There's nothing like the smell of burnt wood in my hair! When you've camped out over night with a bonfire. The general atmosphere of camping where your cold and all your clothes damp, the warmth of that camp fire blazing on your face i adore. The crisp smell of a forest at night time, where you can smell the cold breathing against your ears. Wrapped up warm, with a marshmallow on the end of a stick and baked potatoes hidden by foil thrown into the depth of the fire. Where, through the gap in the trees above you, you see stars shining bright a million light years away. Whispers of "Ce soir on va voir les etoiles" and the tip of your nose is pink with excitment. The temperature rapidly drops, so you edge closer to your friends. A burning, magical glow engulfs you and you can't help but smile through the bitter cold.
Why does it feel like no-one understands. Here I am alone with only cold air for comfort. My nose touched by the frosty autumn weather. What should I say, how should I act? I’m good I say, I’m fine I fib. Is it better to hide away from my emotions, hide away from what I want to do, what I feel?
I’m losing control, it’s out of my control! I can’t do anything but let go, yet I’m holding on. Being pulled through this field of grass, wet up to my knees from the damp morning dew. I’m stuck where I don’t want to be right now, but theres nothing I can do.
Are you ok? Questions with a thousand answers. Yet they tell no truth. I need a friend like I’ve never needed one before, but can you see? Do you know it’s you I need, to hold me. To kiss me goodnight and let me know it’s going to be ok. Even if we both know it’s not, it’s not going to be ok, it never can be. Not right now atleast. But one day it will get better.
One day soon I might wake up and feel I have the strength to face the world of strangers, the life of ‘normality’ I am supposed to lead. I hope that day comes sooner. Waking at the moment has become a tiresome event never knowing how the day will lead. Will I make it through with a smile? Will I put on a brave face for everyone, because thats what they need? I will walk on. Walk on through this cloud. I can’t see through this cloud, its too steamed up with sadness. But when the fog is lifted, then I will smile again, then I wll say hey I’m okay, I’m fine and it not be a lie.
Yes, my friend, life is difficult when all you want is for that person you love so dearly, is for their wish to be granted. For them to go home, back to their father. No longer suffering, no longer in pain. No longer broken hearts surrounding them. Peace, this is what we need, she has it. This is what those left behind need to carry on their sleeves.
It’s talk of ’you have this’ and ‘I’ll get that’. Talk of a presence gone forever when still they remain. How can this be? One person already lost, another no, it can’t be, but it has, it’s already began.
"Here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapour in the wind, still u hear me when I'm calling, won't u catch me when I'm falling and you told me who I am, I am yours"
This pretty much sums up how I have been feeling over the summer. I felt as if I was fading away from everything that I have ever believed in, from all the things that make my life what it is. I am defined by the things I have experienced in my 20 years of being alive, which is not a long time at all. As if the one thing in my life that I fully and truly believe and trust in could be here one day and gone the next day. The belief that millions of people share, yet was it ever really gone? Or was I so blinded by my own selfish ambition as to fully comprehend its existence.
Today is the start of my second year at uni, and ironically I don't actually have uni today, but I thought I'd start as I mean to go on... by writing my first blog entry in quite a few months.
When you grow up you go through a lot of changes and I know that over the long 5months break I have experienced a lot of change in my head, my heart. New people coming into my life, new friends, some I know will not fade. Yet even amongst my busy time going from one country to the next, from one event to another, I still carried you with me. Then when it came to a stop, a halt, a massive slow motion picture, you were there to catch me as I fell. Fell into the doubts and confusion of this world, fell into an uncertainty and an eagerness to understand what it was, what it is that I believe in.
Some one once said to me "that it is not the size of your faith that matters but the size of the one in whom you believe that makes the difference". It certainly does. I may have found myself fading away from the one thing my life revolves around, but I sure know it hasn't gone. I am nothing but a wave tossed in the ocean, I am nothing but I am something, I am someone. But like all things in creation, they grow again, flowers are reborn and life is made everyday. My life is never as dramatic as I make it out to be, but it is sure comforting knowing it is significant, even in those days of 'nothing much going on'!
