Getting Lost

I have to start deciding who might see this, as I am using it in fairly frank confessional mode (don't really do another style unfortunately) I have paid the price over the years for wearing hearts on sleeves etc but not sure I can do coy and can't be dispassionate sooo....
Anyway had lovely day avoiding finishing my application - a few hairy moments when I thought references not forthcoming but I now have one safely stashed and will hustle for the other in a.m.
Faffed around on the net in the a.m & rewrote most of what I wrote last night.
Then did my 40 lengths at the pool whilst laughing at the collective hangovers ( and love bites eeww) of a couple of ladies from the Thursday lunchtime swimming posse. It is though, a very small pool and I am getting somewhat pissed off at the meandering and frankly desultory pace of some of the swimmers. I have had to keep one sharpened toe nail on each foot to just give a little side swipe as I have to zig zag round the old gentlemen doing a leisurely backstroke/ imitation of a week old corpse. I know...I know I am hurtling towards this level of decrepitude at a frightening pace myself, but in the meantime - surely they could have sessions for very very slow swimmers, people who don't want their make up to come off in the pool whilst they're chatting at the end, and lane weavers who manage to get in your way wherever you start.....and the rest of us who just want to swim up and down quite rapidly for 40 minutes or so could have our own times...
Maybe the early morning session will be quieter......
After the swim - which despite the pool's similarity to people soup, I really enjoyed as always, I had real homemade soup with my parents - also very nice as we discussed memories of their childhoods - very interesting that they don't see the heartbreaking rejections and hardships as particularly difficult and don't recognise how these chaotic and insecure situations shaped their understandably control freaking lives.
Then I had a lovely walk down the canal and saw an odd beaked sea bird and took many photos. Then I drank tea and talked a lot with my friend. Then I finally went home and did some work - for an hour until I had to go out for a meeting about an arts event in September......now I've just come home to start work again....never mind ...I've still got half of tomorrow...as long as I get up early enough.....things are so much more fun when you know you should be doing something else....

Last night couldn't sleep and at some time in the early hours my bed shook for several seconds. It really freaked me out ! Decided it was either paranormal activity in my bedroom (any activity in my bedroom would be a feckin miracle at the moment...) or a small earthquake - luckily it was the latter - phew! Took me ages to get to sleep though.

Went to meet my new psychotherapist in the morning. Therapy obviously pays well.... never met one who lived in a hovel....She was good, I liked her. Her shoes were a bit twee but there's lots of other things to look at....As I spoke with her I realised how far I had come, not just in the last two months, but since I first saw a counsellor a few years ago, when I was physically ill with repressed rage and misery and talked for 45 minutes about all the many facets of shit in my life without drawing breath and with no emotion. A far cry from today - I managed to talk about painful things without breaking down, just a bit of a wobbly voice here and there - but I don't feel so disconnected anymore - she was encouraging about where I've got to and I felt quite comfortable talking to her. This may now turn into a blog in which I spew out the shit I talked to my therapist about....
Incidentally it isn't that i am uninterested in the doings of the outside world, but at present i still have a slightly one track mind - less maudlin perhaps, but still pretty one tracked....
Had writer's networking day in the afternoon, which gave me the chance to flirt my newly wrangled CV around. Not as wanky as it sounds..met some good people and got more events to go to.....invited to do poetry slam next Tuesday, but think it will be too soon......Then had a run over the fell again in the late afternoon sunshine, came back and worked on short story for MA application and suddenly it was half eleven already.
Will have to work hard to finish story tomorrow, and also fit in swim and meeting about the Autumn Lantern Procession....
Still being a craven coward about my over - enthused fellow dumpee friend. He sent a bit of a sulky & brusque text tonight - cheeky bastard!
Yes I have been ignoring him since he said the 'D' (ate) word - but bloody hell we only met three times! I will have to face him next week and tell him France is off......yuk...but really I can't be fecked with anyone making arsey emotional demands on me at the moment - I've had a belly full. Things are nice and calm and easy and under control without having to run around picking up after anyone or second guessing what mood they might be in, or listening to their interminable ramblings........and I have several strapping, hunky young men to flirt with (and scare to death no doubt....) I may need advice on dealing with celibacy soon, but as I don't drink much these days...I may be able to manage it more easily....let's hope there's no more bumps in the night....

