When I see me in the mirror that you hold

Well dudes, I shot myself in the foot. Multiple gun shot wounds.

I called this blog 101 bad dates, and I only made it to three, well five if you count the two that came before findsomeone.

I only made it to three findsomeone dates before I found a man that made me want to stop dating other people. A BIG call I know. But my name is Clare and I rush into things. Especially exciting, nice things. The words 'reckless abandon' are ringing in my ears...

Apparently two things. Apparently I am irresistible. Lol. Apparently no sooner do I start to date than I find a suitable, compliant applicant, and we begin to have a velcroe effect on each other, the closer you are, the stronger you stick, the longer you're stuck, the harder to pull apart. He is going to read this and laugh. He is going to tell me he laughed and I am going to try and hide my embarassment.

As an aside, don't you just love how it is legitimate to call two things that are meant to fit together 'male' and 'female'. Like plugs and sockets? Like the two sides of velcroe?
I do.
I love that in the collective subconscious of all people, men and women really are supposed to fit together and it is a wholly right and holy thing to do.

I have been debating what to write. Could I just ignore the blog title and write my internal musings on the world around us anyway? Would you have it? Would you buy it for a dollar?

This is how I shot myself twice. I started this blog in the spirit of honesty and candour, and hey, in the spirit of self effacing humour. So after pondering my dilemma for the last few weeks I decided that in keeping with the theme I would tell you the truth (as I see it, for there is no truth and feelings are not facts). So here it is:

Apparently, in relationships, I am crazy.

I had completely forgotten. No, more than that, I had always paired with people who stood on equally shaky mental wellness ground, so that it was never clear just exactly WHO was the truely crazy one. (Despite what we yelled at each other).

Unfortunately, this time, though said male has certain notable flaws, they are the normal, mainly harmless, decent type of flaws like: stubbornness. He is stubborn, it's the nature of his mind, hard like six feet of soil, not completely unresistant, not concrete, but hard earth, and I don't want a go with the spade thanks!! He will come around, once something has sunken in, in his own time. My dear Taurus's (and I have a few who are very dear to me) you're all the same - can't be told.

He is also brutally frank, and he has NO idea. And either he is winding me up, or he has a wit so dry that it takes off the first layer of my skin, cold like alcohol, before I can consider it's humour. It's kinda like god sent me someone who's natural inclinations all rub my natural weaknesses the wrong way. More like dentention than school really.

But these are all flaws that sit tidily alongside blonde hair, blue eyes, a preference for thai and good at chess. People are people after all. Pobody's nerfect. Those type of flaws that don't detract from a persons overall attractiveness, of which to me, he has ample. These are just those flaws that give you something to forgive a person for. Something that makes them seem falleable and endearing. A flaw in them that allows you to be a bigger person by letting it slide.

I, on the other hand, am apparently not just irresistible, but also potentially insufferable.

Any relationship that I have that breeches depths beyond 'neighbour' or 'courier' for me, is TUMULTUOUS. And tumultuous has a kind of onematopoeiac truth to it. It is like the turning of mulch, the airing of compost, the turfing up of what has lain beneath the surface for so long, breeding inhabitants and creating great, sulphorous heat.

And this is a painful and uncomfortable realisation for me. A moment of silence, absent of jocularity please, for how initially overwhelming, drop the floor and cry this realisation is. Goddammit. And Goddamit again.
the words 'sucks to be you' now ringing in my ears.

You don't want evidence, no, no, please dont' ask, you don't want hard facts, trust me. It's all too much to share really. Say the words SPAZ in your head and what do you see? Now give it a gnarly mouth of teeth and an aggressive hiss, a tongue as sharp as a chef's knife, it's blade hones to an edge so fine, sharp and thin that it could cut through from this world to another. Chuck in some blood, and saliva. Something shiny that flickers and catches your eye, something underneath that cuts, watch your feet. Imagine it is as fast as a snake in the grass.

