Day #9: 30 Day Writing Challenge

Post some words of wisdom that speak to you:

This could not have come at a better time..... last night when I was having yet another night alone (as always these days) I started watching some videos on youtube about how to walk away from toxic relationships. The entire video was extremely insightful and helpful but something stood out more-so than everything else combined:

"If you're falling asleep next to somebody every night but yet you still feel alone, why not rather be alone?"

That one question changed my perspective on everything. 

The same woman also spoke about how she found a journal her brother had written in the day before he died and the entry was so sad. He had been miserable in life. 

My own journal for literally every day of 2017 so far is filled with 25 pages of sadness, anger, pain and confusion. I am miserable too..... and I realised last night that if I die, I don't want to nothing but a morbid journal to remember me by. I don't want to be sad. I want to be happy. So you have to choose for yourself....

One day or day one. 

You decide. 

Day #8: 30 Day Writing Challenge

Share something you struggle with:

I struggle with all of my insecurities right now. 

I struggle to find peace in my mind and happiness in my soul. 

It's gone. 

I struggle to find myself in this dark place I have wound up in. 

I have lost myself. 

The confident, secure, happy, independent woman I was a year ago has vanished. 

I want me back - but I can't find my way. 

I don't know whether to go left or right. 

I'm standing at the turning point getting whiplash from looking at two such opposite directions.

Which one do I choose? 

I can't keep standing at the T-junction. 

I am embarrassing myself. 

I'm making a fool of myself. 

I'm holding up the traffic. 

I'm so torn. 

So lost. 

I don't think I have ever been so broken. 

Day #7: 30 Day Writing Callenge

List 10 Songs You Are Loving Right Now:

If it isn't clear to you already - there are a lot of demons I am facing in my life right now. Music is my way of relating, expressing and understanding myself and my troubles. I won't lie - I am depressed. Almost to the extent where I feel like turning to someone for help, but I won't do that. I have fought depression alone before and I will again. I will be OK again. 

People often say they are depressed. I truly don't think the majority of people who say that know what they mean. They don't. 

Depression is a scary, dark place. You are alone - but you don't want company. You see food, but you can't it even when your stomach grumbles. You smile, but it hurts from how fake it. It's like your face is shattering more-so than you're spreading happiness. It doesn't feel right. 

You see people and try to mask your emotions - but it is impossible. People can feel your energy. You can see them being brought down by the weight of you. You feel tiny, even if you are proportionally a big person. You feel pathetic and selfish for spending so much of your time wallowing in self-pity, but you can't help it. 

You want to a better person, you try... but you fail. You are worthless and useless to yourself. You feel feel bad when your loved ones ask how you are because you cannot tell them the truth anymore. Maybe at first it was fine to share your problems and sadness with them... but after weeks or months of the same shit... you feel like they will become bored you. So you lie. You tell them you are fine. But you're not. .... and you don't think you will ever be fine again. Not really. 

You are broken. 

*

Lyrics mean everything to me. A song needs a melody to be complete - but I am not connected to many songs at all without being able to relate to the lyrics.

There is one song that happens to be without lyrics that I could listen to on repeat for hours and hours though.

This one:

Ludovico Einaudi - Nuvole Bianche

I have read books while listening to that song, I have wept while listening to that song, I felt love and hate and pain and anguish and fear all while listening to this song. It portrays all emotions to me. 

It is a phenomenal piece of music, one that doesn't need lyrics to be understood.

Then we have: 

Missy Higgins - Where I Stood

There is so much in the lyrics to this song that sums up how I feel right now. From the very first verse - I was connected and relating whole-heartedly. 

"I don't know what I've done, or if I like what I've begun..."

I don't know what I've done with my life recently. I don't know if the choices I made were the right ones. I don't know if I've wasted my time or damaged myself beyond repair. I don't know if I like what has happened and where I have ended up. I don't. There is so much uncertainty in my world and coursing through my soul right now.

"Something told me to run and honey you know me, it's all or none."

I felt the irresistible urge to run from my life in South Africa.... and I did. In the space of hours I changed my entire life - gave up so much and fled. I created this new life for myself...

