The Ghost That Left

For years I had a ghost. He woke up in bed with me every morning, he sat opposite me when I ate my breakfast, we went to work separately but we would meet at home at half past five.

I would tell him about my day, we would go out to dinner together, or eat in, then we would go home. We would sleep together and we would wake up next to each other and start another day.

But he wasn't really there. He was just a figment of my imagination. No one could see him, but I could feel him. Everywhere I went, I wanted him there so much that, I could feel his presence.

I talked to him all the time. And although in the real world, he didn't really know what was going on in my life, I told him every day in my mind. It was only when I dreamt that he was really there.

After a while, the ghost left. It had been so long since the real person had gone that even the ghost that lingered started to fade away.

But he was in my thoughts, I could remember him. How he felt, the warmth of his skin, how he tasted, the sound of his voice, how it felt to touch him and love him, but I couldn't feel him anymore. He wasn't there.

The ghost had left and all that was left was the memory.

I knew that sooner or later even the memory would fade. But I didn't want to let it go because then I really would be alone.

"Yesterday, upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn't see him there at all"

(Antigonish by Willaim Hughes Mearns)

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Belong

For most of my life I have wanted to run away, not just from home but any place that I was or even from myself at times. The feeling of not belonging anywhere, or even in my own body, is like being lost without a map. It felt like I was floating aimlessly in life with no direction or purpose, in the dark.

I didn’t feel like I belonged to my own home. Home has always been in two places and I wanted to live in my second home for years. It tore me apart every time I visited because I knew that I would have to leave again. For a long time, I tried to find a way to be able to live there but I couldn’t make it work.

I didn’t feel like a belonged in a temporary place. Wherever I was in general, I always wanted to be somewhere else. If I was at a party I wanted to be at home, if I was at home I kept thinking ‘I should have gone to that party’ and when there were two things going on at once, the grass was always greener where I wasn’t.

I didn’t feel like I belonged in my own body. Sometimes I even wanted to be someone else. I was a different person depending on who I was with and where I was. I changed my hair colour, the way I spelled my name, the way I dressed, the décor in my bedroom, all silly material things.

I never felt like I was in the right place at the right time. Nothing ever worked out, I was always too early or too late and things just didn’t fit. But recently something has started to change…

I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve grown up and learned how to belong, or whether the stars have started to align for me, but things seem to be falling into place recently. Everything is starting to make sense and I feel like I know where I’ve got to be, where I am going and what I’ve got to do.

Home is where I want it to be and now I take it with me wherever I go, so I never feel like I don’t belong anywhere. I know myself better and I’m happy with who I am more than ever, I belong to myself. I think that sometimes you have to be different people, even the ones that you don’t want to be, to know who you do want to be.

Belonging never felt so good and I’m the one who made it happen. I think it’s mostly down to my age and experiences but at the same time, there are certain coincidences that make me believe that there’s more to it… I don’t know the answer and I’m not bothered about looking into it too much because for now, I’m just happy feeling like I belong.

“If you don’t belong, don’t be long”.

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Change

A few months ago I found myself cornered. I was desperate for change but couldn't see how I was going to make that change happen. I spent weeks going round in circles, looking for an answer but I constantly found myself back in the same place where I started, where nothing had changed, where I didn’t want to be. Change seemed like a dream.

In reality, all around me, other people's lives were changing and I felt stuck. I couldn’t wait for the change to happen naturally, I'd already been waiting too long and there was no guarantee that it ever would. So I decided that I needed to force my own change otherwise I would be stuck forever.

Out of all my options, there was no obvious choice. None of them were easy and none of them would secure my happiness. After weighing up the pros and cons of each, it finally occurred to me that it didn't matter what I chose. Any choice would do because any change was better than none and if one option didn't work, there were plenty of others to try.

I plucked up courage that I didn't even know I had and worked harder than I had in a long time to set myself a goal. I took aim, I fired and to my own surprise, I hit a target. It was scary to take a risk like that but it paid off, not only because I succeeded but because things started to change.

The change in motion was a relief in itself because I knew that I was moving forward. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The weight of trying to make a hard decision and the weight of feeling like change would never happen.

