“I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love”  – Carrie Bradshaw
Let me just start by saying that I wasn’t always such a disillusioned wreck. I used to be able to concentrate on one thing for more than five minutes without my mind wandering. In fact, scrap that. It doesn’t ever casually wander; it strides purposefully away to the one and only thought that seems to consume my wrecked brain. Usually to the question of “why?” Why the hell was I such an idiot to wreck the singular most amazing thing to ever happen to me in my entire 22 and a quarter years? I’ll never know the answer but I#ll sure as heck carry on to torture myself over it until the day I’m freed from my own melancholy.
Given the recent attention to the poor souls who have supposedly died from a Broken Heart in the past few years, one could be forgiven for thinking our media had gone utterly mad. But, is a broken heart really such an ordeal so terrible that it can cause depression and even invoke death? Before I myself had encountered the utter devastation and grief of dealing with a broken heart, I must admit I was of the ‘get on with it and stop moping’ league. I wouldn’t say I was cold hearted in the slightest, I was far from it. I suppose if you have never felt True Love, you would never understand how much it can consume your very being. Although I do think Sarah Millican made a very good point when she raised this: “If a woman dies and then a week later her husband dies, he hasn’t died of a broken heart….it’s clearly because he can’t cook!”
My views on the ‘League of Mopers’ changed soon after I broke up with the man who, in my eyes, was “The One”. There is an unmistakeable feeling of elation and glee once you have met the sort of man that makes your heart flutter so crazily, you could be forgiven for thinking you were going into cardiac arrest. Now, I have never been the type of woman to sit and fantasise over my perfect husband in an obsessive way. Of course, I have thought about my wedding day, children and home, but never once in my life did I feel that I would meet the person I’d want to share all of those things with.
I’d had a previous boyfriend throughout my college years and there were often times where I felt as giddy as a kipper to see him and even got the old familiar butterflies, but I knew deep down in my heart of hearts, it was not meant to be. He wasn’t Mr Right, but then again, I couldn’t imagine ever being without him. As usual, the pattern followed, I went off to University and grew into my own independence and we drifted apart. For a few months I was upset and often felt that maybe we had made a mistake in our parting, but after a second failed attempt at salvaging our relationship, we knew we were flogging a dead horse and decided to part for good on friendly terms. This was the first time I’d ever experienced heartache and I knew for damn sure I never wanted to go through it again.
I have been accused of not opening up my heart fully in my blog entries and of holding back what I really want to say. But now it’s time to be brave, stand up and truthfully say what’s on my mind. Adapt or die yes? So anyway, in all honesty, I could not see myself ever wanting to date another man. I thought it too much hassle emotionally and made a rule to myself to never let anybody close to me again; it’s all too easy to start to depend on another for something you are quite capable of doing yourself, like going to the supermarket or making a cup of tea (tea is always so much better when it’s made for you). I kept this unspoken rule up for quite a long time. And then I met D. I was truly smitten. I remember on our first ever date, he told me there was “something about me.” I inwardly melted. He had no idea what impact that tiny sentence had on me and probably still doesn’t. It was safe to say that I was starting to fall into the raptures of love and it was a scary place to enter but something I couldn’t control.

For five glorious months life was fantastic and I saw the world through rose tinted glasses. D was absolutely amazing when it came to both his career (still is, although he will protest this) and being a doting boyfriend, in a word, he was perfect. He made me proud and I felt lucky to be with him. We frequently ate out, enjoyed nights out together in bars, even lounged around in bed on a Sunday morning reading the papers and eating greasy takeaway fry-ups which I still feel are such an amazing idea and should be abused more often. He’d even turn up at my workplace on a Saturday afternoon to surprise me with a coffee and cupcakes which firmly planted him in my heart. Life was easy and for the first time, I felt I’d truly met my soul mate. So nothing could prepare me for the time when we had a stupid row over something so ridiculously fickle that I don’t care to even remember exactly what it was. Myself, being stubborn as a mule kept up the aftermath of the row for a good few weeks. I just could not let it go, I felt let down and slowly and painfully, we drifted apart until the dreaded words “lets split up” resounded. As soon as I uttered the words, I regretted it. That row was the first and last we were ever to encounter. It’s terribly odd to think that the biggest blow was dealt upon seeing D’s Facebook status change to “Single”. What a terrible thing to have to see on your newsfeed immediately after the dumping deed has been carried out. Imagine feeling like your heart had been ripped out, followed immediately with a drop kick in the stomach and you may be close to imagining how I was feeling at the time.

