Some days.

Some days are just shit. There's no other word for it. From the little things not going right to the big things going very wrong. And there's nothing you can do. You're just left floating there hoping that soon you'll find something, or someone to clutch on to. Someone to cry with, someone who will pry a smile out of you even if it's forced and through sobs and gasps for breath. That's what today feels like. I feel like the walls are closing in on me and there's nothing I or anyone else can do to stop it. It will happen whether I react or notice or not. Helpless, is how I feel. From the aches deep in your bones to the exhaustion under your eyes, some days are just too hard. A strong cuppa, a nice tea, and maybe that doesn't even help. Bed. That's what helps. Resetting. Restarting. The only real cure for a bad day is an end. The only consolation anyone can draw from a bad day is it's definitive ending. Tomorrow may be worse, but the possibility is there: tomorrow just may be better than today, and sometimes that's all you need to know.  

Collateral.

Gripping with my hands, for something more or less helpful. The pain keeps moving. A dull, achey, intolerable kind of pain. It's friday. It's raining. And at risk of sounding melodramatic, EVERYTHING HURTS. From my tongue, to my toes, my  kneecaps to my eye lashes, I'm an aching, stumbling, wreck of a person. A former shell of myself. Today marks six days since I got back from Menorca to rainy, cold Newcastle. Since then, if I haven't been sleeping or eating, drinking or moaning, I've spent every minute with my boyfriend, Lukas. Who, I may add, I missed unbelievably when I was away. 

However, today is supposed to be good. It's Friday. Excitement fills the air and fuels the parties. And then there's me. I am currently showered and dressed and have crawled back into bed as a way of channeling pain. This is definitely a holiday comedown. No more sun. A severe lack of Vitamin D, or actually light whatsoever. I'm burried under a tartan blanket and hoping, -no, praying, someone brings me coffee and a sausage sandwich to my bed. I don't know what a Friday feeling is meant to feel like, but aching bones and heavy eyelids aren't exactly a great sign. I'm craving autumn. Let me bury under wooly knitted jumpers and wear boots and my parka again. Cosy. 

Forgotten raindrops.

 

This is the view from my bedroom window at present. It's raining. It has been for about four hours now. I might add, that in the small world that is Chester-Le-Street, it pretty much rains non-stop. The greying clouds have set in, however, spirits aren't dampened. Its Friday after all, and "we won't melt if it rains" is something my mam always says. I'm uninspired, lazy and apathetic today. Worrisome, stress and out of sorts. I don't feel ill, I just feel, well, not quite myself (or on-point, yes... go on, laugh you lot!) With a family holiday around the corner and Final Year on the horizon, I'm supposed to be all chip and cheerful and optimistic. This isn't me. I feel all empty and bored. I need to set my sights high and my act together. I need a reading list sorted, my iPod updated (which may be one of the most gruelling tasks ever pre-holiday) and a desperate plea for inspiration where my ECP is concerned. This is rubbish writing, basically. Side note: A massive, lovely happy birthday greeting to my favourite girl and wonderful writer, Gracie. Enjoy today. You bloody well deserve this.

So, with Little By Little playing on a loop, the rain falling like teardrops staining my double-glazed portal to the outside world, and the irritable feeling of being unsettled, I sign off. Have a lovely weekend, wherever you are. Monday, my strict healthy eating starts, my early morning awakenings and the feeling of constructive tasks commences. Oh well, good intentions are a start, aren't they?

Don't ever say you're lonely.

The taboo you're never supposed to say. Not banned, not illegal and yet, if you start spouting it here, there and everywhere, you'll start to cause offense. Backlash. People around you will begin to feel distant, insulted, put-out. But still, sometimes the feeling prevails, and on rare occasions, you blurt out the thing that any self respecting human being isn't supposed to say.

"I'm lonely." 

Why? What? Has something happened? Who have you fell out with? Questions gushing in. In reality, it's probably nothing. Maybe there's no one you're blaming. No one making you feel alone and isolated. No one that abandons you or makes you feel small. No one, that is, except you. You can have the most amazing support system around you, and still, sometimes, it's possible to feel really quite lonely. Whether there's someone holding your hand, or at the other end of the phone, or if they have their arms wrapped around your waist. I feel guilty, because I feel this way. I have the most amazing boyfriend, wonderful family and brilliant friends, and all I can think of today is loneliness. I should just shrug it off. It's just 'one of those things' that will pass. Exhaustion, routine, boredom, space, whatever it is that makes me feel like this, I haven't a clue. I feel like I try to push people away when really, they're the ones I need the most. If I don't understand my reasoning behind it, how can anyone else? 

All I can ask of you is this; don't give up on me. Bare with me. If I doubt myself, reassure me. If I feel down, try to make me feel more like myself. The smallest of gestures can go a really long way. No one is negative forever. 

Would you like a gag with that compliment?

