Drowned.

I swam in your depths and drowned in it all.
I had always planned to keep myself on the side; maybe dip a toe when times felt easy and when the water felt warm. Other than then, I’d stay over there. It was safe and stable and comfortable. It was predictable. But that’s the thing: sometimes you can’t expect to sit and not be moved. I was swept away by your current which no floatation device or desperate cling could save. I was submerged, I was covered and I was stolen. I was breathless and disorientated. You held me in your waters and my lungs were filled.
I struggled so deeply; I had to reach the surface. This wasn’t safe, or comfortable, nor where I wanted to be. It was scary and deadly and far beyond my comfort zone. But as hard as I struggled, I couldn’t keep my head above it all.
All I remember is the towering wave and the feeling of being completely drenched in your being. I remember the drag of current and the feeling of never knowing if I’d hit the air again, and not caring if I ever did.
Because it was lovely. Because I didn’t want to be rescued. Because I didn’t need a safety rope or a lifeguard to save me when it all got a little scary. Because I trust in  you.

And sometimes I still get that wild panic. Sometimes the fear sets in and I just want to bolt: to get the hell out of that water and get back on the land. Because on the land, I’m in control, Everything stays where it should, and everything is still. Because sometimes getting back in the water is tough when you’ve been left shipwrecked in the past. Sometimes the fear and the flashbacks of feeling those waves is all too much to handle.

You are letting me be scared when I’ve always been able to stay safe in the past. You are me trusting after being left alone underneath it all once before, and never wanting to go back. But you are worth being scared and wanting to bolt and thinking it would be much easier to run and hide. You are worth the mystery and the lack of assurance and inability to be comfortable. You are worth risking everything. You are worth the probability of feeling yet another storm.

You were worth the wait.

What I keep meaning to say.

I only realised that your birthday had passed the other day. I kept meaning to send my wishes, but you know all too well what I’m like with communication when not not face to face.

But as I watch your life transform via various social media sites, I am so happy to see that you got there: you got to where you wanted to be. Just like how I always told you that you’d get there. Maybe you finally believe that life is on your side.
I’m so happy for you darling, and I honestly can’t wait for your life to unfold into something spectacular. You truly deserve it. I hope that you make the wonderful friends that school never granted you, and I pray that you believe in yourself: that the freedom of not being subject to the confines of curriculum will set you alight. I hope you truly come alive now that you are away from it all. You worked all of this time for this, and the time has finally come for you to reap your rewards.

Most of all, I hope you finally find her. I hope you find that girl that I just couldn’t muster to be. Because you are intensely and remarkably wonderful, and I just wasn’t the girl to fall in love with it all, for a plethora of reasons. I hope your walls haven’t been built higher, but rather you take her for that promised picnic, and teach her the wonders of modern day chivalry and dance with her in the refrigerator light like you did with me. I pray you look at her with love in your eyes and don’t see a dimness looking back: you deserve the doe eyed wonder of a girl finally meeting her knight in shining armour.
Because, although I may have not been the one to love you, I know that this girl will wholeheartedly love you. She’ll hear stories of the girl who didn’t care enough to commit her whole heart to a relationship; the girl who was too consumed in her own troubles to text back; the girl who didn’t see your prince with enough clarity. But that’s okay, because maybe I was that girl.
And I’m glad, because it means you will find her, and you will know exactly when it clicks into place.

I just wish that I could watch it all unfold for you. But that’s your adventure.
Instead, I sit here back at home left with your letters and Valentine’s card and beautiful memories and the painting you did of me, and don’t feel remorse, but instead, new hope. Because we were just a mere interlude in the great symphony of each other’s lives. You are going to look back at me as an insignificant little blip of your final adolescent years, and realise the love you felt for me really wasn’t the good stuff: that’s yet to come.

