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Captain’s Log 12/03/2012

It’s been a while. I don’t know life is pretty much on a constant flow of ‘faff around for four days of the week then work and complain about work for three of them’. The only really eventful things occuring are the interview I have at the end of the month (28th) which is somewhat stressful because it’s a mahts & english test along with a group discussion andthenthe interview, but what can you do?

I’m happy, but I feel like I’m killing time waiting to go to Mexico in June and waiting to start this Midwifery course in September (if I get in O_O). I also have paying off my holiday (£1200 left of which I only have £600 oops) hanging over my head (it didn’t help my bf’s bday was on the 10th so I bought him a £300 watch). I think when I have finally paid it all off a nice shopping trip is in order - though I still have £2200 sitting in my bank from student finance and I’m so close to saying fuck it and just spending it all. I could just work more days, but I get so tired and grumpy. Argh how am I gonna cope with such a full week when this course starts?

But really these are silly problems. I have so much stuff my room is in a constant tip I don’tneedmore clothes and shiny things to play with.

Life is kinda scary sometimes. I am so in love and I’m afraid it will fall away when I’m not looking. We have been going out nine months now and that’s not really a very long time. I’ve never felt like this about anyone in the world, but I am only 20. Leigh is everything to me, he’s my best friend and someone to look after and someone who looks after me. We like the same things and he thinks I’m cute for some unthathomable reason. And he is so gorgeous and sweet and kind and I don’t think you could ask for a better man. But there is this deep rooted fear in the back of my mind that I have it all wrong - that I’ve got it wrong before. He talks to me about getting married and having babies and I know that’s all I really want too, but I pretend I’m too young to even think about it. But I do think about it a lot, all I want is a life with him… I even know what song I would like to play at our wedding.

I don’t know if this bliss I exist in with him can last. I don’t know if it’s possible for two people to love each other forever. And at the same time I’m still caught in this weird space between teenagerdom and adulthood trying to decide who I am and what I want to be… I might just slip into working life like everyone else and have a baby and never do anything radical - that’s probably what will happen. But I suppose we’ll wait and see, I’m kinda starting to think that that might just be the best thing ever.

Captain’s Log 15/02/12

I haven’t managed to update my 365 days in the past two days because all my Valentine’s day pictures are on my boyfriend’s phone - and then I took a photo of the beautiful bunch of roses he bought me only to find my SD card slot would not comply with my wishes to upload them.

The roses arrived today. A day late and he was quite upset about that, but they are so beautiful and I have never been bought roses before. Valentine’s day was an odd day. I think it might have been better if we had planned to spend the whole day together rather than my focusing only on dinner, but I wanted to finish up his present.

It was lovely though, the restaurant was so gorgeous, but I got this feeling we didn’t suit it. Maybe when we’re a little bit older it would work, but I swear we looked like a pair of kids playing posh. I suppose it doesn’t matter really. I sometimes wonder if all the people sitting in those types of restaurants really believe in that lifestyle. Are they always like that? Even the waiters… is it normal to be so posh? It just seemed staged and odd to me. The food and atmosphere was amazing, but the people sitting so delicately dressed up ordering bottles of expensive champagne… do they always exist like that… maybe they enjoy it, but it just seemed like a game to me.

Saying all that it was still really amazing to finally go in there. It was funny when the bill came the waiter put it down in front of my boyfriend and I had to reach across and get it. It’s amazing how often he gets handed the card machine with my card in even at this day and age. I thought maybe I should just tell him my pin number to save face, but he is of course completely happy for me to pay for things for him.

Eh completely lost the will to write-

My phone saved my life

And no I wasn’t stranded on a desert island or stuck down a mineshaft or in some other hidden place where it was my only way of contacting the outside world. At least not physically anyway, but we’ll come to that.

For just under two years now I have worked at electronics shop come video-game store CeX. As the prices are cheap and the stock is all second-hand you get pretty much every type of person in there from people wanting to sell their spare iphone because their spoilt-rotten son demanded they have the latest game to people who will argue with a 40p trade-in on their stone-age PC game. Basically what I’m trying to say is you never quite know who you’ll be serving today and sometimes it’s not always who you want. However I think what I found most surprising recently is the number of female customers who I have served who have hinted at a current or previous abusive relationship.

