Tunnel

 
If your born in this dark dreary month of January your birth stone is the garnet - a beautiful deep red stone that generally comes from India.  It can actually be a few different colours but they are rarer than the red.

Gem stones are incredible - if you look into the dark earth and dig down its hard to think that way down deep is the possibility of diamonds and rubies etc.  Would the stones look quite as beautiful if buried and formed out of earth that was while or yellow ?  I don't think so, but there is something important to learn from this : we need the dark times for the light times to shine out.

When we sew with gold thread it will not look nearly so good as it does when surrounded with black.

And so with life, the tunnels we go through are hard work and sometimes its exhausting trying to get to the other end.  Rest assured that even if you cant see the light at the end, it is there.  If it were not then the tunnel would not be a tunnel but normality - it is a tunnel, with a beginning, middle and end.  Remember : there is an end.

Unfair

"Who says life is fair, where is that written?" - William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

Life is not fair !  I know that but all the same i hate that !  People leave, friends lie, relations die, relationships fail, bosses sack you, money runs out, pipes burst, cars crash and nature kills. I know that but all the same i hate it - really hate it !

I am feeling that life is unfair this evening.  I have had a good day, a good week, life is pretty OK right now.  I told you - my moods change quickly and without warning.

"A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work." - Colin Powell 

Magic is an illusion, life is too to a certain extent.  It only works with a slight of hand and some clever working, manipulation and seeing through the smoke.  Maybe that's a little cynical, sorry.  Sometimes people seem to get all the good stuff for doing nothing and others do so much hard work with lots of determination and dripping in sweat yet get nothing.

And then there are the mistakes and decisions we make but cant change, time does not go back wards and words can not be taken back, or inserted where they were missed !!

I have a friend who says that when the cards dealt are hard to deal then toss them up in the air and say f**k em all.  It makes him feel stronger - that's what I'm saying tonight.

"tomorrow is another day" - Scarlett O'Hara

Extremes

 "To be healthy, after age 30, most males require 2,200 to 3,000 calories, and women, 1,600 to 2,400."

I am trying to get fit and loose weight, along with millions of others at this time of year.  Basically i am just stopping the rubbish - crisps, biscuits, cakes, sweets, chocolate and puddings.  I am eating 3 meals a day and no more.  Its not particularly hard, just common sense.


While searching the web for inspiration for my blog today i came across a site i rather wish i hadn't.  It was a pro anorexia site.  Most of the posts were from girls aged 13 -17 from what i could see.  Photos of virtual children that looked worse than Auschwitz survivors were meant to be motivational and the diets on the site where based on less than 500 calories a day with fasting required every few days and immense exercise routines.  The kids on the site where begging for help and support to loose weight, for friends to talk to and tips and ideas on how to "extreme diet".  I read through a discussion board on how Christmas had been.  I was appalled to read that many of them were gutted to find that purging (purposefully throwing up food) was too noisy with family around so they "had" to digest it and then felt totally disgusted with themselves. 

My little girl is 8 and i cant bear the idea of her finding sites and friends that are pro ana (as its fashionably called now) and i will do my best to influence her in healthy eating when i can.  I refused her a cake this evening saying that if i couldn't neither could she.  She asked why i couldn't have one and i replied that i had eaten way too much of all sorts of bad food over Christmas so was giving my body a rest from it now and hoped to loose some of my tummy so i could have more fun with her in the summer.  She thought that made sense and didn't mention the cake again.

What is it about us humans that make us go to extremes ? why cant we just take things in sensible measures ?

Yes that is aimed at me just as much as you !!

The girl with friends

 

This is the millennium trilogy of books by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, each has been a best seller and made into block buster films.

I have just finished the last one - they are fantastic, the first introduces the main characters and joins them together and the next two are a continuation of each other. All three have threads that link and are so brilliantly written you just have to read them in as big a chunks as possible.

I have loved the story of Salander and Blomkvist and feel a sense of sadness and loss now that i have had to leave their lives, they had become so real to me.  It must have been the same for the author, having written all three together he dropped the manuscripts to the publisher and died suddenly not long after.  Never knowing the fame the books and their films would achieve, that's sad in itself.

