Reality

I submerge myself in a rainforest of illusions. Reality rejected, I take my foot and place it on the cool earth that paints my feet. The sun shines through the trees and projects shadows of ballet dancers which take my hand and guide me into my imagination. Through ignorance or just plain hope, I follow. I spin so my hair flies, my eyes close, my mouth smiles, and my body detaches itself from my soul and spirit. Free. Tears of joy, love and happiness fall on my warming cheeks and I laugh aloud, to no one but myself. I often am told I need my feet firm on the grounds on reality, but what grounds? The grounds of responsibility? Of adulthood? Of growing up? I shake my head and say, 'Why would I want to do a thing like that?'
I choose a place free from war and pain.
And when I fall asleep I am enveloped in this magical world where people love not just one person, but each other and the earth which provides them with nutrients and homes.
Does this reality exist? Maybe I am choosing one fragment of reality, one tiny jigsaw piece that doesn't need others to fit in. I reject the hegemonic forces which isolate me in reality, make me straighten my skirt and open my legs to progress in life. The societal expectations of building a life in a house with a picket fence and bay windows, of day dreaming about chores rather than of the adventures life can take you on.
In many ways, man made reality. It is only through society that the building blocks of reality are a dull red rather than array of colours from the palette of life. Man chose how our lives are to be. To be a child, to be educated, grow up, make money and a family, retire on a pittance and then die.
No, I will not enter this dictatorship. I am my own person.

So yes, I reject you, reality. I guess my eating disorder and other problems stem from this. But maybe my problem isn't food or self harm, but reality. I have a problem with reality. And like all problems, I will confront you with my head held high and flowers in my hair.

Dear Mother.

Dear Mother

I watched you cry, I held you close, we lost everything and it was just us. Just me and you. Fighting the world. Sitting on the sofa watching runways with tea and a box of chocolate cornflakes.
I watched you wilt, from the strong flower you was which I admired to just a ghost of what you was before.
Your petals dropped and floated on our sea of tears, and as the water drenched our feet you lost yourself.
You became someone I didn't recognise, a vulnerable scared woman who was angry with the world.
You chose drink instead of food and soon I couldn't see you anymore.
Who were you, mum? Where did my mother go when I took you to bed, washed you, kissed you goodnight, told you it was going to be ok?
Mum, I was scared.
Flashbacks, driving to her house to write bitch on her car in the middle of the night.
You turning up in class crying.
I was scared.
I was 8. I was 8 and decided that I too wouldn't eat. It began here.
I wanted to go back to being innocent, to having a happy family, to having a mum and dad, so I wanted my body to be younger. Skinnier. Innocent.
You didn't see the children shout skeleton girl in the playground. "Don't let the monster play!".
Playing tag got replaced with playing around with numbers, how little can I eat today?
Then how long can I go without eating? A teaspoon of jam.Thats all your worth. Thats all you can have, stupid little girl. No one likes you.
This, this is where it started.
Whilst children were being innocent on a school trip, playing and laughing in childsh joy, I was crying to my teacher as I couldn't drink the hot chocolate they passed me. I was terrified and alone. I had no energy to play so I sat in the cabin, crying and alone.
Then the day a man, a stranger, stuck his hand up my 12year old cunt in a carpark one evening, I tried to tell you. I asked if such things are normal, and you laughed mum. You laughed.
So I purged to cleanse myself of sin. And thats when my bulimia began.
I want to say I am angry. I am so angry that you didn't see me crumble. That I am still fighting the illness 15 years later. That I can still hear screams.
I am angry. Its never stopped, and you don't even recognise it began with you.
My mum. The woman who is meant to love and nuture me.
I am angry. I am hurt. I am feeling tears splash on the keyboard.
But mum, I forgive you.
I forgive you and love you.
I wish I could show you this letter, one day I might, but for now. Just for now. Its here.

From your little girl,

Kate

Limbo

There are times in life where we are waiting. Waiting almost for certain events to pass, for certain things to happen, so we can be the 'real us'. So we can finally have the power to yield what we want from life.
This may be for us to get a certain career, money, to move.
For me right now I am living with my ex partner far away from my friends and family.
I feel like I know when I move into my own place in June/July I can start putting things in practice, like saving money for travelling, painting, reading, meditating.
But at the moment I feel I am playing the waiting game, watching the clock tick so I can transform like Cinderella into a new-improved me.
This never pans out, the clock strikes 12 and we realise things can't always be rosy forever.
But really does that have to be the case? I want the clock to strike 12 and for me to live forever in my metaphorical ball gown with my princess on my arm to dance under the stars. And for once, I believe in this fantasy. Dreams do come true. But its about not giving up on them.

My mum is a person who has had a had life full of what she calls disappointment. Wrong decisions or following her head instead of her heart means she now is a complete disbeliever. A disbeliever in everything I believe in more than anything: magic, dreams, and most importantly love.
She once told me love doesn't exist, and I couldn't believe that she had given up on love.
I don't care how much she tells me these things, I will not move away from my beliefs as what is a life without believing in love?
Even in this break up I believe in love still.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is sometimes we have to play the waiting game. Sometimes life seems like one way, when really something great is coming along.
I do not mind waiting. I feel alone and isolated and a lot of the time helpless, but I know that great things are coming. Thing is I am my own fairy godmother, I am going to make these things happen. Just lifes rules and regulations are currently holding me back.

I will never, ever stop believing in love.
I will never, ever stop dreaming. 

One person

There are times when all it takes is a smile from one person to change your life.
It is the most beautiful thing, its enchanting and liberating and makes you feel alive.
Its strange how we can sometimes feel like we're not alive, like we are a ghost just walking the routes of life we have lived through repetitively, just in a trance-like state of nothingness. A blank space on a page. Empty.
So how do we define life and death?
My definitions have been challenged greatly in the past few years, and I still feel like I am trying to find out what it means to be 'alive'.
But one person can make you feel alive for a moment, and the world melts away like a chalk painting in the street when it rains. And you can feel your heart pulse. And you are reminded, you are reminded you are alive.
Its these moments which are worth everything.

Thank you to that person for reminding me I am alive.

xxxx

Oh what it would be to be free

I am in a place right now that I can't locate.
It is not on a map, nor is it in this world.
I am flying, drifting, being, whispering, I am somewhere where I am running away through emptiness.
People call, ask about my behaviours, raise an eyebrow then hang up.
How are you coping?
Fine.

I saw my therapist for the first time in ages, and we decided that I do run. I run from feelings, experiences, the past, the present, the future, everything.
And I have no language to express where I am, who I am and who I am there with.
My eating disorder was my language, my language to say 'Look I am not fucking ok. Help me.'
And I am majorly triggered right now by my immense hate for myself and my body.
I am breaking up with my partner, well we have broken up. I don't like this word 'broken', as nothing has broke. We were fine. We make a great, loving couple. But I have no sense of self and identity and I want to find myself.
That sounds so cliche, 'I want to find myself'.
But its so true. I want to find that person I cannot locate and take her in my arms and hug her and tell her we fought the good fight and won. We won.
Only then can I consider having someone else to have and to hold for the rest of my life.

I am finding more and more things out about myself.
Right now, this is who I am:

I am a lesbian, and I am out.
I am a dreamer, a believer, a traveller, a lover, a pagan, a compassionate person.
I believe in energy, in light, in the goddess, in the healing power of the world.
I like to write, to draw, to read, to expand my knowledge.
I like people, to talk and listen.
I want to travel. I want to explore. I want adventure. I want to find my neverland.

I am NOT an ed, a mental illness, a scar, a tear.