The beauty in change

Change is inevitable.
Get
Over
It.
People change. Places change. Things move with the times. Nothing EVER remains the same. So neither should you!
Human beings were created, whether you believe in the big bang or a big man upstairs it’s the same; humans were created to change. Technically ‘evolve’ but I’m not splitting hairs. We were chimps. Newts before that. Maybe even a slug once upon a time: who knows. But the case in hand is: we change.
Look back at yourself even 6 months ago. Can you honestly say to yourself that you are the exact same individual as then? Is your hair the same colour, length, cut? Do you look healthier? More weathered? Catch a glimpse of your reflection; shop window, car mirror, in a random puddle as you stare down looking for answers to life! Little bit Hollywood but you never know.
If its a yes, look deeper. I can almost guarantee that you’ve adapted if not changed. Maybe more mature. Or more playful! Who knows. The possibilities are entirely endless. And they will never cease to be just that. You can always adapt. Change. Evolve. Nothing, no one, will stop you. Not happy with something? You act on it and change yourself!
SIMPLE AS THAT.
I look back to myself in the summer and I’m tempted to laugh at how naïve I was. Everything is a learning curve so make the most of them. Take the chance meeting with someone as a sign of something. Take the random strangers advice. Read some. Educate yourself. Better yourself.
Never
Stop
Evolving.

You are you. You will never be less than that, and to be you; that is something uniquely beautiful.
Be proud.

Chemistry

Let’s begin by setting the record:
I pass everything. Almost to a fault. I passed all my school exams. All my dancing exams. Driving tests. Life. I succeed even when I believe failure to be imminent. I even pass when a person tries to test me, my reactions. I do not like failing. The only thing I have ever failed: Chemistry at school. The single only exam I have failed. When it happened, I was proud of it. I welcomed it. It reminded me that failure is a part of life. Acceptance is the next stage.

Acceptance:
This is where I am beginning to struggle. I find myself feeling the impending future edging it’s way closer. This one however, unlike exams, I cannot prepare for. I cannot read a text book, study day and night, learn the answers. The answers are in the inevitable. Fate has them. And I am in fates hands. Acceptance of this failure isn’t in me. I cannot bear the thought of losing…
I should perhaps explain exactly what it is that I would be to lose… Losing in this case, would mean losing something I feel I could never regain.

At some point over the last year or so, I have fallen. Fallen to some extent (the depth is still unknown to me) for that crazy, perfect American I met in a shop in California and continued to communicate with. When I returned and had the best holiday of my life (that’s an honest fact), I thought that was it. And yet the conversations dwindled. The connection slowly disintegrating. One day, we spent all day in one another’s company. The next, we are strangers on the other side of social media to one another. On the other side of the world. It’s horrific to think that for me, he only exists on a virtual platform. People live their lives like this; in love with a virtual avatar they have met online. The difference is that I have seen him. Touched him. Shared his house. His bed. He is not just pixels on a screen I long to meet. He is flesh. Blood. Talent and philosophy.

I broke down the other night, considering how I am not good enough for someone I find quite perfect in return. I realised that every wall I built up over the years had been crumbled by him. Without intention he had released me. To the rest of the world, I remain a cold-hearted individual without sentiment or consideration. To myself, for him, I am weak. I am unable to cut him off as I do with anyone else who does wrong by me. But the American…its impossible. 
He is my failure. My impending ruin. He is my Chemistry… Maybe that is the issue; we are Chemistry. What we have together. What I feel for him. Therefore it’s simply prophetic that it fails. Perhaps it is deeper than that! Perhaps I am hydrogen. The element with only 1 electron. Destined to spend life attempting to pair. A free radical in a universe of bonds here there and everywhere.
Doomed or destined. Either way, my fate seems sealed. With his replies (or lack of) and my quaking heart, it is a path set in stone.

Unrequited

.
That is the word. The description of myself.

Unrequited Chemistry.

American. English. And some unjust Chemistry within. It’s all there.
Fate can play his hand.

Change: Life’s Only Constant

Each time something happens in my life, I am reminded of just how fast things change. Those chance meetings. Those sudden breakups. It all occurs out of the blue. Hardest to accept when it hits like a bus too, strangely enough…
And yet, when I know that things change all the time so fast, at times I feel nothing changes at all. If change is always happening then in some way surely it is not changing?
What I mean to say when “nothing changes”, is that nothing changes for the better…In the long run that is. So much happens and gives me that sudden burst of crazy excitement. Then down the line, that bubble? It bursts. Hard. Ruins everything.

