has you wondering when you might just outgrow the urge to say yes to some things, just for the heck of it.

Maybe that's the problem with getting back into the game: you need to grow up all over again. And half of you is annoyed with the other half that wants to use right now to try everything, for the sake of it. When both halves of you have had long conversations about what you want and where you're going.


Okay so how about this, Charis:
You know tonight's going to be the last of its kind. So go run at it, with your arms flung wide, take a bow and know that when you walk away, you won't be looking back.

Ready? Get set, go.

Sent from my iPhone

You are a mystery I promise I will never try to solve

Spark

So let's. 

Just you and me. 

And the terror of my indecisiveness and your impatience, my sensitivity and your straightforwardness, your practicality and my dreaminess. 

Let's. 

Because the moment we turn our backs, the fireworks always start up again. And I always want to be close enough to realize it's not time to leave yet. Close enough to have you pull me back. 

Let's. 

Sent from my iPhone

But I'm fine, I'm just fine. I am aren't I? Fine, just fine.

Because sometimes, when I say I'm tired, I also mean of myself.
I don't know why, but I am.
Frustrated with myself even. And then, tired of that.
Sometimes, when I say I'm tired, I mean of the things around me.
The way the world spins so perfectly on it's perfect little axis and I am left wondering if I will always feel this way.

If you ask me if I'm happy, I am. For the most part. And I am glad for that. Grateful for the life that I have and the things that I do and the fact that everyday I get to wake up and do exactly what I love.

But then sometimes, I wake up with tiredness sewn in to the lining of my bones.

Sometimes I wake up, like today, excited about my life and the things I have to do.
And I add to it with an amazing breakfast.
And go on to have a fantastic meeting. And other meetings that makes sense and that were good.
And somewhere, at some point, maybe during the third cab ride, or on the bus or on the final drive home, the tiredness hit me the way a knife finds that perfect spot right between your ribs.

Sometimes, when I say I'm tired, I mean physically, yes, but with all these other bits added to it.
The sort of tired that hangs on your clothes, and slips out from your fingertips.
The sort of tired that makes you want to curl up with bottle of wine and My Best Friend's Wedding on repeat.
The sort of tired that makes you ask yourself when you ever started running in the same rat race you've watched generations before you run. And how come you didn't even know when you started.
And you wonder just where the finishing line is. And try to get over the fact that it's likely pretty damn far away because you're only just starting your career.
Try to get over the fact that maybe, there isn't actually a finishing line.
You just keep running.
Faster, and harder, your feet pounding on the floor until it burns your insides, and takes the form of the car with the obscenely priced COE or the piano lessons you feel your children have to take or the Condominium that you bought because of a gym that you now never even have time to use.
And you run, and run and keep running. Faster, harder, to send your children to the country best known for the fields they want to major in, for the large Christmas gatherings that make catching up more convenient because everyone's in the same place, for the swingset you'll get to sit on when this is all over.
Except you don't know when that'll be.

And you run, and run and run until,
You're tired.

Confessions of a--

It's always really hard to realize, and then to admit that however well-intended your actions might have been, they have always been subconsciously rooted in a bad place.
A place not of strength and/or wisdom but of emergency, need and in some cases, obligation.
It's really hard to admit that maybe, like the programs and the writings and the stories that you birth, you provide all the things you wish could be given to you instead.
It's really hard to admit that you can't always save the world.

Mostly though, it's really hard to admit that for the longest time,
you're the one that's needed saving.

flash

it's not a big deal. it's going to be okay.
for whatever reason it is, I haven't seemed particularly disturbed by it for a really long time. So there's no reason to start now.
We'll just um. See how it goes.
and it'll go fine.

it's not a big deal. stop freaking out.

Of all the promises he could keep

I don't understand why anyone would ever willingly go rummaging through a box like that. 

Really? How much do you possibly think can get fixed in an hour, let alone half of that? Maybe most of me is not ready yet, granted. But I don't see how... I mean...

You know, I don't even know. 

Again, isn't this just me having to sit with this stupid box and its spilt contents all by myself? 

What's supposed to happen between then and now? 

Why don't you tell me what to do with this mess on my hands?

Que Sara, Sara

Sometimes we find a regular show to latch on to, and let bits of it seep into our lives. Sometimes we draw parallels or find double images that aren't really there.
For me, that's How I Met Your Mother.

