Tag: relationships

all the little things make me think of you

biscuits with cream and sliced strawberry toppings

So many little things make me think of you

Even when I know it’s going to cut deep

I’ll get all sentimental in the supermarket shop

And when I pass the shelf of slices filled with cream

I’ll stop and think about the times we’d get home late

From working in the bars, and crawl into our bed

We’d sit and watch the trashy late night shows

Inhaling such indulgent treats, almost unaware

Of crumbs that flaked upon on the sheets

It didn’t matter as I had you by my side, and still

It pains the heart to see those little boxes in the humming fridge

Two slices side by side, waiting to be bought

One for me and one for you.

I do write quite a bit about memories but I do find them so fascinating. I think it’s because they can bubble up so unexpectedly and can initiate such strong emotions.

It was just last night, at work, I was putting out some of our chilled delivery when I was faced with a case of cream slices. As I was putting them into the fridge I was reminded of my ex and I eating them in bed after a hard shift at work.

The shop we bought them from must have been open 24 hours because I seem to remember getting them on the way home after work, well after midnight. But I have vivid memories of sitting on our bed and devouring them while watching TV

I felt in love, safe, content and relieved that another hard shift was over. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that since, so perhaps that’s why this is so memorable.

Anyway, I didn’t have much more to say about it, other than: aren’t memories strange and wonderful and scary, all at once? I wish that I could understand them on a more scientific level because I find it so interesting.

My heart broke a little bit as I put those desserts on the shelf. But in a good way, because I remembered that I was loved once and I still have a whole lifetime to look forward to where I can eat cream slices with friends and family and lovers. And I guess that’s enough of a reason to stay alive.

Much Love

Rachel xx

i expected it to be….ummm….a little bit longer

adult art batis bhfyp

He fell for her the moment that he saw

Her red dress that matched her lips

And the way she laughed at a joke

He knew wasn’t funny.

For her it took years

Of sleeping beside him and staring

At the ceiling at night, wondering

If he was the one.

I’ve been having a little think about love recently, particularly how we fall in love. I’m a long time singleton and although I’m happy in that I sometimes wonder how I’m supposed to make that leap.

Do you fall in love in an instant? Or is it a slow building of trust and love? The logical part of me understands that to a certain extent it is a blend of the two, but there must be a spark somewhere, mustn’t there?

I’m starting to worry that maybe I’m a person with no spark that anyone can see. I hope it’s not the case but I could be intolerably dull, or really offensive, or maybe I smell really bad.

I think a lot of the problem for me is that I’m scared and it makes me hesitant, and I think that men can detect that. I think if I’m to have a hope in hell of having ‘that spark’ I’m going to have to let go and take the leap.

I have also spent a long time feeling like my life will be something out of a romcom and I will eventually fall in love with my best boy mate who I’ve been friends with for years. The only problem there is that I don’t like to leave the house for anything other than work so I don’t really have any boy mates.

Oh well, I’m sure someone will come into the petrol station where I work, order a flat white, and realise that I’m the one. And then maybe we can be friends for a decade so that I don’t get scared away, of course.

How have you all fallen in love? I love both long and short engagement stories, either way, it takes guts to make the commitment.

Much Love

Rachel xx

evidently i get way too attached way too quickly

We’ve known each other for a nanosecond

And yet I’m tethered

Bound to you until I’m lying

On a deathbed made for me

And I will call you to my mind

In photographic detail

I’m not obsessed

You just reached into my heart

And found a home I didn’t know

There’d ever be the space to grow.

So, I think I have a bit of a problem when it comes to falling in love with people. I don’t mean romantic, stalker-ish love; I mean the kind of love where I wish that a person could be in my life forever, as a BFF.

I knew this was a problem of mine a long time ago but it was really amplified today. I’ve been doing some support work in my local school during lock down and I have been in with the four and five year olds.

I was kind of dreading it before I started as I thought they were too young for me to get along with. But in the three weeks that I have been with my little bubble, I have absolutely fallen in love with them.

I didn’t realise quite how deeply I had fallen for them until this afternoon when I was faced with saying goodbye to them for the last time before I move on to a new school.

I found myself nearly crying as they left and I really had to hold it in because the teacher who had been with them for an entire year was fine! Three weeks, and I was an absolute mess!