This time…The change wasn’t so much fast. It’s wasn’t even obvious. It’s hard to even define it as a change. That stupid dream I’ve been unknowingly chasing. The blissful story. The one where the perfect American lad falls for the very imperfect English lass. The one that is so much like the fairytales I refuse to believe happen…well I have more proof now that they don’t. I found this story on the other side of the world a little bit north of the equator. And I have left it still on the other side of the world, only a little south of the Arctic. When before I thought that the affair was dead before it even began last time, a moment changed it all. I chased it back, went on another crazy holiday. I was deemed “brave”, “crazy”, “deluded”. Yet I believed it payed off. I felt like I had achieved something…that I had made a step towards my future.
The key thing here I should note is my earlier description of a “stupid dream”; stupid being the operative word. Of course it wouldn’t work! Why the heck would it? Who meets someone once, returns and falls irrevocably in love?! No one. Especially when I am involved. And yet…I was subconsciously planning for it.
S.T.U.P.I.D.
Instead now we are strangers on other sides of the world, more than likely never to see one another again. Doesn’t matter how I do or do not feel. Doesn’t matter if I wanted to meet again or not. This is it. As far into the future as I can see, as I can imagine, it is over.

We were simply 2 ships passing in the night. The nights were my favorite times and now I understand why. That was when our chance meetings felt like they could be real. Like they could mean more…
So all that is left, is to pick up my still ever foolish pieces and continue on. Start again. Try to forget those days and nights when I thought everything could be falling into place. Plan for the future. My future. Of me. Not him. Not anyone else. Not silly pretty stupid stories. Life.
Why?
Because life is not a fairytale.

Dan -x-

35,000 ft Above Life

There is something terrifyingly humbling about witnessing the sun set then rise at 35,000ft in the air.

On my journey home from Washington, I watched the sun set over the world. It darkened slowly, growing redder, as the seconds ticked by. We flew parallel to it. I saw it as it truly was: the molten colours seeping through the clouds, burning up the landscape, turning lakes into pools of lava and snowcapped mountains into flaming turrets.
And then it was gone. The sun was set. The ball of fire no longer there. And yet the colours lingered, as if too pretty a sight to erase it completely. They faded through the minutes, finally surrendering to the darkness and the city lights. These glistened like diamond facets in a lump of coal. To know something beautiful and worthwhile was among the darkness; much like a jeweller would feel towards his rock. Turning something primitive and raw, into a stunning work of art.

Then hours later, a peek under the blind and the colours burned again, fiercer than the setting. The contrast was stark. Black, blue, red. That was it. Variations of these colours between, but nothing weak. No washed out colours. No subtlety. The sun was rising and it was making a statement as it did it. These colours lingered well above the rising fire. It was long before I saw the sun itself, as if letting the colours strike anticipation, excitement, impatience into the onlookers. Me. I looked around to see if anyone was bearing witness to this natural phenomenon, but no. People struggle to see beauty in the norm nowadays. So I watched on alone, admiring the beauty that was mine and mine alone. The plane wing was silhouetted in my sight, giving even more contrast as the colours roared on.
I’ll admit I never saw the actual sun rise, but the colours, the prequel to the appearance, I believe was much more spectacular than could have been after. The light of the sun would surely have dulled the striking contrast and I only wanted that. The fire.

But do you see it how I did? How nature, am everyday scene, could mimic almost how we live our lives? The setting: the way the sun transformed the scenery into something more incredible…Then fades away, leaving only the r eminent of colour to burn until darkness consumed it.
Love: the way it veils our sight and makes everyday seem more stunning. Then it ends and the memories glisten bright until we forget…The darkness seeping in to replace with the occasional diamond in the dust.
Then there’s the rising: the way the colours burned bright, fierce, making it nearly impossible to resist.
Again, like love: as it starts, the passion, the lust, the fire for one another. Anticipation. Excitement. Impatience.

Humbled. There are bigger things out there than I can ever comprehend. These beautiful sights, so frequently missed by our everyday grind, can teach us one or 2 lessons. The sun always rises. It always sets as well
But with every setting comes a new dawn. This is life. The beginning. The ending. The rebirth. Never forget that good things come after darkness. And even when the darkness is long and heavy, look for the facets in the cold hard rock.

