EQUILIBRIUM, RAIN AND TREES

My first memory is pre verbal. And it is a sensation, sound and sight. I am in my pram, I can see the hood up around me. I can see the leaves on the Ash tree that my pram is underneath. I can hear the rain pattering down on the hood of the pram.

For this memory to exist I have to be under 2 years old, as my sister turned up then and I was turfed out of the pram!

What it has left me with is a life long love of being under trees in the rain. I feel safe there. I feel hugely at peace. I can hook into the feeling other places, like my car in the rain, but then it has a canvas roof.

This summer, or what passes for it over here, I've been growing a Russian Vine in the wooden structure in my garden. Heaven knows what this is called, could be a gazebo, could be a pagoda, could just a few pieces of wood nailed together to grow plants through it. Ah yes, the last one will do.

Anyway,the vine and me have been working hard at making it grow across the top of said wooden thing. It grows. And I've been standing on chairs wrapping the vine round the timbers in the way I want them.

So this morning, just before the rain started for today's downpour, I managed to sit outside underneath this marvellous plant and eat my breakfast.

It was magical, the day was dull and cloudy with the promise of rain. Which meant the sky was the colour of my childhood memories. The green canopy over my head was, not sure if I can describe adequately how it felt. A sense of peace, and tranquility I guess sum up the experience best.

So I've put some pics I took of my garden before the rain.

It is, as to be expected daily in England now, raining, and although this means I'm now stuck back inside my sense of equilibrium has stayed with me.

And it has to be said, once an hour I get a such a kick out of my clock. It makes me so happy to catch the bird of the hour. And in fact if i miss it when I'm around in the house I do feel bereft at my lack of mindfulness.

It is good when pleasure can be got from simple things. And it is so hard when our minds are in difficult places, to hold on to the knowledge that this terrible feeling will pass eventually.

Cause as in all things no one feeling will stay, whether it's amazing happiness, desperate grief, fury,or being scared. Even depression eventually goes. It may take a bloody long time but it will go.

And if anyone is depressed it's worth really looking at whether or not that depression is 24 hour constant. Cause usually it's not, there are moments of light relief when depressed, and it's these moments that someone with depression needs to expand on.

The thinking, increasingly about depression, is that activity of any description is what will shift it quicker than anything else. I'm not talking about profound depression here, which will need, for optimum help anti depressants and therapy. I'm talking about the depression where someone can get out of bed and can function after a fashion.

Activity as simple as walking. Obviously if depression is around walking, initially is an absolute chore, but if persevered with then the pleasures of,oh, I don't know birdsong, or seeing the plants develop through the seasons,can eventually start to infiltrate the depression and a small pleasure is gained.

As these small gains become more frequent then the grip of the depression becomes less. But as with all things it needs more active work than just walking.

Depression comes about cause someone is not dealing with a pain or anguish inside them, and rather than do it, they have unconsciously hooked into depression as a way to cope. There are lots of other ways people use to cope, panic attacks, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse for example. And the problem with all of these things, is that they become a problem in their own right and the person may loose sight of why they needed this defence in the first place.

I am mindful in writing this, that there is so much i want to say, about how we can be in control of our own lives. Which is why I'm, or was, writing the book I guess. And what this is telling me is I should go back to it, rather than inflict my entire theory of what makes people tick here.

The alternative would be to start another blog, where if anyone was interested I could put up what I've written so far, and what I'll write in the future.The book, I've done 7 chapters of so far, is a self help book. One in which at the moment is a stream of my knowledge about everything I know. It is not a theory book at all. I do not want it to appeal to another therapist, I want to be read by the people who come and see me for help. Normal people, who for whatever reason are going through hell in their lives at that moment.

I do have this huge need to get through to people about how they can turn their lives round, if they are unhappy in them at any moment in time. But this is not the blog to do it in, no one has the time to read the thoughts of 'chairmen byrd' unless they want that information, say, as in how to deal with a panic attack, for example.

So if anyone has any thoughts on this idea then let me know. Cause I'm not precious about my knowledge, boring possibly, but not precious!!

And if I can help anyone sort out the bad place they've got themselves then my life is worth something.

