Bed of Love, Bed of Sorrow

Six months ago, I was blessed with a moment of happiness so pure and so true that it was painful.  I lay on my bed, nestled in the concave of Lol's warm body, held so tightly between his strong arms. I was so focused on that one all-powerful, all-consuming feeling that I could barely breathe. The intensity of the emotion grew within me to a dimension larger than my body could contain to the point where I felt my insides must surely crack rather than bear this unknown experience. I felt completely vulnerable: I could let any wall I had previously built around myself demolish for I knew that I was protected, safe in the utmost confidence that all that my heart reflected was mirrored in his. The beauty lay in the simplicity of the scene. It was enough to lie, feeling his smooth, warm chest against my back and his soft steady breath in my ear as our fingers remained interlaced and our jean-clothed legs intertwined. 

Never had I felt so content or fulfilled. Never will I again. 

Has it really been half a year since that moment? The specifics of time passing no longer make sense to me as my feelings seem bound by nothing. The difference is that they are now no longer a blessing: I am cursed to lie on that bed, the beginning of everything and nothing, each night, alone. Only pain resides there now, no longer infused into the folds of joy. It is the one physical reminder of love, in all its words, gestures and acts, that remains. The rest dwells in a box somewhere in the depths of my cellar, hidden but never forgotten and whether I want it to disappear or be unearthed, I cannot yet say. 

Deck the hall with boughs of holly. Falala lol lol lol lol lol...

It’s that time of year again… “the most wonderful time of the year” where we wonder what actually happened to the last 365 days  and why something magnificently fabulous hasn’t yet occurred. The year is full of such instances. Time seems to be measured by these cyclical moments of tradition which leaves us in contemplation, evaluating what we have and have not done, where we are and where we have not yet been.

All I know is that I did not plan on being here. Literally. I should be in Barcelona right now, wrapped in love and a layer of tapas-induced squishiness. It is no longer pride that prevents me from going although, rest assured, I retain my dignity. The fact is that I am no longer sure I want to grace the Catalonian region with my presence. It has been some time, I believe, since I last transported myself in my thoughts and dreams to wherever Lol is. However, this does not mean that I have given up on the fantasy that he will come to me from the end of the world or wherever he has disappeared to in the big wide universe. In my weak inability to accept that this will never happen, I remain static. I produce a semblance of moving forward in my life when in fact, I move only in a direction that would still enable me to be found by him.

It could be called progress to say that in the fantasy, once he does arrive, I find myself no longer able to melt into his arms. The more sand accumulates at the bottom of the limitless hourglass, the more I remain frozen, uncertain how to proceed. My love remains, constant yet increasingly inaccessible every day and I feel something that I can neither reach nor use.  How I will digest this concept over time remains unknown, even to me. 

Watching The Ball Drop...

We talk, we joke, we laugh, we flirt...

"Jeez, Lol, you are so annoying!", I say amongst a fit of giggles as I throw my stress ball at him. 

As I watch it propelled in front of me, I freeze in sudden confusion then grief as I watch it drop with the realisation that he is not Lol and that my happiness was short-lived.

Emptiness drained by excitement fills me to the brim. 

Sadness banished by smiles returns unabashed. 

Loneliness driven away by lust reclaims its rightful territory. 

Night falls on the light in my eyes as the man in front of me transforms from comfortingly familiar into the stranger he really is for in their eagerness to feel and forget, my heart and mind had been all too willing to be deceived, if only by the longing that lies within them.

Victim of Interstitial Space

As the snow falls, I rifle listlessly through yet another glossy women’s magazine, a previous addiction turned monotonous habit. Clothes, sex, beauty, men, relationships, clothes, etc… After a decent decade of instruction from these money-sucking pastimes, the disciple has become the master and I am starting to believe there are only so many ways in which the “Fifty ways to rock his world” article can be regenerated.

However, what bothers me the most today is the Relationship section. Yet another piece, telling me that I am a modern woman in an age where I need no longer be submissive to the dominant alpha-men. But how can this be true? I muse. Around me, I see powerful women, still unable to speak their mind. They do not lack intelligence. In fact, they employ all their resources in the ruse of getting what they want from a man without him realising it. This is a far cry from the twenty first century sensitive Beta male who talks, listens, is thoughtful and comes programmed to be able to lower toilet seats and do the washing up.

The truth is that men say they want a feisty thought provoking woman, that they enjoy the bafflement of the weaker sex clubbing them over the head with a witty retort. However, once they recover from the initial amazement, they feel the sore bump on the head when they realise what they have to contend with: the modern woman wants to be in the relationship on equal terms, she is no subordinate. Appealing as this is in theory, man has not yet evolved to be able to cope with the technicalities of this: the brains of the trophy girl must remain concealed under her head of perfect hair. Reaching forward towards equality with past traditions clinging at my skirts, I find myself trapped in the interstitial space between one era and the next and it seems the transition period will be anything but smooth.  