Shortly after this, I went into self-destruct mode. I stopped eating for a grand total of three months, shed a stone for every month and slowly fell into a dark, deep depression. I have no idea how many boxes of Kleenex I managed to sniffle my way through but I know it was a heck of a lot. So, what is one to do in the throes of complete heartbreak? The answer, dear reader, is to wallow. Oh yes…wallow in your self pity until you cannot bear to wallow anymore. I found that the best way to do this is to wear pyjamas all day long. Do not even think about wearing the slightest amount of make-up. Drink copious amounts of tea (as tea solves everything). And lastly, cry yourself a river whilst listening to the most depressing soul destroying music ever made. There really is no worse a feeling than losing the one you truly love. The old saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, is, in my opinion a load of rubbish. I prefer the term, “What doesn’t kill you turns you into a shivering, jaded, emotional wreck.”

Months on, I was still head over heels in love. It’s truly terrible knowing that if you had allowed yourself to forgive and move on, you probably wouldn’t have lost what was meant to be all along. Lessons in love are the hardest to learn and probably the most frequent you will be subjected to. Is it all worth it? Certainly. If I could take myself back to October 17th and remember the feeling I had watching D climb out of the taxi towards me after we’d decided to officially be together I definitely would. That feeling of complete excitement where you just have to run at the said person because you just can’t wait a second more to be near them…yes. Definitely completely worth every single tear. But as for dying from a broken heart? I don’t quite think so. Want to know the silver lining to this backwards fairytale? We’re now back together after coming to our senses and realising we were meant to be, and after all the trouble we had, we are now finally happy once again.

I have an assignment to do so naturally, I’m procrastinating. It’s amazing how much time you can waste literally doing nothing. Washing the pots came high on my ‘to do’ list, even venturing down the creepy cellar alone to sort out the boiler seemed a better option than tackling the terrible history essay that’s mocking me.

Decided to make Chicken Biryani and take it for D on his lunch break. Had a lovely time dodging the parking warden. It’s not a good idea to venture out without any loose change for parking meters. I drove around him three times, he so knew my game. Oh well, may as well be a rebel for once in my life.

Anyway, bye bye facebook and anything else that’s remotely fun in life. Time to roll with the assignment from hell…yawn.

Note to everybody out there: I’m not perfect. Sometimes I mess up and make a complete wreck of things. Sometimes I’m loud and confident, sometimes I’m quiet and shy. Sometimes I eat way too much profiteroles or drink too much red wine, sometimes I can’t eat a thing. Sometimes I’m graceful – mostly I fall over. Sometimes i don’t need you, but sometimes….sometimes I need to be told how much you care.

Sitting on a high rock on the beach alone is probably not a good place to start contemplating life and everything that goes with it. Especially when the suns just about sunk into the sea and the tides steadily working it’s way into the shore. I don’t know what it is about the past two evenings but I just haven’t felt quite right. A part of me feels empty and a bit sad, like I’m missing something.

There’s something soothing about the sea – watching the waves slowly roll in and crash in foamy white fizz only to roll straight back out again. I’d so sleep here if I could. Sometimes you just need to get away and be by yourself to collect your thoughts. I wish D could be here with me right now, he’d love it. So tranquil and relaxing. You can almost feel the sea soothing away your sadness.

Unfortunately, I think I’ll have to move soon and retire back to the apartment. Unless I want to get swept away of course. On second thoughts…

Last night was meant to be a quiet night sat in the house sulking over my glass of wine and pondering how terrible life is. So, I’m a little confused how it turned into a rather bangin’ wild night of dancing, drinking and erm…cooking chicken.

Last night I…

• Met a gypsy in the toilets and helped her to do her hair.
• Ran away from a strange man who wanted to talk to me ‘intimately’
• Found out that the doorman is actually not Albanian and can speak perfect English after, hmm…3 years
• Danced to ‘Cotton Eye Joe’…enthusiastically.
• Pinky promised with the DJ to play Lionel…’All night looooong!’ He didn’t. Doesn’t he understand the importance of a Pinky Promise?!
• Made friends with a random drunk bald man who didn’t look dissimilar to a convict but kept smiling so it was all good.
• Climbed over a big fence in a short skirt whilst juggling two bottles of wine
• Had a paddy because I didn’t want to walk through the big dark forest in my heels
• Sat on the pavement and gave up because I was too tired to walk home anymore…
• Sat outside B’s house wondering why I was on my own. Nobody loves me you see.
• Put frozen fries on B’s foot after she fell over. Again.
• Frantically tried to find a takeaway that was open and left a suggestive voicemail for the Chinese down the road…
• Cooked chicken goujons for an ungodly fifty minutes…then didn’t even eat them
• Made B cheese on toast…she didn’t eat it.
• Generally came across as an idiot.
• Woke up in the early hours in a foam party t-shirt with my arse out. Lovely.

