Of lines and lanes

She pulled out of the driveway a little faster than necessary. She knew she was just working herself up, letting something small become something big, become her only focus. It happened from time to time, but had started happening more and more often of late. She thought she knew why, but also had no idea. Did she really want a moment of clarity? Was it inevitable? Or was it always destined to be out of reach?

She slowed at the roundabout, watching the cabined ute with the large screen tv in the tray, held in place by a grey tarpaulin. The girl in the back seat had her glasses pressed up against the glass, eyes down toward the road as the vehicle made it's right hand turn.

She fell in place behind the ute, her mind still heavy with thought, mulling and and pondering, grimacing and pouting. The ute flicked its indicator on and moved to the left edge of the road, brake lights at her eye level. Her mind flicked back to many years ago to when her mother was
explaining the courtesy of truck drivers - on single lane roads when the other lane was clear, they'd move over and indicate to let others passShe shifted down a gear, stepped on the accelerator and sped past the ute with a wave.

She looked back in the rearview mirror and saw the ute driver gesturing. She looked back in the rearview mirror and saw the ute slowly mounting the curb. She looked back in the rearview mirror and saw the double lines on the road.

He had not intended for her to pass.

She had not checked for oncoming traffic.

As she slowed down at the next roundabout she realised that the cloud of anger and hopelessness she had felt as she left the house may well have been her last.

Was it a sign that she should realise how lucky she really was? How happy she really was? How she was only pulling herself down into depression?

Or was it a sign that it was meant to happen. That she had given everything her best shot and it was time to chuck it all in. That this was one thing she could achieve, alone.

Is it irony?

To need to feel needed, yet despise feeling taken for granted?

PS - Martial Arts camp Friday - Sunday, wrapup Sunday night.

My week in a song

Please note, it's not as bad as it sounds.

But it's interesting to work through having known a song for many years, rediscovering it and finding meaning, then finding entirely new meaning within the same week. And, not knowing if you like it more or like it less because of it.

Must I Paint You A Picture - Billy Bragg.

It's bad timing and me
We find a lot of things out this way
And there's you
A little black cloud in a dress
The temptation
To take the precious things we have apart
To see how they work
Must be resisted for they never fit together again
If this is rain let it fall on me and drown me
If these are tears let them fall

Chorus:
Must I paint you a picture
About the way that I feel
You know my love for you is strong, girl
You know my love for you is real

It took a short walk and a talk
To change the rules of engagement
While you searched frantically for reverse and them claiming
That virtue never tested is no virtue at all
And so I lost my ignorance
And now the bells across the river chime out your name
I look across to them again

All your friends said come down
It will never fly
And on that imperfect day
We threw it all away
Crisis after crisis, with such intensity
This would never happen if we lived by the sea

Most important decisions in life
Are made between two people in bed
I found that out at my expense
And when I see you
You just turn around and walk away like we never met
Oh we used to be so brave
I dreamt the world stopped turning as we climbed the hill
I dreamt impossible dreams that we were lovers still

Jus asking for a friend of a friend of a friend of mine...

I've only heard about a few proposals in my time - there have been many more that I just don't know the details of.

I know someone who was taken to Melbourne for a weekend, where she was proposed to with a ring on a carriage ride before they chose an engagement ring together the next day.

I know someone whose boyfriend mentioned they should go to the snow for the weekend, giving her only a few days notice - she agreed if he'd organise it all. They were out on the snow all day and then once back in the room he told her to wait in the bathroom while he got ready - she was allowed back in almost an hour late to find the room covered in rose petals and candles. He proposed with a setting he'd had made with a diamond he'd ordered from the US.

I know someone who kept asking and asking until she finally agreed the third time.

I know someone who brought it up as an idea and then it just sorta happened, though it's still kinda secret for a while (NO, NOT ME).

I can't say I know of anyone who has proposed to their boyfriend though.

Do you?

Would it suck or would it be lovely?

Would the girl forever why she wasn't 'special' enough to be proposed to like other girls have?

Just wondering, y'know...

(Enny-)Penny for your thoughts

Overall, blogging has been a great experience for me - I've met lots of lovely people, I've learnt a lot, I love reading other peoples perspectives and there are some amazingly fantastic writers around the place. I do wish I were a better writer, and I'm sure I could be if I tried, but I'm just not the one to get in there all thoughtful like and structure a properly spelt, well planned piece of work (I tend to rush something off before martial arts or after uni or on the weekend when normal people are doing other proper things). I'm more of the verbal diarrhea type of writer, the "if you were a friend of mine and I'd had a few cruisers, I would rant to you like this and then you could talk back at the end" kind of girl. And I don't mind that about me or about all this - it's more honest and more me AND the one time I wrote a blog-style email to a friend I was having an issue with, he PS'd at the bottom saying that he likes the way I write. Which still strikes me as odd, to this day.

Please note, I just spell checked that paragraph and corrected four mistakes, so perhaps it would be in everyone's best interest if I just clicked that ABC button every so often?

Anyways, with all the flowers and bunnies and rainbows I've gotten from this, there has been a bit of a dark side to it. Not just in the way that 'internets' has become my number one hobby (and a time consuming one at that) but in the way that I feel I have to cloak or hide or only allude to certain things that are on my mind - all for the greater good. I've heard about the people who've blogged about work and been caught out, and that would totally suck so I'm trying to be more careful about that sorta stuff, but I've also had my own experience with RL people reading what I've said and then inflicting on me the stomach churning roller coaster ride of anger, nausea, panic and concern. And I'm in no way keen to relive that experience - not one iota. But I hate not being able to be me, in my space.

