A life lived backwards.

Both the heartache and beauty of it all. An irony I have found in relationships is my initial (faulty) belief of not being good enough and determination to be the confident intelligent me I know I am and think they might love but involuntary hide and stifle out of fear of rejection (the mothership battle of all my relationships), I become the person they want at the very point I realise it's was never me who wasn't good enough and perhaps they knew this all along, hence their control and distance? I really need to approach future relationships backwards...once I get over this particular heartache that I'm still uncertain will lead to heartache but the heart is aching in anticipation of what has always been but mostly in the waiting. The anxiety I feel by his procrastination and indirectness is enough for me to walk away but I'm hanging on a while longer in case he's taken my challenge and decides to risk being known as I have with him...all very unexpected for me as I imagine it may be for him also, I don't know, that's the whole point. Part of me wishes he doesn't but mostly I hope he does..either way this is one hell of a journey and I do find joy even in the darkness as the discoveries made here are more revealing than the light that shines when we turn the corner with greater clarity. Real life is never how we picture it to be.

The only certainty is there is none.

Uncertainty it is said is the time to ride the waves, release creative energy, be in the moment...I'm not sure anyone who realized these wonders of not knowing what's coming next ever knew trauma of war. Woken in panic night after night, creativity is an exhausted dream of darkness a walk in the sun doesn't quell but for a fleeting moment of forgetfulness. The waves do not ebb and flow they loom large and threatening all around in wait of drowning this strong yet struggling swimmer against the tide. Every moment pulls back the past and hurls me into a future where this is no light, no picture of what could be as assuredly of what I knew was is long lost the further I walk. Relinquishing control has rendered me expectantly vulnerable to bombardment.

I feel threat with each determined step I take marching forth unable to sink into despair or rise in hope uncertain of either, sure of both but not yet and when I don't know. Holding on a cliff edge when letting go is what I need most. I don't know how, the mantle of decision has always been past to me, never before did I hand that back until now. Did I trust him with this two weeks ago? I don't recall, certain only this is a test not only of his character but of my durability too. Battleworn and weary I enter a new year on fertile ground no matter the seed he sows, what wounds are sorely reopened or soothed. Scars harden with time as attraction grows or fades dependant on who the other reveal themselves to truly be. I am here at two points in time waiting anxiously for the road ahead to clear the fog of doubt. Unable to focus on anything else I may as well stand still for a while and lean into this trauma of not knowing, trusting I made that certain decision for a reason.

Daddy, I'm home!

It may have been apparent the stress I've been lost under whilst untangling the unravelling of my complex relationship with another as well as myself. Who knew a declaration of love, at last, would open the floodgates to unfelt grief for the father long dead leading to clarity of why I've been unable to let it be known what I want from this person when directly asked. I've been clear as far as I've been able and willing throughout but this block I now understand was fear of him giving me what I ask..I now ask out of fear he won't as he recoils with my every 'no' in defence derived, I suspect from a belief of personal attack. The ball is firmly in his court and as he decides if he wants to bat it to me with the beginnings of revealing what he feels, action, not reaction as I've asked, or not I can rest easier, breathe..I've done my groundwork, faced my fears, now it's his turn if he takes the mantle.

The love declared? No, my darlings..not from him but I. For a year and a half that word directed at him would not come forth, I skirted around whilst feeling the forever tale of angst one feels when loving someone not knowing how they feel in return, knowing their readiness is a long way off if at all. Love being a verb, the way we respect, understand and treat one another.

All I wanted was to come home, I've been on my way and now..yes, now for the first time today feels like a Sunday, my yellow day that embodies family, love, relaxation, warmth, joy and some good nourishing food and drink. The day my dad was often home and my mother cooked the roast and all was well as could be, The day when I could take a break from the beatings and lashings of her tongue as my dad never knew this was the woman he married and I could never tell...he believed her lies to keep the peace and I the innocent scapegoat. He never knew how much that hurt, I did.

Proving my point perfectly.

I assert my claim that women are still oppressed in today's society, to reach the professional level in any hierarchy created to reflect society's value of people, in a male dominated ideological world women would be required to subscribe to notions enforced in traditional roles belonging to men within the workplace...one being the suppression of emotion to enable objectivity and command of oneself.

"My life is okay" the professionally successful and financially independent woman states..."I've reached a good professional level I'm happy with, I think women do well in this country, not much need for pushing for greater equality. That could backfire on us" In the next breath, she claims anger is a wasted emotion!!

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Freedom..what is liberation without sharing? At long last, my voice was found hidden behind the oppression of my lover but ultimately my conditioning as a child reared by the anecdotal overbearing mother from hell. The paradoxical irony is it was his challenging me that sprouted my need to tell him exactly how my experience with him has been to which he's had and still has no knowledge of what he does nor does he understand what I say as he translates through filters of projected negativity and assumption no matter my wording or clarity. Prepared as he was and I suspect remains to revisit this exhaustive circular conversation until he's convinced it's me not he in the wrong in protection of his fragile esteem, I've staked claim to my own sanity, no more am I willing to ride his merry-go-round. In this elated liberated state, however, I find myself wanting him to see me released with confidence, another paradox I'm convinced if he knew me as I freely am he'd recognise what I've seen all along, I his equal match but of course, this is the I that scares him the most, a threat to his carefully crafted defences, not as extension of him for social acceptance and value. With this ending new beginnings are forging, hungry and exhausted I now find relieved rest calls before this journey alone commences in my readiness to say "no" without guilt or fear of accustomed repercussions but with an honest love for us both. He can hardly hurt me more than already done as I am lost to him now as much as I was then. Found to me, home is exactly where I want to be at long long last.

Be free to live, be alive to love.

