A few quiet drinks...

So, it's Tuesday, and I'm sat here, looking back (as always) on the silly things I've done lately.

For once, I can honestly say - the silly stuff was fun; and the stuff I should regret is the stuff that makes me smile the most.
Sadly, there's still a bunch of stuff that I regret. Then again - isn't that just life?

Things I don't regret:

• Making epic amounts of Rum/Vodka/Sambuca punch at Kaydee's 21st
• Making out with everyone attending Kaydee's 21st
• Turning our flat mate a little bit gay at Kaydee's 21st
• Dressing up at midnight to surprise Kaydee on her birthday
• Walking through Leicester in said costumes with Libor on our way to surprise Kaydee
• Making up with a boy who needed help
• Holding said boy while he flinched and cried out trying to get to sleep
• Cutting my hair off
• Leaving early on nights out

I could go on...

Things I do regret:

• Disappearing for 3-4 hours with a boy while a friend was over (no, we didn't do anything)
• Allowing assumptions to be held about me
• Not curbing my own emotions

I'm always surprised out how few regrets I have. I suppose it's because my mum always told me that she didn't regret anything - and that I shouldn't either. You live with your decisions, so you should think about them before you make them - and if you don't think about them first, you should just enjoy having been spontaneous and brave enough to do it in the first place.

There's a distinction here that I should point out. While I don't have regrets in my own actions (exactly), there are things that I do, or that happened and I kinda blame myself for, that make me sad. Like, for instance, that look that someone close to me gives me on occasion... it's a look that's so sad... and I catch them looking at me with that face just after doing something that could possibly evoke a sad(ish) feeling...
Now, that is my main problem right now.
This person means a hell of a lot to me; and though I'm not sure, I think I might be hurting them.
If I am, it'll be the biggest regret on my list. But I can't tell... I just can't...

With them, it's always been easy. We've known each other inside and out - understood each other on a level I didn't think actually existed outside of fairy-tales and romantic novels. But lately there's this wall between us. I can't tell if I'm reading them right any more. I can't just look in their eyes and know any more. Does that mean we're drifting apart?
I'd say it does... but it more feels like being thrust out. I feel 'unwelcome'. As if they don't want to share any more, and have purposefully dropped an iron curtain between us to protect them from my intrusiveness. Shame that they don't seem to understand me any more either. Not like before.

I suppose all things change though.
I'm just not... how to put this?... I'm not used to not understanding.
I hate change at the best of times - it throws me off and I get all unsure. I hate being unsure. But when it's a friend that changes it's even weirder.
Thing is, they haven't changed. They've just changed to me; and I'm left standing trying to work out in what way things have changed, and if it's them or just my perspective...

Stuff is just all complicated at the minute. Has been all year if I'm honest.
Okay, so I know that life is always complicated - but this is like a 9.0 where as it's normally about a 4.7...
Feels like it's just cranked up to a 9.4 too!

So, the few quiet drinks of Kaydee's 21st birthday...
They weren't so quiet.
Could you guess??

My word - things nearly got out of hand if I'm honest.
Somehow, just chilling out turned into just about making out... then spin the bottle started... then pass the ice... then "let's split off into couples"...
In the end we all just laid in one bed kissing, cuddling - probably groping too in places. No clothes removed (thankfully) though.
As fun as it was (we were all surprisingly comfortable with it to be honest) I kinda couldn't handle it after a while.

See... there was someone in the pile of bodies that I have actual feelings for.
There were also two people in the pile who have actual feelings for another person.
The whole thing was a messy pile of unquenched sexual tension and pain.

Maybe I was the only one who was attuned to it (I am an empath after all). Maybe I was the only one sober enough to register it above the primal urges that were running rampant in the house. Or maybe everyone else didn't mind so much; figured the good outweighed the bad - or that the bad they were inflicting on the other people (jealousy was rife) made it worth while. Maybe they like a little bit of bad thrown in with the good. I don't know.
What I do know is that I've had more than enough making out in the past few weeks that was flavoured by my own pain, and/or someone else's, to be overwhelmed by the feeling.

