Lost in Munich

There is something following me. It is my past. It is my baggage. And it really sucks.

Everytime I think I'm over it, I find I'm not. I still harbour that bad feeling, I still want to cry when I let the memories in, I still carry the weight on my shoulders. And it's not doing me any good.

It's burning in my chest, boiling; a firey red heat. It's waiting to be unleashed on someone innocent who doesn't deserve this bout of hate, or, perhaps even worse, it's waiting to burn inwards. To self destruct its creator. Oh blimey O'Reilly, I didn't bank on this.

What can I do with it? Where do I put it? How do I let it out? Screaming, crying, thinking, worrying are all futile and do nothing but intensify the roaring heat. I want answers, but I know I'll never have them, and I struggle to accept that.

If I could put it in a box, throw it away...if only! Instead, my fingers find my keyboard and I type out these letters, making words, making sense, but still not finding any conclusion.

I can't undo the past, I just have to wait for the anger to fade, or try to soften the pain somehow.

The present is here, the future is hopeful, maybe my baggage will become lighter with time, or maybe someone can help me carry it?

Failing that, I can always hope it gets lost in Munich airport.



****suggestions of constructive outlets for anger welcome****

Obliterate

The power of obliteration is now in our hands. Technology primarily has functioned to make us; who we are, who we have been, more easily accessible to others. I did a little experiment the other day and googled the name I use on social networking sites. Within seconds I had found a page which I had forgotten existed, something created during my later teenage years, something which I didn't think would still be accessible to others now. More irritatingly there were other links to more current pages of mine, which connect teenage Frankie to present Frankie.

I'm told that you can remove your trace from the Internet. I have friends who have deleted their Facebook page, not something I particularly want to do, but I can see why people are concerned to ensure they don't get sucked into the social networking game, and don't want some things visible to prospective employers etc. But in addition to this, by storing information about ourselves and current situation online, then when this information is no longer relevant, no longer connected to our lives, no longer of use to anyone, then it can just as easily be deleted.

Think of how long it takes to remove a friend on Facebook, to block someone from IMing you, to unfollow somebody on Twitter; these things take a matter of seconds. All of a sudden, access has been denied. The same thing goes for pictures, videos, any other stored memories on the Internet. Removing these things can be done almost instaneously (yet it sometimes take SO long to upload pictures to the Internet...)

I think really this is in contrast to how memories and information works outside of the Internet. It can take as little as seconds to make a memory or selection of memories but deleting them...? It is impossible. There are a few memories I have which I would quite like to erase, to obliterate, to wipe completely, but there's no way of doing it. Even when I think I'll never think about that moment again, it will come to haunt me in a dream, a smell, a sound, a taste will take me back to it...

Not being able to obliterate memories is a good thing though. Would I want to negate the existence of who I am today? Because all those memories, yes, the bad ones too, they have made me, they have built me upon the foundations that were only already there because of, well, more memories.

There have been far too many amazing memories in my life so far for me to seriously want to obliterate any of them. Even the bad ones are tinged with good. I am a believer in things happening for a reason, so let me remember things exactly as they were, allowing experience to teach me the meaning of each one.

You don't have to hold onto the negativity in your past - let it go. But acknowledge it's there. You wouldn't be half the person you are today without it.

The Catalyst

Somehow time
and a little distance
has taken our friendship
and rendered it useless.

I tried,
I have a vice -like grip
but I still felt it slip.


When I reach through that barrier you put up,
it's like a blank stare
is waiting there
to proclaim the truth
'I do not care'
and so you burned me with your haste
and left me with a bitter taste.

But the one thing time, and a little distance,
and some reason that remains unknown,
can never take away from me
is all the precious memories.
You can't empty my mind
of the laughs and the lines,
the smiles and the times,
that I re-play in my mind.

It's all I have now
you've allowed yourself to not exist in my world,
and maybe I need to take the blame for that?
But you don't say a word
so how am I to know,
to correct,
to put right?

Somehow time
and a little distance
was all the catalyst needed
for you to render me pointless...

The Probability of Getting Fat from One Bar of Chocolate

The mind is a powerful tool and, in many cases, a weapon too.

