I didn't lose my mind, it was mine to give away...

So today’s not one of my best days.  I tried to work on my change of attitude, started a Facebook group with my girls to make sure we go out every week and do something.  And not just go shopping or have dinner, go and have a day out.  Scotland is a beautiful place and I haven’t seen half of it so we have a wee list of places we want to visit already. This weekend didn’t work due to Gill and Cheryl having plans already so Fiona and I went up the park, sat for hours in the beautiful weather, had an Irn Bru and a wander and ended up back at hers slagging the hell out of Eurovision.  It really was a great day.  And then Sunday came and Gill, Fi and I went to see Westlife.  This is something we have done for years, somewhat of a tradition that we all go together.  I missed the tour last year due to being in Orlando so was especially excited to see them again but a little sad since it will be the last tour.  So the concert was, as expected, absolutely fabulous.  The worst seats I think we’ve ever had for a tour but at least we got to see them and we were all back together so it was worth it.  There was, however, my surprise emotional outbust in the middle.  They sang ‘Home’ by Michael Buble, a song I have always loved but have never really paid much attention to the lyrics - until now.  Lyrics like “May be surrounded by, a million people I, still feel all alone, I wanna go home” and “I’m just too far, from where you are, I wanna come home”.  Well that was me.  Gone.  Out of nowhere I started sobbing.  The words just seemed to encapsulate how I have felt since I left Orlando and everything I try to hold in just came flooding out.  It took the girls a while to realise how I upset I was but the next thing I knew Gill had her arms round me and was telling me everything would be ok.  And then it passed, as quickly as it came.  But since then, I’ve felt a bit down.  I’d told myself that I was dealing with things very well, that I was coping with us being apart but I think this had showed me that I wasn’t dealing with things at all.

And then today came.  The boy and I hadn’t Skyped for about a week, due to his schedule being a bit up and down, me having plans and the annoying 5 hour time difference.  We’d arranged to Skype a little before he went to work, just so we could see one another.  So we Skyped for about 10 minutes and then he said he was going to get ready for work.  And I felt the tears coming.  I just didn’t want him to go.  He can read me like a book so knew something was wrong and, when he asked if I was ok, tears started flooding down my face.  I just couldn’t stop them.  He kept telling me that he loves me and that I should just look at my ring and remember that.  I know he loves me, I have no doubt of that, but it doesn’t stop me missing him like crazy.  So we chatted a little more and then he was gone.  And the tears started again.  Being apart is actually killing me. 

So I tried to distract myself and decided to tidy up a bit.  I hate tidying with a passion, but I just needed to do something to help.  And it did a bit, kept my mind off things.  Then I found myself here.  I think I’m driving myself insane.  I need a date to aim for, some point when I know I’ll see him again.  I think that’s what’s making it harder, I can’t console myself with the idea that I’ll see him in a few weeks.  Even though I know I probably will, I need something in black and white so I know it’s definitely happening.  So I am considering abandoning the internship.  The boy has said for weeks that he knows the recruiters and can find out what’s happening but I have told him no, that this is something I need to do by myself.  However, since I have heard nothing for near on 8 weeks now, I have changed my mind.  I need to know if this position is being offered or not and that is what he is going to find out.  I need to know if waiting around is worth it or if we could be starting to plan other things.  For all I know, they could either have abandoned the idea completely or pushed back the start date.  If this is the case, then I can start getting things organised and, just between us, there’s a flight to Orlando on the 15th of July with my name written all over it.

So what are yours like?  Mine have always been the difficult sort, and I have no idea why.  I didn’t ever rebel, I did everything I was told, I did well in school and was always home when they told me to be.  Why, then, have I always found them largely overprotective.  Maybe that’s the wrong word - they just don’t seem to be able to let go.

It was always the same when I was growing up, it was almost like they wanted to be involved in every tiny aspect of my life, which is natural as a parent, but it was always on the extreme side.  I wanted to go a school trip to Italy when I was in 1st year but was told no as I was ‘too young’.  A school trip, which could not have been more supervised if it had wanted to be.  When I was 16, my entire group of friends went to a New Year party which my friend’s parents had organised and I wasn’t allowed to go.  They called at midnight, while I sat in the house watching the Hogmanay crap that Scotland offers, and I cried my eyes out when I put the phone down as I was the only one of my friends not there.  I felt so rediculously left out but my parents didn’t recognise that.  Again, I was ‘too young’ to be leaving the house at New Year.  Then I hit 18 and started going to bars and clubs and they waited up for me until I got home.  There is nothing worse than going on a night out, knowing that your parents are waiting at home, ready to complain because you kept them up until 3am.  So it got to the stage I stopped going out because I couldn’t be arsed with the drama. 

