So this is Christmas

With only a few days to go Christmas has come around once more.

Although this year it has taken me a little longer to get that Christmas feeling.

It has snowed (on more than one occasion), I have a tree with presents underneath, had at least a few too many glasses of mulled wine, not to mention the obligatory office Christmas party yet something isnt quite right.

Could it be the family havoc that has descended upon my flat in the past few weeks? The emotional rollercoaster that I have had to endure, not to mention the loss and disappointment of someone so special to me. Why, when all the adverts on TV sing out happy songs of love and family fun, my living room reflects the exact opposite?

Still, I am not the only one and need to remind myself of this. At least I have my family around me when in actual fact so many dont. They either live halfway across the world, or in some cases dont even have one. And most importantly what I have come to realise is that who needs family when you have friends. You dont choose your family, but you do pick your friends and I dont want to boast, but mine are amazing. I have been bombarded with love and kindness from so many people. People who I didnt even expect it from, old friends, new friends, lost friends and now re found friends.

I think Euripides said it best when he said " One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives" (408 B.C.)

So, I may not have that Christmas feeling but that's seasonal. What I have discovered is that I have a lot more, so whilst sometimes its hard to see the wood for the trees, or that light at the end of the tunnel there is always a silver lining.

Merry Christmas to you, my friends, wishing you only happiness, love and laughter for the year 2010.

I hate love

I read this a few years ago and I wrote it in my diary to remind me what it felt like. After the event, when you're finally "over it" you dont remember the actual feeling, but you do remember it was something terrible that you hope never happens to you again.

Heres hoping for that next time that this is the last time I have to remind myself.

Have you even been in love ?

Horrible, isn't it ?

It makes you so vulnerable

It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up

You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armour, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life .... You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination; not just in the mind, it's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.

I hate love.

For you ...

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference

See!!! Now you cant be "agg" at me anymore :-)

xxxx

Time flies when you're having fun

 And dont we know it - the weekends disappear and before you know it it is Monday morning and you're off to work again counting down the days until its Friday again.

The opposite is true when you are not having fun - doesnt time just drag on and on and onnnnn. Its only been a week since everything has happened. I went away for a few days which did me the world of good, but coming back home was never going to be easy. My bag of stuff that was at his is now sitting in a pile on the living room floor and no matter how much I wish it wasnt there it still is!

I still havent cried, which for me is weird - I cry in X factor, Holby City, Xtreme Makeover - The Home Edition - literally anything!!! - but still no tears. I think really I knew it wasnt right and it was only a matter of time. Plus its not the breaking up with someone that is the only thing you lose, its the life you had with them, the friends you made, the places you went to - both people and places I am avoiding like the plague. I even cancelled my beloved FB account, all I need now to do is to move house, get a new number and change jobs and any existence of that "me" will be erased! But its really the small things that I have missed, the good morning phone call and the kiss goodnight, the warm body in bed next to me and the smell of someone sleeping.

I arrived yesterday at the airport and called up all my friends to tell them that I had - of course they all said they were glad to be back, but that wasnt why I called - it was just a confirmation to myself that I wasnt a ghost just wandering along aimlessly, that in fact I was real and that somebody knew about it.

Another aspect about time is the " this time last week/ month/ year" syndrome. This time last year I went to HK for a good friends wedding, he came over too and we had quite possibly the best holiday ever, we laughed all the time, we called ourselves Team Smug, cos thats what it felt like and I never imagined things would change. This time last month we had recently been to another wedding in London where he got so drunk ( in a funny way) he told one of my friends how much he loved me ( hard to believe now I know) and that he was my disciple - hmmmmm, v odd. He offended Dabiel from the X factor who was in the wedding band and called the best man gay on our way home. And then he needed the toilet. You were right the Waldorf  wasnt part of the plan! This time last week I was still in shock - it had to be a nightmare, please wake me up and tell me everything is going to be ok. Just like before....