Actually I am not procrastinating, I am allowing myself the luxury of a bit of blogging, some Green & Blacks organic almond chocolate, and a pot of bio-chai ..after a whole day of fiddlefucking about doing my arse of a CV. Getting all the dates sorted was complex enough without the joys of all my columns leaping hither and yon when I tried to save my lovely Pages tenplate into poxy Word so I had a format I could e-mail to bloody PC users!
Hopefully I have done enough to secure my references by the end of the week, the form is almost filled, my degree certificate found and now all that remains is for me to finish the short story to add to my existing portfolio and type up all the other 15 pages of stories and poems....by Friday.
Tomorrow I have my first session with my new psychotherapist...who lives in a green spired house - which has to be a good sign - I hope she's o.k or the search will be on again - her shoes are important as they are what I generally end up staring at....I have a problem with eye contact if it isn't in a sexual or conflict context -why is that ? I'll ask tomorrow.
This weekend my friends the other psychotherapists, have persuaded me to participate in a full weekend family constellation workshop...There will be tears - and snot apparently...yikes.
This is not the sort of thing I am very good at - so a huge challenge for me....just sounds very interesting if a bit exposing and is based on a technique developed by a Jesuit priest turned psychotherapist who lived with a Zulu tribe for 20 years and learned their method of dealing with conflict within families........
As you may have noticed I have some - ahem - 'issues' relating to my family - pretending I don't know them, self medication and screaming rows haven't seemed to make it any easier over the years so if this is a viable way to put it behind me then I am prepared to stand about in a holistic and safe space looking and feeling like a twat.......I hope I don't start laughing at a really emotional bit out of embarrassment....or feel like I have to make something up just so as not to disappoint everyone...or want to say something but be too shy to put my hand up and then kick myself for not getting to do my bit....all very weird these group situations....
Oh yes and I've got bloody conjunctivitis so I have to use eye drops....which I'm utterly crap at and usually end up choking on because they go up my nose......so even though I haven't been crying a lot for days now, I still look like I am and people keep patting me and giving me that pitying look....

I have just four days to get my application in to do the Creative Writing MA I have wanted to do for years but always talked myself out of.
I need a portfolio of work (halfway there), a completed form (three boxes filled), two references (haven't even sent them the forms yet) .... and a CV which I need to seriously overhaul as it is 7 pages long.....but what do you leave out - archeological reconstruction ? expedition and dig domestic manager & cook ? chef, waitress, barmaid, credit checker, lettings manager, teacher, tutor, child minder, cleaner, care worker, gym instructor, new media technician, camera person, project manager, youth worker, freelance video artist... blah blah blah
I personally think it demonstrates a broad base of skills.... unfortunately it also screams -low boredom threshold and the attention span of a goldfish suffering from ADHD-
Pass the ritalin - I have bullshit to prepare.....

Now I am really starting to bore myself with this obsession...but I have to get through it somehow and it is probably much healthier than the fantasies of what I would like to do to him. No one has to read it...I wouldn't if I didn't have to check the typos...
My life is really rather bizarre at the moment. I am living like a hermit pretty much, so other than staring at the various forms of wildlife currently stuffing their fat little faces at my expense...and my attempts to outwit family members in their attempts to spring surprise visits -there's feck all happening....other than horrid sick feeling pangs about you know who....I am following advice from anyone who should wish to offer it on how to deal with the situation and its' attendant emotions....and if practical solutions are offered I shall be happy to document the process and report back on its' success.

I did see him crushed sometimes by the things I said...but I was trying, for the first time in my life to do the right thing and to be completely honest - as he asked me to be above all else..

He never seemed satisfied with the way I was ...he accused me of hiding or holding back.....some things I had to hold back.....for his sake...like the fact that the man I'd left for him told me he would definitely kill him....or maybe he just couldn't find the complexity in me that he was looking for...

There were so many responsibilities vying for my time, my energy my attention..so much suffocating emotional blackmail.

I wanted to net the moon and stars for him, fly him through the night above abandoned ancient cities, anoint and massage him with the rarest, sweetest oils ... give him everything his heart had ever desired tell him how in awe I was of his love, how humble and blessed it made me feel.....instead I was paralysed by fear ..paranoia and feelings of inadequacy.....I was too old, too working class, too negative, too stupid..........but mostly too tired.....and so cripplingly afraid of losing him.

I tried when I could, to show him by being solid and steadfast and keeping going through all and still being able (I thought) to support him when he really needed it.....but it seems it wasn't enough.

I wasn't allowed to finally collapse at the end...and really need support ....I got the opposite ....I thought because of his experience of mental health issues and having- he says - helped friends through similar - he would be there for me in my darkest hour...instead he ran.

Just as the worst was almost over, the decks cleared for the future.. he ran out of patience, throwing away all that joint experience and strength. Maybe for him it wasn't a particularly special kind of love...maybe at the beginning when it was illicit and dangerous and doomed.....but once it got safe........he lost interest ? Maybe he was too inexperienced to know that the passionate ones burn hotter and brighter and have to be looked after to make sure they don't get burned out....

The real torture is to know had the situation been different we could have had the most amazing and productive time......I hate that term bad timing...but...

I feel really horrible today. The manic high of last week is wearing off, the sun has fecked off and now I have gone and complicated my life again.
I didn't go into detail before, but on the day after I was dumped - NYE - I was dragged kicking and screaming to a party full of strangers feeling like death warmed up. I met a man there who had recently been shafted and dumped by his partner of 20 years so we had a good bitch-fest and said we'd keep in touch for walks and rants and stuff.
Fine- someone who was as damaged and down as me to talk to and vice versa- last week we went walking, ate together a couple of times. He asked me to go to France and stay on a luxury yacht for a few days and initially I jumped at the chance but now it feels all wrong. Earlier this week he mentioned the word "date" which made my hackles rise...and forced me to explain in what I thought were no uncertain terms that a date was most definitely not what it was and I was in romantic quarantine for the foreseeable ...as I was no where near over HIM and it wouldn't be fair blah blah...and besides he's not at all my type..........then he turns up again last night and it's clear he still wants to push the possible relationship agenda..I had to do a swift duck and dive at the door to avoid the lunge...It made last night so horrible.

