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These are some wise words from Marilyn Monroe which I think sum up relationships. I came across them courtesy of a friend.
“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
You can replace ’selfish, impatient and a little insecure’ with any description you like. Personally, mine would be “I’m selfish, childish and extremely stubborn. I can throw a tantrum and my mood swings can be hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best”.
Kiwi sure as hell does deserve me, but he has some bad traits of his own that I have to content with too, so we’re even. And that’s a partnership, people.
Sooo, the internetz are freakin’ freaky sometimes. I have a blog that I read regularly, by Dayna at Songs in Blue. When I checked my Facebook account today, I have a ‘friend suggestion’ – the very Dayna whose blog I read. Now, how does Facebook link my blog reading to its millions on millions of profiles in order to ’suggest’ friends to me?! It was the same before I deleted my Twitter account – several of the people I followed on Twitter would turn up in my Facebook friend suggestions. It worries me a li’l bit – I mean, what other information of mine is stored in the internetz galaxy to be searched and used? The web is getting a little bit too clever and a bit too integrated. I’ll wake up one day and find that if I update my Facebook status to “I wish I had a Lamborghini”, then my status will link to some Lamborghini website which will then link to my online bank account which will automatically debit tens of thousands of $$$$$s to the Lamborghini company who will deliver the Lamborghini to my front door. Don’t tell me I’m being ridiculous and exaggerating – if I can pay for an item on Amazon and have it delivered in just ‘one click’ then anything is possible and WHERE WILL IT END?!
Another thing that made me wonder, is the poll I am currently asking people to partake in. How do you know me (or how don’t you know me)? One of the options (‘Other’) allows you to comment on how you know me. One person has said they know me from HK. Now, by HK I assume they mean Hong Kong. I went to Hong Kong on holiday with an ex-boyfriend in 2005. We stayed with his brother and brother’s girlfriend. I don’t remember meeting anyone else in Hong Kong so by the powers of deduction that means one of them has found my blog. (Am I right?!) That weirds me out – remember me telling you about the time I was apparently a “psycho” ex-girlfriend? Well, that’s the same ex-boyfriend – which means the person who reads this blog probably has a biased viewpoint on the person they think I am, based on how my ex has portrayed me. Or maybe not and I’m worried for no reason. It shouldn’t matter to me what people who don’t really know me think of me, but it does because I wasn’t proud of how undignified I was about the break-up and I know I’m better than that. It still makes me cringe even though four years have gone by.
And on that point, how do people I vaguely know come across my blog? Accidental chance? If it is then it’s a funny ol’ world. Millions of blogs out there and they find mine.
Of course, if HK doesn’t turn out to mean Hong Kong then all this pondering has been a waste of time. But what else would it stand for? Happy Kangaroos? Heated Kids? Hello Kitty? I doubt it.
Check out my new page. It’s there to add a little excitement to your visit when you have some time to kill and perhaps I haven’t updated in a while. Push the button and it’ll take you to a random post in my archives; there’s nearly 1 and a half year’s worth of posts to delve into and my journey of thoughts has been interesting to say the least – in that time I have considered relationships (past and present), anxiety attacks, novel writing, body confidence, my time in Newcastle UK, emigrating to Wellington New Zealand, job hunting in a recession and a newly discovered obsession with small and furry critters. Definitely so random.
These are the things that are going through my mind of late.
I’m not sure why I’m still not making the most of all this spare time I have, to do things I’ve always wanted to do – hobbies I’ve not found time for before like thrift shopping and re-fashioning clothes I find, learning how to pick up a dropped stitch so I can carry on with the knitting I started, trying to get toned up since I’ve lost about 4-5kg in the last couple of years and it wouldn’t take much to get down to 59kg which is my target weight. It’s only 5kg to go but I’m lazy and I love sweet things too much.
I’m such a sensible person that I’m boring myself. I feel the need to do things I’d usually be too scared to do, to challenge myself and perhaps do a few things that I know I shouldn’t. I’ve been very drunk only a few times in my life and stoned/high just a couple. I don’t break the rules any more – I didn’t break them all that much when I was younger, even though the opportunities were there more often. I’m working with teens at the moment who do crazy stuff every weekend, mostly alcohol-induced, but they’ll have some good stories to tell for the next few years. My ‘craziest’ story is the time I drank too much whiskey and ended up in bed at 9pm, being fed a loaf of bread by my then boyfriend to sober me up. Not all that crazy at all. I’m not even sure I’ve done things like climbed a tree or one of those spider-webs in kid’s adventure parks, because I’m too scared of falling. I’m scared of pain and the *what ifs*. I’d like to make a point of doing things I’m scared of and perhaps living my youth a little bit, since I sort of missed out the first time around, just from my own sensibilities.