You’re going to be magnificent. I just wish I had the courage to tell you this.
You’re going to achieve those plans of yours, and equally they are going to fall apart just as beautifully. You’ll find method in madness and beauty in instability and love the person you’ll become. And I’m just so happy that it’s all starting now. I’m just so proud.
So as you embark on the next chapter of life, I hope you never lose sight of the big picture – just like you had always told me.

And,honey, most all of all remember what I said about it being better to have loved and lost?
That will always be true. I promise.

Bustle.

Everyone these days are rushing by too quickly. Can’t we just take a minute to sit down and think? Can’t we just enjoy today instead of packing for tomorrow when we haven’t even walked through the door? Can’t we just chat and drink tea and ask each other how we’re actually feeling rather than building walls and only preparing to let people in when we’ve reached the end point? Can’t we just stop running and take a moment to notice the colour of the sky, or the taste of Autumn air or the sound of the crackle in you friend’s laugh?
Can we finally learn to ditch the plans and paper work and learn the perfection in instability? Because life is about the messy bits. Life is that much better when it’s a little shaken up and everything just doesn’t go the way as expected. These days we care far too much about what’s ahead rather than what’s just under our noses and by the time we catch up with ourselves, we regret what we’ve missed. Life is far too short when we only search for the ending instead of working out the middle bit. After all, you wouldn’t just read the last page of a book.

So let’s take the time to appreciate where we are, even if it is in the pitch black. Even if it is in the uncertainty. It doesn’t mean that we have to drop everything, or even stop trying. It just means that we need to take a break. Because our future is ahead waiting for us, but the present is never going to come back. You’re never going to relive this moment again.
We just need to catch our breath. We just need to know whether where we’re heading to is actually the destination we set out to achieve, or even if we’re actually on course for somewhere else. We need to know that we aren’t taking advantage, or forgetting to treasure people. We need to know that we aren’t just heading full speed into nothingness.
Most of all, we need to know whether we’re actually enjoying ourselves.

Instead of dragging each other to our own personal goals, can’t we just hold hands?  Can’t we just walk this one together?

A new year.

What I have lost in the past year:

1. Dear friends.
2. Relationships.
3. A father.
4. A beloved grandmother.
5. A stable living situation.
6. A steady income.
7. Naivety.
8. Trust in some key areas.
9. The ability to be completely open.

What I have gained in the past year:

1. True friends.
2. Hope.
3. Confidence.
4. Dreams.
5. Independence.
6. AS Grades.
7. Faith.
8. An adventure half way across the world.
9. Life changing experiences.
10. The ability to drive.
11. Forgiveness.
12. A proactive work ethic.
13. The ability to understand what I want.
14. Self-worth.
15. Assurance.

This past academic year has been a wild one, riddled with joy and passion and pain and tears and love. I have been with some of the greatest and most beautiful friends, whom I may not have survived without. I’ve lost significant people in my life. I’ve experience such highs, and the deepest lows. I’ve felt run dry and I’ve seen hard work paid off.
It’s been a year. A long, hard, fruitful year.
And I’ve treasured every last minute of it.

(Inspired by the wonderful writing of the lovely Jaclyn Rae, polkadotteapot.wordpress.com)

Faith.

I don’t understand how people think that believing in God is the cowards way out. I don’t understand how believing in something more is the easy option, or only for those who are weak of mind or lack intelligence.

Because, to me, believing is brave. I cannot imagine many things braver than standing up in a world filled with darkness and sadness and suffering, and being able to claim that their God reigns. When someone is able to turn on the news and look at disaster and chaos and still see God’s presence. When someone goes through hurt and pain and unending grief, yet has the confidence to say that it all happened for a reason; that things do and will get better and that they won’t lose hope. When someone looks in the mirror and sees nothing but ugliness and disdain and still believe that there is still someone who believes that they are beautiful. When someone is able to say  that they have faith when all of society points to secularism; when they live in a world where science leaves no room for belief or wonder or majesty. When someone is so profoundly in love with God that they endure a lifetime of jeers and being jaded.