I missed HIM even more as all I could do was compare all the ways in which this guy was wrong and how HE was so right and how we used to be together....now I just keep beating myself up that I let the love of my life slip through my fingers by not putting him completely first when the relationship and he, needed it.

And I have unwanted attentions to deal with. I'm not sure what to do. He has rung me three times today already, I can't ignore him forever, but I don't know what to say. Fuck.I'm going to have to hurt his feelings. Yuk. I feel like my sanctuary has been breached. I feel sick. How can he possibly think either of us is in any fit state to start something new...

All the bills are finally in and paid , so I sat down with my calculator and worked out how much I spent supporting him those 6 months. Even without the actual cash I gave him, or paying to get his bike fixed, phone bill etc etc etc it is more than I thought. I will itemize it all and send it on to him and then play the waiting game. I don't expect to see a penny without recourse to harassment, which is unfair and quite frankly a bit cheap....
At least I received the Paris photos I asked him to send, not that I want to look at them -way too painful. I remember standing on the Pont Neuf my heart pounding and shouting as loud as I could how much I loved him. Just a year ago. I thought once the shit of selling the house was over, we would take on the world....
There are some photos I need for my website though so the rest I'll just have to bung in the "don't go there honey" folder with all the hundreds of others I have of him and us....we look so happy in them....
I wish I could be optimistic about getting over this, it obviously isn't the first break up I've had, but by far the most painful as I was no where near done with the relationship and would have tried to work it out with him, had he been interested.
I can't even think of loving or even being with anyone else......does this mean I just live with a keening heart for the duration....get some cats ....shout at children in the street.....
Aging is horrible -I don't feel any different - my needs are just as physical, I want to dance all night and fuck all night and sing and laugh and misbehave....but on the outside I am turning into a crone.....how cruel is life....I assumed you gained the wisdom to stop caring about external shit as you aged....that the really important things became apparent......that I might become serene.....
Where the fuck did my life go?

You have not made me disappear,
nor have I ceased to exist.
Out of sight and mind for you, for sure
But I will not be dismissed.
Each new day my strength returns
and with it comes my sanity.
Each day you lie and hide from truth,
you fade and lose humanity.

Dry, bleached, paper thin,
another brittle, still warm skin
wriggled forth,
from shell to dust,
exposed to the air,
like old wisdom.
A moist claw unfurls
and grabs for the sun,
blushed and throbbing,
in new definition.

Felt a little sad today. I shouldn't read the newspaper review sections because they make me feel like I'm stuck out of the loop up here and I'll never be a successful or even published writer or film maker or manage to support myself and not have to be working in some full time godawful political and social salt mine nightmare.....

I did text HIM today which was the cause of the pangs - I really need some photographs of mine which he has on his hard drive and I've asked for them twice as neutrally as possible but he won't acknowledge me at all.....it is so frustrating, fuck knows what he's got to sulk about -how dare he behave as if I am the perpetrator of this horrible situation. I have to try now not to think through all the possible reasons why he is doing this. More fucking games.

I also have all the final bills now for our desolate and abandoned shared home. I must pay them tomorrow then I can tot up the amount he owes and send him a terse request for payment within 28 days. Once the money situation has been resolved - and I will ensure it is by sending threats of court action to his parents-that is the final knot that still leaves us bound together, untied. It still makes me feel nauseous to think that such strong and beautiful feelings can go so wrong and I won't be in his life anymore and that all our wonderful dreams and plans will never be fulfilled....worst of all that he will have someone else in his life, in his bed..
I don't know whether I ever want to enter into another physical relationship again because they always end so painfully despite all the experience, good intentions and promises at the start. They leave you feeling so unconfident, unattractive and unlovable I'm not sure it's worth it. I was thinking last night, if I knew what I know now would I do it again-fuck no!
I wouldn't put so much trust in the word and decency of others.
I wouldn't put so much of myself on the line.
I wouldn't let myself become so worn down and I wouldn't feel so responsible for other people.
I wouldn't allow anyone to manipulate me with sulking and threats.
I wouldn't let anyone play head games or threaten or blackmail me.

And I never will again.

I slept beyond sunrise and miraculously had no gut wrench when I awoke. No cold sweats not even a solitary tear. He lurks still, always there, his blue eyes in the back of my mind, but I can control him better, because I have accepted it can never be, it wasn't worth keeping. It was overwhelming, passionate and initially inspiring but for many reasons was doomed. I should have listened to my little voices.
My life is different and better in many ways. The old life I missed so much these last weeks didn't ever feel like my life, I realise this now. It is so long since I had any control or choice. How wonderful to have that chance before it was too late.
This is painful and in sharp relief, often desperate,but it is definitely my life. I must be careful though as I know the phases change and emotions go up and down. I just want to coast on the good moments.
Sun is good. Mountains and trees are good, the sound of peace and birdsong is good, my own little space with no neighbours is incredibly good, my family in shot bursts and often are good, friends old and new, near and far are essential and very good. Having things to look forward to is good. Having a buddy to hang out with is good. Physical desire and longing combatted by extreme exercise is even good. Having access to a excellent psychotherapist is good.
So much good has crept up on me and suddenly this is my life, to build on and extend , and now I have much writing to do..

