Obsession

"And in the dark
I can hear your heartbeat
I try to find the sun

But then, it starts
I'm always in the darkness
Of darkness I'd be King..."



Ohhh no. Please tell me this isn't happening. Not again. I thought I was past this stage?
It all started with a man called Jason Kay, from the band Jamiroquai. I was so scarily obsessed with him I even used to say goodnight to a little picture of him in my wallet (Deanna can attest to that. I'm sure she'd love to). The next big one was a little something called Phantom of the Opera. Now that one wasn't too bad because it was a whole thing, not just one person that I was fixated on. But that screwed me up enough because it was so dark and depressing. After that there were a few minor flutters into the land of the insane before I hit on Doctor Who, namely a certain actor called David Tennant. Now I was a bit older, so this wasn't as scary as the Jay Kay one but still... huge giant folders of images in My Documents, box sets of dvds... and after the final of the second season when the Doctor and his female opposite character Rose were parted forever, it took me three days to get over the sadness completely. I cried myself to sleep that night, it was such a sad episode. Even after the obsession itself was over and I finally saw David Tennant as a man and an actor, and not the character of the Doctor who I'd fallen in love with; when David Tennant was replaced as the Docter by this other baby-faced young guy, I scoffed and insulted him for being unoriginal and generally just not as good.
But now... I just watched this episode with the new guy, Matt Smith, and there was this one scene... and the same old feeling started coming back to me.
It always starts with something touching, with a character showing some vulnerability or tenderness. This fluttering feeling starts in my chest, just like the beginnings of a crush on some real normal person. At the time I just go "awww, that was so sweet..." and I might rewind it if I can to watch the scene again (which I did). But later on I'll find that I can't stop thinking about it, and then I'll find that I feel sort of... wistful and lonely, and still caught up in the story. Wishing that it was real and that I was in it. And that is how my obsessions start.
I blame my imagination. I am so good at putting myself in the shoes of the female opposite character that it affects me somehow. Admittedly this is a skill on the part of the scriptwriters and actors and directors too, but I have always been good at imagining, ever since I was a little girl. And it mucks with my brain. And I thought I'd grown out of it. It hasn't come back to attack me since I met Jared. And yet! HERE IT IS AGAIN. And I don't want it.

Chapter Eight: Down

"Tidal waves
They rip right through me
Tears from eyes mourn
Cold and sad
Pick me up now
I need you so bad."


I haven't posted in so long, it's getting ridiculous. I realised this the other night and mentioned it to Jared, and he said "it's because you're happy."
And then I realised that was actually true. Basically I've just been using this blog to post about being unhappy or confused or things like that. And looking back, this is true of my other blogs as well as my past personal diaries. Why do I only write about being upset? If this was a real account of my day to day life, a lot of it would be all about how happy and content I am.

I guess at least part of the reason I don't blog about being happy is, well, it's boring. It's connected to the other reason I post sometimes... when I've had an epiphany or a breakthrough of some kind, and I want to share it and sound wise and impressive and like a really good writer. People don't really enjoy reading about happy people. It makes them depressed that they aren't as happy or don't have the things that the happy person does, and most of the time that depression shows as boredom. I want people to read my blog, to identify with it, but you have to admit that it's easier to identify with unhappy things than happy things. Why is this? Surely we aren't all sad all the time.

But when you look at musicians and artists and film writers and other creative people, the same theme shows through. I certainly know that it's infinitely easier to write a song when you're feeling down. When I'm happy for ages my creativity dries up. Why? It's not like we only turn to music when we're unhappy. But it's so much harder to write about feeling good than it is about feeling bad. Happiness and the reasons behind happiness are so indescribable sometimes. Happiness is fleeting, whereas depression settles in for the long haul.

I'd really like someone to do a study on the human brain to find out why this is so. And how do we fix it?

Anyway. Deanna has inspired me. From now on I'm going to blog more, and I'm going to use it like my diary, like I was supposed to. I don't want to look back and think that I was unhappy during what is actually the greatest time of my life.

P.S. Hahaha. Jared went to the dawn celebration this morning, he had to get up at 4am and now he's lying on the couch and I can hear him snoring XD

Scarred

"I miss who we were
In the town that we could call our own
Going back to get away
After everything has changed."



I just read over my blogs so far and something kinda struck me. I'm much better at writing about internal drama... emotional accidents and things... than physical things like my accident in Christchurch.
My grandma is over right now and of course we had to explain to her what had happened to me. I started trying to tell her but the more I talked, the less sense I made and the more the story I was telling disturbed me. Mum had to take over. I couldn't believe how much it bothered me to recount what happened. I guess that I had spent so long pretending that it hadn't happened that admitting to myself that it had was terrifying. I couldn't read the blog that I wrote about it here, either. I suppose this is what the phrase "scarred for life" really means. Not necessarily something you think about all the time, but something you try not to think about because it frightens you so much when you do.
After the accident, Dad said that he hoped that it wouldn't stop me being adventurous and fearless like I was before. I'm not sure whether it will or not... I might go back to the snow, but I am never going to Porter's Pass again.

The boy- ex-Shadowboy- is coming back to Auckland next Thursday. I can't wait to greet him at the airport with all of our friends! But the funny thing is that I feel so different. Once upon a time my heart would have LEAPED with hope and happiness and so on... now that he's just my friend, it's just a comfortable warmth, a passive feeling of rightness. I'm not used to a feeling like that. I suppose it's really good because it means that cutting my inappropriate ties to him has worked and healed. But I won't know how I really feel until I see him.