You don't need to be a great thinker, a fantastical imaginer, a brilliant inventor, a scientist, a philosopher or any kind of creator to be able to use (and abuse) the power of your own mind. Consciously and sub-consciously we create our reality, and I don't mean by perception really, I mean by the way we approach what we perceive.

True, some people have more horror to perceive than others, and I don't dispute this. What I mean really is that when faced with any situation, we have the power to take meaning from it in any way we choose, or equally to take no meaning from it whatsoever. Positivity and negativity are the way we approach what we perceive, and we have the power to choose positivity over negativity every time.

I don't always make the correct choice; as I mentioned before these decisions are sub-conscious as well as conscious. My mind creates all sorts of anxiety, worry and trouble of its own. It particularly enjoys imagining horiffic worst case scenarios and living them out scene-by-scene. It enjoys turning my musings into a whole selection of possible worst case scenarios the most. Dreams and reality become blurred, I can never quite re-call which is which. Situations I fear will happen become reality because I forget that they haven't happened. Instead of living in the moment, I live in a moment that may never come.

Sometimes I think I would enjoy my life 100% more if I just stopped imagining a traumatic future for myself based on a current situation which, on the surface, can only be approached with positivity, and started seeing things for what they were before my mind warped them into something new. This is a cup of tea, it isn't cancer. This is a bar of chocolate, it isn't being fat. This is honesty, it isn't jeers and jibes from onlookers.

All actions have consequences, and yes they should effect decisions you make in the present. But living in the moment isn't about denying that the future exists, or that there are ramifications for poorly made decisions. It's about allowing yourself to see the beauty before it withers. Don't let an imagined worst case scenario consequence stop you from living your life with positivity, peace and happiness. Don't let your mind warp the likely consequence into something far removed from reality. Live the dream and deny your mind the power to destroy the moment. Probability is your best friend; use your mind to enjoy those things which are, probably, there to be enjoyed.

The Bob Marley Theory and why it's okay to listen to Jedward.

Currently I am listening to Bob Marley. For a long while I wouldn't even consider listening to his music. There was no reason for this at all, from a musical perspective anyway. It's just he was always one of those people that everyone's like "Oh yeah, he pioneered the movement of reggae into mainstream music, and like he didn't take nothing from the man, yeah..." I switched off from 'pioneered' let's just put it that way.

In music there are always people you are 'supposed' to like and people you really just shouldn't. And then there are those people it's okay to like in an 'ironic' sense. So, you know... Mick Hucknall sucks, you can like Jedward as long as it's only on a Friday night at 2am, and there's something wrong with you if you don't like U2. Well I grew up listening to Simply Red, giving me a particular soft spot for Hucknall, I've never much cared for U2 and as for Jedward, well let's just keep them for 2am on Fridays...

My point is this, who cares? People say a lot of rubbish, but they don't mean half of it. When I was a teenager I told my little sister that I hated The Darkness and she told me she hated Busted. 2 months later I'm singing along to 'Love is only a Feeling' and I caught her blasting out Busted's 2nd album 'A Present for Everyone'. People are fickle, they change their minds. One day something is 'cool'. the next it's old news. I have decided to stop thinking things just because everyone else does.

I was reading on Twitter yesterday that George Lucas has made some alterations to the original Star Wars for its release on Blu-Ray. Horrified fans couldn't believe he was yet again messing with his creation. I analysed my thoughts on the subject and came to the conclusion: I don't really care. Bearing in mind that Star Wars is one of my absolute fave films, for me I just wasn't bothered he was 'destroying' the poignant moment between Luke and his father or whatever it was they were complaining about. It's not cool to love Star Was 'cause of R2-D2 or C-3PO or because Harrison Ford looks mighty fit back in the day or because you simply enjoy watching Good defeat Evil. It's just a simple film for me, and changing another little thing probably isn't really gonna affect my enjoyment of it. I don't care what anyone else thinks.