Whoever thought the notion of denying, suppressing, repressing emotions makes us strong resilient individuals would have also denied the levels of difficulty, skill and pain acknowledging, experiencing and exploring the thinking behind how we feel in order to have control as opposed to reactionary controlling. After all, if being relaxed with our authentic self was easy we'd all be doing it. An unexpected outcome to no longer running from myself is now being subjected to feeling all my nerve endings on fire waking me in panicked attack each night and causing trembling unrest during the day but, and I say this trepidatiously, I'm becoming more aware of what I need and ready to pace, heal from within as best I can.

No longer a desperately fueled drive to face fears beyond my home, I know my greatest anxiety has been here all along, the toughest challenge now I have no relenting need for acceptance, attention or even love as I give to myself nourishment required for such an arduous endeavour. Trauma comes and goes as I sway back and forth away from people who would trigger stress in me with their passive-aggressive defensive attacks, and forth in facing communication needed for a smoother path until exhausted, realized either connection will or will not happen once I am sure I have given my habitual all as I peel away my own layers of protection strong in the knowledge I have my own back. Reaching acceptance of my needs and understanding theirs although not justifying projected uncertainty left in their wake of doom and disaster muddled with unreasonable deservedness to deny how I feel or their lack of respect and consideration shown. Boundaries redrawn, permeable to the ebb and flow of energy every cell craves to survive. We can't expect to absorb the joys of life when we bury deep our sorrow and stress. Life was never going to be easy and is made far more complicated in pursuit of such. Simplicity comes with a price but one I'd happily pay after too many years with bankruptcy of self in extension of another's terrorised transference. Liberation is responsible existence.

Aspiration for illusion.

Jacqueline du Pré, considered the greatest cellist of all time, short her 'career' and life taken over by multiple sclerosis, a celebrated inspirational woman who captivated audiences with emotionally charged performances, but what of her personal internal life? A woman unable to say "no" to demands or expectations of both her parents and husband, to her audiences. Multiple sclerosis becoming a relief of sorts, something she 'foresaw' as a young girl, an acceptable and legitimate way of ceasing to be the puppet, the extension of another's need for approval and praise.

Are we a people of aspiration to the illusion, in awe of the fantasy where reality is overlooked, denied or taken with a pinch of pity or admiration but separated from a naive childlike dream to be adored, celebrated, envied, but ultimately, accepted and loved even if love is merely conditional, set to disappoint as condition is no love but simply more expectation, more extension of another's need for approval and praise? A perpetual unfulfilled and unfulfilling pursuit. Source; When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté.

Healing from within.

Mandy Murphy was her name, I forget her face but her hair I recall vividly was golden locks lightly tussled about her shoulders and down her back a way. The sweetest delicate girl in her informative years during junior school that I felt so much envy toward in my shy unassuming need to have such attention as her when she merely scratched her knee. I with messy dark unfurled ribboned long hair, inky fingers and second hand clothes foraged in jumble sales could never understand what it took to be cared for so readily. When I hurt I hurt alone, suffering the bruises in silence as I cried in some corner where I could not be found. I see Mandy Murphy in every woman who seeks attention so sweetly that men, some women but mostly men swoon to their side with offers of affection. She is a 'good girl' in their eyes. Often doing well in life, a well enough paid job or clean and tidy dwelling, conforming neatly into standards set by man. She the cause of many a falling out between lovers, she the incent, the wife the scorned jealous affronted victim and persecutor in one. With all my efforts to be free from expectation, other people's rules of how we should be, I still feel eluded as to how I am excluded from such circles of drama but know now it is that Bermuda triangle I have sought so long to escape. To them, I am an outsider as I refuse to play my part. Neither victim nor persecutor, rescuer or pity giver I feel something else for the Mandy Murphy's these days. No more envy although the child within sheds a saddened tear for being overlooked, uncherished as an individual but for her, I feel compassion.

For me, for my mother's daughter lost and lonely as she was, I am almost home, I'm at the door unlocking my heart to her with the greatest of ease. I see that messy brown hair, fingers which love to write, hold books as they provided a safe place of understanding, answers to question not yet asked, a scented feel of comfort, hand me down garments and envy her youth. I have become her again only this time she is loved, adored. So sweet and delicate yet robust and bruised from play, unassumingly taken care of at last soon to be free to leap with the abandoned joy she's craved for too many a year. Her name was Julie, mine it's rightful owner, Julia, the given name never used after registration until an assertive in her own right eleven year old declared possession again. A rebirth perhaps but liberation for certain. I have taken you with me on this journey and thank you. Without the support and understanding I have received I might not have arrived so soon...so soon at fifty-six is late enough but never too late to reconnect to oneself. A painful, confusing homecoming where entanglement takes place creating a whole completed puzzle. Anyone want to come play...you are all very welcome in my playhouse?

Not all is as it seems.

Stability doesn't derive from the practice of unyielding rigid tradition but its paradox embodied in flexibility, the fluidity of learning, growth in deeper understanding. Maturity of humankind, mastering of emotion. not the quashing of that which connects all.

Empathy unites life, separation of body and mind, emotion and thought is a stiff upper lipped scourge plaguing the planet creating death in its wake. Avoidance of feeling takes its toll on us all. Fear only the life we lose in loss of connection, our emotions serve us well when the source is felt and understood as a developed parent to child. Only then can we truly master the state of being stable. There's only one way forward, through. All else is stuckness and confusion.

Lost in sight found inside.

'What's on your mind, Julia?' digitally enquires facebook....well I shall tell you, says I as I appear to the outside world a dreamer whilst stilling my mind enough to hear my heart and it's calling. To be at ease with myself is to be at ease with encompassing dis-ease, not happy, too sad for that forced emotion to make better those who run uncomfortable with sadness, anger, anxiety, anything but the illusion of joyous success even if true the laughter, fleeting only ever in reality as we walk true the path.

Distraction is the objective, sickness the symptom, introspection and acceptance the cure. To the townsfolk I'm a dreamer, to me I'm wakened, eyes wide open to see all is missed as if living in adjacent dimension. Slow and steadied becomes my world easy as the rest rush by in dizzied circles getting nowhere in repetitive compliance with falsehood duped into buying.