Only my housemates (and Jodie) noticed - and that was only as everyone left (or after everyone left) - because I finally started tearing up. Not much, but enough to let out the excess hurting. Enough to relieve the pressure sort of thing.
I blame it on not feeling well and thinking that ethanol was a good thing to ingest.
I've found that, while I don't get drunk easily, alcohol lowers my ability to reign in my emotions.

So there I was, five past 3, blubbing on the sofa to my housemate who I'd spent a large portion of the night kissing, making out with and generally turning gay. I say blubbing, because it's not really crying when you leak a few tears, pull yourself together, talk for half an hour and then leak some more. Not in my books.
I've cried my heart out before. Many a time.
I know what real crying is.
Anything that lasts more than a minute might be classed as crying still.

Thing is, I can't even explain to myself what made me want to cry.
I sat up talking to Helen about my feelings for hours. But none of that explains why I practically cried.

I have this theory that I've already cracked under the pressure of life.
This is just some kind of residual humour that's been left behind in my place.
Sometimes it's like I'm not really even here - it's just something else that's making the most of what's left.
Stuff goes wrong, and there's a hint of the 'Oh NO!' somewhere in me, something that wants to cry and scream that it isn't fair, and that I'm a failure etc. etc. etc... but this something else just shrugs it off and says 'bring it on'.
Like I've just developed this emptiness; cultivated it somewhere deep inside, and can let it flow over me when things get too tough. As if I just let everything fill the void and be swallowed by it. The pain, the confusion, the anger, the stress - it gets eaten by the emptiness and leaves me able to cope. Only thing is, it seems to swallow a part of me at the same time - and I'm not sure if that's a bad thing...


Our social life has become too complicated. It's just that simple.
The sensible thing to do would be to step back, focus on work, and not let it interfere with my head.
The thing I'm doing is trying to work it all out and follow what's going on.
(Read: procrastinating like hell because my lack of fully formed dissertation is scaring me)

I've also been sucked into a series of books by Laurell K Hamilton lately called Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter... I keep kidding myself that it's research for my dissertation (The Androgynous Undead: The literary Vampire and it's Effect on Gender Boundaries)... but really, it's just a nice distraction. It's easy to fall into and leave the world behind.
I've always loved reading. I do it instead of watching TV. It's my medium for chilling out.
After these past few years of having to read stuff - stuff that just couldn't capture me, stuff that was down right boring, or disgusting, or too hard in content to emotionally deal with (read suicides and rape) cause it hit too close to home - it's so nice to finally start enjoying reading again. I've missed it.

The main protagonist (main character for those of you who didn't study English lit) is amazing.
She's so kick ass - I think I look up to her. Role model? Naw...
I mean, she's nothing like me if we're talking appearance, career, life... but the personality is so me it's ridiculous. I think that's why I fall into the story so easily. It's written in first person, and her reactions to situations are so similar to what mine would be, it's as if - for a few hours a day - I am Anita: the kick ass Vampire Executioner, necromancer, gun wielding, cute and sexy little woman who has a sharper wit than her knives, and doesn't take crap from anyone.
Like me, she'd rather be fully honest about everything; even when it gets her in trouble (and lots of it). We're both as quick to jump the gun and slug someone if they piss us off, and as willing to do what it takes to survive as each other. We both have a crazy friend who kills people for a living (though mine doesn't give me epic weapons as gifts) and both have a still place inside that, if we go to, everything becomes possible. A place where emotions disappear and all that remains is the cold hard fact that we are capable of anything.

So yeah, if I were to be a story book character, and I were more trigger happy, cuter, shorter, and more athletic... I'd be Anita Blake.
Sadly, my ability to blur the boundaries between reality and fantasy isn't being helped by this.
I keep forgetting that my friends aren't lycanthropes, or vampires, or other preternatural beings...
Actually, I was just wondering about who I'd want to be in a triumvirate with if I could be - and the sad part is, I don't even have to think about it. Mathieu and Libor are the only people I can imagine being tied to in that way. We'd make a great trio. They're the only guys I trust and love implicitly. The two strongest men I know (don't want to be tied to people I feel are weak, it should be a strong triumvirate).
I'd probably be the weak link in the whole thing - but I doubt it some how. My true weakness comes from a desire to be looked after - a desire which is slowly disappearing from my genetic make-up if I'm entirely honest. That desire makes me act weak so that people protect me. It's silly really.
Thinking back though; I felt so much stronger, so much more alive, when I was with Li and Mat - as if we already were a power base.
There's an irony I'd point out... but it's a total spoiler for the novels, and I know someone who reads this blog is trying to get through the series at the minute.