Perhaps hinted isn’t quite the word. One woman even got told of by her boyfriend right then and there in front of us for talking to our gay supervisor. I think I only really thought about it all as I was helping a woman trade-in her old nokia for a blackberry when she said to me quite plainly “my ex wouldn’t let me get a new phone”. I suppose his motives for that would have either confused or seemed trivial to others, but to me it made perfect sense. By controlling his partners possessions and the value of those possessions this woman’s ex had not only gained some higer ground on her, he had cut her off from the possibility of ever owning a smart-phone. On her nokia everything would be via text to contacts within her phone which could be far more easily regulated than say an iphone with texts, emails and many third party messengers at her disposal. She would have been, in essence, harder to watch.

I tried to identify with her, telling her my ex never let me get drunk or go out - she had the same situation with an added “used to beat me black and blue as well” which always makes my problems seem small in comparison. In the end though we’re not that different, our boyfriends followed the same patterns, the situation with the girl who got told off in front of us was all too familiar. Maybe I didn’t let my ex push me around as much and that’s why nothing escalated (he was pretty much the same size as me anyway I think I might have even been stronger than him) the point is that we were all three - two of us out of a relationship and that poor girl still stuck in hers - manipulated mentally to a ridiculous point. I don’t know why we allow this to happen to ourselves.

However back to the point of the phone, my iphone in the end saved me. Obviously not on its own, but the contact it gave me with other people - mainly my current boyfriend - helped me escape from that rut I had been driven into. I live in a place without signal so before it was pretty much impossible to text - and my ex could hear me typing on my laptop when I talked to  him so instant messengers were pretty difficult unless I wanted to copy the whole convo to him. With my iphone I could type quietly hidden from the screen of my PC and just say I was fiddling with something on the floor. It all seems silly now why didn’t I just shut off skype and do what the fuck I wanted, but that’s the situation I was in and I couldn’t escape from it, it mareswell have been a dark cave or a desert island - for some reason I was trapped in that cycle.

It sounds really silly, but my iphone was a catalyst - it gave me the ability to talk to who I wanted to without having the whole conversation pried on. It gave my boyfriend now (before my boss how weird does that sound!) the chance to talk some sense into me and show me - not always directly - that the situation I was in was not normal, that I shouldn’t be bending over backwards trying to please this man who didn’t deserve it. Without it, without that ability to break out of the cage my ex had me confined in I might still be with him - and that’s a frightening thought.

Whenever I see a girl in a relationship like the one I had, or the beginnings of one, or even something remotely similar I want a way to reach out to them and make them think. I wish there was some way to talk to these people and tell them there is a way out of it. Until then I just watch them come and go and hope by sharing a little bit of what happened to me it will jolt something in their minds. I wish there was a way to make people more aware how little things (like disallowing a woman autonomy mental or physical) can make things better or worse. I wish I could step in when I see a man mistreating a woman and say something. Until it happens to you in any way (it doesn’t even have to be to the extreme of physical abuse or whatever) I think most people think that it would never happen to them and the woman who gets manipulated would have to be stupid. But in the right circumstances I’m pretty sure it could happen to all of us - because love (or what you think is love) does make you stupid. I wish there was a way to make the whole world more aware of this and to help women avoid these situations entirely. I just wish I could help.

Captain’s Log 30/01/12

It’s been just under two weeks since my last blog I believe. I’m particularly happy today. It’s been a very ordinary day; woke up, sent boyfriend off to work, interneted, tidied, ate soup, napped, washed my hair… But I feel almost euphoric. True the end of the day has been the most rewarding; my boyfriend coming to pick me up and take me back to his - my mentioning how happy I was as we drove out of Marlow past the church, which seemed to stand taller than normal, with the street lamps throwing shadows up to the very tip. Everything was so perfect right at that moment. Being with him… feeling fresh and alive with a cool breeze blowing from the ac and a boystrous love song in the background.

Then he decides to make my day even more perfect by telling me he has a present for me in the bag at my feet. I already knew what it was because I had dragged him into gamestation only yesturday, snatched a box and run to the counter only to find it was sold out and act all distraught at the cashier. He found it cheaper in Tescos anyway. I cannot believe how special he makes me feel. I know the latest zombie game (Revelations w00t) might not exactly show every girl that a guy loves her, but I had to kiss him so many times (whilst he was driving) just because he does the nicest things for me. I really don’t think I deserve it a lot of the time. I’m worried one day he’ll realise he’s wasting his money on me. I have to do something special for him now (even though it’s valentines day soon and his birthday in March). He always does this, gives me presents for no occasion and no reason apart from that he loves me, I wish he would mention the things he wants more often.

