Still a creep

I was reminded a few days ago of a time when I felt I didn't belong. When I was unsure of myself and searching for ways to fit in.

In my teens I listened whatever radio one told me to. I recorded Top of the Pops. I hovered over the stop button on my stereo, to end the music before the radio DJ spoke. Like a battle of wills, one side imaginary, the other determined, we tried to get there first. Until I bought myself a stereo that had a fade dial. Finally a professionalish end. Even if it was Mariah Carey singing some pappy pop tune.

After I my first love finished with me on a Thursday afternoon, I commenced a dogged determination to listen to important music. I had no real idea what that was but I wasn't going to restrict my ears to the production line of notes I'd been force fed so far. I started to wear black lipstick and hang around in record stores. I shunned Mizz and Just Seventeen. Choosing instead, the holy bibles of Melody Maker and NME. I'd know music. I'd listen to serious stuff. But obviously this doesn't happen overnight.

I made some new friends. A good group of people, most of whom I still know. They knew music. Or rather they appeared to, from my naive perspective. I, on the other hand, knew absolutely nothing. I looked like I spent all my money in Rowfers alternative clothing but it may as well have been fancy dress. I was playing a part. I pretty much still had the record button hovering for Mariahs next big hit. One night, I recall one of my new friends asking, what music are you into. The numbing horror. What music. I had no idea. It should have been such an innocent question but it definitely didn't feel it. Did he mean genre? What if I picked the wrong one? I already loved The Levellers by that time. My first love introduced me to them. I'd heard a few songs by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin but did these comprise a category? I mumbled some form of a response. I've no idea what I said but I felt like a charlatan and I do not mean the band. Time past, as time does. I began to know music. Even more time past and I realised that it didn't matter. People like what they like. Musical prowess doesn't really exist. It is no more a badge of achievement than wearing the latest fashion is for those that choose to do so.

And yet I felt a slight ripple of the same worry I had all those years ago. Here, at the ripe old age of 44. Someone I had just met asked me a few questions about music. One about musicians I knew, somewhat, and one about an artist I'd never heard of. There was a sense that they were trying to trip me up. Find me out. Though of course there was nothing to find. I was dancing because I liked the sound.

Its interesting that no matter how much time passes, there are moments when perhaps we all feel like the fretful teenager we once were. The insecurities never fully leave us. Still a creep. Still a weirdo.

💜💜💜

Missing

I'm mostly OK, when you're far from
The fragile comes less than before
Just whispers at my fear now
Til we're standing again, door to door

In fragments though, in fleeting
The missing tsunamis my stand
Feet drag, all verbs are trying
Til the waves return to our land

Blue pools

In your quiet blue pools

I'm unsteady, scrabbling for cover

You peer from behind shadows

Your hair dark, curves your face

Your lines beneath my fingertips

The connect in your touch

All your known, your unknown

Inviting all of me.

Discontent

I suppose it was discontent that led me to Google. That and an unexpected reminder hidden in a hangover meme. It said something about forever Tuesday. Thus it was that I found myself back on the endless tuesday blog.

It no longer meant anything to be there. It had long since ceased to be significant. I returned to the blog as a statement to myself. A one finger up. A sod you then. 

I was reading the words of the man I once loved but hardly knew. Most of the words barely registered. I wasn't there for him. I was there because of now. It's the reason we make our lovers jealous, why we pretend not to care, why we are aloof. It's why we wrap our vulnerability up in a blanket of disinterested, when all we want is to be completely loved. So we grab the power back by doing something we don't really feel. We protest. We stamp our feet. Just so we feel less rejected. 

Of course it doesn't really make any difference. It's no small victory. The victory only arrives in realising that there is no rejection, only someone else's choice, which might not reflect our own. 

Rule breaker

There is a woman waiting for the bus, much like I am. I say much because she's breaking unwritten rules. We, the would be passengers always look towards the bus. We await it's approach by staring determinedly. As if this would speed up its appearance. If we chat, our gaze is still on the arrival of the bus. We may glance down, text, Facebook, get vaguely lost in Pinterest but the focus never really deviates. The woman keeps glancing in the opposite direction. The direction I happen to be standing in. This is a tad unsettling. Do I have food on my face? Skirt tucked in my knickers? Mirror checking and shirt smoothing suggests not. Thus I have taken defensive action, I have applied my earphones. Earphones are a well recognised symbol of Don't talk to me because I am not a maker of small talk. Yet, as a breaker of social conventions, she'll probably say hello anyway. Ugh.

