Old Haunts

Every time there is a big change in my life, I get overly emotional. I'm a pretty emotional person anyways so during transitional stages of my life I pretty much cry at the drop of a hat. Moving forward always makes me look back and reflect. I am about to move out of my lovely little flat, the place I have called home for the last year and a half, the first place I had felt safe in a long time. There are so many memories attached to this place, some of them good, some of them pretty shit.

I've had many fun nights in this place with people I know consider true friends, I've listened to some amazing music, danced around the place like crazy and I've fallen in love within these walls.

Then there were the shit times, the late nights alone in tears, the loneliness, the feeling of being trapped in a little cage of my own making. My heart broke in this flat, then it healed and I fell in love.

Now I'm putting the last of my things in boxes and preparing to move all my belongings and more importantly, myself, down the road to a flat that my boyfriend lives in. After a couple of months there, the even bigger move will come, when we get a place that is just ours.

I would be lying if I said that this relationship had been easy, two damaged people can love each other, but it will never be an easy love.

That said, I am looking forward to living with the man I love, the man who has seen me at my worst and still loves me. Loving him has taught me that no matter how damaged you are, it is possible to love each other.

Terrible Love

Love terrifies me. Love tends to equal pain, because it means you care a lot about a particular person and that means that if they betray you or hurt you then you're going to feel a real sharp and horrible pain that will take time to heal.

The more you love the more you will hurt. It's only now that I've really fallen in love for the first time in years that I realise how closed off to love I was, how much I guarded and protected myself from the pain. I also realise how much I'd stopped believing in love.

Now there is someone in front of me telling me he loves me and I hear it, more importantly, I see it in his eyes. It's still like I can't quite believe it. I want to and I'm trying very, very hard to because I want to believe it and I want him to believe that I feel the same about him.

But I'm terrified because when you really love, you also really hurt. It's always about working out if the person and the love you share with them is worth the pain, if they are then you will fight through it for those moments when the stars align and your world feels complete now they are in it.

Okay, I feel better now.

I've learnt more about myself in the last year than I did in any of the years before it. I've learnt so much about self-preservation, self-respect and about caring about yourself.

I've stopped trying to please people and have started just being myself and the best part is, I have more friends than ever before. Being myself has paid off, in that I have met new people, been new places, seen new bands and just lived.

Being myself, truly myself, feels great. I know what matters to me and I understand better than ever what things are not worth my time. It's taken quite a lot of work to learn all of this but it's been worth it.

Most of all I am truly grateful for the chance that I have had, the opportunity I've had to re-build what was essentially a pretty broken life. I am also now able to be truly grateful to the person who did all the damage to my life, because without him I would not feel as lucky as I do today.

I am more passionate about music now than ever before and every day I listen to music in my flat and rejoice in the fact that there isn't someone slagging it off and hiding my favourite Cd's. There are so many reasons to be grateful and feel lucky and I never would have seen them if it hadn't been for him.

I re-build my life and now its better, so much better. I never want to forget what I went through because it has taught me so much and given me a freedom I thought I had lost.

Broken hearts heal with time, the scars that are left serve as reminders that you took a risk, that you loved and that you are a better person for it.

The one person who really got under my skin, left and I ached again, but through him I found music that helped me and a band I believe in. So again I am grateful. I wish I could thank him for all he did for me, but I don't think he wants to hear it and I don't think he would understand.

Still all I have gained and learned from the two men who have had an impact on me in the last few years is so much that I would never trade in any of the pain.

I'm ready to do it all again, I know I am, but only with someone who deserves my time and can see the person I have become. I'm worth the effort and one day some guy will realise this.

Stronger than Ever

I think sometimes you just have to accept that the life that you thought you were going to happen, maybe just are not. By the time I hit my half a year of being 27 I will also hit 18 months of being single and without any prospects or anyone interested in me. Its not exactly what I expected for myself. I always thought I would find someone and even if we didn't get married, I would at least have found my person, the team mate I've always wanted. So far I haven't, in fact I haven't even been in a reasonable, healthy relationship for nearly 7 years. Not to say I haven't tried, I just haven't met the right person yet and I know this.

I also realise now that it's pretty unreasonable to expect to have the kind of fairytale life you hoped you would have, or to met someone and stay with them forever. Christina Aguilera is someone I look up to and respect, I have a lot of time for her talent, her strength, her work against domestic abuse and her open honesty about how domestic abuse has affected her life. She has recently filed for divorce from a man she has been married to for five years and to whom she has a son. I'm pretty sure that when she walked down the aisle, she did not picture herself getting divorced, especially not when there was a child involved. Shes 29, only a few years older than me and I bet she didn't imagine being a single mum at that age. Sure she has a lot of money, expensive lawyers and her little boy will want for nothing, but it still doesn't make her situation easy and I bet she did not imagine this is where it would end for her.