I was talking to a friend of mine- the one who betrayed me earlier- the other day and I started describing his writing style to him, how it wasn't like I expected. I had expected more mist and illusion and confusion, whereas his style was more solid and... meaty. Practical. No mystery, just straight storytelling. He said, "mist and illusion have nothing to do with telling a story". But I disagree. The way you write something has a HUGE impact on the experience of the reader.

This is a bit of a weird entry because I'm basically waiting until I have to leave for my English 121 exam, and filling up the time with writing. I have a feeling that the things I have said so far are all little seeds of future entries or lines of thought that will develop later into fully fledged rants. I just wanted to get them down before they sunk into the torpid swamp of writing an essay this afternoon.

Answer

"Think of me when you're out, when you're out there
I'll beg you nice, from my knees
And when the world treats you way too fairly
Well it's a shame I'm a dream

All I wanted was you..."


Today I lay on my bed and stared out the window as a cloud turned into a dragon, then to a dog, then to a mouse, and then disintegrated like candyfloss.
As I watched I was thinking:


"Why doesn't anybody think before they speak?"

"Am I not allowed to have a moment of weakness? A moment of insecurity?"

"Don't I deserve to have that insecurity vanquished?"

"Do I always have to be the strong one?"

"What do you do when your body and mind are fully rested, but your soul is exhausted?"

"Does anyone really know how I feel?"

"If not, then where do I go to get the answer?"

"In trying to stop beating myself up all the time, have I gone the opposite way? Do I now think I'm better- kinder, prettier, more fun, more patient, more thoughtful, more selfless- than I really am?"

"Why do I get so insecure?"

"What is wrong with me?!"

Chapter Six: Out

"So fill your head with what you think you understand.
My ears grow tired of listening to this constant recital
Lend yourself only when it suits
For this worthy cause, for this worthy cause
Feed the elevation that you so desperately, so desperately...

And in this voice of confidence
Too proud to admit flawed opinions
Bound to his verbal crusade
Preaching his infected position.
These tones will always deceive the unfamiliar
Still glorifying your misperception.

SO IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN VOICE
And why? You would talk for eternity
The watcher runs
With the circles of his debate
And in the end, what's been achieved?"


It's definitely time to move out.

When you admit a huge weakness in your character; when you ask a small favour of your mother in order to help you overcome this weakness, and you are denied on the grounds that this person who is meant to love you and care for you is too lazy and busy to do this small thing for you... it's definitely time to move out.

When you come home late, exhausted from a stressful weekend worrying about and crying over your soulmate who has had to spend a night in hospital, and from nursing him back to health; when your father attacks you so personally that you break down in tears and sob so hard you cannot draw breath, and even then he has no pity for you; when your mother calls you selfish, thoughtless and immature, and then expects you to come over to the couch and make her feel like she hasn't done anything wrong... it's definitely time to move out.

When neither parent seems to understand how the weight of keeping peace in the family, the weight of all their countless fights, the weight of the negative emotion that they spread in any house that they live in; how that weight descends upon you and bears you down, crushes you to the floor while you try and lift it away from yourself... it's time. It's time. It is time.

From now, the money I earn from teaching is going towards that one goal. I will endure until I have enough. Then I will leave.
I've been procrastinating, inventing and imagining amazing situations where I could keep my beautiful new house with my window seat and evict my parents, evict that negative emotion. I haven't faced the fact that it will take sacrifices to escape this situation. I feel like I've grown up all of a sudden.

I have to get out of here.

Abandoned

"The truth is hiding in your eyes
And it's hanging on your tongue
Just boiling in my blood
But you think that I can't see
What kind of man you are
If you're you a man at all...
Well I will figure this one out on my own
On my own...

I'm screaming 'I love you so'
But my thoughts you can't decode.

How did we get here?
I used to know you so well.
How did we get here?
I think I know..."


People are strange. You think you know them, and then they go and do something totally unexpected.
Some people are stranger than others, and this kind of strangeness spills over into the relationships they have with other people. The relationship becomes strange... becomes something out of the ordinary, something others cannot understand. From the outside it can look wrong, disturbing, unnatural; but from the inside it's the safest thing each person knows. For some, it can become like a back stop. A fall net. When your boyfriend breaks up with you, this friend is there to help you not to lose your sense of beauty or worth. When your other friends get petty and catty and ditch you, this friend is there to make sure you are not alone. When the world fails you, this friend is there to step in. And when you have a friend like that, you will defend them to the end. You defend their anomalies, their strangeness, their failings, and especially you defend your relationship, because no matter how intense and unnatural it may seem to others, it's your security.

We were tight. We were tighter than tight. But he has disappeared off the face of my earth, and it's like a rug being pulled from under my feet. I fell, and my safety net should have caught me halfway down... but I'm still falling, and I think I'm beginning to realise that sooner or later I'm going to have to save myself... or break into pieces on the ground.

It almost feels like losing a partner. I dread seeing him around uni, and yet I wish I would because then I could shout at him. I could demand to know where he was when I needed him. I could make him hurt, and be sorry, and then maybe... just maybe... we could be friends again. I could have my net back. I could be safe again. I could stop feeling so abandoned. So bewildered. So lost.