Yours,

The Antisocial RGF

Xxx

Third time lucky

I have written of my first and second love. These words are of my third. Not the third time I've loved, I've fallen in numerous times. But there are three significant times. I'm in third love right now.

There are moments with my wonderful third love where I'm so lost in emotion that it's overwhelming. It sweeps in and sends me spinning. It's exciting yet I feel completely at ease with him. This is what real romantic happiness feels like. It is largely perfect.

Nevertheless, in the background there's a nagging fear. Not born out of us or him but which was seeded in the past and has taken root in me.

I remember feeling a tremendous sense of security with my first love. We'd never break up. I knew this. Ours was a perfect love. I recall a female friend of his joking that even our bladder movements were in sync. My naive 17 year old self thought this was a sign. Moreover, I thought she was being sweet. In wise hindsight, she was poking fun at him, a timely reminder that asked did he really want a serious girlfriend in his second year at uni. Of course he didn't. When he walked me to the train station, on the weekend that she made this joke, I was firmly locked in a bubble of love. We were unpoppable. I didn't remember the fragility of bubbles. I didn't see any sign of doubt in his eyes. That weekend was the last time we spoke face to face. Though the dumping actually happened a few days later. If mobile phones were employed by the masses back then and if texting had been invented, he would have text dumped me. As it was, he payphone dumped me. I received the news via my parent's landline. I spent years after trying to unpick the memories. Why hadn't I seen the signs. If I'd known, then at least first heartbreak wouldn't have been punctured with first shock.

Subconsciously I guess I vowed that I'd be ready to face the pain next time. And I have been.  I've spotted all the signs, in all the relationships. I've second guessed. I've clocked things that didn't even exist beyond the realms of my paranoia. And I've definitely generated numerous self-fulfilling prophecies. I still do it now. Lost in love with a great man, who is in love with me. Even though he's kind and sensitive and full of compassion, I still brace myself for impact. It's a habit I need to break.

Though my first experience of love paved the way for my future. Neither history nor a crystal ball will save me from pain. They'll just prevent me from fully enjoying my love right now.

Xxxx

Journey

The train was almost steamy in its approach. In that it had more chug than usual. Despite this unexpected Thomas the Tank Enginesque arrival, I briefly felt like a commuter, as I clambered on. A real commuter. The kind that begins at leafy town and ends in Euston. Except that I'm not. Two mini train rides and a bus hop does not make it so. It just sort of hints at it, slightly.

Once on board, I wandered past a ‘fellow’ commuter. Except that he was a real one. I could tell. He had all the kit. This man does not wander, even on his day off. The commuter aka Pinstripe (on account of his sharply lined shirt) was hunched expertly over a laptop. Very few of us can hunch expertly. He was one of the elite or so he'd probably tell you during a protein shake power lunch.

Much like Pinstripe, I sat down, and curled myself around some important apparatus. Unlike Pinstripe, my focus was a faded, grocery filled shopper. I reached in and pulled out the chocolate buttons. Unfortunately, half the pack had gone before I'd finished a Marian Keyes short story. To clarify, short is not an exaggeration. I've tweeted longer prose. Fortunately, if you eat fast enough, your body doesn't spot the calories. Ahem.

Anyway, twentyish buttons later, I'd lost myself in an imaginary world of first class travel, on board massages and freebies. Magically adrift I was, until the loudest sneeze in the world pulled me back to reality. The train shook, well pretty much, and it was parked at the time. I tried, uselessly, to locate the previous owner of the sneeze. Then, my ears clambered into the fetal position, as sneeze two erupted. A moment later I located the sneezer. It was Pinstripe.  

Upon leaving the train, I checked his face for Bang and Olufsen. Zero amplification. Pinstripe, you may be a serious commuter but you lose on sneeze points. We're marking on the silence. My sneeze might not reflect the gentle mating call of the woodland faery but they're definitely unassuming. Thus, I'm calling it a draw.

The RGF xxx