Then came the career choice.  I loved my part time job with Disney, it may not have been well paid but I loved it and I was good at it.  Which is why, when a management position came along, I grabbed it with both hands.  And I loved it even more.  Sure, I complained about it, but at the end of it all that job taught me all the guest service skills I have today which more than certainly played a part in me getting the chance to work in WDW.  On that subject, they didn’t want me to do that either.  I had talked about applying for WDW for years but didn’t know how to go about it.  A bit of research found me the Cultural Representative Program which I decided that one day I would go for.  But the time was never right.  I changed jobs, there was family illness and, in all honesty, a small part of me didn’t really believe I stood a chance.  Then I started working with a group of people who found out about my ambition and tried endlessly to push me towards it, even threatening to apply on my behalf!  Then came the time I decided to apply and was talked out of it by my parents because I had recently broken up with someone and they saw it as me running away.  Bullshit.  I knew this at the time but agreed not to do it and for the next year was so angry as I believed they had kept me from doing something I really wanted.  Then came the job change, and I moved somewhere I didn’t really want to be.  This I took as a sign and applied for WDW, despite my parents still having reservations.  I didn’t care by this point.  I was 24 years old and sick of always listening to what they had to say.  I had always felt that they had more of a hold on my life than they needed and this just proved it.  I was going to do something for myself for once so I applied, was accepted and flew to Orlando 4 months later.  This ws the greatest decision I have ever made as my life has changed in ways I could not have imagined.

So I guess this is the question on my mind, when should you let go of your children?  I am on the verge of moving to America, something I did not ever imagine but could not be more excited about.  Understandably, my parents are not so thrilled but have kind of accepted that it’s happening and I’m happy.  However.  Many times recently, they have mentioned the idea of them coming too.  Now, firstly, I don’t even believe this to be possible and secondly, I’m sorry, what the fuck?!  Maybe I’m overreacting, I don’t really know many people in my situation, but they seem to believe that wherever I am, they need to be too.  Now, I am not going to cut them out of my life and I’m sure they will visit often (they visited 3 times in the space of 10 months, probably some kind of record) but I kind of feel like they need to let go a little.  I am moving to start a life with my husband, hopefully get a good job, have kids, have a great life out there which I obviously would like them to be part of but do they always need to live in my back pocket?  By the time I move I will probably have hit 27 and will be masquerading as a grown up.  Surely by then you can let me live my life as exactly that, mine?  I honestly don’t know what to do.  Then the suggestion was made that they would be ‘snow-birds’ and live in Florida over the winter, however, probably couldn’t afford to both buy a place over there and keep one in Scotland so would stay with us.  Ummm, no, sorry, I am not having my parents living with me for 6 months of the year.  Living with you now is excrutiating enough.

And so I’m in a quandry.  No doubt there will be endless discussions over the next while but how do you tell your parents you don’t want them with you?  Don’t want them overseeing each little decision in your life like they did for 25 years which meant you chose the paths they wanted you to take, not those which were right for you.  And that the one time you went against what they wanted your life just sort of, fell into place?  There must be a book out there for this kind of situation.  If not, when all of this is over, I’ll sure as hell be able to write one. 

So this is a blog about a change of attitude.  About something I need to do in order to stop myself from going stir crazy and pissing off all of those around me.  I started this blog to help me get through situations that will be arising over the next while and I intend to continue with it, however, from a different point of view. 

The last few days have been awesome.  Spent lots of time with friends and family going shopping, having lunches/dinners seeing concerts and having a road trip to a part of Scotland I had never been before.  I have been kept going and I have loved it as anything in my head which has been bringing me down has been forgotten about, even if only for a few hours.  And this is what kind of prompted this change.  I had a dream the night before last that the boy was here.  One of those dreams you are convinced is actually happening.  One of those dreams where you are between sleep and awake.  I could feel him kiss me, touch my arm, hear him talking and breathing next to me.  Then I wake up and turn over, fully expecting him to be there.  I cannot explain the feeling when I discovered he wasn’t.  I sobbed harder than I probably ever have before.  So hard that I gave myself a headache.  I don’t think I have ever cried myself to sleep before but I certainly did that night.  Then came yesterday when I told him about it and started sobbing again.  And it pissed me off.  People keep telling me how amazing it feels to be engaged but, if I’m completely honest, for me it’s shit.  As I told him, I could not be happier that it happened and really do feel like the luckiest girl in the world but I hate being here on my own.  I hate when engagement cards come through the door addressed to both of us when he’s not here, I hate people wanting to hear about how he proposed because it breaks my heart that I can’t go home to him and talk about it, I hate people asking what our plans are because I have no fucking clue.  And this is what I want to change.  I want to enjoy this time, I want to look back with fond memories and remember how happy I was instead of remembering the umpteen times I have cried.  I always thought I was a strong person, someone with a level head who wasn’t prepared to let things get her down but this person seems to have crumbled.  Maybe I just haven’t experienced a situation like this before. 

