weak spots

Wow 

Today already feels shit and it’s only 10.30. 

You know that feeling when you hear something you’re not expecting, like bad news or you see something that hurts you in places you didn’t revenge know you could feel pain. It’s like you’ve been winded by an imaginary punch, and you feel sick and hollow all at the same time.

That’s how I feel today. 

Words hurt. 

I found the sticks and stones saying so stupid at school, and I still do now. Words can hurt. Words can hurt you in a completely different way, it’s not physical but it may as well be. And last night I heard some words that hurt, and I’m still hurting now. 

I can see how unintential the whole thing was, and how insignificant this all seems. But we’re all allowed to feel, and some of us feel things in a different way to others. We hurt over different things and we cry for different reasons. Some of us are tougher than others and can endure pain both physical and emotional without shedding a single tear. But for others, there’s weak spots and triggers and things that hurt for all different kind of reasons, and then that’s it. Day ruined. 

My day isn’t ruined. Not completely, because I’m determined that today I’m not going to lay in bed and cry. I’m crying now but I’m going to stop. And I’m going to stop thinking about it – eventually. But it doesn’t mean I’ll forget, and it doesn’t mean that this hasn’t just added another straw to a camels already pretty heavy back. 

I fell asleep last night wishing that I didn’t love as hard as I do. My mum always told me not to give all of myself to someone, because in the end, you always end up hurt. And I’ve always tried to live like that – kind of. But with this, I didn’t. I literally gave all of myself, days after it all began becaus I had no intention of ever having to give any of myself to anyone ever again, so it all seemed worth it. I had no doubts, no worries. I thought that this was my forever and that I could be as generous as I wanted to be with my love because it was all reciprocated. But now I’m not so sure.

w word

Hey. 

It’s been a while, I know. In fact it’s been almost two months since I last blogged and I have no idea why. 

I don’t even know why I feel the need to today as nothing particularly special has happened, I’m not crying, I’m not feeling especially hormonal, I’m not even angry. I just feel like I need to type. 

I should’ve blogged recently. There have been a few dark days and maybe one moment where I thought I’d lost myself. There have been plenty of tears and more drama than I’ve known how to deal with and I’ve learnt that we can’t expect others to treat us the way we treat them. But for some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to sit down and type about it, partly because I couldn’t understand it, but the other part, was down to accepting it. 

I’ve lost friends, mostly. To the point where I’ve started to feel lonely. Mostly today, because not only have I lost the kind of friends that I could make plans to see for a quick coffee or a full night out in town. I’ve lost the people that I would just message for a quick chat, or the ones that would come over for dinner or a glass (bottle) of wine. I’ve lost ones from nursery, from college and from uni ( yes it is possible to lose that many friends in a short period of time, trust me, I know) and in the process I’ve started to lose myself – just a little. 

You see, I don’t know if I’ve done anything wrong, not in particular. But I know that in other circumstances, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s not a circumstance that I would choose, but I’ve realised that the common denominator in all of these lost friendships is the w word. My wedding.

There’s been maid of honor drama, bridesmaid drama and who’s invited to the ceremony drama and in the process, a lot of people have been hurt for different reasons. 

They tell you this. In films and books. They mostly depict the bride as this crazy cold hearted bitch. Someone who won’t take no for an answer and is determined to have the day of her dreams, whatever the cost. Someone who will cut off friends without a second thought and will replace them with air headed bimbos they’ve known for 5 minutes. 

But that’s not me. I haven’t been that person. I’ve had to make some pretty tough decisions, yes. But none of them were from a bad place. I’ve tried to think of everyone involved but at the same time I’ve had to be a little selfish. This is my day, the only wedding day I’ll ever have, and so I had to make some cuts on the daytime guest list because we have wayyy more family than we originally anticipated, and I had to become tougher on my bridesmaids who made little effort to support me with shoe choices let alone hen do’s and dresses. And then there’s the issue of untimely pregnancies that coincide with my big day, and it when it’s the one person that you needed by your side, helping you with all of the big, little and tedious demands of the day, it was just easier to suggest that they took a step back to enjoy it all and then in turn, I could relax too, knowing that my helping hand wouldn’t be 8 months pregnant and exhausted by the time we got to 10am. 