"Where were you when I was burned and broken,
While the days slipped by from my window watching?
Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless?
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me.
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun."

Chapter Five: Accident

"Hopelessly drifting
Bathing in beautiful agony
I am endlessly falling
Lost in this wonderful misery
In peaceful sedation I lay half-awake
And all of the panic inside starts to fade
Hopelessly drifting
Bathing in beautiful agony."

I didn't want to go, really. It was Jared's first time in the South Island and we really would rather have stayed in Christchurch and seen the sights there. But we got roped into it... and really, once we'd left, it was very fun. Until it wasn't.
We all piled into the car: my brother Dylan, his wife Tania, her daughter Azriel, Jared and I. Off we went on a 2-hour drive up to Porter Heights, the nearest snow-covered mountain. As we went through the curiously flat Christchurch countryside, Azzy was remarking upon all the farm animals; she reminded me of me at her age. "Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep..." she'd chant. And then "cow, cow, cow, cow...". Horses deserved a special exclamation and she'd point them out to me, because I said I loved horses too. We had a lot of fun laughing at her because somehow she knew all the pop radio songs, even Lady Gaga and all those people. Nobody had a clue where she'd learned them from.
Eventually we got there, not without a few "are we there yet"s. We parked the car, kitted up in our borrowed snow gear and set off.
As Tania, Jared, Azzy and I set off up the snowy walkway, Dylan decided he'd go and see how much it was to rent a toboggan. It seemed the only place to toboggan was the walkway we were trudging up, which seemed strange, so after throwing a few snowballs at each other and slipping over a couple of times, we approached a ski instructor to ask where the best spot was. He waved us over to a rather steeper hill on our left.
It was tough going to climb up this hill. Too tough for Azzy and the pregnant Tania, in fact. So Dylan had the first go, climbing up the slope about four metres and sliding from there. Azzy got the next go, from about two meteres up the slope. In the meantime Jared and I set to climbing the near-sheer snowy incline. I got to a patch of exposed tussock grass and sat on it, my legs tired already. To my left was a cliff of about four or five feet; to my right was a gentler slope. Dylan climbed up to us with the toboggan and we surveyed the path down.
Even Jared said that he wasn't going to do it, that it looked too risky. But none of us seemed to be thinking properly. Maybe the cold air, with so much less oxygen, got to our brains. Maybe it was just spur of the moment. But I decided to go. Fearless, I laughed at Jared. "Move over, chicken boy", I teased, and crawled over to where Dylan was holding the toboggan. "Be careful", he warned. "Once you get in the thing it's going to start moving straight away."
I planned to aim for the hill to my right, so I wouldn't pick up so much speed. But Dylan was right. Once I sat in the toboggan, he let it go... and I had no control.
It took off so fast that I was whiplashed onto my back. It started sliding away to the right and went over the five-foot cliff. I landed heavily on my left side, still in the toboggan. It curved off the the right and I came out of it and kept sliding straight ahead, right into a fence. The bottom board hitting my jaw spun me around and stopped me.

All this time I wasn't afraid, I was just so bewildered. The whole way down I was just going, "what?".

Winded, I struggled between the impulse to breathe and the impulse to scream. Screaming won and I yelled, as loudly as I could for as long as I could... and then everything went black.

The thing that struck me about it was how peaceful it was. No light, no sound, nothing... just velvety warm darkness, like that moment between sleeping and waking. I could've quite happily stayed there forever. I was utterly, totally and completely convinced that in a moment I'd wake up safe and warm in my bed back at my sister's place after having a bad, bad dream. And then I heard Jared. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I heard his voice, and I thought 'oh, right. Jared', and opened my eyes.
The next few seconds were the most terrifying experience of my life.

There were people all around me. I couldn't see a single face I knew and they were all way, WAY too close. I didn't want them there, I wanted space, I wanted air, I wanted to organize my thoughts and figure out why I was on this hillside and what had happened to me before I dealt with anything else. I was horrified. The next second, pain hit me. I screamed and screamed and screamed, right into the face of a lady paramedic. In the same instant I noticed that my jaw felt wrong, that there was blood and tiny hard bits of tooth in my mouth. I wanted to ask if I had any teeth missing but I couldn't stop myself yelling long enough. I was so, so frightened. Then I noticed someone was holding my hand, and I managed to calm myself enough to listen to what that person was saying.
"Love, it's alright. It's okay, I'm here." Jared. Jared was here. I tried to process that. If Jared was there, then everything was fine. He kept up that chant the whole time, holding me in, keeping me sane.

I managed to answer the paramedic's questions between involuntary moans and sobs. One of the guys had a hat in the shape of a fox on his head and I remember being worried that I was hallucinating, and then wanting to laugh, even in the midst of my terror and pain. They checked me for paralysis and I could move my legs and arms. I remember saying "thank God". I know Tania's face popped up at one point, detailing out what had happened to me in the logical way that she has. I remember Dylan, with a strange face on that looked like he wanted to smile for me but was too worried for it.
Eventually they got me back to the first aid place on the mountain. They did more checks and said I'd chipped a tooth, but they were all still there and I hadn't broken anything. I had huge bruises on my jaw and my ribs, and a deep, deep cut on my leg, but when I was ready I could go.

At the end of the day I struggled to my feet and somehow made it down the hill to the car, leaning on Jared and Dylan. They settled me in the front seat and, with Tania driving very, very carefully, we started back home. And that would have been that, if I hadn't started bleeding out of my ear.
Dylan called dad and explained everything, saying that he'd probably take me to Christchurch hospital and to meet us there...