POST SCRIPT:
I have opened a new blog where all my book will be found,if you want to see it go to Therapeuticfirebyrd.blogspot.com/

THINGS WE SHOULD TAKE NOTICE OF

Every second of every minute,of every hour, of every day, someone is told that someone they love is dead somewhere in the world.

This week I've been told about two that connect to my friends, one is my blog friend Robyn, whose sister in law has died. And the other is one of my closest friends sister. She was 48. She had had normal health, woke up, sat up and fell back dead.

I do not know how my friend is going to cope with this. Well no that's not true I know exactly, I work with grief for a living. What I mean is that my darling friend has to go through this pain and that no-one can help her. She does have other sisters so they will all be united in holding each other up, I hope. And of course I will be here for her day or night to listen to her, cause that's all any of us can do.

Every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day someone is told that they are loved somewhere in the world.

And I need to tell you to make sure you say it, whether to your family, your pets or your friends, don't let a day go by without owning to someone else what you feel.

Life is so precious and we take for granted that we will all be here tomorrow, so we are careless with our words. So many people say that the last words they shared with a loved one weren't good ones.

We don't get a second chance at this.

If you have words inside you that need saying, then be brave and say them. Cause the hate you will feel for yourself if you don't, when it is too late will be overwhelming. And grief is tough enough to get through without regret at never having said I love you.

I know in blog world those words get chucked about like confetti, but maybe they do that for a reason, maybe here it is safe to own love of our fellow man, which is fantastic. And I don't think devalues it, I think we should all throw more confetti.

The world has too many lonely people in it, and if I have warm and loving feelings towards someone I'll never meet then that's ok as far as I'm concerned.

Love is not a mathematical equation it's an unexplainable emotion. Love is something we all feel, if we are not psychopaths that is! It is something we have the gift of giving to others, our love. It is not any one's right to have it,not even our relatives!

And if we are very lucky then the people we give our love to will give it back, and that makes the world go round.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a completely different subject, but still basically reminding us all to be mindful, have you checked your bank statement recently?
Apparently on the 27th of August I spent £150 on pizza and this morning a total of £1200 two Internet companies?????

I have not!

Fortunately these discrepancies have been discovered early, the joys of being self employed and checking regularly on the Internet! And the bank are sorting it all out for me. But it is hugely scary how easy it has been for a hacker to break into my account and steal my money.

FRIENDSHIP

I got a present today all the way from Virginia. I'd been told that something was on it's way, but to get it and find what it was has been somewhat remarkable.

In the kitchen in Virginia was a clock, and on the hour as it struck a different bird would chirp, the owl at 12.00, a woodpecker, robin, goose and all the others. I was amazed at this clock. To have these noises going off every hour was magical, in the magical place I was visiting. It became a bit of a joke, as i had to hang around in front of it to catch all the birds on the hour.

Today I got such a clock!

Friendship and love are such vital commodities in our lives, and I must have been good in a previous life, as I am so blessed in this.

I just want to get on top of a mountain and tell everyone how wonderful every single one of my friends is, whether they are from 40 years ago or this summer!

When I think back to those days of my childhood and hold the hand of that lonely little girl who wandered round the playground desperately wanting someone to play with her. I know that she is now safe, I know that whatever went on in her mind, that isolation, the feeling of not being good enough, of being seen as stupid. All of those feelings that kept the little girl scared, they in relation to friendship no longer exist.

I am grateful now at my age that I went through all those horrible experiences.That I had to face myself in an unconscious way as that child. That I was able to make the decision to be different as soon as I had some power over myself.

And now that little girl skips beside me marvelling at now I did it. How little scared, stupid me got to be the me I am now. The person who has friends, real friends who I'd travel a long way for and I know would do the same for me.

I know it is my capacity to love my fellow human being that has allowed me to find this gift of friendship over the years. There is of course still the little voice that says I'm not worthy. But do you know, conceited as it sounds I'm beginning to think I am worthy.

That there is something in me that other people love, that others want my friendship as much as I want theirs. This feels on the one hand so right to own, but on the other the gremlin inside wants to destroy and ideas of being above my station.