But none of that matters. Not right now anyway. It mattered when I messaged each one of them, when I was frustrated or hurt by their words (or lack of) or confused by their choices and their decisions. But in 3 months time I will be married, regardless of who is there and what role they all have. And after that, all of this will be irrelevant and if anything, I wish that it hadn’t had to become such a big deal in the first place. I wish I hadn’t promised people an invite before we’d sat down with the guest list (and our finances), I wish that I didnt even need a bridal party, or a hen do. I wish that I could go back and tell myself 6 months ago that the things I was stressing over were going to push people away. But more importantly, I wish that I didn’t feel as though I’m the one to blame, because I’ve been told many times, that I’m not. 

But now regardless of everything, I’m facing spending next Friday night alone and sat here racking my brains trying to think of someone I can spend it with because my remaining friend is swanning off to Portugal and  my other half is with friends. And yes it is one night, and yes I will probably just binge watch TOWIE and sleep and stretch out in bed. But I suddenly feel really really sad that’s it’s come to this. I suddenly feel really really lonely.

puzzle pieces

The weather is beautiful today and I finally feel as though my mood is lifting. Whatever crappy feeling I’ve had over the last few weeks is shifting more and more towards happiness, and I feel so much better because of it. 

I think that when we’re angry or hurt or confused it’s quite easy just to ignore any attempts that the other party tries to take to put things right. It’s a lot easier to just stay angry than it is to sit down and accept what they’re trying to tell you, especially when you’re not sure if it’s something you’re going to want to hear. 

I’ve been like that for the last few days, I’ve been difficult and moody and I’ve just wanted to sulk in my own misery and I’ve taken every little thing the way that I’ve wanted to interpret it. I’m not saying that I’ve been wrong, but I’ve not exactly made things easy either. So yesterday morning, when we sat down and talked everything out, I asked the exact same questions I’d been asking for weeks, and I got the exact same answers I’ve been listening to for weeks, but this time, the  answers didn’t seem as hard to listen to, and it finally felt as though this whole scenario was over. 

I know that this might not be the end of it all and things might become awkward or distant again, in fact they most definitely will, because when you’re planning on spending your whole life with someone, you have to accept the good with the bad and recognise that not every day will be full of laughter and sheer happiness. That there will be tough times and nasty arguments and nights spent not talking and other nights spent only talking about the trivial things like money and time rather than cuddling and watching movies. I didn’t come into this relationship naive, because I know just how hard you have to work to keep it all alive. But I did become naive whilst I was in it, and I believed that every single day would be like those first few months, because we just seemed to fit so perfectly. 

And we still do, now more than ever. We just needed to give the puzzle pieces abit of a shuffle and adjust the picture a little. 

Because it’s not always rainbows and butterflies, it’s compromise that moves us a long….

.

Today is the absolute worst I’ve felt, in the longest time.

I can’t stop crying, I can’t stop thinking. I just feel so so so alone.

If someone had told me a year ago that I’d end up feeling like this, I would’ve laughed in their face. I was so unbelievably happy, I never saw myself being sad again, or at least not like this.

Sometimes I think in the long run, I’m just destined to be alone.

 

mapped out

I just started this post saying that everything had changed, but then I realised that’s how I’ve started at least two other posts on my blog, so I decided to delete it.

The truth is, everything has changed. I don’t really know when or why, and my guess is just that we’ve become familiar with one another and we’re out of the honeymoon period, well at least thats how it feels.

There are moments in some days that are still absolutely magical, and I don’t doubt how much we love one another, because I know its a tremendous amount – and it’s still growing, but just lately, we’ve seemed to go through some sort of transitional period, and the buzz from the first 5,6,7 months has changed into something else, and I can’t really put my finger on it.

In all honesty, I think that part of it does come down to living together, it’s something that we’ve both addressed before, but it’s hard to talk about it without it seeming like moving in together was a bad idea. But before we did live together, every time we planned to meet was basically a date. It was time, set aside specifically for us to spend time together and do something together. Even when he moved near me, for the first few weeks I didn’t stay over every single night so the nights that I did, the whole night was ours, and we’d binge watch movies and make snacks and drink hot chocolate, and in the day, when we had days off work we’d make pizza or go for lunch or binge watch more movies. We were always doing something together, which was fine because the time that we didn’t spend together, we’d do our own thing and it all balanced out.

But when you live with someone, that all changes. Because you’re together all of the time, you have to try and delegate your free time between spending time with one another and doing your own thing and enjoying some ‘me’ time and I’m not gonna lie, it was a lot easier to do that when that time was already mapped out.