Pretty standard I’d say…

Arriving home in the early hours of the morning, I was trying desperately not to make a sound. But as always, whenever one tries to be silent, the complete opposite occurs. As if falling into the wall and dropping my key wasn’t loud enough, I accidentally slammed the door shut after me. The house was pitch black and silent until I heard my Mother’s strained voice shout out…”R? Is that you?! R??!!!!” No Mother, I’m a burglar who happens to have our back door key and locks up behind him…tut.

Decided to visit the local village library today in the hope of finding something intellectual to read whilst I’m at home. No such luck. Never before have I been to a library which such an abundance of strange staff. The main receptionist communicated with me mostly through grunts and as little eye contact as possible, whilst a second librarian insisted on wearing what can only be described as a sheep on top of his head whilst dancing around in the background. It was of course, very distracting. Maybe I had entered the funny farm…the sheep in the background, the piggie jack serving me…oh my days. Anyway, eventually managed to register myself and gained a little blue library card to use at my disposal. This would be much easier if there were any decent books to loan out but all I seemed to come across were Point Horror fiction books (remember those?!) and bibliographies from the likes of Teri Hatcher and Marlon Brando. Not quite the literary material I was looking for. Oh well, nevermind.

Took a detour on the way home from the library to pop into an interior shop to buy a gorgeous candle named Fairy Dust. It literally does smell twinkly and oh so pretty. I intend to have a relaxing night in my boudoir surrounded by fairy lights and fairy dust candles whilst reading Doreen Virtue and pampering myself. Maybe it’s the sunshine or maybe it’s because I feel a little more inspired career wise – but I feel like I’ve managed to let go of a few stresses and strains that have been weighing me down lately. I also always find it uplifting to receive a text out of the blue from an old friend. Especially uplifting when said message manages to make you laugh. It was from a friend who I rarely talk to anymore – mostly due to work commitments and the hectic lifestyle getting in the way. The text read: “A new report out today says that sucking cock too much can leave you with speech problems. Now I understand why you only ever text.”

Goodness me…

I had to laugh at my mum today, herself and my dad came home early from the office this afternoon. She was sat at the side of me with her feet soaking in a bowl of water. Kicking back and relaxing, she said; “We came home from the office early because it was a waste of time. I’ve got far too much to be getting on with at home. I’m too busy” Yes I can see that…She does make me laugh.

Upon finding a missed call from my Mother on my phone, I decided to call her back. The phone rang then suddenly there was an abundance of shuffling, clicking, banging….I thought she may have knocked the keys in her handbag so I started to shout. “Muuuuum! Mum! Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum…MUUUUUUMMM!!!!!!!!” There was a silence followed by the tinest, wariest answer of, “Hello?”

Me: “Mum? Hello? What happened, did you knock the keys by accident”
Mum: “Well, I had my phone in the basket, I’m in Boots…it’s gone onto loudspeaker…everybody can hear and I can’t turn it off…”
Me: “What, so…can people in the shop hear me now?”
Mum: *Whispers* “Yes..”

So by this point I thought I could really amuse myself for a little while so I decided to put on the spazziest monster voice ever…

Me: “SUSAAAAAAAAN! HALLO! HALLO SUSAN! SUSAAAAAAAAAAAAN! WOOO!!!!”

All I heard was an embarrassed laugh as my Mother swiftly cut the call then later told me the whole shop was staring as she stood there red faced with her basket pawing at the keys desperately. Oh, what ever are daughters for?

After filling my Dad in on her embarrassing shopping trip, we all got to talking about other times where I caused a rather red face. This was one of my favourites…

So, imagine this scene: It’s around 5pm on a cold wintery evening and I am around three years old. My Mother has taken me to the doctors surgery because I am suffering greatly with a bad bout of asthma. All day long I’ve been curled up on the sofa watching cartoons, too poorley to play. Imagine my Mother’s horror when we walked into the surgery and I immediately dropped to the floor and proceeded to bark at every patients feet. “I’m a dog mummy!” I’d shout, as she’d look at me embarrassed through gritted teeth and say, “Get…Up!” The only reply she got was a quick “Woof!” Oh my poor Mother. It was made even worse for her when the doctor called us in…I momentarily forgot my whole Dog act as I toddled up to him and said, “You’re an Indian aren’t you? Do you have a bow and arrow? Do you know cowboys?” Fortunately, he was very graceful about the whole situation and even played along with whole dog hoo-ha by stroking my head and feeding me pretend biscuits. Yet another memory of childhood I’m sure my Mother would love to erase forever.