Receiving a compliment is weird. It's kind of positive, but it's also kind of negative in one sense. While I like to think I'm quite good at accepting compliments, (not because I'm vain, or think the person is right in what they say) but purely because I think sometimes, it's better to accept a compliment, than deny it and somewhat publicly humiliate the complimenter by throwing it back in their face. Its like, that just isn't very polite. I also feel that if I deny a compliment, someone might actually take offense and feel that I'm being weird and stand-offish, when that wouldn't actually be the case.

Meanwhile, refusal to accept a nice remark or comment made by someone, whether it be a friend, relative or stranger, can actually make you question yourself further. Someone recently told me they thought I was pretty, and I immediately jumped up, defensively, and shrugged off their compliment, when deep down I could have (and should have) just smiled and realised that actually it was a nice comment coming from a nice place. While this person was complimenting me, I was going over and over in my head listing the things that were, in my opinion, wrong with myself, both internally and externally, and why, in my opinion, this comment was not fitting for little old me. Compliments are sometimes back-handed, yet this is unintentional. Cue a Mean Girls quote: "Oh my god, I love your bracelet, where did you get it?" and shrink back with disdain and hatred we collectively share for arch-nemesis and ultimate bitch, Regina George. What about these: "Is your hair different, it looks nice" makes you think "does it look a mess usually?" "Have you lost weight?" Is that a hint that you probably need to shed a few pounds? A comment on your physical appearance makes you feel analysed and subjected, and yet happy/sad/worried at the same time. I don't ever think I've had bundled of self-confidence, but every so often, there will be peaks and troughs, just a everyone has.

When someone comments positively about me, maybe I don't believe them because previously, someone who has said the same or a similar thing, turned out to be lying/not really bothered/not who I thought they were, so maybe their judgement isn't to be trusted. Am I afraid of what the compliment means, in both surface meaning and deeper meaning? Yes. What if someone I like tries to flatter me and I turn all gullible and believe every word they breathe in my presence, then later turn out to have been taken for a ride, and end up looking stupid and foolish. Yet another reason to avoid accepting and believing compliments. An outfit praise, a "thin" comment or a realisation that my hair is different to what it was yesterday can all spark the same gut-wrenching reaction. We jerk backwards. We recoil. We hide away from the positives and seemingly attract the negatives like magnets. It is, of course, proven that while you can receive a hundred compliments and doubt every single one, yet one insult or negative comment, and it will dwell and stay with you for years.

Ross: Rach, come on, look, I know how you must feel.

Rachel: No, you don't, Ross. Imagine the worst things you think about yourself. Now, how would you    feel if the one person you trusted most in the world not only thinks them too, but actually uses them as reasons not to be with you.

Ross: No, but, but I wanna be with you in spite of all those things.

Rachel: Oh, well, that's, that's mighty big of you.

Ross: You know what? You know what? If things were the other way around, there's nothing you could put on a list that would ever make me not want to be with you.

Rachel: Well I guess that's the difference between us. See, I'd never make a list.

BFU: Big Fat Users.

I hate them, you hate them, everybody on the planet hates them. There isn’t a more gut-wrenching feeling than finding out that someone who you previously trusted, has, in fact, just been using you, leading you on, or just being waiting to blurt out your deepest, darkest secrets.

No matter how many messages you send, smiles you flash or kisses you share, there’s always a distinct possibility that that someone is using you. Do people get a kick out of it? Do they like the attention but nothing more? Are they serious commitment-phobes? What is it? Do they just like screwing around. All of the above seem applicable in my case. I don’t understand why someone would go out of their way to lead me on, and then slag me off, and belittle me in front of their friends. It’s not big, it’s not clever, it doesn’t make you a LAD. It makes you a first-grade douche bag or a down-right bitch, an award that not even the most ignorant of you want to willingly accept. 

Whether it's a guy you currently have feelings for, a friend who you always think has somewhere they'd rather be or just someone who goes out of their way to make you feel like you're second-rate, they're all equally as bad as each other. It's annoying and from time to time, I want to casually approach them and scream something degrading and insulting right in their small little faces. It's an awful, cruel thing to do, and so many lovely, genuine people I know have been screwed over, turned down or humiliated, because of someone they know, and at one point, trusted just a bit too much. 

These people don't even deserve the attention or the acknowledgement they'd receive from a blog post such as this one, but my anger needs to be released in a less conflicting way than throwing a punch (or more likely a drink) over said culprit. Either way, all you undeserving, innocent bystanders, presumably all share my hatred for such kinds of people. I don't know what makes them think they're "entitled" to treat others in such a way, or what kind of kick they get out it. It's unacceptable, ruthlessly vicious and down-right uncalled for, but those BFU's still feel the need to pick up and drop people like it's some kind of sport.

I guess all we can do, as the (somewhat) innocent parties, is act like we aren't even phased by it, show we are in fact The Bigger People, and occasionally (really, ONLY occasionally) give them a taste of their own, bitter medicine.