http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=37
Being a therapist, a worrier and someone who has issues with love, this could have been made with me in mind!
Sleeping Pills
I've not slept well for the last month. Actually, more accurately I've hardly slept for the last month. I have coursework due in on Monday and have a lot of work still to do on it. I need to be able to go to sleep so I can be fresh and get on with my work. Out of desperation I succumbed last night once again to taking pills to help me sleep. After about an hour I fell asleep. Seven swift hours later and my alarm brought me back to reality. Well, when I say reality I actually mean a strange state somewhere between the conscious and the sleeping world. The pills had got me to sleep but now I couldn't wake up properly from them. Major problem. It was my plan to do an hours study prior to going to work. Instead it took me all that time to try and shake off this cloud that was enveloping my head. Now I am trying to work out what I dreamt and what has really happened. Everything I dreamt was so vivid that I literally do not know the difference between reality and dream world.
So I am now left with the question, do I take the pills again tonight? If I decide 'Yes' then I get a good sleep but cannot wake up properly from it and have no idea what's real and what isn't. If I decide 'No' I have a horrid night of non-sleep, but get my work done because I give up trying to be asleep and study instead.
So I am now left with the question, do I take the pills again tonight? If I decide 'Yes' then I get a good sleep but cannot wake up properly from it and have no idea what's real and what isn't. If I decide 'No' I have a horrid night of non-sleep, but get my work done because I give up trying to be asleep and study instead.
Ho Ho Ho
Apparantly in Sydney and Melbourne this year anyone dressed up as Santa will lose their license if they are heard saying "Ho Ho Ho". The reason being because in America "Ho" is street slang for prostitute. In America. So thousands of miles away (and a whole heap of water) people are losing their jobs in case they upset a random American tourist.
I'm sorry to get on my political soap box here, but WTF??? Surely there are about a guzillian more important things for people to worry about than policing what Santa says in Australia? It's not like they're even the real deal. Everyone knows the real Santa is in Lapland, and he certainly wouldn't be saying "Ho" and be referring to American prostitutes. He's happily married to Mrs Claus thank you very much.
I'm sorry to get on my political soap box here, but WTF??? Surely there are about a guzillian more important things for people to worry about than policing what Santa says in Australia? It's not like they're even the real deal. Everyone knows the real Santa is in Lapland, and he certainly wouldn't be saying "Ho" and be referring to American prostitutes. He's happily married to Mrs Claus thank you very much.
Lost Love
Do you think there is one perfect person out there for you? And if so, does it follow that you are the perfect person for them too? It's hard not to say Yes to both those questions, because that's what a girl is brought up to expect. How can we think anything else is going to happen when our developing minds are being saturated with images of tall, dark and handsome Princes coming to save us from a life of pain and suffering at the hands of our sisters, or eternal sleep?! I found my Prince seven years ago. Only instead of tall, dark and handsome he was kinda short and Welsh. He promised me the world. He made me feel safe. He made me believe I would never feel loneliness again. If you've ever read Sense And Sensibility there is a bit when Eleanor and Marianne are talking about Mr Willoughby when he had just broken Marianne's heart. This is how it goes:
Eleanor:Did he tell you that he loved you?
Marianne: Yes! No, no... it was everyday implied, but never declared. Sometimes I thought it had, but it never was.. he has broken no vow.
Eleanor: Broken no vow?! He made us all believe he loved you!
Marianne: He did, he did! He loved me as I loved him!
That sums our relationship up really. Anyone who knew us would tell you that we loved eachother. Trouble is, like Willoughby, he never really declared it absolutely. Then I wonder what right I have to really feel the pain of loss of something that was never really 100% mine to begin with.
For the most part I've made my peace with it now. It's been a year since I've spoken to him and that contact was because he and his girlfriend had split up (I know). He was in my dream last night. It was a variation of a similar theme. I bump into him on a night out in Cardiff. He ignores me for a while then hugs me with such depth and emotion I feel like I'm going to drown in him. At the same time though the feeling is exquisite, almost transcendental. Nobody has come close to having the kind of affect on me that he had (and does still have in my dreams). Which leads me back to my questions, is there one perfect person? and if so, does it follow that you are the perfect one for them too?
Im my experience my answer would be yes then no. If I am right here though, does that mean there is no point in trying to find someone else to spend your life with when you know that they'll never quite be the person who makes you complete?
Eleanor:Did he tell you that he loved you?
Marianne: Yes! No, no... it was everyday implied, but never declared. Sometimes I thought it had, but it never was.. he has broken no vow.
Eleanor: Broken no vow?! He made us all believe he loved you!
Marianne: He did, he did! He loved me as I loved him!
That sums our relationship up really. Anyone who knew us would tell you that we loved eachother. Trouble is, like Willoughby, he never really declared it absolutely. Then I wonder what right I have to really feel the pain of loss of something that was never really 100% mine to begin with.