I think that this has taught me that I need to look at how I connect with people in the future. It explains a lot in terms of my past relationships with friends and colleagues. I have put them on pedestals and then when they have let me down they have also come crashing down, and that is heartbreaking to deal with.

As I go into my new schools I’m going to work on not getting so attached to the students. I know it’s only because I care, but I can’t go through that kind of heartbreak every time a year group moves on. I’ll be having a nervous breakdown after a couple of years if I continue like that.

Is there anyone else out there that falls for people like I do? As I say, it’s never romantic as I haven’t fallen in love in that way in over a decade. I just get so deeply attached that I just can’t let go.

Much Love

Rachel xx

what is the cure for heartbreak?

My heart has taken several beatings,

But you became the very worst

The day you whispered in my ear

Those words you knew could tear apart

The life I’d worked so hard to build.

I’ve limped along since then,

But I have never quite been sure

What’s the cure for what you did.

Other pains, I take a pill to make it go

But this pain lingers on until one day

I wake and find another ill

That’s knocked the wind from damaged lungs.

I am sure that every adult in the world has had a little bit of heartbreak, and it doesn’t have to come from the end of a romantic relationship. One of my worst heartbreaks came from a time at work where I was picked on until I ended up really ill and having to leave.

But what heals that pain? I always thought that I had to get back at the person and that would fix my own pain. However, since getting sober, I have realised that my own happiness and comfort depends on what’s going on inside my own head and not what’s going on in others.

I also used to hope that ‘karma’ would work its magic and make the person fall spectacularly. I still get a little buzz from knowing that somebody that has been horrible to me is having a hard time, but it’s short lived and I realise very quickly that it does very little to fix my own pain.

I think that it’s important to realise that people will always hurt each other but a lot of times it’s not done because they want to hurt you; it’s done because they want something and nothing is going to stand in their way. Most of the time it is just unfortunate that you were standing in the way.

But doesn’t that say something about them? They are so desperate for ‘things’ that they are constantly chasing. To me, that sounds exhausting. I’d rather sit back and enjoy what I have and the people that are already in my life.

Know that your pain is allowed and justified, but lashing out is not. It won’t do you any good in the long run, and I write this as a reminder to myself because I really want to lash out at someone. It will do no good. Just appreciate those that do love you.

Much Love

Rachel xx

could anyone possibly keep all of those promises?

He makes promises like they’re going out of fashion.

There are the obvious ones, of course,

Like to have and to hold, in sickness and health.

Then he will tell me he’ll cook the dinner and feed the cat,

He’ll mend the car and bring down my water bill.

I’m not sure which I can trust on these tiring days

When promises bleed, one into the other

Like colours in water, pretty to start

But the more they spread, the uglier they get

And now those promises look garbled and choked,

The images they paint are faded from sight.

becoming a grown up means doing hard stuff

The dishes in the sink are lying

In dirt I cannot clean away

I wring the cloth and fell like I

Have also wrung my heart.

The blood spreads through thick white suds

And I’m not sure the knife sliced through

By accident or by some slip of madness.

I wish that I could just scream it out

But greasy water clogs my throat.

It’s dangerous, trying to wash up.

I never realised

Until my body hit the floor.

Ugh, I’m so torn as to whether or not I have done the right thing. My mother has just come back into my life after eight months of not talking to me. But we have just picked up were we left off with her slagging everyone off and I’m not allowed to say a word back. Last time I tried she locked me out of my home with my child.

Anyway, I sent her an email today to say that I will not carry on if she doesn’t agree to some sort of therapy with me. I had to be quite forceful in my email, not horrible, but I had to put my foot down.

I feel like I’m just becoming a proper adult at the age of 35 but it’s hard and I still wish that I could just curl up with a vodka and numb everything. I am a grown up though. I have shown that I can live on my own two feet for almost a year and I don’t need to be put into these frightening situations.

If you’re putting yourself down, spend a bit of time going through everything that you’ve achieved. Even if it’s just saving up for a holiday or keeping a goldfish alive, you’ve done that all by yourself. Congratulate yourself and move on to the next thing.

Much Love

Rachel xx

She doesn’t seem to understand, there’s something very wrong

Heads bent together

Over greasy fish and chips

As eyes meet from time to time,

Sulkily and lovingly,

I never knew that we could feel

Such a perfect storm,

A flurried cocktail fuming with

Deepest loves and chimneys cracked

With over use and too much hate.

