Nightly Tune

I’ve had a few much needed few days off work recently and finally got to kick back with my laptop and a cup of tea. Yes I am Irish and lets put it this way America may run on Dunkins, but here in Ireland we run on Barrys.

I love that add reminds me of being little and curled up infront of the fire. getting a kick out of the fact that I was drinking Barrys too, what can I say I’m the youngest 😉

It goes without saying the I’m ridiculously in love with all things English but writing can be as draining as it is cathartic and I’ve lapsed recently, mostly pure to sheer exhaustion in the evenings.

However a bottle of wine or ten with friends and a good slumber and it’s all I want to spend my evening doing. However sure I was pretty that this is an industry that I want to immerse myself in…now I’m certain. And that’s a great feeling.

This is also a great song 😉

Enjoy the weekend, no point in working if time off isn’t enjoyed to the full. ( This is how I’m explaining that new dress to my bank account)

Go on F*^k up…and start again, dare you

Do you ever wish you could go back? Do it over, do it better. Have the guts to follow your heart and grab life by the balls.

To realise that screwing up is far preferable to being afraid to. That even those who love you most will never know you quite like you do and that sometimes you have to block them out.

Have you ever looked back and seen things clearly in a way only hindsight can do. Realised that you wasted so much time and energy on people and things that really aren’t all that important after all.

And then be struck with the thought that maybe you can do it over. Do it better.

“Sometimes you need to put your backbone where your wishbone is” ~ Eat,Pray,Love

Here’s to my 50th post! 🙂 Thank You sooo much to everyone who has followed, commented, inspired , charmed and never failed to make me laugh 🙂

No More Resolutions

I’m not going to make resolutions. Daily runs and five vegetables aren’t fitting into life just yet. That’s okay. I run for the bus enough to compensate for the chocolate binges. Good intentions to go spinning are going to fall through the rungs anyway, so a few less drinks and some more time on the dance floor on nights out. Looking ridiculous doing the robot with the girls will always beat waking up to the inbox of shame.

I’m not resolving to be a better person. I’m not so bad and I’ll figure out the kinks along the way, through life and not some random declaration.

I’m not making resolutions. I’m going to do and not say I will. I’m never going to take the freedom that my age has granted me for granted. I’m old enough to know better but young enough to pull it off anyway. I’m free to stay up all night because I just can’t drop that book, because showers with him at 3am beat sleep any day or because I simply feel like sipping tea and watching the moon.

I’m not going to vow to get more sleep. I won’t fondly look back on early nights. Because coffee can still pull me through that last minute assignment, because I’d rather ride on the wings of pressure and exhaustion, knowing I crammed in that hour doing nothing with friends. Because work is still a means to pay for rent and shoes, merely a necessary chore and not yet a career that needs nurturing and protecting. To yawn is to know it was worth it.

I’m not making resolutions. I’m not striving to reach maturity. Because the responsibility of caring for other people has yet to be put on my shoulders. Because if  ever the opportunity for selfishness is ripe it’s now. Because to be selfless you have to have something to give. To be a good mother I want to have lived first. I want to screw up,  to find out what I love and fight for it. To know that I will one day be able to turn around and say I was completely ready for this stage of my life. To know I found out who I was before I undertook any other label.

I’m not making resolutions. I’m not budgeting every penny nor saving for a rainy day. I’m using my money to help me achieve what I want most. I’m not going to let money make my world go around,because it’s still my world only. Because life is too short not to have dessert and because it’s okay to share pasta with your house mate everyday for a week.

I’m not making resolutions about life this year, I’m just resolving to live it.

To Sleep

Senses inexplicably dulled yet heightened

Thoughts pulling through a heavy fog

Fighting to retain clarity

An overwhelming desire to give in

To surrender to the weight of each eyelid

The dull ache looming

The last reserves of energy seeped from the day

The fragility that accompanies exhaustion

The light too brash for the senses

Darkness soft and comforting

Blissfully falling into forgotten dreams

Floating peacefully

Equilibrium gently rebalancing

Soon ready to launch into another day

Heartbeats

When I was little love meant Prince Charming sweeping in on his gallant horse, everything would be perfect and I would live happily ever after….Disney has a whole lot to answer for.

