A Head Full of Beauty

Sorry for making the blog private for a few weeks. I wanted to be isolated from the piercing eye of the internet for a while... It's been a long time since I've sat down and written a proper update - and for those of you who read regularly, I apologise, sometimes it's very easy to forget that people will miss you when you disappear. Thank you to those who have emailed and reminded me to come back, those words have been key in helping me. Thank you to anonymous for the beautiful dance clip on youtube, to NC for the kind words of support regarding the CFA, I will definitely need kind words as crunch time approaches! Thank you to Alice, Loulou, and everyone who commented on the last post with your support. Sometimes I think I should keep your wise words with me all night. I suppose I should continue the story where I left off - with Theo. Wow, so much has happened since then. Here's the condensed version: Theo had lost his phone, genuinely, hence why he hadn't co...

Again, too much has happened that I don't know where to begin. Sometimes I wish my life would just slow right down again. I will just have to write it in bits, a full monologue is too much for me right now. Last Friday I nearly ended it with Theo. As I said, he was taking me out for my Christmas present. I took the afternoon off to get a massage, sit in the sauna, get my hair done and make sure I looked my best. It was the leaving drinks of someone at work so we both went along to that. Theo told me we would leave at 8:30pm. The time came and went, he did not make a move. He was drinking with his mates, I was standing with my friends, sipping my one glass of wine so I stayed sober to enjoy our dinner. I sent him a text - when are we going? He didn't check his phone. I went to sit upstairs trying to fight back the tears. I read back my last post on my blackberry... I must not take his cluelessness for lack of care, I must not act like a child and ruin this, I must not thro...

I came home on Wednesday night realising that I had fallen hard. It was the leaving drinks of one of the management team and much of the office was out for the party - Theo included. I nervously watched the door of the venue until he came, the girls I worked with laughing at me for my childishness. When he finally arrived it was a while before we spoke to each other, and when we did it was just casual and normal as it would be between any work colleagues. As the evening began to wear on we became more flirty and more separate from the rest of the crowd. He looked gorgeous as ever, his big brown eyes burning into mine and making me so hungry for him. I wanted to hold his hand, wanted to cuddle up close to him, I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to be open about our relationship, but I couldn't because people that we worked with were around. It killed me. It made me anxious. At one point I turned wild with jealousy when I saw him talking to another girl from my depa...

The main point I need to make from my behaviour in my last post is a very strong and clear one: I am not a role model. I am not a role model in any physical way, shape or form. This is physically the most ill I have ever been. And there's no denying that. Even though I feel on top of the world, even though mentally I've never felt better, that's all kind of irrelevant. It's irrelevant because my body won't last - and what's the point of being happy and being so alive inside when you know the physical medium that's holding it all together won't last for too long. I am either starving and over-exercising; bingeing and purgeing multiple times a day; or abusing laxatives, or several of these at once. The weekend after I slept with Theo I started to get scared. I pumped my body full of junk food after ripping my digestive system to shreds. I began to be afraid for the first time that what I'd been doing was going to see me end up in hospital - and...

Thursday 27th October It has become a rule to binge - to eat myself to death - after a night out. Why. Why not. I am the queen of throwing up. I'd had an intense few days at work - travelling abroad and then pushing myself to the limit in the office overtime. It was nearing the end of a long Thursday afternoon and I needed to smile, laugh, feel good, feel power, feel - feel something. I knew where to get it. Cassio. I sent him an email. Dinner? He said no. Already had dinner plans. But drinks was a yes. I pranced over to his desk when I finished. Tony saw us, smiling knowingly at me. The good looking young kids always found each other. It was lovely. I loved friendliness, I loved chatting, discussing, questioning. When the time came for him to go to dinner with his friend he asked me to join him and I beamed. Of course. We had dinner with two of his friends and one of their other colleagues - all Europeans. He told me I was the first English girl he'd made friends...

I must start off first of all, I suppose, with a remark: You will see now, in the top right hand corner, my little award. I... well, I... it meant a lot. I'm reading a fantastic book at the moment: The Golden Notebook  by a wonderful British author called Doris Lessing. I had never heard of her until she was mentioned on a programme chronicling the great British authors on television recently - I made a list of all the ones which sounded interesting - this book was top of the list. I had recently finished reading Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier - what a remarkable, all-consuming book. It became a necessity for me - I used it on my commutes to and from work, craving to just be taken away for those two hours a day, completely consumed in that world, that world of yearning. I could smell the fresh woodland of Manderley and the pure salt air of the sea... I could feel the chills of Mrs DeWinter - yes it was a book of feeling - wonderful feeling! It took me away from London, they gre...

I never imagined how I'd feel if that moment came, but I think, it didn't matter as much as I thought it would - because all this is the truth. But would I change it if I could? Of course. I feel like I'm nearing the time that all these blogs inevitably seem to face - permanent deletion - as if Ophelia had never written. It's going to come, I think, with my 'growing up'. One day, I will look back on my life, and be able to point to this week as the week that I grew up. I grew up the week I went back to school again. As most readers will know, I hate my job and I despise The City. That's simple. The more complicated issue is how I survive from hereon... I began to consider becoming a high school English teacher a few months back, and am now moving forwards with my application, potentially to start my training in September 2011. (Teaching being one of three courses of action I am currently pursuing - but I will not bore you with details). To be succes...

I don't understand the human instinct to survive. I don't know why I run across the road before the bus hits me... when I wish it would hit me. I don't know why I refuse to give in when I have witnessed over and over again that my dreams will never come true. There are people with worse lives than me. One of my mum's friends - consumed by cancer, knowing the time is so short and will only be full of pain. A colleague at work - married and divorced after a hellish marriage of one year - 30 years old. A friend of a friend - told by her husband that he just doesn't love her anymore - her financial support and life, all gone. When you have children, dependents, I believe it is different. I would never kill myself if I knew there were people in the world who needed me. But I, like the people above, have nothing. No children, now no lover, perhaps no future. I have no reason to bear my pain. And yet others with perhaps even less reason can still bear it. I loo...

. This is the hardest post I have ever had to write. I apologise if it's sporadic and raw. This is everything from the last two months. When I went away with Alex for a weekend on the 16th July and when we went away for the second time on the 13th August. How things became incredible. How things fell apart. The writing in red is what I have written today - my input now - the writing in black is what I wrote on the date stated. Written on 19th July 2010 The dream is not a dream. It exists. I tasted it. I lived it. The happiness of my childhood is not dead. It lives around me – in other children, in other families. I walked hand-in-hand with Alex through the gardens of Chatsworth House, listening to the laughter of children, watching old couples sitting on the wall eating huge cones of soft white ice cream. Seeing families all around me. Joy, happiness, laughter, innocence, contentment, fulfilment. I was right all along. I knew it. I knew it! I had known all along what...