Stand By Thy Self.

So much stuff has happened in my life in the past 7 months. For the normal hob nobbin chap, head totally blown off.




Me, it beats me down on occasion, but I never stop fighting.




I can thank my life experience for gifting me the giant pair of lady nads I've needed to get through this mad time in my life. Because without it, & some pretty intense insight into my own self, I would've drowned.




How doth one bounce back after having their entire world turned on it's head?




You just do.




And I did.




Here I shall break shit down for y'all. For future reference. Just in case.

• Move home. I needed to be with my parents. I needed them to love me when the only person I wanted to love me just didn't love me anymore. Be loved. By the people that will always love you no matter what.
• Cry. Ugly cry face like a Boss. Crying is such a sweet release. It's ok to feel vulnerable. It's ok to feel sorry for yourself. And it's A.O.K to cry your goddamn guts out if you are hurting like a bastard. If you don't cry, that shit will fester inside you & become toxic. Like angry snake venom. It will make you do bad shit to yourself & others. I know this.
• Don't stop listening to music. I played my first wedding dance song over & over again until I felt nothing but empty. Deal with the pain. Head up. Eyes forward.
• Reach out to your friends. God knows without mine I'd still be sitting at my parents house hey-ho-ing to my own pity party, crying like a ratfucksonofabitch accepting that my life is over. Go out, laugh, drink, dance & be reckless. Blub into your wine. It's actually ok.
• Leave your house & do stuff. With people. OR fake it til you make it. I turned up to my place of work every dam day. I didn't miss a beat. I turned up when I didn't even feel like moving my carcass one inch out of my bed & leaving my parents house. On the inside I was a broken soul, but on the outside I was fighting that shit hard. Double fisted punches to the guts of it. With a smile on my face. Your inside broken self will eventually catch up to your outside happy fake self.
• Let be what is. The universe always has a plan. Out of respect to the other person involved in the demise of my own marriage, I will not go into detail. However what I will say is, someone (a new friend) has happened upon me. Open your arms & welcome the strange & unexpected. And don't question it.
• Eat. Take care of you. I've lost 17kg since the end of July. Not because my stomach was sad & couldn't eat anything. Because bitches be knowin how I love to pie-hole nom nom nom. I just decided to lose weight. Again. This was my decision. I did it for me.
• Love thy self mad hard. Just because someone else who was a big part of your life doesn't love you anymore, doesn't mean you are any less stellar than you were previously. People change. Rejection is a bloody hard beating to take, but take it regardless.
• Spend time alone. I had a bench seat on my parents deck that had a solitary rock in the garden in front of it. I would sit on this seat, looking out over the bay with my bare feet on the rock. I would sit there & smoke cigarettes. I would cry, but mostly I would think. It became my thinking rock. My head in the sky & my feet planted firmly on terra firma. Getting shit done.
• Don't second guess your decisions. EVER. Go with your gut. Because your gut is ALWAYS right. I call it Ninja intuition.
• Buy yourself nice things. Like shoes & handbags. It's a ladies prerogative to surround herself with beautiful things when she herself is not feeling so beautiful. I did this. I now have a wardrobe full of shoes I will never wear (because faces, namely mine, will be broken) & a maxed out credit card. Those impractical shoes saved me.
• Never lose sight of the big picture. Big picture = life beyond the now.
• And finally.......be grateful. Be grateful that you are breathing & have the power to live on. Some people don't get that chance.

Live in the present, look towards your future & learn from your past.






For the first time in my 34 years on this planet, I am free. Free from putting others needs before my own, free from the restraints & responsibilities that others have always needed from me. I have a good job, I have my own space that is mine & I have a sense of well being that I have never experienced before.






No man's tragedies are greater than another's. I have had plenty. But each one has given me just a little bit more strength, patience & grace to deal with the next.






People are confused by the haste in which I have picked myself up. To them I say this, don't question it. Don't fret or worry about me, because I am just fine. It's your own energy you are wasting.





Accept that I am really ok.






REAL GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING TALK.






