I’m going away, tomorrow. To camp, and drink and celebrate for a while. To forget, too, I think. To ponder what it is I really want. To decide whether I listen to my head, or my heart. To figure out whether my heart really knows what it wants, or whether its just freaking out a little about the unknown. To find out whats important, and whether the past still is.

But mostly, the important bit is that I’m going away. But only for a bit. I’ll be back a week, or two. Hopefully I’ll come back a little more tanned, a little more relaxed and a little more sure of myself. Hopefully I’ll come back with all my friends, too.

Regular posting will be back once I am. Until then, don’t expect to hear from me (I’m gong to be sans-civilsation and any kind of technology, I think).

I wish you all a wonderful New Year.

Last year, I made cookies. This year? Gingerbread. It’s a bit more involved than my usual chocolate-chip cookies. There’s the whole icing thing to deal with (Seriously. I never came away covered in red and green sugar when I was making cookies).

Still, they turned out okay. Let’s hope Christmas does too.

Platonic Intimacy. A friend of The Third + Fourth Quarters doesn’t believe that there can be such a thing. That some people can be intimate with each other without it evolving into sex. She said that The Fourth Quarter wanted more, even if he didn’t know it himself. Or that it was a relationship replacement strategy. Or something. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details because I didn’t understand.

I didn’t understand because I’m involved in several intimate, but completely platonic friendships. By intimate, I don’t mean sex. I mean meeting up a few times a week, cuddling on the couch, and stroking limbs and sitting close to one another. To spooning, all close, warmth holding you together. Encouragement and introductions to new experiences. Support and talking, the sharing of ideas and laughter. Hugs in supermarkets, and lounging in the sun, eating good food and massages for sore limbs. Or perhaps just limbs that happen to be within stroking distance.

The Square was intimate, like this. And I know, it isn’t for everyone, but it worked for us. It worked because while we love each other dearly, as best friends do, we weren’t looking for sex from each other. We trust each other, and knew where the lines were and were comfortable within those lines.

And I’m lucky, that The Square was the way it was. Because without their love and support I would have isolated myself. Without the intimacy their advice would have been empty words with no substance. I would have heard without hearing. I would be more broken then I am, because being intimate with them allowed me a certain amount of comfort, and strength to heal.

When half The Square came back from Taiwan, they brought back two other lovely people. People I’d known before, but by some clever wonderful magic they were on our plane of intimacy. And before I could say flash bang, I had a Sandwhich, instead of a Square. Five lovely people who can be perfectly intimate in a completely platonic way.

And I was amazed, because Platonic Intimacy is not something that can be forced. It’s not something that can be decided. If one person is not comfortable with it, then sorry, it’s just plain not going work. It’s not going be platonic, and someones feelings are going to be hurt and it will be uncomfortable and awkward. And I recognise this, there are some people who I’ll never be able to be intimate with, platonic or no. Which is why when I think of The Sandwhich, it’s all warm fuzzies. Because the possibility of five people coming together, FIVE of them, and having it all work out? That’s just phenomenal.

Which is why, when I heard about this friend who said Platonic Intimacy didn’t exist, I really wanted to laugh at her. Because it DOES. And without it, times would be incredibly tough for me right now. It’s the Sandwhich that’s getting me through.

<3

Last week I thought I was done with my Christmas Shopping. I congratulated myself on getting things sorted early so I didn’t have to wade through the chaos that lives in shopping malls. And then I realised that actually, I’d forgotten some people. They live overseas, see. And they had completely slipped my mind. I almost cried at the thought of fighting my way through stores to find something suitable.

And then I thought fuck it. In the day and age that we live in, it’s perfectly acceptable to shop online. And a friend of mine had recently pointed out endemicworld.com. A cute New Zealand based design store, filled with cute design and New Zealand MADE stuff!

