come all ye..

i am in my house, with tree and lights, and winter pimms.

there are people from our little road outside in the turning area, gathered in coats and hats singing carols and being merry together.

people keep asking me how i am, or how i think i am going to be, over these coming days.

he was going to be here you see, this christmas. the kids were due to be with their mother for christmas this year so he wanted to come here.

as you know, if you have been around these pages for any length of time, or been around me during this time of year, i love christmas the most. i love the detail of it, the routine and the surprise of it, the grandeur and luxuriousness of it, the music and smells of it.

and this year so far has held many of its usual charms. the sensory delights, the present-wrapping (i love that part..) and the figuring out how well you really do know your family in order that your present may be a joy to them and not just something else to find room in the house for....

what i have realised this evening is that being on my own or undistracted or unoccupied at this particular christmas season is probably not going to be the best thing. the silence is deafening.

i had a dream about him last night. probably only the second that i have had since 15/7....and to wake from it was, well, it was like losing him all over again.

this should now be qualified by saying that he was a GRUMP about christmas and drove me mad last year with his lack of enthusiasm for my favourite holiday....

tears stream

it just won't stop, this evening, lads...

out of nowhere, the crying came and now it goes on and on....

its bizarre. it stops for a minute but then its back on.

unbelievable

first aid..

so here it is...
the following is my smash hits poll winers of 2008, as ever a good three or four weeks before the end of the year, as per the -smash hits- regime...

the things i could not have survived this year without:

my brother, nicholas
my sister, fiona
sally
catelin
my phone
subway..chicken..hearty italian bread..foot-long with all the salad and sweet onion sauce..
-how to save a life-, the album, by the fray
gavin and stacey
the book of psalms
the 08:42 from the glos to the briz, everyday, sharp, monday to friday...
emily, who has been so faithful and phoned me every single week.....
the thought of that nose...
cigarettes
my mother and my father
my blog: the musings, the sheer volume of space, the comments and fans....
the knowing that i made him happier than he had ever been
the west wing, seasons 1 - 7 (twice..)
percol de guatemela..and the trusty travel mug for the train ride to work..
the daily emails from the forest crowd at work...
dara o'briain
facebook
No 7
my duvet
the peace that came from writing the eulogy..
the produce of the following musical artists:
dispatch
royksopp
scott matthews
arcade fire
stoney
elbow
john mayer
sigur ros

in addition, the knowing that if someone fell in love with me once, it might well happen again...
also, lavendar oil and tedious bill bryson books for the getting-to-sleep
also the australians, faithfully awake in the wee small hours!
dry dry dry white wine
the hope of moving back to the briz with one of my oldest and dearest in the new year...
stowfords
trof original everytime i have been in maanchester
the cheeky on-the-hop random googlemail/facebook chats that give a small lift, a word of love, a thought for the day or a genuinely-posed question as to my current state of well-being..
radio four

anyway, the end...

these are the things i cannot do without, and for your part in them i am most very glad..x

which dashwood are you?

i have recently been entertaining ideas about colonel brandon

i would like to air them here.

a disclaimer to cover and translate and clarify this whole post would be to say that i do not claim to have any immediate need for resolution or even process of this idea - that is to say, there is no man who has induced such thoughts, or sparked this particular bout of musing; these are thoughts that have come about through thinking about myself, and dear friend of mine....we were both mariannes in our youth and now i believe we may be finding the inner eleonor.

i am referring dear reader of course, to the sibling heroines of austen's -sense and sensibility-...i am referring, of course, to eleonor and marianne dashwood...

i cannot claim to be a great austennite, i am not sure i would ever want to be able to claim such. in fact i find the whole genre somewhat tiresome with its endless dramatizations and re-costuming...but i imagine that had i been a girl at her time of writing, i would have awaited her new books with such hope and probably some slight fervour, in the manner that i awaited a new blur album or christmastime book vouchers.....that replenishment of new sensory love, that stocking-up on new lyrical ideas and ficticious adventures.....that books and music alone can bring to me, film does not come close...nor pictures....not a visual learner, this one! i leave that to my catelin.

imagine, its 1846 (or whenever austen was around, i have no idea!) and you are 17, 18 years old....a girl...and austen is alive and writing in the world. imagine the thrill you would feel at knowing that you would open that newly printed volume to find a semblance of a stronger, freer, truer you, a you that felt your fetters but did not obey them or bow to her elders, a you that made time to read and study first and foremost, a you that would always rather see the scoundrel reformed out of love for you than marry a man you could guarantee would make you happy....

not so our eleonor...