It is much easier not to think too much about him here, there are memories - especially of the shambolic and painful xmas fiasco..and wrenching pangs, but here I can control what triggers those much more easily. So finally I realise I have been in the right place all along, though I fought it at first. I am getting a life here, and it is good.
I have my laptop, I am wireless. Yeehah.
The sun has shone all week since I got back and although freezing, all is stunningly beautiful. In the past two days I have spent most of the time outdoors and have taken a lot of photographs. I also got invited to a yacht in the South of France. Double yeehah.
Climbed a mountain (hill) today and watched the sunset, after being out all day from virtually sunrise. This is exactly what I should be doing. Right here Right Now . With all my good friends, old and new friends showing me such kindness and giving such incredible support can I use the excuses I always have anymore ?
Could this mean I can stop being such a misanthrope?

Along with the other embittered recently dumped and romantic rejects of every stripe I thoroughly resent the cynical, unimaginative and crass event that is 14th February....is there no sensitivity to our feelings? Every garage, supermarket and paper shop has been heaving with cheap shiny hearts, wilting roses and gushy sentiment for the past three weeks and frankly I've had ENOUGH !
So today I scuttled off armed with some home made truth stickers sporting more honest sentiments such as : -You bore the tits off me but I couldn't afford the mortgage on my own so I'll get pissed and shag you tonight anyway whilst crying hot tears of despair into my pillow...-
or how about: - I don't know if I really love you and I'm shagging your best mate behind your back but I'm too spineless to tell you and this card eases my guilt.
Possibly even :- I have sent 6 other cards as well as this one to all the other people I pretend I'm in love with, I don't know the meaning of love I just have a huge ego and a very tiny attention span...
and finally :- I sent this to myself out of the pain and humiliation of not being loved and so my more popular friends don't think I'm a loser...
I stuck them inside the cards on display in several large retailers..I wonder how popular they were??

Is there no cure for this debilitating fucking disease. I want you out of my mind, my heart, my life, my memory but you are and have always been imprinted on every atom of me.
You are part of my nervous system, in my neutrons and protons in the leucocytes of my blood. You race through my system like a virus I don't have the antibodies to fight. I want to shout fuck you forever from the chimney tops but in the same voice want to scream fuck me forever. How can I face life without you ? You broke and entered my mind and saw there exactly what I had always craved, always needed and never had. Superficially you gave it -for a limited period -until I was hooked - and then like a dealer - the conditions and controls were put in place. The price rising exponentially with the need. Abuser. Winner. Victor.
Which makes me - shamed junkie loser -again.

My heart literally throbs with pain and my stomach churns. I am working in the place where I first saw him and fell in love with him almost immediately. I can not let the lovely children I am working with see me cry and have to step away or excuse myself as the tears run uncontrollably down my face. I didn't sleep last night except for a couple of hours this morning when I dreamt that we were together and in our old house and so happy having a bath - and then I awoke and wanted to howl in pain. How can I miss someone who has destroyed me so comprehensively.
I would cut my heart out if I could to make this pain go away.
I truly can not see the world as it was and hope to god that it comes back to me one day because truly I can't live in such a dark cold world.
I would apologise for being so morose but being so close to him yet still so far is killing me. I write to heal myself -there is nothing else I can do. I am a tiny voice pleading out into the Universe which will never be heard.

How is it in the face of all the evidence, knowing how worn down, debased and humiliated this relationship ultimately left me feeling, knowing he lied and cheated me, how much of a demanding hypocrite he was - how can I still love him and miss him so much. How did humans ever evolve when such a primitive sexual part of ourselves dominates our protective, higher reasoning behaviour.

I always despaired of women who stayed in abusive relationships (all relationships have an element of abuse whiah is a natural part of the power play but I mean really abusing someone to the point they lose their self) but as my therapist explained:
throw a frog in boiling water he will scream and try to escape.Put a frog in tepid water and keep slowly adding hot water and before the frog realises it he's(or more likely she's) been cooked. I really want to accept how over it is but because it had no real ending I keep imagining it was all just a horrid mistake and could be sorted out - even though I know this is ridiculous - I know there's a whole load of pain to come yet - and it just keeps coming until it stops.

I read an extract from a diary dated this time last year and was shocked at several things -how much guilt I felt and how often I was having panic attacks. I felt so much guilt because he was asking and asking why I couldn't let go of my relationship with the man I had left for him - Duh because of the horrors of selling the house and the threats against him from the man I had left- he has no idea how hard it was keeping everyone, including my horrendous child of a boss, sweet. It makes me so sad to think how hard I had to fight for our freedom to be together, and how casually he tossed it with no real or honest discussion -just hippydippy platitudes to disguise his lack of commitment- to any thing other than himself...
I took too much responsibility and he took none.
I should have walked months ago - as soon as he started sneering, in a bid, I see now, to force me into ending it , to take the responsibility off him...Very fucking familiar scenario .....
I knew this week would be hard. I am so frustrated to not be able to direct my rage at him but I know he can't and won't take it-it makes me feel so helpless which stirs up earlier memories and feeds the rage. He should have known-I can take anything but humiliation - and he knew full well why.
I have to be patient. Not let it get to me. Be strong for battle.
I miss my little house, my own space - this is good - it's the first place that has felt like mine in a very long time.I feel in the way here -all too familiar.
I wish i were there.

