Easy Come, Easy Go

I'm very good at losing things - singular earrings, multiple cell phones, other people's belongings, my train of thought, the list is endless. I misplace my mind with a refreshing regularity. Though that is true, it's not the kind of thing I want to talk/type about losing today; I'm also rather good at losing people. This is rather bad, I gather.

I don't know whether it's sheer carelessness on my part, disregard for their feelings, my self admitted apathy and fear of confrontation, the fact that I have the attention span of a gnat or maybe just me, being a bad person. As much as I detest this conclusion, I've ruled out the possibility of a It's-Not-Me-It's-You scenario. This has happened far too often. I know this is harping on the selfishness thang I had going a few posts ago, but hey, forgive me if I'm identifying a major character flaw I've been carrying around like a half eaten sandwich in your backpack that went unnoticed for weeks until the stench got so bad that nobody wanted to sit next to you anymore, not even the weird kid who still eats paste and only has self drawn chalk-figures for friends. Yeah, not even her. (See, train of thought successfully lost)

I think about them a lot. I replay and rewind everything in my mind a thousand times, retrace my steps to find where I lost them. I wish I could talk to them. I don't want them to belong to someone else, even if they are more deserving of them. I want them back.

I wish there was a sort of Lost & Found box for people. Where you could just saunter on in, look at the array of metaphorical equivalents of single earrings, pick and choose who you want back and leave the rest for the Salvation Army. Because these are things I'll never say out loud - a) I'm sorry b) I miss you c) I want you back and d) you hurt me when you left.

For future reference, when I say 'Leave, see if I care' I mean 'I want you to stay, I'm sorry, you'll hurt me if you go and I'll miss you sorely'.

Ode to a Sandwich

Welcome to November. It's the fourth, and I am very proud to announce that I have just finished making the most unsuccessful sandwich in living memory. I should win a prize. It's a shame I didn't take a photo of it before it departed this world...

I was desperate for some food, and so drifted over to the fridge in search of sustenance. We have:

• A marmalade jar, empty save a smearing of transparent orange/yellow goo.
• Two cheese spread cartons, empty-ish and turning slightly brown at the edges
• A bottle of salsa, now much more pungent that the Mexicans originally intended, I'm willing to bet.
• Some margarine, now far too yellow to possibly benefit your cholesterol levels.
• Many miscellaneous items encased in various brands of plastic Tupperware.
• Fresh brown bread- a bloody miracle.
• A pack of butter, hardened to the consistency of cheese by the excessive arctic conditions at the very back of said refrigerator.
• Very little else.

Why do people choose to place empty items back into the fridge?! I cannot envisage the circumstances under which I would ever be in dire need of a slightly chilled jar of no marmalade.

Desperate for some form of gastronomic satisfaction, I opted for the simple fresh-brown-bread and hard-butter combo. Have you ever tried spreading hard butter onto soft bread? Oh wait. That's right. You can't.

Folklore dictates that hard butter can be made soft by employing that cunning scientific discipline known as 'mashing': the butter is gradually warmed against the side of its carton through repeated knife-manipulation. However, there is a glaring flaw in my situation: butter sits in a flimsy paper/foil crap pack. So butter is placed cold and hard onto bread, refusing to lie down like morning glory. A feeling of utter inadequacy embraces you as these lumps of fat mock your dismal sandwich making abilities. Last effort is a vigorous chopping technique. Gaping holes appear in bread- not exactly what I had in mind- butter hasn't budged. Bread is thrust across the kitchen in a hissy fit.

I am still hungry.

My favourite songs are those that I keep returning to. I never consciously played them over and over on repeat, they just crept stealthily up my Top 25 without my specific knowledge. It's those songs that subconsciously put a reluctant smile on my face when they come on shuffle, despite the fact that I'm probably barely listening to the music because I'm probably writing a super-important, super-over due essay.
In that way, my favourite songs are like my best friends. I can press skip, I can say "Sorry dude, I'm just not in the mood today" without excuses and guilt. My best friends aren't always necessarily the people I have the most fun with, or hang out with the most. It's the people that are quietly comforting, the people that make me laugh despite myself. I don't have to sing along obnoxiously for everyone to know I like this song, contentment is written all over my face when it plays.

Then there are friends you make because of a certain situation you're in. They sit in front of you everyday at school, they're on the same bus, they're your neighbours. Circumstantial friends, or atleast those that start off that way. Haven't you had songs that you like because the reflect what you happen to be feeling at that moment? Break up songs that seamed beautiful when you were still crying over that boy. Songs about summer that didn't seem so great in the grey of December.

There's songs and friends you refuse to let go of, even though you know things are not what they used to be. I can't bring myself to make that decided and committed click when the flashing blue on the screen asks if I'm sure I want to delete. I thought I was sure you didn't belong in my music library, in my life. But all those good times we had. What's the harm in leaving Barbie Girl there...