What people need is a Bob Marley Theory. My love of Bob came when I was feeling particularly good one day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, blimey - I just needed a feel-good song to sum up the moment. It didn't take me long to find a copy of 'Sun is Shining' on youtube. Blasting it out my speakers full volume and dancing around my living room, I realised just how good I felt. I felt RELAXED.

Now everytime I put Bob Marley on, I automatically feel good. If someone came up to me tomorrow and told me it's not 'cool' to like him anymore, I wouldn't care. It doesn't matter if I'm failing to get the rich array of Rastafarian metaphors or whatever it is. I just like it 'cause it makes me smile. I don't care if that's not how I'm supposed to be enjoying the music - can't I just enjoy it?

The Bob Marely Theory could just as well be The Jedward Theory or The U2 Theory or, yes I am gonna say this... The Miley Cyrus Theory. Who cares if they wrote the misic themselves, or whether it's an original, or whose track they sampled? Does it make you happy to listen to it? Good. Then it's totally cool for you to listen to it :)

Fate & The Ending of Something That Never Really Was

You never know until it's too late
that this irresistable personality
was matched with yours by Fate

By this I mean
it's not a dream
what you feel
is real
but not supposed to begin.

It's always supposed to end.

Maybe it could try to start
if you have a particularly willing heart
but it will be short-lived.
You know it as much as I do.

You can't beat what's laid down.
If the pack of cards is wired then you'll always lose.
And life isn't a set of actions that you chose,
but something that is always meant to be the way it is.

And maybe you'll meet your match
soon or in the distant future,
but for now that dot you're chasing is ever getting smaller.
It's always going to be there though.
Always meant to end
with; just friends.

The Chase

When I was a teenager I went on a trip to the seaside. Lucky me lived far enough away from the sea to get proper snow in winter, but close enough to take a short car ride to the coast. Once there, I remember standing on the pier at Saltburn, and looking out across the vastness that is the ocean. If you look into the distance all you see is blue. It gets paler as it snakes outwards, until you can't tell which is sea and which is sky. When I stood there and looked out I had that feeling you get when you see a rainbow.

You know what I mean! You look at a rainbow, and you want to see where it ends. Not just for the silly pot of gold tale, more because...it's gotta end somewhere, right? Look I don't know that much about science but I know that a rainbow isn't a thing you can touch, it's something you perceive, it can't be chased, it can't be caught. Despite this, even now I'll look at a rainbow and want to see where it ends. One day, when I was much younger, I saw the end of a rainbow. It was going right into my next-door-neighbour's back garden. I raced down the stairs of my childhood home and announced to my family that I was going out there to find it! Rushing to the kitchen, I looked out the window and was horrified. The end of the rainbow had moved. It wasn't in the next-door-neighbour's garden anymore, it was arching down a few roads away. Needless to say, I gave up easily, I didn't bother chasing it any further.

Well, that was kinda what it was like looking out to the sea. I wanted to see the end, but I knew the horizon would only get further away. In any case, even where the sea did end, it wasn't the edge of the earth. It was only the end of one journey. And if I were to look behind me, I'd only see that horizon I was chasing again.

No, what I was more concerned with was what I would see on the other end. What was through the looking glass? I asked my Mum this very question, "If I could swim...and I swam out right now, until I came to the shore on the other side...where would I come out?" Mum said, "Norway, I think." That was it, then. I looked out again and I knew Norway was there. I could stare and stare and all I would see in the distance is nothing, but I had an answer. I could almost sense the other people on the shore on the other side. It was there.

I don't know why it meant a lot. I guess I liked being connected to the rest of the world in some way. I hadn't ever been to Norway, yet I was sharing the sea with its inhabitants.

That feeling of chasing the end of a rainbow returns time and time again. When you wonder which country would be directly underneath the spot you are standing in if you were to dig a tunnel straight through the earth. When you walk into thick fog and it's not thick at all, but you can see the thick fog right there in the distance, but when you get there it's moved further away again. When you are walking along the shoreline and the sea is just stretching out, tickling the toes of somebody else, wherever it is they are in the world.

I won't ever stop chasing the horizon, because it doesn't matter if I don't ever get there. As long as I was looking for it, I'll find the answer. It's there.