"Cuz I don't know who I am, who I am without you. All I know is that I should. And I don't know if I could stand another hand upon you. All I know is that I should."

I don't know who I am without my partner. I don't. I've always been a relationship person, always. I have always dedicated myself fully and tried everything and anything to make it work. I give up so much and I have sacrificed so much of my life and independence for relationships. It has lead to so much regret - and I don't want regret in my life.

I can't handle the thought of someone else with the person I love - although it is too late for that really, isn't it? He had his hands and his mind all over so many other women while with me. While living with me. 

"Cuz she will love you more than I could, she who dares to stand where I stood."

Someone else would love you more. They would make you happy. I can't any longer. How can you love and forgive and forget so much? Something so bad? It has broken me. You even tell me you've learned your lesson and you'd never cheat on a woman again because you see how much hurt you put me through....... and it makes me think that all I have ever been in a messenger to you. A lesson. My heart didn't matter in this situation. My heart never seems to matter in any situation though, does it???

"You meant more to me than anyone I ever loved at all..."

True. So true. I fucking hate that it is so true. 

Of Monsters and Men - Organs

"I am sorry this is always how it goes"

"I never changed a single colour that I breathe."

"I am tired of letting it all in."

"I should not care but I don't know how."

Everything reminds me of how it all went wrong. It all does. I can't do anything or see anything anymore without being reminded. Without hurting. I can't.

"I don't want to stay in the dark."

But how do I get out of the dark?

How???

Jake Bugg - Simple Pleasures

The chorus of this song gets me every single time.....

Wow. 

"How in hell can I be safe from this sudden fear of change? This sudden fear is strange...."

I've never feared change before. But I do now. It is strange. I don't feel safe. I don't feel good.... not at all.

"And maybe it's all that you've done wrong so just bite your silver tongue that you lied with... lied to yourself."

Maybe this is all happening because of my past and the things I have done that don't make me seem like the best person... I have fucked up. I have made mistakes. I have hurt others.. Maybe it's karma, karma sinking its teeth in ten times deeper....

The melody of this song in particular strikes such a sensitive chord in me. This melody is something special...

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Face Down 

An angry one.... when I'm feeling anger and frustration this is my go to song.

"Do you feel like a man when you push her around, do you feel better now she falls to the ground?"

Do I need to explain this one? 

"You cry alone and he swears he loves you."

Does this one need an explanation either? No... not really. The lyrics to this song speak for themselves.

"As your lies crumble down, a new life she has found."

I am not there yet. The lies are crumbling all around me, more and more every single day... I'm struggling to find the new life though. The better life. I'm still searching. 

"If you wade around forever you will surely drown..." 

I'm getting exhausted. I am going to drown soon.

"ONE DAY SHE WILL TELL YOU THAT SHE HAS HAD ENOUGH!!!!"

I will. I will. I will. 

Evanescence - My Immortal

"These wounds won't seem to heal, the pain is just too real. There's just so much that time cannot erase."

Wow..... just that one sentence sums up everything I feel right now. Everything I have always felt... from when I was a kid and my dad would get violent after a bottle of whiskey. From when I was twelve (?) and David destroyed my life in a way I will never be able to repair it... from when people were so not accepting of me at school and at church and when I couldn't make friends. When I was alone. When boyfriends cheated and lied and hit and hurt. When I fiddled with recreational drugs and fucked my life up for years entering into a dark world it took years more to come out from.. from everything. That sentence in My Immortal means the world to me. It is the truth of my life.

Good Charlotte - Emotionless 

For once (haha) these lyrics relate to my father not my partner. My father, the only other man that managed to break me like no one else ever could, not even my partner.. the only man I love so deeply and look up to so much and consider my hero even after our horrible past as father and daughter. It took me a long time to forgive him for the violence and rage... but I did. It will always haunt me.... it will always be there.... but my dad means the world to me and this song will forever break my heart as once upon a time when that violence was still around, I'd listen to this song and I was sure it was how we would end up.

"You broke my mothers heart, you broke your children for life..."