But today, and possibly tomorrow I think I will not allow that side of me a voice, and instead will celebrate that not only am I privileged to have my friends but they actually are lucky to have me.

I can't tell you how difficult that last sentence is to leave in. I've rewritten it several times. I have beaten myself up for being so immodest. And what has stopped me taking it out is the knowledge that all the lovely people I can call friends are not my friends cause they feel sorry for me. They are my friends cause they like/love me. And to acknowledge that seems more important than preserving my need for modesty right now.

So to all the people who are my friends, those in real life, from pre- blogging, those who have become my friends in real life through blogging and those that are friends in blog world. I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. I couldn't live this life if it wasn't for you.

I got this in a text the other day and it seems apt to leave it here:

"Received from a friend and now sent to another friend. Don't walk behind me,I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend"

Sums it up really, don't you think?

The photograph is of the astonishing piece of stained glass that Sorrow gave me from the things she had made. Anyone who loves beautiful pottery or glass should commission her work. She is so talented and gifted. And very definitely my friend.

DEVON AND DRIVERS AWAY FROM IT!!

You get some soothing pics before I start ranting!
They are of Budleigh Saltertan, Exmoor between Porlock and Lynmouth and Watersmeet on Exmoor.

And now for my rant...... Bloody motorway drivers yesterday. Where all the Sunday drivers returning from their holidays? Don't they understand lane discipline?
Do they annoy me?

There are in some places 4 lanes of traffic on the M5, was anyone on the inside lane, NO, they were all on the outside overtaking lane, being bloody minded about staying there when there was nothing in the lane next to them. There seems to be this conceit about their right to stay in the fast lane.
It is no wonder that fast drivers like me, don't do lane discipline anymore. I will not sit tolerantly behind some prick whilst he refuses to move over and let me past.
Is it cause they see a woman in a sports car with the roof down and think, no way lady? Do they even look in their mirrors?

I'm a very good driver, and I know the law, but I'm sorry I cannot just follow someone elses selfish attitude. I know what the speed limit is, I also know that I'm making the choice to drive at 90 miles an hour. But I'm not the only one judging my how many exasperated drivers were doing what I was yesterday.

So it won't be us causing the accidents, it will be the people who don't know what the fast lane is for on the motorway and insist on hogging it, come what may at 71miles an hour!

Rant over!!

This weekend I have been staying with a friend I used to be best friends with at school when we were 14. We hadn't met for almost 40 years. It was astonishing we sat in her garden and almost picked up our conversation from then. We were able to slip into shorthand that only can be done with very comfortable and safe relationships. I didn't have to explain all details, she had an understanding of me that normally other friends have taken a long time to learn.

We spent some time looking at our old school photo and considering what had happened to all those people, but mainly we talked about our own lives.

And to add to all the wonderful stuff about meeting each other again after so long, she also lives in Devon! Serendipity or what! That's another contact, another reason to know that going down there is right for me.

That I will have the wherewithal to sort out a new life for myself, but also I have a network of 6 women now who know me well who are happy to spend time with me. Two living full time in Devon, two in Somerset, one in Cornwall and the last who spends many weeks as she can down there. It feels so perfect, challenge and support!

Oh roll on next year..... Anyone want to buy a three bedroom house in the Peak Park?

WHAT PRICE PEACE, ABOUT £30!!!

I've just got rid of the words here.I didn't like them, so sorry if you've read them.
I need to think more carefully about what I want to say here.

so just to let you know instead that I'm away till next week.... going to the seaside.

DEATH, DYING AND CONVERSATION

In the last year every time I go for a walk by water I'm looking out for a heron. It's become something of a talisman for me. Or if you prefer my sacred creature.I didn't know what it represented.

On Saturday I found out from the wonderful witch that is QV the story of the heron and what the bird represents.
It is the bird to accompany the souls on the way to the other world when they reach the end of this.

So really it's not surprising that I have a thing about them, as I have a thing about death to.

Not in the way that I'm frightened of it, far from it. I've seen too many people die over the years. I've had many experiences giving people hope enough to live. Or comfort to help them die

When I was 16, as I've told before, there was the girl the same age as me who'd taken an overdose and I sat beside her for an hour or two giving her hope that life was worth living.