In the end I thought about it and realised how childish I was being so I will send him a black (as deep red as possible anyhow) rose. I feel better for being kind - to him and to myself today.
What a gorgeous day - the cockerel in the next field is usually a model of decorum and never crows before 9-30 but this morning - 6 a bloody clock so I gave up and got up and I'm so glad I did. The rabbits were zigzagging about outside my kitchen window with their little scuts flashing through the early morning mist, swallows were playing dambusters under the bridge over the stream at the end of my drive and as the sun rose, though my heart still throbs for him and for answers, I really was grateful that I am here after so many tough years in noisy stinking inner city hell holes - yes I had to give up owning my own home to do it - but so what , I never used to worry about that illusion "security"-
I have no pension, no plan but I have no ties and am free to do what I want.
Wow. I don't have to work much and get to run and swim and stuff all the time...
And I'm writing.

Hung my washing outside today for the first time this year - wahay - see it doesn't take much to make me happy ..ish

xx

I finally managed to stage an ascent of the pile of paper that has engulfed my living room for the past week. I made piles and then sub piles then found all the relevant bulging plastic envelopes, or made new files....

One in particular I went through meticulously was the one full of the bills and rent and shit run up by him. Makes me livid. I'm still waiting for them all to arrive- then they will be copied and dispatched to his parents in the hope that if he won't do the decent thing at least they will - which is no way addressing the issue of what a spineless spoilt brat he is but that's not my feckin problem anymore....

That's all about that -except this morning I imagined buying a pig's heart from the butcher and gift wrapping it neatly and paying some kid to take it into where he works on a Thursday - with a brief note -You've had everything else you may as well have this too. I told a friend this and she was horrified - I thought it was funny -Is there something wrong with me ? I saw it as a kind of humorous artistic prank -with a message......much as when I drove my beloved (though frankly worn out ) Golf into the sea a few days after he dumped me. It was the medication I swear.....wish I could have filmed it though....who'd have thought there'd be fishermen about at 2 in the morning in January ???

So Travis Bickle mode continues. Down the gym -nice and empty .....

Did three sets of everything - free and machines, 500 sit ups and 100 press ups plus rowing and shit.

My soundtrack :

Police on my back - The Clash
Offbeat Killer - Detriot Grand Pubahs
Johny Too Bad - The Slickers
All these Things that I've done - Killers
Velouria - The Pixies
Gun Street Girl - Tom Waits
Doesn't Matter Anymore - Puressence
I never want to be young again - Gogol Bordello
Heart of Glass - Blondie
I'm feeling good - Nina Simone
The well and the lighthouse - Arcade Fire
Transmission - Joy Division
7 minutes to midnight - Wah Heat
Typical girls - Slits
Shot by Both sides - Magazine
Something I can't spell by Sigur Ross
Message From A Black Man - The Temptations
You should feel so special - Naomi
Blood Brothers - Shock Headed Peter's
Access - DJ Misjah
Losing My Edge - LCD Soundsystem

But not necessarily in that order..........fascinating eh?

Took a friend's dog on a very long walk over the hills and far away and it did 3 shits so I ran out of bags and had to carry a dog turd on a piece of cardboard for a quarter of a mile. Weather and light improving daily so must get my camera out tomorrow..

Need a good dance - maybe I'll get one in Manchester next week....

Geo Chronology

Radioactive clock
inside each and every rock.
Thousands of millions of years
of matriculation
of uranium
transformed to lead.
A subtle alchemy
that's proof enough,
the data widely available,
to refute the bullshit
of the creationist's fable.

What will I write about when I'm over him ?

The soundtrack of my life - and my pitiful attempts to play the guitar after being too lazy to learn from the days when I really wanted to (ie circa 1981...) but guitars were for boys and I always ended up doing vocals (shouting) ?
People I have to work for who are really very rude and really really bad at managing anything and how can they take themselves so seriously ?
My insane family - who are all nuts but in total denial and think I'm the one that is wierd... ?
My sabbatical in a small town somewhere between Royston Vasey and Twin Peaks (I shit you not....) ?
The fact that IT"S NOT ME IT"S THEM.........?
O.k I suppose there's plenty of material...

Inspired by Timsuzi's 6 word self definition I thought I'd do a six word poem :-

Deadline

Illumination or elimination,
It's his choice.

Don't like the orientation for the photo I put up as a header, I fiddlefucked around with it for hours last night and couldn't get rid of the wierd overlappy margin thing. How annoying- does it do that for everyone or just us put upon Mac users...?

In honour of the Chinese New Year ( I would make a throw away joke about it being Year of the Rat and how appropriate but that would be an insult to rats)
I wore my lucky red knickers today.
I procrastinated on the paper work again but did swim my half mile - which was very enjoyable and will be even more so when I purchase my waterproof ipod case !