For the most part I've made my peace with it now. It's been a year since I've spoken to him and that contact was because he and his girlfriend had split up (I know). He was in my dream last night. It was a variation of a similar theme. I bump into him on a night out in Cardiff. He ignores me for a while then hugs me with such depth and emotion I feel like I'm going to drown in him. At the same time though the feeling is exquisite, almost transcendental. Nobody has come close to having the kind of affect on me that he had (and does still have in my dreams). Which leads me back to my questions, is there one perfect person? and if so, does it follow that you are the perfect one for them too?
Im my experience my answer would be yes then no. If I am right here though, does that mean there is no point in trying to find someone else to spend your life with when you know that they'll never quite be the person who makes you complete?
Swimming In The Rain
Last night I went swimming
in the rain.
Encased in liquid velvet
I rediscovered something
Something I lost long ago:
I found my soul.
Riding the luminescant waves,
glowing in the moonlight,
relishing in the raindrops,
my soul was alive:
alive and free
My soul caught my gaze
and seeing me laden down
let out a laugh
like a beautiful melody,
bewitching me like a spell.
I was captivated.
If I could just reach out far enough
I knew I would be saved,
and I could feel once more
the delights of swimming
in the rain.
Every stroke I made,
every wave that broke over my head
brought me no closer.
Like Echo I felt forever destined
to never obtain my hearts desire.
As I gave in to the pull
of the mysterious comfort
of the sea
one last time,
My soul saved me.
My soul saved me
and set me free.
I cried tears of relief
mixing in with the raindrops
and the sea water breaking all around.
I was at one and at peace
and I knew once more why it is
that I love to swim in the rain.
By Me
in the rain.
Encased in liquid velvet
I rediscovered something
Something I lost long ago:
I found my soul.
Riding the luminescant waves,
glowing in the moonlight,
relishing in the raindrops,
my soul was alive:
alive and free
My soul caught my gaze
and seeing me laden down
let out a laugh
like a beautiful melody,
bewitching me like a spell.
I was captivated.
If I could just reach out far enough
I knew I would be saved,
and I could feel once more
the delights of swimming
in the rain.
Every stroke I made,
every wave that broke over my head
brought me no closer.
Like Echo I felt forever destined
to never obtain my hearts desire.
As I gave in to the pull
of the mysterious comfort
of the sea
one last time,
My soul saved me.
My soul saved me
and set me free.
I cried tears of relief
mixing in with the raindrops
and the sea water breaking all around.
I was at one and at peace
and I knew once more why it is
that I love to swim in the rain.
By Me
Miracle On St David's Day
Miracle On St David's Day
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude
The Daffodils by William Wordsworth
An afternoon yellow and open-mouthed
with daffodils. The sun treads the path
among cedars and enormous oaks.
It might be a country house, guests strolling,
the rumps of gardeners between nursery shrubs.
I am reading poetry to the insane.
An old woman, interrupting, offers
as many buckets of coal as I need.
A beautiful chestnut-haired boy listens
entirely absorbed. A schizophrenic
on a good day, they tell me later.
In a cage of first March sun, a woman
sits not listening, not seeing, not feeling.
In her neat clothes, the woman is absent.
A big mild man is tenderly led
to his chair. He has never spoken.
His labourer's hands on his knees, he rocks
gently to the rhythm of the poems.
I read to their presences, absences,
to the big, dumb, labouring man as he rocks.
He is suddenly standing, silently,
huge and mild but I feel afraid. Like slow
movement of spring water or the first bird
of the year in the breaking darkness,
the labourer's voice recites "The Daffodils".
The nurses are frozen, alert; the patients
seem to listen. He is hoarse but word-perfect.
Outside the daffodils are still as wax,
a thousand, ten thousand, their syllables
unspoken, their creams and yellows still.
Forty years ago, in a Valleys school,
the class recited poetry by rote.
Since the dumbness of misery fell
he has remembered there was a music
of speech, and that he once had something to say.
When he's done, before the applause, we observe
the flowers silence. A thrush sings,
and the daffodils are flame.
Gillian Clarke
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude
The Daffodils by William Wordsworth
An afternoon yellow and open-mouthed
with daffodils. The sun treads the path
among cedars and enormous oaks.
It might be a country house, guests strolling,
the rumps of gardeners between nursery shrubs.
I am reading poetry to the insane.
An old woman, interrupting, offers
as many buckets of coal as I need.
A beautiful chestnut-haired boy listens
entirely absorbed. A schizophrenic
on a good day, they tell me later.
In a cage of first March sun, a woman
sits not listening, not seeing, not feeling.
In her neat clothes, the woman is absent.
A big mild man is tenderly led
to his chair. He has never spoken.
