Sunday 31 January 2010

Lessons in running

So today I was late for work. I completely over slept - well, not completely, I woke up before my shift started at least (by 10 minutes) - in my rush to get to work I missed my morning cup of tea and what a whole load of trouble it caused!

Today has definitely been one of those days!

My lesson: Don't ignore your alarm!!







In other news, yet I suppose still relating to the title of this post, tomorrow is the first day of the brand new semester. For single honours drama students the entire semester is mandatory and because of this our groups have been decided for us. They have split the year in two, with half of us in lectures at the beginning of the week and the other half at the end. When the groups first came available for us to see I was so pleased to find out that my group of four had been split equally, with two of us in one half and the other two in the second half. This meant none of us were going to be on our own and I think we were all really pleased with this.

However, things do not always stay as they are planned and my partner in crime requested to be moved to the other group, therefore leaving me on my own. She didn't tell me about this until a week ago, weeks after she had requested and been allowed to change groups, yet the other two already knew and no one told me.

It does not bother me that she wanted to change groups, fair play if she thinks she will work better with the other tutor, but it did hurt to find out weeks after she had decided to do it, and to find out over text.

I could quite easily go in tomorrow and request to be moved also and stay with my best friends, but I'm not going to. I think it is time to learn to run by myself with no one to hold me up. Instead of being down about being without any of my best friends in this module I am going to encourage it. I am going to get to work with people I have not yet worked with, and OK, some of them may not be the nicest of people or the best graded students on the course but I'll do it.

It almost feels like bowling without the gutters down. I might not get my perfect strike right away, but if I keep trying who knows what will happen. It's time to put down my comfort barriers that my friends represent and bowl on my own, without anything to bounce off. Who knows, I might surprise myself and get that strike we are all playing for, but if all I get are half strikes at least I'll know I tried.

My friends will always be there, just as the barriers in bowling always will, the option to have them there though is my own, and I think that this time I need to play alone.

Saturday 30 January 2010

The moments that make us.

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, whether it be good or bad, everything happens to teach us, to shape us, to make us into the people we are. I believe in the butterfly affect, that one decision at one time will have an affect, positive or negative, on a later event. Tonight has only strengthened this belief for me.

I was walking home after an eight hour shift going through all the thoughts that have been bothering me the last few days, thinking about what to write on my blog when I got home, about what new self involved personal drama I could go on and on and on about. I had been offered to work until 11o'clock, get some extra hours and I turned it down, I wanted to go home. I had been offered a lift and I turned that down too, I wanted the walk. Both two little decisions which would have totally changed the outcome of this evening for both myself and who knows however many others.

I was about half way home, just crossed the river, when I noticed something, someone, fall over down the river bank. I was too far away and it was too dark to make out exactly who or what it was and as I saw someone walk right on by I guessed it was probably just an animal or a bin bag floating in the wind. As I began to get closer yet another person walked right past where I had seen this figure, but I still kept my eyes locked onto the river bank.

When I eventually got closer to the area I realised it was a person, fallen and rolling around in the dirt. It was too dark to work out right away if this person was drunk or had tripped and hurt themselves so I slowed down to get a better look. As I got closer the person slowly began to pull themselves up and make their way back up the riverbank. I was nervous, I had no idea who this person was or how or why they had fallen down the bank, nor did I know what their intentions might be, but I was worried, I wanted to help this person if I could, two other people had already walked on by, if I did the same and this person was in need of help how many others would continue to carry on until they finally got it.

As he walked up the hill towards me I realised he was drunk, but my nerves took a step back as I realised this was just a kid. Instantly I asked him if he was OK, he said he was drunk and stoned, he kept tripping as he continued to walk up the hill. I started to walk with him, talking to him trying to find out what he had taken. He told me he had had a spliff and that he had tried speed for the first time as well as drinking a bottle of wine and various spirits.

I looked around and could not see a single person, where were his friends? Had he drank alone? Where was he from?

I began to walk towards the uni with him, asking him questions, trying to keep talking. He told me he was 17, his name was Ben or 'B' to his friends, he was at the local college studying health and social care and all his friends had gone. He stared asking me questions, where I was from, was I at the uni, what was I studying and then he told me I should become a councilor because I seemed to have a very natural way of talking to people.