Woke up crying this a.m and imagining yet again all the scenarios of when I finally see him again and what I'd want to say to him, it went to a very dark place today. One image I couldn't shift, was holding him at gun point and then killing both of us. The other was to play the long game and still be there for him hanging around until he needs me again then getting access to his house, copying the keys then making small interventions and changes to his life and slowly turning him insane -as he did to me. I am admitting this but I'm not proud of it. God knows what it reveals about my warped psyche. He has a very unhealthy effect on me.

I want him to know and feel how much he has hurt me -but what is the point ? He will never understand what it is like to graft solidly for fifteen years to scrape a mortgage together then to give all that effort and hard work up, and see the equity and any future security trickle away just surviving the break up, by being decent and continuing to pay the mortgage rather making the man I left for him homeless. I gave it all up just to be with him. I still ended up paying the rent and bills again when I got dumped! Cause he can't go out and do a shit 9 to 5 because he's an actor darling- he needs to prance about in his knickers attending workshops where he learns how to be a dog ... Fucking shithouse. He'll never know what that feels like because he's such a skank. He just got given a house for fuck's sake,
I handed him a business - filming him for free, letting him use my kit to get started, buying him kit, getting him contacts - what the fuck did I ever get? A few beautiful but pointless gifts that he borrowed the money off me to pay for anyway...
I know deep down however, that he will have a tough and lonely life because he inhabits fantasy land most of the time - and not in a good way. He hated my pragmatism. He pretends to live for the truth but only if its his twisted version of the truth.

We were friends before we became lovers and I told him everything, he should have known that he wasn't up to being with me, why did he ever lead me on - okay for a couple a months but once he realised how feeble he was why did he let me sell my fucking house ! I thought (because he told me so) he understood depression and self loathing - he lied , he isn't one of us he's one of them.

It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't already had my life fiddled with and fucked over by sociopaths twice before. You'd think I'd have feckin learned wouldn't you. This is my problem - things are too quiet, too easy, too routine - let's press the big red self destruct button and cause some chaos cause then I can feel alive. Find someone with bigger problems than me and focus on them so I don't have to look at my own life.

My ex before this one said I'd never be happy, that I didn't know what I wanted and so would never have it. Maybe so. I thought I did know what I wanted - a 50 - 50 split , some semblance of equality - not having to be breadwinner and nest builder and mummy and therapist and audience and business manager etc etc ad nauseum.

Or maybe because my self esteem is so low and I fall for anyone who pats me on the head and says nice things, I attract the attentions of men who are weak and incapable of giving love and so slowly curl up and die in a relationship, when what I should be doing is learning give myself the love I've always craved.

So many questions I think I have the right to ask but no answers, and no apologies.

The karate based self defence classes are going brilliantly though, and I'm confident that if I were to bump into him with some drama school trollop I could have him laid out cold on the deck in under a minute. Would I ? Dunno. Best not test it out really. Don't fancy doing time for that twat. Might get a book and film deal out of it though -mmmm.....

Woke up and realised the sun was shining - no grey skies , no force nine gale and no rain !!
Went straight out and ran over Newland fell. Sang as I went along to the bullocks goats and ponies I met along the way. On the top felt the breeze lift me and felt a surge of power and felt the trees and the sky and the fields and the distant snow covered mountains were all giving me strength.

Play list for my run ( shuffling past all the others that would have made me cry) ;-

There's No Home For You Here girl Go Away - White Stripes
Hate on Me - Jill Scott
Changing of the Guards-Patti Smith
Double Trouble -Otis Rush
Super Theory of Supereverything - Gogol Bordello ( whoo got tickets to see them again in March and ogle the lovely Mr Hutz)
Guns of Brixton - The Clash (cows seem to like that one in particular)
Black Mirror -Arcade Fire - one of the few Arcade Fire songs I can still listen to without sobbing - bastard
Tribulations - LCD Soundsystem (as above - double bastard)
Wildworld - Cat Stevens
Game for Fools - Jamie Lidell
Hear the Bells Ring - Nick Cave
Broken harp - PJ Harvey
One Day-Bjork
You've got to learn-Nina Simone
Personal Jesus - Johnny Cash
Crown of Creation -Jefferson Airplane
She's not There - The Zombies
This Feeling - Puressence
16 Tonnes - Tennessee Ernie Ford
Funky town - Lips Inc
49 % - Royksop
Sweet and Dandy - Toots and the Maytalls

And bloody good it was too, and when I got back for a cup of chai there were loads of rabbits out the back field and the ponies in the side field were kicking their heels and getting all frisky.
Maybe spring is coming.
I realised how much I need sunshine. maybe when the current film project is finished I should feck off to Marrakech with my camera for a week.

God I'm thinking ahead in weeks. Must be a good day then. One out of four is a definite improvement.

Still haven't decided whether to send links to HIS family and friends. Probably shouldn't , at least not yet, however tempting.

Thank feck for sunshine and having time to write.

It's your bloodless, bourgeois manners
Which really make me vomit.
Analysing passion
but running so far from it,
Your prose is so pretensious
It oozes off the page,
An intellectual wank fest
which fills me full of rage.
You hide
from real emotion
desperate not to cause a scene,
you're as bland as rich tea biscuits
as tough as ovaltine.
The bit I find confusing,
forgive my being dim,
How the fuck did you get sectioned
was it on a passing whim?
For plainly you were acting,
(when you're not
you're too polite).
I never saw you lose control
or stand up for a fight.
And you look down your nose at me
for getting too upset
at least I have integrity
and nothing to regret.

