Part 14. - The one in which I question the nature of love.

Credit ♥

I am done meeting men who have no interest in seeing the real me. The ones who give the once over with their eyes in the club and that is all they care about. What they see. That isn't who I am, and if you want to be with me, you should probably know...

I'm clumsy. So clumsy it's debatable as to how I've ended up as a waitress. I always seem to hurt myself, and break things, and trip up. If I told you I used to be a ballerina, I'm sure you'd think I was lying. My hair never lies right and my make up always runs, even if it isn't raining. I'm awkward and I always say the wrong thing. I have the oddest style, every day I look like i've lost a fight with my wardrobe. I'm a self confessed hopeless romantic. I pretend I'm jaded and bitter about love but it's a lie. I'm still waiting on my prince to come and rescue me even though my dad told me last week he's never going to come. My sister's shrink says my perception of real life and fantasy is unbalanced, she's never even met me. I laugh and smile, even when it's inappropriate because its how i've taught myself to stop crying. I cry a lot. I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm sad, I cry when I'm afraid, lost, hurt and lonely.. I cry with laughter. I like Disney, and somedays I'll want you to just sit with me and watch The Lion King or Cinderella, it's a real bonus if you know all the words too. I talk in my sleep and i've been told I steal all the quilt. I like to cook for two and I'm not too dreadful, I promise I won't poison you.

I'm not looking for a guy who has a fast car or lots of money.. but if you do have a car I love to sit in the passengers seat with my feet on your dash singing obnoxiously along with a mix tape. I don't want you to be into football, or many sports at all.. I'd prefer you to like books and music. Then maybe we could have a real conversation. I'm a sucker for a musician or an artist.. At the very least know how to pronounce Merlot properly, please. The sexiest thing a man can wear is a pair of Converse Allstars, I can assure you I'm already yours. Fight with me, argue, show you have an opinion. I was brought up being taught that being able to fight your corner was not a bad thing. It shows you have passion for something, and I like passion. I'm passionate, in love and in life. You need to be too, as I know i'm capable of walking all over you. I need a guy who'll keep me in my place, I'm a bitch otherwise and I'd hate to end up wearing the trousers, because I don't even wear trousers! Fight for me. Please show me chiverly isn't dead. If we have a fight show up at my door, at midday or midnight, it doesn't matter. You don't even have to say you're sorry because as soon as I see you on my doorstep, I'll melt and say it first.

What is love anyway? I constantly meet men and they ask for my number or kiss me before they should. I don't feel anything for them, and if I do recipricate as they wish me to it's because I've drank too much vodka... and then the men I do like, the ones that give me butterflies and when they text me it makes me day so much better and their smile just makes me melt, they never like me back like that. So what happens? Do I just keep kissing all these men until I find one who is everything I'm looking got and I have to hope that he feels that way about me.. I don't know how many more times I can fall for someone and have my heartbroken before I've even said "I love you" I'm getting so close to giving up now. I feel like everyday i'm less and less like the girl I was before and I'm becoming more jaded when it comes to love. Is romance slowly dying? Or maybe it's just me..

Maybe that's it.. it's me.

Part 13. - Home.

"Maybe surrounded by a million people I still feel all alone,
I just wanna go home. Oh I miss you, you know" - Home, Michael Buble"

I'm a small town girl and at eighteen, I left home. I have no plans to ever return home on a permanent basis but sometimes I just need to be there for a while. I don't fit in, I never had but it's like being cut off from the world. No one really knows who I am anymore so I can stay holed up for a while. I can hide under my quilt, I can sleep on the sofa and at certain times of the day I'm sent to the kitchen where there is food on the table waiting for me. It's home. There is my bed with my bedding on, there is my seat around the kitchen table, there are pictures of me on the wall, nothing ever changes and everything is familiar. None of my stuff is here, but I can be here and sometimes I need to be here. Being home this week has in fact come as a blessing, it's been planned for a while and i've had my tickets for week but it's come at the right time. I needed to escape this week, I needed to hole myself up, not wear make up, spend all day in my pjs and watch films guaranteed to make me cry.

