Dark Noise

Sometimes the words just need to get out of my head. Sometimes the feelings and emotions just get all jumbled up. 

Dark noise

The dark tentacles of the imminent night drew down across the sky, strangling the last remaining elements of sunset that reddened the horizon, bringing with them a stillness that gave a cool glaze to the bare skin of her arms. Her unblinking eyes, puffy from the icy grip of the now ever present salty tears, stared longingly into the distance, desperately willing the blackness drowning out the light to envelop her completely. Her fingers danced a light touch across her wrist, drawing strength from the knowledge that the uneven surface they skimmed across was the result of her own rhythmic handiwork and yet she knew that her control was diminishing with every passing moment.

Instinctively she shuddered, the cold air seeping through her cotton pyjamas and bleeding into every fibre of her being. The intense ache that circled her jarred agonisingly against her aching bones and she sunk to her knees, curling herself up into a tiny ball in a failed attempt to shut out the world. She screwed her eyes up, overcome with a desire to quell the omnipresent noise that raged like thunder inside her head. Her mind had been racing for what felt like a lifetime, thoughts of all that she had lost, all that she had to lose and all that she would leave behind growing louder by the second until they consumed her.

The silent scream that escaped her lips caused her to break, a flood of emotion rushing out of her as if a dam had inextricably burst, pooling around her on the ground. Her eyes fluttered momentarily before they wedged themselves firmly shut, closed for eternity as the tension in her body climaxed fleetingly before draining completely leaving her sprawled lifelessly in the peace of the dark forevermore. 

June Challenge: 30 days of blogging

I completed the 30 days of blogging challenge on Sunday, bringing to conclusion an interesting month of frequent postings and random musings on predetermined subjects. I only really started the process to see where it would take me but actually I've learned some interestingly striking things along the way that I thought I would share.

Firstly I've learned that when I'm being a stroppy cow I find it difficult to focus on a specific subject when the topic has been dictated to me. As a result a number of my postings were delayed whilst I worked hard to convince my brain to comply with what was required.

Secondly I've learned that I do not like to fail at anything so even when I got behind on posting on a few occasions I refused to give up and stayed up late to catch up on the entries I missed. It turns out that I set quite high expectations on myself and no one is harder on me than I am when I do not achieve these.

I also learned that I hate being told what to do as whether I was being asked to rant about something or just post a picture it was never what I felt like doing and I almost ended up eyeing my blog suspiciously to see if it had ulterior motives for making me deal with a particular topic.

Lastly I found the whole process vaguely cathartic in that by being pushed to consider what it is that I love, memories of my past and my concerns or worries about the future I managed to get some concepts down on paper that had been rattling around inside my head for a while. It's always nice to be reminded of a happy childhood moment and whilst less lovely it is incredibly timely for me to be considering my emotional status.

All in all the process both made sense to me but also completely frustrated me. However it has kept me blogging this past month and that at least is something I wish to continue.

June Challenge: Day 30: My reaction to the term: Letting Go

Day 30, Sunday:  My reaction to the term: Letting Go

What does letting go mean? Letting go means permitting something or someone to leave without arguing about it or trying to prevent them. It means losing my best friend to a terrible terminal medical condition but doing it with the most positive attitude that I can so that she doesn't have to watch me cry. 

Letting go is the hardest thing in the world to do because sometimes all you want to do is dig your heels in, throw a strop and tell the world to sod off because you want whatever it is to stay. 

I don't think I can give a coherent answer to this right now because the very concept of letting go of Emma and allowing her to die with good grace and dignity is something I have to do, even though every part of me wants to grab her by the hand and hold onto her sobbing my heart out until its all over. 

What do you do when the very thing you are being asked to let go is the one thing you know you can't live without? These days I get pissed off, I cry and I get angry - I hate that I am no longer in control of my own emotions but with everything else bubbling just underneath the surface I can't do anything different right now.

Soon I will have to let her go. Now I just have to hold her hand and hope that for now at least she stays.

June Challenge: Day 21: A list of links to my favorite posts on my blog.