And today...Im fine - I accept it is over and I know he wasnt the one for me, I tried to convince myself for a long time he was - but really he wasn't. He was great in so many ways, we had so much fun together but we were just too different and both of us found it hard to look at it from the other side of the river. My feelings were dismissed as not being true - but to me they were very real. So instead I bottled them up, tried to let them go when all I wanted to do was to talk about them...resulting in volcanic eruptions.

Of course you cant forget straight away, the memories are always the hardest. But just as time flies when you're having fun, time is also a healer and who knows what is around the corner.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

And there we have it folks. Breaking up is hard to do - not that the decision was really in my hands but there we go. Love number 3, done and dusted. The funny thing is ( not that this is a laughing matter) is that I understand why - in fact if I was he, I wouldnt have even lasted this long. Baggage, insecurities, self confidence issues are not, and I repeat NOT, the best way to sell youreslf in a relationship and at the end of the day if you cant handle them then nobody else can either. Everybody has issues, Im not a special case, but its the way you handle your issues which is the deal breaker. In all honesty, it got to the point that I just wanted him to fix them to make them all go away which inadvertedly meant fixing me. But the only person who can fix you is yourself. Someone once told me that a relationship should only add to you, it shouldnt become you but as I became more complacent I forgot this and I was looking for somone to be my 0.5 to me 0.5, when really they should have been my 0.5 to my 1.0. And heres not forgetting that complacency breeds contempt. All easily said and done in hindisight, and if i could turn that clock back just 48 hours I probably wouldn't be here, but the reality is that I am. For myself - I need to sort my own stuff out instead of expecting others to. For the rest of you - take a look at what you have. You dont know what you've lost til its gone.

Maid of Dishonour

So the big day has finally arrived. Saturday is the day when one of my oldest and closest friends is tying the knot. Its been a whirlwind romance, 2 months after they met they moved in together, four months after that they decided to quit their lives in London for new adventures abroad in India and Thailand and after a trying their hands out in yoga, travel writing and photography came back home. All in all its been about 18 months since they day they met til the day of their wedding. For many looking on this may seem too quick perhaps - but for them, it is just right. While they were away I had an email asking me to be Maid of Honour, "why yes of course," I said. And whilst overjoyed for the happy couple didn't quite compute what it was they were asking of me. Sure, I'll be there on the day to help carry your train, stay with you the night before, organise your hen....the Maid of Honour doesnt need to make any speeches ( pheeeeeeew) -no pressure, easy!

In the last few weeks however I realised that a MoH is so much more. On a practical level I had no idea how much went on behind the scenes to organise a wedding, working in event management wasnt really a bonus as this was all so alien to me - the colours of the sashes on the chairs, table names to reflect something important to thhe bride and groom, party favours....the list went on and on. Yes I did the usual MoH duties - a night out in London for the Hen, buying the garter and something blue for the bride, liaising with the Best Man about the running of the day, dress fittings, shoe fittings, hair and make up....these were the norm.

But actually, being the MoH is so much more. What is supposed to be the most important day for the  Bride was rapidly becoming one of the most important days for me too. When she was stressed I was supposed to be there to take it away, when she was sad I had to cheer her up and tell her everything was going to be ok, having a fat day required reaassurance that she was going to be the most beautiful bride ever. Not to say any of this is easy, it wasnt and we had a few fallings out along the way. The boyfriend who is ever so wise, reminded me that weddings are essentially selfish things - in an unintentional way of course - and told me that I would be exactly the same, if not worse because on ones wedding day you want everything to be PERFECT.  And I get that. I want everything to be perfect every day, so god knows what I would be like on my wedding day.

More than anything being her MoH has been indeed, as the name suggests - an Honour and I am so proud to walk behind her down the aisle and be there for her on this her most special day. For the rest of our lives when we look at photos from the wedding, there I will be next to her, on the day of the wedding I will be introduced as her MoH. I hope I do her proud - just as I am so proud to have been asked. So if anyone asks you to be MoH just to let you know it is not light work, emotionally and physically ( if writing name places is seen as serious physical exertion) but it is without doubt one of the most rewarding, priveledged and complimentary positions of responsibility I have truly ever had.

