I never knew being deleted could hurt so much

We're all used to it, being someone's 'friend' until suddenly one day you go to cyber stalk them and you suddenly have no access, you've been deleted, removed, and yeah you feel a bit put out because you'd been looking forward to this little nose since you and a friend had had a gossip about them a few days previous, but in the end no real harm is done and you forget about it and move on. But what about when the person who deletes you was once one of the most important people in your life, the person you would quite honestly call your closest friend, the person you did everything with and told everything to. What do you do then and most importantly, how are you supposed to react?

I should have seen it coming, we haven't really spoken since May, and that was the first time since about January, so even though I knew we weren't the friends we had previously been I still knew that we had some form of connection into each others lives, that there was still hope, and although it hurt to know that I had lost one of my most treasured friends, it gave me that little bit of something to keep me hoping.

Today I lost that bit of hope.

A text from a friend informed me that she had been deleted, part of me felt that I should be exempt from such an action, but I soon found out that I was not. I too had been deleted.

Words cannot describe how much that hurts.

I know it may seem dramatic and over the top, to react so emotionally to someone deleting a person off Facebook, but this wasn't any old aquantence, this was my best friend.

He was the person who on the first night of meeting offered me his bed to sleep in when I had nowhere else to go, the person who offered his food to me, who would drive me round aimlessly whenever I got my heart broken. He was the person who I always knew I could call any minute of the day, the person I drove over 30 miles with at 4am in the morning just to get a McDonalds. He was the person I went to stay with in the summer, and who came to stay with me too, the person I took walks in the snow with, and gave the rest of my drink to. He was the one who when my Mom had her stroke I asked to drive me the hour journey home so I could see her, even though the friend I was already with had already offered; it was him I wanted there. He was the person I text in January when things were getting on top of me, just to say that I needed my friend there that night, and he was the one who showed up and watched endless Greys with me despite the awkward few months we had previously had and he was the person I went to first when we got broken in to that same night.

He was the person I never had any doubt about being best friends with until the fateful day when life escapes our bodies.

And he is the only friend it has hurt this much to admit I've lost.

I know that old saying about some people are only meant to pass through our lives for a brief moment, but I never expected him to be one of them.

I'm not sure where it really all went wrong or why we became this, but I do know that he is the friend I will always tell my children stories about because even now, even today, with all this hurt, he is still the one friend I can't stop texting other friends about talking about old memories.

My time with him as a best friend will stay with me forever, and if one day he sees this, or has a change of heart, I will always be waiting with open arms to let him back into my life, because even now I find it hard to believe that we have amounted to this.

I miss you, Jake. I only wish you knew how much.

Blame the folks who sold the future for the highest bid

Whatever happened to childhood?
We're all scared of the kids in our neighborhood;
They're not small, charming and harmless,
They're a violent bunch of bastard little shits.
And anyone who looks younger than me
Makes me check for my wallet, and my phone and my keys,
And I'm tired of being tired out
Always being on the lookout for thieving gits.

I was going to write this blog a month ago, when the events were actually happening, however I decided to take a back seat to watch and read about what was really behind the headlines before committing to some ill-informed blog post.

It still upsets me a month on hearing some of my closest friends talk about the 'chavy scum' and 'opportunist lowlives' who for five nights controlled this country, and how they would gladly see these people shot by police and 'given what they deserve'.

It was very rare to find articles about these riots that try and look at the bigger picture and try to unravel what really caused the August riots of 2011. I guess not many people want to even try and conceive that there was a bigger picture than the one they were being faced with, because to do that they would have to admit that in some respect we were to blame also. I am not condoning the actions of the people involved in these riots, nor am I saying that they should not be punished, because what they did over those five nights, the rate at which it spread all over the country and the lives and livelihoods it took were all wrong doings; but these wrong doings started long before the first window was broken, before the first fire was set, the first punch was thrown and even before the shooting of Mark Duggan which spurred the original peaceful protest. This is something that has been growing for a lifetime.

We can't solely blame our current government for the birth of the angry society we currently live in, but we can't ignore all the little bits of icing they have so effectively put on the top of the cake that has been baking for decades.