Alain de Botton on Emotional Education

Gabor Mate on the Myth of "Normal"

Unadulterated truth.

Strip all keeps me afloat, distractions, pretences of a life hoped, vacations from this reality to another and back again to one unrecognised ready to recreate and what I find is a dank hole filled with heaviness, a soul alone, unwanted. This is in me, this is what lies in wait at the core of this person I avoided as far back I know. The lostness of a child spent drifting, not knowing who she was aside inherent belief she must be hateful, wrong to deserve all she's given, what life meant, loneliness and fear plagued her steps into the world. Least of all she knew not what it felt to be cherished enough to be stood by, protected, loved by just one person...that would have been enough. That would still be enough. I carry her like a dulling weight holding me back. She cries in the dark to be held till she breathe that sigh only comes when safe, at last, understood. Seeping into my existence as I push her back, command control over the vulnerable, the hurt. I fight ardently to never let another harm whilst I feed her pain every day in need of removal from terror she feels. It's me she turns, it's me she needs...I would be enough.

The Hard Work of being Lazy

At odds with a society that values busyness, equating with success, vitality and oddly, supremacy. It took a decline in health to force me into learning the art of doing nothing...I knew as an introvert the necessity for time out, slowing down but pressures both internally formed from childhood conditioning and externally won out until they could no longer. After over 10 years I'm still struggling with being 'lazy', a lingering whisper keeps me thinking I'm less than worthy if not being productive, making money....as if production profits the maker more than the 'owner of property'. The word itself is suggestive of weakness, ineptitude or uncaring attitude when in reality and if for the reasons explained in the video, it's healthier, inducing creativity, deeper understanding than appearing to know we are in innovatively in control, of value when we are instead running the treadmill to nowhere worth being other than to have the story of busyness to tell.

It is the most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home....Charles Dickens

Faced opposite with interested black eyes, stinging, enticing as they are, it amuses me tentatively you think I don't know what rules of game you adhere, that you don't know the end has come. I won if objective was freedom from control, to further enhance my stride home the closer I cut tortured strings of rejection keeping me near, dismissal for not providing your needs required...for being my honestly complex self with easiness. I am not the slightest ashamed of where or how I choose to live, I am with heartfelt gratitude for knowing my strength in line with weakness, passion, efforts afforded in creating a just world if fairness only lies within my own sphere.

I simply choose not to reveal all to you as witness I learnt how you use information I provide, adding weight to your needy assumptions of who I am...your projections mashed with inflated sense of self worth only standing scrutiny by way of belittling your challenger, I'd wager.

I am, my darling, too large in stature from years of building residence on solid foundation to be crushed by such transparent insecurity I see in you. That you don't recognise me is your abject failure, lost game even if saddened myself over liberation from sensuous gain. I shall take those eyes deep in story belonging only to you along my journey anew, your kiss gentle to my embittered bite as I will my self saved identity in fluid tact. Friend as I am to you I said should you want endures...I doubt you will want.

The edge of freedom.

Is why perpetually drawn and draw near who maim for needs content...to cry ultimately? An effusion of dolour readied to forge forth...when only notched tears of exasperation overrun, the bona fide affliction, agonising splitting in two borne of derelict duty, disobliging presupposition, ultimatum, dependent condition masquerading as love was stimied. The chasm has yet to fatten enough, crack wide for seeth the way, passage to continue where always it laid...the untainted tenderness resting uneasily within, out of sync with institution, in indefectible euphony with esse, acclimatized to jingle my spirit yearns to jauntily vocalize, twirl my soma aches to spill, expression laid in waiting within, mewl to be witnessed, attended.

Centre of attention removed self from psyche in subjugate meet with unripe infantile, shifty addictive insistence of the other. Astray are we to interrelation, worried, horrified misled...break now the fetter, breach to locate domicile, become requirement paramount for I preserve. Gain relish in solus, not abscond. Now off to squall tears for emancipation, in considerate freedom, we all shall prevail.

In quest to be seen, I am astray.

Candidly myself in isolation, sheltered aloneness I am found invisible. Deformed inventiveness, I imagined observed...simultaneously choked, adroit with jaunty enterprise, inexhaustible bounce.

Combination of maternal paranoia, paternal impotence to know the daughter birthed proffers confused this now woman in search of recognition...wishing to be revealed yet lost from view when studied. Not for approval I seek but in relation, identified soul to allot. I am what you do not witness, I am what I do not manifest. I am all I vexatiously exhibit in response...your detach, retort, maladjusted projection, you are incarnation of guardians I leave wanton, I am not. Yet, in friendship I find freedom.

CANNED HEAT - LET'S WORK TOGETHER

So long as the story remains in this country that only minority groups are disenfranchised we shall not have a change in politics...the rise in the middle classes has enabled the most corrupt % to flourish beyond anyone's wildest imagination. Why aspire to be like them when being grounded, compassionately motivated, emotionally connected and community orientated is what enables society to function for everyone, not just the most insecure irrational need for more than we can ever possibly require? People it seems are becoming more insular, self seeking and detached from the very people they play a part in the deprivation, the hunger and death. It's much easier to lay blame on individuals for their own downfall (and conversely, success) but the bigger picture always reveals a very different story. Societies are interlinked and delicately balanced works of art...without a majority participation in creating a just and equal landscape that picture is always going to be skewed in favour of the darker, narrow minded and corrupt amongst us. We have been set up to play their game but there are other ways to live where we can be the masterminds of our own rules...be you sheep or trailblazer? If not for the ignored slaves of capitalism, none would have the comfort and privilege they lay claim to being 'self made' today. No, my darlings...not one person is self made but a product of a wider extraction of empathy, humanity. Judge value by what we give, not take.

Some kind of comfortable...

...turned to unease in another distant day.