The Kiss Of Life

The beauty of a faithful romantic relationship is the sacred often unspoken bond of trust that is formed between two people. From the moment it is in place, an enchantment bewitches the couple and casts a spell of amnesia over them, causing them to forget kisses and touches past. When the bond is broken however, the enchantment unfortunately does not immediately lift but instead transforms into the deepest of curses: longing for the caresses one is deprived of perhaps forever. And so I found myself caught in this prison of a paradigm and the pain of it, as it always does, stabbed me unexpectedly.

“Something good needs to happen”, I said to my friend, looking down glumly. I had dragged myself over to him, resting my arms on his office desk and said in a tiny voice that I wasn’t looking forward to training. He knew what was wrong, he knew I was sad, the girl who usually thrives on her thrice weekly cardio-induced endorphin rush. As an incentive to keep going, he offered me a lift which I gratefully accepted.

When we arrived at the gym, I was enveloped in my misery and the stuffy car heating as I leaned towards him for the usual air-cheek-kiss. However, as our skin was about to make contact, time stopped. His eyes, previously warm and laughing, were now serious and filled with intent as, very slowly and very deliberately, he turned his head to face me. Though surely only a few seconds long, the moment lingered tenderly as his soft and full lips found mine with assurance. As the kiss ended, I remained still, paralysed in the confusion of the moment passed and the surprise at my ease in responding.

“That was to cheer you up.”, he said softly. “Did it work?” I mumbled incoherently, still overwhelmed with unintelligible thoughts and feelings. “I think so.” He kissed me again, as briefly but still as kindly as the first one. Then he left.

A bridge had been crossed. The burden of anxiety concerning that moment was no longer as the event had occurred before I had a chance to decide if the time was right. I turned, shell-shocked, towards the double doors. The paradigm had shifted. I then lifted my foot, still uncomprehending, and walked one step further.

For Better Or For Nothing

I knew what it was to feel warm for a while. By no means was I impervious to the cold but the knowledge that there would always be someone to warm my feet at night was more than enough to sustain me through any chill that came my way.

Always... such a treacherous word and a cruel illusion. What has become of it today? No life-long institution remains at present. People used to say "for better or for worse". Now, the latter two words of that phrase seem to be obselete for it it has become "for better or for someone (or at least) something else". 

While the recession deprives us of job security, marriage no longer provides comfort in its steadfast endurance. One can trust nothing and no one it seems. And so we learn that words, be they written or spoken, hold no true value. 

He told not only myself but his family of his ardent love for me. Together, we dreamt to the end of the world and back. But in the end, today I remain here, standing (almost), bereft of the dreams he stole away from me as I blinked, ignorant now of how to form new ones in order to begin again. 

Coming Out of the Cocoon?

As I walked home today, I looked up. It was one of those rare occasions where the sky really was a clear midnight blue worthy of Mary Poppins. Stars were immediately apparent, their twinkling white brightness was deeply contrasted against the rich and brilliant colour of the heavens. As is customary, I began to wish. As soon as words formed in my head, I had to check myself: I was not sure if I had been wishing for Lol because it was my deepest desire or because it was now a habit. My head was swimming with confusion for a brief moment. Was this moving on? And more importantly, was I ready to try stepping I into a world without the weight of heart break, destruction and general apocalypse on my shoulders? During the last few months, it had almost been easy to get comfortable in the depths of my pit. Too eagerly perhaps, I had set up house, superficially transforming the dark hard concrete into a cosy cocoon whose depths I wondered if I had begun to emerge from. The question was, was I coming out a moth or a butterfly? And even if I came out a butterfly, what good was that if I tried to fly with my broken wings?

Empty Spaces

There are empty spaces everywhere I go, except on the occasional bus ride which is most inconvenient. Those are the spaces Lol sneaks his way into. I see him sitting on public transport, I see him in waiting rooms, I see him on the sofa next to me when I’m watching television. Every time I leave the house, I look for his car in the empty parking spots on my road. It is never there, just like he is never there to fill the emptiest space of all which is the one inside of me where joy used to dwell.

I do what I am told: I eat, I sleep, I socialise. In fact, I have one on Sinead O’Connor as I am booked with one thing or another almost every night and occupied most of the day.  I may be completely exhausted but at least I am busy. But people were wrong: filling time does not fill the hole in my life. My heart and mind are haunted by the shadow of the man whose whereabouts escape me, whose thoughts do not reach me and whose love has deserted me. No amount of activity seems to alter this, and in truth, I cannot tell if I wish it to or not for perhaps at this point, it is still preferable to be accompanied by a ghost than to be truly alone.

Rock Climbing Failure #1

“There are many things that I wish for and without wanting to sound like a martyr, many of those things are not for me but for the people around me”, my mother mused. “I wish I could make you happier but I can’t bring him back.”

It was a simple sentence but it pierced me to the core. My eyes filled with tears and I felt the suffocating bubble of misery close in around me. I looked past  its claustrophobic film, trying to stop my tear ducts from going into overdrive in such an embarrassingly public place.