Prince Charming doesn’t exist and to be perfectly honest if he did I’d be bored in a week. Who wants the perfect guy. I am so far from perfect you would have to squint and run back a few steps to see any kind of Disney princess. Even then my hair would still defy gravity in the morning….

Lust is easy, love not so much. Realising the difference, now that’s a skill worth developing. I’ve been in love once. It hurt like hell but I wouldn’t take back a single second. It made me stronger, showed me my limits and gave me a glimpse of just how amazing life can be if you let go of the barriers and learn to move with the crazy beat.

Disney tells you they lived happily ever after, it conveniently omits the ridiculous fights, petty comments and the stubborn refusal to admit your wrong in a quest to be right.

It doesn’t quite capture the feeling of safety that overcomes you as you’re enveloped in their arms, the way your world can slow down and right itself, restoring your sense of balance from just lying with them and talking about nothing in particular, surrounded by the blanket of dark.

The best love stories show us what it is to fight for the person who has your heart, the real ones show you that sometimes you need to summon the courage to let go. To realise that life doesn’t always accommodate the quickening of your heartbeat.

I refuse to love in order to be loved. I don’t need more people in my life. I have the most incredible friends who are more than willing to support me/read me the riot act and tough love my ass..whichever is required. My family may on occasion make me want to chew my own arm off but they are always always there no matter how many times I decide on a whim to change college course.

I’ve felt the unrelenting dull ache of heartbreak. I’ve experienced the dizzy feeling of falling. I’ve laughed until I cried and cried until I had to laugh and it’s worth it. If the right person comes along it’s worth every jumble of feelings that follows.

Prince Charming can keep on riding, because the one who can tug out a smile when I’m intent on being in a mood and is there for no other reason other than there’s nowhere else they would rather be, that person won’t need a flashy horse anyway.

I am happy, deliciously so. I don’t need someone to complete me. That doesn’t mean I’ll make the person who makes me want to smile when I’m tired and cranky lurk in the shadows.

Life is for living and I hope love never lets me forget that.

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Thank you so much to petrel41 for nominating me for the very Inspiring Blogger Award. It put a big smile on my face this morning. This is a rare occurance usually limited to waking up to either snow or pancakes.

The rules are to thank and link back to the blogger which has nominated you, then post the award logo to your blog. You then nominate 15 other bloggers who inspire you and notify them.

Then tell 7 things about yourself.

Seven things…..

1. My Mums favourite flowers are lilies. My Dad used to call me his petal. Hence the blog name.

2. When I was little I stuck my nose into a bunch of lilies I got my Mum for her Birthday.Then presented them to her with a grin and a massive orange nose.

3. I hate pepperoni….can’t stand the stuff. Ditto with raisins and olives..bleugh!

4. My favourite childhood book was “The Magic Faraway Tree” by Enid Blyton. It still has pride of place on my bookshelf.

5.I have a 25 year old brother, he is an engineer and much cooler than I am. He’s also handy for a spare twenty quid when times are tough and I neeeed those shoes.

6. I live in a student house with 4 of my friends, we regularly run out of toilet paper ( I bought it last time!), play music far too loud and drink wine out of mugs

7. My hair is a mass of curls but you have to know me quite well or dunk me in water to find that out. My hair straightener will one day pass out from sheer exhaustion.

These are some of my favourite and most inspiring blogs….

1. Sherbert and Sparkles

2. Lost in Travels

3. btg5855

4. A Dog with Fleas

5. Livesimplykmm

6. Maddie Cochere

7. prewitt1970

8. neelkanth

9. Casie

10. lauramichellesmith

11. Planted oak

12. thoughtsappear

13. The Water Bearer

14. Katie Renee

15. Anensi the Poet

I Write Therefore I Am

Writing makes me happy. Simple as. It also regularly makes we want to bang my head off the table.

What makes someone a writer? It’s a pretty sweeping statement. Do you become a writer when you are officially paid to do it? Or is when when you first see your name in print? Maybe it’s simply something you are and not something you become. It’s the compelling urge to get your thoughts down whether you’re in the shower, running for the bus or lying in the darkness.

Don’t ask me about being a writer. lf when you wake up in the morning you can think of nothing but writing…then you’re a writer. – Rainer Marie Rilke

Nobody is forcing me to do it. I doubt anyone would be particularly bothered if I stopped… there’s one or two more blogs out there. And yet I have caught the bug, have experienced the satisfaction of people reading and liking what I write and the adrenaline hit that can only come from the ”publish’ button. Like I’ve just carelessly flung another piece of me out there, but the more I do it the less scary it gets, and I can’t seem to stop.

