You will probably be delighted to know after yesterday’s mammoth post this is going to be short.

Apart from last night when I couldn’t sleep and spent a lot of the night watching Sarah Connor Chronicles (a tasty bit of violence was what I needed after the post) I have been having the same dream on repeat for a while now.

I am standing in a garden surrounded by Chinese lanterns and white fairy lights in full trees creating a border of kinds. The air is warm and fragranced with flowers I don’t know the name of. A party is in full swing and important people from my past, present and a few I don’t recognise (my future?) are there all talking and laughing while well dressed waiters walk between freshening glasses and offering tiny canapes. There is a small jazz band in the corner playing mellow standards and the mood is light.

I wonder around not being ignored, but apparently unseen.

I hear a noise from beyond the trees and put my glass down to investigate. As I reach the edge, about to step through to the other side. I look back and see one of my friends trying to stop me. She races towards me but I step through.

On the other side I see the world burning. Buildings are falling and explosions are going off left and right. I see the faces of the people I know twisted in pain and terror, screaming and I step forward to help but am pulled back into the trees.

As I land back on the other side I see my friend sitting on the ground beside me. She is shaking her head telling me to stop. then she rises and goes back to the party. I glance up and it is like nothing has happened. I turn back to the trees and hear the sounds of destruction but don’t move.

I’m a little unfocused at the moment as I have nearly finished watching Sweet Home Alabama, so am thinking this post in a bad Southern US accent which I will never ever do in public. Ever. Unless there is alcohol involved. Which, right now, I kind of wish there was.

Anyway, of course, like any good chick flick it has depressed my lil’ ol’ single heart and made me feel inadequate and unlovable… and all that crap… which is strange considering I was feeling the exact opposite of that earlier after watching Hairspray.

Singing along to any good musical always cheers me up - especially one that doesn’t have a stick figure as its female lead. I think had my ridiculously small teenage brain allowed me to acknowledge any musicals outside of the Lloyd Webber/Boubil-Schonberg/movie musical range then I would have dreamed of being Tracy Turnblatt on stage as opposed to Eponine (Les Miserables) or Christine (Phantom of the Opera) or… well, you can put any great love affair stick figure with a great tune in here. I wanted… no, needed, to be on stage singing.

I know I posted about this recently, and, as soon as I sound less like a fog horn and more like myself (whatever that is) I am going to do something about it. I am. I have to.

I think one of the reasons I am feeling so tired (other than whatever the hell is going on with me physically) is that I am… no, bored is that wrong feeling for this. I can feel myself becoming smaller (physically would be lovely, although I did get back into some jeans I thought I would never again). I can feel all the dreams that I kinda know will never come true, not coming true. Like when Tracy sings in ‘I can hear the bells’

‘Everybody says
That a girl who looks like me
Can’t win his love
Well, just wait and see…’

I used to feel that… it didn’t matter what happened or what I looked like, that one day he would show up and…
…on the day when my book hit number one of the New York Times bestseller’s list…
…and my album was a success…
…and my hit West End show…
…and my architect would come and tell me the house was finished…
…we would marry in a lavish wedding…

My dream now is, y’know what?

My mind has gone blank. I feel an emptiness inside where the bells used to be. Would this be what Tracy would have felt, 15 years later, had she never found Link?

Dammit people. I know it’s not important, but in 46 days I’m going to be 30. I was supposed to be… not this. Not living at home. Not alone. Not totally unaccomplished. Not desperate… yes, desperate for some indication that I am not going to become crazy cat lady who had all her big romantic adventures before the age of 22.

Ages ago, on another blog, SJ asked me a question about “the one who shattered your heart and made you afraid to love again.”

I answered the question but never published the post. never finished the post actually. It took all the strength I had not to fall apart… Damn, a bloody song lyric… and I stopped. I realised I wasn’t ready then for that kind of openness.

My story is not one of great passion. It’s not one of hearts and flowers. There was a relationship before but that’s not the one that made me afraid. In fact the one that made me afraid wasn’t even…

We met at university. He went to another one. He visited our halls of residence once every two weeks to see his fiance. Yes. You can begin to hate me right about now. One weekend she had double booked and her sister was down so he was booted out. Me and a friend were dying streaks of blonde into our hair. Look this isn’t the important bit. We were friends, we went through some things together… mostly about how his fiance wanted to sleep with my bestest female friend… and then me… and other things. He got me, he wore the softest jumpers, had the cutest face, was funny and geeky and gentle and…

One night we were sitting on the floor of the kitchen and he’s leaning against me chest as I’m holding him. Radiohead is playing from Winamp… The lights are off… I’m muttering something about the length of time the bottle of vodka has been in the freezer. His fiance is upstairs making another play for my friend. It’s all about friendly comfort… I have never been, or since, more comfortable… And then… He says… Quite out of the blue…

“I’ve been thinking about kissing you.”

My great response?

“Oh.”

Then he chuckled and said, “Do you know your heart just skipped a beat?”

And he leant up to kiss me and… we heard footsteps on the stairs.

It was a couple of months later that he finally kissed me, it was so erotic and beautiful and… then all hell broke loose… His fiance with a knife, me trapped in a train station, death threats and then she told me that he laughed about it, that he never meant any of the things he said about me, that he sneered at the deep personal things I revealed to him. That he would never ever want a disgusting creature like me. I remember that she was wearing a brown leather miniskirt at the time, and knee high boots. She was frightening and I genuinely thought that was it for me.

He was going to leave her. I genuinely believed that. How unbelievably stupid was I? After that the walls came down. I saw him once after that. He blanked me. I stopped caring.

There I was. 21 and, as far as I was concerned, over. My heart broke into so many pieces and I left it scattered. The few people I’ve wanted to let myself get close to since then have been kind enough not to expect me to… and then I have let them go.

It was my own fault. I should have shut it down with the kitchen floor. I should have stopped being anywhere near him after the first time we fell asleep together on the couch. I should have forgotten about my happiness and realised he wasn’t mine to have. I have to remember, with hindsight, that I never made the first move - maybe if I had the pain of the following years would have been worth it. Maybe if I had the rejection would have been swift and momentarily painful and I wouldn’t have had the happiness beforehand fuelling it. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

I know it’s just stupid but I just want to hear the bells again. I don’t really even want the big dreams again. A small dream would be nice. Two arms to hold me tight. That is the only dream I have now.