Photos are my own. Check out my instagram for more. https://instagram.com/danielle.o.x/

When did you most feel alive?

Something struck me today; When fate claims us, it is said that our lives flash before our eyes; in seconds…minutes…our whole life…all the moments that mattered.
So in that short phase, surely we must feel alive. Reliving every time in our life that we felt crazy, that changed us, defined us. To feel so unconditionally alive as life slips from our grasp; bodies weakening, breathing slowing, heart beat fading…

Is it not crazy then, that we feel most alive when our bodies seem to forget how to live?
Remember your first kiss. Did you have butterflies making your stomach ache? Anticipation running through your veins? A hopeless desperation for perfection?
Now think of the exact moment it happened. The kiss that made your knees weak. Took away your breath. Heart miss a few beats…
How alive did you feel? Crazy right? Like a drug that is slowly killing you so effortlessly, but you’d happily make it your sole substance for survival.
So isn’t it amazing how that kiss, all the clichés of the kiss, mimic the description of one’s passing.
Look back; “weak”, “breathing, “heart beats”.

Let’s take another example. Adrenaline junkies. They do these crazy things again and again; literally tempt fate to take them…and yet here they still are. Suit up in all the protective gear required. Buckle up. Soar high into the sky…then jump.
Plummet to Earth. Feel the wind rushing past your face as gravity plays with your body. Face the possibility that this is it. If the parachute fails, you will be nothing more than a scar on some people’s lives…
It opens. You land. You breath for the first time since you jumped. Now tell me that didn’t make you feel bitterly alive! You defeated science. You overcame fear and fate! And you’d do it again…your heart is racing after missing so many beats. Your breath is coming too hard and fast for your body to cope. And your legs are jelly. You feel alive!

Ironic then; the things that make us feel most alive, also make us feel like it’s the end.

Does this mean there is some perfection in endings? When the harshest partings pain us to our core, is there not some beauty in feeling somewhat alive from the pain?

Little Pleasures

I live for music. Loud music.
I live for blasting my ears with a heavy bass line. Hearing the walls shake to the throbbing drums.
I live for singing at the top of my lungs knowing no one can hear me. Singing out every single emotion that was bottled inside me.
I live for flicking through my CD collection. Picking out an artist. Playing it. Playing it again. Repeating them over and over until the neighbours complain.
I live for music on my travels. During my work. Until 3AM laying alone on my bed. Not caring what time I should be waking up. Just music surrounding me. Resonating through me.
I live for those simple joys.

Memories are bitter devices

I read something this morning. It struck me. It made me realise that sometimes our fondest places aren’t where but a who.

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, would it be to a “where” or to a “who”?

Now tell me that somewhere, someone didn’t spring into mind. Tell me a memory didn’t strike you down as you sit reading it; maybe you’re on a train, or in a cafe, on a sofa at home. It doesn’t matter where you are because you’re really somewhere else. You’re somewhere in a memory reliving that moment. The one that haunts you. That turns you on. That warms you to your core. Whatever it is. Where ever you are, that’s it. That’s the place you’d go to given the chance.
There’s only one place mind went to. One perfect evening that left a mark on me. That’s left me, I dare say, a little bit broken. I know nothing will compare to that evening on a beach in California, with my best friend and perfect strangers.
Was it the beach I would go back for? No, it could have been any starlit beach from Brighton to Baia Do Sancho.
Was it the fact it was California; tropical and foreign? Perhaps to a point. Being in a foreign place always gives an urge to do the reckless.
Was it the strangers company? The irresistible kiss that I remember every time I touch my lips? Everytime the oppouritunity for another lovers kiss arises? The sensation of being numb to thought. The way our bodies just seemed to fit. His coarse hands on my waist. My arms around his neck. Not caring where this was going. Not caring if I was getting too wrapped up in it. The beautiful innocence of thinking everything was set.
Yes. Yes exactly that. I would go back to that very moment, for everything to be exactly like that. I have no moment to compare that to. It was perfect. I mean perfect in that exact sense. I am not exaggerating or over indulging my opinions. It was like a storybook scene. “A perfect Californian story”.
The anguish and regret that has followed should have tainted it, and yet it hasn’t. Maybe I’m a glutton for pain. Maybe I’m just stupid. But I would go back to him. I want to feel alive like that again.
The time might come again. Soon actually. I am going back to him. To Washington state this time where he is living. I’m getting the opportunity to feel alive. To be consumed by all the twisted emotions he must know he’s causing me. I say it like this because I know he doesn’t feel the same. He’s an actor by nature. I’m a pawn to practice his skills on.He perfected the scene. The story was there. The dialogue flowed. He stage kissed me so believably…even I fell for it. I wonder if he did. I wonder if he can…
No! No he can’t. It isn’t possible. It doesn’t even matter. The thing is that I would go back every single time to that evening. And I think I will until…until another movie scene can be played out with me.
I want to know if ts just me though. Is it just me? Am I the only fool that would go back to a person rather than a place. I’d rather feel his hands on me, rather than sit on that beach in the dark. It wouldn’t be so special alone.
So where did you go when you read it? Where or who were you with?