Bx


P.S This post is very gappy? I'm not sure what happened but enjoy scrolling x

Where's Your Head At

This year has been a giant bowl of steaming dicks.

Dicks covered in sexually transmitted diseases.

But here I am. Shit together. Still breathing. Haven't murdered anyone/burnt any buildings down. Overall I am winning.

When life gets assy, I like to console myself with the knowledge that there will always be someone out there in the universe dealing with a shit tonne of other assy stuff that's way bigger than my own mountain of shit. I have stood & I have goddam dealt with this. Real talk.

So without further ado, here's what you missed when I was here but not really here.

1. I had a mammogram. I had decided, in the wake of recent life events that it was my due that I would more than likely get breast cancer & die. Because fuck you life. I basically got my tits mashed into skin pancakes because I found a lump & doctor bitches be all serious about boob lumps these days. It wasn't fun. Hell I was actually impressed at how well behaved my boobs were. Short of mounting the machine & riding it like a mule, they had me in all sorts of weird positions. Conclusion of this story: I don't have breast cancer. My tits are GOOD.

2. My marriage is still over. Nothing new to report here. I am in a good place & can only see really awesome shit ahead for me. INCLUDING a trip overseas next year. That's right, come 28th of May I am out of here for 2 months. England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Amsterdam, Germany & Singapore are where I shall be visiting. And I can't fucking wait.

3. I have reconnected with my friends. I'm not sure what happened but one can only guess that I buried myself so balls deep in my married life that I forgot I was fun. And that I bloody love my friends MAD FRICKING HARD. They have saved me from me.

4. I am in the process of moving into my own place. I put my big girl panties on & decided after a few months of much needed nurturing from my parents & baby steps in this whole new post marriage life shebang that this bitch be needin her own digs. I am now moving forward in leaps & wildstriding bounds.

5. I am feelin AMAZE y'all! Like hella good. I am losing weight. My hair is shiny & smells like coconuts. I am wearing colour & lipsticks that make my face explode all over other peoples faces. I have nice lady shoes on my actual feet, not sitting in my wardrobe looking pretty & never getting worn. I have a new found confidence. My magic juju is back. The old fun parts of myself are returning one day at a time.

6. Summer is beckoning me. And do I have a shit tonne of stuff lined up to do. YES I DO SIRS & MRS'S. I am doing the Colour Run in Wellington end of March. I won't be actually running but that's neither her nor there. I plan on wild striding. With the unicorn head mask on. Yep.

7. I am going to see a couple of my favourite bands play live over summer. Nothing rings my ding more.

8. I am playing music. In public. Again. Because I remembered that I actually love to do that.

9. I love everyone. Like love the ever loving shit out of every one's faces. For loving me when I needed to feel loved the most.

10. I still hate Christmas, but I am looking forward to being with just my family, away from the madness of city life, no Facey, phone or technology for 2 whole days. We are going down the sounds to just be with each other. (Truth be told the thought of not being able to connect with the real world makes me feel slightly clammy & sick but I will handle it somehow).

11. I got a new tattoo on my finger. With my best friend of 24 years. It's beautiful & meaningful & I love it as much as I love her.

Some of you may be wondering how Blake is doing? If not I am about to tell you anyway. Blake is ok. He's dealing with this too. And I don't forget that, but I can't be sad with him. I've become quite selfish. For the first time in my life I am allowing myself to be selfish. This show is about me now.

I still get sad that my marriage ended. I like to win at everything.

I still get sad that things didn't work out for us.

I also get sad sometimes as we cut away each tie from each other. He was my best friend & I loved him the most I have ever loved another human. I will always love him, just in a different way now.

Yet she stands & she deals. Because drowning in the fire is not an option. She is happy.

Concrete Birds.

When I was 12 years old, after a long day at school, I spent the night at home with my Dad & sister while my Mum worked.

While laying snuggled up on the couch with my Dad & sister, he disclosed to my sister & I that he no longer wanted to be married to our Mum & that he would probably be leaving our family unit soon.

I had sensed for over a year that all was not well with my parents marriage, but I was 12. I didn't have to worry myself about their business.