...a few kilometres away, my mother and sister turned to each other and said, "She didn't want to go"...

...We got there eventually and they wheeled me into A&E. I remember protesting proudly against the wheelchair, but succumbing to group pressure. Jared had to leave while we were waiting and he was away quite a while. When he came back I gave him my hand; I could see that he'd been crying and I said softly, "oh, love...". He buried his face in my hand and his and broke down. It must have been so horrible for him to watch me slip away.

Eventually, after many x-rays and examinations, they told me that my jaw was broken in three places; down the middle and on each corner. Because my ribs were just bruised, I was okay to go back to my sister's place.
I was so afraid to sleep that night. I was terrified I'd wake up back on that mountain, back in that nightmare. But I was exhausted, and there was no fighting it.


I won't dwell on the other appointments; the painful plane trip home, the annoying south african doctor who said I'd have to have my jaw wired shut, my determination that I wouldn't, my healing of myself so much so that I impressed the surgeon who came to check me out, my slow-seeming but relatively fast healing ribs, the plethora of drugs and pills I had to take for the first week and the alternate birthday celebration I had to have.
But now I have experienced being hurt that badly, and I never want to again. And it could have been so much worse. I'm lucky.

It could have been so. Much. Worse.

Schism

"Pure intention juxtaposed
Will set two lovers' souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes
Testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then
Has a burned a hole between us so
We cannot see to reach an end
Crippling our communication

I know the pieces fit
Cause I watched them tumble down
No fault, none to blame
It doesn't mean I don't desire to
Point the finger, blame the other
Watch the temple topple over
To bring the pieces back together
Rediscover communication..."

He's a good friend of mine. So was she.
They'd been together before. A four-month relationship that seemed to be lasting forever. And then she ended it, and the hold that he'd kept so tightly on her ripped him apart. That time, I was her friend, seeing everything from her point of view. She was my best friend, and when I say best I mean best. But he was my friend too; not as close, and for not as long, but his friend nonetheless. I was stuck in the middle.
And then I did something silly. For ten fateful minutes I let myself become a volatile broadcaster instead of just a safe sounding board. For ten minutes I took pity on him, and I told him just one little thing that she had told me. And he reacted, and she noticed, and I told her what I did... and things between me and her were never the same again.
Oh, she forgave me. We were still best friends. But that's when we started growing apart.
My friendship with him began to grow until it eclipsed what I had shared with her. Looking back now, it was almost as if I made a choice. With those ten weak, soft minutes I chose him over her.
I don't blame myself, because the position I was in was of such intense pressure that the expression stuck between a rock and a hard place doesn't even come close. It was more like being burned by a fire on one side- the fire of his intense pain -and choked by a rope on the other- a rope that pulled and pulled as she tried to escape the ruins of their relationship. So I gave in. I fed the fire with a piece of the rope. I'm beginning to realise now that perhaps I cut the rope to do that.
I don't regret it either. Since I cut that rope she has become less and less the kind of person that I want to spend time around; running further and further into the distance until all the things that she once was to me have almost disappeared over the horizon.

And then he and I got together. A two-month summer romance that seemed to be lasting forever. And then he ended it, and and the hold that I'd kept so tightly on him ripped me apart. Because it was her. He still wasn't over her.
We both had other relationships, and after the compulsory period of awkwardness, he and I were closer than ever. I got over him... but he never got over her.

And they got back together. Months passed, and it seemed it would last forever.
But if it didn't work once, it was never going to work twice.
And now that they've broken up again, I find myself on his side more than hers. It's surreal for me, having been through this twice with them and now being on the other side of the fence. This time I blame her so much more than I could have ever blamed him all those years ago: it's the way that she just doesn't seem to care, this time. At least the first time she fretted and worried for the proper time period.
I may be wrong about how she's feeling. After all, we haven't had a deepmeaningful, like we used to, for years. But there are some things I've always known and noticed about her... she is immensely practical, ruthlessly down-to-earth, and can be brutally, brutally blunt.

After all he and I have been through, I can't help but take his side in this. But it is surreal... to be part of both lives, to be the fork in the road, the schism of their love story.

Chapter Four: Apathy

"Still it's hard to just get by
It seems so meaningless to try
When all I want to do is cry
No-one ever knew I was so sad

Cause even though I get so high
I know that I will never fly
And when I fall out of the sky
Who'll be standing by?

Will you be standing by?"

A month or so ago I went on the pill and things have not been the same since. I've felt so down all the time... not the drama-filled, stormy down that I'm used to, but a general rainy cloud over my head. I've never really had mood swings before, but I know now what they are. Happy one minute, sad the next, for no apparent reason. And I feel so hopeless and helpless to resist... and in fact, it's as if I don't want to. I'm drowning in apathy. I don't care.

But I know that in an hour or so I probably will care.

It's so confusing having this leaping thing inside my head all the time. Up, down, up, down. I worry that next time I have to make a proper decision about something important, I'll be on a down and not make the right one.

But next time you see me, I'll probably be smiling.

Staying happy these days is like reaching for a star. I'm a long way down and it's a long way up, and I'm scared that if I ever catch it, it will burn my hands.