How long can it be resisted
before you submit,
gratefully.
With a great sweet sigh of defeat,
On your knees
Slick with sweat,
Veins and lungs throbbing
twisted visceral sobbing
heart wrenched free
still pumping
in your hand
with the ancient foolish virus.

With overwhelming joy,
overwhelming grief,
you changed me.
The small illusions of life
which I clung to
all are lost.
I drift through the lives of others,
but can rest nowhere.
No certainty, no relief.
Without you
what is left ?
I must learn to live
without love
rebuild my armour
pick up my spear
and in future,
not trust angels
envoys of a false god.

I can not remain your puppet.
I am not strong enough to cut the strings
which tangle and bind.
I don't know the script,
for this play
you jerk me through,
nor how it ends
but I know I'm not the star.
Soon I'll be left
knotted and crumpled in the dark,
whilst you amaze your audience
with your convincing manipulation
of a newer, fresher soul.

I can never pray
to a god who doesn't exist
so by your theology
I am ever lost.
Jesus,
poster boy of agape,
pure abstraction of an
unrequited sensual love.
Shame on you
the distant adored.
So afraid
of shit and semen
eyes upturned
on your masochistic pedestal.
I suffer for you,
I will always suffer for you
and your kind.
The crown of thorns
becomes your marble brow.
The burning son
has hatched such hollows
beneath your too blue eyes,
the light in them
I took for love
is only fear.
You are not flesh and blood.
The rocky path
does not penetrate
your baby skin.
You float cushioned
above the dirt,
carried by others.
Expansive and elusive
and utterly apart
Are you angel
or are you demon ?
I think you're less than human
To think
you have the right,
to violate
and say you did it for mine own good.
What right have you,
you are no teacher,
no guru.
I need no torch
to guide me
through the darkness,
I wear it as a blanket
I am not afraid to enter the dark water
alone.

The Cuckoo

Beloved song
 which heralds spring
and serenades the woodland.
No sentiment in nature’s way,
This child will lives demand.
A
 stealing, killing, shrieking bird,
so out of place, so needy.
He casts them out, the helpless young
of smaller birds, then fools them.
And they will fill this greedy beak,
- the tiny lark 
is broken,
breathing shallow 
out on a limb,
grieving all that has been stolen.

When you finally let your mask slip and let people see the real raw you covered in slime and squirming demons ( but only four days out of every other month - roughly) and they run away out of horror/ fear/ repulsion/boredom ? Does that mean you are doomed forever to live your entire life at arms length from other people and as a fake ? Does that matter - are we all only constructions of someone else's projected experience and illusion ? Are we not in fact always alone and always part of every otherthung .- I don't feckin know. The older I get the less I know.
I don't know if having all this time on my hands is a good idea - it's odd - I don't know what to do with myself most of the time with no one to care for - I didn't realise how much I'd forgotten how to be me. Whoever the fuck she might be. She appears to be living through some second hideous teenage hormone onslaught at the moment- hanging out in second hand record shops crying at Leonard Cohen songs, arguing with parents about personal space and spending hours on the phone to all her friends every night and sobbing uncontrollably round the supermarket.
Finally did some work today and it was great, went without a hitch or the usual shite of a production - as the kids making the film with me were all too hungover to screech and flap as much as normal, they made it a joy by working so hard and being so in to it. Easy money really -shouldn't be such a moany twat ( which I was for most of the second part of the day.)
I have had some hard times and always come through but I never felt so defeated and compromised and used up. I feel like my soul has been evaporated and I'm just a barely animated husk.
It just feels so odd to be living here in the place I spent my teenage years trying to escape from - leaving at 17 with ten bensons and a can of hairspray. There is still the claustrophobia and a huge sense that somehow I have failed by coming back here and not being somewhere exotic and exciting that I dreamt of as a kid - hating the people who lived here with their less than progressive attitudes to anything I held dear that and the familial claustrophobia.

I know I need to write more and make it not about him and blah the situation blah. For some reason (probably because his ex- who I suspect he is trying his best to win back - is a "poet" - as opposed to me who apparently am just so much chopped liver) my inadequacy when it comes to my writing has increased. Got told about a writer's group today but I don't do groups that take themselves seriously, especially if it involves any shmoozy cheesing yerself up - just can't do it , makes me cringe.
I must accept I will never be one of the shiny happy people. I'm not staying up there on that cross but I won't ever walk away from an unjust battle without rolling my sleeves up. I come from a long line of fighters-once my rage proper kicks in and my campaign for reparation commences I will be a fighter again. Some of us have to be, there is no point trying too hard to be what I will never be. I just want to learn be proud of who I am.
Must ban mirrors. Falling in love took 15 years off me. Breaking up has put 15 back on with an extra four as a kick from the great cosmic joke.