Now theres no clear line of ‘me’ time and ‘us’ time. It’s all ‘us’ time that gets split off and broken into chunks where we have our own time and try to figure out how much time is enough or too much time to be doing something thats not with each other. It’s something that I know we’ll figure out, eventually, but it’s not just that. It feels as though the ‘us’ time isn’t as exclusive as it once was, because where we used to plan to do things together, now we plan when to do things apart and spend all of that other time figuring out something to do together.

I think I’m just emotional this week and everything just feels way worse. I’m really aware of everything at the minute, behaviour, actions, words. I just feel it all way more than I usually do, like my senses are heightened, and I think I’ve just realised how our communication with one another has changed. Even little things, that a year ago we were so excited to do, now feel more like a chore. In the beginning, any time together was special, whether that was shopping in Ikea or walking around Tesco picking snacks, or sitting in the car for an extra half an hour just to talk. It was all special. We talked way more, we laughed more, and I felt as though we were invincible. I thought that it would always be that way, which I knew was impossible but it felt like that at the time. Like we’d never stop talking, or enjoying each others company, or do anything just to see each other for five minutes. Now it feels more like we’d do anything just to do the complete opposite.

I guess that its normal for this to happen, when you become used to be around someone all of the time, and waking up together goes from being a three times a week thing to an every day thing. But I can’t figure our why I’m feeling it now. I mean, we’ve been living together for nearly 10 months. Or maybe it’s because we were still in that honeymoon period even then, when we first lived together, because we’d only been together a few months. I guess I do wonder sometimes what we’d be like if we were still living separately now, and whether we’d be in the same position.

Somehow, I think not.

 

 

strangers

We’re becoming strangers again. 

It started so subtly that I just put it down to a bad day, but now it’s becoming a bad week. And it feels like crap.

We’ve just had a week away and I honestly thought that we’d come back more loved up than ever. It’s not that we’re one of those couples that needed a break away together to fix things, but we needed a break from life, so we locked ourselves away in a tiny cottage up north and spent our nights playing scrabble and our days in bed eating rubbish and watching Netflix, which was bliss. 

But since we’ve been back, things have been different and our conversation has felt strained at times. I’m kind of feeling like it’s the harsh sting of reality and getting back into our daily routine that’s affecting us, and nothing else. Well I’m hoping anyway. 

But the other night he said something I’ve never heard him say. 

I’ve never ever heard him doubt us. Maybe once a long time ago, before we were even together when there were so many obstacles in our path and we were stuck in the ‘right person but the wrong time’ scenario. I was unsure and he reassured me, but I know better than anyone that you can only take someone’s uncertainty for so long, before you start to doubt things yourself, and I think that’s what happened with him. 

But that was a long time ago, and since then we never talk about breaking up, or if I ever do, or if make up weird scenarios where we’re not together or one of us dies or cheats he refuses to talk about it. It’s almost as if I’m talking about dragons or fairies or pigs flying. He treats it like the most impossible thing that could ever happen, and it’s always been that way. 

But the other day he was responding to something I’d said and insinuated that there was a chance we could possibly split up, as though the future wasn’t certain. In fact he said ‘you never know.’ As in ‘you never know what the future holds, we might break up.’ 

Even though they weren’t his exact words that’s exactly how it felt. I’d had a long day, I was tired, I was stressed. But those words hit hard and more than anything, they hurt. It hurt to think that maybe he sees a future where I’m not in it, because I can’t even begin to imagine one where he’s not in mine. 

I don’t know if it’s been playing on my mind or contributing to this whole feeling, there’s other factors too. There’s money worries and a wedding to still pay for and the stress of work and just life in general. But something feels different and I can’t shake it. It’s like this weird mood hanging over us like a blanket and every morning when I wake up I can still feel it wrapped around us, some mornings tighter than others. 

I know we’ll be okay eventually, it’s just tough right now. Really, really tough. 

the cusp of adulthood

I’m 23 years old, I’ve had an birthday, I’m a whole year older and something feels different. 

I actually feel older. I feel as though there’s a part of my life that I really need to get in order, it’s like an itch that needs to be scratched and I won’t rest until I’ve done it. I need to stop being spending and start being a little more thrifty, and I also need to get my act together and become more organised.