So this is where the change begins.  I received an e-mail from a friend in America a while back asking how I was feeling and I told her I’d been better.  Her response has been in the back of my mind for a while but I think I’ve only just realised how right she was.  She said she was looking forward to seeing me again but that I should enjoy my time over here with friends and family because I’ll miss them when I’m gone.  And she’s absolutely right.  This weekend has shown me how one-sided my thinking has been and perhaps how selfish I have been acting.  All I am concerned about is going home, about returning to the place where I have felt more like myself than ever before.  The thought of leaving has never even entered my mind because I am so desparate to go.  But what about the things I am leaving behind?  The people I am leaving behind?  I have been so caught up in being miserable that I haven’t even given them a second thought.  These are people that I’ve grown up with, been through everything with and I’m not even thinking that when I leave I’ll only be able to see them every now and then.  I know our friendships will not change, an ocean between us makes no difference, but I won’t see them every other day like I do now.  I know they’re on the other side of a phone or I can see them on a computer screen but I won’t be in their company.  I said when I came home that I felt like I didn’t quite fit here anymore, and I still believe that to be true, but now I think I need to make more of an effort.  I need to make sure I can spend as much time as possible with them instead of wallowing in self pity as I have been for the last few weeks.  Time to give myself a shake and get on with things.  I keep complaining about waiting for things to happen but maybe I just need to enjoy myself while I wait.  I can’t do anything about it, no matter how much I try and the tears just make things worse.  I know what the future holds, I know the boy and I will get married and I will move over there when the time is right so it’s time to stop being miserable and enjoy the present.  It will not stop me missing him like crazy but I feel like my life is on hold at the moment and I can’t live like that anymore. 

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment - Henry David Thoreau

So this is a short one tonight since I’m already in bed. Lovely day out with Cheryl…pizza, girl talk, shopping, Starbucks, shoe love, wedding magazine buying, laughing at unfortunate sex encounter (not ours!), ex fiancé bashing and future husband planning (Cheryl), wedding venue visit planning (me!) and general all round merriment was had. I need more days like these.

And so to bed…

So last night I slept better than I have for a while.  Since he went home.  It was strange having to share a bed again and stranger still when it once again became my own.  A double bed is awesome but it can be such a lonely place.  So it seems my experiment worked, I managed to shut myself off for a while and forget the distance between us.  It was just what I needed.

My mum was off work yesterday and decided we were going to spend the day planning my wedding.  That seems like such an odd sentence to use considering a little over a year ago I didn’t even have a boyfriend!  Things have moved quickly but I guess that’s what happens when you’re 4500 thousand miles apart.  You make decisions based on gut instinct and live for each and every moment.  Any hesistation and we probably wouldn’t have got to where we are today.  Part of me wondered if this moment would ever come, if planning a wedding was ever destined for me considering my extremely poor track record!  And then he came along.  Unexpectedly.  Wonderfully.  And I guess I asked myself the big questions quicker than I usually would have.  I remember coming home from our first date and telling a friend that it frightened me how much I liked him.  Then telling a different friend a few months later that, the previous night, he’d told me that he loved me.  I will never forget that conversation - think she was more excited than I was!  And it just seemed to work.  People commented that we just seemed to fit, like we were supposed to meet somehow.  It’s strange to think that our story really began all those years ago due to a chance encounter.  Some people don’t believe in fate but I do without a doubt.  Had I applied for WDW a year earlier, had he not lost his job, had I not met the girls before I flew to Orlando, had he taken the job he was offered literally a week before we landed - any of these things would have meant we would have missed one another.  Everything happens for a reason, and we are a great example of that.

So the wedding planning was exciting but scary.  Dresses, venues, kilts, bands and so much more that you need to think of.  First thing’s first though, we need a date!  Then I will happily throw myself into planning.  My mum wants to go and try on some dresses with me but I don’t know that I’m quite ready for that (although I have had a sneaky wee look online and have already fallen in love with a fair few!)  The more I look, the more excited I get and I think I’ve surprised myself with what I actually want.  I suppose I didn’t ever really let myself think about it before.  Part of me still thinks I’m going to wake up.