you cannot help but love her. as maddeningly prim as she may be, as shriek-provokingly reserved, as much to blame for her own singleness as anyone else, you cannot help but love her.

but with marianne it is different, you can want to be her, she's the beauty, the flame, the siren of the household, still young and still not wordly, but free and impassioaed and poetic and romantic.

until perhaps you spend time with me and fiona you would not imagine that two sisters could be so different in real-life. she is eleomor to my marianne, always has been - and she, five years my junior!

as their story unfolds, and you watch like a car crash exploding and scraping and churning before your eyes as marianne falls in love and then finds herself betrayed, humiliated, abandoned and frankly, beside herself.

he is willoughby. he is wild and natural and unpretensious and adores shakespeare and speaks lyrically, with humour and flair, he has the capacity to adore and to express that adoration in public and dramatic ways. she falls for him the instant that he finds her, fallen and injured, up on the moor in a great storm. he lifts her as if she weighed no more than a twig! ensures she gets home, and call ths next day to check on her. 'what care i for colds when there is such a man!?' she is heard exclaiming, before he is even out of the house.....

the affair is mighty and tempestuous, they become close, shockingly close by the standards of the day, they are demonstrative and joyous in each-other's company.

eleonor finds it hard. not out of envy or embarassment, but out of concern for her sister. that terrible, grasping fear that one can only have for a sister, or a sister-like-friend, where you know that it is too late, and that you will be the one to help re-assemble her when it is over. she does not trust either him or her to be enough for each-other. she thinks practically at all times and looks to practicalities as excuses to not live her own life, to not live her own love or write her own story. she is the worker, the provider, the worrier.

but actually you know that she is in love, and that that love will take over her eventually, and that maybe for one moment she will allow herself sufficient freedom to let it out, let it breathe, let it be heard, received and returned.

when marianne's heart is, so coolly, so inevitably, so mercilessly broken, through the simple abandonment of her by willoghby for another, she grieves; she does this fully, intentionally, all-consumingly......it is worse than death to her - he chose not to love her anymore, he chose not to be hers anymore, but instead to adore another...

for marianne, this is the end of all that she has anticipated and longed for. it is the ruination of what she had always believed would be, when love came, the greatest acheievement and pursuit of her life, that to love would bring out the finest and best in her, that to be loved in return would be the most compelling, overwhelming and beautiful experience she could have to live through.

and now? what have i left?

well, colonel brandon transpires to be the most loving, attentive, adoring and impassioned surprise of a man that i have ever encountered in fiction. he has been secretly admiring her for the duration of the book, but would never have seen fit to offer himself to her, to ask anything of her, believing that she would not be tamed, that he would never be a match for her, that she would always want for more than he could love her with.

at her most broken he is there. not as an eager substitute, but as the one to whom she pleads 'you will not stay away long?' when he tells her he must away for a while......she soon needs him, she soon loves and wants him, with what remains of her she finds pieces enough to love again...

these may be seen as the leftover parts of her, the lost property, the shreds and shards of the whole that she used to be.....but i think that now i begin to see that the concentrated me is emerging, the essential, essence of that marianne, post willoughby, post death, post heart-break.....she becomes eleonor, she now sees love as something which must be beneficial as well as romantic, must be continuous and constant as much as it must be tempestuous, must be chosen as much - if not more - than it must be an involuntary falling.....

anyway, those were my thoughts...

there is

something tragically oxymoronic about having to put a double duvet cover on by yourself

mmmm

so today i ordered my very own copy of the extra special box set of lovely christmas music by the magnificent sufjan stevens....if you do not have it, you should re-think that....

+/-

so on the way home from fake london christmas yesterday i was thinking about how it was my worst and best fake christmas ever. i laughed more than i have before, the dinner was the best one we've ever managed and i felt honestly christmassy which was quite a feat given the earliness of it all....but i missed my boy, who at last year's faux noel was a newcomer, and who loved every minute of it...

and then while on the bus heading out through west london i was enjoying a song and grinning and tapping my toes and wishing i was driving myself in my own car so i could sing out loud to whatever it was....minutes later it was -covered in rain- on the ear-phones and i was doing the quiet-stream-crying that i have perfected during the hours of train-rides i have survived between here and the briz over the last few months.....and i realised that this is a fairly neat summary of the bizarre, other-worldly experience that grief starts you on and carries you through and semi-ruins you with...

there is simply no telling what may occur from one moment to the next. its like a very natural, hugely understandable form of something bi-polar, and i think that for me the balance weighing against the sheer devastation of it all, is the memory of his nose, his eyes, his skin, his shoulders, his children, his care for me, his speedy walking, his disehevilled appearance, his endless supply of trivial facts and his determination from day one that i was the one for him.