Bars

"Every empty one of us have methods
To quell the madness of this pace
But yours have led and running south
A jealous storm has carried down your face

You could take that wait and all that fuss
So now just get the best of us, you know
Give me love not suicide
And the wiser, wider part of me will show

A picture says with sight
What we can't say with words
But you've been walking eyes to feet in dark sunglasses
A picture will survive
So smile and look alive..."


This weekend was meant to be a nice happy one with Jared as my parents went away. But he ran a temperature and had to go to the doctor, and ended up having to go back to his house. I'm coming to the conclusion his immune system must not be very strong.

So I spent the whole day today watching season one of Grey's Anatomy. I've never watched a whole season of something like that in one day, unless you count Doctor Who (shut up) which I don't. It was actually quite nice not to have to wait a week to find out... well, to remember... what happens next. There's something to be said for wasting a day in front of the tv.

But it was then that I realized that I'm no different. I enjoy drama just as much as the next person. Other people's dramas mean that I can forget mine. It's when it actually gets inside my head that I hate it. And well, obviously! Really, who would like that? So it's my fault, really. For being sensitive. For letting things that aren't real get inside my head. Grey's can make me cry, but for the most part I find it relatively unrealistic. It doesn't really relate to my life like it does to other peoples'. But something like Wuthering Heights... I know EXACTLY what it's like to have someone obsessive and damaged hold on to you. So tightly that you can't breathe. And I know what it's like when you get used to them. And then when you finally break their hold you get so much oxygen that it only takes one spark to ignite...

It's a family trait. Damaged people find us, and grasp us, and use us as ladders to climb back up to the light. But unfortunately, sometimes we get overwhelmed. We have to rip the ladder away from them and use it ourselves. And not look back. And not wonder if they've made it up or not. We have to separate ourselves to survive.
I'm really bad at that bit. I have a chronic case of what if. Of looking back. If anyone took a picture that summed me up, it would be of me looking over my shoulder. It's not healthy, it's not good for me or for anyone around me, but it's just the way things are.


That's another theme. The Way Things Are. Can I help the way I am? The life I've lead, the friends I've made, the people I've been involved with? Should I be punished for that?

This holidays I've caught up with an old friend. He and I have History. It's all resolved now, but that day at that cafe we talked about it for the first time. It all happened two and a half years ago, and it was the FIRST TIME we'd talked about it. It was... liberating. It was really nice to find out that he was still sorry about it... about hurting me. A long dusty puzzle piece clicked into place, completing that picture. And it felt good.
We ended up going back to his place and watching Mr. Bean, and eating gourmet pies. But when a technology malfunction meant that Jared didn't hear from me for hours, and then when he did, found that I was alone in a house with another boy that I'd had History with, he was very upset. Very.
It all culminated in Jared and I having a big long conversation and him asking me to never let myself be alone in a house with another boy again. And it's not like that really happens that often... in fact, hardly ever. But... just the simple fact that I've been forbidden to do something is a new thing. A new step.
I have this problem. It's called being a teenager. I'm lucky, I only have a mild case of it, but it means that sometimes... sometimes... when someone forbids me from doing something, I really REALLY feel like doing it.
Not that I will. But I want to.

Man, I feel screwed up. The only reason I'm blogging about this is that I've been thinking about it, and when I think about it I end up feeling like there's a thin layer of gauze wrapped around me. Like a set of almost-translucent bars around me. Cutting me off. And the question prods me in the side... doesn't he trust me? Doesn't he think that I can look after myself?
I've already asked him stuff like this, and he says he does trust me, but he still feels bad about it. And I will do anything, ANYTHING, to make Jared happy. No question.

But inside myself, in the depths of my mind, I should be allowed to be a bit annoyed.

Right?

Travesty

"We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire.

Vicariously, I
Live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I."


Why is it that human beings have such an appetite for tragedy? An appetite that even drowns out our appetite for love? Some of the greatest "love" stories in the world are based in tragedy. Look at Romeo and Juliet. Death and destruction. And more recently, look at Twilight. How much darkness and corruption and fear and sadness is in that series as a whole?

What about Wuthering Heights? There's a new version of it on tv round about now. "Oh, that's a beautiful story", Jared's mum said. But it's not. I admit that I haven't watched or read the whole thing yet, but I don't think it's a good idea for me to. I watched the first half of it last sunday and what do we see right away at the beginning? Heathcliffe, hopelessly and frighteningly obsessed, digs up Catherine's coffin, wrenches the thing apart and, though his own deluded mind sees her merely sleeping, the truth is that he climbs into the coffin and strokes the bones of his former love. And we are supposed to look at this as a beautiful story? It carries on. We go back in time and we see the two, Catherine and Heathcliffe, helplessly and hopelessly attached to each other. And yet what does she do? She marries someone else. The two torture each other. So much agony and anger. This is not love. This is obsession. Mutual obsession, disguised and paraded as "true love".

IT IS ALL A LIE.

In one of my English courses this year, one of the subjects we studied is "love". Again, the text we studied was not about love. It was about lust, obsession, infatuation. Not love. It angered me so much to hear people advertising this travesty of emotion as love, as true love, as soulmates.

LIES.

I have been obsessed with people. I have had people obsessed with me. I have felt lust and infatuation. And now I have experienced true love. And let me tell you, obsession and love are NOTHING alike. Nothing. It makes me so ANGRY that a writer or film maker can do this, can taint and corrupt the idea of love with their horrible, obsessive characters. And yet these "works of art", these "great love stories" are bought and eaten up by the average person! What kind of corrupted, twisted view of love does the population have if these horrible, frightening, tragic stories are viewed as stories of true love?

