A Head Full of Beauty

“Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.” The Journals of Sylvia Plath This blog is called 'A Head Full of Beauty' for a reason. When I started this blog I was already writing voraciously, spilling my emotions out in the strongest form of expression I had mastered. Literature and poetry had always been able to move me and help me feel the beauty in the world and in the human race. For me, beauty is not about aesthetics, it is not about what we see with our eyes but what we feel with our hearts. We feel beauty, it is an emotion, it is a movement in our soul, it is something transcendental. Beauty can be sad, it can be happy, it can be tortured, it can be innocent, it can be fresh, it can be ancient... While I hated everything about my physical self, I thanked God everyday for the beauty h...

The problem with not posting for two weeks is that my life moves very quickly, and it is now impossible for me to accurately transfer my emotions from the first week (which were very different to this week) into the written word. However, I will do my best. After the drama of the work Christmas Party, I spent the final week in the lead up to the holidays waiting for Theo to ask to see me. He was going to France with his family over Christmas and I expected him to suggest we go out one evening that week before he went away. I'd eaten atrociously in the aftermath of the anxiety and stress of the Christmas party season and started the week half a stone heavier than when I had graced the floors of the dinner hall in my beautiful dress on Friday evening. The scales were now showing me a weight that I had not seen since August. I kid you not. Naturally I was tearing my hair out, and in my deep stupor of depression was unable to drag my sorry arse to the gym and run like crazy to burn...

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...

I taught myself to hate food when I was 15. No - that's not entirely true. I didn't teach myself anything, I just learnt it... somehow, I learnt to hate food. I was asked in an interview last week: What makes you angry? I made up some "excellent interview answer" bullshit with a fake smile on my face. But the truth is, food makes me angry. I have to move seats on the train when someone in my view is eating a McDonalds out of a brown paper bag. I have to put on my earphones to block out the greasy crunching of crisps from the person sat behind me. The rustling of foil packets or the stench of fried foods makes ME feel gross. I feel so angry and disgusted it makes me want to scream. But do you know what is really the grossest thing ever? This is the highest figure on the scales I have ever seen in my entire life. I'm a lump. I'm a thing. When I lost Alex I let go of everything I had been fighting for. I let all my demons take over. I became everything...

I do not burden myself on other people. I do not pick up my phone when I am crying my eyes out. I do not seek comfort. I do not ask for kindness. I cry on my own. I have done for years. Even when I was in a relationship, I never bothered him with it. And yet I lean on you. I come here to cry. I come here to find a shoulder. Because here, I can . I'm a wreck. I'm so petrified. I remember once, I must have been about 14, I was at school sitting, chatting to a friend during lunch, and she raised her arm suddenly and I flinched. I instinctively jerked away from her and raised my arm to cover my face. "Woah. Ophelia. Why did you flinch?" I laughed nervously. "I, er, I don't know, I, er, thought you were going to hit me." I don't flinch now. Strange, I still censor. I've blocked out pretty much all of my past. I've blocked out my childhood because it was so happy, and I've blocked out my teenage years because they were so dreadful. ...

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...

"I have experienced love, sorrow, madness and if I cannot make these experiences meaningful, no new experience will help me." Sylvia Plath. I wrote about her before - several times. The first time I wrote when I was 19 I think - after reading 'The Bell Jar' - after realising that I didn't want to wear it anymore, like her... I didn't want a life like hers... not for all her genius. Maybe she could have stepped away; maybe she couldn't. Maybe it was her destiny to feel and write and suffer, all so intensely. Maybe I can step away; maybe I can't. Do I believe in destiny or do I believe in choice? There is no author whose work I have ever identified with more closely - except maybe Tennessee Williams. And this makes me sad. Sad, because I don't want to be like Sylvia Plath. I don't. I'm sure I don't... So why don't I just step away? Please, come on, step away... I must have a choice, because I swear, I never chose sadnes...