Blimey -I have got to stop letting the bastard get to me.
I just never loved anyone like that before - that is the tragedy -I waited 40 years to feel love like that and have my monochrome world turn technicolour for a while-and it wasn't even real. It has re-affirmed doubly the cynicism I was trying to shrug off. I have never let my guard down or trusted anyone so completely and so blindly. Do I need to mention he was 12 years younger than me...ah vanity, intellectual and otherwise is a terrible thing...I am giving up smoking - maybe this is important - despite all of the hideousness of the past two months I have not smoked tobacco since 5 Dec. If only manorette patches were available from all leading chemists...

saw it
stole it
took a bite
found it sour
spat it out

That was my heart you cunt

lovely hands
lovely cock
shame he chats shit
such a lot

Woke up feeling shit. My fault .I broke another rule and looked for solace with Mr J Daniels in an old blokes pub called the Cattle Market ( ironically the only pub in this one horse town that isn't). Sometimes I just can't be alone. I wish I could be happy in my own skin. So - all bleary in the artic winds I rushed off for my gym induction appointment with a complete musclebound arse called Mike. Pointless ten minutes of mumbled bullshit -just so I can get on the treadmill when it's too shitty outside to run - Yes what a soft arse the hard core runners will think.

Got back to find the SAE I left with the ex to forward my mail - full of unpaid bills and a note to say he couldn't give me any money till April. However tempted to text abuse I smacked my fingers with a hammer and refused to succumb to the need to tell him what an utter bastard he is being.It really got to me. According to the shiny happy people I should probably be more Buddha like and serenely reject attachment-it would probably mean more balanced chi and happy chakras and all that but quite frankly pure rage has kept me going when mere boddhisatvas would have fallen away in previous times.
No, the thing that is bothering me most at the moment apart from the thought that I may never have decent sex again ever in my life ( though in analysis the sex wasn't that great with him - I was never sure what was wrong - now of course I realise I didn't do it for him....he was doing it for the power trip and the money.) is how badly my confidence has been damaged and how jealous and insecure it has made me. I feel physically sick when I see an accomplished, happy, bright pretty young thing because I immediately think - he would love her, he wouldn't fuck her off. That's horrible, but revealing of the extent of my present insecurity. He has left me feeling so inadequate.
I feel like the desperate lonely older woman in the (best ever) Mike Leigh film Naked - the fucked up main character sees her through a window and goes to find her, but once he gets there no matter how she debases herself he won't make love to her because she's older than he thought from a distance, he destroys her esteem so casually it's chilling.

My self esteem is at an almost all time low. This is not just because I got played, it is also the first time I haven't been flat out working in the past 16 years. I have defined myself by my work for so long I have no idea who I am without it.
I need a project that is so fucking amazing I will actually like it , feel proud of it and not feel like a fraud because I'm doing self indulgent art not working with the toughest kids from the toughest streets with the toughest problems.

I'm trying to jump down off the cross but there's one last nail through my foot.

I have made a voodoo doll of him I just haven't decided quite where to bury it and which bit to burn or carve up first. It will be an interesting online experiment to see if my psychic self defence works...I wish him only enlightenment ( actually if I am completely honest one good punch in the windpipe would probably make me feel pretty good-if only for a moment-as long as it was in a public place with a decent sized audience and there was no chance of my arrest).

I know eventually he will reap what he has sown but he has shown no emotion whatsoever and his life continues uninterrupted as he flits around without a care in the world - in my territory, in my city - whilst I cry my heart out in exile on a daily basis over the gut wrenching memory of my weakness and pay all the fucking bills. I know life ain't fair - but I have been -too fair- and he's learned nothing. He really needs to have a word with himself.

I'm still waiting for the twat to do the decent thing - or things, namely:
offer to give back the £1600 camera I bought him for xmas ,( an ill fated exhausted shopping trip - after two sleepless nights to try and win him back - pathetic - but I was suffering from sleep deprivation and extreme confusion). Even a dolt like him should have seen this was WRONG. He needs to offer to pay his half of the rent and bills I paid for the past five months. He needs to thank me for helping him sort his life out at the cost of my own. He needs to beg my forgiveness for being a cowardly, lying arse.
Once I get the final bills for the rented house I paid for us both to live in the past hellish months, where he withdrew gradually, culminating in a neat and final sidestep at New Year, I will just have to send them to his parents as he doesn't earn enough to keep himself in Neal's Yard facial wash or skunk.
I have no problem with him falling out of love with me- shit happens, he was a lightweight with no sense of commitment - fair enough. What I do have a problem with is the utter humiliation of being strung along and fucked about all those months. If he didn't love me anymore he should have told the truth and fucked off, not hung around sending flirty emails to his ex and disappearing with no word as to where he was....fucking with my head on a daily basis whilst I tried do deal with a life in freefall...
He also should have not gone along with me spending over £500 on a luxury apartment for xmas, a fortune on food etc from Marks & Feckin Spencers and sat down with my family for xmas dinner-all the time knowing once his house had come through he'd be fucking me off. He shouldn't have let me dress up and do my miserable best to seduce him back into my arms.
Am I wrong ? I think that's pretty fucking cold. Most of all he should never have invited me to Edinburgh for New Year, then once I'd driven all the way up there fucking off out and leaving me with his mother ! - Who with hindsight obviously knew what was going on before I fuckin did. When I sobbing told him how much I loved him and asked him to put me out of my misery he told me to CHILL OUT I should have cut his throat then and there, no judge over the age of 22 would have convicted me.