Would anybody be so kind as to offer me a filthily well-paid job? One ideally that would allow me to sit writing from the comfort of my own home a la Carrie with a teacup of Earl Grey by my side? Is it really so terribly hard to find a freelance writing job online? Well, the answer to that one is, of course, YES! I am seriously considering baking my heart out all day and filling our new log cabin in the garden with deliciously wicked cupcakes and tea and running my own tea room. I would have such a lovely time – what better way to spend my days than in my kitchen whipping up delights and buttercream in my pinny whilst listening to Michael Buble on repeat! Now that would be a very satisfying, if not whale weight inducing summer.

I like my horoscope for once today:

“You could find that you have an urge to go to the country or to take a break from city life. It seems you want to get back to basics and to surround yourself with a calming environment and a soothing sense of peace. And boy, you probably need it. If you can persuade your partner to come with you, so much the better. And it need not be an elaborate excursion: even a day at the seaside will make you feel more energised. That way, you can start the next week off with less baggage and a clean slate.”

See D…lets get a move on and put our seaside plan into motion, less baggage and a clean slate is just what the Doctor ordered. Quite literally.

I have been contemplating life today, I know, such a dangerous task to behold. And I have come to the conclusion that a lot has to change. I’m starting to tire of life. Maybe that’s because I’m being forced into resting for six weeks and granted, one, even two days of being lazy is rather nice. But when you venture into days four and five, Jeremy Kyle starts to take its toll on your mental health. I feel that I am slowly becoming a complete and utter bum. I seriously need to get rid of this ridiculous rash and golf ball eye so that I may join the people in normal civilization once again and walk down the street without having to wear massive shades a la Gaga. I’m actually feeling excited for the day when I can venture out and buy my own newspaper from the corner shop or breeze into Starbucks for a latte without a confused child pointing at my face and asking, ‘Mummy, what is wrong with that woman?’ I feel that I’ve used my lazy time well…aside from catching up with missed episodes of Waterloo Road and baking all day, I’ve managed to; do a little uni work, email all of my old friends I’d lost contact with, clean my whole room out and send clothes to the charity shop, give myself a pedicure, write for a website, finish reading my book and apply for jobs. Yawn. Medal?

I have also come to the conclusion that I completely miss D. A lot! I miss sitting watching Russell Howard and sniggling away like two little school children whilst eating jam sandwiches and drinking tea. I know it doesn’t sound much but that is literally like chicken soup for the soul to me. It manages to pick me up to no end. I so need my Paxman fix soon or I may die of complete and utter boredom…and lack of play time, of course. Anyway, time for another cup of tea before I fall to sleep and dream of shakey jake, butterflies and lakes.

Oh my goodness. If I thought my eye couldn’t get any worse after yesterday, I was sorely mistaken. I woke up to my Mum stood over me gasping (never a good sign) and a strange heavy feeling over my eye. I managed to get out of bed and stagger to a mirror and open my one good eye. Oh no. I now have one eye that is quite similar to a red golf ball. I literally couldn’t open it. Imagine you are in town on a Saturday night and see a drunkard trying to text – they all don the same squinty eye, head back approach…this is what I look like. I find this terribly unfair as I am not even drunk. Maybe if I was drunk I’d find this all a little amusing. Or not. It’s almost as if I’ve been involved in a punch-up in my sleep. Anyway, had to be sent right to A&E after a quick inspection off my doctor. You know it’s a bad day when you have to walk around hospital in one of those vile gowns with your backside out. It’s even worse when you are wearing 5 inch stiletto heels with said attire. And even worse still when you have a Quasimodo eye. Enough said.

Anyway, was given enough medication to knock me out for the afternoon so really, today has been rather boring. Apparrently I woke up mid medicine slumber and had a little panic that I hadn’t decorated the cupcakes I’d made yesterday properly. It’s strange that I can be in a hospital bed hooked up to a heart machine, yet my main concern is the cupcakes I’m baking. Kind of shows where my priority lies….in my kitchen!

So, in a bid to make today more exciting, I am now tucked up in bed with a glass of port, a bar of chocolate and Notting Hill. If Spike can’t cheer me up, nobody can. Nice firm buttocks…