So coming from the end of Season 7, I realize that every so often, I look at where I want to be and how to start on the path towards that. And yes, those plans have taken hits. And beatings. And heck, fucking hailstorms too.
And they've changed, and/or been worked around, and/or completely thrown out the window. Five children, for example. Nope, not going to do that. Especially not for the sake of wanting to use my List Of Great Baby Names.
But however many transitions and reworks there have been, for some reason I haven't gotten to the point of just going, "You know what. I don't know and I don't care because the plans always change." Well, not yet anyway.
Which, I don't know is altogether a good thing.
I mean, I'm not overtly-ambitious I don't think, or unrealistic. Wanting five children and my own recording studio when I planned to marry a boy who didn't even know what he wanted to do as a career, now that's unrealistic.
And yet, sometimes I look at the plan and wonder why it keeps changing. More than that, I've been starting to wonder why I even still draw up plans as they change.

A few years ago I felt like I was at Point A, knowing full well that I wanted to get to Point B except with no way of getting there. Or not knowing how.
And sometimes the terrible bit is the in-between. The trudging along in the same direction until you get there. Almost two years ago, I made a choice that allows me to go 100% in one direction. Because, as The Acting Corps taught me, you can't go 70% one way and 30% in another.

There are things that I want, that I know wait for me at the end of each phase.
And while one foot in front of the other sure as hell seems like it'll take too bloody long to get anywhere, at least I'm moving right?

The sound of ripping tape and retracting blades

Today I am scared.

I think sometimes it's better when you don't have time to brace yourself for things, when I can talk about painful things the way I always do; lightly- like I haven't spent hours feeling like I'm choking on my own vomit. casually- like I haven't tried to scratch inside my own skin to be clean. Carelessly- like there isn't still something stuck at the base of my throat, like there aren't days that I can still hear him.

I don't know why some days are so much worse than others. I don't know why I find myself crying at all the wrong times, and when I'd much rather not. I'm okay. I'm fine. I'm almost over it.
Aren't I?

I guess I've just spent the last few weeks taken aback by how talking about it, even only briefly, in a particularly setting, makes my heart start pounding and my hands shake. Perhaps at the knowing that we'd eventually get here. That after months of sitting on this soft couch, there are deeper buried things that need to be dug up so someone can fix me. Or at least try to.



I shouldn't have chosen today.
I need to be a better actor.

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The rest of my life

So, as financial plans always tend to do,
I got started on thinking about things a little further down the road.
Okay here's the thing, I do that on a pretty regular basis anyway. But when there are more tangible things to take into consideration, when you're discussing investments and life coverages with your financial consultant who's been with you for the last three years (and you realize, "Wow, that's a while."), when the forms you fill out and the risk assessments have a column for your spouse,
when your consultant is less intent on telling you all about the newest plan and more interested in asking you about your priorities, I guess that's when you're more aware that it might be time for an upgrade in plans or you're at a good spot to reassess your life.

So here I am.

Which is a very different place from where I was when I started up my first investment/savings plan.
I mean now for one, I don't plan on taking off forever in the next five years. I've also been working for longer. I'm also counting down the years I've got left to save up for children. I don't know how healthy that is but let's not go there.

If I'm going to be talking about priorities, then it's family.
More so now than five years ago. Family like, my family now, and the one that will come along in time.

This whole thinking ahead's always given me pretty pictures, but I think it'll do me good to start sifting through what I want and where I want/ need to be and see head in that direction.

In repair

Would you like to know the truth then?
I've been afraid.
Of what this means, of what will happen of why it sometimes feels like my insides are still breaking apart even though... Even though i'm in a better place now.

Also, I have been feeling uncomfortably child-like.

There are a few things going on that I'd rather not talk about with myself, simple because I'm afraid to. And I haven't felt like that before.
So. It's much easier to sip on green tea, open up the paper and read about a world of problems that do not belong to me.


_______________________________

But I've always missed you more than I was supposed to. Way too much to say, "No, you can't waltz back in and right into that space you left so long ago."
I couldn't.
Partly because I like, no I lie, I love that you're here. But mostly, mostly because I'm astounded at how perfectly and seamlessly you fit back in. I don't recognize it, but sometimes, it's like you couldn't ever have left.


But then all too soon, it's too soon. And the front door needs to be opened.
You're not mine to keep. You were supposed to be, but you're not. You haven't been for a while.
And too soon, I'm missing you more than I should all over again.