I ended up walking him all the way home, right to his front door. On the way he told me how the last four generations of men in his family had died due to alcoholism but that he did not class himself as one, he just liked to drink and get high. He told me about his best friend dying a year ago and how he drown in the river, he told me how until the age of nine he had never lived in a house for longer than a year and that he had lived all over the country, from London to Leicester and eventually moved to Worcester where his Dad was born. He told me how his girlfriend Helena who he was madly in love with broke up with him a month ago because he was 'too boring' and he said how his parents probably wouldn't be mad at him for coming home in this state because they usually aren't unless he were to 'do something really stupid'.

He also told me how he wants to help people, that he wants to be a councilor of some sort and help people through their problems, but how he wasn't sure if he could cope listening to everyone else's problems when he already has his own and he told me how he wants to go to uni when he finishes college in a year and a half.

Seeing him like this shocked me. I know what it is like to be so drunk you can't remember what you did the next day, and I know what it is like to feel like the only way out of problems is to block them out using some sort of barrier, they are all things I have experienced, but I have never experienced seeing someone else, a stranger, a child, go through it. I know it goes on, of course I do. I've grown up with my Auntie in and out of jail and her kids living with every member of family alive, including me and my parents, and I've got my friends back home when they have had too much to drink, I have called for ambulances when my best friends have passed out and stopped breathing and I have called the police when gangs have started beating up my best friends because of the way they were dressed and I have ran and got myself locked in a petrol station while I waited for the same police to escort me back to my friends because the gang were waiting across the road for me. So I know what its like, life. I know that these things go on and I have experienced them and seen others experience them, but I have never helped a stranger back home before because he tried drugs and drank too much and all of his friends had left him.

Before I got to him, Ben, two people walked past, two people who saw him fall down the river bank, two people who were older than me, two people who were probably a lot stronger than me, two grown men, and neither of them stopped to help. They didn't want to know because a lot of the time we don't want to. We are all guilty of it. Maybe it is because we have too many of our own issues going on to spare a moment for someone else's, maybe it is because we are scared to know, because when we find out what causes these things we are invited in a world of danger, a world where wrong triumphs, where children die and parents don't care, where drugs are available to anyone, any age, a world that many people would be quite happy never acknowledge. But maybe it is a world we need to learn about, a world we need to accept exists, a world we need to embrace and understand, because maybe once we understand it we can stop it.

Earlier this week I went missing. To myself I knew exactly where I was, and I was safe, but to my friends I had disappeared. I lost my phone and got put in a taxi by someone I had only met that night. I was too drunk to look after myself properly and my friends knew this. Thankfully I made it to a friends house but it wasn't until after over an hour of driving round town and calling various people had passed that my friends found out where I was.

Tonight got me thinking. What if that had been me? What if I hadn't have got into that taxi, if I had tried to walk home on my own and tripped? Would anyone have stopped and helped me, and if so how long would I have had to wait until they did?

After walking Ben home and helping him open his front door I stood on his driveway for a few moments, wondering what to do next. He was home, he was in doors and his family were in, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors. We are all capable of hiding how we really feel, of locking up emotions from certain people so that we don't have to talk about it, so what if his parents don't know or what if they do and there is nothing else they can do for him, what if they don't want to do anything for him? What if he gets like this again and falls down and no one stops to help him? What then?

When he was talking to me he kept repeating things and forgetting things we had just spoke about and I think at times he saw things that weren't there. Tomorrow he might wake up and never remember meeting me, tomorrow he might wake up and do exactly the same again. Just like so many other people will.

This scares me more than any other though that has been crowding my mind the last few weeks.

I am glad I turned down those extra hours, and I am glad I decided to walk. I am glad I stayed over ten minutes to help out a bit longer and I am glad I stopped and talked to the boy in the gutter, because not many other people would have.

I am scared what tomorrow might bring that boy, and I am scared that I will never know how it turns out, I am scared that this goes on so close to home and people ignore it and I am scared that I do not known when my job as the helpful stranger is over, because quite honestly I would love to go to his house tomorrow and check up on him. But that is not my responsibility.