The last couple of weeks have been dark and yet sometimes I have felt like I had pulled myself to my feet, ready to attempt climbing a little further away than the rock bottom I dwelled in. Suddenly however, I found myself propelled back to the depths of my pit with nothing to grip onto to. The attempt had failed.

And yet, though I stand no longer, I sit instead of lie on the hard painful ground. There are more engulfing waves to come but I am confidant that I might find my feet once more.

Family Time

I sit around the dining room table and watch the assortment of distorted mirrors sitting around me. With interest, I examine the smattering of features we share which I never took the trouble to notice before. My father and his sister share the same downward-facing crescent-shaped eyes. The corners of his mouth however, you can see if you look closely, are turned upward whereas gravity has its pull on hers. One has chosen to make lemonade whereas the other has chosen not to forget sour times: free will has played its part, it seems.

Seated opposite my mother, she became the subject of my intrigued gaze. As she leant forward, I watched the skin across her collarbone fold into hundreds of microscopic creases I had never noticed before. Those lines etched the gap between her and I. I began to wonder where I would be in my life when my body would begin to betray the age and the weight of the world it had carried which already burdened my mind.

I like to believe that I am original in my dreams and innermost desires. However, at the end of the day, my aspirations, despairingly complicated as they may seem, are inherently basic: someone who will see and feel the wrinkles across my skin and tell me I am beautiful and that I am loved. Perhaps that is a blessing that is worth more than any amount of trips around the world can ever amount to. But as I stand still where the path begins, the most intricate and complex of trips seems easier to plan than the one and only journey we must leave up to fate.

Just One More...And Then Tomorrow

It was just one of those days…

I woke up this morning to a snow white paradise outside which was perfectly enchanting until I was required to get into my horseless carriage and drive… or should I say skid through it. My day brightened for a split second along a steadier part of the journey where suddenly a notion entered my head: I was too good for Lol. I felt light and happy. I never thought I would able to think that healthy thought.

It didn’t last for long, of course. I soon forgot about it when I wasn’t able to park where I wanted to because it was too icy for the car to pass through safely so I had to get my beautiful boots wet as I rushed to be on time for the meeting I was already half an hour late for… only to discover that the person I was meant to be seeing was also stuck in weather-caused traffic. This resulted in my being left to sit (thankfully in the warm indoors) on my own for an additional forty five minutes with nothing to do but play games on my mobile phone which may be amusing for a short while but do not go down well for that length of time.

I then went to the gym for a killer session only to be shouted at by my trainer for doing absolutely everything wrong. Usually I come out feeling pumped on a rush of endorphins but today, I exited feeling beaten, bruised and dejected. On my return home, I overloaded on carbohydrates which made me feel better for about thirty seconds before the bloated “you’ve eaten too much” guilt came upon me. My response was obviously to reach for the Nutella jar but divine intervention seemed to occur when I sliced my finger open instead of the bread and gave up. To top it all off, as my father helped the tearful mess that I was with the plaster, he managed to tell me off for not using a breadboard. More tears were spilt as I wiped my blood off the counter.

It was one of those days… and to top it off, one more day where Lol was not there. I could not be comforted just by sending him a message let alone calling him. I could not feel his voice embrace me in his absence, let alone have him pull me into the concave of his warm body to hold me. Yes, it was just one more of those...and tomorrow is just another day.

Please Don't Stop The Music

When I run, I always put my MP3 on shuffle mode. On a lucky day, the combination of songs will be so good that my feet will keep moving effortlessly on the treadmill. Time flies by. My spirits lift. On a worse day, I will spend two minutes between every song clicking the forward button compulsively and then berating myself for doing so too quickly hence passing something I wanted to listen to. I am bored. I try to distract myself by practicing my fractions and calculating how many fifths, sixths or even twelfths of a minute I have left…until the next minute. Nevertheless, the seconds drag on. The prerogative of the shuffle button being to propel me into the unknown after each song, it is unfortunately thorough and refuses any predictability whatsoever including the option of returning to the song I had just heard by pressing the back button.

And so when I plugged my earphones in for the first time in ages today, it could have gone either way. I tentatively put one foot in front of the other. Slowly, I felt the bass reverberate through my body and the rhythm course through my veins. With every heartbeat, an almost forgotten sense of unpolluted optimism was pumped to my head. I swayed my hips and tossed my hair. The gentle click-clack of my stilettos exuded a strength and confidence that had long been absent.

But as the lyrics died down, the sounds of reality filled my head. The next melody was too long in coming. One step forward, three steps back…

The Flowerman

There’s a man on the corner who sells cheap roses. It doesn’t matter how bad the weather is, he is there, this faceless person who became part of my daily line of vision. I’ve never seen anyone stop to buy any. It always seemed like it could turn into quite a perilous escapade if the lights were to suddenly turn green. This would either result in free flowers or free money but either way it would leave one person cheated and very angry. However when I drove past him last night for the first time in a while, I had to shut my right eye to eliminate him from the view that lay ahead of me. Though devoid of any definable features, to me his face held a memory so clear and so vivid that it was better to half blind myself then to experience the stabbing pain I knew was coming should I keep both eyes on the road.