devastating, somehow equally....

i think that i have overcome my fear of it; i no longer panic at the ups and downs of it all. i no longer find myself gripped by the idea that it might never end. i know that it is not only unavoidable but that this mourning, this missing and this weeping is ultimately what will produce (and i think i may say tentatively, has already begun to produce..) the morning, the new skin over wound, the new scope for plans-yet-made...the new love for jesus who, it turns out, really does save....


i am still having the odd bill bryson night here and there (i read bill bryson and his tiresome, humourless anecdotes when i am unable to sleep...) but you know, advent is upon us, and you know how i adore advent...a time for expecting to hope again.....and again....and again...

pleeeease

can someone with a brain help me deal with this white-line business....?!

public service announcement..

so pals i discovered something recently that perturbed me somewhat so i thought i would share...

when you are a user of facebook, your information can only be seen by the people you permit it to be seen by, non?

unless...

...you are listed as being part of the facebook platform.

if you are listed as being part of the facebook platform, anytime someone googles your name, the results now almost invariably start with your entry on facebook. yes that's right, members of the platform are visible as being facebook members, including network and a selction of your friend-list (including their profile pictures) to the whole world, whether they are even users of facebook or not, let alone friends of yours on facebook or not!

"what is this platform of which you speak?" i hear you ask

anytime you add one of those wretched applications, you sign up to it.

so all those uber-pokes and travel maps and sending someone a graffiti fish, - that's the platform.

get off them now or people can see you on the internet who you haven't given permission to be able to see you on the internet!

its a difficult road we tread, this information superhighway. it has many pitfalls. this i believe is one of them.

sometimes

someone writes something that i find so compelling that i feel as though i am in the story, that i am the character, that the memories are mine or that i can hear, see and smell as their own fictional senses do.

other times, someone writes something, and i really do know a bit about being in that particular kind of story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/18/organ-donation-health-policy-transplant

i could not ever have described the transition from the old life to the new life any better myself...

so, weirdly:

i think today might be the first day that i have not talked about him at all..
feels funny

remarkable

so today is four months since the worst day.

and this week has been the easiest, clearest, calmest week that i have lived since that day.

leona sang this song on x-factor this evening and frankly only served to show just how bloody good the original was...

please enjoy the following snow patrol lyrics and instruct itunes to inform your reading if you are lacking -run- in your record collection....i particularly enjoy the idea that 'just for a few days' it might be this hard...

"Run"

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak
I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

sshhh

"Now - here is my secret
I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever acheive again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because i no longer seem capable of giving; to to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable fo kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love. "
by dear mr copeland, the final pages of -life after god-

now, can someone give me any just cause why a person would even consider writing a book, when this book makes me never even want to try, it is so whole and beautiful?!

so yesterday

i was nine years old in the lord
november 14th
wowsers

"show me some ingenuity!"

today on radio four at around mid-morning was a weekly show about 'work' and its varying wide-scale problems and pitfalls. this week's episode particularly focused on sickness and taking time out of work. the presenter exclaimed in his introductory splurge that the average number of sick-days per british employee in a given year is SEVEN, yes that's SEVEN days. he sounded truly horrified.

a lengthy discussion ensued between several guests on the programme, one of whom put forward an eloquent arguement about over-all health, and how if a person feels unhealthy on a certain day and feels sure that they would benefit from a day at home, then should this really have to be for reasons of 'sickness', bound within the confines of medicine and medication, of something quantifiable - i have a bad headcold, i have an upset stomache etc? and if it amounts to only the odd day every now and again, then this personal choice to restore and preserve oneself should be acceptable - that in fact our national concern over the need for a collective 'work ethic' is a discriminatory and largely unnecessary idea.

others argued that this is merely laziness and a distinct lack of responsibility, shirking the benefit of the majoirty in favour of the pursuit of one's most selfish desire to stay in bed, which can surely accomplish nothing and benefit no-one.

i listened intently to this debate, from the delicious warmth and comfort of my duvet, safe in the the knowledge that i believed myself to be unhealthy when i woke, late, at 7.45 this morning and made the split-second decision that i would opt out for today, that having lain awake til three am last night, i would surely accomplish nothing and benefit no-one by forcing myself to be wrenched from the rest that i had finally achieved.

i stayed in bed, friends, and i am not ashamed of it!

so...