Well, it turns out the boy is at Raglan Road with some friends.  I wish I was there, I should be there, but it’s one of those things.  There will be plenty of time for that once I move over.  It feels good that I already have friends over there, makes the thought of moving less daunting.  I feel good about it though, really good.  Like this is where I’ve belonged all along.

And so to bed…

So, first of all, apologies for the cheesy High School Musical inspired title but it just seemed the right words for the moment (and indeed the situation!).  Second of all, I have decided that this is something I am now going to do on a regular basis as my life is about to change in ways I could never have imagined.  I feel like I need somewhere to record the next few months, or even years, so I can reminisce at some point in the future and realise it was all worth it.  Somewhere to put down my own thoughts and feelings without having to explain them to someone else.  Somewhere I can work through situations on my own terms and can be in my own little world, if only for a short period of time.  Ok, so it sounds like I’m using this blog for therapy, and maybe I am, but reading through previous posts made me realise that, after pouring my heart out to well, myself, I always felt better.  Like putting something in writing helped straighten it out in my brain.  Like seeing it in black and white made it sound more plausible and made me feel like the jumbles in my head could be unscrambled.  Who knows how long I will keep this up but, at the minute, I have a feeling that typing here could become my before bed ritual.

So where do I begin.  I suppose I should start with Paris, the city that I had never before visited but now holds a special place in my heart.  The city I visited with my American boy.  The city in which we got engaged.  This is the event which has inspired my life change as I now find myself not only on the verge of a wedding, but on the verge of a brand new life in a whole other country.  So I guess you could say this is going to become a wedding planning/immigration/USA moving blog as I have a feeling I am going to have a lot to talk about over the next couple of years.  And, as luck would have it, I’m a great listener.

So we have been engaged around three weeks now and it hasn’t quite sunk in yet.  I keep catching sight of this sparkly thing on my finger and the next thing I know I’m grinning from ear to ear.  I constantly check that it’s still there, in fear that it has somehow disappeared from my hand or I dreamed the entire thing and, in fact, there was nothing there in the first place.  He picked probably the most beautiful ring I could ever imagine, it literally is perfect.  Made all the more special by the fact that the diamond in the centre is from his Grandmother’s engagement ring, passed to him by his mum.  I think that’s another reason I keep glancing at my hand, it really is so precious.  His proposal may have went a bit wrong in the eyes of other people but, to me, it was perfect.  Our first date was hardly smooth sailing and I think the proposal just sums us up as a couple - it doesn’t matter where we are or what we do, if we’re together, we’re happy and that’s all that matters.  Plus, the failed attempt to find the Eiffel Tower certainly gives us a story to tell!  Room 408 of the Tourisme Hotel may not have been his ideal romantic spot but it’s where our adventure began so it will forever mean the world to me. 

So where are we now.  Well, he went home to America and I’m still here.  That’s kind of how things stand at the minute.  This is the crappy part of our adventure where we need to be apart.  I’m sure in the months to come I will look back and realise how simple things were now.  The calm before the storm.  I am currently waiting to hear back from a job with Disney which, if all goes well, would hopefully start in August and would get me back over there fairly soon.  If this job falls through then we need to start looking at Visas and immigration laws and that’s when things get scary.  Currently though, Skype and Facebook are a Godsend.  Yes, it’s the hardest thing in the world being apart and we need to work on our relationship every day but whoever said long distance relationships don’t work is an idiot.  If you really, truly believe that they do and are willing to put in the effort then it’s the easiest thing in the world.  It sounds corny but love conquers all.  I’m not saying I don’t have days where I break down, where I don’t want to get out of bed or someone mentions him and I burst into tears but, thankfully, those are very rare occasions.  I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the long run and I truly believe it.  I have to.  It’s the bigger picture that’s keeping me going.

This blog stemmed from a sleepless night full of thoughts which made me realise I needed somewhere outside my head to keep them together.  A locked box where I knew those thoughts were contained but didn’t need to focus on them again until I started looking for the key.  This blog may not be a locked box and it may hold more thoughts than I ever thought possible but I have a feeling this could be one of the best things I have ever done.