When we got back to his we went straight out for food. Funnily enough the craving for burgers got the better of us and we wound up at McDonald’s (chicken legend with bacon!) Despite the lack of romance associated with fast food I was still in this odd blanket of euphoria. He was hugging me whilst we were ordering and the cashier was so nice and friendly - seems all the crazy people come in on Sunday night though because the couple behind us were kissing at the counter xD Then we walked back home and I’ve played about 3 chapters of Resi. There’s a lot of stuff to say there, but I think that’s for another post.

Now I really can’t explain why I feel like this, maybe I should just accept that my life isn’t so terrible that I should feel like shit all the time, maybe it’s because I’ve been working not to mention a hormonal, period induced, wreck the past few days and having a day off is amazing, or even the handful of vitamins I’ve been taking. Or perhaps it’s just because I’ve found my place in the world. Some little niche where I’m cosy and safe with him. I know in day or so I’ll be a grumpy bitch again, but for now life is sweet.

(Also we booked a holiday to Cancun Mexico for June which I am so bloody excited for!! 5 friggin star, white sandy beaches and to top it all off Vodka on tap in the room!! oh god I’m gonna get smashed I need about a beer and a half to be drunk @_@)

My webly to-do list:

• Try and make a site again or a page or two for tumblr with a cool layout
• 365 day project! Must remember to take a pic EVERY day!!
• try and finish Amber’s Qs for that meme because I’m writing a whole friggin essay >__<

Right signing off now I guess I hope everyone is having as good a day as I am. OMG what is with the happys I don’t even-

Captain’s Log 17/01/2012

This is an attempt to blog more. Because sadly this is the only blog I have left and I need somewhere to write things down right now - at the boyfriend’s abode so not a pen and paper in sight.

The latest updated in life, asides from being 20 and six says old is that I have left my first year of Uni doing an English degree and have sent my UCAS application off to become a midwife. It’s very scary. I’m wasting another year (by the time I start my course most of the people my age will be beginning their final year) and what if I don’t like this course either? It’s very irritating, I have this massive urge to leave home - well that’s not quite true - I have this desire to move in with my boyfriend somewhere of our own. I want to be with him in our own little world where we don’t have to worry about my sister getting pissed off or his mother being annoyed by my use of the car-parking permits. And also, maybe, I just want to stake my claim a little. I want our relationship to move that step further, but it can’t whilst I have no income and that knowledge is maddening.

It doesn’t help that he’s already 28, 29 in March, and I am 20 with at least 3 years until I have a proper salary. Can I stand this existence for three more years? Basically I’ll probably be 24 when I have my first *proper* job and that would make him 32. Ugh I love him to bits but I’m conscious how much he wants children. Of course he’s sensible like anyone who has been in a relationship for seven months we have moments of second-guessing (hell I my last relationship was two years and what a pile of shit that was), but I think… I think if I suddenly turned to him serious about our future and marriage and children (because I always pretend like those prospects scare me) he wouldn’t say no. He looks at babies and points them out, we talk about our children like they will someday exist.

Are these just the thoughts or star-crossed lovers? Are we doomed like everyone else who thought they could never be more in love? I have never felt this way about anyone else in the world, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see the margin for error. There are times when he winds me up, when I let my insecurities and jealousy get the better of me. When he acts too like my father, like other men and it frightens me.

Despite the age gap I know it is part of what makes us work. We meet somewhere in the middle. Very few men my age even want to think about marriage and babies and few women his age would be happy with a guy who lives with his mum, plays video games and watches star trek. Perhaps that’s why so many later relationships go wrong. Women seem to become awfully controlling when they get to 25 and up. I suppose if they don’t have a stable boyfriend their body-clocks overload and they try to force men to become the perfect man/husband. My boyfriend has said to me one of my best qualities is that I don’t ask him to change, stop gaming, stop indulging in fast food and porn and other adolescent things. But why would I ask him to stop when I can gladly join in? He seems to think I’m some rare species since I play games and want to watch Stargate with him. I suppose his generation is different, there aren’t as many female nerds who played pokemon as kids.

So what am I trying to say? Basically I have half a year to try and get my life in order. I’ve taken on extra hours at work to try and save some money. I am really looking forward to this course I admit. It’s 1/2 study 1/2 work experience so I’m hoping there won’t be all that freshers crap which put me off my first year at Uni. I want to learn and be stimulated and I can’t wait to begin and feel like I’m accomplishing something. I’m really hoping I can get a good student loan on the basis that I will move in with my boyfriend and therefore be able to claim that I am not living at home. But that’s all up in the air on the basis that his family open a Newbury store and I get into the course at Reading.

*le sigh* I’m just tired of being in the nest and yes it’s not so bad because it’s a comfy happy nest, but having my own home, with him, that would be the best thing in the world right now.