Of course she's going to find it a whole load easier than I am to find another man, if that's what she wants, but even still it is just another lesson on how relationships don't always last, even ones where marriage and a child are involved.

I admire her bravery in admitting that there was a problem and coming to a decision about what to do, some people stick there head in the sand and pretend everything is fine when it's not, and this is almost worse and can lead to a child growing up around arguments they might otherwise not have witnessed.

When it comes to the matter of love and relationships, I don't think its possible to expect anything to be the way you thought it would be. And to be open to the very real possibility that you might be one of those people who goes through life with many wonderful things and people, but not that other half you expected. I'm prepared for this, it's not ideal but I realise now that it could happen, and even if I did meet someone, I'm prepared to face that it might not always be there. That's the reality.

She loves you

In two days time I will be on my way to see Gaslight Anthem. I am genuinely very,very excited about this, in the way you can only be when you are seeing a favourite band. Over the last few months, a lot has changed in my life, I've grown and learnt a lot and I've faced some of the hard facts of life. Throughout it all Gaslight were my soundtrack, they literally got me out of bed on some mornings when I felt I couldn't move and when I was back in bed at night and couldn't sleep, I'd listen to them to help me through all the thoughts in my head. I always slept better after I'd listened to them.

Ironically I was properly introduced to their music by a guy who came into my life, turned it all around and then left me with a bruised heart and a love of a band from New Jersey. There songs became my bruised and battered against the world anthems, they gave me a reason to keep going, they gave me hope that it would all get better.

Just the thought of seeing them live on Thursday night is making me emotional. I've seen some of my closest friends go through pain in the last week or so and it acts as a painful reminder of how tough life can be sometimes and how you have to find things to help get you through it all.

For me, music and friends are two of those things and Gaslight Anthem have been my go to band for the painful days of the last few months, but they've also been my go to when I'm happy.

I tend to end up finding a band to get me through life's hard moments. When it's hard to scrape yourself up from the floor you're only going to do it for the music that will help. Gaslight have been that band and I'm sure that Thursday will be amazing for me. I know that it will feel like a celebration of making it through all this stuff alive but that it will also be filled with emotion. If by any small chance I meet them all I wanna say is, thank you. Because I'll probably be a big fangirl and not manage many other words.

The Gaslight Anthem

Sometimes it's hard to put how you feel into words, sometimes trying to tell someone how much they mean to you or how much they've hurt you. That moment when there is a massive ache in your heart that you can't put into words you just want to curl up in a ball because the ache doesn't seem to go away. There is also that moment when something gives you goosebumps, or when you are filled with a joy that makes you feel really alive. It's hard to describe exactly how that feels, to put all that into words.

Its also pretty much impossible to describe how it feels when I hear this bands music play. I wish I could describe it.

I get goosebumps, I feel calm but also alive, the world is a better place. Six weeks tonight I will be watching them play and I know it's going to feel incredible. I never expected this band to mean this much to me, given the circumstances of how I came to like them in the first place, but none of that matters, what matters is that the last couple of months of my life would have been so much harder without them.

If I ever met them, without hopefully sounding like a complete scary fan, I would love to tell them what their music meant to me and how it got me through. I've never found a band who can make me like dancing and who I can fall asleep listening to.

With their music on I know everything will be okay.

Great Expectations

Someone told me recently that I think everything through. I always saw this as a bad thing because I thought I over analysed even the smallest thing and killed it with worrying, questioning and doubting. But she said to me that she thought it was a good thing because I weighed everything up and was very aware of what I was doing. I always wished that I could be one of those people who just acted without thinking too much, sure those people make more mistakes but they always seem to get away with it and they probably don't sit up half the night worrying.

However I think she might be right. I make pros and cons lists in my head for decisions I have to make, I way up how my decisions will affect others and I go with my gut instinct on stuff. If I'm lying awake worrying about something or someone then maybe it's not right for me. It might seem sometimes like I worry about things that I really don't need to but I think I mostly make the right decisions because I've thought before I acted.

So many people say things that they think other people want to hear. They do it for an easier life, because they're scared to tell the truth, too scared to upset someone, not cause they care about that person but because they can't cope with it all themselves. I refuse to be one of those people. The truth can hurt, but lies hurt even more. All lies do is delay the truth so when the truth finally comes out, usually in that person's actions, it hurts even more because it feels like deceit and if over thinking things mean I don't lie to people I care about and that I don't deceive myself then it is a good thing.

I would never suggest that everyone over-thinks the way I do but it would probably make a huge difference if people thought just a bit more before they open their mouths. Lies don't change the truth or make it go away, they just hide it for a while, it will always come out in the end so why waste your time in deceit.