....if a person was to be planting the very baby-sized seeds of an idea about writing a book that would aim to maybe lessen the culturally-engrained fear of grief, and to attempt to add to the journey of grief in a beneficial way, what would that person call the book? any ideas...?

the threefold heart command..

so for the last three years or so, i have had a piece of green card stuck to my bedroom wall...the dream wall, if you will (if you are a maine road ex-resident..).....written on it in my artistic (ha, read illegible!) scrawl is a note-to-self, in black pencil, that reads as follows...

rend your heart
risk your heart
guard your heart

except on the card it has a big heart drawn on the right-hand side, which therefore it neatly substitutes the word 'heart' in each line, and until SOMEONE freaking invents a -heart- symbol on computer keyboards (as per the simon amstell-related petition on here many moons ago!) you will have to have the out-moded written version on here, and just picture the real-life version in your head...

i think that i could scarcely have imagined when i wrote that note-to-self and pinned it up above the fireplace, just how painful, how exhilarating or how constantly-challenging each of these three instructions from the bible would turn out, respectively, to be.

the rending speaks for itself. i have lost my bear of a man, his magnificent nose and his ever-loving heart, only weeks after we had agreed that we would one day soon get married. you have, i feel sure, read enough to make you weep over your cup of coffee (or all of a friday evening if you're sal) on here in recent weeks, and for that companionship on this particular journey i thank thee.

the risking was learnt in the build-up, in The Single Years - the now infamous valentines endeavour, the depth of attraction and attachment i allowed myself to feel to boy after boy who could not or would not return my attentions.....but the risk continued unabated, and jesus walked me through each and every one of these crashes and i learnt, ever surer, that i had been given a capacity for love and for loyalty and for passion that would one day represent one half of a grown-up relationship. i found faith in myself through these ups and downs, and faith in the notion that love, once chosen by both, would ultimately be one of the greatest additions to my already rather happy life......as you will recall, it was then the risk of sending that first text to the boy after nick's wedding, that resulted in me having him all to myself (notwithstanding his bright, hilarious and loving children!) on short term loan.....

the guarded heart still somewhat eludes me but i think that in all my miss-haversham-related musings over these last four months, i have begun to see that a guard that is generated by wisdom and not by fear, bitterness or reticence (sp?) is really a very precious thing.

i appear to have run out of words, for now. i realise this post is lacking in a conclusion. it might come to me, but i'm hoping sleep gets here first...night loves...x

also

i read this on the train this morning...

its a bit of a thinker...

can anyone

explain to me why a big old white line has appeared down the length of my blog?!

the promise that love's still here

Lately, lately I've seen you in your dream
Lost in a clouded mind
Held down by all of the things that seem so real
The world you can't leave behind

You've made all of the money you could spend
You're begging for something more
Behind the prison you call your home my friends
The light in the endless dark

Lately, you've followed your fears under the bed
And fell for a hundred years
Into the arms of a wounded melody
The promise that love's still here

You held a cynical world like God's bruised fruit
Chopped from a sacred tree
It's us, the enemy we fought all these years
The stories of you and me

So we hurry, go faster and faster to find that we've ran our whole life
Forgoing the sweetest view
There's a buzz like a lightbulb up to our ears
Promise that love's still here

Retrace the steps in the snow to find your friend
'Cause childhood melts so fast
Big dreams, the future you taste on summer's time
Having it just won't last

Right here, we've all got the answer in our heart
If we could just let that go
Lifetimes of beautiful sunday church bell girls
The junkies upon the floor

So we hurry, go faster and faster to find that we've ran our whole life
Forgoing the sweetest view
We could argue forever and never be clear
Promise that love's still here

If forever and ever and ever we find that we've ran our whole life
Forgoing the sacred view
There's a buzz like a lightbulb up to our ears
Promise that love's still here

The promise that love's still here
The promise that love's still here
The promise that love's still here

-nitin sawhney, fyi...

covered in rain

you're the brightest thing i've got

ciao georgio

the one about the fish is my favourite...


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/editors_corner/article/7847/

over-rated...

there was one particular blur song that me and my girls loved, back in 1996, about a man called tracey jacks.....he said 'i'd love to stay here and be normal, but its just so over-rated....' so he jumped naked off a pier and was no longer able to be classed as normal



its a funny thing, trying to recover from feeling sadder than i have ever felt...because feeling normal somehow seems to be the goal, and yet (i hope!) i have always tried pretty hard not to be normal

the pink house..

hands up if you live in a pink house....?!

anyone?!

no?!

just me then....



so tomorrow i am going to be re-claiming, in a big van, all the possessions mentioned in the last post. they shall be relocating to the glos with me, for the next couple of months, until i venture out into the world of bristol-living once more in the new year....



