Skipping my fitness class didn’t help. Either did everything I ate. The three small slices of cake, the packet of kiddies’ crisps, none of it helped stop the inevitable. I was in the shower and could feel the saturated fat cling to my hips, I swear, I could feel it harden on my hips and around my stomach. I could feel my face filling out and getting chubby. I could feel the food sitting in my stomach ready to burst.
The water washing doing it’s usual job. Usually it doesn’t just wash away the day’s work, it also normally washes away the bad feelings. It washes away my daily battle against an eating disorder. Maybe it has been recent events getting to me, but other than that, I can’t see why after over a year of recovery, I am relapsing for the second time. I stuck my fingers deep down into my throat and I really had to work to get sick. There was a time when I could do it on demand, but this time, my body wouldn’t allow it.
Now, not only do I feel worse that I did before, my rib muscles are burning and abdomen is strained. My heart has sunken right to the pit of my stomach which feels heavier than the food had. I am a failure, a weak and feeble person. I just wish I knew what made this all start, I wish I could put a pin in how it all began and when it all began.
Walking in the freezing cold, almost midnight air, I am calm, finally. My head has been spinning just because of you. You destroyed me, or so I thought, but now as I can think clearly for once, I see that you just put my life on hold. I can start living now. I can be free. Walking up here I can see everything, I can see all the streets below, no matter how far apart. I can see mine, nearby, and I can see yours, a bit further away. I can see in my minds eye, you lying in bed, asleep as I walk in the bitter cold, finally shelving my idealisms of you. You went to bed as you always do, wondering what if… and you deserve that uncertainity. You don’t deserve my devout love, and I do deserve you, the man who is everything to me, but now I see that I deserve someone who can give me more than devastation and grief, someone who knows what my love is worth. Because up here I can see everything. My head is clearer than ever, it’s almost as if the crisp air cleansed my thoughts and gave me the kind of epiphany you only read in novels. I love you, but I don’t need you anymore. I don’t need the pain, I don’t need the constant yearning. I just need to be happy.
At home I’m lying in bed settling down for a peaceful night’s sleep with my cleansed heart and free mind. And… I’m back to normal, back to needing you. I see you, beside me, mouthing “I love you” to me as you drift asleep. I imagine you are in my bed, keeping me safe like you should be, keeping me warm and happy. I need to put someone else into that picture. What ever force it is that makes our lives pan out the way they do, please, please give me someone else to love. I hate you, please get out of my head. Please. What did I do to deserve this?
Spending the night tossing and turning is usually the result of a mind, set racing because of a troublesome day, but my day had not been troublesome. I spend my saturday tidying around the house, fixing a disappointingly bland lunch, emailing editors and catching up with an old friend of mine. For the first time in a long time, I was trouble-free, and the man who usually has held of my thoughts did not do so for almost an entire day.
My friend Agyness and I met up tonight for your quintessential night in; ridiculously clichéd chick flick, 10 things I hate about you in case you’re curious, some chocolates, a tarot card reading session and of course, Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream. Even the movie didn’t conjure up over romanticised images of the man who almost ruined my life. When, normally, the smallest allusion to love would force me to imagine that I was back in his arms. But no, I did not even remark on how I had not thought of him, until now that is.
After adding some calories to my slender body and laughing at the ridiculously simple jokes in what is undeniably a feel-good classic, I headed to bed feeling unusually satisfied with my day’s deeds. I began tossing in my bed as the damage springs popped and scraped, inches away from my back. The popping noises and incessant creaking made me want rip the damn thing open with a butcher’s knife. But it wasn’t just the discomfort, it was the reason why the bed was so uncomfortable and noisy. A night well spent over a year ago, that often finds its way back into my unmoving mind. I need not explain to you what caused the mattress to become so distressed, I am sure that you know how such things can happen. However it was not that night that was spring back to mind as you might have thought, or as I would wish. If that night was consuming my thoughts, I would not have been tossing and turning, but instead I would be lulled to sleep by a perfect memory. No, instead, other memories came back to my stubborn mind, a mind unwilling to give me 24 hours peace. The man the night was spent with took over my thoughts, and the coldness within him that had torn me apart.
