fiction, Personal, Tuesday Trying

Tuesday Trying – “loving someone doesn’t make them deserve you”.

Today’s piece is inspired both by this quote and by the pain so many of us have felt from loving people who don’t treat us well. I tend to write these Tuesday pieces in about an hour so it is unpolished, but very much from the heart. This is a reworking of a memory.

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The vice was back around her heart. Tight and unforgiving. This time though it had spread through her chest so that every breath pushed against a reminder of how little she meant.

Her hands gripped the steering wheel.  This was ridiculous. She’d been sitting here for at least 20 minutes. She gazed down the street towards the house. The early evening sunshine made a pretty dappled pattern on the path outside her gate.

If I had a car crash, I could go to hospital and be out of it for a while. Just a while.

She shook her head and took the keys from the ignition. People thought anxiety was a flighty nervous thing, but to her it was a heaviness. It settled on her like a coat as she opened the door, stifling in its weight. She had a sudden intense wish that the breeze could lift it away. But the air danced around her, oblivious. Continue reading “Tuesday Trying – “loving someone doesn’t make them deserve you”.”

inspiration, life, Personal, self care

New Year’s dilemmas and expectations and what I do about them.

nye

Expectations. That kind of sums up the whole New Year’s thing for me.

 

Expectations that even if you’re more than happy curling up on the sofa waiting for the New Year to tick over, you SHOULD be out somewhere having EXTRAORDINARY fun. Camping. At a festival. A concert at an exclusive bar (as opposed to that seedy one with terrible music that you doggedly stick it out in because damn it it’s nearly midnight and you queued for 40 minutes just to get in). Continue reading “New Year’s dilemmas and expectations and what I do about them.”

inspiration, life, Personal

Vulnerability – it has its good points

vulnerability 3

It’s an awful feeling, letting yourself be open to hurt. Knowing that you are able to be hurt. Shedding the pretence of invincibility. It can make you feel a bit inferior to those who seem to have it all together. But the big not-so-secret is this – we all have our vulnerable side. Even apparent superheroes have their wounded psyches and broken hearts. So if we know that we aren’t that different from everyone else, that pretty much everyone is walking around with the sore spot they hope no-one touches, why is it so hard to admit our vulnerabilities? Continue reading “Vulnerability – it has its good points”

life, Personal

Three Wishes – what would they be?

Wishing upon a star, a blown out candle, or a genie lamp. Getting the world on a plate and then oops! suffering comeuppance from your granted wishes.  What would you wish for? and do wishes always have to backfire?

 

The wishes backfiring on the wisher is a tale as old as Aladdin.  And, after all, it worked out nicely for him in the end. But the Japanese folk tale The Stonecutter, and the European tales of The Woodcutter or Loppi and Lappi, even the movie Labyrinth are all stories that carry the warning “be careful of what you wish for”. They also warn against taking things and good fortune for granted, or abusing your new power. Often the traditional stories are also tales about the foolishness of women and how their advice makes the man suffer, or they are lessons about being satisfied with your lowly social position and not longing for more.

 

 

With that in mind, what would I wish for? For the world and for me? Continue reading “Three Wishes – what would they be?”

life, Personal, self care

Getting rid of the ‘I let everyone down’ demon.

let down fourMy stomach churns, my heart pounds, and my chest constricts. Feeling that I’ve let people down, whether I have or not, is in my top 3 most hated feelings.

Every so often I have an interaction where I find myself second guessing someone’s reaction – are they unhappy with me? Have I done something? did I let them down in some way? Mostly, of course, they’re locked in their own head and own emotions and it’s got nothing to do with me. But, you know, illogical feelings are illogical. Continue reading “Getting rid of the ‘I let everyone down’ demon.”