i shall have all my shoes, those eyeshadows i'd forgotten i owned, the many many books that i have owned for years but not got round to reading...those extra jumpers that the weather is really starting to demand of us now....and simply the nice feeling of living in one place at a time....



at the moment i feel like i am collecting up pieces of myself, trying to find enough of them to feel like me again.....i left part of me in a forest with the boy's ashes three weeks ago....i left part of me in scotland with the kids....i left part of me in swansea, the last day that i was happy, the day that happened before all this happened....



but also parts of me are with sal and catelin, with nick and ang, with matso and fran, fiona, the hugsies and the gribbos, and with betsy, pigface, the australians...these people who insist on loving me even when my eyes insist on leaking endless tears (today, anyway...) and even when i have no way of satisying myself, or making myself happy, these people and many others are offering me something everyday that makes me a little bit happier.....these hands that clap.....(points for the very slight doug ref there...) and you know, even while i feel like pieces of me are missing, really, when i sit with my poor dad on the sofa while i cry and he hugs me, doing all he can in that hug, i know that kindness is what is rebuilding me, and i just wanted to say thanks. i know that i am not lost, or mad, or adrift, but that time and love are the great helpers, assisted ably everyday by you......gracias a ti....

soul diaspora

sorry for swearing

it is not an overstatement these days when i say that i don't rightly know where i belong.

i am aware of the idea, the notion, the dream of making one's home in jesus himself. john 15 to 17 being my favourite parts of the entire bible, i know that he wants me to join with him..to be with him...to live with him.

but my cds are in BS5 and my tired sorry ass is in GL1....

my best friends are in M14, M16, Uganda, Australia, that London, the north west....and my cold-ridden head is in GL1...

my coffee cups, my DUVET, my winter coats and my beautiful books are in a house that does not feel like home...and yet i am in a house that does feel like home, save for the absence of my coffee cups, my duvet, my winter coats...you get the idea....

my best-self is ten weeks ago, and my wet face, my tired eyes and my sorry heart are here, ten weeks later.....

nothing fits...nothing is where it ought to be. certainly nothing is where it was the last time things all fitted.

i can't find anything. i want to wear a certain pair of earrings, i look and realise they are 35 miles away.

i turn to look for those grey eyes, hoping to find them already looking at me...and they are nowhere....

nothing is where it ought to be...

pissed off

i am pissed off

i have the bitching mother of all colds, i am sad, i have exams in three weeks today, i am broke, i am tired and i had a fucking panic attack on the bloody train

excuse my language, but frankly, i am fed bloody up

channelling, take two...

hola otra vez...

i have de-camped to the lounge, as sharing a bed with a healthy sister when you yourself are feeling this unhealthy is not nice for either person - me i can't sleep anyway and she's asleep safe in the knowledge she will almsot certainly wake up ill...!

so kids, tomorrow would have been the one-year anniversary of him being my boyfriend and me being his girlfriend....i've never had one of those particular anniversaries before and i'd been rather looking forward to it. strictly speaking, tomorrow is merely the anniversary of our date in london, with the escalator episode (please utlise the archive function on my ever-so helpful blog, to re-fresh any ailing memories.....) and the anniversary of our becoming officially in a relationship is a week later, but since that was also his birthday he refused to share it with that, so we decided on tomorrow, the 15th....

i'll tell you what i miss...
i miss waking up in the morning, seven am or thereabouts, and while waking up, remembering that somewhere about two-hundred miles away there was a man who loved me the most. the days when he was there when i woke up were a treat, they were not the ordinary days....the ordinary days of our ten months began like this - me remembering that it wasn't a dream, that it really was happening, that i really was falling in love, and that i really was happy.

i kinda miss that.

anyway that's beside the point
the point is that a year ago i was fretting horrendously about what to wear, what to talk about, would he even turn up, etc etc. and then car-ride down to that london with the gils on the saturday morning was brilliant. she was very helpful, calmed me down and whatnot.

what i realised about myself that day, is that i am an idle flirt. by this i mean that when it came to it, and there was a real interest, a real person and a real story, i was not the flirt that i am or can be in passing, fleeting situations, mais non! i was terrified! thankfully he was much better at things than me and once we'd established that the childish liking of the other was mutual he pretty much figured out the rest. first and last time i ever saw him use any initiative...!!

the thing is the last few weeks have been strange in that i haven't cried much, i've fretted more than i've grieved, i've concentrated on other things (sometimes hugely unsuccessfully!) and then suddenly last week, it struck me just how much i miss him. actually him. not just the having of a boyfriend. not just the plans for the future, or the bemoaning of events he should have been at with me (all those weddings...!) but really just him....him in all his grumpy sweaty harried lazy rakish boyish old-mannish-ness.....all of it.