Of course some of these rioters were 'opportunist' and many, maybe even all of them, didn't even know what they were rioting for, but the fact that people in such numbers felt the ability to come out for five nights and break, loot, and set fire to peoples homes and businesses without any sense of wrongdoing must raise the question, WHY?

Why do they feel so unconnected to their own community that they can go out and do these terrible things? Only once in the whole of the new coverage did I hear this question asked, when really this is the most important question that should have been asked. WHY? Why did they do this? Why did they feel no remorse or guilt at the chaos they were creating? But most importantly, how can we prevent this from happening again?

An answer, in short, is that they don't feel as though they belong to any society or community, they feel no connection to the places they destroyed over those five nights so in turn they felt no guilt. You can't gain respect from someone without first giving respect, the same goes for a community.

Like I have already said, this is a cake that has been baking for decades. Jobs have been cut, house prices have gone up and hours have gone down, education doesn't really mean anything any more because so many people have degrees now that they don't really mean all that much and the majority of kids in schools these days are destined to fail before they even get their first school uniform purely because of some statistics someone wrote up however many years ago based on a postcode. But statistics do not see the individual, and unfortunately, not many people do either any more, we see a few kids together and automatically presume something negative and feel the need to lower our head and walk faster. Nobody believes in these kids any more and nobody really believed in their parents either. Children learn by example, but to some degree so do adults. How do you expect to raise a child knowing the difference from right and wrong when so many of the most powerful people in this country are corrupt? Endless people in government stole money, made claims for their dinner or their second home or their third car to be covered by expenses and all a lot of them really got was a smack on the wrist. People hacked into peoples private lives to sell a newspaper which in the end was closed down and went on to get jobs straight away working with governors and other highly recognised newspapers. It seems there is one rule for the rich and another for the poor, so no wonder the poor finally snapped.

I'm not from the richest of families, nor am I from the poorest either so I am not going to pretend that I know what these peoples lives are like, but I am going to stick up for them when it comes to the unjustness this country is now hitting these people with in terms of prison sentences, such as the girl who got two years for stealing a bottle of Lucozade.

Something needs to be done, but it shouldn't come in the form of punishment, it should come in the form of rehabilitation. But before we can rehabilitate the poor, the rich must first take responsibility for their wrongdoings and lead by example. That would be a first in history I'm sure!

We're all wondering how we ended up so scared;
We spent ten long years teaching our kids not to care
And that "there's no such thing as society" anyway,
And all the rich folks act surprised
When all sense of community dies.

And it seems a little bit rich to me,
The way the rich only ever talk of charity
In times like the seventies, the broken down economy
Meant even the upper tier was needing some help.
But as soon as things look brighter,
Yeah the grin gets wider and the grip gets tighter,
And for every teenage tracksuit mugger
There's a guy in a suit who wouldn't lift a finger for anybody else

You've got a generation raised on the welfare state,
Enjoyed all its benefits and did just great,
But as soon as they were settled as the richest of the rich,
They kicked away the ladder, told the rest of us that life's a bitch.
And it's no surprise that all the fuck-ups
Didn't show up until the kids had grown up.
But when no one ever smiles or ever helps a stranger,
Is it any fucking wonder our society's in danger of collapse?

this isn't how i expected it to end

two years ago i was writing my first blog. about the people who saved me, the ones who gave me floors and beds and showers and food. the ones i knew would be there for life.

one year ago i was writing about moving out of my first home from home. about the pain of letting go and beginning a new chapter, and about leaving behind the memories of the past for the better. my lifers had changed slightly but there were still those few whose friendship i never doubted would leave.

this year i write about the end. the actual end. about leaving behind the life i have known for three years, about the lifers who actually turned out to just in fact be yearers, there to keep me on a certain path for so long before trailing off and finding their own new paths, which in the process of doing so left me alone, confused and emotional at their depart.

losing the best friends you never doubted would leave is a painful process. it makes you doubt everything you thought you knew, it makes you doubt things more than any boyfriend leaving ever could. because the best friends, the lifers, they are the ones who are supposed to stay. always, regardless, eternally. that's the whole point in them being 'lifers'.

this past year i have lost too many lifers.

too many have become yearers.

too many have become acquaintances.

one has become a stranger. and now i fear soon another lifer shall add their name to the list of people i used to know.

three years ago i never would have doubted how this life would end.

i would have not believed that my lifers would in fact only be with me for the student life.

i would have bet everything i knew that they would be my lifers even after moving from this place. but now i fear that what i thought i knew three years ago and what i know today are chapters on two completely different pages from two completely different books.

but, just in case, if you are reading this, know that i would gladly take you back and have you as my lifer again. i miss you.