So I poked around and with some difficulty picked a few things out (I say with difficulty, because I often forgot that I wasn’t shopping for me). They arrived on my doorstep the next morning (yay for overnight couriers!) and inside, I was surprised to see not only the purchases I’d made, but a secret santa gift and a handwritten card:

Endemic World had sent me a present too! I was their Secret Santa for the day I shopped. And I was ever so chuffed. So right on for Endemic World, who are incredibly awesome. If you’re looking for cute NZ-based design, check them out.

[disclaimer] This was post was not sponsored by endemicworld.com, they don’t know I’ve written it, and didn’t pay me to write it. They sent me an unexpected secret santa gift in the mail with a handwritten card and I got excited about it. :) [/disclaimer]

It’s not fair, really to cut friends and be a bitch when they haven’t done anything. When the things they have done really were within their rights. It really isn’t fair. But I do it anyway, because every time I see them, I’m reminded of the decisions I made, of what I did that have made me into a worthless, easily-replaceable nothing with absolutely zero dignity. Used and discarded with a smile.

And I hate that. I hate that I’m so easily replaced, that I’m completely worthless. I hate that this reaction blindsided me only last Friday. And that in the months previous, when all the decision making was being made, I was being frivolous and pathetic and wrote off this behaviour as ‘moving forward’. That I thought the consequences would be nil. I hate that any dignity around the situation is gone forever. I hate that as far as my behaviour goes there is absolutely no respect for myself. By me, or anyone else.

I have dug myself a hole, and fashioned myself into a creature that lives in the horrible grimy dark earth. A nothing.

I hate that it wasn’t just a once off, either. That time after time, with different situations, different friends, I did what I did. Where was the respect for myself? Any kind of dignity? Where was my brain?

I want more for myself. I don’t want to be that frivolous person who blows caution to the wind. I want to be respected, and loved, to have worth. I do not want to be the person I have been these last three months. I do not want it, I wish to scrub myself clean and emerge more like the old me. The person who had standards, and worth, and valued herself too much to be toyed with and dumped by people who didn’t care.

And I’m trying, I am. And it would be great, if I didn’t have to have history rubbed in my face every couple of days. Where I’m reminded that no matter how dignified I am, it’s really just a facade. That I’m already tarnished, and broken and why, why is it I let others use me and discard me?

I could pretend that I didn’t care. See said friends and bite my tongue and grace a smile across my face. Make small talk. And I thought I could. Instead my emotions came in overwhelming force and reminded me how small I was. How pathetic. It was raging battle and any possibility of pretence was more than wiped out, because I do care. I do care that I’ve painted myself to be a nothing.

So, yes. I’m going to cut said friends. Because I recognise that right now, with all that’s going on I don’t have the tools to deal with this. I don’t like that these people remind me of how pathetic I made myself to be. I wish to be more, and it’s difficult when you know that when they look at you, what they see is a dirty, readily discardable nothing.

We got copies of Quinn’s Class Photos yesterday. Tell me you wouldn’t be a proud puppy parent too.

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.

- Erich Fromm

I stopped asking why. The answer didn’t matter. What mattered is that we weren’t together, and now I have to figure out how to be okay with that.

I’m not okay with it, really. It’s not what I want, and it’s not like being told no, you can’t have aoli because they are out, and you’ll have to have mayo instead. It’s not like that time you found out the zoo was closed when you were so excited about the lemur tour. It’s like being told you aren’t allowed to breathe anymore. Sorry, I know it’s not what you want, but it’s not up to you. Kindly stop breathing now.

And so you go on, trying to live while holding your breath. You get out and you DO things. You agree to road trips and lunches and meeting up with randoms. You start living in bars hoping that alcohol somehow contains an oxygen alternative. It doesn’t, and you knew it wouldn’t but it seemed like such a good idea at the time. Eventually you try to find other forms of air, and you wonder how other people live without breathing.

I turned to strangers first. These pretty sparkly people who appear out of nowhere. It made sense at the time, you know. The a boy that you’ve just met isn’t going to know that you’re fucked up. That your heart is broken. You can pretend that you’re whole and happy. And surely he knows how to breathe, and can help you figure out how. But slowly, you realise that these strangers? They are just as fucked up as you are, you are all pretending in one big happy fucked up show. And you don’t want to deal with that. You’re still trying to breathe in a new way, find new air, and you don’t really have the air to share.