Cold, honest truth. My family has been through so much heartache and pain. My mother and brother could forgive him so much more easily than I could - I always wondered how. I am a hard person... when you hurt me, i build a wall and it takes YEARS to break it down again. Years. I learned my lesson long ago to not forgive easily because if you do, bad shit will keep happening. Be hard. Be strong. Be alone and no one can hurt you. 

"The scars run deep inside this tattooed body..."

And now I have a tattoo on my foot just for you, dad. Because I did forgive you, eventually. I have countless other tattoos too and they are all scars, really. They are all stories from problems i have overcome.... hardships i have faced.. they are reminders of how strong i can be.

"Sometimes, I'll forgive and this time I'll admit you that I miss you...."

This is so true. Even when my father or partner have done the worst to me... there is a soft part of me hidden beneath the blackness coating my heart that does miss them... that does want to forgive. 

Simple Plan - Untitled

"And I can't stand the pain.. and i can't make it go away. No I can't stand the pain."

The pain really is too much sometimes.

 "How did this happen to me? I made my mistakes, got no where to run. The night goes on as I'm fading away. I'm sick of this life, I just wanna scream."

The other night I found myself out on the streets past midnight with a suitcase packed and no where to go. No money to go anywhere with. After a year of a life in a foreign country I have nothing to show for it. Not one thing. 

I am fading away. I stepped onto a scale today and I have lost almost 5kgs.... that is a lot for someone as small as I am already. I'm scared. I do want to scream. I am sick of this life, I am frustrated.

WHY is it so hard to find happiness?????

Simple Plan - Welcome to my Life

EVERY word to this song describes how I feel. Every single verse. I cannot pinpoint one particular thing, it's everything rolled into one. Rolled into a song. It was written for me, I swear it. 

Do you ever feel like breaking down?

Do you ever feel out of place?

Like somehow you just don't belong

And no one understands you

Do you ever want to run away?

Do you lock yourself in your room?

With the radio on turned up so loud

That no one hears you screaming

No you don't know what its like

When nothing feels alright

You don't know what its like to be like me

To be hurt, to feel lost

To be left out in the dark

To be kicked when you're down

To feel like you've been pushed around

To be on the edge of breaking down

And no one there to save you

No you don't know what its like

Welcome to my life

Do you want to be somebody else?

Are you sick of feeling so left out?

Are you desperate to find something more

Before your life is over

Avril Lavigne - My Happy Ending

"You've got your dumb friends, I know what they say, they tell you I'm difficult.. but so are they. But they don't know me. Do they even know you? All the things you hide from me, all the shit that you do???"

Boom, Simon. Boom. On point with the lyrics here. 

I bite my tongue for so many months... feeling and almost knowing there was something wrong.... something bad. You were lying. You were cheating. You were disrespecting the fuck out of me... but whenever I asked you told me i was seeing things. You made me question my own sanity when I was right all along. 

So now these lyrics are  what I relate to. They are how I express myself and how I get by day by day. 

Listening to these lyrics makes me feel like others have been in a dark place like me right now. It makes me feel like maybe one day I will get past it. 

I will. I will. I will. 

Day #6: 30 Day Writing Challenges

5 Ways to Win My Heart:

1. Surprises. A flower on my windshield, a dress laid out on the bed with a note telling me to be ready at 8pm, a book I've been wanting for ages, a whole day planned for us to enjoy together... it could be the simplest of things. I just want to see an effort to want to surprise me - without me needing to think or hint....
2. Coffee in bed... you won't be able to speak to me in the morning without this.... be warned.
3. Loyalty. Look at me and think of me as the only girl in the world in your eyes. I hate cheaters. I hate wondering eyes. It hurts. Its disrespectful. Its one way to make me close off to you in a heartbeat.
4. Be proud of me... hold my hand in public. Give me cuddles. Want a picture with me if we're out and about doing something cool. Call me your girlfriend when introducing me to people.... speak highly of me... it goes such a long way to make me feel good about myself.... 
5. Be playful. Tickle, tackle, laugh, joke, play twister and scrabble and Heads Up and just have FUN with me... do things that help us bond and connect.... there is nothing that makes me happier than laughing with the guy I love.