Being out of work makes you lose confidence in your ability to do a job ever again. I now understand why some people who become unemployed find it so difficult to get back into the workplace. It feels like I’m at a disadvantage to other candidates because I’m on the shelf, I’m out of the loop and I’m finding it hard to recall what makes me good at what I do. And what even is it that I do?
I converse with people through Twitter and this blog whom I have never met, yet we are in the same boat, around the same age and live in/around the same city. We should use it as an opportunity to become friends. It’s harder to make a lot of friends when you don’t work, aren’t studying and don’t go to a group activity of some sort.
Most days I’ll ask Kiwi to marry me. It’s only in semi-jest, if he said yes I’d definitely be up for it. He has a variety of answers – no, maybe, one day, not now… What is it with men and marriage? Some guys find a girl and ask them to marry them within a few months. Some are practically married to their partner for years yet never make it official because they ‘don’t believe in marriage’ – such a cop-out from my perspective. I’d always wanted to be in the former situation, it gives you a sense that you’re such an amazing person – you’re metaphorically a sparkling diamond that your man has to snap up because he can’t do without you and so nobody else can have you. The latter situation kind of leaves me feeling like an old slipper rather than a sparkling diamond; comfortable, reliable and your man knows you’ll always be there when he needs his feet warming up because no-one else would want to put their feet in an old slipper. The metaphor’s not great, but you get the gist. I’m feeling a bit miffed that my fairytale ending is in Kiwi’s hands and he’s not on the same page as me.
So it’s a random mélange in my mind, but it ends here because I have to put the mini-pigs back in their mansion and vacuum up after the little shits *ahem*, vacuum up their poop.
Today I learnt something about myself. Technically it was something I already knew, but the extent of it was surprising. I’ve not seen Kiwi Girl for a week or so and we finally caught up today. We spent a few hours chatting over coffees and biscuits and along the way we got all deep and meaningful and the subject of ‘me’ came up. Now ‘I’ am my favourite subject; I think every one loves to talk about themselves but not many people will admit it – I am not in the ego closet, so to speak, I am an ‘out’ extrovert.
Anyway, back to talking about me. Kiwi Girl told me how when we first met (when I joined the company she worked at in August 2006) she found me really difficult to talk to at times, because I seemed to disagree with a lot of what she’d say. I’d have an opinion about everything and usually it was the opposite to hers. Even if it was the same opinion as hers I’d vocalise it in such a way that it would sound like I was disagreeing with her when I was simply agreeing with her in a round-about way. It took a while for Kiwi Girl to see the way I spoke to everyone before she realised that I was like that with everybody; I wasn’t just trying to be annoying – I was just being myself. Apparently ‘myself’ is not always breezy and easy to be around. That was what came as a surprise.
I know I will verbalise when I disagree with people on subjects I have an opinion about. But I also know I dislike confrontation so I’ll keep quiet even when someone irritates or upsets me. That along with the fact I don’t like to be rude and I’m a fence-sitter when it comes to awkward subjects made it very disconcerting to find out that I am actually very argumentative. I thought the only people I argue with are those closest to me – namely Kiwi. Turns out that the way I come across to other people could be seen as argumentative too. I’d always viewed ‘arguments’ to be angry shouting matches which are heated; anything else is friendly debate and to be taken lightly. But because I always have to voice my opinion during conversations, and although I listen to other people’s opinions I will ultimately stick by my own (I am stubborn as a mule and I ALWAYS think I’m right); because of these traits I tend to have A LOT of ‘friendly debates’ with anyone I come into contact with regularly. But other people don’t always view it as lightly as I do.
It’s shining a light into why I am a difficult person to get close to; I get on with people easily but it takes a while for me to make close friends. A lot of this is because I don’t open up to people that I don’t feel comfortable around – they have to be warm and open themselves to encourage me to be the same. But the other side of this is how I come across to people. At university I lived in a house with 11 different girls across the space of 2 years; and out of them although I got along okay with all of them, I only became close friends with 2, one of which is still one of my best friends. I remember one of them saying to me that I always seem to disagree with everything the rest of the girls in the house would say when having conversations; just for the sake of disagreeing. It was silly things like which celebrities they found attractive, which television shows they like to watch and which magazines they like to read. I’m wondering if perhaps subconciously I do disagree with what the majority thinks because I like to be different and independently minded. I didn’t feel I had much in common with the girls I lived with. A lot of the things they did represented everything I didn’t want for myself. They spent a lot of time going out, getting drunk, reminiscing drunken nights out. And because I didn’t go out with them I was automatically isolated from the conversation, and thus from having any common ground. But that was okay for me; I like to do my own thing and be my own person, without the influence of anyone else. So perhaps I did disagree with the girls because I so strongly needed to be different. And those girls needed friends who agreed with their ideals and thoughts.