Once the change was made, I took comfort in knowing that if it didn't work out for whatever reason, I could always change again because I had just proved that I could change in the first place. I proved to myself that I was strong enough, brave enough and smart enough to do what originally seemed impossible. And I'm telling you all this because I want you to feel the same.

If you are facing a hard decision in your life or wanting to make a change but don’t know how, then I want you to know that change is not as unachievable as it first appears. It might be scary but it's not and it might not be easy but nothing in life is. I'm sure you've done scarier and tougher things so there is no need to be afraid.

For all my friends and family reading this, if I can do it, then so can you. No matter how big or small, I believe in you, I know that you can do something incredible and I know that you will. If you take a risk like me and nothing changes, it just goes to show how brilliant you are for trying, but you need the take that chance to know yourself what you are capable of.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain so I’m telling you to seize the opportunity, make the move, ask the question, send the message, take the chance and dive into unknown waters!

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” - Maya Angelou.

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Heartbreak

We’ve all had our fair share of heartbreak in our lifetimes, and I am no exception. But heartbreak isn’t just the traditional ‘boy meets girls, boy loses girl’, it’s all the other things that we love and lose.

The first heartbreak that I can remember was when I was 10. My 3 year old cousin died of an inoperable brain tumour and it broke my heart so much that I stopped believing in God. 17 years later it still breaks my heart every time I think of him and wonder what life would have been like if he was still here. Even though I say I don’t believe, I still pray.

For my thirteenth birthday my Auntie bought me my first ever pet that wasn’t a fish, he was a rabbit called Thumper. My friends at school thought I was mad because of how much I loved him and how much I cried when he died, still aged 13. It didn’t stop me getting pets, I just wanted more and more to love.

At the age of 15, the inevitable happened, I met a boy and I loved him (well at least I thought I did). It wasn’t until I was 16 that he actually broke my heart after finding out that he was a liar. Being the stupid woman that I am, I let him do it again when I was 18. But after that, I never let him or any other man break my heart again, at least not that hard.

When I was 17 my heart broke the hardest when my Mom was diagnosed with cancer. There was a brief time in my life where I was uncertain about the future, my future, her future, the future of our family. I was uncertain of myself, I lost who I was, I acted out, rebelled at school, hurt my friends and pushed people away breaking their hearts too. I’d never seen my Dad cry before. Luckily, I am one of the few and fortunate to say that I didn’t lose her.

I broke my own heart when I was 22. I wasn’t all the things that I wanted to be, I wasn’t going where I had planned or doing anything that I had dreamed. So I tried to take my own life. I broke my parent’s hearts too. But at least now I can say that doing that made me realise that I don’t want to do it again and afterwards I began my journey to learn to love myself.

It broke my heart when I was 23 and my I accidently shattered a water jug that my mom had given to me. Even though it was just an object, it was my Nan’s who passed away when I was three. I felt so silly when I cried but it made me feel close to her. I still search online in case someone is selling the same jug and I’ve learned never to put boiling hot water into anything glass.

Work broke my heart when I was 24. I fell in love with my job and poured my soul into it, but it turned into something else that I didn’t recognise and hurt me to stay, so I had to leave. Now I always put myself first and make sure I have a healthy work life balance.

My best friend broke my heart when I was 25. She didn’t lie to me but she hid the truth. What she covered up didn’t hurt, it was being deceived by someone I trusted. Even though it was supposed to protect me, it did more damage than good. I forgave her because I loved her more than it hurt.

By the age of 26 I was pretty much immune to being hurt by guys, but I hurt myself a little bit every time. I so desperately want to believe in someone and as much as my past experience tells me not to, I can’t help but let myself. I know that one day it won’t be in vain.

It doesn’t get any better at 27. The past 2 weeks have been hell watching someone I love get their heartbroken by someone else I loved. Even though it hasn’t been my heartbreak, it still hurt. It hurt to see her cry and suffer and their relationship deteriorate. It hurt to see something that I loved fall apart because I believed in it and it gave me faith, but now I’ve lost hope again.

