Our House, in the middle of our street....

So I am moving on Sunday. The beginning of a new chapter and all that jazz, back out of the parents and into another houseshare (I thought those days were behind me in all honesty) huzzah and hoorah....you would think!

I started packing and all my posessions, (dvds aside) the ones you really need, fit into one suitcase. One. Suitcase. Now whilst this is convenient in one respect, it has actually succeeded in making me feel like an even bigger fuck up than I already did. How can a 35 year old only own enough to fit in one suitcase?

The truth is I have never really owned a great deal, the most I have possessed was during my last relationship and I walked away from those things when I left the flat, having had my heart served up on a platter: post mincer. People have been feeding me platitudes about how they are simply material goods, that really I am so much better off not being tied by these things.....really? Is that true? If I got a call from someone saying their whole life had gone up in flames would that be my response? A close friend nailed it when I had a breakdown over, of all things, towels.

I suddenly became overwhelmingly aware that I didn't own any towels. This immediately became the trigger for a full meltdown over every bad decision I had ever made. How can I be a grown woman who doesn't own a towel?! Of course I don't own towels, of course I can't be found attractive, of course I am crap at my job....you get the idea. Pathetic I know but the journey I am on, I have discovered, is like a rollercoaster no one quite finished building! Having had three months of feeling as if I have reached the end of my tether this felt like the biggest deal ever.

My friend pointed out that while all the things I don't have are, indeed, material possessions, it is what they represent. The accumulation of items making your home your own, leaving your mark and also how society judges us. I told her I was sick of feeling so lost and down because there are people in worse situations. She repeated an adage she has shared before. "You have to wake up to your shit everyday. No one else, just you. Your shit is bad and it is your daily reality, screw everyone else's bad time, just keep moving forward"

I am tired of feeling sad. I am tired of feeling useless and lonely. This is not forever, this is only for now and hopefully my new start will be just that.....a door opening to my future, screw my anxiety, screw the material possessions and screw anyone who decides to treat me as anything other than the awesome human being I can be. I am coming back brighter so, dammit, watch me shine.....eventually!

NB: I now own towels....like a proper adult!

I'm a legal alien....

I despair of humanity sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are people out there who don't want to hurt others, who never want to inflict mental or physical pain on others, but what about those who do?

I have been unfortunate enough in my life to meet some truly nasty individuals, people who enjoyed making myself or others feel small or worthless, people who enjoyed taking what little power we had in our lives and making us feel unworthy. For the most part, I don't have people like that in my inner circles anymore, mostly because the number of people I allow to be close nowadays is very, very small and my anxieties tend to push people away fairly quickly.....however it hasn't escaped my notice that the world has shrunk due to social media and now every human with an opinion (which I agree everyone is entitled to) is encouraged to spout whatever they think and feel 24/7. Opinions are great, educated opinions are wonderful and can lead to debate and conversation and can even strengthen bonds even if they differ. Now, as someone who struggles with the spoken word, but not so much with the written this could be viewed as a good thing, sadly the events of the last few weeks, months and years have shown me that this isn't the case.

My heart breaks to see the world being destroyed by a small number of people who claim to be doing it in the name of "religion". It breaks even more to see the bile and hatred being spread towards anyone who has ever even expressed an interest in that same religion. Since a very young age I have sworn against organised religion, for a number of reasons but largely because I believe that people should simply love, share, be kind and be good. I feel that the rules and restrictions imposed by religion can too easily he twisted into negativity....and I feel this is proving me right.

I think of the future and it scares me, hate scares me, pain scares me and I hope that somehow the world can realise that although extremeism needs to be eradicated, it exists in more than one religion, at more than one door and in more than one country. Please stop hating children who only want to be safe at night, please stop judging all by one person's actions. Please don't start a war we can never hope to come out of alive.

My thoughts are with all of humanity, anyone who has lost someone due to the spite of a violent few. It is not limited to those in the West, my compassion is endless. Prove me right humanity, be good, be kind.

Is this the real life....?

I find myself turning to blogging to make sense of the noise in my head.  2015 has been the toughest year of my life and one week (to the day) after turning 35 my relationship ended. This led to me losing my flat and having to slope back to my parents home....again. So here I am 35, single, childless and homeless. Intense!

On a daily basis I find myself wondering if there are many others out there like me.  Never married, never a mother or a father, forced to live back at home through circumstance and then I wonder if they feel like I do.....lost, isolated and a bit like the broken toy left in the bottom of a toy box that kids love to play with but never want to make their favourite.

This time of year places a magnifying glass over those feelings.  Christmas is about loved ones, family and friends.  Now, I have many wonderful friends and from that side of things I am blessed BUT when you are the spare chair around the family Christmas table it is often the case that you feel at odds with the most wonderful time of the year. At this age your friends are more often than not settled and have beautiful families of their own.  They are welcoming and loving but you still crave the sense of truly belonging to your own crazy bunch of misfits.

If there are others like me I wonder if they too feel like the only chance for happiness they might have is grabbing the first broken toy they can find? Do we, the ones left behind, have no choice but to settle for less than we feel we deserve? The answer is obviously NO; but how do we find that happiness that seems to be so easy to come by for others?  I am hoping that by writing my feelings down I can gain some clarity, see a brighter pathway and not have to second guess myself.  I am good enough, I am loveable, I am worthy.....now I need to find a way forward through the quagmire of my own brain to make the theory a reality.  There is support out there for divorce, grief and single parents, so lets create support for those who have tried and failed and don't want to give up, the ones of us who are "great friends" and "wonderful people" but want to be someone else's joy, light, partner and love. Individually we struggle but maybe together we can find a way through!