I always used to believe red roses were an unoriginal attempt at romance: the ultimate cliché. It wasn’t until Lol drove me past that very corner and stopped with just the right amount of time for the transaction to be effectuated correctly did I change my mind. It was a sad wilting small bouquet with petals that were already turning brown at the tips. However, the spontaneity and the intention of the gesture itself turned what could seem predictable to an innocent eye into an action that would make the sternest of ice maidens melt.  And so, the corner is not just a corner; it is a memory amongst many. How long can I continue blurring out endless reminiscent thoughts by driving with one eye shut? Will I simply close the other one and take my hands off the wheel all together? Or somewhere along the line, will I find a pair of nice pink sunglasses to soften the journey? Only time will tell.

Blame It On The Moon

I wished upon the first star I saw tonight until I realised it was only an aeroplane. This was not the night my wildest dreams were going to come true. So I turned my attention to the moon. The orb was unusually large that evening and strangely melancholy in its solitary beauty.

I sat mesmerised. As a soft glow was reflected in my perfectly circular pupils, my eyes glazed over as behind them danced the memory of many moons past until one eclipsed all others. None shone brighter or was as large as the African moon which I had been privileged to behold in the company of the man whose presence transformed what was already idyllic perfection into an ethereal interlude: a moment of emotion so pure, so unadulterated that one’s breath was suspended for fear of perforating the aura of stillnes.

They say that there are more suicides when there is a full moon. I do not believe that it possesses strange depressive powers but rather that it stirs waves of reminiscence within minds and souls into a whirlwind of insanity. 

Bathroom Interlude

I had a shower today and suddenly felt so alone that I was compelled to sit down. I let the water cascade over me and was embraced by its warmth. As my leaden limbs sunk to the ground, I stared past the steamy translucence of the shower partition and the watery shapes that dripped in rivulets down towards the drain.

I knew time had passed because my fingers were starting to become white and shrivelled as children’s do when time stops as they play in the bath before bedtime. This was, however, no incentive to get up. I had no reason to leave this square haven of soothing whiteness.

My phone was off. The door was locked. The house was empty. No one was going to come and drag me out of a sanctuary I had willingly emprisoned myself in. And so I had to coax and coerce myself to push past the shower door back into the cold but out into the world, not only because I knew I had to, but also because also because deep down, I knew I could. 

Lost In Translation

People never want to accept realities. I think we can all agree I certainly don’t. Most of my acquaintances are aware of my unemployed status but few of my recent singledom. When they ask me how Lol is, I will truthfully answer that he is very busy with work at the moment. This is not the information they were originally seeking but I consider it entirely their own fault that they don’t ask more pointed questions. But if someone asks me directly how my relationship is, I won’t lie. Call me crazy, but I think the knife gets twisted into the wound often enough that I can spare myself the unnecessary jabs. So I deflect this reality amongst others.

For example, today I ate a truck load of dates and convinced myself that they were fruit and therefore were healthy as opposed to being sugar filled evilness declaring war on my thighs. The same goes for potatoes that are classified as vegetables …in theory. There is also a small part of me that wishes that when I didn’t enjoy my food, the calories wouldn’t count so I could go and rectify the situation with something much tastier.

Some women are convinced that dying their hair blonde in spite of their grey roots and black eyebrows and wearing hot pink sparkly tops makes it acceptable to discard a decade or two from their age. The giveaway is always the shoes: no longer able to teeter in five inch heels, they make do with five inch platforms. Now platforms may have been the new black, dahhhhling…but only back in the eighties, unfortunately for those tacky muttons out there.

Others publicise the fact that they go to the gym five times a week. They are not lying. Due to their frequent trips to the steam room, they have excellent complexions although strangely, it does nothing for their cellulite. The omission of certain facts means the truth gets lost in translation, though never unfortunately, for he whom omits in the first place.

Scars and Secrets

I like my scars and the stories they tell. I have one on my inner right angle. I once got so angry at my younger brother that I put my foot through a glass pane on the door as I misaimed whilst kicking it shut. It was painful at the time and then it became terribly funny, though my parents are still not quite able to find the incident amusing.

I have another one on my left knee that I like to look at from time to time. When I was sixteen, I had a passionate holiday romance. Three years my senior and working in the hotel boathouse, Kevin was an exciting escapade that could easily have graced daytime television. I spent two weeks slipping out of my shared hotel room to spend hours intertwined on the beach in the cool windy darkness and lived for the stolen kisses during the daily boat trips. It was during one of those secretive trysts off the snorkelling boat that I slipped and fell on a patch of coral. At the time, my knee was barely grazed but strangely, the mark has never faded. I enjoy its seeming permanence that never lets me forget an adventure so beautiful and yet so insignificant years later.