I feel so drained. I've had such a trying time since arriving back in the country after my week in NYC. I'm tired of putting on a brave face and a big smile. I'm tired of pretending.. so for the next few days, I don't have to pretend i'm okay. I can sleep for what feels like one hundred years and I can cry, and it's okay. Right now I feel like crying a lot, and after I do cry, I feel better. My family are good at cheering me up too, they're crazy. It's what I love most about them. I love that my dad gets drunk and talks rubbish, I love that my mum does silly accents in the supermarket and I love that my sister and I have so many in jokes that there is always some horrific memory from our childhood we can drag up and laugh at.

Coming home when you live elsewhere is like a safety blanket. You pretend you don't need it but it's always there incase you do. I pretend all the time I don't need to go home, and nowadays I go away for longer and longer periods of time. When everything familiar in my real life starts to fall apart, I retreat and return home. When I broke up with BFG, I came home and that's when I decided what I was going to do. I make plans, I talk to people and then I'm ready to go back into the real world with my head held high. I can neatly fold away that security blanket and I'm able to stand up on my own. Everyone gets scared sometimes, I do. I'm terrified of so much, but I've learnt since May I'm perfectly able to brave. I'm so much braver than I ever used to be, even if a lot of that bravery is in the form of perfected pretend smiles.

I don't think I'll be ready to go back come Thursday. Everything is such a mess right now and I can't seem to figure out how to fix it. I need a plan, I like plans. I like to be spontanious but if I let myself be spontanious right now it would be goodbye savings, hello Heathrow airport.. I used to be convinced that if I disappeared, no one would notice, well BFG wouldn't notice. When I left, I was fine.. but that old insecurity is creeping back again. A lot of old insecurities are creeping back again and I'm struggling to convince myself otherwise.

Why is everything always so complicated?

Part 11. - "Happy girls are the prettiest" Audrey Hepburn

This won't be a long one as I have a pile of clothes on my bedroom floor that needs put away before I fall asleep (having blissful dreams of Brad Pitt, induced by the fact I'm watching Meet Joe Black for the very first time, I hope it's as good as i've been informed it is.) But for the first time in a long time, I can say I'm spending more time happy than I am upset or confused. Yes, I still have those days, those days I don't want to get out from under my quilt, when everything in life seems hopeless and pointless. I still sometimes don't understand things in life, sometimes I'm as lost and confused as I ever was. I'm probably always deep down going to be an Alice lost in Wonderland.

Here are somethings that make me happy in life, it really is the little things with me.

• Bubble Baths in the evenings.
  Candles, lush bubble bar, glossy magazine (Vogue, Instyle, Elle, Glamour, Harpers Bazaar, something high end of course) and a glass of wine. I was told recently that it seemed very glamourous, it's just how I relax and the bathroom smells so good afterwards.
  
• Lunch with the girls.
  It started off once a week, now it's ending up three or four times a week. Never anywhere classy or expensive but the company is wondeful as is the chats we have. I often do lunch with the two loveliest girls from work or out with my gorgeous housemates.
  
• Singing along with and dancing around to Musical Sountracks.
  Nothing makes me happier than putting on a musical soundtrack and having a good sing song while I do the housework. I love a bit of Wicked or Rent or Chicago, and i've recently discovered a love for Nine and The Last 5 Years (which I saw in Edinburgh on the Fringe)
• Cheap Disney DVDs
  My flatmate K told me that CEX sometimes does cheap discontinued Disney DVDs, last week I treated myself to The Lady and the Tramp for £10. My dad also bought me Dinosaur (not exactly one of my favourites) but it was a nice surprise. They're also two for £15 at Tescos just now.
  
