My 2009

I have had a lot of 'first times' in 2009. Some good, some bad. All memorable.

Before this year I had never spoken to 'downstairs', I had never been to Kiddy Tesco, I had never slept on so many peoples floors in one week. I had never had a water fight indoors, I had never seen a mask performance, I had never been so drunk I couldn't remember anything the next day, I had never done pub golf, I had never been to Newquay, I had never been on holiday with my friends, I had never dressed up as a tree. I had never been to London for more than a day trip with school, I had never lived in university halls, I had never acted in a film, I had never performed in a full mask performance, I had never been on the news, I had never moved away from home, I had never paid my own bills, I had never had a lead role or a solo, I had never been in a panto, I had never seen a panto! I had never fallen for the lead role, I had never had an offstage romance, I had never been cheated on, I had never been lied about so badly by the person who was "falling in love with me", I had never confronted someone so bravely and calmly, I had never lost all emotions because it all got too much for me, I had never stopped eating for a week because I physically wasn't able to, I had never had my own camera, I had never dressed up as Sporty Spice and danced with inflatable microphones, I had never ordered photos online, I had never done a lot of things.

2009 has been quite different from 2008, yet in many ways it has also been very similar.
I have been hurt beyond measure, and I have found friends who have glued me back together countless times.

The roads I'm walking are still winding in and out of other peoples roads, bringing new people into my life and taking other people away, sometimes its painful when someone leaves, sometimes though, its the right thing.

I have met some amazing people and had some brilliant unforgettable experiences, experiences I know I will never get the chance at again, I have made memories with people I might never see again but I know I will never forget them, as nor will they.

It has been difficult to remember all the amazing things I have done this year as the pain of the last month shadows over it, but I know that that was just a painful bump in my road I had to go over, there was no way to swerve and avoid it, maybe I even needed it to teach me things, to help me become thicker skinned, to make me able to face confrontation.

I have spent too long recently focusing on the negatives. With a new year arriving I think its time I learnt to ignore the pain I still feel and look at it in a positive way - I got hurt, I learnt from it, I became thicker skinned and I had the strength to walk away. I know now more than ever what I am not going to accept from people, I know now how to say what I want.

I hope 2010 won't bring all the pain 2008 and 2009 have, and I think it really is time to focus on me and no one else for a while. I had a brilliant summer and that was down to me. I guess 2010 is only going to be what I make it. So let's hope I make it a goodun!

My 2008

I wrote this one year ago today...

2008. It’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster.
It started with a boyfriend, a partner, someone I though I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I had plans for the future. A destiny.
But that destiny has changed now, making room for 2009, a magical time. I hope.
It’s amazing how quickly a plan can be changed, how in an instant, without even realising, your whole life can change the course it’s taking.
Destiny is a funny thing.
The roads we walk are constantly winding, merging into other peoples roads, sometimes merging back out as quickly as they merged in, sometimes never leaving. 2008 has taught me this better than any other year.
I’ve made new friends, new enemies, had new hopes and lost old ones. I’ve gained inspiration and lost inspiration, I’ve become focussed and lost focus.
Determination and drive have pushed me the whole way to stick at things I thought I couldn’t and to let me give in when I knew the time was right.
I’ve discovered that some people will hurt you in the most painful of ways without even realising it, others will do it because they think it’s the right thing to do, and you will always find that someone who will pull you through it all; who will stay awake with you and cry with you, who will make you laugh when you feel its impossible, who will stay when everyone else has left, right when you feel the most alone you’ve ever been.
I’ve discovered in 2008 that you’re never alone, even when you feel it more than anything else; there is always someone around the corner waiting to pick you up and make you smile.
A smile can never really be lost, its just trying to find its way back to you.
You can cry a million tears, but in the end, it’s the smiles you remember and the people who make them.
A stranger can walk into your life and straight back out without you even knowing their name but can make the biggest influence on the person you are today without even realising it.
Its moments that make us. Sometimes, they’re so small you never even recognise them, other times they’re huge, destroying and changing everything in its path. Sometimes you don’t even see them coming, but it’s not what they do that makes us, but what we do because of them.
I’ve had my heart broken, and I’ve broken some hearts too. Sometimes you turn into a person you never even knew existed; sometimes you become someone you hate. 2008 has had moments like these but thankfully; I’ve always bounced back.
If it wasn’t for the heartache I wouldn’t be who I am right now. And right now, I like who I am quite a lot.
I’m braver than ever, I have confidence and self believe. I know now that I will make it one day, although I don’t know when; I will be where I want to be. I know this now more than ever before. So for that, I thank the heartache, and the change, and the moments. I thank the winding roads and the people they have bought in and out of my life, I thank the strangers I’ve met along the way and I look forward to the ones I will meet in 2009. It is because of all the pain I’ve been through in 2008 that has made it such a good year and has made me sure that 2009 will be just as great.
So I end this year quite the opposite to how I started it. Single, with no plans for the future, other than what I intend to achieve on my own, by my own right. I still have a lot to learn and a lot of room to grow. I’m not ready to compromise again just yet, because right now, I’m standing on my own two feet, mapping out my own roads alone. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thinking over the last few weeks.