One night in particular raced around my mind over and over causing my night to be a restless one. We were arguing over his impression of me. And his lack of respect. He kept saying over and over “you only care ’cause you’re mad for me.” He had hit a sore spot because I had been trying so hard the past few months to disguise my love for him. When he noticed how his words had cut into the already open wound, his eye glimmered with a joy that I had never seen before. A joy I can’t, to this day, quite put my finger on. We walked in heated silence, and I decided that I would tell him, what I should have told him months ago. It was caught in my throat when I turned and saw a half confused, half frightened look on his face. His eyes, formerly joyous turned cold, and he just said; “I’m going to my mates.” He walked away, without a goodbye, and without a touch, or a kiss, just with utter, utter coldness and not an ounce of consideration for me. Seeing his heartless stare in my mind’s eye yet again pulled me apart, but what really hurts, is not how he treated me, but the fact that it is a year later and he is still consuming my thoughts, and he still knows just how to dig his grubby nails into my heart. Every word he says cuts deep, every corner I turn, I expect to see him, everywhere I go, all that matters is him. When is going to end?
“Cause you don’t really love me, you just keep me hangin’ on”
Every now and then you find a song that fits in perfectly with how you feel. I have had several songs in the last year that have crept up on me with reassuring lyrics. A song like that often gives you comfort because you feel that while you may stuck in a misery that won’t fade, you’re not alone. At least one more person in the entire world feels the same about someone else. It is the strangest sensastion. The lyrics are so close to home that they weigh down your heart, but a smile comes with the tears, because you have some new way of releasing these emotions: blasting the song as loud as you can, and sing it at the top of your voice. There is very little like it.
Yesterday, a friend and I why were rooting through some of the songs we used to sing together when we were children. Some of them really hit home with us, mainly because we had been going around singing songs that we really didn’t understand at the time.One of the songs that really moved me was Kim Wilde’s version on “You keep me hanging on”. Word for word this song spells out what I have been going through recently. If you cast your mind, or your eyes, back to previous posts, you will recall my hopelessly dramatic “get out of my life” to the one that got away. I say the one that got away, but he keeps turning up everywhere. Almost everybody has had that person you need to get over but can’t, because they keep showing up. It has been destroying my sleep, my mental well being, and seeing as how my wishes were ignore, I find it exhausting. Basically I can’t move on knowing I could see him anytime. And he knows that too. I hang on to every shred of hope that maybehe hasn’t gotten away. It’s just taking time for him to realise that we are perfect for each other. I may as well let the lyrics speak for themselves. Enjoy the video, if it makes you feel as old as it made me feel, I am sorry!
Set me free, why don't you babe?
get out my life, why don't you babe?
'cause you don't really love me
you just keep me hanging on
Set me free, why don't you babe?
get out my life, why don't you babe?
'cause you don't really need me
but you keep me hanging on
Why do you keep a-comin' around
playing with my heart
why don't you get out of my life
and let me make a brand new start
let me get over you
the way you've gotten over me, yeah
Set me free, why don't you babe?
get out my life, why don't you babe?
'cause you don't really love me
you just keep me hanging on
now you don't really need me
you just keep me hanging on
You say although we broke
you still just wanna be friends
but how can we still be friends
when seeing you only breaks my heart again
and there ain't nothing I can do about it...
Get out, get out of my life
and let me sleep at night
'cause you don't really love me
you just keep me hanging on
You say you still care for me
but your heart and soul needs to be free
now that you've got your freedom
you wanna still hold on to me
you don't want me for yourself
so let me find somebody else
Why don't you be a man about it and set me free
now you don't care a thing about me
you're just using me
get out, get out of my life
and let me sleep at night
'cause you don't really love me
you just keep me hanging on
'Cause you don't really need me
you just keep me hanging on
How to cook a chinese meal, How to make your own stylish clothes, how to feng shui your sex life, all reasonable “how to’s” that can, and often do if we actually bother with the tips inside the cover, change certain aspects of our lives. But how come there is no credible “how to” for dealing with a broken heart.
I am no longer in love with “the one” or “him” as I referred to in an earlier post. But heart still hurts from the way in which he treated me, and more to the point, the fact that he is not mine, and most likely will never be. This broken heart has definitly taken it’s toll on my already flimsy self-esteem, I honestly regard myself as hideous and useless. I also can’t understand how anyman could ever find me attractive again. I am broken, it’s not just my heart. Although I would no longer give my soul to have him in my life, so why do I still think about him all day, everyday? I have accepted that he is not my “one love” and that I will find someone who makes my bones quiver one day, but is that really my how to? “Iva yu just have to start seeing someone else?” that’s my how to. The advice my friends give me. I loved “him” and he owns a part of my heart and always will, no matter what he has said or done to me, so I am supposed to just date whoever comes along? Perhaps my friends have never experienced real love, but I am sure anyone who has really loved someone will agree that it is not that easy to get over someone. When someone new comes along, there just isn’t enough room in your heart for them when you are still in love with someone else, and when you are not still in love, you are afraid of being crushed again.