Obstructed, oppressed by ghosts permeated every fibre of neglected existence...forgotten trodden paths walked so far, long, hard entrenched are the furrows, lines etching memories still lived. I am frightened, anything nearing worthiness yanked in a jittered beat, stiffened, ridged against joy awaiting...unspoken as unbroken never made promises of a bed of blossoming buds, sweet scent of hope I rip from rooted attachment. Terrified of satisfaction...no, not that, attainment for when I hold dear I risk eventual theft. So I break free before I am held, bound embrace...I am in control, I have to be. In remaining, surrendering I am exposed, vulnerable, held back by my own dread of abondenment...not in their leave but impatience with my slowness to trust, my sabotage to prove right any prophecy hinged around heels dug firmly in. I've never spoken of the sexual misuse as a child...never thought it mattered so much as having trusted parent to turn, my primary desertion repeated throughout. Oh, I told them twenty years and more ago doubting I'd be believed, my story would return with jealous enmity for preparing such twisted tales for attention...this I swallowed, doubted my own recollections.

As I write I'm starkly aware of the distance I place still between myself and reminiscence unexplored. Why do I close myself off when touched in most gratifying ways? My domain, yes...for me and nobody else yet in letting that other enter my private world where uncontrollable depth of emotion can only exist and to trust is all I strive to consummate. I confess, I relished the touch so young, the gentleness of hands arousing skin to tender heights I couldn't have imagined but since become wet with rape of respect. That was the damage done, early stimulant when all else hurt, too young and untaught to comprehend connections made, associations formed, hardwired for replicate. I recall none but one detail of what he did, my incestuous uncle, that moment is soldered, the rest rusted, forsaken, I'm unprepared to find, too dark is that journey, there is no coveted need...I am tightly held shut. This unease in me to some kind of comfortable in recognition of pattern, shape of developing relationship, connection with self and the other. This is the way the indefinable it is and it is alright, no preference left to change, to forge a path of my own making, steer direction but to drift instead with how we are. I am set to wallow in delicious complex entanglement, awkwardness of misunderstanding, clashes of wills...I am ready now to free the life I know I am, live fully in parallel...and trust where trust is met.

Is Britain REALLY democratic?

Pluck gallantry, vulnerability, all our familiar.

Wait not for protected environs emergence, create needful shape within, certainty, credence in all eventuality. Set oneself for judgement, reproof...interpret requirement another's occasion for domination, masquerade supremacy...not expose perpetrator's detached disdain but knowing this their frailty, vulnerability revealed we stand sagacious, wield leniency once benevolence attained our own. Menacing is as oppression does...screen doner, subjugate giftee, vigilance rouse in sightseer such perturbation, diffidence in erstwhile participants of losing diversion. Intrepid be, quest revelation, unification in all sought or forefit we all shall.

Noam Chomsky - The Attack on Public Education

I care but...

But negates want, no will exists for serve the proclamation. If predilection to leave ungrieved the subject of fondness then do no injury...if wounds you know shall lacerate then incision dependant ties. I know this nature, such fringed connection, tattered edged matter where amplitude lies unlit, mere fleck of evidence to observe quelled fears of exposure as if vanquish was submission met, would disclose insecurities unwitnessed, unrecognised, unloved in myself.

What unhealthy society do we occupy that essential is isolation, psychotic separation to survive? Business matters, strong the economy but weak the wealth of mankind. Expensive deterioration material gains not for life but show, exchange, ostensible nonsense babbled. This crevice I slip, disjointed from clique yet fiery for its survival. But not do I wander lonely nor lost, saddened more the picture missed through blinded ambition I too have strayed to return in reconnection.

Illustrious life in beauty again envelop, swaddled, lucid, visceral, animate...sustained. No but, sir...care or care not.

Del Amitri - Cry To Be Found

The party.

Should I go I risk loss of fulfilment, should I not I leave undone...I go, I step afoot a world I choose not as my own, if I do not I'm hung, postulated, disquieting thoughts of occurrence prevents acceptance the invitation...he'll dance with another and I have no resolve to stand in his way. Prerequisite companion engaged, remote, avoidant...associate essential does not alight in him.

My gut weeps, adrift in search of find yet tears decline. Ambitioned shred of feeling sensed of his remains locked, guarded tightly conceivably or perchance not for me. Or this the elusive carrot dangling? All, I contrive. I heard words of love, clear in my head but from afar, sent me by another as if mind read. Dubiety drips from secured limb, certainly, I shall withstand until candour disclosed...I want I don't. Despairingly I require this over, hopelessly I wish begun.

Melancholia summer.

Dejected truth...jealousy stranglehold plagued dreams submit voice barbed. Masked from spectacle I swallow malady as panic befalls. Unloved by that one inclination, my disabling menace. Disjoined affection from verb is practical measure but when sensation confused with past affliction take too much a hold tis time for strings to sever that tie to rue for life occasionally sojourned but never reside nor, if I revealed, coveted...sobered remnants of conditioned life in social expectant. Dwelling in reminders followed striving of life to love where nobody else could does not set free wings in requisite of soar. Self retribution leaps forth and beyond a child's lost need to lament. Sad is becoming my day, no more I hasten, purely candid affirmation of that already known...straightforward bestial actuality; friend, he is not.

Co-dependency, the too impudent home of taking aboard the other's dismally handled insecurity. This isn't me.

Shifts in consciousness.

Unfailingly examination left to query, observed conversation scrapes door ajar, lucidity never quite affirmed but one closer trepid stride within through hunch as much voiced taciturn expression. Edging tactfully, cautiously not willingness known too soon...fright, illustrious motivator, seducer, confined beguilement we set ourselves.

All could leak in one transparent day for decision made easy.