Some boys are definitley number one A-holes! The guy I was seeing was awful, I knew the other girl before I knew him, he told me all the time that she was just his best friend and when she asked him about me he told her I was a stalker and crazy and that the only reason he spoke to me was cause we were playing the lead roles in the Xmas panto at uni. Her and all the friends I had made stopped talking to me and gave me dirty looks and talked about me behind my back because of all the lies he had told them about me. He got away with it for over a month and a half, there were even nights out where he went out with her and came back home with me, including the night he first told her he loved her.

When we finally found out that he had been lying to us both and that he was seeing both of us we went round to his house together and confronted him. He finally told us the truth and said he expected us both to hate him, I told him not to expect me to hate him cause he wasn't worth my hate.

I still had to act along side him in the panto as we were playing Jasmine and Aladdin and I had to sing to him and dance with him for weeks after all the truth came out, it was so painful but now the show is over and I'm away from him I feel like I'm finally beginning to get over all the shit he did to me.

The other girl has gone back to him despite all the lies he told her about me and all the lies he told me about her. I think she'll regret it one day, and I also think he gave her my Xmas present.

Boys definitley think they can say sorry and get away with things, and some girls are stupid enough to let them. Personally I don't ever want to speak to him again, or anyone else who would treat another person like that. I know some girls aren't exactly angels or saints either but I could never do to someone else what he did to me!

Understanding nothing but the fairy tales and lies

I don't think i know how to love anymore.
I don't think i even believe in it. How can it possibly exist? Surely i would have found it by now if it was real.

Love is for fairy tales. It's what they tell you when you're younger so you have a reason to grow up, a reason to believe.

It's something they tell you to make you believe that you won't always be on your own, but what if being on your own is the only way you're ever going to be happy; the only way you're ever going to believe that you're not going to get hurt again, the only way to protect you?

You didn't just take away my belief but you took away my every reason to believe in the first place.

My way

I guess I'm not as over it, as OK with it, as I thought I was.

I'm being strong and confident because I have to be. I'm being mature and the bigger person because its what I need to do right now. I'm turning up with a smile on my face because I don't want you to see how much you broke me.

For the next week I'm not aloud to be childish or petty because it'll be bought into the performance; I have to wait before I can break down, I have to wait until its OK for me to say all the things that are on my mind, I have to wait until I'm aloud to react to everything that has happened, everything that has been done to me, everything that has been said about me. I have to wait. And that's the hardest thing.

You have no idea how hard it is to turn up everyday, thinking I'm going to see you, only to find out that once again you're not going to be there. It's so difficult to keep building my confidence up, bringing the smile back and growing the thick skin so that I can perform with you without it affecting me. But every time you don't turn up is another day I've spent building myself back up for nothing, and the let down is so painful. I need to see you, to get it over with and you can't even give me that. And then to make things even worse people feel the need to stick their noses in where they aren't wanted. It's my business. Not theirs, so stay out of it. Stop getting involved.

If you don't like the things my friends have said to you take it up with them or me, not anyone else, because it has nothing to do with them and you're involving them for no reason and hurting me even more than you already have in the process.

I know you could say it's none of her business either, that she has no right to say those things to you because this is between you and me but she does. She's speaking for me, she's saying all those things I'm not aloud to yet, and it may be petty and a cheap shot but its what I wish I was able to say, but am not aloud to yet.

You're not going to get beat up, the girls aren't going to hurt you, they just want to make you feel as bad and as little and as small and as pathetic and as worthless and as meaningless as you made me feel. They are the ones who have seen me break down, seen me at my lowest. They are the ones who have stayed up with me all night when I've been crying my eyes out and are the ones who have encouraged me to eat just a piece of toast when I haven't eaten for days because I physically wasn't able to. They are the ones who have sat with me in silence because although I had nothing to say to them I wasn't ready to be on my own yet. They're the ones who have put off essays for an hour while I've cried and repeated the same sentence over and over again, trying to make sense of everything you said and did, trying to find a reason for me ever deserving this.

So they do have the right. They have all the rights. And if you can't handle it well tough, you'll just have to grin and bare it because right now this is how I'm coping.

I mean it when I say you mean nothing to me now, and I mean it when I say you're just a boy I used to know, but that doesn't mean that you didn't once mean something to me, because you did. And it doesn't mean that you were always 'just a boy' because you weren't, for a short time you were special to me, and that's what I'm getting over now.

Please just let me do it, my way.

I think you owe me that.

Do you ever feel like you're a robot?
Like you're on auto pilot and you're just walking through life and not noticing or feeling anything. Your best friend could die and you still wouldn't cry because you actually, physically, completely 100% have nothing else to give.
You're drained, emotionless and for the first time in your life you actually know what it feels like to be empty.
That's how i am.