At 17 I made a decision that was far reaching at that point. It was in the days long before mobile/cell phones and a young lad rang from a phone a mile away from his home to the ward where his grandmother was being treated. Only to be told by a completely inept doctor that gran had died. This to me was a horrendous thing to do to another human being, to be so callous in the telling about a death. I made the decision that when I was in a position that I could affect change that only I would tell people that their relatives had died.

I qualified as a nurse at 21 and in those first few months, I got to really know someone who was dying. I was close to him and his wife, and I was with them both when he died. This was in the days of not really being encouraged to get to know patients, and it was only cause I was a Staff Nurse, and bolshy that I got away with this behaviour.

So when I got made a Ward Sister at 24, I implemented that change. I refused to let any doctor tell the relatives in the first instance that the person they cared about had died. I made a room for relatives and I sat with them as long as needed. I really cared that this passage of time was treated with respect. Then if they needed to know medical facts only then would I get the doctor involved.

I sat with people who had been told they had terminal cancer, all day if required, and on their bed holding them also if required.

I moved from nursing to psychotherapy and ran bereavement groups. Helping people come to terms with their loss.

I told my mother that she wasn't going to recover from her appalling cancer,and that she was dying.

I have dealt with my own mortality in recovering from breast cancer.

All of this has been in the past, so why now has the heron become so vital to me.Is it a sign of a new direction I should be thinking of going. I haven't lost any of my passion for helping people experiencing dying, either themselves or their relatives.

I cannot abide the sweet platitudes used to describe death, like 'passing over', 'passed away' 'slipped away' 'gone to a better place'

In Victorian times death was such a revered thing. Black was worn for a very long time, rings were made with beloved's hair in them. But they didn't discuss sex. Nowadays it's totally the other way. Sex is everywhere and death is not talked about at all. So it's no wonder when we have to deal with something that actually is the one certainty about being born that we get so tangled up in guilt about letting anyone else know we are scared.

So lets get death out into the open, we're all going to do it, people around us are going to do it. Lets stop hiding it as shameful.

After all as the quote says.... "Grief is the price we pay for love". And love is what we spend our lives searching for, so doesn't it make sense that we prepare for what will be the most painful thing any of us have to deal with emotionally ,that is coming to terms with grief, isn't time we stopping being frightened of something so normal?

THE PARTY THAT TRIX MISSED

So eat your heart out trix, we are having a great time. It's a shame you couldn't get here. But we've managed to eat all the food, which is bad cause it was for all 8 of us..... And we've drunk 6 bottles and it's only 10.15!
It's now Tarot card time and amazingly we are all wonderful people who are all amazingly wonderful..... lol
next is....

mei eaten far too much, and drunk plenty, wonderful host ms byrd is. loved her reading of me, the very first tarot reading in my entire 41 and half years, remarkably accurate too. and it might be the number of glasses of champers we've drunk but i've managed to take a photo of queen v's bottom ... clothed ... c'mon,
we're only merry.

It's now the turn of LiR, so what can I add there has been plenty of good company, great food and fab alcohol in the shape of champers (something I need to practice drinking as it is the favourite drink of my Romeo)

It has been great to meet Mei for the first time (we had a couple of hours to get acquainted as we drank tea in her kitchen then drove here together) and just as good to see both Trousers and QV again. It is of course a pleasure to see Fire Byrd (my honary sister) once again. I am of course sorry that Trixie and her sisters didn't manage to get here but in a way it is good as it means more champers for us.

QV here - just done some Tarot - as always. Having a great time. Just want to sit and giggle. May just do that now ... Trousers, Lady in Red, Road to Nirvana and Fire Byrd all wonderful. And no ... its not the champagne talking ... lovely, lovely group of people.

Back to me;Lets face it we are all fantastic!! Any comments to the contrary will be immediately struck out and the writer will be turned into a toad... you have been warned sweeties. Sorry you couldn't be here trix and catz and bendy and wake up. Do you think there will ever be a time that we all couldn't meet up at the same time.

