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.