I was talking to a young person in No Limits yesterday who wasn't bothered about music. I was chatting with another colleague at the time who is very into his music when this person came in and joined into our conversation. They said something along the lines of 'oh, you're talking about music, that's dull'.... they just had no interest in music at all. That's something I just can't get my head around. Music colours every part of my life. Major events are remembered through music - when I think of my lovely Grandad around the time he died I hear Meatloaf... when I'm excited about going to watch Wales in a rugby international I am surrounded in my head by the crowds singing Delilah and Bread Of Heaven.... In the same way, when I hear the songs they trigger the memory - Drinking In LA by Bran Van 3000 is me and Lynda walking drunkenly through Talybont at 3 in the morning.... Motorcycle Emptiness is the last night of my first year at uni.... the Sex Pistols version of My Way is my first kiss (I know, I'm so punk!)... Teenage Dirtbag is simply Gareth....
I couldn't describe to this young person how music makes me feel, how it's like an extension of me, it expresses what I cannot find the words or sounds for. I love that a song will appear on the radio or my ipod that takes me somewhere or makes me feel something unexpected. On the way to work today my ipod was on random and it played Ring Of Fire. I was straight back to going to see Jet Heeled Striker: of the way their playing makes me feel and of the hope I have for them to succeed and survive in such a turbulent industry.
For me oil on canvas can really never paint a petal so so delicate as a beautiful song can.
Somewhere, Between The Sacred Silence And Sleep, Disorder, Disorder, Disorder
Do you ever wish you could just make your thoughts shut the fuck up? Today is one of those days. My mind has been racing since I woke up and nothing seems to drown it out or make it stop... I've tried music, TV, chattering with people and nothing. Seriously beginning to think the only solution is starting at one end of my table full of alcohol and working my way to the other. To drink myself so obliterated that I don't even remember my own name, let alone be able to think about things. Knowing my luck though, like cockroaches after a chemical war, my thoughts would still be live and well.
Mostly I'm thinking about Gran. Every month seems to bring a new problem or issue with her. The most recent thing being she's fallen again causing damage to her foot and a deep wound on her leg that's now got infected. Last night she told me the morning after she did it she had to crawl down the corridor to the bathroom because she couldn't walk. An 87 year old lady on her hands and knees. It broke my heart. I feel so guilty that I'm down here and she's in Wales all alone. What scares me is that I know there's only one route that all this can go. Now when I see her my immediate thought isn't that I'm looking at Gran, it's that I'm looking at a frail old lady. I hate this and I'm powerless to change anything.
Mostly I'm thinking about Gran. Every month seems to bring a new problem or issue with her. The most recent thing being she's fallen again causing damage to her foot and a deep wound on her leg that's now got infected. Last night she told me the morning after she did it she had to crawl down the corridor to the bathroom because she couldn't walk. An 87 year old lady on her hands and knees. It broke my heart. I feel so guilty that I'm down here and she's in Wales all alone. What scares me is that I know there's only one route that all this can go. Now when I see her my immediate thought isn't that I'm looking at Gran, it's that I'm looking at a frail old lady. I hate this and I'm powerless to change anything.
Birds Flying High You Know How I Feel
Something's changed in me recently and it's a good thing. I don't spend my life being depressed by any means, but for the first time in a while I can put my hand on my heart and say I'm actually really happy. I still hate my job, but I've found that I can handle the crap that I feel from that because I feeling generally so good. I've been going to Slimming World for about 14 months and to date I have lost 3 stone 9 and 1/2 Lb - ten of which I've lost in the last two weeks. These last two weeks I've found it so easy to stick to. Plus, I've found myself wanting to do exercise for the first time in a long time - maybe because I actually have the ability to do it now! So every other day I'm riding 15 to 20 km and I feel so good during and after it that I just want to do more and more. I feel like at 27 I'm getting my life back from being stuck inside me, and it's great.
This renewed vigour has spread itself throughout my life. I'm rediscovering and falling in love again with music. With my beautiful CDs. All 600 odd of them. Each day I get up and am excited about what album I'm going to pick to listen to on the way to work.
I'm slightly scared about writing this blog. For two reasons really. First because I find my weight an incredibly hard thing to talk about. It took me 24 sessions before I could talk to my therapist about it. But I'm tackling it now and I'm getting my head straight on secretive eating and stuff which is helping every day. And every day it gets easier to deal with and easier to talk about. And each time I talk about it my secrets lose their power over me.