I pick at bones and smile through pain,

She doesn’t seem to know.

i’m going to break the pattern this time around

It’s relentless, this push and pull.

Exhausting, one could say.

I want so much, to love,

But loving you is hard.

I crave that hug, the sweet embrace

That takes me back to four

When I skinned my knee,

When I needed you like now.

This time I’m changing it,

Not following the well worn path

That we have tripped along.

This time we will come out with a heart

Intact and far less fragile than

The times we just pretended that

It was all OK.

So, I finally saw my mum today. It has been eight months since I last saw her or spoke to her. And then the four months before that were riddled with hate and guilt and anger and shame and any other horrible emotion that you can think of.

Now, most people would think that this first meeting would be angry and awkward. But not for me. I sat down and had coffee with her and she didn’t even mention the fact that she’s not seen me in eight months. There was no mention of any problems at all.

This isn’t abnormal for me. She does sometimes stop talking to me for weeks and then just acts like everything is fine without any mention of there having been a problem. And I’ve always been so desperate for her love that I’ve just gone along with it.

But this time is going to be different. I briefly touched on the fact that we had to have some kind of relationship counselling if we are to keep going. This is such a big step and I hope that is pulls my mum out of this horrible pattern.

I know that relationships with mothers can be tricky for a lot of people and I know how you feel if yours is difficult. I hope that you also find a way to break out of the pattern that perpetuates the behaviour. I hope that this is the beginning of something new for me and my family. I just need to take it nice and slowly and tread very carefully.

Wish me luck,

Much Love

Rachel xx

i wish i’d never listened to my parents

They told me that I had good grades

So it would be a shame to see them go to waste.

‘Be a doctor,’ they trilled at me.

They pushed, coerced and drilled

The dream of money as a doctor in

A private hospital with a waiting room

Full of comfy chairs and coffee and biscuits,

Complimentary for those who can afford

The astronomical fee that I would charge.

But I was shy and sensitive,

A bookish girl who loved to write

And disappear into another world.

What was I to do with all that money?

All that stress? No creative source?

They set me up for a fail but

It was my fault for listening, of course.

Now, even though I’m having a bit of a rocky situation with my mother at the moment, I’ve always loved my parents and valued their opinion. However, as I was growing up, I was a straight A student and they did start to nudge me in the direction of a career in medicine. And I followed their advice without question.

The problem is that once you leave secondary education you really have to love what you are studying if you have any chance of succeeding in it. And I was an arty, creative kid so all that science and maths suddenly became very overwhelming.

I ultimately failed and it has taken me until my mid thirties to come to the realisation that earning huge amounts of money really isn’t necessary, you do what you want because you enjoy it. I’m sure that many writers out there will agree with me that you don’t write for the money. You fit it around a crappy job that you don’t like so that you can feel creatively fulfilled.

What I’m really trying to say is that I wish I had had the confidence when I was younger to just go with my gut instinct. My parents’ advice always came from a place of love, but perhaps I should have listened to my own inner voice too.

If you’re struggling to make a decision in your life, by all means, ask people for advice, but check with yourself too!

Much Love

Rachel xx

unfixable

I wish that we could wind back time

And fix the things we broke.

I don’t mean using glue and tape

Because with those the cracks still show.

I long for ways to fix in such a way

That you would never know it broke.

But really that could never work,

There are things that fall and smash

And no matter how we wish

We need to let it go.

I hate the fact that some actions we take can have irreversible outcomes. I tried once last thing to try and save my relationship with my mum the other night. It backfired and now I know that there is no going back. I took a chance and it didn’t work.

I’m not sad that I tried, but I am sad that there is no coming back from it. Even if we were to form some sort of a relationship again, it would not be what it used to be. It’s so broken that it is now like the vase that has smashed. You can cobble it back together with glue but if you look closely you can still see the cracks.

I’m sure that everybody in the world has an experience like this and I think that it’s sad because if we could all just forgive then this wouldn’t happen. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful things in this world and if you can do one thing today, then try and forgive somebody who you are holding a grudge against. It will lighten your load and there’ll be just a little bit more love in the world, which is never a bad thing.

Much Love,

Rachel xx