Its like I'm both aware and unaware of what I'm doing when I'm doing it. I can rationalise with myself either way.
Do I want to eat? Or don't I?
I've had issues with food for as long as I can remember. I've tried to figure out where it stemmed from because I know when I was younger I wasn't concerned about what I looked like or how much I weighed. I've come to the conclusion that it started when I was in primary school and found it hard to eat around the other kids that were eating too. I guess I was somewhat of a fussy eater as a child so if someone was eating something I didn't like the smell of it would make me lose my appetite.
But from there it went on to secondary school where I would have just enough time in the morning to get dressed, brush my teeth and leave. I could never be bothered to pack myself a lunch the night before or get up earlier to be able to do it in the morning, so I didn't. I remember making a game out of it. Sitting in class and seeing how far I could push the table in to my stomach so that it would stop making noise. I'd make it through those 6 hours at school and then come home and binge on whatever I could find.
For the two years that followed me leaving school it went away. Or maybe it went in the opposite direction - because all I would do is eat. I would have breakfast in the morning before leaving for work. Walk the forty-five minute walk to work (as I was 16 and didn't have a car) stopping off on the way to buy my lunch. Normally that would be some kind of ready meal and as many sugary treats as I could carry. Spend all day eating, walk home and have a snack then have dinner and do it all again the next day.
Then came my current job, which I love but have never felt like it's an "OK" environment to eat in (it's a hospital). Between the variety of aromas I'm around on a daily basis and never really feeling like my hands are clean I just stopped eating on shift all together. It didn't help that I had started smoking and used that and coffee to get me through my day.
Earlier this year I had somewhat created another kind of game where I would see how long I could go without eating. This meant that I was eating my first meal of the day at 10pm. Then that became not eating for a whole day and having a meal the next.
Looking back over it all I can see that my worst point was going three days without food. I was at work on the third day and had just about finished my 8 hour shift and ran down stairs to get a set of patient notes before I left and came over all light headed. I just put it down to the fact that I hadn't drunk enough water and carried on even though I could see black spots everywhere. I had gone up a ladder to find said set of notes and at the top my eye sight went almost completely. I came down from the ladder just in time to black out and woke up about 15 minutes later laying on the floor. I got the notes, took them upstairs and left without saying anything to the nurses that I work with (normally I bombard them with anything remotely medical I have going on). I also decided that it would be a good idea to drive home. From then I made a conscious effort to at least fit food in around my shifts.
I still to this day don't know what brings on the feeling of not wanting to eat but I'm better at fighting it when it does rear its ugly head.
Natasha
I was never really a person who wore jewellery. I've always had it, just never remembered or could be bothered to put it on. Now however, I seem to have acquired a few pieces that I never take off.
I've worn the same ring for four years, just a simple silver band that sits on my middle finger of my right hand. I got it to wear to prom in 2013 and from that day it has never really come off.
I have another ring that sits on my index finger of my left hand, this one I guess I've somewhat stolen.
I wear the same necklace every day because I love it so much. It's a simple thin chain with a circle pendant that has my zodiac sign on it. I'm not a believer in the zodiac but the person who designed it modelled it after a necklace her dad passed down to her and I like that notion.
My last piece — and my favourite piece — is a bracelet. It's a very thing blue string with silver beads, the beads are different sizes and spell out a word in morse code. This again doesn't ever leave my vicinity , if it isn't on my wrist then its on my necklace as I can't wear bracelets at work.
I never thought I would find such comfort in a small amount of metal or string, but I do. Its like being able to carry around your comfort blanket wherever you go. I go in search of them no matter what my mood. I twist my rings around my fingers when I walk or have something to concentrate on. I hold the pendant of my necklace when I'm talking to people or am getting stressed. Its almost like they have become a part of me, just an extra limb to me now.
Natasha
Its like flying and being out-of-your-face-drunk all at once.
You can feel every pressure point, tension and knot in your body and almost feel them coming undone.
Its like you're having a million different conversations with a million different people but you know you've been silent the entire time.
Its like wanting to take on the world and make it something completely different but also not wanting to move an inch.
Its like having the entirety of your personality release itself ahead of you and you're trying to catch up with it.
Its like you somewhat know whats going on, you just don't care about what it is to really know.
It can transport you into some other dimension and make you live in that world for what feels like forever.
It can make you think things you never thought possible.
It can make you feel things that you never dreamt possible.
That is... until the comedown.
Natasha
Lucy Chelsea Erin mother-fucking Whiles.
You are something else, someone else.
Alright, so its quarter to two on a Wednesday morning. This is one of the very few nights that we have been apart in the past month and guess what... I can't sleep, so i'm just going to type and see what comes out. Here goes -
Without wanting to sound dramatic (but knowing I will) you have flipped my world upside-down. I've never felt like a real, happy future was waiting for me — that it would even be attainable — but you have shown me what happy is and how much it's been missing from my life. Its taken you three months to turn me in the person I've wanted to and tried to be for 20 years.
No amount of time with you is long enough, it always goes too quickly. Before I know it its quarter to seven in the morning and you're going off to work and I have to deal with not being with you for the next 10 hours. I feel like I'm just being able to catch my breath and realise just how real this all is, Because its more real than either one of us thought it was ever going to be.
Trying to put down in words exactly how you make me feel and what you mean to me is proving difficult. And I'm an articulate person. You've got me stumped. Its like I could burst at any moment. You could look at me or smile or try to hide and its like my entire body is shouting "I JUST LOVE YOU SO MUCH" but it's not shouting at all because I feel so calm and at peace, Its like a really loud, comforting whisper that radiates through me.
