like mismatched pieces of a puzzle

image from here

I pull the clothes from the bag I so foolishly packed last night, and cringe at the memory of the conversation explaining myself... I could have said nothing, should have. 

I felt the words tumble from my mouth, laying around us on the ground, awkward and uncomfortable as we stood in the empty street. You looked tired, and I interpreted hints of impatience as you waited for me to stop speaking, and leave.

I mull over everything I said as I make the long drive home. Wishing for a retraction, a do-over, an opportunity to go back and make some sort of semblance of reason and sense; though I know you will give my words little if any more thought.

With a sighing reluctance, I scrape together myself - my thoughts, my inadequacies and my indelicacies, and prepare to greet the day.

awake

here, me naked and you in your underwear, as I lay restless and edgy,anxious and unhappy and wondering if I wished I was elsewhere.
Your fingers smell like cigarettes- a habit you promised you would stop for me- and I find i cannot escape you, as your touch, the very essence of you and your being is imbued in the pores of my body.

I don't know if this is what I want.

I know that I should simply rejoice in the moment; the being and togetherness of ourselves, but I find myself left wanting, longing for someone who wants and needs me as wholeheartedly as I want to want and need them. I don't know if you do this. I don't know if this is something you can give me, or indeed if this is something that you want. I don't know.
And perhaps that is the fundamental issue here, the unknowing, the uncertainty that if I give myself up to you, that this will be treated with the reverence I feel it deserves. But then, I don't know, maybe you fear the same things. Maybe.

like a torchlight held up in the darkness

via ffffound

I give until I have nothing left.

I don't have any logical or rational explanation for why this happens, only that I know that in doing so, I am left raw, open, exposed and vulnerable to the ever-changing needs and feelings of the people around me.

And at times, taken advantage of.

The justifications for these behaviours are repetitive and I find myself once again in a wash-rinse-repeat cycle of hurt and confusion, occasionally angry and almost always in tears. That this pattern is so frequently repeated should mean that I have developed warning bells, triggers to tell me when feelings need to be withheld, and a face of stoicism presented...  As yet, I am unsuccessful.

Subsequently, I am left, once again, feeling devastated at the loss of friendship with another. This is not unfamiliar territory for me, in so much that people need me in their lives, and I fulfil that purpose. This, on its own, seems like a beautiful, wonderful gift that I can give to a person that may otherwise have no one, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to do so.

Whether or not this weighs up against the emotional toll that is taken on me, I am yet to decide.

paper dolls, paper heart

I love paper dolls. As a child, paper dolls represented to me an uncomplicated intersection between art and craft (of which I was always engaging, in some capacity or another) and the over-dramatic roll-playing of which I was also quite fond.

So, imagine! My joy when I discovered these paper dolls:



yes!!! you too can own this

The jokes, the paper-doll-possibilities are endless! Why limit yourself to "I did not have sexual relations with that paper-woman" when he can also deny sexual relations with paperclips, staplers, that piece of cardboard over there that you were going to make in to something cool, the felt that you rescued from the craft box that your mum was going to throw out... amazing!



PONIES?! BILL CLINTON KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT PONIES!!

YES!! BILL CLINTON AND PONIES?! AMAZING!!!





And this, because as a feminist, I (somewhat predictably) embrace Frida Kahlo as an icon of aggressively independent, creative and outspoken feminism... so naturally to me, these paper dolls are  amazing and I love them:

from here

 Amazing!

(dis) connected

amazing paper dolls from this website here

It seems that I have become so dependent on my ability to instantly communicate with people that those moments when I am not afforded this connection I start to find myself lost, caught in a tailspin of disconnection and suddenly second guessing not only my ability to communicate, but my existence in a world so intrinsically interconnected with each other.

And this is not to say that there is anything actually wrong in my life, that I would need the contact and connection in order to feel validated, alive; rather, my simple efforts at reaching out, asking questions that become unanswered, sending words that are left unresponded to, are trivial, simple reminders and thoughts that are otherwise immaterial and not really worth articulating.

However, in the absence of any kind of response, the idea that someone may be unavailable to me, that something may actually be wrong, begins to ebb and etch its way in to my psyche... why hasn't she replied? What have I done to offend her? Is she busy? Is she okay? Is she upset with me? Did I say something upsetting? Am I being too much?...Most definitely, yes. Yes, much too much... why did I send the second message? Why did I say that? Why didn't I say that? What?! Why? Why? Why?

And then... the phone trills. A reply! A simple, appropriately non-committal response deserving of the simple, appropriately non-committal text message that I sent her hours earlier.

And all is well within the world.

from here

“A year, ten years from now, I'll remember this; not why, only that we were here like this, together.”

Adrienne Rich

from your thoughts your future.com

I wonder about the idea of a vast ocean as an analogy for our lives. The vista is endless;  the promise of a great expanse of waves and water crashing about us is at once intimidating and comforting.

Why do we prefer the unknown to the known? 

I am aware that this does not apply for all people; many are perfectly content pursuing a daily sameness - but for those that don't... why?

And, because I am ultimately incredibly self-absorbed, where do I fit on this spectrum?

If I say I prefer simplicity and an uncomplicated life, love and happiness, but am forever living in a world that is complicated, sometimes over-dramatised and, at times, really fucking challenging... so what does this make me?

And dare I feel  a simulacrum of hope for a life less overwhelmingly complex? Or is this part of the wash-rinse-repeat cycle of yearning for what is not?

some things cannot be unread. Or unsaid. Particularly when you print screen them.



wait, aren't you confusing that with the "this is not consensual sex" talk?

 FFS. More things that make katey cry. People that post things that are clearly full of lose (and by lose, I mean shitarsebad parenting) on facebook, with that ever-so-obvious tone of pride in their horrendous failures.
Because really, confusing the "facts of life" talk with the "no means no" talk really does fall in to the category of parenting fails.

And this is from a person who talks to her children about...everything... just... with a substantial amount of mindfulness that their childlike brains often take things more literally than initially intended (you learn this lesson relatively quickly, fortunately). That being the case, talking about "periods and babies" is something that can happen gradually, building on knowledge so that they're not completely overwhelmed with one hideous (and let's face it, mutually embarrassing and awkward) talk.

Or, you know, you can follow her advice.