1 month later, I got home after school one day to find a note from my Dad saying that he loved us both, but he was leaving.

And just like that he was gone.

I phoned my Mum at work to tell her that I had found a letter from Dad & read it out to her over the phone.

Her sobbing, still to this day lays buried deeply in my head. That kind of human emotion, pure devastation & heartache, sticks to you.

I had to step up BIG TIME. My role in my family went from being an eldest daughter to that of the protector & caretaker for my sister, & my Mum.

The years that followed really sucked. My Mum moved my sister & I away from our hometown, to start a new life in Nelson.

I said goodbye to my childhood friends.
I said goodbye to my Dad.
I said goodbye to my entire 13 year old life.

My teenage years weren't easy either. My mum had spinal surgery & wasn't around a lot due to her long extended stays in hospital. My Dad remarried another woman 3 years after my parents marriage ended. He married a woman who had been a close family friend.

It took my Mum forever to get over that hurt. And I lived through her pain.

Onwards into my twenties, I hit it the ground running. Drinking, gambling, abusive relationships, you name it, I probably did it. It was a delayed rebellion. I spent my teens being a grown up & since I was no longer required to take care of others, I decided it was time to get myself into some shit. Learn some lessons per say.

My pain & hurt for my lost youth & broken home had manifested itself into some toxic evil concrete birds that clung to my shoulders. They dug their talons in hard.

While buried deep in my own grey bird cloud, one day mid September 2005, I met a boy who had his own flock of concrete birds on his shoulders too.

Together, as the bestest friends in all of the lands, we ninja kicked the shit out of each others concrete birds, & everything became a little less heavy.

Fast forward another 2.5 years, that boy & I decided we loved each other & we wanted to be together, forever til the end of time. I'd never felt love like that before. That free & easy kind of real love that we all wish to have in our lives.

From the very first moment that this boy confessed his undying love for me, & I in turn chose to walk that path with him, I knew that he was the one for me.

I have been really happy for the last 6 years. Truly ridiculously stupid happy. Finally free from my wild & haunted past.

I am no fool when it comes to marriage & love. I know that marriage takes A LOT of hard work. I know that it takes two people to make all aspects of marriage work.

When we decided to stand in front of all our family & friends & promise to love, honour & cherish each other for the rest of our lives, I meant every dam word I said. Through the good shit, & the bad shit, right to the end. I told him right from the get go, I am a fighter. I don't give up when shit gets tough, because I won't repeat history.

Divorce is too common these days & it makes me sick. My generation seems to think that marriage is something that you can just wipe off your shoes like a freshly laid dog shit.

Sometimes you really don't see stuff creeping up on you.

My marriage is over.

Like DONE done. As of just over a week ago.

After 2 months or so of heartache for both of us, it was a mutual decision to seperate. He has grown up & wants to explore the world. And I have lost myself in our marriage & I need to find myself again.

If someone had of told me back in April this year, that this was going to happened, I would have snort laughed all over their face. Because it's so ridiculously unexpected.

The people I have told have been all like WHAT THE FUCK? I know guys. I am having fleeting moments of what the actual fuck quite often. We were meant for each other? For a short while it seems. But as it turns out, we make better best friends & suck at being married people together.

My concrete birds are back. Just for a little while as I figure things out & piece my world back together.

Right now, I am an emotional zombie. I know that I will be ok, mainly because I am undoubtedly awesome, but in this moment, right this very minute, I am a little bit broken. I never wanted this for myself. I loved being married & I was proud to be married to him. Moral of story, shit does happen.

Thank you to my friends & especially my family for lifting me up the last few weeks.

Love your people. But most importantly, love the ever loving shit outta yourself. Because when those concrete birds come swooping to weigh you down with life's troubles, YOU are all you have.

Bx

P.S Look out world. I'm back! Starting with my dear chums in the Isle of Wight, Emily & Kev. See you next year in June. I'm buying my tickets tomorrow & this bitch is hitting the UK & Europe for a couple of months. Whoop!