And so to bed…

So here I am again. Talking to myself as there are few people who understand. Doing it via mobile now as well since I discovered apps. So who knows, this could become a regular occurance. So why am I here this time…

I’ve been home two weeks today. I miss him terribly. People keep asking me all about him and I’m happy to tell them - then I go home and cry because he’s not here. We keep in touch constantly, messaging backwards and forwards all day like we used to. Doesn’t feel like he’s 4500 miles away. And Skype’s a Godsend, although for someone who talks as much as he does he’s not so good at it on the computer or the phone. His words, not mine. I don’t mind, I just like to see his face and hear him tell me that he loves me. Long distance is hard and I’m tired of people assuming that it’s not going to work. I know it didn’t work for others, it’s been shoved down my throat enough, but please don’t tar him with the same brush as your prick of an ex. And don’t tell me you were in the same situation. Being able to see your boyfriend every weekend is not the same situation. And now I realise why I’m back here again. The one person I wanna pour my heart out to just doesn’t wanna hear it as she’s too wrapped up in her now two years passed broken relationship. I don’t wanna be a bitch, I know he broke your heart, but he fucked everything with a pulse before he met you and I warned you at the time. He broke up with her because you came along and that’s never a good start to any relationship. So now I need some sisterly comfort, the kind you get from a 20 year friendship but I don’t want to bring him up and you never ask about him. I haven’t told you that I’m planning to move over there with him, internship or not, and that we’ve already looked at places to live. I haven’t told you that my entire family are telling me to go for what makes me happy, even my parents, who knew?! I haven’t told you that I am losing a little more of myself each day that I stay here. You really don’t realise where you belong until you have to leave and I sure as hell don’t belong here anymore. I remember a quote from a film, although at the minute I can’t remember which film it is…”when you meet the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start right away” And that’s how I feel. And my life’s on hold just now.

And now I need to go and get ready as you wanted to go to the pub. I’m in need of a big glass of wine. Oh, and he asked for my ring size again yesterday. But you’ll never know that.

I don’t even know why I’m typing here.  I don’t use Tumblr at all.  Tried it, liked it, but am too much of a flake to post on it religiously.  Or maybe I think I’m too old to use it and no-one wants to follow the life of a near 26 year old who has no idea what her life is becoming.  Yet, I’m still typing.  Maybe because I have no-one to talk to right now and I’m having one of those little freak outs that happen when I’m in my head too much.  Maybe it’s because the one person I want to talk to about this thinks that I am going to slip back into my everyday life when I get home and I’m not brave enough to tell her otherwise.  So what do I want to say.  My dream year is over and I’m surprisingly ok with it.  Not ok with having to say goodbye to so many people but ok with the end of the bubble.  Ok with going home and seeing the people I miss desperately but not ok with leaving behind the person who today gave me a penguin Valentine card which said ‘Happy 1st Valentines Day, love you all ways’  The typo made the card even more adorable.  This year has been more about me finding out what my life is about than it has about gaining any kind of work experience and I know when I go home I will be a shadow of the person I am here.  But I have to be realistic.  Can I really walk away from 25 years of my life?  From friendships, relationships, family, connections and give this up for a life which is a complete stranger to me.  Where the way of life is completely different and I will forever be regarded as the girl from another country, from a way of life completely unknown to those I am yet to meet.  Yes, I think I can.  And not because I dislike my old life, but because the promise of the future excites me.  Is life perfect at home?  Fuck no.  Would life be perfect over here?  Of course not, I’m not stupid, but I would have someone who tells me every day that he loves me and wants to make me happy.  I would have someone who can’t cook to save his life, would rather have a cat than a dog and thinks science fiction is better than real life but, for some reason, sees me as something special.  And this is something I didn’t ever have at home.  Ever.  Even if I thought for a split second I did.  Is this something I believe I could find at home?  Perhaps.  But it wouldn’t be the same.  He wouldn’t be the same.  He’s not perfect, my God he’s not perfect, far from it, but that doesn’t seem to matter.  I was never looking for perfection I was just looking for love.  Well, I wasn’t even looking it just hit me unexpectedly in the face.  And I’m glad it did. 

So now I sit here in tears and I don’t know why.  Maybe because I’ve just received a text and all it says is ‘Muwah, love you’ which just seems to cement everything I’ve just said.  Or maybe it’s because I have finally admitted to myself that going home is going to make me miserable because I will be leaving a huge piece of myself behind.  Maybe I know that the conversations I don’t want to have will be happening over the next few weeks which will result in even more tears and probably more than a few arguments.  I always felt that I lived my life for other people and this is the first year of my life I have done things for me and been selfish.  And it’s been fucking awesome.  And I know it’s going to be scary and difficult and probably cause some upset but I need to do what I think to be right.  What I know to be right.  I don’t want to live the rest of my life with regrets, my life’s been full of that shit already.

And now, surprisingly, I feel better.  Maybe I don’t need anyone else to talk to about this, I just needed to straighten out my own head first.  I don’t have to explain myself or open myself up for discussion.  I can explain how things are going to be without being judged or told to think about it another way.  And I know what I want, I’m going with what both my heart and my head are saying. 

Thanks for listening.