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Review

If ever there was a time for a life crisis, I suppose now would be the best time. After all, it's easier to cry now. To fumble about and trip and think, "Oh, fuck it all. I feel like waiting tables because it's something I've always wanted to try."

People make it through this, they always do. We're wired that way. Tripping along until we know how to walk.

This is precisely the time that I need to mess up and think, "oh shit." Be in a massive amount of debt and still be staring at some options that will add to that rather than help me out.

I tell myself, One day at a time.
Just, just one day at a time. I'll figure something out. I always do, don't I?

How it ends.

"Something's gotta give, it might as well be our fingers."
-Andrea Gibson


I get asked all these questions-
and I've got a picture of you sitting in the palm of my hand, tucked into my wallet, bookmarking writings of my life.

Walker, there is no path

Here's the thing:
I thought I'd be happy. I thought it'd hit me like a tonne of bricks. At least, the relief at having made the decision.
But I'm not.

And here's why-
The truth is, I wish I could. That the situation, it wasn't like this for me. But I am trying to be honest. And in a world full of faceless people and tunnels with no light, in a circle where every face is familiar but no one knows anybody,
I am trying so, so desperately, to be honest.

And this is me going in that direction I suppose.
The harder way, the longer way, the certainly more expensive way I'm afraid.

I don't want to let anyone down, and I'm sorry that it already feels like I have.
But I'm chipping away at stone and brick to find a path that will last as long as wakes in the sea
and hopefully, I'll meet you on the other side.

Sent from my iPhone

Will you?

Someone tell me why I'm feeling like this tonight?
Because I...

I do a good job of pretending that i shrug my shoulders all the time and say C'est la vie.
Or I've done it enough times for it to look believable. But.

You know, I love you too.
But if this is going to hurt, tell me soon won't you?

______________________________

I need to run. And cry.
And run.
And cry.
And keep telling myself that I can outrun me until my legs give way.

______________________________

It's been a really long day.
And life.

I really need my best friend now.
I just kinda wish the money in my ez link card was enough to hop on a plane to get to her.

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Heart

"don't think about it so much, okay?"
"why?"
"why you should stop thinking about it?"
"yeah."
"because. You already know what you want. "

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two drifters, off to see the world

It's this,

this numb, floaty, slightly disconnected feeling you get

when you've stuck a needle in your vein and you're staring at it.

Except you're not quite disconnected.

The one thing you're connected by is this tiny twitch of a pain.

It's that moment somewhere between vague discomfort and pain etched in the anticipation of pulling the needle out when you're done feeling all the things you think you needed to feel.

Or at least it is sometimes.

Only during the best of it.

Most times it's the aching absence of weight that you didn't even know you could miss.

The fullness of your name sits heavily, so heavily on my tongue,

behind my teeth,

like something I would bite into to tell myself that it's real.

That you are.

I went running. And I thought I would scream, because I kept running up against myself. I couldn't breathe, kept tripping and kept coming too damn close to screaming your name. The name my breath could spell out in the dark.

Instead,

my body's been folding.

Folding inwards, around the cold space that you have left such a long, long time ago.

Has it really been that long now, how did those years pass me by?

And if it's not one name, it's another.

Circles, I'm always going in circles and that fucking tape plays on a loop and my voice cracks at dinner and it's just a note too high or three or four, I don't even know anymore.

I want to tell you.

I want to tell you how sometimes you can't be hurt enough physically for the world to know what's been done to you.

You didn't, after all.

(But that's not your fault. Really, I'm just saying.)

I want to tell you how, believe it or not, you don't have to have drank at all to blank out.

To find that you are floating overhead,

watching the whole thing happen.

To feel the time crawl by

as you count the distance between you and the blade by your bedside table.

The one that sits atop your leather-bound bible;

full of promises that you will cling to all your life afterward.

I want to tell you how the worst pain you can feel is sometimes,

most times,

not even physical.

And it sits with you and burns the inside of your skin,

its laughter snaking along the walls of your inner ear.

I want to tell you how that pain brings me full circle to a different sort of pain that happened too soon after that.

And how my breath catches again with a name I can't say aloud,

and an ache I'm not supposed to feel anymore.

And how, some days, I feel like I want to disappear.

And how, I reach for a book on my shelf

that hits too close too home.