You are the unicorn to my Agnes.
You are my definition of home.
"Hello old friend. Oh my, do we have some catching up to do."
Thats the sentence I have found myself saying a lot lately.
I feel like I have woken up from a two-year long coma and have slotted myself back into the world again. I finally feel like I can be a me that I'm happy with. I've spent so long trying to shut my brain off and not opening up that I forgot how much I love to talk and day dream and plan for the future. I've neglected so many people in my life out of what I thought was necessity, but every one of them has welcomed me back with open arms.
I have a few people in my life that have always been hell-bent on being happy. This allusive thing I've never felt overall about my life - I thought it meant all day everyday sat there with a cheshire-cat grin on your face. I know I've been happy but I always relied on someone else to get me there. Knowing this, I thought that I had become a good liar by being able to get out the words to convince them. Recently though, I have been told that that wasn't the case.
In the last few months these people have seen the change in me and highlighted it to me. I've also seen it in myself too, I sing more, smile more, laugh harder than I ever have. I strike up conversations easier and make an effort to do something with my day and generally have a more positive outlook on life. I didn't allow myself to look towards the future because all it did was depress me that it wasn't happening now. I've always wanted to be older than I actually am, and have all the things that came with it - The house, the kids and the responsibility were the only things I thought I would be content with. I'm still excited for the things, but I'm more looking forward to the journey to get there.
"What changed?" I can't hear you ask.
I went on holiday... Not a big thing in itself, I know. But to me it was the best move I've made so far. It was the first time I had left the country in three years and the first time ever without an adult! I thought that I was a very cautious person, someone who didn't like being too far from my home. I didn't like the thought of not being able to get myself home if I felt uncomfortable or scared and I thought that I wouldn't enjoy going away, but being away was completely different this time, and since then I haven't had any feelings like that - I feel at home wherever I am.
Tomorrow is something I look forward to now, and I'm loving it!
Natasha
I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that it is already August. Having said that, I'm starting to not be able to contain my excitement for Christmas!
I don't know if it's the lack of summer weather or really just that I love the end of the year but boy, I can't wait. The layers come out, the heating goes on. It's all hot chocolate and blankets and celebrations. I LOVE CHRISTMAS.
I think this year I'm more excited than ever because I have put myself down to work Christmas day. Something I know a lot of people wouldn't do, but I love my job - I work on a children's ward at a hospital.
When I got the job the resounding reply I got was "Isn't that going to be really difficult, seeing sick children everyday?" Don't get me wrong, it isn't rainbows and sunshine all day every day. It gets manic and stressful and disconcerting at times but all it takes is for one child to laugh or dance around for the mood to change.
Phrases said on the daily are "I can't cope, they are too cute" and "Be careful or I might just steal you". Children are resilient and being able to see the change in them from one day to the next is beautiful. There have been a fair few kids that have been with us for a while, I have a habit of getting myself attached or invested in their recovery and the hardest thing — at least in my case — is saying "Okay you, I don't want to see you back here!" because I'm so happy that they are better but at the same time I'm not going to see them everyday.
On Christmas day, we only have the kids in that require too much to be able to go home. Which means that the staff on shift are a part of their day - Santa comes in, presents are given out and you won't be able to find a single member of staff without some kind of headband with antlers or snowflakes on. Everyone is in high spirits and it's such a chilled day.
I see it like another family I get to celebrate with.
I'm so excited!
Natasha
Ho. Ly. Shit!
So the past few months have been interesting - to say the least. What hasn't happened? I fell madly in love, turned 18, got my first tattoo and bought a car. All within 5 months.
Okay, so falling in love... I thought I had been through that before. Turns out I hadn't - like at all!
I've decided that what I had been through was attachment to another human being, craving human attention so much that you jump at the chance for the first person who comes along to give it to you.
No, What I'm in now is love. From the raging butterflies that consume my stomach every time she looks at me to the constant need of physical contact - there is no other way to describe it but that four letter word.
Turning 18... THE most anti-climactic thing going. I have been "out on the town" TWICE. Its safe to say I'm a little disappointed at myself.
My first tattoo - not something I went crazy with but boy do I have plans for my next... 100! I got a small stick woman outline in black on my left thumb/back of my hand. I love it because the tattooist used the exact drawing I gave him (that I drew) so she has little quirks about her. Like having stubby arms and one leg shorter than the other.
And finally my car. Miss Pepper "Chuggers" Chuggington is a Smooth Mint fiat 500 and I am utterly obsessed with her. Pepper gets her first name from a conversation I had with my dad, I was trying to explain the colour of the car and when he said "like peppermint?" I knew her name! "Chuggers" didn't come until the day I got her. I got her delivered to my work and the first place I drove her to was my girlfriends house. I picked her up and we went for a drive for me to "break in the car" as I was told to do by some many people and attempted a somewhat steep hill going 30 mph in 4th. Without soundly like I'm exaggerating pepper almost came to a stop! I quickly had to drop to 2nd, floor the accelerator and pray out loud, When an exclamation from passenger finished off her name. "Come on Chuggers" So far I have only three "decorations" - A small multi-coloured/gay pride themed dream catcher, A small licence plate that has my name on it from LA and a green stuffed money companion called Salt (like Salt and Pepper, get it?!) Who's arms and legs wrap around the headrest on my seat.
What an eventful five months - I'm utterly exhausted.
Natasha