Ironically, recent events have left nothing indelible for me to gaze upon: tear stains dry on cheeks, bitten nails grow back stronger and weight is forever lost only to later be regained. I get on with my daily life, a dress size smaller (oh the silver linings of appetite loss…) and my inner cynic more than a few sizes larger and yet I appear unscathed as all those around me see only the tip of the iceberg I have become.

Divorcing Jekyll Whilst Mourning Hyde

There are good parts to going through the arduous process of single filing. In baby steps, I make my way back towards the market with a casual flirt, a lingering glance and with the surprise at feeling my head turn, almost naturally sometimes, as something pleasing meets my eye. But this is not an amicable separation. I cannot ignore the bitterness of silent fights, the immaturity of catty games, or the trust betrayed with the realisation that the time spent getting to know one another has led to the ruthless discovery of which hit hurts the most.  This is what divorce feels like: liberation and ugliness combined.

And yet, I almost wish it were as simple as squabbling over paperwork. If it were so, Lol would still be here: walking, talking, feeling and listening, alive in this world. But there is no trace left of the man I love. I could not watch him slowly walk away, making his way into the horizon for he chose to jump off the edge of the earth instead. Suddenly, so quickly that no one saw until long after it happened. And so I mourn the death of the man I knew as I find myself tied up in legalities with a stranger

Single File, Now! Part II

I changed my sheets today. I no longer enter my room and see the medley of whites, pastel blues and cushions rendered sacred by Lol’s touch. I no longer lie under the covers, breathing in a scent that has long evaporated. My single filing has progressed in leaps and bounds: with the coaching of one of my closest friends, I have thoroughly searched my room and endeavoured to remove from my sight any trace of things past. Gone are the clothes, gone are the cards and gone are the gifts including the scruffy bear I held each night that comforted me in Lol’s absence, even before he left.

In parting with my scruffy furry friend, I feared the emptiness my arms would meet when I would reach out while awakening from bad dreams in the middle of the night. But I also feared that I would wake, turn over and go back to better dreams, unscathed and unattached. It is ironic, I know. I am fully aware that when this occurs I will have shed my name and every trait that belongs to it. But until that time comes, it remains defined in my head as the day I accept the four words I dread the most: “It is over, forever.”

And so we delayed the moment, my friend and I, with the fluffiest and most girly replacement we could find. Devoid of history, I could lie on my new sheets and hold it to my hearts content. Or, I wished I could as I found out with a sharp sudden pang. It would take more than fresh linen to forget about the half of the bed that had remained too cold for too long. It would take more than replacing broken toys to stop me stretching my fingers to intertwine them with the emptiness that has usurped the position of the man who uncovered happiness for me by loving me as much as I loved him.

Both in Love and Money

I am not ashamed of needing people. Women’s magazines have tried to convince me that I should learn to be as happy on my own as I am in a good romantic relationship. I tried to do just that for a while and though I was not discontent, fulfilled I was not. I led a life which was busier than I had ever been before: I worked hard, I developed my hobbies and my existing relationships, I allowed a few dalliances here and there though nothing that left a lasting impression. And yet despite the fact that my schedule was filled to the brim with interesting activities, my days were devoid of feeling.

Two years is not an insignificant amount of time to experiment with being alone in. I studied, sat the exam and can now show the world I am more than able to function happily as a single woman. I even have a badge that says “Been there, done that.” but the sentence does not follow with “and enjoyed it.”

Why do women today have to prove that they are capable of such a level of independence? Centuries ago to believe you could be completed by someone else was neither weak or old fashioned as it is so defined today. As a young woman in the year 2010, I therefore refuse to comply with Cosmo’s illogical reasoning. People today prize the occupation of a career over that of a relationship, but why? Divorce levels may be rising to worrying heights but so is unemployment. I may have fallen apart from a broken heart but one cannot ignore the number of people who jump off bridges in times of professional despair and I fail to see how one is more or less dignified than the other. And so I am not ashamed of needing people for security lacks in both love and money and unfortunately, for either option, prospects are grim.

Sleeping Realities

There is nothing more beautiful than carrying the child of the man you love and bringing into existence a tangible proof of that sacred shared feeling. Childless as I am, I wonder in admiration at the Single Mother, so commonplace in our society. How can she look into eyes ever lost yet ever present and bear the constant company of half a person in constant absence? Does she behold that little face in comfort as a treasured memento? Does she love the better half left behind or secretly hate the worse half that haunts both waking and sleeping moments?  

I dreamt last night that I was pregnant and entering into the first stages of labour. My stomach would morph from a pouch of loose soft skin into a small, rounded shape that was so firm it felt as though my abdominal muscles had ballooned outwards. As I coursed from room to room through a house familiar yet unknown, I experienced a regular pain in my lower abdomen. No man was present, my mother was on her way, I wanted for nothing. I experienced each moment from within, eyes widened and senses alert with a fear of what was to come but also from afar with an intense sense of analytical intrigue. 