And your past, it knocks on your door and throws stones at your window at four in the morning

Miss independent said, oh she fell in love

I'm a little left off centre
I'm a little out of tune

Sometimes, being the girl that i am, i get a little irrational.

Sometimes, that time of the month gets to take over. If only for a second.

Sometimes, i get that feeling, and i worry without cause.

Sometimes, i need to force myself to switch my brain off.

Sometimes, it won't.

This is like nothing that has ever gone before, i don't feel upset, i don't feel paranoid, i don't feel as though the expected unexpectable is about to happen. I'm not second guessing and i'm not losing faith. I am simply falling. Falling, so incredibly fast into this amazing thing that i have wanted to be a part of for such a long time. Falling, into something that i never want to end. I am falling so fast that all i am wishing on is the future. That is the problem.

I'm so absorbed in this incredible feeling that i am forgetting to take time. I'm thinking so far ahead, about next week, next month, next year, even beyond that, that i am forgetting to experience the now.

Sometimes, i feel that i am so excited by the prospect of the future, that i miss the present.

Sometimes, i feel that i am currently so happy, that i am blind to the negatives.

Sometimes, i feel that i want so badly to be a part of this, that i am losing my independence.

Sometimes, i fear that i am so involved in being half of a pair that i forget how to live on my own.

Sometimes, i have to fight with everything that is in me to simply 'not care' just as much as i do.

My weakness is that i care too much <3

i wrote 222 words.

it seems the people who write in these books that i borrow are far too intelligent for my brain to follow. or maybe they're just dumb and over complicate sentences as not to draw attention to their lack of education. perhaps this is how i should approach my dissertation.

a collection of self doubt

The day grates away at me
passion falls to my feet
floating on by, trying not to drown
today is the beginning of hard times

I look in the mirror and all that’s reflected is failure
and I don’t stop to cry, I bottle it up and carry on

Sleep is calling me like a landslide

that I only wish I could crawl under
but to give in would be murder
so instead I lay awake and dream

With eyes open empty
and hearts full of hope
and wishing the passion still clung to myself
I look to the picture of you and i

Hope is restored
hope for the future
when this place is done and over

I wish away the time
for my life to start again
forget the past three years
of wasted money and effort
all in the name of a certificate to state for the record
how successfully I failed to amount to anything at all

I return home a nobody
with nothing to be proud of
except for the picture of you and i

Somebody told me once that one day i would find my --

I found my --

He was standing in front of me all along <3

The Nights I Live For

Tonight I wrote a song before bed. I think I'm at my most creative at night, it has no music to it yet as I'm not all that good at the playing, but here are the lyrics. Enjoy :)

Tonight was the first night in over a month
you held my hand and walked me home
you kissed me at the door, and you wished me good night
and then you pulled me close for one more

I watched your back as you walked away
and I slowly entered my room
thoughts flying fast, while the butterflies past
its night’s like these I live for

And I think you know but I’ll tell you anyway
that you’re the boy that I adore
I’d like to make plans with you and see them all come true
because you’re the boy that I adore

I get into bed as thoughts whirl through my head
and I think of my moments with you
That time on the train, the way you smiled that day
it was then I knew I loved you

the first time you kissed me
the time you gave me your shirt
the way you said ‘I’m crazy about you’
my thoughts flew so fast as the butterflies past
it’s the times like these I live for

And I think you know but I’ll tell you anyway
that you’re the boy that I adore
I’d like to make plans with you and see them all come true
because you’re the boy I live for

muse

i think i'm starting to feel that passion that university sucked out of me slowly making its way back into my life.

tonight, for the first time in weeks, months, years even, i picked up lexie, i started to strum and i am on my way to learning my first ever song.

thank you jenny & tyler for helping me find my passion again :)

ily

My mood changes like the weather. One moment I'm the happiest girl in the world, the next I don't want to speak to anyone and just want to sulk for no apparent reason, then I get the urge to cry, and then I just feel a bit numb and embarrassed as the mood begins to wear off, and finally I worry that I've pushed the boundaries with my self involved mood.