So if you are reading this, Thank you for asking me, it was an absolute pleasure . Love you. xxx

Vanity Case

After 27 years I have decided to kick the habit....and in fact a  few other habits along the way....! Thats right people - suntanning is out, being pale is in. I know that the magazines have been going on about it for the past few years, models such as Lily Cole paving the way for the pale skin look, not to mention the Edward the Vampire look - but none of those things tempt me or indeed have persuaded me to change my ways and turn to the bottle (fake tan bottle). This is purely a matter of vanity and the reason? Wrinkles. And I dont want any. Having been on holiday recently in Turkey I saw a few suspect lines on my face and indeed on the faces of my peers. Shock shock horror and Im not yet even 30! As I get closer to being 30, those occasions of being ID'd in the supermarket are becoming less and less. The other casuality along the way is smoking. Having smoked on and off for the past 10 (ten - yikes!) years, its not the warning on the label, the pictures of blackened lungs and holes in peoples throats. It is purely once again totally shallow. I wont be young forever, but I may as well do everything I can to help retain my youthfulness.



A piece on the radio earlier this week reported that the one item of clothing that people do not throw away, despite the fact that it no longer fits, is jeans. When I heard this I realised that I was also guilty of this. I still have a pair that I bought when I was 19. They are now referred to as my skinny jeans, and not because they taper in all the way down but actually because I was skinny when I could fit into them. Why do I keep them? I am still holding out for the day where I can wear size 8 jeans again comfortably without giving me a stomach ache - and that’s only if I can get my legs into them! Face it, I said to a girlfriend as we were reminiscing about our “old” wardrobe, we are never going to fit into them again…we forget that of course when we could fit into them before we weren’t just thinner, we were also only 17 at the time! With age our bodies change, without exercise our muscles turn to fat much at a faster rate, metabolisms slow down, and everything becomes a little looser. Not just my morals I'm talking literally. Boobs, bingo wings, double chins, the skin under the eyes...you know it’s true!
Fundamentally you cant fight it. I am ageing. Every second of every minute of every day. And finally the expression healthy living is starting to make sense. And the casualties of the battle against time are the sun and cigarettes. Of course I will still go on sunny holidays, but Factor 30 all the way, and as for smoking, a little bit harder but then the picture of Dot Cotton comes to mind and I know I am making the right decision.

Two healthy looking characters

The "C" Word

Oh yes. The C word. No, not that C word! The C word - commitment.

Further to last posting, I have successfully managed to show my boyfriend that I am still incapable of any normal, rational behaviour by getting ridiculously drunk ( no idea how I got to bed last night) and being completely unreasonable, stand offish and generally attacking. Why? Well he certainly had no idea why either..

It all started with a few drinks after work over supper with some girlfriends - one of them just moved in with her boyfriend last weekend, the other going on amazing dates and being generally spoilt and loving it. Then the conversation turns to me

How are things going with you guys?

Fiiiiiiiiiiine

How long have you two been together for?

20 months or so

Nearly 2 years, thats aaaaaaaaaaages

Not really.......

So are you guys moving in together?

No no, not moving in, hes not ready

Oh. Dont you see each other pretty much every day? Whats the difference? Is he a commitent phobe?

And there we had it. The C word. If anyone asked me Id say no. He's not a commitent phobe at all. OK so he doesnt want to move in. He has a great flat, great location, fab house mates, if I lived there I wouldnt want to leave either. And fundamentally the pull of living with me, aka his girlfriend is not that strong. I know that things change when you start living together, excitement levels fall and you start seeing each others bad habits for what they are ( and I know I have plenty) But is it lack of commitment why he doesnt want to? When asked he said he's not ready. Im not even sure why but reasonable arguments would be

1. Why rush
2. What does moving in together means - doesnt mean extra "quality time"
3. Just because others are doing it doesnt mean that we should

All reasonable arguments. but do I think of any of these things before I get into a tizz-wozz? No. I manage to convince myself that in fact he's just not ready to have a girlfriend like me,he doesnt want to move in, doesnt want to settle down, his friends are more important than I am, we dont even talk about the future in a serious way so  is probably just going through the motions before he dumps me. Eeeeeek. So what happens? Barriers. Come. Right. Up. I get defensive. Everything he says is a personal attack. Dont touch me! This isnt working - alert - alert - I cant do this anymore - alert -  alert - maybe we should break up. RED BUTTON.