Complex creatures, untangling shorn rope confused in connection...retying knots trepidatiously, assuredly. Hour and occasion adjust, reveal but what the fundamental of identity? Does core hold fast regardless which draws near? Unyielding stability never shaken from flesh to superficial air, what is mine and thine? Determination perceived as I, trust as much is earned, familiar. Keen disposition for decipher, loyalty unconditional in longevity whether near or far. A non possesive lover in puerile want of being possessed...the paradox that breaks me, gives reason to leave promise of commitment though no allegiance ever declared I would not keep. Sanctity of hills beckons barely, unwinding in promiscuity, proneness toward intimate confidant. Substantial the affection, considerable the forfeiture as confiscation shall expected attend. No stranger to void of ardour never gifted but foreigner to being held dear unless expensive price met...and so I nominate incapable the person I attach. Him, I consider may not as insufficiently equipped as gauged. Breast ignited in exhilaration new less afeared than envisaged...should not be continued road to perdition ultimately awaited. Shall fulfilling prophesied ruin be, preparedness lies deferred.

Foundered foundation unyielded by purposive hand.

Not be detrimentally touched by another's gift of worsted view, an untrusting stance, durable if burdensome when life already less than acceptable proceeds, taking every heavy step weary in will to keep walk on torrid land. Frame assaulted, wit spent by petty quarrel, dwelling not of social standing but place to lay trauma rest...what do I boast? Apprise you I what possess mine, immeasurable by decree of absence degree of toughness, enduring resilience, confidence born of intellect, both durability ability found. Notwithstanding kicked and punt down drive of determined actuation, to face community frown their furrowed frons at conceived non contributing part assigned to me, favoured, gracefull receipt their narrowed discernment I esteem them still, unliked but without corresponding acumen in return. Now tell me, intimate and foe blurred into one I scarcely know...what do you provide accord a world encouraged for marketed attributes profit make, the detriment of salvation to life abound? What unmonied extend does your hand afford your unrelated kin? Would you walk strong with straight and soaring height if stripped of contributed confidence found on shallow material ground? You, a castle built on sand.

Intimidation defence.

Unintentional...or willful, long abandoned origins of need to erect such offensive bearing. I suspect when left alone with child less year since birth and dilapidated house to raise, my son the sky, the shell of home the ground to build anew with scant resource. A requirement to outwit, outsmart men, jealous women, I dumbed down, hid behind frisky clown. There would be no control of me by another, never to get the better. I was not to be handled...

Handle...you said that...you will find way to handle me...with you, this begun. My back against the wall the moment you revealed your hand. Or when I dared express unconditional affection in knowing your deeper inclination to explode in vibrant pain you switched resentment? Unconscious transfer of hurt hurled my way, intensified the more you blocked the pronounced my pushing down. And now you leave me hushed, unresolved the path. Which drift now I exposed, you witnessed? Do you hide in discomposure or indignity? I do not fear retort, the silence furnishes me afeared. Your avoidance shapes mountains of molehills and I'm worn sore of the climb. I shall wait on level ground, find me here if you've a will. This walk, side by trusted side...all I endeavour with you.

Equals in life.

Affliction begets this harrowed soul, fevered ache robbing sleep to come. Lain wakened in salacious crave for ambition to ease, soothe this beaten body back to me. Not concerned for argument's sake but lost between unknown space, a land so vast in scope full with baited trips, no stepping stones, no ballast to firm the bog. Anxious spills over mature fathom, wise to lay in wait when incautious child restless hops from foot to steeled boot for run truant she will, winning before absence imposed.

So clear the solution, easy as easiness sought, a journey not of mine yet mine. along with yours made uncomplicated in return. Patience, my virtue not, ardour for indisposed learner to be enlightened, yes, educated, you portentious reactionary, unburdened by one considered lowly, inferior yet certain not without degree unrecognised through lens of institutional limiting hue. Vexing must be your surrender, paradox in learning from you this confident exposed in me. Until discourse is hand in calloused palm, straightening lopsided pride in hunched gait we shall not walk in equal association. Money maketh not the man...indigence, not the woman I am.

Labi Siffre - Something Inside So Strong

Only in recognition shall I be claimed...this is not a competition to win, to beat, tame, claim victorious a person you shape to your own. Freedom is mine and that, my darling you will never remove. I simply grow taller when you dangle the shackles, erect the shields that speak to me of you, not I. There is something inside that strong.

You say tomato, I say tomato.

Finally, we are getting somewhere. I can breathe again. I feel for you, I really do...I can see you are going through the pain I've left behind, the jealousy, the insecurity, the confusion of a past transferred. But yours is yours to bear as mine is mine and bear I have and do. Separation for connection, 'we can only love in proportion to our capacity for independence'...sounds profound but it was simply found on a frame, a cheap and irrelevant frame for a photo I've long forgotten. It made sense then and makes sense still, more.

Proximate depths.

In anxious impatience, I sought to hasten my way...slowed down, emptied mind to let be what is. The dark alley my thoughts wander when exhausted in self denying isolation trapped by dread of existing in dream, a falsehood in desperate attempt to hold dear ambition of life lived in nurtured partnership.

Is this the reality I seek to escape or the lie I prepare for valid disconnection? I've lost grasp of what I run in running so long the path is worn bare, stony underfoot toppling pace. There's no going back, no view ahead with disillusionment once an eye opened. No end to pain, a cycle of hurt of my own creation whether halted or without break. Self flagellation, masochistic embrace for what do I deserve? What wrongdoing was so great that a lifetime spent in punishment is my lot?

The rift I must cross, waken to a life fully touched is first met with death, distance from despair, from past, the proximity of a once lucid dream just out of reach. Promised friendship will be inclined along truthful lines of connection, communication spewing, struck by surprised engulfment, unexpected, unbleached adoration, despisement...both in one kiss. Indefinte measure and expance will reimburse the loss of absconded lust, reshape this kinship somehow. Once a pledge made, long is kept as such a gift is ever given in full confidence of ability, assuredness of want.

Proclivity for retention.

Circling everywhere but onward, around we turn in unspecified place but friendship of a kind, if wanted, if not, in choice had I proclaim to pick. He hastens away, I retreat to be reclaimed with echoes of my own stolen on his lips. All and nothing becomes changed. Compacted, unhurried to show who am I to his unexpressed he and what are we inreleased.