• Afternoon Naps
  Makes me feel like a student again, but they're just so good.
• Half price food days and drink nights at my favourite bars.
  This goes along with lunch with the girls, 50% off at Slug and Lettuce on Monday, then two for one cocktails on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Half price food and drink at Dogma on a Sunday and Tuesday and 50% off at Vodka Revolution on a Tuesday.
• Britain's Next Top Model Final and new cycle of America's Next Top Model.
  As one of my guy friends so kindly put it last night, vanity TV.. but I can't help it. I love it and it's addictive. Much better than X Factor...
• Buying train tickets home.
  I've been really home sick lately, don't know why to be honest. But all I seem to do is work and then I still never have money to do anything which is frustrating. But I'm booked to go home for a few days next month, then today I was talking to my mum about Christmas... going home is the only reason I'm looking forward to it.
• When a guy tries to prove not all guys are jerks.
  I work with this guy who seems determined to prove to me not all men want to jerk me around. It's really quite sweet of him but he has a girlfriend and I don't want to put her back up.
• Days off.
  Who doesn't love a day off work?

There is probably so much more that's making me happy right now, but I'm tired and not actually that happy at this very present moment (very long and pretty bad day). Tomorrow is a day off so hopefully that alone will have me smiling. Goodnight.

Part 10. - The One in Which I Have a Break Through in Life.

“In three words I can sum up everything i’ve learned about life - it goes on.”
- Robert Frost

Why am I always inspired to write at such inappropriate times? It's 2:38am and I'm sat cross legged on my bed, in my underwear cause it's so hot eating a bowl of cereal, probably not something anyone wants to imagine, but hey this is real life. I suddenly don't feel tired, but this could be because my room is strangely hot but I feel like I could write. So here I am, writing.

You meet people in life that you can just about have any conversation with and some of these conversations you have make you think. Not just about the conversation themselves, but about life and you end up assessing how you feel about things. You find yourself looking at things from a new perspective. I feel like that tonight. For some strange reason, I feel refreshed about certain aspects of my life this evening which is surprising since the conversations I had were about death and going to hell (which is actually one of our favourite topics of conversation, morbid much?)

While I was combing out my hair and taking off my make up, I ended up thinking about how I'm one of these girls that always wishes life was something else or that people would act a certain way towards me. I seem to spend all my time wishing I was someone else or I was older or younger, instead of looking at it exactly as it is and being happy about it. Because if I do look at it, there is a lot to be happy about it. Yes it's not perfect, yes I'd like Michael Cera to come and sweep me off my feet, but if i'm realistic, that is never going to happen. I need to accept this and get on with what I do have.

Just because I'm broke and I work as a waitress doesn't mean this is all i'm ever going to be. I'm twenty two and I love the people I get to spend every day of my life with. Yes, sometimes when we spend hours on end in each others hair we do all get catty and bitchy but they're some of the nicest and most caring people I've ever worked with. They're the kinda people who care about you and your life. If your sad, they want to know why, if something good as happened they want to hear about it and even though we all mutually agree we'd rather be else where we'd all be much more unhappy without one another around. And as for money, well we all know the saying "money can't buy you happiness" but it can help and that's the truth. I know I could be much more comfortable with money, but some people have to be broke and for the time being, that's me. I need to embrace it and find ways to have fun without money. Money can't buy me love (yes it could buy me sex, but that's hardly the same now, is it?) and I'm not always going to be a waitress, I just haven't figured out what I'm going to do yet... but when I do, I know it's going to be something great.

Just because I don't look like the girls on Britain's Next Top Model doesn't mean I'm not semi attractive. I need to learn to accept the fact I'm not Rachel Mcadams or Natalie Portman and be okay with this. I do have to admit since my break up back in May, I have been so much happier being me. I mean, dropping two dress sizes and finally having a hair style I sort of like has helped a lot... But I have accepted that I'm not the worst looking girl out there. Every girl has self esteem issues, whether they admit it or not. But for everything we think negative about ourselves perhaps we should look at a positive. For example, I hate my arms, but I'm told more often than not that I have nice legs. I'm always going to have this gawky smile, bad skin and hair that never lies flat, but I'm petite and I have nice eyes that sort of balances it out. I also have a cool accent that people focus on instead of the way I look. I think I'm okay with being me now, I think I can stop pretending I'm someone else.