Nothing causes it, but nothing makes it just stay in the 'happiest girl in the world' stage either. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I annoy myself more than I annoy anyone else, but one thing that I never ever do is doubt this.

It doesn't matter how pissed off I may get, how sulky or needy I become because I still pinch myself everyday that this is actually happening. This is still a dream I never want to wake from, even when I'm moody.

Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now

Last night i suddenly realised that this is it, this is my life beginning. This is the part when the security of the past 22 years of education ends and i go at it on my own. This is the part where i no longer get a quarterly grant to help me pay my rent, or part time hours will cover food costs. This is the part where i have to start thinking to the future, and the future is a scary thing.

I've had my plans mapped out in the back of my mind for some time now. I've known for about a year what i intend to do once this roller-coaster life of uni comes to an end, but suddenly it all means something else. Something that little bit more scary, something that little bit more permanent, something a little bit more real.

Although for the past two, sort of three, years i haven't lived at home, i have never moved out. Come June however, all of that will change and i will be starting the most exciting, thrilling and nerve racking journey of my life.

People seem to constantly be telling me recently that i need to think about the future, about the what if's, that i need my back up plan, just in case my 'actual' plan doesn't work out. But that isn't a way i want to live, it is not a way i want to think. I want to embrace this next chapter of my life. It has no time limit on it as far as i am concerned, it could just be a matter of months, it could be years, it could be forever, but i won't know that unless i take this chance. So here i am, 22 years old and for the first time in my life i am preparing myself for living on the edge, for doing something rash, something dangerous and spontanious. People may think i am letting my heart lead and not my head but at least i know that i won't be alone, and for every step i take, i will have a set of footprints next to mine.

Let them say we're crazy
I don't care about that
Put your hand in my hand
Don't ever look back

I'd Lie

Isn't it nice when there are songs you can totally 100%ly relate to..

Isn't it even nicer when you no longer can.

He’ll never fall in love he swears
As he runs his fingers through his hair
I’m laughing cause I hope he's wrong
I don't think it ever crossed his mind
He tells a joke I fake a smile
I know all his favorite songs

And I could tell you his favorite color's green
He loves to argue, born on the seventeenth
His sister's beautiful, he has his father’s eyes
And if you asked me if I love him,
I’d lie

He looks around the room
Innocently overlooks the truth
Shouldn’t a light go on?
Doesn’t he know that I’ve had him memorized for so long?

He sees everything black and white
Never let nobody see him cry
I don’t let nobody see me wishing he was mine

And if you asked me if I love him,
I’d lie

nightmares and fairytales

sometimes horrible things happen, things that you cannot erase from your memory no matter how hard you try. you close your eyes and you are met with the image of that moment, that event, that nightmare. your sleep becomes disturbed and no matter how hard you try you can not switch off from it.

yet despite the living nightmare, despite the tears and the panic attacks and the fear, there is still that person who holds your hand, who smiles at you across a room, who secretly grazes your hand and sends you reassuring text messages. a person who in an instant makes you forget the nightmare, and for that moment, welcomes in a brand new dream.

a person who brings you back to life.

Passion

It's something everyone should have, something they should hold on to with all their power. It is something that defines a person, that makes them unique. Something that keeps them going, even through the tough times. It is the reason to get up in the morning and the want to face the day ahead. It is the reason to sleep, as well as the reason not to.

It is something, that recently, i have lost.

I don't know where it went, and I'm not quite sure when, but I do have a small idea why I lost it.

The place I came to study, to learn more about my passion, to help it grow, eventually became the thing that killed it. I don't see the point anymore, and I don't regret the decisions I make. Getting up and putting on my make up is a task, a chore. I no longer have that enthusiasm I once had.

