Temporary

Some things in this life stay very much the same. Others, not so.

I keep getting older, taller (to Will's annoyance...haha) and seemingly my feet don't know the meaning of the words "please stop growing!"
I still have a brother, my hair's still very ginger and I still love Hayley Williams.

But, it's really come to the surface recently how shallow some relationships are even after 14 or 7 years of education together.
It's fairly saddening. I suppose people must grow apart, and I now don't have that much in common with my primary school best friend because I have no use for Louis Vuitton, or however it's spelt, and I like my skin without an inch of tango'd foundation on it.
Moving on in life is difficult. I'm very aware that some bridges are burning right now. The friends' who I've heard from in the last week or two are the keepers, for sure.
I'm pretty good at the long distance friend thing, but for sure those arn't the most caring relationships.
With my last post on love it just kinda struck me how much my life has changed in 4 years, and how I'm shiney and new on this side.
I'm scared, I'm not done with getting older, I doubt I will be for a long time. It's frightening. I really am not comfortable with the idea of being a mummy in all black, with sensible shoes and short hair. Hence the photo. The generic model for british and irish life. Gah, how normal.

My mum is happy with this life, but I feel like I've seen too much of this world to be stuck in Northern Ireland. My views of the culture here have been fairly limited until university, and now I'm friends' with some roman catholics! Imagine that...
I don't want to settle here and have 2.4 kids, so Northern Ireland is only temporary to me.
Don't get me wrong, I love my country, I love (most) of the people I meet. I hate the politics, I hate the British government and I hate how we seemingly have no voice.
So, where do I go? New Zealand? Canada? Austrailia? Notably, places with English as one of the first languages. Get a house on a hill and create some sort of waterslide system and make sure I even go down it! Be a different parent to my kids than my own were to me. Don't get me wrong, their methods apparently worked, but I want my kids to be more carefree and free spirited than I was permitted.
Will thinks I'll be the strict parent out of us two. Yeah, whatever!

LoveLoveLove.

The best moments of life are summerised in love. Dripping in it, saturated with it and would never survive without it. Love.

Awk! It mades me go all fuzzy inside, because I'm right in the middle of a serious gooey, soft as caramel, happy relationship (William was warned about being mentioned, hello Will =]).

What is love? The dictionary, well the online dictionary, has 14 different definitions under "love", but for today I'm onto numero four; "a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart." * Well, to be fair... that's a pretty poor definition.

Anywho, I love love. I love being in love.
But I love knowing what is love and what isn't. Because that is oh-so-important to the survival of my very precious soul.
I have been in a fair few relationships since the age of 15, and I can't honestly claim that any of them weren't dysfunctional. Everyone's had messed up teenage relationships (I will here and now admit I still am, to all intents and purposes still a teenager... but a teenager who will one day, relatively soon, cease to be a teen). I've had the good (but volatile), the bad (which got even worse) and the ugly (that one you wish you could tip-exx out).

In each of these example relationships, all the boys said they, either to the best of their knowledge or in an attempt to make me happy, loved me. I said it back to the good and the bad, but avoided Ugly. Ugly pure scared my cack's clean off though. One week after "will you go to the cinema with me" was the 15 year olds equivilant of "it's not you, it's me" with him in tears on the other end of the phone. Sheesh. And that is when I realised, I don't fall for anything because I stand for something.
With Bad, I thought I was in love, but had huge doubts. That relationship lasted a good 8 months though, I got too comfortable. By the time it was coming to an end I was bored and knew that life had to have better.
Then along came Good.
Good was a great guy, I can give him that. But at the time we started up, we were both at the height of our teenage angst. We fought a lot and it fell apart.
I'm not sure if I loved him or not. I think back now, and I realise how my head was all spagetti and think that I may have done. But it wasn't a holistic love, and how much damage all the fighting did to my heart.
For six months after it ended, and I was the one to end it, I cried myself to sleep every night. I was inconsolable. That was in July 2007. The first words he had ever said to me since then were in July 2009. It had gotten to a point in this period of him walking into me as if I wasn't there.. that I began to loathe him. I couldn't be in the same room as him.
I really resented him for what he was now doing to me.

BUT. This no longer matters. Good is now dating one of my best friends and they seem fairly intoxicated with each other. It also means he can't hate me. I'm on the damn bridesmaid list.

These three highlighted, and therefore significant, experiences played a massive role in making me the person I am now, and I fail to see how I am in any way lacking in any area of my life. So I imagine that must be a good trait to have.

Do we choose the people we fall in love with?
Well I certainly didn't choose my boyfriend! The very fact we met at all can only be fate, our first kiss was never planned and the first time we said "I love you" was instinctive and impulsive.
No part of our relationship was ever sat down and written out (metaphorically, to literally plan a relationship can only be a wee bit odd..).
But then... if I didn't choose him for his skillz on the drums or the fact he's left handed (and I for some reason seem to find this quite attractive; go figure) why do I love him?
I have it down to "fit". I'm proud to say he's my best friend, and I can't understand why no one else wouldn't want their best friend as their partner (unless you're not that way inclined, of course!). I love him because our senses of humour click, he really talks to me and I really talk to him, because we have no secrets, our kisses make the earth stop moving and our hands fit together as if they've been tailor made. There are so many other reasons but those are the things that come to mind when people would ask me why.