I think all of this is entwined into feeling uninspired this summer, so being able to write something again is a real comfort..
Hiccup is one word to describe my life at the moment. A little bit of a dry patch. I am the sort of person who loves adventure, loves to get excited about life and all the possibilities of it. But right now, in this particular period of my life I am not excited. I am not motivated. I am indifferent and unconcerned, I am not satisfied, mundane is how I feel with a touch of subdued.
I think today is the first time in a few weeks that I have sat down and found some really exciting things for a job that people are doing. All the things I looked at have one thing in common, they are all abroad. Out of this dreary country. OK. So I exaggerate, England is not that bad. However there is something about being in another country which makes it all that more exciting. My point is, I can't do them, these jobs. They have a Lil snag, which is that they cost money to actually to get to these places. If I am broke and trying to make money, this idea will never happen.
For those few seconds when I drifted off into wonderland world, I was in bliss, thinking about how amazing it would be to watch the sun go down over the Himalayas, to scuba dive on the great barrier reef etc etc.. but here I am back in reality, realising that I have the fantastic smell of Barking on my doorstep with a window of opportunity...
....opportunity to waste my days watching mindless TV. Or sitting on the Internet, that's right. Literally sitting on it because it stopped working half way through an episode of Loose Women!
Hopefully it will rain soon and this dry desert will be flourishing, bright and energized again! And just maybe.. this new forest might know what day of the week it is again.
Trudging through the crisp untouched snow, a single breath of cold air feels like daggers on your insides, its sharp pangs blowing down my throat making it dry, as if it would close up with one more gulp of air. One slow step at a time, making my way from darkness and sorrow at one end of the landing platform towards freedom, liberation at the other end which overwhelms my mind. Questions flying around my head about suffering. About God. Human nature. How could this have happened? How could anybody have let this happen?
Faces unfamiliar, strangers in another lifetime. This place, these people, this room, their pain. Where bodies perished and burned alive. Torture and pain combined with small acts of hope, the disgust of human kind, decay and sorrow as strangers lives are torn apart. My mind wonders as I am half way towards the entrance which is so much more than an iron gate patrolled by guards, but it now lays, empty, unoccupied. Darkness starts to fall, the gloves on my hands can’t keep out the freezing temperatures, I am wrapped up so well, I am clothed but they were naked. My hands are painful, my nose feels like it could drop off but they endured so much more. I can only imagine. It is so empty; nothing remains but the memory.
Shivers run down my neck through to my spine making my whole body shake, is it the sorrow I feel or just the cold? How will I ever express how I feel to anybody? All I can hear is the sound of crunching on snow so distinct, so rhythmic, like nothing else matters but to keep moving because if you stop. Silence would immerse the darkness, then and only then you may feel the faint whisper of death whip across your face leaving you feeling helpless. Time has passed by and there is nothing you can do to help these people, they have left, this world, this place. So it’s keep moving, don’t look back, you’re walking their freedom because their legs couldn’t make it.
Leaving, passing through the gateway, it’s only now I know I won’t have to face that in my life, that kind of suffering, never that extreme. A glimpse of life taken, how will I express how I feel to anybody? I know now, sitting at my desk this is the way. So much emotion whirling up inside ready to be let out, this is how I will express it. As I sit pen to paper still struggling with words, just simple words explaining all that aching inside yet when one word is written the rest will follow in full chorus. Through the depth of experience, this is how I write.
"Forever and ever, life is for now or never.. you'll never see me again and no ones gonna cry for you, you'll never see me again, no matter what you do"
Lyrics by September from the song 'Cry for you' which I first heard around December 2007 and so a story begins..
Talking to myself,
"I love this tuuune. who sings this?"
I started to hum along to the song on the radio, but forgot how much I disliked my out of tune voice so cranked up the volume a few notches more.
"That's better".
I was wishing I could saver these 3minutes of pure heaven with my windows wound up tight, scarf around my neck. It was an icy evening my windows were still not DE-iced yet, the luxuries of having a car the same age as you! I was so glad to have finished work today, and what a perfect song to go home to, at least it was upbeat. I had to refrain from turning over the radio to a more soppy channel. I didn't want to self-indulge any longer with those songs of 'and i keep bleeding' along with any snow patrol song, Westlife or Ronan Keating.