Its a new kind of empty, its not the same as when you were a teenager and you would lock yourself in your room and cut yourself while writing songs about how much the blood flowed this time, that was something everyone goes through, something personal, something you did to yourself. This is something someone else has done to you.

You don't shine anymore, your light is completely blown out and you have no fire left to light it again.

And the stupid thing is, you don't even hate the person who did this to you because you don't have the ability to. You really have lost everything.

Every emotion you were once capable of feeling is lost, gone and not coming back. Not anytime soon.

You don't even feel broken because to be broken you'd have to feel something. And you don't.

Again.

It's amazing how much can happen in a week. How many peoples lives can change. How many friends can be made and how many friends can be lost, all because of one lie.

Finally the truth has come out. I was right all along. I was right to be jealous. I was right not to trust you. I was right not to give up that one thing that would have made me yours. I was right to speak to the source. I was right to hold back my friends fire until I knew. I was right to end it. I was right.

They always say I read too much into things, that I look for trouble. I take something perfect and try to find all the imperfections in it because I need it to be wrong and bad and tainted. But I only look for these things because I always know that in the end I'm going to be right. And I was. Again.

It's the lies that hurt the most. The lies you've told me about the feelings you've had. The lies you've told me about people who were once my friends and how you've turned me against them. The lies you've told people about me and the new friends I've lost because of it.

You made me open up and you made me give more than I was willing to because you made me believe I could trust you. I told you my stories and my fears and feelings and you reassured me that you would never hurt me, when all along you knew that already you were hurting me, I just hadn't realised yet.

And then you lied. Again and again and again. You made me feel stupid for being jealous when really I was right all along. You made me believe that she was crazy and reading into things when really you were telling her the same all along about me. I gave you the chance to end it so many times and you said you couldn't, that you didn't want to, that you just wanted to be with me. And then you went home to her and used the exact same lines on her. And she believed you too.

I should be breaking. I should be crying and unable to go on. But I don't even have that anymore. I can't feel anything because I don't think my emotions exist anymore. You bought me out of the hole I was in and dropped me into a pit. And you loved me along the way.

Of all the people who have hurt me I never thought you would. I never thought you would turn out to be the person who made me incapable of feeling because honestly, I believed in you.

I meant every single word I said to you.

Every single feeling I felt was real.

Each time I cried, I cried because I meant it.

Now I don't even have that. You mean nothing to me now. You're just a boy I once knew. A boy who broke my heart and added to all the hurt that I already carry round with me. You made me trust you and then you took it all away because of one lie. One lie I didn't even look for. One lie I had no idea about. One lie you could have confessed to weeks ago. One lie you didn't even need to start in the first place.

I hope you're happy now.

I don't know what to write.

Usually I write about my emotions, about whats bugging me, whats on my mind. But tonight there isn't anything to write about, even though there should be.

There should be so much for me to cry over, so much to make me angry to make me need to share my bed with my best friend because I just can't stand to be on my own. It would make sense to be how I was last week, crying in the rain slumped up a bus stop unable to walk anymore. But I'm not.

I've given up, lost my emotions, I've got nothing more to give and I couldn't feel any calmer about the whole thing.

My friends are angry, my friends want me to be angry. But I just don't feel it.

I've done my crying. I've shed my tears. I've been angry and I've been jealous. I've been paranoid and I've been irrational. I've cared and I've cared and I've cared until I've had nothing else to give and have broken down. But now I don't even have that.
And I'm OK with that.

I'm OK with rising above it. I'm OK with knowing that however it turns out, that whoever gets hurt, I haven't done anything wrong. At all. If anything I'm the victim. I don't mind that. Not anymore.

Together they've broken me. Every single one of them. And some have started to put me back together again before deciding to break me again and now I'm done. I'm done being broken. I'm done letting them. I'm done letting my friends glue me back together because they shouldn't have to.

Maybe this break is the best thing to ever happen to me. Maybe this is the break that fixed me. The one that's finally made me realise that the only person who isn't going to hurt me is myself. I'm happy now, if this is how it is, if he chooses her that's fine, if he chooses me that's fine, but if he chooses me I don't know if I even care now. In my mind it ended the moment she said they were together. Whether they are or not now it doesn't matter.

I've said it too many times that they're not gonna break me anymore.. Maybe its about time its true.

Breathe

Hes not going to hurt you
Hes not going to break you
Hes not going to be like all the others
Hes told you a million times you can trust him. Believe him. Breathe.

He might be the one who fixes it all if you give him the chance. So give it to him.

Sleep. Forget about it. Come back to it tomorrow if you must but don't worry about it now.
Its 3am in the morning. Nothing is worth the worry at this time. Breathe.

Remember why you like him.
Remember why you care enough to worry this much.
Remember why it hurt when you thought you'd ruined it.
Remember why you never want to feel like that again.
Remember all the reasons you have to trust him. Believe them. Breathe.

He might be the one who fixes it all if you give him the chance. So give it to him.

Breathe.