The friends I have are all very strong-minded and independent themselves. They don’t need me to agree with them to qualify myself as a good friend and vice versa. I assume they’re either OK with how I am and don’t take offence to it; or they don’t see me as ‘argumentative’. Either way, Kiwi Girl included, they’re used to me, however I am and accept me as I am. Saying that, you learn lessons in order to make changes if needed, so I’ve learnt I need to be more aware of the company I’m in, and to be more open to not always being right; and to know when to stop being so stubborn. Kiwi has been telling me this since we met, but I’m so stubborn I needed to hear it from somebody else.
It’s not as tantalising as it sounds. I simply forgot it was mine and Kiwi’s two year anniversary on Tuesday. A three day memory deficit. But don’t worry, he didn’t think to remind me about it so I assume he forgot as well. We’ve made it past the first two years, I think it’s uphill from now on. We have pushed each other to our limits, we’ve gone through major upheaval and change, we’ve come a long way together.
A quick recap through the relationship: met on a Saturday night in Newcastle, UK, where I lived and he was visiting. Spent the weekend together going ‘oooh you’re pretty’ and ‘wow you’re New Zealandish that’s so exotic’. He returned to his rented room in London and immediately booked a flight back to Newcastle in two weekends time (rendering me all smitten because he wasn’t shy about wanting to see me). We spent three weekends together at two week intervals. He then moved out of his house in London and returned to New Zealand for a 5 week holiday (whilst deciding whether to stay there). We spoke everyday for hours on the phone and he ended up returning after just 4 weeks and moving in with me in Newcastle while he looked for a room for rent. Once he found a house, I spent every night with him, so we decided to officially move in together and stop the silliness of me being in one postcode and my clothes being in another. Six months after meeting we moved in together. All was grand and fun, but Kiwi missed home. He said although he’d wait until I was ready to leave the UK, he couldn’t wait forever. So just 7 or 8 months after meeting, we decided to move to New Zealand – I just had to pay off my debts and save enough money. In April, 11 months after meeting, we bought our flight tickets and the move became reality. My friends and family who were convinced I was dreaming when I told them I wanted to move to New Zealand, suddenly realised it wasn’t just talk anymore. Fast forward another 8 months and we landed on the other side of the world, where we remain.
Although we’ve been together for two years, I feel we have been through so much change that we’ve had to get to know each other’s limits all over again, to new extents. In times of homesickness I have blamed Kiwi for taking me away from my beloved England, my amazing job and the only friends who’ll ever love me. Obviously I know that I made the decision, it was in fact an unreal opportunity to do something I have always dreamed of. My ‘amazing’ job was already running out of time as I needed to move on and broaden my horizons. I remain correct that my beloved England still kicks New Zealand’s green and free ass in many areas which I’ll miss – I have some very British sensibilities and you can take the girl out of England but I’ll always think of it as the best place in the world. As for my friends, I will see them again – they’ll still love me, and I’ll make more friends here too.
Together Kiwi and I have gone from being fiercely independent and not wanting to give up our personal space, to being at one in each other’s space, to just being one. (Well, almost). He’s not my boyfriend, he’s my partner. We work as one; we compliment and contrast in all the right and wrong ways. Our current lives are built around each other and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know the modern independent woman shouldn’t rely on a man for her happiness; and I’m not saying I do; but I know that with Kiwi when we have ups they are the best ups in the world. He’s the first relationship which hasn’t caused me extreme lows along with the highs. Yes he has frustrated, irritated and annoyed me, but Kiwi has never hurt, genuinely upset or angered me. He’s protective of my heart and that’s what makes me know it’s safe in his hands.
I missed my old job today. Like really missed it. I found myself daydreaming I was back there and everything was all blue skies and me and my work friends were holding hands and skipping into the sunset. Yes, there are blue skies at sunset. Anyway, it was just a daydream so don’t get all technical on me.