Perhaps if they are correct, then nobody experiences true love. I know of nobody who has had stories like Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights happen to them in the real world. But I know that I have true love. I know it like I know who I am. And so, from my anger at popular authors and directers, comes fear. If what I have is true love, then there is only one path for it... the Wuthering Heights path, the Romeo and Juliet path, the Twilight path... the path to destruction. The destruction of the mind. The destruction of life. The destruction of other people's lives. I am so afraid. How can such a force of good have such bad effects?

I don't know who to believe- the world, or myself.

Purgatory

"The world is a drought when out of love
Please come back to us
You're all of the above
'I'm making a choice to be out of touch.
Leave me be,' He said, he said, he said...

'Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!
Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!'"



I haven't posted for a while... I guess there hasn't really been anything to say. I'd closed that chapter- it was quite a short one I guess. I thought it'd be that easy. Cut the ties. Turn in a new direction. Start a new chapter. I should've known.
It was really weird actually. I was thinking that as I loaded up my blog, and then the latest entry under Danny's blog said something quite similar. That seems to happen to us a lot.

Today I logged into msn for the first time in ages to sort out my mess of a hotmail inbox. There was a message from Shadowboy in it, just a general thing sent out to everyone. He called it Travel Log, and it was just an account of what'd happened to him so far... but reading it made me so... so sad. I suddenly realized that, by cutting the ties I had to him as more than a friend, I'd almost cut him out of my life. Made him someone neutral, normal, unknown. And it hurt. Evidently there are still some sore spots from where I cut the ties, and they haven't healed yet.
So, patience. I must have patience and wait for them to heal. Silly really- I shouldn't've thought that it'd be that fast and easy. I should've listened to you, Danny, when you said time. Twice.

I'm in purgatory. In limbo. Just waiting.

Fury

"It's a cruel thing you'll never know
All the ways I tried
It's a hard thing faking a smile
When I feel like I'm falling apart inside

And now you're gone it's like an echo in my head
And I remember every word you said..."



It was close to seven o'clock at night. I was on the bus on the way home from Uni- what a place to have a mental spasm- and that song came up on my iPod... Robyn, Be Mine. Back when shadow-boy was my obsession that song would make me cry until my heart nearly burst. But when I heard it today something else began to rise in my chest... utter and absolute fury.

I've never felt so purely angry in my life. I don't deal with anger very well. I'm not used to it. Frustration, yes... hurt, yes... regret, yes... but not anger.

So I ran. I got off the bus and I ran through my suburb in the darkness. Like the first time I heard that song, I wanted to scream... this time in a different kind of agony than the first... but I didn't want to scare my neighbours... so, like the first time, I danced. I beat the ground with my feet, I cut the air with my arms, I lashed out at the sky. I spun through my fury.

I stopped when it was getting too late and too close to my house to continue.


How dare he?! How dare shadow-boy still affect me this way when it's been so long, and I've been through so much life, and I've had the most amazing person practically given to me on a plate- it's complete crap! Why?!

I believe that everything happens for a reason... but what the hell is life trying to teach me with this?! I've learned everything that I can from him- what is the point in prolonging this torture, this utter useless hopelessness?

And the worst bit is that it's not even his fault. The only person I can really blame is myself- my mind. My stupid, stupid mind! It's all in my head. The one person whose rejection consistently made me feel like I wasn't good enough. And he doesn't even know. He has no idea.
It's. All. In. My. Head.

Chapter Two: Stop

"You've got it, you've got it
Some kind of magic
Hypnotic, hypnotic
You're leaving me breathless
I hate this, I hate this
You're not the one I believe in
With God as my witness.

Now when I caught myself I had to stop myself
From saying something that I should've never thought.
Now when I caught myself I had to stop myself
From saying something that I should've never thought of you, of you,
You're pushing and pulling me down to you
But I don't know what I want
No I don't know what I want.

I don't know what I want
But I know it's not you...
Keep pushing and pulling me down
When I know in my heart it's not you."



I don't even know how to start this. It's so stupid and pointless and utterly, utterly sad. But not sad like the previous chapter. Sad like pathetic.

I should know better than to read my old diaries.



A week or so ago I was talking to a friend of mine about a certain problem we both have. I suppose its origin is in our over-developed imaginations, our poets' souls, our elephant's memories for past emotions.

It's the What If.

The wondering what might've happened. With a certain someone. If the stars had all been aligned and it had all worked out the way we wanted at the time.


In the days directly before my Jared, my life, my light and my soulmate, there was a dark tunnel of a teenage love in my life. A boy who- through no fault of his own, because he was almost always direct and honest with me- lived in my heart on and off for three years. From the moment which he first became lodged there his shadow began to fall across me, my love, my mind. And in the last year, this shade of him took on a life of its own... even after the boy had lost that kind of interest in me... even after he kindly, thoughtfully and carefully made this absolutely apparent to me... his shadow continued to take over... to claim territory in my heart until the whole thing was dark and corrupted, until I screamed for release, wanted to rip it out of my chest and escape. Hopeless. My eyes so darkened there was nothing else to see but the shadow. Helpless. Too sick to see any way out or any alternative to this twisted love I had come to hold.