Just because the undefinable semi relationship I do have isn't classic Hollywood romance, doesn't mean I should be oh so dramatic and miserable about it. Instead I should enjoy the fact that I have someone who walks me home and kisses me goodnight on my door step. He's someone I can actually hold a conversation with, and he makes me laugh, and if it comes to nothing more, I should be happy I had at least that. I like spending time with him (and I hope he likes spending time with me), and I miss him when I don't see him for a few days, and whether he admits it or not, I know he misses me (sorry, but if you read this, yes you do). I'm sorry I'm impatient, I am happy that I met you.

Just because this isn't exactly the life I'd want to have, I have to stop wishing I could switch with someone else. If I'm not happy with something, I need to change it myself. No one else is going to do it for me and if I can't change it right off, I need to be happy with what I have. I'm not talking about settling, no one should have to settle, but fuck, I'm much luckier than some people. I need to stop wishing in my life and start living it, otherwise I'm going to end up old and wishing I was young to do it all again. I do have everything I want, but I'm going to mess it up or realise it too late. Who needs anymore than a man to kiss, friends to love, a means of making money (even if it is soul sucking as all jobs are), fun, laughter, food and a roof over their head... looking at my life I have all that. I need to stop. I'm stopping. I am. Because, put like I have right now, I am happy. I'm happy being me.


I can never get today back, and tomorrow will never be the same as yesterday. I'll never get to be this age again, I'll never have this moment and every time I wish I was being somebody else that's a minute of my life gone. I'm not perfect, so it's apt I have a very imperfect life but maybe my life would feel more perfect for me if I embraced it as it is? As Jonathon Larson so beautifully puts it in his musical Rent "forget regret or life is yours to miss". And as cliche as it is, I'm the one holding the pen here, I need to stop scribbling.

Part 8. - All Change Again

My life is so incredibly messed at the moment, that once again everything is changing around me but I'm still standing in one place, part of me wishes I was the one moving. It would be much easier if that was the case. But life goes on, we pick up the pieces of the mess we've made and we build something new. That's the way of the world and maybe, eventually we'll build something we truly love.

Isn't it funny how you can be incredibly happy with life and incredibly pissed off at it at exactly the same time? That's how I feel right now. Some factors of my life just make it worth living, for example going out for dinner with my flatmates on Sunday, it was so amazing that it deserves a whole post of it's own which I may actually do this evening. Other parts of my life however are just so stressful, examples being men, not just in my life but how they treat my friends. It infuriates how men claim how difficult women are, how women play games when we don't. Men play games, they never say how they feel or what they want and just leave you to work it out yourself. My job also. But that isn't even something worth going into or something I'd want anyone who reads this to care about.

I've learned so much over the past few months about life, friendships and priorities. Like I've said, I'm happy most of the time. I actually for the first time in years feel like I have a life. I go out to lunch, I go out drinking, I go to the cinema and it's nice. I feel like a twenty two year old again. And yes it's not perfect and it's not exactly what I want as of yet but I'm happy while I decide what it is I want to do. Who I want to be.

To be continued..

Part 7. - The Wonders of Catharsis

"Sometimes when we weep in the movies we weep for ourselves or for a life unlived. Or we even go to the movies because we want to resist the emotion that's there in front of us. I think there is always a catharsis that I look for and that makes the movie experience worthwhile." - Edward Zwick.

Catharsis, in the dramaturgical sense is the emotional cleansing of the audience and/or characters in a play. Of course, having been a drama student in the past, some days I feel the need for some catharsis in my every day life, be it that I'm angry or sad or even incredibly happy. I find the best way to do this is through reading or watching a particular movie. Trying to build a new life is an emotional trial, and in the future I will look back and not envy anyone trying to do it. This week alone I've managed to go through a roller coaster of emotions, some of my own and some on behalf of friends, ranging from being very happy, to falling, to being so angry, to being so afraid. These emotions are the ones the Ancient Greeks felt the need to purge through going to the theatre. However it being late on a Friday night, I had to settle for a movie. A favorite cathartic movie of mine, is Moulin Rouge, directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan Mcgregor, which was my choice for the evening.