a couple of people have asked me how i will mark tomorrow. (well, today, monday...)

i think i will mark it now, by writing this and saying 'i love you my boy, wherever you are' and 'thanks guys, for everything you did to prompt, challenge, support and shape what we had together....'
i know there were a lot of you who were thrilled at the idea of getting to watch me try and handle two kids as well! there was going to be some pure comedy ahead with those two i tell you.....






by the way, the tesco in gloucester have reduced the alcohol-buying age from 30 to 21...!

ok

that was the WORST blog post i have ever written

i am going to go and at least hold a lit cigarette, then i will write some more.

and it will be good.

channelling...

so i have realised that it must be back to the blog for me once more, as i have too many things in my head and must cyphon some off here...

i am awake at two something......for the last week or more this has not been a problem, so it sucks that tonight i am back to being awake. however! it is compounded by the fact that i have a head-cold, which only started today but boy, its a fierce one! now those of you who regularly partake of the evil weed will know that a head-cold not only means you feel rubbish, but you also have to give up smoking!

so what i would normally do on a night like this is come downstairs (check) get some hot squash (check) and smoke a nicely rolled cigarette....wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

these days...

...are very odd
i am having an evening of much-crying...following on from a sudden spurt of crying last night before sleep...i was fine again during work today but this evening i have had to retreat to my folks' house after doing pretty well at staying in my bristol place for the last few days...
i just really miss him, to be honest with you..being near him made me happy in a way that being near to anyone else had never done before.....and i had never so enjoyed looking at another person before....and i think i am letting myself cry this evening because i think perhaps i have been holding it in. or maybe i've just been ok and today is just one of those days....

on paper...

on paper its seven weeks today since the last time i saw him...well, since the last time i saw him when he was still fully him...

on paper i am doing ok, i have spent a week-and-a-half back at work, and its going really well. i love my job, it interests and excites me, and to be honest most of the working day, i still find myself thinking -i can't believe i get to do this for a living-

on paper i seem to have worked out the crying to an average of about twice a week. which sometimes strikes me as scandalous, like i ought to be crying everyday still....but really i know that it is ok.

on paper i have had a very relaxing weekend, tv, food, home, drinks in the evening (but not too many), me-time, people-time, midsomer murders, radio four, coffee and rain.....but in actual fact i do not feel very relaxed.

this is largely because today is, well, -on paper-, the paper (ie one year) anniversary of the wedding of nick and ang, my lovely brother and his lovely wife. at whose wedding reception i spent glad, happy, nervy and memorable time, more or less all of the party, with the boy.....after about seven years of not seeing him....and so today i am thinking, huh......how different it could all have been had i set my cap at another. had he not made eyes at me, had we not snuck out for cigarettes in-between the dinner-courses, has he not looked so lovely in his suit, had......well, had nothing happened.

and in fact as you know, nothing did happen....we just spent the day and evening hanging out. its midnight now. at midnight he came and told me he had to go. his lift was leaving. and i was devo. my night kind of ended. i mean, it didn't, the rest of us went in our bridesmaid dresses and suits to the pub and stayed out til four am. but when me and emily got home to my house and she stayed in my room with me i could not sleep for talking about him. she listened and made all the nice responses you want one of your best friends to make when they've seen you with a boy and you're trying to figure out if he might actually like you...

on paper: a piece of green paper that has been on my wall for several years, it has a picture of a heart, drawn hastily with a black thick pencil. and the words

rend your heart

risk your heart

guard your heart

when i wrote it three years ago i knew that this was where god was calling me, towards risky love; to all-out extravagant love; to brave and nerve-wracking and terrifying love....(the risking)...and to the bearing, the mourning, the sacrifice and surrender of love....(the rending)...and to the caution and preservation of love, where the well-spring is surrounded and covered and maintained...(the guarding...)

the latter is where i now find myself, guarding my heart, i hope not in a scared, closed, hard way, but in a hopefully, sensibly responsive way. i am trying to listen to my own needs and respond to them. its difficult when i had finally got to the point of needing him. of allowing that fragility in myself, that openness. and i'm kind of left with it now. i need you, now. as i did before, but differently...i need your phone-calls, your emails, your prayers....and i need jesus. i haven't quite figured out how to tell him that, yet, but i'm pretty sure he knows. and i have (not just on paper) known the reality of his response to my need of him more in the last seven weeks than ever before. what a gem.

further highlights, by request...