Biologically impossible as this is, there was nothing to question for sleeping realities will not be constrained by paradigms. And when dreams do magically lose their way into everyday reality, how often are others willing to accept them as truths? 

Nevertheless, for those few hours, I was unmistakeably with a child I was about to deliver, or perhaps to be delivered from. Upon my awakening, I was almost thankful for the lack of masculine presence for to carry Lol's child, even for a moment, even in a dream, might be too painful to bear.

From Coffee to Cold Feet

It's the small things in life that get me through the day. Mugs of tea I make in the morning, a task so mundane, it almost completes itself before my eyes are truely open, bubble baths, warm milk boiled at night in the vague hope that it might ward off the insomnia that has stolen countless hours worth of sleep away from me in recent nights. These are the insignificant moments which make up comforting self-pampering daily rituals.

However small they are, these gestures make all the difference in the world when carried out for you by someone else. What good is tea when you have been woken up with a shot of perfect warm pungent italian coffee? What good is a bath devoid of candles and rose petals and more importantly than the cliches, devoid of someone beside you to share the romantic stillness of the moment? What good is a hot water bottle when someone has warmed your feet between theirs? And so the most simple things can cause the most distress in the memory of things equally simple yet infinitely important.

But what is a girl to do? It is impossible to escape the memories. Love may have gone AWOL but unfortunately everything else remains including restaurants, street corners, supermarkets and cold feet in the night. Comfort cannot be restored by withdrawing all that is comforting. Life goes on and though my head remains stubbornly static, in keeping my body moving, maybe one day my mind will follow.

The Princess and the Queen

Gay Best Friends were made fashionable by the honourable Sarah Jessica Parker aka Carrie and little Miss Stanford Blatch. The ultimate accessory, they bring more satisfaction than a new designer bag or a genetically modified miniature dog. The combination of being in male company yet still feeling like you are with “one of the girls” is innately comforting and deeply informative. Who can give a girl better relationship advice than a man who prefers men? With no catty competition and with no one caring to debate whether men and women can really be friends, the results are consistently impartial and honest. Also, there is no one else with whom you can go for sushi and then share a peppermint half-caf soy mocha, who makes you feel as supremely fabulous without exacting any pressure on you, other than that you cut the crap and be yourself. They bring out the best in you. Period.

One hundred and fifty years ago, homosexuality was neither to be seen nor heard. How women functioned with no Sex and the City, no sushi and certainly no Starbucks, let alone without their trusty GBF, I am not sure. And yet, perhaps I have read too much Jane Austen and not quite enough Henry Fielding and am left prejudiced in my thinking that a corset and a pair of gloves automatically implies nun-like conservatism.

And so when my GBF surprised me with the fact that he was in the city and had reserved a window for me before his train, I was there. I knew that a hot cup of coffee, gossip and setting the world to rights would keep me warm for a lot longer than the hour we'd spend in each other’s company. Never mind the Mums, the retail therapy and the ice cream, sometimes, all it takes is a queen to make you feel like a princess again.

Single File, Now! Part I

There is always a moment that marks the true end of a relationship. It is the moment  when one of the two people involved takes the first step towards erasing the evidence or at least storing memories out of sight in the healthy hope that they stay out of mind. I call it: Single Filing Yourself. 

Bar all talk of the new minimalist Feng Shui culture of the 21st century. I am a proud member of the "Keep A Physical Memento of Everything That Means Anything To You" club. This includes cinema ticket stubs, wine bottle corks, and post-its… I would be an awful Buddhist. Despite striving towards the three C's which have been the mark of a true woman of grace throughout time: Cool, Calm, and Collected, I stray from the zen attitude of detachment from all things material and from people (obviously). I did have visions of myself going off to India on yoga retreats but unfortunately after several attempts of practicing it in my home country, I came to the conclusion that I simply find it quite boring.

Now this blog came into existence due to my epic inability to move on so you can imagine that the Single Filing process is not going exceedingly well. So far, I have moved one offensive post-it into a draw as opposed to on my desk. Unfortunately, today I got quite a shock when I realised that Lol was so much further ahead: Facebook pictures had been deleted. There is now barely a trace of us having been a part of each others lives. In terms of Single Filing, Facebook is publicly brutal. I envy the age of pre-internet culture: yes, one was still a victim of gossip but there were blissfully fewer mediums one could use to spread it. I am forever thankful of my wise decision to hide my relationship status until marriage and, considering current divorce statistics, even then I may not be spared the humiliation of having the following message announced on Newsfeed: "Ms Havisham has changed her relationship status from married/engaged/in a relationship to single." 

Never.

Again.