I feel a bit cheated in a way - i have known and cared about these people, their relationships and lives.  Now they are gone and i have no choice but to go back to a time before they existed.  Am i better off for having known them ?  I cant say (they were only fictional at the end of the day) but i can say that real friends that come and go do leave their prints on my life.  Old school friends who stay in touch occasionally despite the years since we met, old church friends who still remember my children's birthdays just because they are mine, and friends who where there to support and comfort at some of the most crucial times in my life but have moved on for we actually have little in common.

I have new friends now - i realised today that they actually really like me too.! I am worthy to have friends and they value my small part in their lives - i feel really good this evening and rather than alone, i am surrounded by friends (not physically !) :o)

Change

 I feel quite sober this evening, everything is changing.  I have to make packed lunches in a bit, get up earlier, get my children off to school and their father to work.  School holidays sometimes go so quick yet the Christmas one is a long one i feel : maybe because there is such a lead up and so much gets packed in.

There are other changes too : i am near the end of a book that is the third in a trilogy and as all loose ends start to tie up i fear i will miss the characters.  I did a first rehearsal for Cranford today and realised that i don't really know any one in the cast - that's strange for me.  I'm drinking white hot chocolate, didn't even know they did white (BTW its fab) !

I am nervous now.  I have been positive and looking forward to what the new year would hold until now, it is here, it has arrived.  Normality is about to descend - am i ready ??

I don't like change as a normal thing, yet i think i am ready for this.  A while back i wrote a blog on change based on the sea.  I stated that "change is momentary and not permanent", how very true, for i know now that by tomorrow evening the Christmas holidays will be a memory.  The school run, Coffee with friends, house stuff, school run, dinner, children's classes at gym followed by their bed time, TV and bed for me : The normal general routine that we have been doing for the last few years now.  It may seem strange at first but not for long.

That is the essence of change - it is a scary thought but once its here - its done.  Reality sets in, the past is just that - the past.  Just as the caterpillar is once the butterfly is born.

Flying

"I'm looking to the sky to save me, looking for a sign of life
Looking for something (to) help me burn out bright
I'm looking for a complication
Looking ‘cause I'm tired of trying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly high
Make my way back home when I learn to

Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone
Try to make this life my own
Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone
Try to make this life my own"

This is the chorus and bridge of a song that was shared with me at a time of great pain in a friends life, it came to mean a lot to us both.  The idea of learning to fly was a dream we shared and for a while we flew together.  As these things happen though, my friend grew strong and without the ties of family that i have he flew on without me.  In the end i, with wings clipped, watched him go ! He is still flying now.

I am unable to fly, or escape, with children and responsibilities i am tied.  I can't run away or hide either, and i can no longer try to live between the two !

I admit there have been times i have resented having babies and a home that stop me travelling, partying or hiding under the duvet for weeks at a time.  However, my children are my reason for being alive and why I'm still here, without them, several times i would not have stopped...............and with an addictive nature, who knows where i may have ended up!

I will have my time when the children grow up and they have learnt to fly, right now they need me to teach them and that is an important job. Then i will pass my motorbike test, buy a Harley Davidson and ride the world !!

Phone

 
My mobile phone has never been so quiet : i had 1 text today from an elderly female friend of mine to say happy new year and that was it.  I seriously cant remember when i only had 1 message in a day.

Part of me feels lonely and empty - a quiet phone means no one wanting, needing or thinking of me ! Yet more importantly it means I'm not obsessing over anyone, not waiting for some man to text me or wondering why i haven't heard from them for a couple of hours.  I actually feel free, and at peace.  I am relaxed, because i am not on tender hooks or panicking - my insecurities don't need pandering too as i don't have a relationship to be insecure about. 

I still check it every few minutes but that's just habit, however, the silence that i feel inside my head and heart is strangely healing and feels rather nice.  I have not been irritable or stressed, i have spent valuable time with my children rather than snapping that I'm busy, when I'm not really, I'm just thinking of someone else, terrified that because they have not replied to my text sent half hour ago it could be over. 

I am a real sad case aren't i ? I am going to try and wean myself off day time TV too, make the effort to spend time in silence, maybe it will motivate me to do housework (LOL!!!) or exercise or just go out for a walk.  I may even leave my mobile at home !!

PS - i wore my pink jumper today and smiled a lot ;o)