Day 21, Friday: A list of links to my favorite posts on my blog.

So this is delayed from Friday, but never mind. My five current favourite posts from this blog. I think each speaks for itself if you read them. 

Longleat - Animal Magic

My favourite poem - Desiderata

My favourite quotes - June Challenge 4

Childhood stories & finding Heidi - June Challenge 18

Glasgow, sitting and the wonderful Toni

June Challenge: Day 20: Get real

Day 20, Thursday: Get real. Share something I’m struggling with right now.

Apologies for the delay. I have been putting off writing this for days, not because I did not know what to say but more that I was not sure how to say it. Things have gone very well for me this week, in terms of getting where I wanted to be - or at least thought I wanted to be, and yet ever since I have had this feeling that I am drowning under the weight of expectation. 

I have not been able to work out if this is just a result of me being worried about the pressure and stress to come, plus the consequential workload heading in my direction, or whether there is something more to it. All I know right now is that I am doubting my ability to cope.

The strangest part of all this is that everyone else around me is telling me I can do this, in fact each person who I count as someone I respect has individually told me how much they wanted me to get where I have and how they feel they cannot do this without me. I know I should be taking this as a compliment and enjoying basking in the glory of having people support me, but their words are having the opposite impact. If anything they feel like they are pushing me further under the water and preventing me from resurfacing. 

There is now so much at stake and so many people riding on me getting things working that I appear to have lost all confidence in what I do. I know deep down I love my life, my career and everything within it but right now I just want to turn out the lights, snuggle under the covers and wake up next year. 

What do you do when at the moment in time everyone around you places their trust in you to make things better you lose faith in yourself? Am I full of self-doubt for no reason? After all I would put my trust in the decisions of these people for every other matter that counts so why do I not believe them now? Or are their loyalties misplaced and am I about to royally screw up? 

I've had to make some tough calls the past few weeks and have stood up to be counted on more than one occasion. Usually I can trust my own judgement above other people's and I know myself inside and out. So why right now when I really need me to work hard, make decisions and steer this ship do I appear to have forgotten how to steer?

Drowning is not a pleasant sensation but I seem to have lost what little ability I had to swim. 

Save me? Or at least remind me how to save myself?

June Challenge: Day 19: Going off challenge

My blog post from yesterday was meant to be about blogs that I read but that turned out to be something I could not answer very effectively. It's not that I don't read blogs, more that with the exception of two friends who blog a lot there aren't particular blogs I follow. I tend to be led to someone's page by a link being tweeted to me and as a result I couldn't name my top 5.

That having been decided I needed to work out what to do in terms of the blog challenge that meant I wasn't skipping days out. So here I am writing yesterday's blog post and so far it's about nothing in particular.

I guess I could come up with something eminently suitable if I really put my mind to it but where is the fun there? Instead I'm just rambling whilst on a train on my way to work, which is where I write most of my blogs. It's the hour of my day when all I can do is sit back and think; something which I've acknowledged before I don't do enough of.

Did this blog hit the challenge? No.
Did you learn anything significant about me from this post? No.
Was it worth reading? For you right now probably not.

However for me today with my head so crowded with confusion, noise and stress you have no clue how useful it is to occasionally just put down exactly what is in my head on paper and allow myself to ramble wherever my mind takes me.

Off challenge and off topic but clearing my mind was worth it.

Desiderata

Sometimes you just read something that touches your heart and moves your soul. If ever you were going to have a way to live your life it is by the words of the poem in the link below. 

Today I've been thinking a lot, especially about the people that matter the most to me. Emma, Toni, Brooke, Abbey. Those who've been there for me and those I've tried to be there for. 

I wish I could be the person who lived up to the words in this. To two of you I say thank you so much for the past few days, to two of you I apologise more than you'll ever know. 

We are all children of the universe. Be yourselves. I love you for that. It is a beautiful world, its just sometimes we can't see it.

