Halloween darkness

I should adore Halloween.

I'm the girl who is obsessed with demons, vampires and witches, with gremlins and ghouls and things that go bump in the night.

Yet that's not what Halloween means to me.

I don't like the fancy dress costumes, the pumpkins or the trick or treating. I don't appreciate people setting out with the intention of frightening me with creepy tales.

So what does Halloween mean to me?

It reminds me that monsters aren't the fairytale beasts hiding under the bed nor the spooky presences that shimmer through the shadows. The monsters in our reality are not something that would look at home in a costume shop.

Our monsters are human beings.

They're the rapists, murderers and abusers that walk the streets amongst us. Our monsters don't wear masks or fancy dress. They're just wondering the winding path beside us like they've always belonged.

It's not Halloween that scares me, instead it is the brutal reminder that it's not the darkness we should be afraid of but those that walk alongside us in daylight.

Who am I?

Who am I?

Sounds like a simple enough question to ask but for me it's no longer an easy one to answer. I've always been very clear on who I am, what I stand for and where I'm heading. However now I can clearly state that is no longer the case.

I look myself in the eye when I stare into the mirror and I swear I no longer know the girl staring back at me.

I've always been someone who pushes myself, someone who would happily work every hour in the world if I could see what I was working for and I would commit myself to a project without question.

In the past few months I've had all of that repeatedly thrown back in my face over and over again. I've been forced to question everything I know and everything that I am.

My conclusion: Even I don't like the person I've become. I'm not entirely sure how to live with that, and I tell you now I've never been more disappointed in myself than I am right now.

Who even am I anymore?

Busy Times

So blogging has not been something that's seemed important to me recently, not because I don't like to blog but mainly due to my life becoming somewhat hectic in the last few months.

I guess it's easy when things are going well to forget what the difficult times are like, but let me tell you when they hit you they hit you hard.

With a work schedule that sees me up half the night on a good day it wouldn't have taken much for me to be knocked off course, and yet what actually happened in my life - whilst not seemingly dramatic to others - was significant enough to make me question everything that I hold dear.

I don't have a bad life, nor do I have a tough life, but what I do have is far more responsibility than I ever dreamed of having added to some immense pressures from other angles.

Basically a perfect storm of sleepless nights, feeling lousy and the ever changing sand shifting beneath my feet. No wonder I'm more tired now than I've ever been before.

For a while I truly started to look at myself in the mirror and wonder who I was, because the eyes staring back at me seemed to have no relation to the madness in my head. However slowly but surely I am beginning to take back little bits of myself with every passing day.

There have been some small minor victories, and some larger ones, there has been laughter as well as tears, and most importantly I'm beginning to realise what truly matters to me.

I think for the first time in a long time I have started to comprehend that I can do this. That I'm still me. And that somewhere inside me I'm a lot tougher than I give myself credit for.

Don't get me wrong, I've had more than one moment where I wanted to tell the world to sod off, crawl back under my blanket and enjoy the darkness but now every single thing I tick off my to do list is a positive step.

Today is a good day.

Gandi once said that you must be the change you wish to see within the world. I want the world to be a better place, therefore I've spent some time healing and I'm almost back, ready and raring to face the world once more.

To everyone who I have shut out, I look forward to catching up. To the people who are still there beside me, in spite of all my dark moods and angst, you'll never know how much that means to me.

I never want a summer like this again. However I will be stronger for it, and now I can face the future knowing I have a plan.

I'm glad I made it this far, there's still miles to go before I sleep but it's a start right?

Sorry for the rambling post, it's just sometimes what I really need to do is write things down. If I can put words to how I'm feeling, then I know I can begin to comprehend it, and recently I've been missing a whole heap of words. I'm just starting to have an understanding of what I'm feeling, where I'm going and how I'm going to get there. And now I can voice it I know what it is that I need to do.