His labourer's hands on his knees, he rocks
gently to the rhythm of the poems.
I read to their presences, absences,
to the big, dumb, labouring man as he rocks.
He is suddenly standing, silently,
huge and mild but I feel afraid. Like slow
movement of spring water or the first bird
of the year in the breaking darkness,
the labourer's voice recites "The Daffodils".
The nurses are frozen, alert; the patients
seem to listen. He is hoarse but word-perfect.
Outside the daffodils are still as wax,
a thousand, ten thousand, their syllables
unspoken, their creams and yellows still.
Forty years ago, in a Valleys school,
the class recited poetry by rote.
Since the dumbness of misery fell
he has remembered there was a music
of speech, and that he once had something to say.
When he's done, before the applause, we observe
the flowers silence. A thrush sings,
and the daffodils are flame.
Gillian Clarke
My First Clients
I had a note in my tray waiting for me when I got to work yesterday from my counselling supervisor. He's written to my tutor to confirm my readiness to begin counselling. Me counselling others, not having the counselling myself (although I have to do that too). So in January I should be set up with my first two clients. Very scary thought. This is the culmination of several years of study and training courses. When I am 'counselling' fellow students on my course I feel confident in what I do. Plus my feedback has been very postive - not blowing my own trumpet, just telling it like it is. This is what I've wanted for so long now. To get out there and be counselling people. And I am really excited about it. All I want from life is to help people; or to help people help themselves. In January I will be one giant step closer to the career I want and away from that stuffy little council office where all I do is make sick peoples lives harder. Can't wait.
The Downside To Youth Work
Today has been a fucking hard day. I have spent this afternoon with fifteen year old boy explicitly telling me how he was going to kill himself tonight - what he was going to use to do it, what time to do it and his trying to work out how best to hit a vein. He's not a new person to me. I've worked with him for the best part of a year and he's been doing so much better. Something happened though, that I'm not going to go into (that's his business, not mine) and everything's changed again. Today was different to other times he's said he wants to kill himself. It was like he was resigned to his fate. He literally could not see himself still being here tomorrow, and all he could think about was dying. I knew what I had to do as a youth worker. Detatch myself and be practical about it. So instead I sobbed and felt that he was my responsibility. The decision was made for me that we had to ring his mother who then took him home. I can't shake it off though - the look of acceptance in his eyes. Right now I honestly don't know if I will see him again.
Life Shouldn't Have To Be This Hard
Those words, the ones in the title of todays blog have been said to me twice in a fortnight. They're right too, life really shouldn't have to be this hard. My tutor said to me today that if life is that hard then you need to stop and look at what's causing it. Because life shouldn't always be like you're pushing a barrell up a hill where either you die from exhaustion if you keep pushing, or if you stop for a rest it wipes you out as it plummets back down the hill. Either way you end up screwed.
I love to people watch. Not in a pervy way but a curious way. I make up stories in my head of what there lives may be like. Inevitably they're rose tinted spectacle type lives where they have the perfect job, and the perfect home with the perfect partner and the perfect family support behind them. And of course the perfect bank account! Nothing is grimy in their worlds; nothing upsets them and they never feel unfullfilled by what life deals them. Lucky bastards. Or are they? Because if they never feel pain and a complete overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction with life, are they ever really compelled to get out of their little box of comfort and shake the world up a bit? To make this place better, or to open peoples eyes to what's really going on?
If you do feel this pain though and the sense that nothing is quite enough, and that you can never quite reach happiness (by you, I mean me) will life ever stop being this hard? I long for a life where I feel satisfied and comfortable, and overall I feel trully happy. But I'm terrified of that too. Of a life where I don't push for something better, or to make someones pain slightly easier. I'm scared that if I let go of my pain that I won't recognise myself any more and that I will become one of them. One of those people who settle for second best and an easy life.
I love to people watch. Not in a pervy way but a curious way. I make up stories in my head of what there lives may be like. Inevitably they're rose tinted spectacle type lives where they have the perfect job, and the perfect home with the perfect partner and the perfect family support behind them. And of course the perfect bank account! Nothing is grimy in their worlds; nothing upsets them and they never feel unfullfilled by what life deals them. Lucky bastards. Or are they? Because if they never feel pain and a complete overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction with life, are they ever really compelled to get out of their little box of comfort and shake the world up a bit? To make this place better, or to open peoples eyes to what's really going on?
If you do feel this pain though and the sense that nothing is quite enough, and that you can never quite reach happiness (by you, I mean me) will life ever stop being this hard? I long for a life where I feel satisfied and comfortable, and overall I feel trully happy. But I'm terrified of that too. Of a life where I don't push for something better, or to make someones pain slightly easier. I'm scared that if I let go of my pain that I won't recognise myself any more and that I will become one of them. One of those people who settle for second best and an easy life.