I want him to be OK. I want tonight to be the last time he does that, I want to believe that he will be alright, that someone at home is looking after him.

I want more people to stop and help the stranger in the gutter.

My weakness is I care too much..

Hmm. So today I've been hearing a lot of lyrics that fit a lot of thoughts which are currently floating around my head and I have come to the - quite obvious - conclusion that I have far too many to fit inside this tiny little brain of mine, so much so that I started this post with something in mind to talk about but now it all seems to have mushed together into an untalkable nothingness.

Therefore I am not really sure of the point of this post except to express my anger and annoyance at my own silly little mind which seems to just love complicating everything to do with everything because apparently it is a lot more interesting than being on my own, which is what I think I am most affraid of more than anything, even though once I finally get something to stop me being alone I either majorly screw it up or I push it away because I can't cope with love and romance and affection and all that crap, which then again leads to me making bad decisions and going for the people who I know from the very beginning will hurt me and never really care for me in any major way.

So yes. There it is. One majorly screwed up mind with too many thoughts to handle.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Things I'll never say..

What do you do when you know that everything you want is completely wrong for you?
When you know that it would never work.
When you have had your heart broken by that person a million times already but you still want to give it that second chance, just in case.
What do you do when no matter how much you shut them out eventually they always come back?
When you do everything you can to take your mind off them and move on but they still remain to be the one to keep you awake at night.
When the only smile that really makes your tummy flip and bring a smile to your own face is theirs.
What do you do?

What do you do when you don’t know if they feel the same way back?
When you have a million chances to bite the bullet and tell them but you can’t build up the courage, just in case they turn you down.
When all you want is them but you’re too afraid to try it because you rather have them as a friend with them never knowing than not have them at all.
What do you do when the person you tell everything to is the person you can tell nothing to?
When you want so badly to open up but you know it will change things.
When the only way to see if it could happen is to risk everything.
What do you do?

Do sit and wait?
See if things happen by themselves.
See if feeling change, people change.
Do you tell them and risk it all?
See if things can stay the same anyway.
See if maybe by some stroke of luck they’ve been thinking the same as you all along.
Do you miss what may be your only chance?
See if one day in the future you’ll get over the fact you were too cowardly to speak up when you had chance.
See if in the end there never was a chance and you just saved yourself from a whole lot of heartache.

What would you do?

Monday 25 January 2010

Eventually

I want to write something but I don't know what.
I have a lot of thoughts going on in my head at the moment, most of them are driving me mad.
I wish I could go back to when everything was simple, when you didn't get bogged down with thoughts about every single move you make, every single word you say. But I can't and it's not. Not any more.

Things get complicated as you get older, it's something I have learnt about a lot recently, it is something I write about a lot too.

But no matter how complicated things might get there is always, eventually, going to be a way out of it, a way around it, a time when eventually things will stop being complicated and just go back to normal. Eventually.

Eventually can be a long time. Eventually is a long time.

I don't want to wait for eventually, I don't want to worry over silly little things which weeks ago wouldn't have bothered me, I don't want to stay awake at night thinking things over or texting friends asking for advice I'm never going to listen to anyway.

Eventually is a good thing when it finally comes. For the eventuallys that have happened I am glad. And I am glad for a lot of things, not just for me but for other people too. I am :)

It's nice to have a smile on your face, it's nice to fill up reading beautiful words you haven't seen in a long time, it's nice to laugh until you almost pee your pants, it's nice to take masses of photos of times out you never want to forget, of all the eventuallys that have finally happened. But it sucks waiting for the ones still to come.

Somedays I wish I could see in to the future, to know that soon it will change for the better or to know the outcome of that annoyingly persistent wrong feeling that just won't go away, to know that you'll get out of it alive, that everyone will. But then I guess what's the point. What's the point in living it if you already know what is going to happen.

So I sit and I wait it out, this 'eventually' I hope will come one day. One day soon. And I hope that when it does come things will be the same, that things won't have to change for it to appear.

Because quite honestly, I don't think I could cope if things changed.

Thursday 21 January 2010

Thoughts.