On the contrary, there are those songs you've known and loved forever. The people that populate your nursery class photographs, ugly middle school pictures of hanging out in malls and now, your Facebook profile pictures. I've always loved you, Aaron Carter. No shame.

Of course, there's the boyfriends and girlfriends. You're obsessed for a while, and there can be nothing better. Or so you think. Yeah, these are the Ke$has. Because your love is my drug, but I gotta get sober some time.

A lot more Meredith Grey than you know

I'd like to think I'm a selfless, giving person. I'd also like to think that this tub of ice cream I'm eating isn't going to go straight to my thighs. But sometimes, the truth is much too real to ignore.

I'll never put myself out there for you, but I expect your TrueFeelingsAndBleedingBrokenHeart at my doorstep asap, thanks.

I don't want to love someone, I just want to be wanted.
This smile doesn't say I Like You, it says Do You Like Me?

I don't want your drama, I don't want there to be 'our' drama.

My freedom and a few spilt kisses for your complications and compromise doesn't seem like a fair exchange to me.

I really care about you...but I apologise, I don't do EmotionalAttachment.

And you know the worst part? I'm happy this way.

And that's why there will never be a we. Because I'm selfish enough to want these things, but not selfish enough to ask them of you.

It's all about me today. Maybe tomorrow I'll change for you. Maybe tomorrow I'll try and change for you. Because I fear, my dear, I'm already too far gone.

Sitting in a sand pit, life is a short trip

I don't know if I'm growing up, or growing old but I know that I'm growing tired of having my beliefs, my trust and my innocence so cruelly eroded by life. Perhaps I wouldn't be so bitter if it were huge waves of tragedy that were washing away the sand castles in my mind and replacing them with perfectly logical and perfectly ugly two-story houses painted beige, rather than the ceaseless monotony of everyday livin'.

I miss being young - when a cardboard box wasn't something I forgot to throw away, it was a race car, it was a treasure chest, it was barbie's new Malibu mansion.

When happy meals were really happy.

When I could fly, when I jumped off the toppest stair with two feathers and not a clue.

When bruises didn't hurt as long as they were colourful enough.

When broken toys were our greatest anguish, and there was no such thing as a broken home.

When family road trips were about Are We There Yet and not Can We Got Home Yet.

When boys had cooties.

When Full House taught you all the life lessons you needed to know.

When the most gut wrenching deaths you'd known were Goldy the goldfish and Squig the worm.

When you thought the sandpit in school could put the Sahara to shame. How else could you always have so much sand in your shoes and eyes and underwear every day when you got home?

When Fred and Daphane were the most dysfunctional couple you knew.

When you knew that if you tunnel straight down you'd get to China...eventually.

When Breezers were hardcore.

When the most important decision you had to make was which Crayola colour to use.

When long-distance meant his house wasn't close enough to walk to.

When your biggest fashion crisis involved sneakers with lights at the back.

When Aaron Carter rocked your socks.

When you always seemed to be the token mid-blink person in every class photo even though you took extra care to open your eyes REALLY wide every year. (Maybe that one was just me)

I miss my sandcastles. So I've decided that we're going to be the ones that have it all and do it all. We'll do the wrong things that feel right, we'll kiss more frogs than princes and we'll never regret a thing. We'll ride off into our delusional sunsets. We'll be forever young.

Same Old, Same Old

Routine is comforting.

Fall asleep on the right side of the bed, white sheets, blue blanket, alarm rings at 8.30, snooze it three times, wake up at 8.57 on the left side of the bed, get out of bed at 9, Colgate toothpaste, Pears soap, kajal and sleep on the eyes, toast, college, home, read, coffee, tv, dinner, fall asleep on the right side of the bed. Rinse and repeat.

But more often than not, routine is dangerous; or the need to break out of it is. Sometimes I get this unshakeable feeling that every day I'm inching closer and closer to the end of an ordinary life, while I'd much rather be hurtling towards the end of an extraordinary one. Which, though dramatic, is true. And it makes me do small stupid things, this big not-so-stupid feeling. Drive a little faster than is good, be a little more flirtatious than I should, drink more than I can hold and stay out longer than is respectable. And that's what makes life livable. But I'm scared that one day I'll be so frustrated and bored that those small rebellions won't be enough for me. That because I'm scared that I'll end up a traffic jam, I'll go faster and faster till I'm a full blown car accident. You know, fuck the metaphors. I'm just scared I'll do BIG stupid things instead of little stupid things. And my mature and understanding exterior will belie the rash and unreasonable person inside.

Now I don't know if I'm right, and this isn't an epiphany or anything close. It's just what I've been feeling a lot lately, and it's 2 am and I just want to tell everyone on the internet that I've been feeling it a lot lately.