And so, although my first step was not insignificant, there is still much left to conceal. However, I am so far unable to proceed any further as I cling to an unrealistic quasi-pathetic shred of hope. Were I a better Buddhist/Minimalist/Feng Shui and yogalates practicing vegetarian, it might be easier although I have an inkling that detachment must often be feigned for a painful length of time before it becomes a reality. But I am not Elinor Dashwood, I am Marianne. I know Lol's actions are just another way for the little voice I obstinately and blindly persist in muffling every day to clearly irretractably say: 

"It is over, Ms Havisham." 

But I am not yet ready to listen to it and pass the point of no return where I can no longer fool myself into believing that things might still change.  

My Phone, My Frenemy

I woke up this morning to the unnecessarily loud ring tone of my alarm and it hit me all over again as it does every time I leave the wonderful world of sleep:

I am still Ms Havisham.

I am still jilted and unemployed. I am still the lost cause of the twenty first century.

In its semi conscious state, it was almost as if my body had realised this before my mind. It did not want to leave the warm cocoon it had been nestled in for the past few hours, out into the cold harsh reality of daylight and the technological marvel that is the snooze button could only do so much in its procrastination.  

However, I have a new phone and it is perhaps more clever than most. The traditional button lets you press it and go back to sleep, safe in the knowledge that it will ring again after however many minutes you plugged into your phone settings as well as in a mild panic, wondering whether you’ve pressed the “Stop” button instead. You are therefore ensured the extra five minutes of sleep (or forty five in my case) will never be of the highest quality thus making the whole process slightly redundant. It seems phone programmers never factored that when you are half asleep, the words “stop” and “snooze” look remarkably similar into their otherwise genius invention.

My phone on the other hand, requires me to tell it whether I want to sleep another five, ten, fifteen, twenty, etc… minutes every time the alarm rings. This is possibly because I haven’t figured out how to change the settings yet but that is beside the point. The beauty of this is that to do so, it requires marginally more concentration than just hitting whichever button begins with an “S” and having a fifty/fifty chance of not waking up three hours later and gracing your neighbour’s ears with an explosion of profanity. And thus, I now wake up a little quicker.

Once the mind is awake, it becomes easier to successfully embark upon the next quest of coercing the first foot out from underneath the bedcovers…almost.

Three in bed, two in the bedroom

The idea of a man holding a woman, secretly holding a stuffed toy in bed paints a bizarre picture. She is not caught between woman and girlhood as the situation without a context might imply for the toy is not a leftover token from her childhood but a gift from her previous lover. Unbeknownst to all but her, there are three people in that bed.

Last night, I shared my bed with another. Although there was no romantic or sexual nuance to the scene, I am sure my inspiration Miss Havisham would have been shocked. Had I lived in the 1860s, such conduct would ruin me: my reputation and honour destroyed, I would have become damaged goods.

And so, I found myself in a most conflicting predicament. The unfamiliarity of the touch brought too vividly to mind that of another which is still too familiar. And so our night was choreographed into a strange and repetitive dance where I would seek refuge in warm affectionate arms only to feel the sudden urge to move as far away towards the opposite end of the bed as possible until he pulled me back towards him only for me to pull away once more.

I used to find physical contact with men comforting and so felt I was better suited to this age where the sexes are less segregated. It is most contradictory however that the more I progress in life and experience, the more I see value in limiting one’s self to the touch of few if not but one. Every adventure one undertakes leaves an inerasable mark. We can possibly choose to what extent it affects us but that does not make it any less indelible.

Black pits did not always come equipped with broadband and Sky Plus...

My name is Ms Havisham.

Jilted and unemployed, I am the lost cause of the twenty first century. I also pursue a love/hate relationship with modern technology.  

Today, I received an email from the Love of my Life, now known as Lol. It was nothing special of course, just a message to tie up a few loose ends. I mentioned previously that I was in constant hope of this occurrence. I mention now that I also dread it for the coldness of those sparse impersonal words freeze me to the core. How conflicting, how masochistic to long for what I did know, if I am honest with you and with myself, would only be an additional stab of pain.  

Despite this message, long awaited, business is still unfinished: he has now begun to reclaim his possessions so dear to me, not in their romantic nature but in their intent to be useful, or in other words, in his intent to take care of me.

In my mixture of hope, anger and grief with regards to this episode, my thoughts turn to my Dickensian predecessor. Over the past month, Lol and I have communicated by way of phone texts and broadband and I awaited each hurtful message with the same bated breath. What is interesting is that today, it takes the same amount of time for a message to reach someone halfway across the world as it does someone in the next room. One hundred and fifty years ago, it was a different story: had old Miss Havisham lived anywhere but in close proximity to her beloved, the number of notes exchanged would be significantly fewer.

I think of myself, paralysed in my waiting even a few hours for news and I wonder how any woman in the mid nineteenth century could bear this. Did they also take to their beds (or in my case, a flat screen with Sky Plus…Yes, my pit is well equipped!)? Or were they stronger than we are now? I do admit that some women nowadays in a similar situation may be more composed than this. Perhaps my weeklong collapse was partly a conscious choice in compliance with my tendencies towards all that is passionate and dramatic. And so, as I think of women throughout the ages, I come to another point of contemplation along my quest:

To what extent can we and should we master our own emotions?