I needed to cut my ties loose and start afresh, throw out the rags and put on a new set of clothes, put on a new pair of socks and step out into the breezy unknown, you get my gist? Well, there I was rolling along through the streets almost home and preparing myself to be brave, put on a smile and remember it has to get worse before it can get better. Next song.
"Are you serious? I thought this was meant to be a really happy station"
as Avril Lavinge 'I'm with you' rings through my ears, frustration begins to boil up,
"You've got to be kidding me? It's only one song" I told my lonesome self, "it's bearable".
The red light stops me, as I wait impatiently, craving to get back to the security of my home. I notice a couple across the road laughing as they walk into a Chinese restaurant.
"So what?"
Amber, and I am off but I glance across the road, a stranger looks suddenly familiar,
"That's not him" I whisper in disbelief.
"No way. Oh, no wait, it's not"
I'm with you' softly surrounds me. My eyes blurred now, from a sickly song and a deceiving radio station! What is wrong with me today? I was seeing people and crying unneccessary tears. My phone buzzes in the door, stuck in traffic again i take a sneaky look '1 new text message. Read now'. "Hey :)".
"Is that it? Is that all he has to say to me? Why the FUCK did he text me?"
I angrily shouted at no one. All alone in my car I throw my phone on the floor.
Getting in the door I breathe in a waft of sweet curry, dinner must be ready but I didn't think Dad was home from work until tomorrow? He's not back, it's Luke who has left the food to heat in the oven. Oh my head is all over the place tonight. Taking my phone I read the text message again, yes, it still hasn't got any longer. Delete. Are you sure?
"Yes, I am sure",
I rifle through my phonebook and delete his number too. 'Forever' that's what he said. Today I achieve the award of first class fool. Tonight it is the bravery award, and tomorrow, maybe tomorrow it will be one step closer to contentment.
Stepping in my room I scent his hoody laying on my bed, I think it's time. I find my mum and dump the betrayal tainted items on her bed.
"Get rid of them, Please Mum" I look at her and stand in helplessness.
She hugs me tight, "No more tears now my dear, no more tears".
I hugged her back even tighter for fear of letting go she might see my red raw eyes. Back to my room, I slowly gather up all the old photos, cards and any other sentimental rubbish I had lying around.
"Here I go" I murmured to myself.
"Let him go".
The noise of the shredder echoed in my mind as I slipped into my PJ's and got into a hoody-less bed. That's better. Time to be upbeat, but not right now. Now is the time to let it out one last time I thought as a tear trickled onto my pillow. This time it felt neccessary. The flood followed and soon I was sub-conscious in a pool of aching tears.
writing a blog? what is this? what am i meant to write about on here?
Maybe this is just a freeway to let out all your anxities or emotions, yet i fear if this was the case i would either bore people or wouldn't have enough space to write..
I think the weather can sometimes match my mood, I don't know about you, but when it's really sunny outside something inside craves to get out of bed and go and enjoy life. There is something about the sun which makes you want to live a little, embrace the day and at the end of it, you can't remember why you don't get up early everyday and pack it full of things to do.
I guess for me, in perfect coincidence with the weather i often find things around me that let you down. People or situations you put your hope into and it's taken away in a brief moment you haven't realised it's gone until hours later.
I think it is key to be optimisitc in times you find difficult or uncertain yet being human and full of a mixture of emotions it isn't always easy. One thing I know I can always rely on is that one thing in my life that is full of hope, full of restoration and love. How could I have ever turned away from you? How could I ever weep those tears and not let you wipe them from my breaking heart. When I can't face the day, you can.
When I am on my knees and praying to you, something has happened to make me need you, because this weak frame can't muster the smile to tell the world everything is going to be ok. Without you I would be lost, blind in a sea of people trying to find the right direction.
Is this a tad deep for a blog entry? Or maybe this is just that release I need because when i try and talk it doesn't always happen, being an English student is an ironic part of my life. Constructing a sentence is difficult enough, finding the right words, not blabbing out everything other than what I am trying to say, everyone has a flaw right?