I'm not academic, I'm not the top of the class anymore, and it seems that no matter how hard I try to change that, that others will still get further ahead without trying. I work twice as hard to be half as good.

I watch television shows and crave to feel the passion that the fictional characters dancing across my screen feel. I long to have someone script my life out for me and to give me the motivation I had three years ago already built in.

But three years ago was a long time ago, and what I had then I don't now. I am a different person, a person I, on a whole, prefer. But I am a person without spark, without motivation, without enthusiasm and without passion.

And now, instead, I wait for the day my 'real' life can begin.

I find the way you write so endearing

The way you hold the paper in your hand

The way you slouch about on messy cushions

Never daring to make a sound when

The TV is on and it’s late at night
Our favourite movie’s playing all night long
The snow falls on the windowsill outside it’s cold
Hot chocolate, wrapped up, holding hands it is
Another winter, another day
Another hour I have spent with you
Time passes slowly, I have to say
That I'm glad that I spent it with you
Spent it with you

Special

It's amazing how something someone said 9 months ago can suddenly make everything that is wrong with this day now so right again.

To look through that little book of happiness someone made you a year and a half ago and to see the things people said that you felt were so special that they deserved their own little page for days like these makes you realise just how long that special person has been special for.

Even before you knew they were.

Thank you for being part of my life and for always being that special person, even before we both knew it. You make me smile on my blue days.

Time

People often say i do too much. They ask me when i stop. And the truth is i don't, not often. I'm always doing something, even though i always feel like i'm never doing enough. And the truth is i can't do it any more.

I'm exhausted.

By the time i finish work on Sunday i will have been working 16 days without a day off. But even then i don't get a day off because on Monday lectures start again. Thursday will be my first day off, and on Friday it will all start again.

I can't have cuddles because i have to get up early, i can't go out with my friends and blow off some steam because i have to be up early, i can't go home and see my brother on crutches after his operation because i'm working, i can't go home and see my mom before she goes in to hospital for the same operation my grandad had just weeks before he died because i'm working, and i can't take my dad shopping for his christmas present like i've been promising since early december because i'm too busy.

I have a best friend who i'm not sure is talking to me because i was too busy doing a 10 hour shift to text her happy birthday, because i was too busy to send her a card. I didn't get to call my nan on her birthday or go and visit her with my parents because i was working, and i didn't get to go out for one of my closest friends birthdays last night because i had to be up early for work.

I'm exhausted and i don't think i can do it any more.

I just want it to stop and slow down. Just for a moment. Just so i can catch up. Just so i can rest for a minute. Just so i can remember something other than this pure exhaustion.

I want to be able to enjoy the nights i lay in bed with my best friend watching greys anatomy, or the hours i sit watching my boy playing cod online. I want to be able to have more than a textual friendship with so many people and to actually have time to sit down with a cup of tea without feeling guilty. I want to be able to go and see my friend organise a gig for punk bands and to look forward to singing with the band at a friends birthday. I want to enjoy touring around schools and to not miss the travelling because i am so tired i need to sleep. I want to be able to cook proper meals and have time to do my washing up after. I want to have time to start my dissertation and do a good job on it. I want to have time to idly sit on facebook doing nothing.

I want to have time.

But time is a precious thing, something we so often take for granted. I honestly thought she was going to die, and i had wasted so much time, doing nothing, being nothing. I had wasted so many moments when i could have called her or text her, when i could have tried to visit home more often. I have never been so scared in all my life and it seems it is a feeling i am becoming too familiar with. I am so scared that the next time i am going to get to see her she will be lay in a hospital bed covered in tubes again with a cut on her neck; because i don't have time.

I just want to go home now.

Wonderstruck

Today is the day I realised I'm actually growing up. I am starting to open up my wings and am preparing myself to fly out in to the big wide world in a few short months. I am noticing the things I am good at, the things I have learnt and new levels of maturity in myself that I never before knew I had. I am scared beyond belief at what life after uni may bring, I am determined to never grow up and I still don't have a plan. But today at least felt like a start..