Day #4: 30 Day Writing Challenge

List 5 places you want to visit:

I'm not counting my aforementioned fantasies of Bali as I have already been there... 

No, this is a list of places I have yet to visit but one day most certainly will. 

1. Ireland (Sexy Irish Accents.... Can't Resist.... Yes my reasons for wanting to visit Ireland seem shallow.. they actually do stem deeper than that but I'm knackered and can't really be arsed to write much today.... so much for a writing challenge!)
2. India (Yoga / Meditation / Silence Retreats, Culture, Spirituality, Self-Growth!)
3. Canada (Snowboard!)
4. Machu Pichu, Peru (Hike!)
5. Iceland (to see the Northern Lights, Glacier Caves)

I also really want to go to a hot air balloon festival. Going in a hot air balloon is so high up on my bucket list... I'm still deciding where best to treat myself to this little excursion. Turkey, perhaps???

PS today was a good day playing in the snow in Mallorca, Spain. Adios, for now.

Day #4: 30 Day Writing Challenge

Write about someone who inspires you:

Took myself on a 5k walk yesterday while listening to The Great Gatsby.
"Fill your life with adventures, not things. Have stories to tell not things to show."

I really don't mean to sound pretentious here, but I hardly ever think about people who inspire me.  

It must be a bad thing to not have someone that you look up to in life. The people close to me and around me haven't exactly been role models through the years... whatever I have wanted, I have gone after for myself. The majority of people are usually telling me I can't do something and I decide then and there to prove them wrong. I don't feed off of anyone else, some grand person to build myself off of. I've quite literally always kicked myself from the nest and built my own wings on the way down. I guess in that sense I could say thank you to all of those people who have told me I 'can't do it,' here. I could thank them for giving me the drive to show them I can.

I got laughed at when I told my family I wanted to study law; then changed tack and decided I wanted to be a surgeon. Both fields fascinated me greatly... yet it seemed all I was to them was a pretty face. They told me modelling would be a better fit... but it seemed I couldn't do that either because I was too short. When I decided I wanted to open up my own Writers Cafe and Bookshop, a quirky dainty store that smells of roasted coffee beans with steaming mugs of unique blends delivered artfully to your table on a tree trunk tray while the soft sound of jazz oozed peacefully from the record player positioned in the corner on the old hardwood floors - I was told it would never happen. I'd never have the money to do it. "Stop dreaming, Jade." I was told... but I am a dreamer. A dreamer that managed to hammer three novels out of my heart and onto pages upon pages that will one day be bound into a book and published. Books that will one day be snuggled up between other books in their genre in bookstores... and in my own bookstore too. The independent one I will one day open. 

I will never be a settled soul. I am restless, I have ambitions and dreams that no one thinks will ever happen. I know people laugh at me and my ways - but that makes me pity them. Their passion and drive has faded into nothingness. 

So I guess what I have to say is that I inspire myself, whether you find that pretentious or not I actually couldn't care less - I inspire myself for being a dreamer. For making things happen... even if the process is slow. 

I know what I want and I'm going for it, one step at a time.

I also deeply admire two souls that I feel are so alike to mine... Christopher McCandless and Cheryl Strayed (and if you don't know who they are then get your arse to a bookstore and buy both Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (my favorite book ever written) and Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Maybe then you will understand me more.)

Namaste.

Day #3: 30 Day Writing Challenge

What are your top 3 Pet Peeves:

1. Disrespecting others. Whether that be by means of cheating, lying, stealing, bullying, cancelling plans at the last minute, making plans with someone and then deciding you have somewhere better to be, breaking promises, being fake... it hurts me. Someone disrespecting me or someone I know - it quite literally has the ability to drive me crazy. Everyone in life deserves respect and peace. Think about how you would want to be treated. Would you want someone else to be messing around with another guy or girl behind your back? No. So don't do it to another person. Would you want someone else to be lying to you? Even if the truth hurts, it is the truth and nothing can hurt worse than finding out you have been lied to regardless of the pain the truth may cause. Would you want someone else stealing your valued property or picking you apart for your inevitable flaws??? We all have them. You may have stretch-marks, a big nose, you may be a bit tubby or too thin, you may have a lisp or frizzy hair or freckles - they make us who we are. Stop hurting others. Please.
2. Snoring. Lying there awake listening to someone else snore and grumble while you can't get any sleep... drives me absolutely mad.. hence why I bought Cheffy a very expensive snoring kit for Christmas which he hasn't touched. Go figure.
3. Taking over in the kitchen. If I am cooking, leave me. Unless you want to chop the onions and save me from looking like I've been to a funeral, then that's alright... but don't take over. Don't give me short-cuts and tell me there's better ways of doing something, I do things my way and I like it. Cooking to me is very therapeutic. If I don't need to rush, don't make me. I like chopping and stirring and smelling and tasting. I put love and attention into my food as I do with everything else in my life. 5 + 3 = 8 but 2 + 6 = 8 too. People have different ways of doing things. Let them. 

Day #2: 30 Day Writing Challenge

Write something that someone told you about yourself that you never forgot:

Guys have told me earth-shatteringly beautiful things about myself in the past. Some guys are good with words. Some guys can tell you exactly what you want to hear. At the time of reading their compliments I am amazed - I think it is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard someone say about myself. I say I will never forget... but then when something goes wrong in my life, when the self-doubt builds and my confidence crumbles, all positive thoughts about myself evaporate as if they were never there. I don't remember the things people told me to make me feel good about myself, I don't remember anything. I wish I had saved the messages so I could reread them in a dark time - but in a moment of great sadness or relentless anger I delete the compliments from my memory.

What I'm saying is that it is hard to remember good things someone says about you when you are going through a tough time in life. It's a sad reality that negativity seems to shadow all positivity when you need it the most. But we shouldn't rely on other peoples words and compliments with such obvious hidden intentions in order to feel better about ourselves. We should really be writing something that you tell yourself about yourself that you will never forget here, something good. Something that makes you proud of yourself.... 

But for the sake of todays challenge I have written something I know someone has said to me in the past and it made me feel pathetically whole again... because we can be shallow like that sometimes.

I asked the first guy I ever truly fell in love with, the guy I wrote a book about, what he loves best about me once... and this was his response. His words always captivated me:

In a word: beauty. I know that sounds simple, but it is not. To me it pertains to so many things. Your attention to details in life is beautiful. Your zest for life is beautiful. The way you enrich people's live's with only your presence is stunning! Trust me, I know! You've made my life so much more beautiful and exciting just by meeting you! Even the way you love food and how you describe it is beautiful to me! Your book, writing style is totally beautiful! And then, I'm not even including your external beauty here - In that department you have no lack or limits! You are by far the most beautiful woman I have ever met-everything about you is gorgeous! Your eyes, your hair, your lips your body, legs! (You have stunning legs!! . Even the way you dress speaks volumes about you and is extremely beautiful! Hope that answers your question? But really, truthfully when I think of you, the first word that comes to mind, always is beautiful.

Day #1 : 30 Day Writing Challenge

Hello, 2017! 

2016 was a disastrous blogging year for me - Bohemian Muses was unfairly neglected and to be honest, I think I'm going to have a pretty hard time starting her back up... but to help me along I've decided to do a 30 day writing challenge. Each day I will be given a prompt and need to write about whatever is handed to me. I am also journaling in a 2017 diary and have filled each page for the year thus far - that's exactly a 2 week run! So far, so good. 

Today's writing challenge is quite simple, really.

List 10 things that make you really happy:

1. Reading, anywhere, any time. 
2. Booktube. Watching other booktubers videos, filming my own, editing my own, interacting with other book lovers. It is the best community and changed my life. Here's the link to my booktube channel: Boho Bookworm
3. Writing... yeah, I can't really validate this one right now. Since November I have been in yet another dark place of serious writers block for personal reasons.
4. Travel. Oh if only you knew the latest travel fantasies swimming around in my head.. I'll give you a not so subtle clue... a beach bungalow in bali, all mine... yoga, meditation, temples, spirituality, surf, culture, food, finish the first draft of my novel, read books, start up a new blog called Jetsetter-Jade.com and write about my time in Bali to heal my heart. Like I said, just a fantasy...
5. Hiking. Particularly in forests, they seem to be my happy place.
6. Yoga. I procrastinate against it a lot and must admit I'm lazy to do it most of the time but whenever I DO dedicate myself to some freaking sun salutations, I am left feeling zen. 
7. Running. Not away from my problems, but physical actual running. Getting those endorphins flowing. It always calms me down.
8. Cooking. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment to create something delicious. Get creative, use new ingredients, use basic ingredients and make something incredible, throw dinner parties. I find cooking so therapeutic. Insert 'cooking classes' into my Bali fantasy... that would be pretty amazing.
9. Romance. I've had rose petals scattered into the shape of a heart in my driveway, 'I love you' written in shaving foam on the bathroom mirror, I've been picked up from the airport by a guy in a tux holding a flipfile and pretending to propose to me on Valentines Day... I've had some beautifully romantic things happen in my life, things worthy to be put into romance novels... and they make me feel good. Special. Loved. Wanted. Needed.... and at the end of the day, that's what everyone wants right? A bit of romance goes an extremely long way for me. 
10. Tea. I spelt wine wrong... I know. 

Bonus:

My cat. India. But she also makes me miserable because a) she only comes to me when she wants love... and b) she's all the way in South Africa and I live in Mallorca, Spain now. The heartbreak is quite literally palpable.

*

A lot of what makes me happy seems to be things I could do on a daily basis, especially right now while I am unemployed. I need to start implementing things like this into my day to day life. Maybe then I'll be happier. I'm not going to lie, for the the best 3 months I have been depressed for personal reasons. Who I was this time last year got broken. But I'm on the mend.

So I will try and read every day. The last few days I wasn't able to focus on a book... my world was spinning too fast. There was too much filling my head to be able to deal with Caroline Kepnes's main character, Joe, being obsessed with Beck and murdering people. But I'm almost finished the book and I'm also listening to The Great Gatsby on Audible which I think I need to restart because I wasn't really paying attention. 

I usually read at night, curled up in bed just before sleep. Sometimes in the morning too with coffee in bed but that's also my time to watch booktube videos and now write on Bohemian Muses too. One day I'll start writing my novel, The Eulogy, again too. I'm just not ready for that yet. I am scared to start writing my novel again and ruining it.

Travel is a harder one to implement into my daily life - but I am going to be traveling to South Africa in a months time and having a month on holiday before coming back to Mallorca for another season on the boats. After the next season on boats I will have more savings and will be able to travel more... Ireland being the place I absolutely MUST get to this year.

Hiking I can do when possible. I have no transport here so I can't get to many of the hiking spots very easily - but when possible, I need to start walking up mountains and wondering through forests. Connect with nature.

Yoga = Procrastination with me... but this year I need to try harder. I say that every year.. but if I know it makes me feel so good afterwards, I need to suck it up. 

Running... I wanted to do this every day for the year, every day possible that is... so far I've gone running twice in two weeks. 2/14.... CONGRATULATIONS! Haha.... BUT in my defence I had pneumonia for the first while and yesterday when I was going to go running it was so windy I could quite literally have been blown off my feet. I'm going running today. I am. I swear..... once I get out of bed... whenever that might be........

Cooking, I need to do it more. I know. It's pretty hard living with a chef who doesn't want my help when he cooks and when I do get the chance to cook, if he's around he just takes over. Tres annoying. But I'll try harder. I will. Pinterest is a gem filled with exciting new recipes to try out. #chefjade

Romance isn't really up to me, is it? What makes me so happy is when a guy WANTS to be romantic. So aforementioned cheffy needs to help with this one. Pah :)

Tea... ahem... wine... that's definitely an every day thing, the tea, not the wine. I didn't drink for the first 5 days of 2017 and I didn't drink wine yesterday either. #winning.

This was quite a fun writing exercise and I wrote more than I thought I would. It just flowed out of me and I played. I love playing with my keyboard.. that is NOT supposed to sound sexual...... 

I recommend everyone writing down a list of 10 things that truly make you happy. It's refreshing to think about the positive things in life, especially when times are tough.