Sometimes I think I have too many of them. I think my blog is proof of that. I need somewhere to get them out, away from me, vent my anger, my frustration.

Today it's frustration.

It's amazing how something you think is a good idea suddenly turns out to be completely the opposite. How by trying to fix things, to clear the air, to no longer be thought of as the 'bitch', manages you to gain all these thoughts, these possible feelings that were, you thought, gone.

And I wonder. I wonder if it's just because I'm lonely. I wonder if it's because I actually miss you. I wonder if I'm actually that stupid, that naive, that lonely that I'd actually consider it.

And the truth is I would.

I look at your smile and it makes me smile. I remember your laugh and it makes me laugh, and knowing that you're not a part of my life anymore makes me miss you.

Of course the alcohol and the repeat of Ludovico Einaudi doesn't help the mood, but it's something that's been playing on my mind for a while, so maybe I'm just hoping that these are excuses I can use to talk myself out of it, because honestly I know it would never in a million years be a good idea. Even though I wish it was.

Saturday 16 January 2010

The roads we walk are winding

This has been, for me, a week of revelations, of both myself and my friends and my friends friends.

It amazes me how someone who can love you can cause so much pain and not even realise what they are doing. And it amazes how someone can carry on loving you no matter how much you continue to hurt them. And it amazes me how much a friend can be there for you and not even feel put out by the sleepless nights or the hugs or endless cups of tea, because they honestly love you and would do anything to keep that smile on your face.

It shocks me how much your body can actually cope with, how even after having no sleep for days it can still manage to function and get through the day. It shocks me still how much a cup of tea in the morning can make you a happier person. It shocks me how you can ignore everything your body is telling you it needs and how you can carry on, sitting up, watching, making sure someone else sleeps OK.

It makes me smile, knowing that the favour would always be returned if it was ever needed, and it makes me smile knowing that nothing is ever asked in return of it, just seeing the smile again is enough.

It amazes me how blind some people can be, how they can sit in their room and be oblivious to everything that is going on around them. It amazes me how shut off they can be from the world and how much human emotions fly over them like the wind on a car bonnet as it speeds down a winding road, never actually touching it. It shocks me the bluntness someone can have, how they can look but not see, and how to them it is completely normal and acceptable.

A lot of things shock me.
A lot of things amaze me.
A lot of things continue to make me smile.
A lot of things make me proud.

I am proud to say I know some of these people, and I am proud to say I am nothing like others, I am proud to watch my friends grow stronger, I am proud to call them my friends.

Some people, I admit, I wouldn't mind never seeing again. The dream world they live in annoys me and I cannot believe how shut off some people can be from reality, they play no part in my life apart from the annoyance down the hall, but I guess I need these people to appreciate the people who do matter.

It is nice to know someone notices your efforts, and it is nice to be thanked, just as nice as it is to be able to thank someone else. Sometimes it's the tiniest things that have the biggest impact, that mean the most, like the moving of shoes from the centre of the room, or the making of a drink without asking. But the greatest thing is knowing that you have done everything you could to make someone else feel better, knowing that even if the problem hasn't gone away they know that you will always be there for them, whenever, wherever they may need you. And it is nice knowing that they would do exactly the same for you.

This is why the people who are my friends are my friends, and this is why the people who are not aren't. It is why I do not regret a single friend I have lost and it is why I do not regret a single friend I have made, because really, when it comes down to it, the ones that matter are already here, and the ones that don't or only did for a while played their part while they were here. The ones who are no longer a part of my life, I miss, of course, but I would never regret losing them because they are no longer meant to play a part in my life. Some of them had the biggest impacts while they were present, and for that I will always be grateful, but as always, people must come in and out of your life as the roads merge as required. It's all part of gr owning up, and I am so glad I get to grow up like this!

Tuesday 12 January 2010

You wanted to fly so I gave you my wings

Another one of those messages, put over cyber space for everyone to see, except perhaps the person it is to.

You mean the world to me. You're my best friend and I will always be there for you no matter what. It hurts me to see you upset and I wish I had the words to make it all seem better, but I know those words don't exist. As difficult as it is it is something that you need to go through, we all do, and at some point we all will.