Frigid, stuck in attatchment with not intimacy returned...dispirited, discouraged disheartened, left cooling in desire. I can not speak lodged words that will fluster him gone or draw him near. I live fearful in both, holding in that desperately, longingly needs released...I am, soley, sadly constipated in love.

The love I give is mine to keep.

I resent all that you are, all you leave me solitary...all that I am abandoned. In your easiness you create difficulty. In my toil, I am found wanting and worn. You sleep, I walk a path not fit for child nor woman. No more ripping out my heart in kind love for you, no more neglect.

A repeated story, replicated, duplicated until erudite. The chain in my link, my connection to another in parallel likeness, a homecoming bringing back to the start, to the death of my life before begun with a father's single minded hand to be free, a facile life for him, a closing that must be revived to undertake again. The end of his life, an emergence of mine. Fifteen years more since mourning undid, incomplete, stilted in resolute force to break free from dominance, control...the teaching you gave to capitulate, concede for the peace of you I too adored, coveted I give to all. Freedom is, always mine to choose, I reclaim my being, my tenderness, embrace myself complete. No more appealing, no more sanctioning an easy life for you. This hour is achieved, reached in quest of reposeful destination.

The wolf at the door.

Surging want to run, shift course, a get out quick clause long embedded. Uncomfortable closeness rendering weak...vulnerability uncertain of an emerging safe place, its reality, probability. Unused and new, I'm lost for what to do, how to be here, only volitional escape known. Murmurs of stifled breath, heavy weighs the courage to remain, pursuit of proof lost in soaring, unwilling to land. I may be wounded or I may not, what to lose when never loved found is the ground I have walked my life through?

Motherless daughters...a welcoming home.

Did I give enough space for her to grow or did I push her out of my nest so I could fly? My boundaries built too high, too rigid for her to see her path whilst I search for mine. My home, my rules, my time...perhaps why she keeps coming back to have me throw her out again and again, set up to fail of my creation or her self sabotage? She's waiting for the change in me, for my acceptance of her need to be the mess she is, held safe until she can breathe her own air, grow her own feet.

So I still myself, I sit with her giving no direction, asking no...demanding not to know her steps, just with in awkward silence. From darkened depths, I saw a surface she swam me back, a familiar atmosphere where we connect...honest, raw expression of love, hate, laughter, of sheer joy in the family we are where freedom is found at least to speak our truths if not live. In finding my own mother, I found hers. Her home in my heart, my home, my heart wide enough for us both to beat in tune our own unique being. Simplicity in all its complexity, rest is arrived.

In you I found my escape...

....in my escape I found you. You push me forward and in my fowardness, you follow. Inside out I am turned as trust finds the way.

I need no more than this day...

...to feel the rain on my naked burnt body.

May the 14th always be with me.

A favorite day I know not why. My yellow day, a Tuesday...all is aligned to where one day will tell.

"When?" asks the anxious mind..."when you are ready" wisdom replies.

Since I stopped running from how I feel when feeling is too much a burden to bear I've come to know that hard won achievements made can be very short lived in celebration when anxiety leaps ahead as exhaustion hits.

Feeling overwhelmed, panicked in knowing if anything strikes I have no capability to deal and with vulnerability no bravery to ask for help. Beneath a confident when able person lies a frightened child lost in wilderness even the mother I am cannot hold in anything but reassurances echoing in hollow disbelief. If nothing else sitting with my reality may bring I imagine another who can hold me in gentle closeness when I can no longer hang on to myself. A dream I've had so long I can barely breathe in its existence, its fruition without feeling hope sliding into oblivion for wondering how much longer will it be an actuality that has only since been lived as if. The closer love feels the further I have to fall, the further I fall the closer love becomes.

Delaying gratification.

Never have I observed necessary a need to delay which gave rapture amongst the instability and mania, my given life...an inexorable exit if in that fracture more the same I found. The ride never ending, round I journeyed, nauseated, ready to step silently aside, hide wounds, harden scars ready for the next folly to cross my way. This time...this time I recognise value, the inevitable requirement to stop, wait and see. Patience arriving the way of certitude, embrace, an arduous task leaves me trembling with anticipation and fret, oh, such fear no stranger to me, a companionless constant I wonder if lost would I also be. To know life in peace, tranquillity what loss of fire, burden to shed, find of derived growth only gained from pain, angst if willing to onward venture, unstuck in perpetuity.

Walking in your shoes...

...you are right, like the harbinger of doom, your grey to my yellow days, we have to stop.

A Dream Within a Dream Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 - 1849

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow: You are not wrong who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand-- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep--while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

When the bough breaks.

A simpler life of carnal pleasure elusively desired yet feared. Not reality, no workaday fret to be revered. Fall with confounded lust then snapped back to less the merry-go-round again. The stuff in and of life, the meat and potatoes, molecular force not grounded but forged into the shape of man. When woman awakens and excites do not run scared, lovers, she is reaching within a soul, a natural selection, a mate with whom to lay, to openly ignite. Passion in clothing stripped is no more seductive than breath caught on the winged bird, the wind in the leaves and rustle between sheets of wealth. All is lust when the heart is full. All is right in the words you heard.

Britain’s countryside is dominated by bullies – as Chris Packham has found ~ George Monbiot.