That whole incident (I'm sure y'all remember? It started from here and only got wooooorse) has been an unsightly chapter of my life -one that I don't think I'll ever be able to just forget or dismiss, one that's affected me here and in RL. I won't lie - things have never been the same since. Thing probably won't be the same again.

I went through panic, anger, ignorance, anger and then back to panic. It started being about me, and then it grew and enveloped quite a few others. And not everything fell back into place - it all feel a bit skew-whiff, a bit crooked, tattered and hanging around the edges... and no can (or wants to?) put it back into place.

Now I have to be careful because I'm tired and my horoscope for yesterday warned me not to say stupid things because they're likely to blow up in my face.

When you hear/see/know things about a friend of a friend of a friend that are slightly worrying, do you feel concerned? Do you kind of feel like you take part of that on yourself? Do you think and think and think on it? Do you ask questions and get opinions and clarify the situation in your mind?

Because that's what I do.

I don't think it's just because I have a tendency for being nosy (though I'm sure that many others perceive it that way). I mean, I know that's true - I like to know stuff - I don't deny it. But I think it's something deeper than that.

Plus I catch yawns easily and I read that the easier you yawn, the more empathetic you are. Seriously.

So when I hear something 'worrying' about 'something', I can't help but take it on and think it out.

There are a series of relationships that were affected by my thoughts, to varying degrees. My friendships, my blood relationships, and those that are somewhere in between.

So while this is my space - this is not my space.

While people say they don't read this, I can't believe that - I can never fully believe anything, because I've already been naive about it and if f*cked me over. And while I can tell myself that it doesn't matter - that they said they don't read it so they can't get angry about anything I've written because 'they don't read it' - it doesn't matter.

I do know in my heart of hearts that if I knew someone blogged about me, I would read it. I would not be able to not take it to heart because I really am a bit of a sensitive little thing on the inside. I would probably do the same and put up walls and live daily experience with a faux air of confidence and optimism and ignorance and control. I would probably also do the same and lie somewhere in between - with moments of honesty that are indeterminable from the real honesty that we had before.

I do also know, as I am learning, that suffering in my life is only as a result of my thoughts and my views - I choose to be affected by things that I see and hear and sense and know. That ultimately I can escape the suffering in the refuge of knowing that really it doesn't matter, it's all external distraction.

I do also know that I have a hard time letting go of my suffering, my badges, my pains.

I've tried many a time to express things here in an underhanded way, to get my message through in a 'subtle' way, and expressed disinterest in whether it's had any effect in real life.

And while I really need to go to bed as I've stopped making sense, I would like to say:

The only person that can look out for you, is you.

The only person who can and should decide what you do, is you.

If you want something, there's nothing wrong with you outright asking for it.

And if you don't get it, it doesn't mean you should bow down to pressure, go against your beliefs and go against your gut.

Do not forget who you are, and why you are the way you are. There are reasons, measured reasons and logic behind your beliefs - you did not adopt them overnight, nor should you forget them overnight.

If you are not happy or comfortable, do not pretend to be. That is not going to make anything ok.

If you pretend it's ok, then voice that maybe it's not, only to find that people know it's not ok but carry on nontheless - that's not ok.

If you find yourself being different people to different people, then maybe stop and think. How would you feel if you saw that yourself? What would you feel for that person, about that person? What would you want to say? What would you want them to say to you? Then put yourself back in your place and look again.

The big picture is important, and it is made up of many small pictures.

But you cannot skip the parts that just don't seem to be working and then get to the big picture unscathed.

I worried about the real you before, and I worry about the real you now.

If you find yourself torn and conflicted, then listen to the noise.
If you find big things becoming small things - they don't stop being big things.
If it's not turning out like you thought it would - it's not going to end the way you wish it would.

If you realise you're contradicting yourself, if you realise that others realise you're contradicting yourself and still charging on, you are the only one that can resolve it.

So stop listening to everyone else, inlcuding that arguing voice in your head, and listen to you. The real you.

Who, me?

A paragraph in this article struck me:

"Sometimes the tragedy of a relationship is not that it ends, but that it doesn't. Extracting yourself from a domesticated relationship is hard, especially if you move in together. No matter how much you come to hate each other, you will still find yourself sleeping in the same bed and eating cornflakes from the same box unless you make a monumental effort and call a removal van, break the lease, divvy up the spice collection and the CDs and find somewhere new to live."

I could list five people straight off the top of my head that this applies to.

People looking back on their past after realising it too late.

People in the midst of it now.

People who don't yet realise it.

6,556,653,758

This is the worlds population as I write.

That's a whole lot of people.

A whole lot of people doing everyday things, all the time. Cooking, cleaning, bathing; teaching, learning, thinking; laughing, crying, loving.

A whole lot of people are with the one they love - millions and millions. And yet, it's so easy to feel that you are the only one in the world, the only one in your country, the only one in your town, the only one that you know that could possibly love, or be loved, or know the love that you are in now.

But stop and think.

And look at that number again.

You and your love are only two.

There are so many more than you are, so many that have been where you are now (be it long in the past or not long enough gone) and there are so many more that will be there one day.

So stop and think again.

Stop and think.

For what you have now is not so special. It so much less than 'one in a million'. There are so many millions more than you are.

The world is not just for you - it is for millions and millions.
This love is not just for you - it has been had, is being had and will be had by millions and millions.
These words are not just for you - they are for all of us. Those who can not, should not and will not accept it, say it, hear it.