Dare I suggest an autumn party?????

Have a good hols catz, hope the weekend was wicked bendy, welcome home wake up, trix stop leading such a hectic life!!

love and hugs
byrd, QV, trousers, lady and mei.
xxxxx

PS where are you Ron, when we need you.... LOL

SURNAMES FOUR, BLOG NAMES THREE, GIVEN NAMES LOST COUNT

Names are odd things, we have no choice about what we are called as children, either in our given or surnames. Potentially as a woman you may get to change the surname part,once, or twice perhaps!

Well I've changed my surname four times now, I've changed my blog name three and my given name has so many variations to different people it's hard keeping up!

My surnames obviously started with the one I was born with. It was a difficult name, no one could spell it, everybody changed it and I was either known as cockerel or cockroach at school, simply cause the first two letters are the same.

It was a name that was well known in my home town, the family went back several generations. When I started my nurse training I had to work past my family's factory, with my name emblazoned for everyone to see. I hated that, I didn't want to be associated with being the bosses daughter. The town I come from was an industrial one, and the people I was working with did not come from the same background as me. I was (and still am, heaven help me!) middle class. I'd been privately educated, I spoke with no accent. The town accent is terrible, it's pure black country, as in 'do yerou want u kipper tie' (do you want a cup of tea!) To compensate for speaking 'posh' I learnt to swear, I was the only person in the hospital who could say 'fuck' in a BBC voice!

So when I got married, the relief of being able to change my name to one that everyone could spell! I kept this name for many years,even though I divorced the man it belonged to. My boys didn't want me to change my name, they needed the unity at that time after their Dad left.

Second marriage came along and although I didn't want to take another man's name on, I couldn't stay with the original man's one. So I changed again. This name was another sensible one, no problems with spelling it, but it rankled with me that I'd taken a man's name.

This famous five week marriage! As in five weeks actually living together two years waiting on the divorce, meant that at last I could change my name to one of my choosing.

It felt very obvious a choice to me. My Mum had been dead many years by now. I wanted to have something of hers. I also wanted a woman's name. So I changed it by deed poll.

This surname belongs to me, and more importantly, me to it. I will never change my name again, whatever my marital status may end up being.

This name feels right. One of the things I struggle with is having an emotional home, and this name grounds me in a way that the other didn't. It feels like me.

And now my blog names have been doing the same sort of thing. The name I started with Prada Pixie, was a joyous child name, especially as I became known as pixie, which I seriously loved.

Bollinger byrd was born out of adversity, in that I felt compelled to close down PP and reinvent myself. But the name wasn't right, it wasn't me.

Of course now as I've been struggling this summer to come to a better understanding of myself, and an acceptance, the name had to go. Being with Sorrow and talking for the days I spent with her, it emerged that I was changing and growing and rising like a phoenix and the name was therefore obvious. And like my surname it feels right.

I feel more settled, calmer, somehow at being this new me. As if I've been there all along, but couldn't find me, cause of the wrong names.

As for my given name, take your pick, as I've been called ;
Lou, by my parents, and now my best friend, it's defiantly the name that someone has to earn the right to call me in terms of love.
Mandy, most people call me this, even though I don't much like the name, it feels a very juvenile name to me.
Mand, which is fine again, doesn't make me feel anything, except perhaps the people who call me this know me well and it's used as an affectionate nickname.
Amanda, which is my given name,and has horrid connotations of being in trouble at school, so I associate it with authority and fear, so I find it difficult to be called. Which is sad, cause it's this name that means, worthy of love.
Big Sis, obvious that one.
As is mummy, mums, mumsy and mum. I like all of those a lot. Although only get called the more childish ones in ironic affection nowadays!

It seems to me that I've spent an awful lot of my life looking for the real me, and more importantly accepting that real me. And changing my blog name, is definitely and bizarrely a way that feels as if I'm nearly there. And if I could just sort out my given name now!!

PEEPO THE QUICK CHANGE ARTIST

When I was a little girl my Dad used to rush in from work on a Tuesday and have to rush upstairs to get changed in his army uniform to go to the drill hall for weekly parade, or whatever it was called.