And how I run and run and run and even when it's gotten darker I can still

see my shadow and it weighs me down with the knowledge of all the things

all the things I cannot outrun,

even if I tried.

I want to tell you that the whine and whirr,

or the ringing or the sound of merciless hacking that fills my ears just before I fall asleep is sometimes

the only thing I can hold on tight to as I drift off.

I want to tell you that I could do with someone saving me.

But I don't know where to start.

we were after the same rainbow's end

and we all fall down

She didn't want them to fall apart, didn't want them to break.
So she's trying.
Maybe that's wrong- wasn't she always the one who said not to hold on to things too tight?
She's trying, but then why does this still feel so painful. Why does it feel like she's running in circles. Why does it feel like she's empty, empty, empty and there's no one to hold on to.
Why does that make her sadder; when she's been here before, when she's learnt to stand on her own knowing you can reach for someone's hand, inches away, and have your fingers not catch theirs.






and the room it spins. It spins and spins and spins.
come on now, catch up. Pick up your knives, your candles and run, keep running. And if you think you're running in circles, you are.
The room, it spins. It spins and spins and spins.










let me be enough. love me.
make me believe.

Best before:

I feel like I might end up on some crazy, mad rampage. That I'll start flipping tables, breaking glass and hacking away at the walls of my room with the wrong end of a hammer.
And then I'll crawl into bed crying because I don't know what's happening but mostly because i really like the walls of my room and i'll be upset that i've ruined it.

I am sick of being so polite and so considerate and not thinking about the things I want. Or asking for the things I want.
Because you're raised on fairytales where if two people love each other a whole lot, then they can read each other's minds. And they will know exactly when to come over in the middle of the day and pull you into a cuddle and say, "You're not wrong. I love you. I love how lilies are your favorite flower because of the smell but you don't keep them in the room because I'm allergic. Secretly I also love how you honestly don't need anyone getting you flowers, much less the person you're with. I like your hair whichever colour it is, although maybe a whole head of green might make me feel like I'm smelling grass sometimes."

I don't need to be swept off my feet, I don't need super special things to be done for me. I want to talk and be able to talk honestly. I miss the way you read me so easily but never assumed to know me. (not that you make assumptions about me now)

I don't want to feel like us meeting up or hanging out is just another thing we should do in the week atop responsibilities and commitments to the things that go on around us. And I don't want to numb myself to the ache of feeling like you don't really need me to be there. Because I have done that before and for too long and it's not a very nice feeling. I don't want to emotionally check-out of being with you, ever, just to keep myself safe. Because then what's the point?

Sometimes I think that I'm pushing this, forcing us when actually, there's an expiry date and we're pretty much getting there. But then I break it all down and look at the places my mind wanders to when I'm alone, the pictures I see in my head and the lines that I read; it's always about you.
And not because I 'happen' to be with you or that there are cardboard cut-outs and wooden theatre sets that create scenes and I'm just mentally photoshopping you in because you're the person-of-the-moment. It's not like that at all, because I can see you in a whole lot of things even when it's not in direct relation to me.
And I re-realize, that maybe you mean a lot to me.


But then again that's not saying anything about expiry dates or how you may or may not still feel about me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's okay to not want me around or to not want to be here. It's okay if somehow we've ended up on different pages. Just maybe, there could be a way such that I won't find myself feeling like things will crumble when I touch it. That I won't just feel like i'm the one who's always ruining it all or making it difficult.
That I won't wake up one morning to find that I've slipped away so much that I've ceased to exist.
And that so have we.

p.s. So, I love you too.

Post-drink conversation

"So. Are you going to breakup?"
"uh. Why would you ask that?"
"Cos don't most people break up when stuff like this happens and when they feel like this?"



We were the clock-hands at midnight.
But maybe I didn't realize when I ended up four whole hours behind.

Your turn.

You know what?
I give up.

I just want to go to sleep. Want to stop trying. Want to stop being annoyed or frustrated or think, "really? This is going to happen?"

It's great. Just great.

Also, I've been getting minor (but very present, albeit short-lived) moments of paralyzing panic whenever I think about the semester in wait.
It's like a joke. It's like a sick joke except I'm the one pulling the prank on myself.

I'm tired.

So you know what?
I give up.

When the world calls in, tell them to take a message.
I'm taking a break from my life.

Goodnight.
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