"Desiderata - Words for Life by Max Ehrmann

June Challenge: Day 18: Tell a story from my childhood

Day 18, Tuesday: Tell a story from my childhood. I will try to dig deep and try to be descriptive about what I remember and how I felt.

When I was six years old we went on a family holiday to Weymouth. When I say we I mean myself, my parents and Tink, who was 2 1/2 at the time. We stayed in a guesthouse on the sea front and had some great times. We sat on the beach, we went to a model train place (Pecorama) in Beer, and generally enjoyed ourselves. We played mini golf one night at what felt to me like midnight but was probably just 6pm or something. We ate fish and chips, ice cream and laughed a lot. 

I have real memories of smiling a lot that holiday but one memory stands out more than most. We met a girl called Heidi in the guesthouse who was a little older than I was and I thought she was amazing, in that I want to be just like her because she is perfect kind of way. My family and I spent the day at a Sea Life Centre which was brilliant and whilst there Tink and I had our faces painted. I was so happy and thought I was the coolest girl in the world, especially when Heidi smiled at me on my return. 

When I had to leave for home I was gutted I wasn't going to see Heidi again, but then this wonderful thing happened. In a shop we found a little cuddly rabbit that lived in a little white plastic log. It was small, cute and had pink ears and a pink tail. The little white plastic log had the name "Heidi" printed on it, the rabbit was named after the girl I had so adored. 

To this day that little rabbit is my most prized possession. It has traveled the country and the world with me, it has jumped out of a plane with me and it has stayed in my sleeve though every interview, exam and stressful situation in my life. Heidi sleeps beside me each night and I cannot imagine my world without her, and every now and then I remember that my little rabbit is a reminder of the little girl I once knew and the first time I really looked up to someone. 

The best part of it all is that the week in Weymouth was one I recall as being so very happy, a time when my family seemed to have a perfect smiley time and I can look back with fondness both on that week and all my memories of when my little Heidi has helped me out of a hole.

June Challenge: Day 16: Something difficult about my "lot in life"

Day 16, Sunday: Something difficult about my "lot in life" and how I’m working to overcome it

My life isn't difficult, not really. I mean don't get me wrong things aren't always easy but they aren't bad either. I am very much a believer that we all go through our own "stuff", which can't be compared in size, volume or type to anyone else's and that it isn't what we go through that counts but how we pick ourselves up after it. 

For me at the moment my biggest challenge is that I am about to lose the person I love most and I'm not sure how I will cope once that day is here. The enormity of the weight of sadness I know will hit me is far too big to comprehend right now and it isn't going to be something I can just pick myself up from and carry on. 

I cannot change that she is going to die, unfortunately all options as far as that is concerned have been exhausted. All I can do is continue to love and support her, be there for her and help her make plans because she is getting weaker by the day and I hate seeing her in pain. 

I know that when the time comes she will have to leave and I will be left behind, yet I know that I will have to cope, carry on and live my life - not just because that is what she wants me to do but because that is what I need to do. We should have had a whole life of friendship together to enjoy everything we wanted to do, so I owe it to her to live life as I have always planned to. I will take each day as it comes, I will cherish the memories I have of our time together and I will just keep on putting one foot in front of the other. 

I don't want to lose her but in that I have no choice. Instead all I can do is keep going, living my life as I would always have done and knowing that when the wind rustles in the leaves right beside me my beautiful girl is there whispering in my ear. 

June Challenge: Day 15: A favorite photo of myself and why

Day 15, Saturday: A favorite photo of myself and why

Okay so this was meant to be Monday's post but I've moved today's one till then instead and you will understand why when you read it. I am not a fan of photographs of myself really because I am not in the least bit photogenic but sometimes I take a picture and because of the context I am happy to post it. As you will have seen very few photos of me over the time you might have known me, I thought I would add a little selection.

These pictures were taken at the Grand Canyon in Summer 2010. It was the most amazing holiday of my life and I have epic memories of how wonderful it was.

We spent a lot of time exploring the ridges but also took a helicopter down into the canyon itself. At one point I even started scrambling down the rocks and ended up on a rock jutting out. It was magical.