I have spent the last week working as a paid actress, touring local schools and sixth forms, performing a short piece of theatre about the options of higher education. We have had some mixed responses and some truly funny moments, one of which involved being stuck for two hours in a village where everyone seemed to know we were going and curtains twitched constantly while we tried to kill time in a place with just two closed pubs and a corner shop.

Other moments have been a bit less humorous, such as sitting in front of 100+ year tens while their head of year shouts at them until blue in the face, sends three boys out and then brings them back in the room in the middle of the performance, still shouting at them.

Regardless of the school however, everyone has been friendly, offering cups of tea, showing us to the toilet, helping us carry our set back to the car and sitting in the staff room with us for about an hour chatting and giving their life story.

So far however, today has been my favourite day.

We returned to a school we were at on Monday, a Catholic school where pupils are made to enter the room in a boy girl formation. Where they must sit in silence and can not leave a room until given permission a row at a time. The first performance we did here on Monday was not great, the entrance to the hall took too long and we ended up getting stopped around 5 minutes before the end of our performance as the next bell had gone.

Today however, was a different experience.

We arrived for 8:45 after leaving home at 7am, did our set up, some vocal warm ups and watched as the boy girl motion entered. We managed to finish the entire performance today before all but one of the tutor groups left the room. A 50 minute question and answer session then took place with some of the friendliest, funniest kids I have met. A pupil from another group came in part way through to bring us cups of tea and when the teacher said she didn't like tea she gave it to one of the students who happily sat there sipping away while we all chatted. The 50 minute Q&A, unlike Monday's, flew by. The teacher joined in, laughing and joking and taking the miccy out of the kids. I almost didn't want the session to end.

Next a group of year 11 drama students came in, we showed the first 5 minutes of the performance as a taster, answered some questions and they showed us some of their work as they have their drama exams coming up. We then sat chatting to the teacher while the group split off and rehearsed and at the end of the session we were able to give a bit of feedback and advice on some of the work we had seen.

The next part of the day involved us driving around following some very dodgy tomtom directions from the internet before returning home to Worcester to have a look on an actual computer. We then found the school, literally down the road from where I live, in completely the opposite direction to where the tomtom instructions were taking us.

The last performance itself wasn't as smooth as this mornings had been and the students didn't have much to ask in the Q&A afterwards but on their way out of the hall one girl came up to us and asked about work experience. I gave her some advice on people from the uni that she could contact about it, gave her a few e-mail addresses and took hers so that I could pass it on to a few tutors at uni.

This is what I want to do after uni, these are the people I want my acting to reach, and this is the beginning of a beautiful future.

Enchanted

The last few day's I've been listening to Taylor Swift's new album, Speak Now. She amazes me. The way words seem to fall flawlessly to the paper. The way she so lyrically describes a moment, a story, a love, a broken heart through so many simple words so perfectly married together.

She reminds me of someone I know who has a similar talent. Someone who makes something from nothing, who creates music without even trying, who looks at a moment through brand new eyes and who fascinates me more and more every day.

I wish I had been lyrically blessed, but unfortunately I have not. So instead I shall listen in awe to the words of those who inspire me.

I started this year positive, more positive than any other year has ever started. I was content in my own skin and i was sure that this year would be the most amazing year of my life. I am not ready to let go of this belief and i do not intend to. Sometimes your past tries to ruin your future, but this time my past is going to stay as exactly that. I have never felt like i am dreaming more than i do now, i have never feared waking up more than i do now, and i have never loved the dream as much this. This is a dream i never intend on waking up from.

It is hard to believe that if it wasn't for drunken meddling friends i would still be in last week.

It is even harder to believe that i tried to stop them meddling.

And i still have to pinch myself every day to make sure i'm not just dreaming.

Butterflies

I was going to write a post about two days ago but my laptop was dead, however thanks to my wonderful house mate it is now all mended..

I was going to write about butterflies, about waiting for the one who gives you them, about wasting time on the ones who don't, and about how i wasn't going to do that anymore.

So here it is,

Butterflies, the most amazing, heart-racing, skin shaking, heart-stopping, stop breathing sensation. When you know that there is someone out there who could make you feel all that without even touching you, why would you ever want to settle for anything else?

I am happy to wait for my butterflies :)