Although I occassionally watch Moulin Rouge because sometimes you do just need to sit and cry, not because you're miserable but because you have things you feel like you want to cry about and once you have you feel better for it, but because it's such a beautiful film. I feel like I'm a true bohemian, the values of freedom, beauty, music and love are important in my life. I love the passion, the songs, the colours, the costumes, but above all, I love the story. It's a love story of epic proportions, you cannot help but be swept away in the whirlwind romance of Satine and Christian. It makes you believe in love. You believe they love one another, but of course that's probably because they're good at acting. I always sit and watch while hugging my pillow, wishing for such romance, passion and undenyable romance in my life. However, Moulin Rouge, isn't a wishy washy love story, I personally feel it personifies the distructiveness of love. This is most apparant in The Tango Roxanne. I usually end up with goosebumps because the song is just how I understand jealousy to be. It's dark, it's damaging but in the same time, you cannot have jealousy without the love, without the passion because otherwise you would have nothing to be jealous of. People do crazy things when they're in love, either because of the love or because of the envy, the two are ultimately connected.

After the movie was finished and I was suffering from a post movie break down headache, I did feel better. I was in a strangely better place, I'd cried, gotten over some issues and was ready to carry on. It's surprising, the wonders a few tears can do. I mean, I cry a lot and I'm one of the few that can cry on cue. But after a genuine heart felt cry, where you just cry for everything in your life you feel sad about, it's very freeing and relieving. Just the same as when you giggle inappropriately for what seems to no reason to anyone else but you. But you know it's because in that moment, no matter how long it lasts or doesn't, you don't care about anything else, and you're genuinely happy.

For reference, I find the following, excellent catharsis material for anyone who needs a good cry.

• A Walk to Remember
  The movie, with Mandy Moore. I first watched it at a friends birthday, I was warned it was sad but I seriously had no idea HOW sad.
  
• The Time Travelers Wife
  The movie is sad, but the book is so much worse. I think I cried for the last 100 pages or so.
  
• Little Women
  Both the movie and the book. I remember watching some Top 100 Family Movies and they showed the bit where Beth is saying goodbye to Jo and withing a minute I was in floods of tears!
• Rent
  I Will Cover You Reprise. Enough said.
  

There are so many more, but for me, these three are true tearjerkers, without a doubt provoke a purge of emotions.

Part 5. - The Good Day Vs Bad Day Debate

My life is currently in a state of transition, and when you're living in a transition, you always have good days and bad days. I often find myself wondering, as I met so many others do, about what makes a truly bad day and what can make an amazing day. This week it was highlighted more than usual for me. The day I was supposed to enjoy, the one that was supposed to be my good day, was Wednesday, my one day off from work this week. It started off pleasant enough. I went into town, chilled out, bought some new books, had a Starbucks Seattle Latte but then I came home and my mood just dipped. I had a melt down over finances (as the newly single girl so often does), I had a tizz over the fact my flatmates had their guys over and I was sat in my room having said melt down about said finances. I ended up walking across town at 10pm on my own to see a friendly face and help put a desk together. I came back about midnight argued with another friend then went to sleep, simply because that day just had to end.

Yesterday on the other hand, should of been a very bad day. It was chucking it down with rain, I had to walk to work in the rain and then I had to set up for an event at work, by lugging chairs around in the rain. I ended up soaked to the skin with hair that resembled a white girls 'fro. But still I was smiling. Maybe it was the company I was keeping? Who knows. I then came home, had an amazing bath with one of the best Lush bubble bar's I've ever used Marzibain. It smelt like Amaretto and was simply amazing. Then I cooked chicken chili (as Tesco's had no lean mince) and settled down to watch Up. Today again should of been a bad day, I was running late for work and had to pretty much run up the hill. I was suffering from neglect since my parents and sister buggered off for two weeks in the sunshine without me. However here I am, at twenty past two in the morning, still smiling from the day before and the fact I have a long shift at work tomorrow, beginning in less than twelve hours, still isn't enough to ruin my good mood. Tonight I know it was because of good company, spending the evening with B has become a weekly bitch, laugh and cry session and is clearly the therapy I need to get through these trying times.