(the first is in reference to the sad lack of whistling that prevails in my current office, in stark contrast to the whistle-fest that was the daily chirp during my days working at the 'tree...)

Date: 2008/7/8
Subject: Chat with paul

2:30 PM paul: warmest regards AH how's it going?

  are you really at home?

 me: dude i'm in work

  am trying to overthrown the foreign office

  sshhhhhhh

2:31 PM paul: go for it!

 

 paul: how's the whistling going?

 

 me: its ok, still pretty quiet

  i slipped a bit out earlier and no-one said anything, so...

 

     i was trying to look nonchalant while trying to overthrow the foreign office

  whooppaul: hahaaha

   

(feeling the ongoing pain with mr haines, who continues to grow a beard in protest at his beloved skate park not having any light or electricity...)

Date: Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 10:37 AM
Subject: Chat with john ha

10:34 AM me: john......lights???

 john: Alas, no.

10:35 AM me: nnnnnnoooooooo

  wtf

  que pasa??

 john: We thought they'd be here on Friday but they didn't turn up

 me: oh john

 john: Apparently the fittings need changing

 me: oh come on

 john: I know

 me: fittings?!

 john: I've now been informed that the lights should arrive either today or tomorrow

 me: ok

 john: I've booked to have a shave on Saturday

10:36 AM I can't wait!

 me: wahoop!

 john: To feel the fresh air on my face once more...

  

(oh the waiting...)

Date: Wed, May 7, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Subject: Chat with john ha

 

 me: how's the electricity?

  

john: I've still got a very large beard!

1:23 PM 

 john: There's no real change at the park

 me: nooooooooooo! not the beard STILL?!

  drats

  that sucjs

  sucks

 john: I'm getting used to it but I'm not enjoying it

 me: no indeed

 john: It's quite funny, though, when you think about it.

1:24 PM me: i do try not to think about it though

  to be honest

 john: I thought lights would be in in January, then March, then April

  now it's May and the beard is huge!

1:25 PM me: i totally think you should submit some kind of article to the MEN about it

  get katie hawkes to do it

  that would be great

  you need beard-publicity

 john: I might do

 me: details about all the dates that have come and gone

 john: It would make quite a funny story

 me: get an online petition ready to have at the end of the article

1:26 PM you need to be doing more than just growing your face off

 

(and again...)

Date: Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 9:48 AM
Subject: Chat with john ha

9:47 AM john: We turned the floodlights on yesterday!

 me: oh my

 john: We only have half so far but they're very bright!

 me: wowsers

  so have you shaved??

 john: No

  can't shave till we get them all

 me: oh gracious

 john: that's the rule

 me: that IS the rule though

  you're right

9:48 AM john: haha

 me: stay strong

 

(livvo finding it a bit tricky to concentrate for those last fifteen minutes of the working-day, i think....)

Date: Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 5:03 PM
Subject: Chat with livvo

5:03 PM livvo: TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER TROF BURGER

(in reference to the up-coming birthday of fran, and the conundrum of what to get for someone who is so gifted and talented that if she wanted something she didn't already have, she'd just make it for herself....)

somehow i find mine and cate's the funniest - ed

Date: Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 5:35 PM
Subject: Chat with catelin

5:31 PM me: dude

  i haven't thought of anything!

 catelin: me either!

 me: and i've got a blue peter badge!

 catelin: crumbs!

 me: maybe i should just give her that

 catelin: anna what we going to do?!

 me: altho you can't use them anymore

  they're null and void

 catelin: seriously....no help at all....

  i don't even have any crafts

  or pipe cleaners

 me: someone was selling them on ebay

5:32 PM catelin: ha!

  what did you get yours for?

5:33 PM me: for writing a poem

  its a green badge

  for environmental commitment

 catelin: oh my goodness

  you're such a geeklike I didn't already know

 me: it was called "No More Roads"

 catelin: HA

 me: sorry

 catelin: HA

 me: ahem

5:34 PM catelin: brilliant

  anna i love you

 me: 'No More Roads'

 catelin: NO MORE ROADS

  HA

 me: AMEN

  have yourself a badge!

  i'm gonna find it

 catelin: i'm properly laughing

 me: the poem

 catelin: so many hidden skills

 me: i'm gonna find it

 catelin: and secrets

  blog it

 me: and out it on my blog

  yes

 catelin: do it

  ha

  still laughing

  

5:37 PM me: you make a splendid card

  i'm going to make her a cd

5:38 PM right now

 catelin: oh oh

 me: go go go go

 catelin: dang

  your good at that

 me: lets both make her a cd!!

 catelin: blasted music skills

i bloody hate clocks that tick...