When I started to blog I was sitting repeat exams and stressed to my eyeballs. My friends were still in America and I needed a distraction ANY distraction from chemical mechanisms. Writing soothed my nerves and it was never supposed to be any more than that. Then I found myself falling in love with my own little speck on the blogosphere and felt the compelling urge to show someone who knew me inside out.

I met Laine when we moved in together four years ago ( yeeks) and we instantly clicked. I love her completely and trust her enough to be honest with me. She is also the one who presented me with a notebook on my 21st birthday with the message to “get on it” and start writing, ..thanks lady. So I sent her the link and she sent back some much needed encouragement .

I’ve always been at my best when I let go completely and write from the heart. When I’m hurting or exhausted or a painful experience is still raw, that’s when the words flow. Equally when I’m brimming over with happiness they tumble out of me falling over each other in a bid to scrawl across the page. To write, to really write, is to show the world a vulnerability and that’s an aspect I’ve always struggled with. I got an A1 in English in my Leaving Certificate and can guarantee  a lot of the reason for that was the anonymity of the correcter. I could let every barrier come crashing down and pour myself into the words.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” 
― Ernest Hemingway

Before I ever hit publish I will invariably have sworn at the screen, abused the backspace button and stared blankly into space for a while. Yet time becomes irrelevant and when what I’m feeling suddenly clicks in my head and the thought has slipped through my fingers onto the page the feeling of satisfaction is oh so worth it.

Reading amazing books has lit a fire in me to produce something real, not to be afraid of seeing and writing life how it is. Books have enchanted and gripped me my entire life.  Hours can pass by where I am oblivious to the world around me and captivated by the one I’m in. If I’ve had a rough day or just need a check out from reality for a little bit I open a book.

If ever something I write allows someone else to do that, then I will consider myself a writer

I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” 
― Anne Frank

No bra burning required

In modern society where the word feminism is more often then not met with negative connotations has it lost it’s real meaning?? Does the word fill you with a sense of power, or conjure up images of bra burning women with a dodgy tash on their upper lip preaching about how men are the enemy?

In reality feminism isn’t a competiton for the moral high ground it’s a long continuous battle in which many women have struggled to gain equality, each generation adding something to the achievements of the past.

Betty Friedman was an American writer activist and feminist. On August 26, 1970, the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution, Friedan organized the national Women’s Strike for Equality, and led a march of 50,000 women in New York.  The strike marked 50 years since women had earned the right to vote and was hugely successful in broadening the feminist movement with both men and women marching.

Society has changed hugely in the past 50 years and with it so too should the meaning of feminism. To me it’s never been about not shaving your legs it’s about going into work and receiving as much pay and respect as your male peers. If you want to do that in killer heels and a great bra..that’s your prerogative.

I don’t think women are becoming compliant. I think if anything we are becoming smarter about what’s important. Real issues such as abortion and rape are no longer covered up in a hush of shame and swept into a corner. We are and always have been intelligent independent and are continuing to break moulds.

The “Slut Walk” began on April 3rd 2011 in Toronto Canada after a police officer stated that to remain safe “women should avoid dressing like sluts” . The Slut walk criticised the idea that women were victimised because of their state of dress. It highlighted the issue that where rape is reported police remain the authorative voice and realities are often constructed to fit police versions rather than the victims experience.  The idea of the slut walk was to take back the power of the word slut to highlight that women should have the freedom to dress however they choose. When did it become our  responsibility to remain safe rather than focusing on the root of the problem the attackers themselves. The slut walk has become one of the most successful feminist actions in 20 years .

For me feminism is about having the right to stand up for what I believe in, for the opportunity to earn respect from my peers based on who I am and what I achieve not by my gender. To have the freedom to celebrate my femininty as men cherish their masculinity in every aspect of life and to never let anyone take that away from me.

NaNoWriMo……..I must be mad

This blog was whirling around in my head for quite some time before I actually shut up and sat down to write. Now it’s happening again! Except this time there are two characters bursting to get out and I am going to try my hand at a novel.