I want to interject on this diatribe to say this: I am also good. And and Both. Not One or The Other. The reason I go so ape shit is because I am so tender, the center of my heart goes to the centre of the earth.
I am both crazy and also good.
Kind, generous and warm. I agonise over how to help other people, how to cheer people up. I stay up late thinking of little things that someone would like.
I agonise about being a 'good person'. I try to care for everyone, people who pass me on the street. I can't watch the news because I cry for the whole world.
I try my best.
I'll make you laugh. I'll write you a funny song and sing it in a stupid voice to see you smile. I'll bring around three flagons of cider and sit on your porch with you til you are laughing and your tears all dried on your face. I'll make you warm food when you have a cold, sad heart. I'll remember your birthday and make you a card.

Testimony to the wealth of my person, is the incredible wealth of people to be found in my nearest and dearest. My friends and family. A cast of true royalty when it comes to people. They are the triumph of my life. Knowing them, and them loving me, that is the triumph, and testimony to the fact that I am not all bad.

Part of me is pollyanna. Part of me is a warm cats tummy in the sun. Part of me is an angel. Part elf. Part magic. Part siren. Part mermaid. But yes, part of me is that bad, fast snake.

So on realising this, fully. See this monster staring back at me in the reflection of me in his face, made me want to change. Really, really, change.

I'm going to be 32 in two months. What kind of age is that to be carrying around a small, pissed off, hurt and shitty child on your back and letting her tell you what to think, how to feel and how to react and making you throw great big epic wobbly's at the exact people you are supposed to be an ally to?

Fuck her. I've had enough of being a sympathiser. It's exhausting. It is truely exhausting being me. Trapped in a suspended cage with this snakebeast for all my life, never knowing up from down, right from wrong, never knowing the truth. Only hearing the rumours whispered in my ears like madness. I want out.

So on the great advice of my friend and colleague (again...hmm, quite the angel this one) I have become interested in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Stop. The. Madness.

The basic premis of CBT is that there is A) the event, B)your beliefs and then C)your actions or emotions (the outcome). And realising that it is the beliefs you have that stand between the event and your feelings. And you can choose, you can change those thoughts and beleifs becuase hey, you're really just basing them on past experiences and the incorrect interpretation you made of past circumstances. And things have changed, it wasn't true then and it isn't true now. So you can choose what to believe about the event, and therefore, how to feel and react.
It is a world of sane.

To begin with it explains a whole bunch of ways of thinking that are really unhelpful, for example: 'crystal balling' are you trying to predict the future and envisioning the worst possible outcome? YES! yes I AM! all the f**king time!
Okay so how about letting the future unfold without trying to guess how it's going to turn out and worrying about it in advance.
It might sound simple, but it's beautiful. It brings great relief.
Oh that thing hasn't actually HAPPENED, and in all likelihood may n ever happen, how bout i stop stressing to the max about it, i can stress later, if it happens.

Here's a good one girls: Mind reading. So you think you know what other's are thinking do you? ANd of course they are thinking NEGATIVE things about you and have negative intentions!!
You never know what someone is thinking, generate an alternative reason for what you see, consider that you migth be wrong (who, me?!), get more information if you need it.
Bring the sanity.

Oh and another sample: feelings are not facts. HA! feelings are not facts. How is it that it's taken this long for information of that gravity to come to light?
However late, it is a liberation.

I could never possibly do a reasonable job of paraphrasing this model of therapy. It's so good at identifying how bad things can be in the mind, that it makes me smile, and it picks my air balloon up and blows a puff of air into it. Not saying it will be easy, or even that I will succeed this time around. But as my colleague and angel friend said to me, you've got nothing to lose, this can only improve your life.

It feels like an oar, and I adrift on an immense ocean in a rickety wooden boat.
I know where to go, i know which direction, I know where I want to end up, safe on the mainland with date one. I just didn't have an oar. One oar, that's all I need.

I may have a propensity for crazy, I may be sometimes insufferable, but goddamit I'm still my parents daughter: smart, strong and brave.

'Gonna find a way to the shore.
All I needed was one oar.