Some mornings I wake up and struggle to get out of bed. I lie there and it's like my very exsitance is being held down to the bed and as I try and sit up it pulls me back. Those are the days I think are going to be dreadful. It feels as if all the colour has drained from my life and i'm not simply a black and white two dimensional being, much like an old photograph. Those are the days I know I'm alone. But, I find it funny how even though the day could start off bad, it could improve with the littlest of things. For example, if one of my housemates have left me a note on the white board on our fridge telling me how hot I am. Or a text from B saying she's in town and wonders if I'd like to go for coffee. Or even a card from back home telling me I'm missed. No day is truely ever doomed to be bad just because it starts off grey and gloomy. Just like the sky, it can start clouded over but sometimes is blue sky by four in the afternoon. Weather is fickle like that, as is life.

Part 1. - This is a Story of a Girl.

"There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love." - Clare Abshire, The Time Travelers Wife

Sometimes endings are for the best, for example, sometimes you watch a sequel and realize that the end of the first movie should have been it. Or the end of the day when you crawl into bed with your loved one, or put your children to bed and have a well earned rest. Or the end of an especially hard shift at work, when you walk outside and inhale that fresh air smell of freedom. How about the end of a school year, especially when you know you have an excellent summer ahead of you? Everything in life has a beginning, a middle and an end, everything you do, everything you experience. Even life itself. Sometimes endings are hard, but after every ending, you have to remember something new is about to begin.

Seventy Seven Broadway, had to end as that part of my life had ended. I’m beginning a new kind of life, and with this new kind of life, comes a new kind of blog. A blog about an ordinary every day girl.

I love reading chick lit books, I love feeling like I could be the heroine of the book.. but in 9 cases out of 10, there is still something extra ordinary about the girl that I sometimes think I could be. Something extra ordinary that makes her worth having a story about her.. like she has a job where she can jet off to exotic places. Or she has money. Or connections. But what about the ordinary every day girl who’s trying to make her mark on the world? Someone with no special job, with little money and no connections. Someone like me? Does that mean my life isn’t worthy of a story? Sometimes I wish there were stories about real girls like me. Just so I know I’m not alone in the world, that there are other girls like me out there, the ordinary original ones. The ones who screw up often, make a fool of themselves. The ones who are afraid of being afraid.

My ex often told me how boring I am, but I know I’m not, and I know my life isn’t boring. I’d never let my life get boring because of the fact I’m so easily bored. I’m not someone who is content sitting around doing nothing, I always have to be doing something! But to him, I was boring. And hell, did that hurt... sometimes I’d start to think maybe I was. When you’re told something over and over again you start to believe it. I was told a lot of things at school, if my high school was the one from Glee, I’d be the one getting a slushy in her face. But I know it was because I was different from the socially accepted norm. I preferred the arts to sports and I didn’t drink or smoke or sleep with all the boys in my year. I used to be that good girl so back then, yes, maybe I was a little boring. I liked Shakespeare, and languages and playing the flute. But I know as soon as I left Berwick High School, I changed, and I know from then on, I was definitely anything but boring.

I’m off on a tangent. I apologize.

I’m now a twenty two year old girl, getting lost in the real world, fresh out and surviving the worst kind of heart break. I’m aspiring to be everything I’m not. I’m planning on seeing the world, one postcard place at a time. Loving, living and losing every day. I’m going to be the heroine of my own story, just an ordinary girl, doing every day things. I hope that perhaps this blog will be an inspiration for anyone else who has to one day pack up and leave their old life, move across the country and try and start something new. I hope one day I can read back and be proud of what i’ve accomplished, and most of all, I hope I can give all my followers a good laugh along the way.

So welcome to my world.