Dreams and Secret Weapons

My name is Ms Havisham.

Jilted and unemployed, I am the lost cause of the twenty first century. I also had a dream about the Love of my Life last night. I will call him Lol for short, it makes the concept slightly more palatable.

I dreamt that Lol finally said the binding words “its over.” to me. He looked straight in my eyes and ended it. A courtesy I have not yet been privy to. It doesn’t take an expert dream analyst to tell me that I need closure. Call me naïve, call me completely ridiculous if you will, I wouldn’t blame you, but there is still a part of me that is waiting for him to come back. Every time I leave the house, I expect to see his car waiting for me outside. Every time my phone rings, I get nervous thinking it might be him. It never happens…of course…but I can’t stop hoping.

So I didn’t exactly wake up feeling rosy. But I got myself out of my warm bed and into a  great outfit: it all matched: the coat, the belt, the shoes, the bag, even the underwear, you name it. A few years ago when I was depressed, my mother once told me: “Ms Havisham, you are now a woman and a woman, no matter how she feels, does not leave the house without makeup.” Now I don’t actually wear makeup at the moment and that started before my decline but in that respect, my mother spoke words of wisdom. Looks are power and knowing how to make the most of yourself is the ultimate secret weapon arming you with inimitable confidence.

And so I dress up. I dress up to look good, I dress up to feel good. Then, just for a second, I can forget that I’ve dressed up clinging to the shred of hope that somehow, maybe he will be there and life will feel good…

Pits and Prospects

My name is Ms Havisham.

Jilted and unemployed, I am the lost cause of the twenty first century. I also have the embarrassment of being able to say that I am receiving a Young Person’s Job Seeker’s Allowance…more commonly known as The Dole.

I make the excruciating ten minute journey from my home to the Job Centre once a week to have a piece of paper signed and positions paying minimum wage that I am largely overqualified for presented to me. The silver lining is that this cannot possibly depress me as I’m not sure it’s possible for my spirits to be any lower. In fact, I have started to welcome the change of scenery and fresh faces. (Perhaps grounds on which I should be committed?) I went a couple of weeks ago and someone actually asked me out. This was during my glory days where I was able to truthfully say I had a boyfriend which thankfully prevented me from having to invent a kind excuse to this gentleman of excellent prospects…

During my last visit, a charming advisor with the most soulless eyes I have ever seen suggested he make an appointment with a careers advisor for me. I took the term “suggestion” with a pinch of salt as I wondered how quickly my weekly check would dry up should I decline. I then took myself to my appointment with the woman in question who after consulting me on my history, to my surprised enquired after my personal life. I asked her to exemplify, thinking that I should at least confirm what she meant before I took this meeting in a direction she'd had no intention of going in. I consequently learnt that what was holding me back from a successful career was the miserable weight on my shoulders.

I exited from the session feeling unfamiliarly positive. I may have been fed a fair amount of clichéd phrases as I was told to take the boxes out of my CV formatting because “Ms Havisham cannot be boxed in!” but the thing is that they actually worked. Temporarily, this woman had actually made me enthusiastic about the Real World. And so, perhaps was a certain amount of truth in her revelation:

My pit may come pre-supplied with wireless, but job prospects it does not.

The Challenge

My name is Ms Havisham.

Jilted and unemployed, I am the lost cause of the twenty first century. But, it is more than that: I am heart broken. I despair of ever being fixed and consequentially, my family and friends are starting to despair of me.

The love of my life, my promise of a "Hollywood Ending" did more than desert me. I can see The Cynics shaking their heads but the concept of The One is new to me. I am a far cry from the Charlotte who seeks quality marriage material in every synthetic suit she meets. This was different, not only was I taken in but I got key approval stamps all around. But overnight, he morphed from the man who convinced the world and his wife he was Prince Charming into a toad who was more than a far cry from the kind little frog in Shrek II. No warning signs and definately no explanations. Not even an end really, as I found out it was over through a poor innocent third party who rightfully assumed his 'nice guy' buddy had done the right thing and announced our break up to me before spreading the news. And so overnight, I went from having fallen head over heels in love to completely falling apart.

I have now been wallowing in a black pit for almost a month. The fact that my eyes and nose have stopped running on a permanent basis may fool the masses into thinking I am on the road to recovery but anyone who knows this deep well of awfulness is aware that the reduction of my industrial consommation of Kleenex is meaningless.

The problem with black pits is that with no one sitting by your side holding a fresh box of tissues, it gets not only lonely but actually quite boring. Luckily, I seem to be well supplied with wireless down here. And so, with the power of technology in my hands and using myself as a human guinea pig, I am challenging myself to figure out:

How the hell am I going to get out of here?