The second reason for being scared is because I don't want to scare off this good mood! A bit like a baby deer - by letting it know I'm here I hope it won't run away!
This renewed vigour has spread itself throughout my life. I'm rediscovering and falling in love again with music. With my beautiful CDs. All 600 odd of them. Each day I get up and am excited about what album I'm going to pick to listen to on the way to work.
I'm slightly scared about writing this blog. For two reasons really. First because I find my weight an incredibly hard thing to talk about. It took me 24 sessions before I could talk to my therapist about it. But I'm tackling it now and I'm getting my head straight on secretive eating and stuff which is helping every day. And every day it gets easier to deal with and easier to talk about. And each time I talk about it my secrets lose their power over me.
The second reason for being scared is because I don't want to scare off this good mood! A bit like a baby deer - by letting it know I'm here I hope it won't run away!
And Just Like The Movies We Play Out Our Last Scene
I have had the most brilliant weekend. I spent Saturday night with most of the people who mean more to me than anyone else in the entire world. They are the most incredible group of friends I could wish for. We laugh together, cry together, have learnt together, and play together. In varying degrees of time, we've grown up together. These people know me pretty much entirely, and amazingly are still there! I have more to thank them for - each one of them in different ways - than I would ever be able to really explain.
The weekend was only marred by the floods of tears that my poor Mum had to deal with on Sunday afternoon! In short, I had the blues big style (plus I was tired, hungover and PMT-ing, not a good combination!). My very best friend, Jenn, and her lovely husband came down for this weekend especially for the party. Jenn has lived in a different place to me since the end of uni, 6 years now. Every time she's down and I have to say goodbye it makes me well up. I hate that she's so far away, that I can't pop round for a random cuppa or to borrow a book or something. Carl is currently home for ten days from uni in Scarborough: Scarborough FFS!! Can you get much further away from Southampton?? I couldn't be happier for him that he's in uni there and doing his thing. But dropping him at his parents house yesterday and saying "see you at Christmas" when it's only the summer holidays felt like a kick in the guts.
My Mum had just managed to ebb the flow of tears, when I started all over again, starting with me saying "everybody leaves me Mum, why does nobody want to be near me?"! I know! I proceeded to cry over Tom my Infant School boyfriend who left for another school, Bethan my friend from Infants who moved back to Chepstow, and beautiful Sophie who left me in year five to go to South Africa (okay, so there are places further away than Scarborough!). In fairness, Soph did return but lives in Manchester which is still far too far away.
It's the feeling of being left behind that's so hard to handle. That they can come home to us, but then they leave and go back to friends up there. I'm left here with a gaping hole where one of my best friends should be stood.
Today I have found more perspective on the situation. In an ideal world, my friends would all live within about 10 miles of me. But I know that's an unrealistic, and rather selfish, wish. I have to concentrate instead on how good it is when we are together, and that although there may be many many miles between us, we are always close to each other.
The weekend was only marred by the floods of tears that my poor Mum had to deal with on Sunday afternoon! In short, I had the blues big style (plus I was tired, hungover and PMT-ing, not a good combination!). My very best friend, Jenn, and her lovely husband came down for this weekend especially for the party. Jenn has lived in a different place to me since the end of uni, 6 years now. Every time she's down and I have to say goodbye it makes me well up. I hate that she's so far away, that I can't pop round for a random cuppa or to borrow a book or something. Carl is currently home for ten days from uni in Scarborough: Scarborough FFS!! Can you get much further away from Southampton?? I couldn't be happier for him that he's in uni there and doing his thing. But dropping him at his parents house yesterday and saying "see you at Christmas" when it's only the summer holidays felt like a kick in the guts.
My Mum had just managed to ebb the flow of tears, when I started all over again, starting with me saying "everybody leaves me Mum, why does nobody want to be near me?"! I know! I proceeded to cry over Tom my Infant School boyfriend who left for another school, Bethan my friend from Infants who moved back to Chepstow, and beautiful Sophie who left me in year five to go to South Africa (okay, so there are places further away than Scarborough!). In fairness, Soph did return but lives in Manchester which is still far too far away.
It's the feeling of being left behind that's so hard to handle. That they can come home to us, but then they leave and go back to friends up there. I'm left here with a gaping hole where one of my best friends should be stood.
Today I have found more perspective on the situation. In an ideal world, my friends would all live within about 10 miles of me. But I know that's an unrealistic, and rather selfish, wish. I have to concentrate instead on how good it is when we are together, and that although there may be many many miles between us, we are always close to each other.
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