Thinking about Mathieu and Libor has made me miss them again.
Missing Li seems silly as I saw him yesterday. But missing Mathieu is this dull ache that's always there now. It's dulled with time, because all pain does when you live with it day in-day out. You get to a point where you push it so far down inside you that you barely feel it most of the day. Then you think about that person you miss, and it blooms to the surface again.
He's still all the way over in France... and I don't get to talk to him often lately - because I'm hardly ever online. It doesn't seem fair that you can meet people now that are so instantly and so whole connected to you, but sooo far away that you can't be in contact with them. That you can't just see them, and hug them, and sit and chat for hours. That you can't curl up in bed with them and fall asleep talking. That you can't just see them.
It wouldn't be so bad, but when I do see Mat (through the magical technology of webcams) he looks so sad so often. I'm pretty sure my smile's have dimmed a lot too. Watching Li and Mat on webcam to each other used to be like watching a smiling match. Now it's a show of mourning. They don't seem to realise it, but they both look so sad - as if they'll never be in close proximity again. Missing people sucks like that.
It's just so hard to see the two people I love the most hurting like that - especially at the same time, for the same reason. I'd give anything sometimes to just take that problem away - just to see them smile.

And yes - they are the two people I love the most. Sorry everyone else, it's just true. I can't help it.


So, my mood lately has been what I'm now describing as "moop". It's a cross between 'meh' and 'poop'. It's catching on amongst friends. That in itself is a scary thought.

I was always the weird floater person that people put up with. Lately I seem to have become part of a core. Within our social structure there's two separate cores - and I'm pretty much in the centre of one of them. People look to me in that 'shall we?' kind of way. I can't really explain it. It's not a 'you're in charge' thing... not even a 'well if Lauren's doing it...' kind of way. It's just a constant inclusion if that makes sense. I mean, part of it is just being one of Libor's "second in command"s... everyone looks to Li for the go ahead in our little 'core'. He's the trend setter, the leader - what ever you want to call it. Our Ulfric... and somehow I've ended up as part of that leadership... somehow I've ended up as almost a proxy Lupa...
Oh god, I'm using werewolf terms again... see what I mean about being overly influenced by these books?

I'm not used to being this close to being 'popular'. It's the oddest part of my uni experience so far. Okay, no, that's a lie - Kaydee's (okay, and my) parties have been the oddest part of my uni experience - but being liked is definitely high up on the list. Being one of the people almost always invited to the party; the one who's smiled at and greeted in the street; just being accepted really - it's a feeling I never hoped for (never even strove to achieve if I'm honest). I never believed it was attainable, so I didn't bother with it.

I have to say, I never expected to be a part of a drunken party that ended up in  bedrooms.
Even in my crazy years (well, my last year at sixth form college) I didn't imagine it.
I mean, being accepted back then had still left me as an outlier. Someone to be included if I was around, but only invited on odd occasions. Now I do a lot of inviting myself... and my parties are getting quite the reputation for insanity.

I keep wondering what next year will bring.
Whether any of us will still be together, being insane, and having a laugh.
It's hard to imagine life not being this fun, hard, crazy bubble of friends and stress.
I mean - surely we can keep that? Only the work has to change - from study to actual work. Right?

I don't know.
What I do know is that I have to stop worrying about it.
We'll jump off that bridge when we get to it.
Speaking of which - I'm dying to go bungee jumping!! So what if I have severe vertigo? I want to jump out of a plane and parachute down to the ground. I want to jump off a bridge and spring back upwards while screaming my lungs out.
I want to face my fear and laugh at it afterwards.

That's the person I want to be. The person who looks fear in the face and smiles. The person who doesn't panic, and doesn't cry; because fear is the only thing that stops you from doing things. It's the only draw back to life.
Fear will not hold me back. Never. Not ever again.

Be free. Live to the fullest you can. No regrets.


Blessed Be xx