George Monbiot cuts through the silage to the heart of what's going on...these 'landowners' should be re-termed as land thieves as theft is how they came by this excess of common land to begin with via their ancestors who they then inherited, and as Monbiot states, we are paying a subsidy without any right to not only access that land but a say in how that land and species that inhabit is treated which effects us all. Anyone not in cahoots with them who claim it's their land to do with what they will are missing this salient picture of destruction and abuse...and people aspire to these immature killers of life?!?! Jealous of such superficial pomp, not a jot, angry at the injustice, damn right I am. They have no more right than anyone to destroy the freedom of any species to live a natural life but they get away with doing so because most are too scared or disinterested to take them on. Thankfully, there are the likes of Packham and Monbiot in the public gaze who are not. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/01/britain-countryside-bullies-chris-packham?fbclid=IwAR0Acb-v1w1_EVwIzpJ1oDHGqwoqgm8bCv9MLN6yhrDIXds_az0KSWAOnqw

This day glorious

I spoke my tale and told it well, I hasten to say. Rarely if at all do I speak of this faithless illness and my life of strife with anyone other than close friends and family but this morning I spoke in confidence and with clarity...took me aback to have been so forthcoming with a friend I've been quite mysterious but needs must and the time was rife to pack all illusions and fantasies away. And the listener heard and understood, understood my life's battle as I described in tormented detail how I got where I am today with no hint of pity, I hope shared strength, determination and resolve to make a better life, always to make a better life no matter what befalls shone through his dimmed but warming light.

I spoke my aims to return a healthier lifestyle I was robbed through extraordinary curse, to hold dear a friend I value with or without beleaguered benefits and learned his conflicted nature. No longer confused, no more angst, just freedom to be me, him to be he. Today I celebrate having unsuspectingly taken the path presented and led one month less of a year ago. Slow and steady may win the fabled race but this hared hare got to the place of assured rest first. Sometimes we follow what feels right even if we don't know why only for all to make sense at the precipice, at the point of stepping off...ready for a path scattered with sweet saviour, my path strayed and lost to another's and another's until finally found. I am, at last, my darlings, homeward bound.

Speak your truth to find your tribe.

Fear untenable.

Defences dispirited, heart torn asunder, I am terrified...stricken child lost, alone feels entirely I have run. I circumvent no more. Intrepid delusion, repressed, not served. With dread too intimate, I am willing at last to fall, encompass the bleak, the dark, the worst dank of it all.

Most cherished darling I have your hand to heart, you are sheltered, this bond is sacrosanct. Into the lightness, we journey together. Fear is no stranger to me, no oppressor, no life shall it steal again. Anew we venture, afresh we begin.

Aligned and ready to let go to the beauty of sadness, tears for seeds. The earth shall provide.

“A teacher cannot give you the truth The truth is already in you You only need to open yourself – body, mind and heart- so that his or her teachings will penetrate your own seeds of understanding and enlightenment If you let the words enter you, the soil and the seeds will do the rest of the work” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh

Joan Armatrading - Love And Affection 1976

What's love got to do with it?

Okay, so I fell in love, a whole mess of chemicals messing people up since the dawn of romantic love. A drug perpetuating desire and I am driven crazy. The trouble is...the trouble is this is not just chemicals, this is recognition...recognition of the person I know is frighteningly right and recognition of the person I know is familiarly wrong.

What I don't know is which is he and which is my transference onto him, reminders he triggers by his words of no reciprocation whilst his excellently revealing body tells me an otherwise I have not yet met. No riddles, no games, just straight talking damn, I'm teetering on the edge of falling deep and need to know before I let my most passionate self go, before I can breathe back an equilibrium, resignment to a life incredibly lost and found in gratitude and determined confidence, a life I choose not to burden another. If love is to let go then let go I must. If love is to find me then it must come willingly.

As the day looms large.

Ripped aghast, insides out I tremble with exposure. I have spilled, cannot put back, revealed and most vulnerable.

The mediator personality.

INFP-A / INFP-T https://www.16personalities.com/infp-personality

Headhunted.

In praise of qualification, a want of my skillset and focus brings initial joy then quick comes the apprehension as the mothership kicks in with her jealous resentment of a life she feared to live, a terror past down I doggedly pushed on through. Without her spited voice seething down the line, viciously prodding and poking at my acquired sensitivities, her bile can still be felt, embedded in my soul. The child I am trembles at what punishers will befit such an occasion, for this accolade.

I am my own mother, a necessity borne. There may be fear, dear one, rest easy and know you are desired, you are worthy of such attainment and will go where you will with ability many know not as you hide away that self most deserving of recognition and loveable affection. The company I mostly keep is not so interested as they are themselves provide a wall of conceited attention gained to safely hide behind, to maintain illusion of one so affable, simplistically aligned with flow of bragged noise abound yet quiet, hearing all and saying nowt to bring to me eyes that do not view with clarity I would be afforded if only known. Bring back that double-edged sword for I am lost in such surroundings yet found the space to rest weary with jovial mechanisms they too hide a person in want of caress for until I find my tribe.

Honest Communication

Full interview with Dr Bob Gill - harsh truths about the NHS

Your mountain, my vantage point.

The proverbial mountain made of molehill leaves deep tracks for others to follow. Dragged up with reticent heels digging in preventing ever reaching each far off summit. I learnt long ago to take flight when the air becomes thick with supposition, when breath is held so tight my chest cracks with stifled grasp. How the transference strangles, confuses and pins down the other's plight when there is mind to examine and will to know. No, I have never said I would be with you, I have never said I wouldn't, but friend that I am, I shall always glide myself in stable consistency, in trusted air and beside you all the way.

Left the chat.

There's an overbearing elephant in the room, his name I do not know. It's not mine to provide, nor mine to extinguish but mine to pass back the wonder of why he's there. Mine is a room full of coffee smelt, a room filled with breathable air.

Leaving behind conventionality to dance the flight of freedom.

In being left behind, cruel reminders of upbringing in the oppressive trails on. Streets ahead, consequence of witnessing more than required with eager determination to break free the mold I was not cast but attributed. I am discarded, embarrassed of a life I had no control other than to conform or rebel. A child's lot dragged through the years. My starting point was pulled back, way back...there's no equalizing handicap in this game of arrested development, it's do or die, partake or hide. My story is as full of achievement as any career yet there is no qualification other than a subdued knowing quietly shared when met with another's grief and no wage but reward for having survived thus far.