I don’t want you to read this and think ‘bloody hell, she’s off again…’ because there is a point to all this heartbreak. The point is, I’m still here, I still have a heart, it still beats, I’m still alive and I still love. Heartbreak is not the end, it’s just the beginning. Every time we break, we get back up, we fix ourselves and we start again. And every time we start again we start with new knowledge, we’ve learnt from our mistakes and we are going to do it better this time. We are stronger because heartbreak makes you stronger. If I can get through it, anybody can.

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Mask

There’s a mask that I wear every day to hide the person I really am and the way I really feel. Everyone always seems to be so shocked when I tell them how sad I am. Apparently I seem like such a happy person, but I don’t have much of a choice other than to act happy.

When you look harder, it’s not so difficult to see what’s under the mask, what everything really means and why I act the way I do.

Everyone thinks that I’m the woman who bought her own place and lives alone because she’s independent. But really I’m afraid of sharing my home with someone, getting close to them and being let down because it's happened so many times before.

Everyone sees me as the busy bee who always has exciting plans and lives an adventurous life. But really I just need to have something to look forward to, something to plan, something to keep my mind occupied so it distracts me from being sad.

I act like the hostess with the mostess who throws parties for all my friends and family. But really I just want an excuse to be around people because it makes me happy.

I’m the life and soul of the party and everyone thinks I’m a laugh. But really I just act like that on purpose so that everyone will like me, invite me to go out with them and be at their parties which makes me feel wanted.

I’m the girl who keeps up appearances. I do my hair, I paint my nails and I wear nice clothes. But I only do it so people will compliment me and so I will feel better about myself.

I’m the gym bunny who eats healthy food (most of the time). But the main reason I do it is because I want to seem proactive and appealing. I’d rather be lying on my sofa eating chocolate, crying at a sad film, but that’s not as attractive is it?

And why do I hide you ask? Because no one wants to be around a sad person. Sad people aren’t fun, not attractive. A sad person can’t go to work to everyday. A sad person can't live a normal life. But a sad person has to do these things. So sometimes I need to pretend to be a happy to do all the things a sad person can't.

Someone recently told me that if I act happy then I will be happy, but I never act sad, so why am I sad?

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The One That Got Away

I seem to be cursed with the infliction of ex-lovers attempting to re-enter my life every now and then and they don't seem to realise how much it hurts.

It could be a matter of days, weeks, months, even years before they come back, and they always do, it's inevitable. Sometimes I'm even stupid enough to allow it.

I don't know if it's because they have genuine intentions, that they realise what they've lost and that they actually still like me or if they just know me too well, know that I'm too soft to tell them to piss off (which is what I should do instead of indulging their ego).

It's so frustrating, they were the ones that left, they always are. And I just can't cope with the emotional turmoil. If you couldn't see me for what I am then, how can you suddenly see it now?

I'm not any different now, if anything, I'm probably better than I was when we met. I'm stronger, fitter, funnier (if that's even possible), smarter, wiser, wiser to your bullshit, and my arse is better than it ever was!

As romantic as you think it is to confess your undying love for me, to tell me that you think about me all the time and that I'm the one that got away, it's not and I'm not. You let me get away for a reason so don't come chasing me thinking you're my knight in shining armour because you're just some idiot in tin foil with a head full of grand delusions.

Someone will come along and see me for what I am, there and then, and know what he has when he has me, not later when it’s too late, and he won't let go. So you can ride off into the sunset with the broken heart that you left me with.

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I’d Rather Be Alone

Recently I’ve had a lot of people asking me how my love life is going and they seem fairly surprised when I tell them that there isn’t one. When they ask me why, I tell them that I’d rather be alone, but that isn’t really true.

I don’t want to be on my own altogether forever and ever, it’s just that I’d rather be alone than with anyone for the sake of not be alone. I’d rather be with someone because I wanted to be with them and not purely because I didn’t want to be single.

I’ve overlooked compatibility issues in the past and compromised because I felt that being with anyone was better than being alone. But sometimes it takes making this mistake (multiple times) to realise that actually, it’s the other way around.

Now, I would much rather be on my own than be with someone who I couldn’t be myself around, or who wouldn’t accept me for everything that I am, or who I wasn’t head over heels for or vice versa.

You might as well be alone if you are with someone who is so unsuited for you that you feel alone anyway. So I’ll stay alone for now until someone comes along that I want to be alone with.

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