Its these things that make us stronger, make us the people we are going to be. There is no time limit on how long the pain lasts or how long it takes to get over, never let it make you feel as though you're being silly. If it feels real then there is nothing silly about it. If it feels true then there is nothing wrong in that.

There is nothing wrong with breaking down, there is nothing wrong with crying on the bathroom floor, there is nothing wrong with not being able to believe people when they say it will figure itself out and that one day you'll be fine. Because at the moment this is what you have to do.

Never let anyone make you feel like you don't deserve what you want. Never let anyone make you feel like what you are feeling is silly. Because its not.

I don't think you will ever know just how much I admire you. You're strength amazes me and I only wish you could see it yourself.

Friday 8 January 2010

Copy Cat

Its a bit copy cat of me but one of my best friends has a list. A list of 100 things he wants to do in his lifetime. While I found it a very funny read I also found it very inspirational and it has inspired me to make my own list.

I'm not sure I have 100 things so far, and the ones I do have aren't going to be in any sort of order, so I'll put the numbers and leave them blank, aiming to fill them all in one day and update them as and when I achieve these things. Some I might decide to delete if I later look back and decide it is no longer something that suits my lifetime aims, or something like that.

Some may be silly things, personal to me, others may be massive accomplishments I wish to achieve. Lets see how I do..

1. Surprise myself of my abilities
May 2008. Women of Troy. Stourbridge College final performance.
2. Swim in the sea
3. Perform on Broadway and/or The West End
4. Go to see a show in London
August 2008. Avenue Q, Woman in Black & Sister Act.
5. Get to the top on Snowdon
6. Go back to Egypt
7. Volunteer in a 3rd world country/world disaster
8. Have a positive impact on someones life
I mark this one a different colour because although it is something I know I have already achieved it is still something I want to carry on achieving.
9. Start swimming regularly
10. Move out of home
June/Sept 2009. I moved to Worcester where I go to uni.
11. Learn to drive
12. Go ice skating
13. Learn about the world, history, current affairs etc.
14. Record an album
15. Write and record/sell my own song
16. Record and air my radio play
17. Perform in a full mask performance
Sept 2009. Vamos Theatre. 'Bed Baths & Bandages'
18. Open up my own (affordable) drama school
19. Learn guitar
20. Learn piano
21. Be part of a band and play a gig
22. Be in a film
2009. Expressive Arts Productions. 'Musik'. I played Shannon Knox.
23. Spend a night in a cell
24. Send a message in a bottle
25. Get a lift in a police car
April 2006. BP petrol station, Stourbridge - Stourbridge bus station. Avoiding chavs who were waiting across the road for me & friends.
26. Hit someone over the head with a 'bottle' - movie style
27. Jump through a glass window - movie style
28. Write a book
29. Give modeling a shot
30.
31. Travel
32. Point randomly at a map and go to that place
33.
34.
35. Learn another language
36. Sing on the tube and get people to join in
Aug 2009. National Youth Theatre Course 21. Returning from seeing Woman in Black.
37.
38. Give blood
39. Dye my hair GINGER
40.
41.
42. Eat meat
43. Go scuba diving
44.
45.
46.
47. Get a degree
48.
49.
50. Give a stranger my number on a piece of paper
2008. On the train home. He never called.
51.
52. Read the dictionary
53. Shave my head
54.
55.
56. Touch a mans nipple
2009. Merry Hill car park. AJ.
57.
58.
59.
60. Drive to the seaside, sleep in the car, come home
61.
62. Learn to skateboard
63. Learn to rollerblade
64.
65.
66. Get over my fear and dislike for this number
67.
68.
69. Knit a jumper
70.
71. Go rock climbing
72.
73. Learn, or at least attempt, to surf
74. Go paint balling - 10 Things I Hate About You style
75.
76.
77. Go to the Monday Mystery Movie at Odeon
78.
79.
80. Have children
81. Have my own pet
82.
83. Create my own cocktail
84.
85. Stand behind a waterfall
86.
87. Dress up as a mermaid
2010. My 21st and a half birthday.
88.
89.
90.
91. Own my own house
92.
93.
94.
95. Go busking
96.
97.
98.
99.
Die on stage
100. Be buried at sea