If my “how to” is to meet someone else, where do I meet them? I can’t just start flirting with every guy who crosses paths me, and if I did do that, it wouldn’t get me anywhere. Or at least it wouldn’t get me a new love. My own remedy is writting, but it does not help me move on, it helps me release the reality into some other medium so I don’t have to own the pain anymore. I have gotten tired of the strangling feeling on my heart weighing me down and stopping me from living life free from this crippling love. All I can do is ask how to move, and there are no how to’s. I feel as though I will be trapped in this unrequited love for the rest of my life, I will not get better until someone who is worth the anguish comes along. And they won’t cause anguish to write about. I just want someone who loves me back, I want a best friend. I want the love of my life to not be him anymore.
How can one tiny girl deal with all this hurt with a little “how to” help?
I have made a promise to myself, and it is working so far. I promised myself a few months ago, that I would refrain from sexual relations with anyone who was not my boyfriend. Being single, this has become a bit of task. I seem to have a 5 month threshold. I have never gone more than five months without sex since my first experience when I was 18. It has been almost four months and I am… feeling the pinch.
I am in a daily battle, I am stuck between my principles and my sexual urges. Each day I consider phoning the one person I shouldn’t, and degrade myself by telling him “yes, I am available”, when I am completely and utterly not. It is simply my raging hormones and love of sex taking over every aspect of my life, and it is frustrating to say the least.
I recently told an ex to get out of my life and never to even attempt to worm his way back in. He was a cold character, a heartless, immoral scum bag, and he responded to my tearful flood of emotions and desperation: “Call me if you ever want sex” How disgusting. however I must confess that I do consider, or at least have been for the past week, taking him up on this, getting what I want, or more to the point what I need. But at the moment I am strong enough to realise that it would be the worst thing in the world for me to do. To let him have that power over me, even if I need it, would be degrading and shameful. I don’t think I could live with myself if I had sex with him again, but honestly, I think it would be a very satisfying thing to do. I could have sex with him, and get rid of the frustration that is hindering my daily routine, and move on. Is this the reality though? Would it not just make me fall in love all over again? I can easily say that yes, I have finally fallen out of love with someone who took over every fibre of my being for so long. I am not in love with him anymore!! If I could shout it all over the city I would. But I would like to give in just one more time. One passionate, steamy, no-holds-barred time. What am I going to do when I get to the usual madness time of five months? Daily, I slip into fantasies, no matter where I am, at home, on the city bus, in work, these fantasies take over my body and I get lost in them. The frustration almost brought me to tears last night as I sat on the bus and uncontrollably imagined him holding my body tight and sinking his teeth into my quivering skin as I whisper his name and my lips caress his shoulders. I don’t want him. I want his body and his knowledge of mine.
I am a woman, I have needs, but I also have virtues. Everything in life is a contradiction.
I am by no means a religious person, therefore, “saint days” as we call them, hold no relevance to me, unless of course you count the ones that give me a day off work. In which you can call me a devout catholic. Agnosticism aside, it really does bother me that SAINT Valentine’s day has, over the years, become simply Valentines day, the day of love, when we spend a ridiculous amount of money on a “holiday” that really doesn’t mean anything. Regardless of the fact that valentine’s day does not actually have anything to do with love, it has nothing to with its patron either. Perhaps the “saint” has been removed so as not to alienate other ethnicities, to make the so-called holiday more approachable and open to all.
Apparently the holiday as we know it was formed by the british when they started to send cards among each other (they being the gentile) to celebrate what was then a rather exclusive holiday, word spread, and now we are all buying each other heart-ridden cards and bees dressed as lovehearts. I swear it is not because of my newfound bitterness, but it all seems to be a bit of a joke now. At this time of year you can move for fear of someone asking you the dreaded question “what are your plans for valentine’s day?” What are my plans? I plan to do what I do every Sunday: See my family, eat the best dinner of the week, do some writing, and maybe see one or two friends. Meanwhile admittedly feeling a bit jealous of those who have someone to make a fuss over. But overall, the day has nothing to do with love. your boyfriend might buy a dozen red roses, a giant teddy bear, or even a diamond necklace, but does this mean he loves you? When he buys you flowers or cooks you dinner, or even buys you a dairy milk on any other day of the year, then you can consider the possibility that he loves you.
It is nothing but a day of torture for those who are not used to spending valentines day on their own, or who have just broken up, or who have just come face to face with their own singledom. Otherwise it is torture on the pockets of men with high=maintenance girlfriends.