Scared doesn’t even begin to go there and now that my nearest and dearest know I can’t wriggle out. My biggest fear is that after years of thinking I probably could do it now I’m actually going to find out.

I am also super duper ( yes I did actually say super duper without sarcasm ) excited!

It’s my first time doing this but I really want to write a novel that focuses on two protagonists in college in Ireland, their friendship and their own individual journeys.

Matt is a law student . He is cheerful friendly and a generally great guy, he is also openly gay. Caitlen is his housemate and best friend. Smart and sensitive but with a naturally shy nature she learns to leave the confines of her family at home and find her feet in the new city.

I guess for me this is a chance to write what I know. I want to portay how incredible student life is but also how it’s the time when you figure out who you are and what you stand for. That although life is never a bunch of roses with the right people behind you and the right attitude……life is an awfully big adventure

NaNoWriMo is such an incredible idea and it’s given me the kick I needed to do a Nike on it and “just do it”

Deep breathe…tomorrow the fun begins! 🙂

Friends without benefits

A good friend asks what you’re thinking. A best friend is already telling you it’s a bad idea.

It’s a question thats been thrown around since we were running around in nappies and shoving each other into mud. From the minute it started growing mine was a head of hair that grew up and out in mad curls and was kept short, the only notable difference between us was I had pink nappy tabs while his had blue. Twenty years later we are far more likely to be found strolling down the street laughing teasing and still partial to shoving each other into mud. Yes we are best friends, yes we are of the opposite sex and no there will never be any benefits involved.

About 6 months ago I hopped into a taxi on my way to the airport, although considering it was barely 6 in the morning hopped is probably a tad ambitious , still mentally pulling myself from my warm bed I exchanged the usual pleasantries with the taxi driver. In hindsight “are u busy today”  is probably not as fail-safe on a deserted early morning as on a Saturday night. I’m not entirely sure how it happened and my friends slag me for getting into these scenarios on a regular basis ( disclaimer . no matter what they might say I would not talk to the wall…no point it couldn’t laugh at my hilarious jokes ) but I ended up in a heated discussion with the guy on this very topic. To him if a guy and girl are best friends its for one of two reasons..the girl has the poor sod so firmly locked in the friend zone he cant manage to crawl his way out or they are both just biding there time before friendship becomes something more a la 50 thousand rom coms! God forbid they would both just rather grab a drink than a condom. Here’s the thing I genuinely liked this taxi driver although we spent majority of the ride arguing we both thoroughly enjoyed it…. According to Greg ( aka taxi guy) at some stage of our lives me and D would eventually look at each other as more than friends, it might be a subtle change in our relationship it might be one sided but sooner or later it was bound to happen.All thoughts of a quick nap flew out the window and I was in battle mode.

You know when your half leaning into the front seat yelling “shhh you’ve had your say my turn” and he laughs and pipes down….you’ve hit on a rare gem of a taxi driver.

He did have a point, clichés always stem from a truth and from the wise word of ‘When Harry met Sally’

“No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.” –Harry

Some say benefits are inevitable.I disagree. Sure some of the best relationships stem from friendship but some friendships are just that. as a female ( and only human ) I’ve though about what it would be like to hook up with D but never without squirming slightly at the naked part. I’ve heard people compare different sex platonic relationships as loving the other like a Brother or Sister. I have an older brother I love him dearly but not in the way i love D.Sure I could sleep with him we get on great neither of us are too awful looking and there would be nothing creepy or incest like about it..I just don’t want to and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual . Have we acknowledged our relationship? Of course we have. On a drunken night in Coppers after far too many shots we decided that if it did ever happen we would be able to get past it and go back to friends ..we were both far too plastered to be anything but honest ( in my defence if your going to get absolutely blathered a nightclub with a big rugby guy looking out for you is an ideal location ) .

Have I occasionally imagined what D would be like as a boyfriend? Sure. He is one of the few guys in my life who has never let me down ( appalling laziness when it comes to texting back excluded ) and its usually when I’m licking my wounds from the some no gooder  that the idea of how awesome life with D could be makes an appearance…on the train to meet him suddenly excited at my epiphany and actually bothering to redo my make up picturing running into his arms…and then there he is with his arms around me and phut…zero chemistry zero attraction …….and deciding I’d actually rather just go for a drink with my best friend.