And then, like a candle lighting, like the sun rising, a light appeared. Jared rescued me out of my self-inflicted blindness, lifted me up to the warmth. Showed me what love really is. Gave me my life back, claimed my heart back, healed it. All without even knowing it. I know now what I was always missing. Like a puzzle piece fitting perfectly into the piece next to it, he fit. Like the perfect missing note in a melody, he sang. Like sleep washing over after a long night of sleeplessness, he soothed. He is my soulmate; the one I've waited for through who knows how many past lives. And I wouldn't trade him for the world. I want to get that straight. Whatever else I might say in this entry, it doesn't mean that I'd ever let Jared go. Under any circumstances. Because a life without him would be the most potent living hell imaginable.


And yet... and yet... try as I might, I can't completely let him go. The boy who shadowed my heart for years.
My heart is not his kingdom anymore; it's Jared's. And yet still wonder what it might've been like to be his, without the shadow.
I know he's not the one for me; Jared is. And I know that even if we had been together, it wouldn't've lasted- we were almost too similar, he was almost too much of a kindred sprit. The vibe would've felt wrong. And yet still I wonder what it might've been like to have what I wanted so badly for so long.
Secretly, I never really liked kissing before Jared. It was... boring. Honestly, it really wasn't often that I felt like I really wanted to do it, I just did it because it was expected. I think that's because I'm a very specific person; the only person that I am ever going to feel good kissing is always Jared. And yet still I wonder what it would've been like to kiss him. My shadow boy.

These feelings are on and off, just like when he first appeared in my heart. When they're off they're gone like he never existed. But when they're on they keep me up for hours. Just like tonight. I want to be rid of them completely. I want it to stop. But I know no way how.



This year he's moving to England for a gap year, a working holiday, all on his own. It's been months since I last saw this boy; madness considering he was in my group of friends, a set of people I saw almost every single day last year, and considering that he was one of the people I was closest to for most of that year.
His leaving party is on Friday. He'll be gone for a whole year- it'll be the last time I'm going to see him for quite a while. I want to get these feelings I have finished, over, packed away in a box, taped up and stored in the attic of my mind. I want to never want or have to look at them again.
Jared's coming to this party too. He's finally gotten over his slight jealous streak; though I think he still feels edgy about a few people, and this boy is definitely one of them... and fair enough too, considering what I'm writing here. Again I want to stress that Jared is my soulmate and that I can't live without him: no way in hell, heaven or earth would I swap the two around or do anything to betray or hurt him.
But the problem is that me and this boy have never talked about what happened between us. I think this is because he's not one of those guys who like to talk about their inner feelings, which is horrible for me because that's how I sort things out; through talk. Through action, positive action in a positive direction.

I only ever kissed this boy on the cheek, once. Just once. But lately I keep thinking that I should do it again. Still on the cheek. Still just once more. To kiss goodbye to my memory of him. Goodbye to the last fragments of his shadow. Maybe also to compare kissing his cheek to kissing Jared's... just to make absolutely, positively sure that I'm right about how this boy and I would never have worked out. But I'm afraid that someone will see and take it the wrong way... one of my other friends, or, God forbid, Jared... and I'm scared that this boy might take it the wrong way too. I of all people know that you can never count on what you think you know that someone's thinking.

I know it's a bad idea. But only mostly.

I need closure, but I don't know what to do.

Atmosphere

"Since you've been gone I've been lost inside
Tried and failed as we walked by the riverside
I wish you could see the love in her eyes
The best friend that eluded you lost in time
Burned alive in the heat of a grieving mind

But what can I say now?

And it couldn't be more wrong cause there's no one there
Unmistakably lost and without a care
Did we lose all the love that we could have shared
And it's wearing me down, and it's turning me round
And I can't find a way now to find it out
Where are you when I need you?

Are you there?"


I should know by now that movies and tv shows are nothing like real life. But once again real life has gotten sick of being ignored and has come back to bite me.
On screen when someone dies, it's simple. They die, you grieve, there's a funeral and from that you get closure. Simple. Done and dusted. In real life it's nothing like that.

But that's what I was expecting. I went to Nana's funeral fully expecting that this would close the book; that I could start a new chapter of this life in total security, looking forward, feeling new. And I truly believe that I could've...

The problem is that nobody else was thinking like that. Everyone else is expecting their grief to carry on for ages, and so it will...
I've become a great believer in the school of thought that says that the mind controls everything. If you think you're recovering from a disease, for example, that can go a long way towards making you recover.
I'm a planner. I plan out my week, my month, my year, and that makes me feel like I have a purpose in life, that I'm going somewhere. Because if I didn't feel that then I'd crash. My plans are the only thing that keep me sane. And so I get upset when something or someone happens to upset my plan.
So I planned to feel better after the funeral. I planned to make a fresh start when Uni started again. I planned to look forward, to move on, not to forget Nana but to forget the pain, because she wasn't feeling it anymore. But other people keep screwing it up.

It's not really my elders' fault... I know they have to sort out the legal crap, her will and her possessions need to go somewhere... they do have to think about her all the time. But nobody else seems to think like I do.
This is going to sound so horrible and tactless, but I'm sick of thinking about it. I'm sick of everyone thinking about it. Don't they understand that life has to go on? Don't they know that the faster they move on the better they'll feel?
And even if they can't stop thinking about her... I just wish they wouldn't keep mentioning her to me. "Oh, Nana would've loved that..." "Nana would've been so pleased/so proud/so tickled about that"... Would've, would've, WOULD'VE. The plain fact is that she's gone. We all know this. Why do we have to keep reminding ourselves of it? Why does everyone feel the need to do that?
If they're going to keep doing that, I kind of wish they'd all just leave me alone.