However much work used to grate on me, however bored and unfulfilled I felt, there was always some fun just around the corner in the form of office banter. I’ve said it before, I felt like I had a family there and it truly was the best place to work, in the world (I can say that too, since I’ve travelled across the world ‘n all). But missing interaction wasn’t what the daydream was really about. Today I missed the simple notion of walking to and from work. I used to walk down cobbled streets, like a Hovis advert without the bread van. Kiwi would walk with me and we’d get to hold hands and talk about our day and it was ten minutes to clear my head and enjoy Kiwi’s company and have a time out. Now we’re working under the same roof, but in different rooms as I’ve moved away from the office into the lounge, he’ll come in to see me and we’ll have a tea break together or some “hugs time”; but I’ll get crabby because he’s chosen an inopportune moment to disturb the me for a break – I’ll have my mind on what I’m doing. When we walked home from work together, work was over and it was time to wind down and I could concentrate my attention on Kiwi. Now I’m taking his daily presence for granted to the extent that I don’t appreciate him interrupting me; and I need to have a word with myself about that.
I miss the structure to my working day, the routine which we’d blissfully fallen into that revolved around when Kiwi and I said goodbye in the morning, to when we met up after work at the crossroads, ready to walk home. It was a coming together again; naturally you want to see someone after a whole day without them. Sometimes we’d text or email each other, but I never felt the need to – it was simply a nice bonus if I heard from him, but I knew that at 5:30pm I’d see him again.
Now we can see each other every minute if we wanted to, the novelty has worn off. I should appreciate that Kiwi comes into the lounge to say hello and spend time with me, I should love that we’ve got all this time together in which we can go out for coffee, share lunch, go for a walk in between work commitments. But I’m not appreciating it because I’m taking for granted that he’s always here whenever I feel like any of the above, so I’m not being as receptive as I should be when Kiwi takes the time to make time for us.
I forget that some couples are like ships passing in the night because they’re so overworked. That some couples don’t engage in ‘real’ conversation and simply go through the motions of ‘how was your day, dear?’ and don’t really listen to the answer. I have a Kiwi who comes in to see me and ask my advice about work, because he respects my opinion. But sometimes I’m too busy in my own little world to do anything but get flustered and cross with Kiwi for interrupting me. I’m worried that over time I’ll habitually send him away so many times that he’ll eventually stop coming in to see me, and we will become like the couple that has no time for one another. My negative reactions will turn Kiwi into the kind of partner that I have split up with in the past for not being there. Oh the irony in that.
And so, I need to remember what I sometimes forget; that some men simply aren’t as awesome as my Kiwi and wouldn’t think to take time out of their day to say ‘I love you’ or ‘I want a hug’ or simply show that they genuinely want to spend quality time with their partner, even for five minutes. I have all this, and so much more, because he does it for himself and not because I have to have one of those heart to hearts that he doesn’t pay me enough attention, or doesn’t show me he loves me, or doesn’t listen to me, or any number of complaints I read other women say about their partners (and where I’ve been before). And still I complain that my life isn’t how I’d like it to be right now.
Let me just clarify; It is. Life with Kiwi is all sweetness and light. Obviously more work and money would be grand; but as long as I have Kiwi then everything is just peachy.
In 25 minutes, I turn 25 years old. 25 is a funny age. At 25 it’s acceptable to have already married and/or already sprung a sprog or two. You could have a mortgage, rent with housemates or still live with your parents. It’s acceptable to still be living the student life, taking a post graduate course by day and drinking away the nights, re-living your first student years over and over. Or you could own your own business, be on the career ladder or simply be wasting away in a dead-end job. 25 has no expectations, it’s old enough to be independent but young enough to shirk responsibilties.
But needless to say, we all have our own expectations of where our lives will be at 25. If you’d asked me when I was 18, where I’d be at 25, I would have said married to my then ‘fiancee’ (engaged very young, I don’t really count it), living in St Albans (near where I grew up), we’d probably have a mortgage and a dog. I’d probably be working in Hotel Management, and life wouldn’t be hugely different from where I was at age 18 – same friends, same home town, same pub every Friday night.
If you’d asked me at age 22 where I’d be at 25, I would have said living in Newcastle, taking a Hotel Management course for Hilton hotels. I remember even thinking about my 25th birthday back then; because it’s a ‘big’ number I would have had my parents down for a weekend and gone out for a special meal at McCoys at BALTIC (which isn’t there anymore) and stayed in the Malmaison.