 I feel as though I’m a woman now. 22 was like the cusp of adulthood for me, and for the whole year I felt as though I was invincible. I bought what I wanted, when I wanted. I got engaged after three weeks of being with my partner (absolutely no regrets whatsoever),  I booked countless holidays and getaways, and I just stopped caring about what I should be doing and focussed more on what I wanted to be, which felt amazing. 22 was my favourite year, because I discovered who I was and what I wanted and I was finally free to be the person that I’d been trying to be for so long, but 23 feels even better. It feels like I’ve entered this year already knowing all of these things and having tried and tested them, I’m now ready to adult, I’m ready to take life a little more seriously and I am SO ready to get married.

I feel happy and secure and certain that things are going my way, and most importantly, I feel as though I’m a person who deserves to be happy. That’s the biggest lesson I learnt at 22, and the 23 year old me is more than ready to embrace it

freedom

I’ve been a free woman for a year.

And when I say free, I mean it literally. 

I became free.

I’d been in a relationship for five years, and at least 4.5 of those years were toxic. Looking back, I was in love with the idea of being in love, and the idea of the perfect family. I swore that I would only ever have children by one man, and I also swore that I would never leave, because I was afraid of the unknown. I was afraid of being a young single mother with emotional and physical baggage, and I was certain that the shit I’d been through would ruin my chances of having another relationship. I believed I was damaged. 

I used to flinch at everything. I would cry in the shower almost everyday towards the end, and I contemplated suicide at least twice. 

I used to hang out of my bedroom window and wonder what would happen if I just threw myself out. I knew it wouldn’t be death, not instantly anyway. But it was a cry for help. I knew I’d be seriously injured, I knew that people would figure out I was unhappy and I knew that they would realise that I needed to get away. That I needed to be free. 

Looking back now, I have no sympathy whatsoever for my former self. I could’ve and should’ve got out sooner. I was weak and I allowed myself to fall apart when I’m surrounded by women who have been so much stronger than I’ve ever been. I’ve never had a man around the house, and I’ve never seen anyone rely on a man before. I’ve pretty much been surrounded and brought up by single women who did the handyman jobs (not always great but whatever) mowed the lawn, fixed the car, play fought with me, watched football, took care of bullies and basically filled two roles instead of one. I had a mum and a dad, without having a man around and I saw my Nanna do the same for my mum. I thought that I would never fall into the trapof falling for someone who treated me with little respect or anything less than I deserved, and if I did then I would kick him in the balls and leave with my head held high. I was brought up to say no if I didn’t want to do something or go somewhere, I was allowed to express my options whenever and wherever I could and I was sassy as hell. I threw strops, I argued even when I was in the wrong and I always thought that I knew best. I was demanding and impatient and took the biggest risks, not knowing if they’d pull off, but I knew my own mind and I knew that if I wanted something, I would get it somehow. 

But then I met him. 

He suffocated me, he diluted all of that sass and personality and stomped all over my kind nature. He took advantage of my generosity and my willingness to please everyone around me and moulded me into somebody nobody liked. He told me he didn’t like my friends, and gradually I started to look at them in a different light, especially when they said they didn’t like him. He blamed me for everything in his life that went wrong, he said my choices and decisions had left him in the shifty situation that he was in, and therefore his shit job, his lack of income and his poor uni grades were my fault. He told me I needed to tone up, that I’d let myself go too often so I’d spend ridiculous hours in the gym, buzzing off fat burning tablets and dizzy from skipping meals. I’d make myself sick just to lose a little bit of weight I’d gained from eating one two many takeouts that he let me pay for, every single time. He was jealous when I achieved anything, so much so, I considered rejecting a job offer just so I didn’t have to deal with him loathing me any more than he already did. And then when I took the job he pestered me so that I pestered them weekly until they gave him an interview. He accused every male friend I had of fancying me until I stopped talking to men altogether. He told me I needed to be more assertive on nights out with men who offered me a drink, to the point where I snapped at a man that got a little too friendly one night and ended up getting punched. He told me that I’d failed as a mother, when I came out of hospital with post natal depression and didn’t just fall naturally into the role like everyone expected me to. And worst of all, he put his hands on me to the point where it became normal. It started with him almost breaking my arm when he got so angry that he twisted it behind my back and shoved me against the wall. He told me he’d kill me and I believed him. After that I lost count. He pushed me down a flight of stairs mid argument, punched me infront of our friends because he was drunk. Dragged me down the street on the floor whilst I was pregnant because I’d been sick all day and couldn’t stomach date night and almost knocked me out in front of my mum when he punched me in the middle of the street and I hit my head on the concrete. He was violent and aggressive and everyone knew it. But I defended him to everyone. Our college tried to separate us and sent me to counselling and him to anger management. My teacher, my friends, my mum. They told me they were afraid for me but I didn’t back down. I thought that somewhere deep inside there was someone who loved me and that one day, he would change and we would live happily ever after. 