Worldly goods conventionally reflecting a life lived are scarce, wounds, scars are hidden healing...to wear the badge of the abused is to bring pity and derision, unwelcome companions. Why not then are the tribulations of those who have walked a thousand and more extra miles just to catch up not praised, not seen as a strength many would crumble under? I live in a cave, in a soft hovel of harmonious solitude, protection from a people who'd throw me to the wind for lack of grappling with understanding, an unwillingness to hear. Alone yet not lonely, I have my own soul to keep. Separate yet connected to a life seen in depths not witnessed by passers by. My door is ajar, who will be my brave and ready companion to challenge, crack me open to the self I've yet to bear? My dreams of flight have at last returned, exuberant, painted, a warrior like dance on air only fully felt when rubble is brushed from my restricted path, the heavy dirt from my boots...years since such a dream was woken from with a taking back to the escape my childhood self knew, the saving sleep that kept me living, the enduring force of passionate quarrel I long...I am.

Let's get this party started.

Brexit was always a setup...leave campaigners could provide hope even if that hope was based on lies whereas remain campaigners could only really run a negative campaign, what leaving would mean for us, how leave campaigners are lying to us and setting up any evidence based fact sharing as 'project fear'. When people have been struggling due to austerity, hope is more powerful even if austerity was a political choice of our government and not the EU...people didn't have the time or wherewithal to fully understand the details, how they'd been lied to. The emotional pull of manipulation needs to be understood to comprehend how this works...if manipulation didn't work they wouldn't do it. May is now manipulating people into distrusting parliament...people who voted to leave have gone from hope to despair and anger again, the rest of us involved remain in despair and anger and look for hope in a people's vote, again, a road that will not put right what this government has put wrong. Trust in politics has never been so damaged. What we desperately need is a system that works for the people and not the minority the tory party has been bought and paid to syphon public money that's meant for public use into profiting the wealthy and corporate elite. People are then seduced into paying less tax as that tax isn't benefitting our communities and the cycle of corruption continues under a tory government. Can we say anything positive about remaining in the EU when it's our government causing the disenfranchisement of us all and where the EU can do nothing to prevent our domestic decline? Nor can the UN hold them to account...UK governments have routinely ignored international law, showing contempt for any body standing in their power hungry way. If you, the 'ordinary person' are not spitting furious with this government in particular or the system, you're not paying attention. Leaving the EU will free them up for greater corporate lobbying to make their own regulations on food, drink and environmental protections with the bottom line of maximising profit with no care what this means for us or the world...this has already been expressed as a positive, they will be free to dismantle human/workers rights and if you think we're not being heard now no matter how large the demonstration or protests think how it will be when they continue with their quest to silence us once and for all...they've already made striking much harder and removed workers rights for the first two years of employment! We can vote them out I hear you say...yeah, good luck with that one. Do you really think your vote is not subject to specific targetting if it mattered or they'd let us have Corbyn or any other 'radical reformer' as PM? No, we have to be fully awake and totally outraged before the toppling of such a corrupt system. Votes are won by deceit, that's how the tories keep winning and only Labour wins when there's a centrist leader brown nosing the elitist establishment. How can we turn this into a positive campaign? According to George Monbiot, we have to provide an alternative story, an economic model that gives us greater control over our communities, a public involvement on how our taxes are spent...these models are out there and working well for the people in parts of the world. How do we get there? How do we overthrow the right wing supporting media to have this story told so powerfully that people will rise up en masse to make the change we and this planet are in dire need of making? Do we have to fall so low before realizing our decline is because of the UK, not the EU?

Wholly broken.

Still scambling with projected hate when rejected by another...even if that other isn't wanted by me. The hurt never leaves when the loss of a mother's love continues...that loss derived when the child grows away from her encompassing grasp, her control, a natural separation from the womb into individual life. One gaping hole that can never be filled just lived and yet try to fill I carry on...distractions of varied and univeral kinds that connects all who know the inflicted upon life. I shall gave in to the pain, the tears and cry as I did when missing my father, remembering how he held responsible I for her from far too young an age to comprehend so he wouldn't have with her outragious displays of no repsonsibility taken dealt. My last conveyed anger with him when he came to reprimand yet again and in adulthood, a mother of my own children, I was relieved to have had before he died...in terms I told clear that he chose to marry the woman, that if he couldn't deal that is his problem to bear, not mine. I know he knew I was right, I know he loved me the best he could...I'm not so generous toward her although in distance I feel greater compassion than when in contection as then I'm pushed toward anger time and time again. It can be hard not when buttons are deliberately pushed even if not reacting externally at least...the frustration and confliction ensue when continuously abiding someone who claims to love treats in such a harmful way...my child within was tormented whilst realized this hatred she showed was and always will be her own.

I will untangle myself.

Internalizing another's projections of confusion, inconsistent and awry, is quite confusing me.

The curious case of it all. (Eric Roth the author, not Fitzgerald. I know!)

Loitering in the stratosphere, a wanton undependable or steadfast descent toward a solid footing I can barely tell...an unsettled toppling of preconceptions, a shift in the course from the blue I know not how nor why and in the fall I ponder. Compartmentalizing time, now for unplanned leisure, peeling back a layer of crusted protection and then for...I narrowly escape the plan I made, the confused construction of story to share by a whisper in my ear gently blowing the words "it's alright, now you can breathe" whatever the course of the other. The playing field is levelling but I am still a propertyless wretch scoring a home goal not to win any game. The spectator of repositioning. My journey is all I now have to share and in another rotation perhaps that tale too will turn to dust as daily the story is throwing up new truths once ardently sealed, perhaps to consolidation. Calmly unexpected expectance found untrustingly, gently pulling me to ground, a burial of birth anew shone upon, watered and ready to flourish then wither then live as the seasoned defenceless warrior comes to tend to wounds at last ready to heal. A hand upon my heart and all is well.

"Everything I know, I know because of love." Tolstoy.