I woke up this morning, after having had this outburst and was suddenly very conscious of my actions and then I realised he was there sleeping next to me. Ok phew. Ok panic. What have I done? Flashes of last night cross my mind, what I had said, how I behaved. More panic. Somehow he wakes up, can tell I am panicking and we talk. At 6:00am after a few hours sleep we talk. We talk about moving in and why hes not ready, we talk about quality time together, we talk about our friends:us balance, we talk about commitment.

Embarrassed and disappointed by my own actions I can only apologise and it gets me thinking. If he was a commitment phobe  he would have let me press the red button - he would have left me by now and could have months back when this all first started happening. I dont know why but whenever anything goes wrong, or when it doesnt go to my plan I am the first to give up. I'm scared he'll hurt me so I push him thinking he probably will so why not now. I press every imgainable button possible because I am too scared to face the truth that I love him with all my heart. And because I am so scared about losing him I push him away so that he cant hurt me, I start arguments to back up my feelings, I dont let him in and then I distance myself from him in the vague hope of lessening the pain when it finally does happen. No wonder he doesnt want to live with me. And then it dawns on me.

He's not the commitment phobe. Its me

Getting over it...

What is it about an argument that makes it so hard to get over? Having had a multitude of arguments with the boyfriend over the past couple of months I know that this cannot go on. Arguments between couples, yes, are allowed. But it’s the way you deal with arguments which is the key. More often than not it is a misunderstanding, or a different way of working to the other - one persons principles and priorities are not the same as the other. For the person to whom something is important it is extremely difficult to convey to the other person when, to them it is not that important. Take said argument this weekend. We planned lunch, on Sunday as he was away all weekend, I was busy with dress fittings and we were both busy next weekend and funnily enough I love spending time with my boyfriend that doesn’t mean sitting on the sofa on a week night catching the end of a movie before we go to bed with the prospect of work the next day hanging over our heads....Anyway, 12:30 phone call comes in, "Hi, just checking times of the train and I wont be there til 3 as there isn’t a train for another 1.5 hours so lets have a late lunch?". Great. Surprised? No. Disappointed. Yes. Him apologetic? - not really. Me, livid. As I point out to him, it is a Sunday so you cant expect things to work according to the time table as they had on Friday, in addition he knew we were having lunch together, is it that hard to look at your iphone that you do go on about and actually use it? Maybe think about a little bit and check the times before hand - what could have been a nice Sunday afternoon just him and me ended in disaster. He did say he was sorry, but he didn’t get why I was so cross. More than anything I was so upset as to me it seemed that he didn’t really cared when he saw me or not, meanwhile at the other end of the country here I was counting down the hours til I saw him - outfit chosen, waxed, was even planning nice underwear - all to be dashed at the sound of his hungover and unenthusiastic voice.




And here is where it gets hard, should I have just accepted his apology for what it was. Taken it on the chin ( his favourite saying). Agreed to meet him when his train finally did get in? (Originally was going to surprise him at station now not looking so likely) And salvage what was the few remaining hours on a Sunday afternoon. Or- what did happen was rant, rage and cry about ruining my Sunday and not wanting to spend time with me. Yeps, black and white, cold light of day and all that I can see that maybe my actions weren’t ideal either. So he bodged up initially I did (and I admitted it) make it into something A LOT bigger. So, how do you get over it? How when the disappoint hits you, the tears well up and the anger spreads across your chest like you can’t breathe - HOW do you get over it?



What I wanted was him to be sorry, me to accept apology, us to meet up, me explain how it makes me feel when he does that, him to realise that despite not meaning it it has bigger implications in my mind and to reassure me that is not the case. We kiss, we make up, we have lunch a little bit later than planned and everything is great again.