There was no happy ever after though. There was just argument after argument and in the end it wasn’t the physical abuse that ended us, but the emotional. He left whatever was left of me hanging by a single thread and for months let me believe that he was on the verge of leaving. That he could no longer put up with the person that I had become and that if there was one wrong word or one step in the wrong direction he would be gone. I was on eggshells, thousands of them and every day for two months I weaved in and out and tiptoed around them with baited breath. 

And then I met someone who encouraged me to start walking without fear. And I walked right over them. I felt them all crack beneath me one by one and I didn’t care. I didn’t care one single bit.

That was a year ago today. A year ago today I told him to leave. I didn’t care that it was 6 days before my birthday, or that we’d just celebrated our five year anniversary, or that I was in my final term of uni with a three year old and a new job. 

I told him to leave and it was the best decision I ever made. Because even now, with a fiancé, a four year old and a wedding in 6 months. I am freer than I’ve ever been. 

I am happy.  

a problem halved

I haven’t posted in 13 days. 

I’ve come to realise that I only post when I’m feeling really passionate about something, or when something is really getting me down. Although I don’t even know if that’s true, because I’ve just had the best week ever but I didn’t get the urge to post. 

Today I have though. My head doesn’t feel clear and I’ve woken up in a crappy mood. Such a crappy mood. The kind of mood where you feel as though you just need to let it all out, but you’re tired of going over the same thing. 

Yesterday I saw a post on instagram that said ‘if she mentions it more than twice, it’s getting to her’ and at first I thought what bullshit, but now I’m starting to really think about it, and I guess it’s true. 

I’m the type of person that can take a year and day to say what’s getting to me, or I can be completely blunt and tell you what I’m thinking almost immidiately, but both mean the exact same thing – whatever I’ve decided to tell you, is really getting to me. Because if it wasn’t, I just wouldn’t say anything at all. I hate arguments and uneccessary drama so the more I can avoid it the better. 

So If I mention something once, it has without a doubt been playing on my mind for a while and I’ve already came to about 62739 different conclusions in my head, probably had a few restless nights thinking about it and have gotten to the stage where I’m hoping that a problem shared is a problem halved. 

Now again, I’m not the kind of person who likes to go on and on, I just hate things becoming a thing or an issue because then every time you try and address it, it feels dirty or taboo. So mentioning the exact same problem again later down the line takes a little more work, and by this point I’m probably ten times more frustrated, the conversation will almost definitely turn into an argument, and I will at some point without a doubt reinforce that ‘we’ve had this conversation before’ or that ‘I’ve already mentioned this and it’s still the same, you’re just not getting it’. 

Yes I really am that predictable.

So by the time it gets to the third time, I’ve given up. I can’t be bothered to do the ‘we need to sit down, we need to talk’ thing. I stop being able to see a way to resolve the issue and become weirdly accepting of it, but almost in a dismissive sort of ‘I don’t care anymore’ kind of way and then I go cold on the whole situation.

I guess that’s where I am now. 

off balance

As humans, we have our basic needs. Food, shelter, warmth, love..  blah blah blah and unless they’re satisfied we can’t function properly and basically become these big balls of mess crying or dying on the floor.  Well I believe that I have an extra one thrown in just for good measure. Intimacy. 

It’s something I’ve needed right from the very beginning of time. I’ve always needed to feel close to someone, whether that was my mum, or when I got a older, a boyfriend, and irrelevant of the context, ive just always craved intimacy. 

Right now, it’s lacking and I feel like complete shit. I just wanted to be kissed or grabbed or held. I just want passion. I want to feel passionate. I want to feel wanted. It’s not even about sex. It’s about feeling that another person wants you just as much as you want them, and when you can’t feel it, it feels as though everything is off balance. I feel unsure and uncertain.

 I feel distant.