We Are Scientists
Today has not been my best day. I have for the most part been in the most vile of moods. The kind of mood where you should have a health warning because most of what comes out of your mouth could stop a man in his track at 50 paces such is the ferocity of the venom pouring uncontrollably from you. Tonight I went to see We Are Scientists in Southampton Union with my best friend. I did not want to go. I wanted to see my best friend - naturally. However, I did not want her to see me given the aforementioned mood. I was also worrrying that taking an evening out to see a band whose track listing I could not name a single song on rather than continuing with my coursework was not a good plan. Not wanting to let her down though I gritted my teeth, shut my book on Good Breast Bad Breast and braving the weather went to the gig. Neither of us had been there for a good 7 years, back in the day when crowd surfing was not only legal but expected of you. Girls did not wear sparkly silver pumps with little tartan skirts, and boys did not spend three hours before leaving the house straightening their hair. It's a tiny venue, the ceiling is about an inch above your head and the acoustics make you dizzy the way they bounce off the walls around you. But it's great. It doesn't matter that I know none of the songs, or that the wierd boy behind me has just bored a pint of Jack and Coke down my back (which actually, given the heat of the room does cool me down). I relax. I smile. I laugh. I even dance. For the first time in weeks I forget about my work and all the other rubbish I seem to be carrying with me and live for the moment. The evening is all in all a huge success. I feel better and more content than I have in ages. Getting out the car I did well up as my best friend drove away. I always do. She doesn't live near me anymore. She hasn't lived near me for a long time now but I'm still not used to it. I guess that's what makes us friends though: that when we're together we pick up where we left off and that distance doesn't mean anything. She knows me implicitly and loves me despite everything. I don't think We Are Scientists will ever really set the world alight; but for those few hours this evening dancing with my very best friend, they were magic.
I Love You
They're such small insignificant words by themselves, yet put together and they have the power to destroy people. By people (and in the spirit of me trying to tell the truth) I mean me. I had a conversation with someone last night who said something about love and relationships that was so honest and simple it made me cry. It wasn't a fancy hallmark comment filled with slush that's garunteed to make you feel unworthy if you're alone on Valentines Day. Or that Hollywood romance that is so idealised and over the top that it surprises me daily how anybody finds happiness in love because nothing can ever measure up to that image on the big screen. It's about the basics. For me it's about having someone to curl up with on the sofa. Or to play unconsciously with my hair. Or to hold my hand during a scary movie. I'm a poet. I have work published. But I've never been able to write a poem that encapsulates what is for me the real meaning of love. All the words I've put together and agonised over to try and write the perfect poem. Yet this friend floors me with half a dozen words which are just so raw and true that it topped anything I have ever been able to write. Who ever is lucky enough to end up with them really will know what love is in it's truest form. They will be the luckiest people in the world.
Awards Ceremony
I've been to an awards ceremony tonight. Although to call it that makes it sound far grander than it actually was. Picture a slightly run down office block in inner city Southampton with a big sheet of paper stuck to the wall acting as a white board and mix'n'match chairs and that's the scene for tonights activities. It was the annual AGM for company I do youth work with. Part of the evening was dedicated to giving awards to young people who have coped well with a tragedy, or overcome an addiction or held down a job for a while, or simply have managed to keep their heads above water and stay alive. Several of them were people I work closely with and felt so proud to see them there recieving their awards. What was special was that they genuinely were so happy and grateful to have recieved them. It was like we had given them a million pounds, not just a piece of paper with their name and a shiny sticker on them. I said before that my life is tough at the moment, but compared to these young people my worries are nothing. I felt pretty guilty to be honest of feeling the way I have been when I know what they've gone through - and are still going through. I know everyone has their cross to bare and it's unique to them. But I can't help thinking I shouldn't be finding mine so hard when compared to the young people I was with tonight.
Breaking The Silence
Okay, so here goes. The truth is blogs scare me. I don't quite understand the point of them, but for some reason feel compelled to have one! So that's me: one big mess of contradictions. I also don't know the etiquette around what should be said in your first posting so am likely to get it wrong somewhere along the way. Right this moment I am at work. I have a generic job title and work a generic job. I could be in pretty much any County Council Office across the UK and wouldn't be out of place. On a good day it's dull. On a bad day it's unbearable. I have fulfilled the biggest fear I had as idealist sixth form student and become one of the grey suited masses who murge into an abyss of polyester nothingness. So in an attempt to make a mark on the world I am also a Youth Worker. For those nine hours a week I feel alive, I feel like I have a purpose and that I genuinely matter to this world. Life at the moment is pretty tough. Which, I guess, is probably why I felt the need to write this now. I don't know where to start with that though. So there's another contradiction for you: I feel I need to write it down, but can't manage it at the moment. Laying myself out there scares me. Keeping it in though and feeling like this forever scares me too.
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