Because I don’t understand how swimming against the current is cowardice. I don’t see how avoiding conformity is the easy option. When everything these days is so grey, it is far from easy to still have faith. Because it would be so much easier to fit in. It would be so much easier to just be like everyone else; to think like everyone else; to act like everyone else.

It takes something so much bigger and brighter to give someone the integrity to not just be another faceless part of society. It takes something wonderful to decide to change your life, even when it compromises the things the world offers on a plate. In a culture where it is so much easier to say ‘yes’ than ‘no’, what would be the point in being difficult? Why stand up against everything you have ever known when it would be far easier to sit down and keep your head down?

Because faith is knowing that life is better and bolder than we make it out to be. It’s still believing through tragedy and silence and nights which won’t end. It’s knowing that though pattern is safe and comfortable and nice, nothing compares to the greatness and the glory of what we know. It means stepping out when you can’t see what is before you; it means living life on the edge and trusting that you will not fall.

It means the adventure of living, rather than the comfort of existence.

Fireworks.

That’s the kind of love you want. The love that draws all of you in: not just dipping your toe in the shallow end, but a full submersion and letting your heart and mind and dreams to be drowned in its depths. The kind of love which makes you fear and be excited all the same. The kind of love which makes you feel young and free and that outside of this moment nothing exists, and that you are infinite. The kind of love which makes you think that you hate them, because it would be so much easier if that was the case. The kind of love which finally makes you stop caring if your life has become a cliché, because you finally realise the truth inside of them. The kind of love which makes you question whether you are being stupid, or whether you are risking it all for greatness. It’s the kind of love where you take risks, and you get hurt and you bleed, but it feels good; it feels good that you put your heart on the edge rather than settled for being nothing more than content.

It’s coming home at 3am and hitting the walls and cursing his name yet wishing he was here all the same. It’s finally understanding what they mean when you see fireworks in a kiss: the exuberance and exhilaration and the passion all setting alight. It’s seeing flaws and knowing them but not caring, because perfection is boring and needless and that you wouldn’t care if he sinned a million times because, to you, he is perfect.

It’s not the carelessness or obsession of a first love. Nor is it the nonchalance of deceiving yourself into thinking a comfortable relationship is a happy relationship. It’s love. It has space, and time and wholeness. They just complete everything.
It’s golden and it’s pure and it makes you finally understand what you have been waiting for.

To the most wonderful brother.

I can’t seem to remember a moment where you weren’t there.

From the wild days of exploring the big bad world in our back garden to exploring your new apartment in the big city, I have never stopped seeing you with those wide green eyes. You have always been there: my protector, my inspiration, my dearest friend. My big brother.
Whether you’re sitting in that crinkled leather chair listening to jazz music, or whether you’re walking the streets of London, I know that I can’t escape from you, because you are quite possibly the most important man in my life.

You got me through days which I thought wouldn’t end.
You had enough hope for both of us, even when I couldn’t hope myself.
You were proud of me when no one else answered the phone.
You made gingerbread houses and sang Christmas songs and danced around the house all night with me.
You sat me down when I thought I couldn’t go any more and told me that quitting would have been my biggest mistake. You beautifully right.
You cheered me on at every play or show or event and stayed until the very end.
You took me on wild adventures, whether it was to the next city or the other side of the continent.
You always made sure I was okay.
You had faith.

You believed in me, and you cheered me on and you knew that I could burn brighter. Because you never gave up on me. Because you never left me. You told me to push through it all, because you knew I would do it. And you were right. You always are.
Because you are the most beautiful person in my life. You are wonderfully human and make mistakes and set examples and always teach me a lesson. You’re kind and compassionate and inspiring and more wonderful than I can begin to imagine. You are indeed my north, my south, my east and my west. I talk about you incessantly. You’re the best brother I could have ever asked for, and I honestly cannot imagine where I would be without you.

From when I first met you when you were six, to gazing upon your twenty-four year old face, I still look at you with those wide eyes. You’re still my hero, my friend and my comforter.
You will never stop being there.

Happy birthday, you wonderful and beautiful man.