And yet I know all this is me acting incredibly selfishly. And I hate it.

I don't know what to do. I'm so impatient for life to go back to normal. And when I leave this house it nearly is. Nearly. But the instant I get back the weight of the family grief descends upon me like an avalanche.

I think what I'm trying to say here is that I'm fine. All the denial and the heartache and the other assorted crap that people usually have to deal with when someone they love dies... I've dealt with it. I should be fine... but I feel like other people aren't letting me get over it.

Oblivion

"Why? Tell me the reasons why
Try, still I don't understand
Will I ever feel this again?
Blue sky, I'll meet you in the end..."



My Nana died on Thursday at 4.30pm.

As I walked through with the rest of my family to say goodbye to her, I turned my head to look out the ranch slider. The afternoon sun hit me full on my face, and it filled up my eyes with warm golden light. My first thought was what a beautiful afternoon...

When I walked into her room my eyes first fell onto my Mum. She was an absolute mess. I went to cuddle her. Then I looked at Nana. But she wasn't there.
Her body lay there like... an object. An absence of life. I couldn't even look at it- not because I was afraid, or even sad. Just because there didn't seem any point. She wasn't there. She was everywhere... everywhere else. In the afternoon sun in my eyes. In the dust motes in the air. In the tears of every person in the room.

I let go of Jared's hand. I walked over to the body on the bed and laid my hand on its arm. I looked into the sun, and then I spoke. "I just want to say, thank you. For being such a wonderful Nana. And for giving us this lovely... lovely afternoon."

I left the room, straight-backed, as dignified as I could be. Jared followed. I made it all the way to the deserted lounge, and then I was immobilized by the swelling of terror and grief. I felt like screaming, shouting, doing something to show the world some part of how horrible it was going to be without her with us. Instead I choked it down, stifled the cry, let it stream out of me in tears and trembling. Jared and I held each other as the despair rained down from the ceiling of the house my Nana had lived in since the age of sixteen.



We went for a walk down to the end of the street, to revel in the beauty and promise of the evening Nana gave us. Peace began to enter my heart with the cold air in my lungs, and I looked up to the sky, right into her eyes. She's where she belongs.

Insomnia

"Tell me where our time went, and if it was time well spent
Just don't let me fall asleep feeling empty again
Cause I feel I might break
And I feel I can't take this
Tonight I'll lie awake, feeling empty..."

I can't go through this another night, I surely can't.
Tonight's even worse because there's nobody for me to talk to.



I really should know better than to watch Grey's Anatomy when I have a relative in hospital.

Tonight there was the story of an old couple, where the wife had had multiple operations on a tumor in her brain; so many that every time she went in to have another one, the couple would say "goodbye darling" "goodbye my love"; and when she came back out they'd say hello again.
The wife signed a do-not-resuscitate form, and the husband agreed. But of course, this being Grey's, she didn't come through the surgery, and the husband wouldn't let her go... he continued to keep her heart beating just by pressing on her chest. He said, "I can't let her go. I can't be the one to let her go."
I know the doctors are doing everything they can for my Nana. They're trying to get her well enough to come home; since she can't move herself on her bed at present, and she's too heavy for Mum to move, she has to stay in hospital and get stronger. But... what if something happens in hospital? What if she dies? How can I know, knowing they know she's not going to live that much longer, that they'll do all they can to keep her alive? Is there even any point?
And if she does get well enough to come home, and she dies here... wouldn't she have been better off in the hospital? Couldn't they have done something? Again, is there even any point?

I should know better than to torture myself with "what if". To worry about things that I can't do anything about. But it's me... of course I think these things.


I don't understand how day can be so easy to exist in and night so hard. What is it about the dark and the quiet that brings out the bad feelings in me? In us?
How must Nana be feeling, all alone in that hospital ward? I would hate it. I would want to come home. It's not cold in the hospital, not overly, but it makes me shiver... and the instant I'm alone, it makes me shake. I would hate it. So dark, so cold. So alone. So quiet.
One of the things I fear most in this wide world is silence. I'm terrified of going deaf- not an irrational fear considering the gigs I've played and the music I've listened to. As long as I could still hear I could handle any other sense being lost. But if I lost my ability to listen... if my life was consumed by silence... to never hear my beloved's voice again or listen to him coaxing beautiful sounds out of his instrument, or the wind in the trees, or the sound of John Petrucci shredding with such soul, or the piercing cry of two voices in perfect harmony, or the swish of my beautiful girls in ball gowns, the hum of excited talk, the sound of my Nana's piano, though slightly flat, still giving me a way to express my soul. My whole soul's expression is through sound.

I don't know where I'm going with this ridiculous ramble. I only know that I can't do anything else... I can't distract myself with the rest of the internet, with facebook or bebo, or hotmail or msn, or internet games or blog sites or online comics... or with the Sims or designing houses, or thinking about my future wedding (which is what I usually do when I'm upset). I can't settle on a song to listen to or a book to read. And even if I did have someone to talk to I have no idea what I'd say.





I can't let her go. I could never be the one to let her go.