'without you here, there is less to say...'

points if you can name that tune...

i had no idea just how much of my time the boy had monopolised without me realising. people often talk of the emptiness that accompanies mourning.

even from 200 miles away, he still took up most of my time. i could just think about him for whole walks to work. i could look at him for hours. we talked for an hour every night on the phone. dinner was often late because i'd be phoning him asking how to make the sauce and get a whole history of the sauce given to me along with the recipe. and being a girl, i talked about him alot, to my friends.

i feel like the guy in about a boy, i feel like i'm budgeting my time. smoking a cigarette: two units (if its a rollie, one if its a straight). putting kettle on for tea: one unit. the train-ride to bristol at 7:48am: ten units, one episode of the west wing: six units.....

i have no focal point to my day. i feel bored, lonely, frustrated and aimless.

in my better moments i am signing on for autumn evening classes in spanish, registering with the local amnesty group. planning to go to hope church on sundays, arranging dinners with friends to ease my way back into life in bristol, thinking about having a holiday after my exams, getting on with study, re-arranging my workstation and keeping up with my new daily skincare regime.

but in my worst moments, i honestly feel that without you here, there is less to say.

father-like

he tends and spares us, 

well our feeble frame he knows,

in his hands he gently bears us,

rescues us from all our foes...

amen?

a dear friend of mine brought this to my attention this evening...thanking you...xxxx

chat back...

so today i was looking for something in my google archives, and well, i starting reading old google-chats, mostly from lunchtimes during the MT working era, mostly with cate, john h, helen dc, hawkso, and livvo....mostly short, to the point, and in the main, entirely non-essential...

en serio, tios, i have been laughing non-stop for the last hour, so i thought i would share some of these certain delights with you, giving away no secrets, betraying no trust, i present to thee, dear reader, the pure comedy that is - me and my pals on the hop, with the slight delay of internet communication, the shit typing, the random, random questions, and the sheer abuse of the humble exclamation mark, i hope you enjoy them....

______________________________________________________

Date: Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 13:26 PM
Subject: Chat with catelin

me: question: what do you think happens when you remove a friend on facebook?_____

catelin: ooh

thunder and lightening?

_____

me: hahahha

_____

catelin: struck-down-ness?

i've no clue!

_____

me: do you think they get some kind of message telling them

_____

catelin: you could remove me now and see

_____

me: ok i'm going to use you as an experiment

_____

catelin: and then re-add me

_____

me: i'm going to remove you then add you right back but we'll see if you get a message or something

k?

its ok don't be scared, i still love you

_____

catelin: oooh

_____

me: i just wanna get rid of a few people

_____

catelin: i'll let you know if i die

who???

_____

me: well...

*some text omitted*

catelin: ha

_____

me: ok hold on

_____

catelin: ooh ok.

ready...

_____

me: i love you

_____

catelin: i love you byeeeeeeeeee

_____

me: ok i feel kinda sad

oh shite

what if it won't let us be friends again?!

_____

catelin: its not nice!

of course it will!

i think...

_____

me: ok i'll investigate

ok

you have been removed

ok check your facebook

please

sorry

_____

catelin: wwaaaaaaaaaahh

_____

me: it isn't that i don't think you are a busy person............

_____

catelin: hahaha

i'm online all day

its part of my job!!

woo!

_____

me: ok

so any news on facebook about me dumping you?!

_____

catelin: nope!

_____

me: hurrah!

ok

let the vull begin

but first

i'll get you back

_____

catelin: i'll try look on your page

hold on

_____

me: cull that should have said cull!!

_____

catelin: ok...just had one less friend on the number

and won't let me go to your page

that's all!

_____

me: ok

_____

catelin: woo!

cull away

_____

me: ace

right get me back get me back!!

_____

catelin: done

_____

me: hold on hold on

i'm deciding if i want to be your friend

how DO i know you...??!

_____

catelin: DO IT!!!!

HEY!

_____

me: holy lord we have EIGHTY-EIGHT friends in common!!!

_____

catelin: woo!

88 bundles of shared loveliness....

_____

me: isn't it

_____

catelin: BUT we have more friends not in common

that's got to be good right?

_____

me: hahaha it says anna and cate are now friends on my profile page!!

hahahahhahaha

that is good

_____

catelin: yey!

people will think we had a barney

_____

me: ahhahhahahha

right i'm off to cull

unconfirmed by cate, unconfirmed by cate!!

_____

catelin: i did it!

_____

me: k

phew

we only lived together twice

_____

catelin: really??

you sure??

we've had many adventures tho!

_____

me: true!!

___________________________________________________