Then it was friends of friends. A friend introduced you, so surely they can’t be THAT fucked up, right? Surely they know how to breathe on their own? But somehow, someway there is always something. Something that means it’s not going to work. That they aren’t going to distract you, or provide a new alternative to breathing.

And then you turn to your friends. The people who know you, and love you, and want to help you through. But they have their own lives, their own pains. And before you realise what you’ve done, you’ve broken your square because of your own ideas about breathing. You’re contaminating their air, now. And you can’t do that, shouldn’t do that, and what kind of friend are you anyway? And so you leave. And you run out into the night all hot and broken, tears streaming down your face.

And then you realise that it doesn’t matter who you are with, the problem isn’t with them, it’s with you. And no amount of drinking, or dancing or anything is going to help you to breathe free and easy. To fill your lungs and relax. To breathe.

There is no more breathing to be had.

And I don’t know where to turn, or what to do. I don’t know how I’m meant to breathe right now. I just don’t.

One of the great things that comes out of corporate giants is their attempt at ‘feel good’ advertising. In attempt to look slightly more humanitarian, Telecom set up a giant Christmas tree made of lights in Western Park. They had four red phone booths where you could send Santa your Christmas Wishes, and they promoted the recycling of phones and something to do with the Starship Childrens Hospital. I have to say, as much as I ignored the advertising, crashing out on some beanbags beneath the wonderful lights to watch the show was AMAZING.

It was one of those moments where Christmas Festivities wriggled its way into your heart and made you all warm and fuzzy.

It’s not unheard of for me, or The Fourth Quarter to rock a spontaneous roadtrip. To get in a car and just go away for the day. We’ve done it before, we have. So when I was asked if I wanted to come on a spontaneous road trip, I was totally in.

Except, that if you’ve planned it in advance, it’s not really spontaneous. And if they people you’re going with are the type of organised people who can’t not plan, its not going to impulsive. In fact, when we all met up, there was a destination and a vague plan of action already being discussed! It amused me no, end, it did. Planning a spontaneous trip indeed :P We agreed on semi-spontaneous, where the spontaneous part was that we knew where we were going, but we didn’t really know how to get there. Semi-spontaneous. We’d follow signs or something.

In the end, The Fourth Quarter, the amazing Foo + Heidi and I went up to the Kai Iwi lakes. They were amazing. The water was ridiculously clear, the earth under our feet warm, it was absolutely divine. We lay down some blankets (what The Fourth Quarter kept calling ‘macs’, because they were ‘padded on the bottom’) and hung out. Ate some sandwhiches, went swimming, napped.

On the way back, we stopped at Sheep World to admire the pink sheep (they were pretty elusive despite being so pink!) and we also went by Waiwera, to soak in the hot springs. It was absolutely DIVINE! Perhaps it’s just me, but I could definitely sit in a gorgeously hot spring all day.

It was late, and the sun had long disappeared by the time we managed to leave the pools. It was such an epic day of driving and brilliant company, and singing in the car. Sundays, I think, were made for semi-spontaneous adventures. :)

I’m not a generally festive person. I don’t really enjoy Christmas Carols, and sure, I’ll put up a tree. But only so the presents have something to sit underneath. It’s not that I hate it, or don’t enjoy it. It’s just that it takes so much effort. I’d much rather walk down Franklin Rd, or hang out in Western Park and enjoy other people’s efforts.

But then this morning, while I was dropping Quinn off at daycare, I took the two seconds to help Quinn be a bit more festive. Because I’m pretty sure that Quinn is the kind of dog who really would enjoy making the Christmas effort if he didn’t live with such a ‘cant be bothered’ family.

Sometimes, even if you can’t be bothered, Christmas wriggles its way into your heart with its cuteness, and you can’t help feel a little bit festive.