Who wants do join me in an anti-val-day protest via wordpress? post your anti-loveday rants, or your pro-pancake tuesday celebratory cheer. A day which is being grossly overlooked this year as it competes for supermarket shelf space. Maybe next year it won’t be so rough. Or are we a population doomed to be taunted by those who have actually found “the one”?
You spend weeks moaning about nothing going on and then you are wishing you could just hit the pause button, or hit the stop button all together. It’s even worse when it’s not your own drama in which you are caught.
Perhaps it is not wise to accept a call of help from friends who are not exactly your closest. But I have been helping a friend of mine for a while as he copes with depression and an infatuation with one of my best friends. I did nothing but aid him and guide him, but in the end, I was Paul’s enemy.
It all start when he decided to explode emotional turbulence in my direction about how my friend Ellie is irrelevant to his daily life and how he no longer finds her attractive , and that she is supposedly a “fat mess”. Now Ellie is an absolute beaut as her name may suggest, she is a bright-eyed full pouting young woman who steers clear of orange tan and extensions. A natural beauty as they say. So his comments are clearly encouraged by a deep seeded embitterment towards her for not returning the shallow emotions. The inability to express his unjustified hatred towrads the beautiful and kind Ellie, he turns to his free therapist, me, to unleash his inner, for want of a better phrase, asshole.
Now as you may have gathered from reading previous posts, I have been dealing with a lot of inner demons and outer demons, as it where, and he decided to pick up on what he knew were my insecurities, and throw them in my tearful face. As he battered my all ready weakened soul it felt as though the very happiness within me had been sucked out through my feet and my heart hung in my chest like disgarded plastic bag, caught in a leafless tree. Now I ask myself, the love my life had this power over me, to make me feel drained and insecure, now anyone can do it. Am I better off taking his stance on things and removing those from life who just seem to mess it up?
or am I the only one who is messing my own life up? They say we create everything that happens in our lives. Am I really to blame for all the misery in my life, and the things people say to me that rip my heart to shreds. I may know that I am a woman now, but when am I going to know who I am?
Almost every woman has a “him”. Almost every man has a “her” as well i’m sure, but obviously as a heterosexual woman, I can only Presume that the pain of having a “her” is the same as having a “him”.
I met my “him” in August of 2008. I think it was the wrong time to meet “him”. I should have met “him” now, when I am healthy, when I am strong and when I know what I deserve. If I had met “him” now, instead of then, I would be with “him” for the rest of my life. Instead, I am currently single, and will undoubtedly and unfortunately end up with someone who doesn’t quite make every bone in my body tremble.
I was not well of mind when I first met “him”. I was struggling to come to terms with the news that my grandmother, one of the most influential people in my life, was terminally ill. I had spent a lifetime in the shadows of my troublesome and wild sister, and had always been told that would never be able to achieve in even the simplest of tasks. To add to that messed up situation, I had been suffering with extremely low-self esteem, which ended up with having to deal with what I hope will be the biggest demon I come face to face with, depression and bulimia.
I was dealing with all of this when “he” walked into my life in an unclean, but extremely trendy club. We made ridiculously passionate love somewhere unlikely, and I never wanted to see him again. But he has been turning up in my life ever since. Hopefully however, this has changed because of a recent severing of ties I forced by screaming impassioned and heart broken expletives at “him”, followed by a ridiculously emotional “Get out of my life and never try to come back into it this time.” I spent that entire day crying and feeling worthless and hating “him” for ruining my life. I spent an entire year and a half offering my heart to “him”, but it was unbeknown to “him” , and even it had, “his” heart was never to be mine. I don’t think it will ever be anyone’s but his own for his animal instincts take precedence to everything and everyone else.
If I met “him” now it would have been different, better. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t my new found happiness have made it easier to be myself around “him”, and easier for “him” to fall in love with me? The answer is definitely no. As well as having a “him”, every woman thinks that “he” is central to her happiness when in fact, he is the core of her unhappiness, but the fact that “he” has treated her badly, and failed to return her love, is the very catalyst of her transformation. No I do not credit “him” with all of my sadness, or with all of my happiness, but the pain he put me through showed me that I can be strong, I think it is fair to say it is what made me strong. It is what made me realise that I am worth more. It has made me realise that not everyone has a soft center underneath a hard exterior, there are people out there who are just bad people. It made me realise that I don’t need a man’s touch to be a wonderful person, as I had previously and stupidly thought.
“Let no one who loves be called unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.”
