...where does the love go?

In life we meet people who will never touch our hearts, and we meet those who do and stay in our lives. But I've been wondering about the middle ground. About those who come in, enrich our lives and for one reason or another leave. It's as disappointing and heartbreaking as it is inevitable but in this day and age where we're told we'll fall in love at least three times, statisically go through more than 1 marriage and leave the majority of our friends behind us... where does all this love go? And at what point are you 'over it' and what does being over it really mean?

If I have a best friend, and that best friend leaves - do I feel incomplete until I find an appropiate replacement? And if this is true (which I suspect it isn't) do our whole lives ressemble a progressive dance - as the music changes our partners do? In the 1900's we were expected to have one partner our whole life and now is expected for us to have what - at least 3? And why do we need three in the first place, is our love we feel for each other that fickle?

I was sitting beside City Hall when I had a thought 'I am very happy with my relationships, but just as they have in the past - they will end just as harshly as they have before.' And it's thoughts like these that can grab you on afternoons being a recent unappreciate university graduate with little to bounce on top of. We are left with the reality that things will end, and those that won't will be so much effort to maintain, and we will begin to take these amazing, beautiful people around us for granted like we once and like we will do again.

I just find it hard to believethat once these people leave our lives - that we don't think about them. Or that once we get a new friend, or a new boyfriend that our past is completely obsolete. Whilst relationships in the past can be most valued because they're in the past I find it really heartbreaking that we have to be so bitter just because they're not currently.

I have to go BFF is on the phone.

Is that alright, yeah?

1. Having a 'Protestant' toothbrush at Brians.


2. The word 'delighted'


3. Buying officewear.


4. The Great British Bake Off, and it being our X factor.


5. Giving relationship gems of advice to the girls at work.


6. Club lemon.


7. Eating ice cold lemons sneakily in work with David.


8. My cat allergy resulting in me acting like a drunk.


9. Real honesty.


10. Experimenting.


11. Having a lie down.


12. Sending giant XO signals with my arms to Gary.


13. Dancing terribly to cheer up those around me.


14. Horrible pirate jokes.


15. Driving tours.


16. Dancing and clapping at the end of Joseph ironically, and it never ever ending.


17. Ending every text with 'Hate my life'


18. Telling my tips whilst baking.

Balancing history books up on my shelves.

Hey everyone. I am writing this from my very cutesy desk at the top of a small office in Belfast. It's absolutely freezing outside and I realized how little I update my blog when I'm happy or doing well in life (unless it comes in the form of bullet points - see post below). The first thing I'll say is I'm working - a lot. Working 7 days a week - 4 days in my beautiful minimum wage Costa job with some great people and the new 3 days a week 'job' which is not so much a job , but an internship.

The internship will operate the remaining 3 days a week, 10 - 4 and enables me to fit in at least an hours walking everyday. It also enables me to have fun dressing up in office wear and packing packed lunches with last nights enchiladas. Being an intern for a lifestyle, news and business website does give me some very valuable experience and acts as a great addition to my CV, which as a recent graduate - I desperately need.

Aside from working 7 days a week life has been hectic still. I'm going to a Frank Turner gig with my (think I'm saying this for the first time) boyfriend tomorrow night. Having a boyfriend takes up a lot of my time - in a good way. :P And having a boyfriend who works 6 days a week adds to the stress of trying to find time where we can spend time with each other and chill out from our lives. This has actually been pretty easy - apart from trying to wake him up at 8am to take me to work. There has been a very natural fall-into-place manner with us where it is never a mad rush, or a mad struggle to see each other. The side effect to this of course is that my room at home is an absolute state and my parents have forgotten my name, but never being home can be very refreshing!

Which brings me to living at home. When I do set my feet through the door I usually have 6 letters piled up, tomato soup encrusted mugs circling my TV and all my clothes sitting neatly on my floordrobe. I think when you're living at home - with your parents, it's hard to really take care of your space because it never really feels like yours and you just wanna get out. Having freedom is the most desirable thing to have when you're in your early twenties so it's not entirely a shock when you don't wanna be sitting in on a Saturday night with your parents watching X factor in your faded care bears nightie.

Seeing my friends has been difficult. All of us are anxiously waiting on a job which we want to do and are qualified to do, but in the meantime we need SOMETHING to do and some money to fund us. Seeing each other has been somewhat restricted by birthdays, events and not by just 'needing to see each other'. Despite this me and the BFF have since each other about once a week and have managed somehow to keep laughing through the 'Hate my life' daily texts.

And with that there's been everyday life of picking up parents, reading comics, and finally having enough fingernails to paint bright colours. Life is busy, and it's not everything I ever dreamed of - but I'm hoping that the fact I'm happy will breed more happiness. And I might make this 'blogging on my lunchbreak' thing a daily thing.