Dad was a major in the TA, it was the thing my Dad loved best after his family. So on Tuesday nights my little sister and I would sit on my Dad's bed whilst he sang a song about 'Peepo, Peepo the quick change artist, everybody knows his name'. As he rushed into his uniform. It would have been my job to polish his Sam Brown (belt) and if it was good enough I'd be given a sixpenny piece.

It was always good enough!

I loved those times with my Dad, knowing that he wanted to be with us and talk to us, before he went off to do whatever important things he was going to do.
~~~~~~
The last few days my youngest with attitude and I haven't been getting on so well. He's not in a good space,so he takes it out on me by being very aggravated and irritated with me.
I didn't want this situation to escalate, so sat on his bed this morning and talked over what we needed to do to stop it getting any worse.

This evening, he decided that he would cook tea, and I could assist. He's a great cook, so I was in charge of salad, whilst he made a peppercorn sauce from scratch to go over the meat. We as ever sat together to eat.

His mate phoned to fix up his going out, but he put him off for a while, as he wanted to carry on talking to me.

To do this he insisted that I come upstairs whilst he got ready.I was banished to sit on the stairs whilst he actually changed. But all the while the conversation continued between us.

And after he went out, after telling me he loved me first, I sat on my bed and thought about how lucky I am to have had Peepo the quick change artist and the youngest with attitude in my life.
~~~~~
For many years I have carried this words below around with me, and today I used the last couple of lines for a friend in need of them, and it got me thinking that they are powerful words and it was a good time to put them up.

~There are moments in life when you miss someone so much that you just want to pick them up from your dreams and hug them for real.

~When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but oft times we look so long at the closed door, we don't see the one which has opened for us.

~Dream, what you want to dream, go where you want to go, be what you want to be, because you only have one life and one chance to all the things you want to do.

~ May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trails to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to make you happy.

~The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the most of everything that comes their way.

~Love begins with a smile,grows with a kiss, and ends with a tear.

~The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

~When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.
live your life so that when you die, you're the one smiling and everyone around you is crying.~~~~~

FIRE BYRD IS HERE BOLLINGER BYRD IS GONE

As you can see I've renamed myself. That's what comes of coming home early from work.
I'm sure that I really ought to have done something more sensible like the ironing, but it wouldn't have been nearly so much fun!

I've changed my name (again!) as somehow bollinger byrd didn't fit me. It probably hadn't ever done, but it was what I thought of after the end of Pixie, that sort of had the same feel to it. Something luxurious and something sweet.

But I feel recently that I actually have/am changing a lot. I feel I have to have something that represents what I've been going through. And to me I do feel like I have risen like a phoenix out of the flames and I need to celebrate what I have achieved.

The other day the wonderful picsie, whose photographs are to die for and who always uses a quote to illustrate her picture used this quote from Carl Jung, who is a hero of mine and I thought it was apt:

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside - dreams
Who looks inside - awakens

And that is what I feel I have being doing.

Welcome to the new me! Who really will be an awful lot like the old me, except inside, where I'm working hard at awakening.

ME BATTERED AND BRUISED BUT FIGHTING BACK

I make no apologies to those people who have seen one of these photographs before.
There is a reason why I've put it back up alongside the other two.

Last year under my other name I published the photograph of my mastectomy. This year because of what I've been going through it seems important to be a whole person. Now obviously that could have easily been done by one full length picture. But that somehow isn't right as the elements that make up these photos are important to me.

Prior to getting cancer I didn't like my body, nowadays since getting my tit cut off I do. I'm the same size as I was then, in fact I'm the same measurements now as I was when I was 19, except my waist is a couple of inches bigger. But then I think that is reasonable I'm 54, on Tamoxifen and have had two children.

Since my mastectomy I have come to appreciate my body in a way I never thought possible. I take a lot of photographs of it, with little or no clothing on. It feels that I can now celebrate something that before I used to believe was fat.

I can take pics of myself that are slightly sexual in nature, as in the bottom one. I'm happy with myself to be seen like that.