Instead here I am, 2 days later wondering - does he actually see why I was upset ( understandably he was in no mood to listen to me after the toys went out the pram) and can I get over it and see from his point of view that it wasn’t intentional. He is a boy - he cannot plan to save his life - and actually he did want to see me.



I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to bear grudges or expect him to disappoint me cos that’s no way to be in a relationship. We both need to be a bit more aware of the others needs. This isnt the first time, and it wont be the last (although I wish it were). And when I say I am trying, I mean it, just when it happens it all goes out the window. So what's the answer to getting over it?

1. Breathe
2. Count to ten
3. See the big picture - see argument above about not spending any time together, we spent more time arguing and therefore spent less time together!
4. Be the bigger person and apologise - it takes 2 to have an argument
5. Laugh, come on, its funny in a ridiculous kind of way...!
6. And finally - Just let it go. Dont waste any more time being mad at each other and unhappy, especially as you know things are so much better when you are on the same team and not against each other.

On my part I am going to practice the count to 10 technique ( more like 10 minutes) to be calm and try to remember that actually, I am lucky to have someone like him anyway (just like he is lucky to have me) - yes his time keeping does suck and sticking to the plan is not his forte - but I do love him. And if you love someone, for better or worse,  you got to take the good with the bad because nobody is perfect.

My Obsession with Vampires

My obsession with vampires, ok maybe that is a little widespread, my obsession with Edward Cullen to be exact. Thats right, the Twilight Saga which everyone keeps on telling me is for teenagers - I know that and I dont care!!!! Having read all 4 books in the space of 2 weeks anything that makes me carry round a 3kg book round London has to be good. And I am not the only one, only this morning sitting on the tube a girl sitting next to me was reading Breaking Dawn ( Book 4) albeit I was ahead of her ( Lucky thing, she still has so much more to look forward to!), a number of my other 27 year old friends ( married or otherwise) have also confessed to their secret obsession! What is it that we girls love about him so? Where do I begin...He's gorgeous, perfectly frozen in time at the age of 17 but with a mental age of an 108 year old - who said boys were immature? Being born in 1801 he is a complete gentleman and likes to adhere to the gentlemanly conduct of opening doors for you, laying his cloak over puddles, no sex before marriage...that sort of thing. He doesnt play games and he knows what he wants, he hates being away from Bella ( his girlfriend) and watches her while she sleeps ( slightly weird but thats because Vampires dont sleep). The romantics call him protective, dedicated and loyal, the feminists call him creepy, controlling and stalkerish. For me, it is because he believes in unconditional eternal love - and when he means eternal he means forever. Thats the kind of love I am looking for, maybe not from a vampire necessarily (we could never go on a sunny holiday for a start), but someone who loves me just the way I am, no matter what and more importantly Forever.

Therefore its not really about Edward being a vampire at all or that I am nearly thirty and in love with a fictional character. Its the same thing, the same feeling we all want to have, the one that you cant describe, the one that makes you warm and your stomach jump, the one that when you see others have it you wish you did too, the one that makes us who we are. It must be love. A forever kinda love. Just like Ben Harper said.



(That said, it is still not going to stop me having a girly Friday night, watching Twilight the movie, drooling at Rob Pattison as Edward and my obligatory glass of vino!)

And we're off....

Here we go, take 2 of blogging. But this time Im going to stick to it ( yeah, bet you've heard that all before)

So it has taken me about 3 hours to set this up..And no I am not completely computer illiterate..

It was the name of the blog - took me ages, and of course anything that I thought sounded remotely "cool" or "interesting" was either already taken or just looked ugly...

Anyway after deciding against (and the 2 only available ones that came up after trying about 100)

"no-i-am-not-a-psycho" Errrr....she doth protest too much?

and

"women-are-not-from-venus" Negative. And very female focussed

I decided on " calling-all-passengers"

As actually this is what my blog is going to be about, my life the journey - no more interesting than yours I am sure, but still has its UPs....and DOWNs...maybe not quite an insight into the female psyche, an insight into me - and yes, I am female. And what the hell, am taking the rest of the internet, or at least anyone who wants to read my blog, along with me for the ride.