I miss dailyboothing.
And I love that Brian watched SATC with me last night. (Even though he hates it.)

Bananas.

1. Happy feet with the girls.


2. Stopping for a few seconds 'just to look at' the other person.


3. When somebody takes a beamer.


4. Eating birthday cake the next morning after somebody's birthday.


5. When me and Gerald were late for Contemporary European Culture every week.


6. Baking heart-shaped shortbread with Gerald.


7. "Baby, it's cold outside."


8. Purposely embarrasing somebody so they'll go red, then poking their cheeks.


9. BBQs in summertime.


10. St Patricks Day!


11. Doing the head dance at the start of Will and Grace during the theme tune.


12. PREVIOUSLY ON LOST.


13. "She must have been REALLY ugly."


14. "Do you take the Euro?'


15. Baking a cake with Brian and him refusing to decorate it.


16. Impulse yoga in a strange kitchen, in a dress.


17. It being a mile to walk up to Stormont from the gates.


18. Getting separate boxes of ice lollies each, and when I return all of mine being eaten.


19. Flower plasters VS bug plasters.


20. Scrabo.
    

They shoot single people, don't they?

Hello loyal readers, loyal friends and those reading after stumbling across this somewhat randomly. How is life with you? My life is changed and continues to change but I still feel like I'm the same. Do you ever get the moments that you think once you do something, or once you accomplish something you'll feel better, you'll feel different or you'll feel more grown up? Then the moment comes and you think why on earth did I ever think this would change who I was in a major way.

I was talking to a co-worker in my part-time job which kinda strips away my soul these days. I was expressing my frustration about areas of my life which are giving me grief - things I gotta change. Her infuriating response was - "Well, at least you have a boyfriend and aren't single like me." This response got me to thinking of how people reacted to me when I was single. After being in a fairly long-term relationship and entering the world again as a single person I think I learnt a whole lot.

The first thing I learnt was the most important - that life goes on. It does not wipe your tears and it does not wait for you to be okay. This is true of anything, and it's very easy to overlook. We can wait until we feel better about our lives and the circumstances of our lives but they will continue regardless. And waiting for months to feel better wastes those months.

The second was that people doesn't always accept the fact you can be happy or happier as a single person. Lots of people I knew were suddenly looking to 'set me up' with their friends, because 'he's single too!' which really is not the point of setting people up - or is it? The assumption that as soon as you're single you need another relationship is absolutely crazy and don't get me started on the notion of a 'rebound'.

But this conversation with this newly single girl who has spent 10 years of her short life in relationships made me feel very much like an angry feminist shouting - 'YOU DON'T NEED A MAN.' You need to have the confidence in yourself, and not confidence in the fact that if you had a relationship you'd be the greatest and the happiest person in the world.

When I was single - (properly single not i-have-been-single-for-3weeks) I sometimes got made to feel left out, disrespected and worthless by others who were in relationships. I cannot express how absolutely ridiculous this is. TV and movies can be directed to tell us that being with somebody else is the most important thing - and maybe it's one of them. But people break-up, and relationships 'cause stress and hurt. Neither being single or being in a relationship is guaranteed to make you happy, or in the same way is guaranteed to make you sad. However, they are guaranteed to challenge you and allow you to learn if you let them.

Despite how anti-men I sound here, I promise I'm not.
I am pro-women though. :)

Life, continued.

Sometimes life can pile on top of you. You can get scared by words like; career, marriage, failure. For me it's this expectation for anythign that gets me down, especially the terms 'in your prime', 'these are our glory days' and all those in a similar vein. But it's short-term goals, and the little spurts of happiness which seem to make life worth it - and allow you to be less harsh on yourself for not being the most universally successful person on the planet. The little or big that make you feel better, or like you belong seem to be the meaning of life these days for me.

Here's some of my favourites;

1. Boiling a mug of water and eating a bar of dairy milk after dipping it in.


2. Going on drives to seemingly far away places to watch over the city and just watch it for a while - waiting for the darkness to come and for the streetlights to come on.


3. Eating zappers with your BFF even though your tongue is bleeding.


4. Going to B&M, getting a McFlurry.


5. Lying down for 1 minute. (It never being one minute)


6. Clearing out, cleaning my room.


7. Nose pore strips.


8. Spooning.


9. Wearing boys underwear.


10. Listening to Taylor Swift/Kelly Clarkson/Alanis Morisette/Frightened Rabbit.


11. Making cakes, and decorating them like a girl.


12. Meeting him from work when he's wearing his suit.

7 months later.