I remember having a conversation with one of my childhood friends. This conversation came after about 5 years of non-contact, and she had became pregnant with, and given birth to, her son. She was no longer with the father, that relationship had seemingly run it's course and she was engaged to another fellow (not long after this conversation that relationship also came to it's conclusion). She was asking me about any boys in my life. I didn't have any! I told her I was happy by myself. This seemed to shock her! She then asked about my school friends, who were all single as well, and perfectly happy. This seemed to get her even more and she wondered aloud about why my girl and guy friends don't continually go off with each other, just for the craic.
I mean whoa.
What kind of thing is that for someone to even consider OK? Why don't you just take your heart, rip it out of your chest and hand it over to these people, sometimes strangers, to do with whatever they fancy! Heck, you might as well, you just gave them your body.
How little would you ever have to think of yourself to not value your body and heart above some cheap thrills? To keep your integrity and respect.

I'm a virgin for those very reasons. Not because I don't want to sleep with the person I love, but because I'm cautious. My heart and my soul are the two things I value most in the world. When it comes to love I like to think as well as be impulsive.
I think this helps with the further definition of a good relationship. Being with someone who respects and tries to empathise with your decisions.

All these things can lead to a very happy soul indeed.

The song "If I Were A Boy" by Beyonce really gets under my skin.
Don't get me wrong -- I love beyonce (different type of love here... I'm pretty sure we'll never get engaged...) but how she generalises boys in that song really makes me itch.


"If I were a boy, I would turn off my phone Tell everyone it's broken so they think that I was sleeping alone I'd put myself first and make the rules as I go Cause I know that she'd be faithful, waiting for me to come home To come home"

I hate this. I fully do. My best friends are boys! What the heck does she think she's doing? And what is she doing with men who treat her like that? Will has said that a boyfriend who you're male friends like is best because they can see his other side (if he has one, he shouldn't though!) and hear the jokes he makes about you (if he makes them, he definitley shouldn't). If you're good male friends like any new boyfriend you can be pretty certain he isn't a dirty two faced sex driven... beast. (for Mark)
Any girl out there who thinks of their significant other when they hear this song should get out before they get crushed. Men like this are an insult to all the great guys out there. And there really are great, fantastic wonderful guys. I have one as my own, and am lucky enough to know a large number who're great friends.
The only times I've heard boys who've spoken about girls and sex in a derogatory way have been in a large group in high school (the good guys never speak in these conversations) and in my halls.. all coming from one individual!

How can they ever end up happy with that mindset?

Comments...!

reference : * http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/love

Self Harm

Previously, I wrote a blog on self harm, but I decided against publishing it. So this is my second attempt at passing my own critique.

It's a major issue today with people of all ages and can be described as when the individual inflicts harm upon themselves and includes biting, scratching, picking at existing wounds or sores (which causes non-healing), pulling out hair, substance misuse. Bruises, lacerations, bites, scratches, hair loss in one area, unusual non-healing of sores, evidence of substance misuse.

So it covers all bases there in that one definition; often the definitions of self harm include the words "without suicidal intent". I believe that remaining or knowingly entering into dysfunctional relationships that will cause damage to one's physical, emotional or pysche, is also a very prominant method of self harm.

Often justified by those who do it as a "release", those who do not partake in SH can sometimes misinterpret SH as attention seeking. Whilst I do not deny that there are cases where this is the truth, in my personal experience those who have SH'd try to hide it, and use it as a release for frustration. 90% of the time anyway.

I however like to believe it can be the expression of one's unconscious level of pyschology presenting itself onto the very conscious reality. Anyone who has done very basic pyschology will have had access to Freud's Iceberg, and this can help clarify what I mean when I say unconscious, preconscious and unconscious.

All in all I find the subject fascinating. As someone who has SH'd in the past I want to examine my own motives and keep my heart and head in sync and motion within each other, and whilst I have overcome the more deliberate forms of SH, I am still to master the impulse to pick existing wounds and allow healing.

I can only ever use myself as an example, and I can't even pretend to empathise with those who have done worse, or for different reasons than myself. All I can do is listen and be compassionate.
The damage done to ourselves through SH and poor adult relationships is evident in day to day behaviour. I see girls with scars up and down their arms, and single women mocking men and continually putting them down with generalisations, which come to the surface as a joke, but some of the so called jokes come from genuine hurt and cause even more pain with their placement.

I'm trying to think of a conclusion for this; I can't find a place. How can you possible conclude something like this with a few words and punctuation marks..

So here's the end.

Samaritans: (N. Ireland) 028 90664422 and (General) 08457909 090
Rethink: (NI) 028 20402323
Lifeline: (General) 0808 808 8000
Aware-Defeat-Depression: (Belfast) 028 90321734 and (L/Derry) 028 71260602