If you’d asked me at age 23 what I’d be doing at 25, I would have said living and working in New Zealand. It’s something I’d talked to Kiwi Girl about – she said I could stay with her while I get on my feet. I thought I’d journey over via America, travel around then work over in NZ once my money had run out then travel back to the UK via Australia and Asia for further travel. It was a passing dream I seriously considered but never believed I could make happen since I felt my debts were never ending. I was only half wrong.
In my 24th year I achieved a lot, which I haven’t really credited myself for. I made a niche for myself as a copywriter and realised it as my dream job; I got myself out of £5000 of debt, saved up another £3000 for my NZ fund, paid £800 for plane tickets and another few hundred (maybe a thousand) on other New Zealand related costs. I quit the job I loved, but although I have looked back I realise I had nothing else to offer there and it was time to move on if I was to achieve the copywriting dream in full. And now I’m here, both in a new country and my 25th year, I feel I have even more to achieve. I’ll make or break my own business at which point I’ll either work on successfully or try and mould a career somewhere new; Kiwi and I will bust our butts to save up money and move into the city, into a place of our own. We’ll build a home for ourselves and create the life we want but are still waiting to find. It’s a prospect which feels daunting and unachievable right now, but to think how far I’ve come I’m sure I can do it all over again.
And as I finish this off, it’s 12:05 am and I have been 25 for 5 minutes. Happy Birthday me.
I don’t think I’m supposed to keep this secret, I hope not considering I’m about to blab about it – Kiwi Girl has asked me to be Godmother to Little Red! I am one of two Godmothers – apparently it’s tradition to have two Godmothers and one Godfather for a baby girl, and two Godfathers and one Godmother for a boy. Traditional for who I don’t know – some Catholics or Little Red’s Dad’s side of the family or something. I’m not Catholic and my religious beliefs are my own – I have a mixed sense of religion (http://alexbettylou.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/im-a-believer/) so I won’t be a Godmother in the traditional sense of guiding the child on their path to God; I’m more a ‘life mentor’, someone to offer advice, guidance and a role model for Little Red as she grows up. And she’s my practice run in looking after babies, since I didn’t have a maternal instinct until Little Red came along. It’s either my age or being around mother and baby too much, but I’m feeling broody. That’s not to say Kiwi should start to worry about me wanting to drop any sprogs in the near future; I’m not broody enough to have overcome my selfish need for an easy life or for the responsibility of anyone other than myself. In Little Red I get to go ‘aaaaawww’ and coo over baby clothes and toys and then I get to give her back to Kiwi Girl when she starts to cry or needs her nappy changing. It’s the ideal compromise.
I’m thinking I might convince Little Red that I am a Fairy Godmother; because that would be much more exciting than your average Godmother. It would give me an excuse to wear pouffy dresses, fairy wings and carry a wand, perhaps a tiara too. I wonder how old Little Red will be when she realises I don’t actually have magical powers. And then how old she’ll be when she tells me it’s not cool for a grown woman to wear wings. It’ll be fun to find out.
At Christmas I blogged that I didn’t get Kiwi a present or a card. On Valentine’s day I also blogged that I didn’t get Kiwi a present or a card. I’d like to redeem myself by pointing out that although I don’t like to feel obligated to send cards and gifts for ‘compulsory’ occasions, I do like to give cards and presents. I tend to do it on a random basis instead. I’m just one of those difficult people who do things differently for the sake of it and call it principle. Yesterday Kiwi pulled out an array of such cards I have given him, along with a few letters and random messages I have sent him over the last 21 months. So this morning I pulled out two of those cards and re-gave them to him as a late Valentine’s gesture. Call it an ecological gesture – I like to recycle. Here are the said cards:
And here’s a random message I found which I wrote for him for no particular reason – I’m surprised he even kept it as it was written on a scrap piece of cardboard:
And a not-so-love-letter message from me when times were not so good…
It’s a bit blurry so I’ll translate:
Dear Brandon,
I am not feeling very loved right now. You are being very cold, like a polar bear in a freezer, towards me.
I wonder if it is because you need to get out the house for a bit, cause you are a hermit. Like Kermit but with an ‘h’ infront instead of a ‘k’.
That is all
Alex
Oh I amuse myself… It’s nice to find these little bits of relationship memories still intact. It seems we have been together for a lot longer than we actually have.We have come a long way, both metaphorically and literally. And despite him occasionally being cold like a polar bear in a freezer (I think he gets PMT), the times have been good, times are good and they keep getting better.
He said, then she said...