If anything it is my face I struggle with more now as although I know I don't look my age or have many wrinkles and lines, I see my jaw starting to sag, and other signs of aging, which are a bit tedious.

I,of course as a woman of a certain age have become invisible, which is fine, cause I was never one to turn heads anyway. I have looked the way I do since I was a toddler, with more or less the same hairstyle. The pics of me at 18 months old look much the same as me today. So I was either a very aged baby or I'm wearing well!!!

But that doesn't explain what these pics are doing here.

What these photos represent to me is the start of a new journey. The journey where I learn that I am lovable and not just woman to have sex with. But a woman good enough to have a decent and loving relationship with that doesn't start and end with sex.

All my relationships, almost without exception, have had sex introduced into them too early by me. I did this because I have had this ridiculous belief that I,the me, under the guise of the sex machine wouldn't be able to sustain a relationship. After all, who would want a relationship with me. The me that was vulnerable, and lost. The lonely adolescent that learnt to use sex to get boyfriends never learnt a different lesson till now.

I am constantly awed by people wanting to be my friend, but I can accept it (just!) I know that I am good at making and sustaining friendships. If I give you my friendship it is yours to keep until you hurt me.

Something actually that is going on big style at the moment for me. As the three women I used to call my friends in the town I live in are all doing things to me that are hurtful right now. I don't know whether that's because I have changed and moved on, so they make no effort towards me and don't include me anymore. Or if it's the other way round. Part of me is extremely hurt by what has been happening. But another part of me is relieved that I no longer have to pretend that we have anything in common.

So I know that I can walk away from this town without regrets cause by the time I leave these issues will be resolved inside me. Especially if I'm brave enough to actually tell them! The jury is still out on whether I'll be doing that or not!

But I digress.

There is this odd juxtaposition inside me that on the one hand understands that people like me /love me. But at the same time feels totally unworthy of those feelings. And it is the latter that I am working on right now.

I need right now not to be in a relationship..... this statement is being acknowledged for the first time ever in my head. I spend a lot of time yearning for a relationship. But it isn't another human being I want, it's being in love that I want to feel.

I love being in that place of madness, when all I can do is think, breathe, sleep, eat, drink, work, live being obsessed about A. N.Other. Being in love is not about having decent loving relationships. In fact the 9 blokes I've been out with in the last 13 years are testament to that! That's not to say that a couple of them weren't decent men, they were just married. Which is of course such a safe place to get emotionally beaten up. No time together at holidays, no sleeping a whole night together and all the other things that make up an affair.

I can see that now. I can see that I was using their marital status as a way to maintain my unworthiness. The men who weren't married, well they didn't have to have a decent relationship with me did they. They were getting hot sex, why would they want to get involved in my emotional needs. Why did that happen.... cause I set it up. I put myself in that place, then when they weren't there for me emotionally, whadda yer know self fulfilling prophecy came true. I wasn't worthy.

Well Fuck That.

Right now I'd rather not have a relationship till I can sort it out once and for all that the whole me, not just my sexy legs, not my battered chest wall, not just my pixie face but all of me. The physical, the emotional, the spiritual, the needy, the giving, the person that makes up all of me is OK and deserves love just as much as anyone else on this planet. Not less, not more just equal.

And if I can get that, and when the next man comes along when I'm ready to be genuine in front of him and not just someone who can give a great blow job then I will be able to have my third chance for the sort of relationship that I envy others for having. That is being friends as well as lovers with a partner.

Wish me luck! It's a tough journey to self belief and worthiness!

PARTY REMINDER

Just a reminder that if you want to come to a party on the 16th August at my house, you'll be very welcome. Just email me address on side bar and I'll tell you where I live. It's going to be good judging by how much fun we had last time and who I know is coming this time so far. It will start when the first person gets here and ends at dawn or when the last person's standing!!

MAGICAL PLACES AND SEXY CITIES

The Blue Ridge Mountains
The Pixie's house in Sorrow's wood
The waterfall that we had to climb a long way to see.
The city of Philadelphia from the steps of the Museum
Modern skyscrapers alongside Brownstone houses
The juxtaposition of skyscraper and trees.

Just wonderful places that I hold in my heart.