Dan -x-

Playing Fates Game

Is it not terrifying to know that our lives completely depend on being in certain places at certain times? Fate, if you are a believer, means what should happen, will happen. Our lives are theoretically  planned out ready for us to fall into place. This is fate. Without fate, things still happen as they should. We get a job that moves us forward in life. We meet the person who completes us. We just fit. Fate. Coincidence. It all still requires us to be in places, situations, at exact moments.
To get that new job, you have to be in the right place to see the advertisement for applications.
To meet that person, you have to be where they are at the same time. More than that, you have to look in the right direction to see them, catch their eye amongst the crowd.
Everything right down to capturing a perfect photograph is down to the chance of being in a specific place.

Credit to Dad for this on.

How is it possible that we live our lives knowing that we are living on chance? That we maybe our lives are played out ready for us to settle into. We go around every day, not knowing what is about to happen, but whatever does, is for a reason.
Tomorrow you might walk into someone accidentally. You might look up at them and something will change. You might get their number or even already know them! But a chain of events will unfold leading into something.
You just don’t know. None of us do! We can live every day like it’s our last but something is making us be like that. Something is holding us in a system of events to get us where we are supposed to me.
Fate.
Chance.
Heavenly being.
Who knows…

Look Up. Right now.

I have seen a lot of skies in my time. Going camping as a kid, the pastime was to look up into the moonlit sky and watch. Just simply watch. Wrapped under the grassy blankets that had been laying in the sun all day. Tucked into my mum’s side in one chair, while my dad checked out what the lights we saw were through his telescope. Sometimes satellites, sometimes constellations. I never really understood it as a kid so just waited for the illusive shooting star to make my all important wish! “I wish I could have Rollerblades for Christmas!” Then I realised how selfish that sounded and tried to wish for everyone’s health in the hope that for good karma, I’d still get those skates… Here’s to say I never got those skates for Christmas.
But this isn’t the point. When was the last time you can say you looked up? And saw the skies. Saw the stars. Made pictures out of the clouds or flashing lights above.
I did it the other day. While waiting for fireworks with the car seat reclined right back; I watched the stars. It’s funny how in the craziness of moments, you sometimes forget parts that made it a little bit more beautiful. My evening in California was completely perfect. It was everything I’ve always wanted from an adventurous evening. The company. The location. Every single thing. And In the midst of remembering those things, I forgot something so beautiful that I barely remembered until staring up for fireworks… The stars.
Driving through the canyon, no street lights. No passing car headlights. No houses with lights ablaze. Just pure, unaltered darkness. In the days of technology, we forget about things like darkness. How often do you walk into a room now and have to strain to see without a light? Very rarely. How often do you drive along and have to worry about not seeing ahead on the road? Rarely unless you’re in the country. So tell me, when was the last time you looked up? What did you see? Few or many stars? Clouds? Anything that you remember?
My Californian sky was the best I have ever seen. I could see the milky way I swear. It was studded everywhere I looked. Clusters of bright and dim. Patches where more light shone than dark. Truly magnificent. And yet I forgot it… does that say something about how wrapped up in life we become to miss out on some of the most beautiful sights? I don’t know…but I’m sure going to look up more often in the hopes to compare.

Dan -x-

Basket full of eggs?

I think everyone has an innate fear of being forgotten. Look Back through your past at all the people you used to know. How many of them are still special to you now? How many of them are even relevant? How many people can say that about you?
Throughout our lives, we have relationships with people. Life then leads to these relationships breaking down, decaying, disappearing… We become strangers to someone you used to know so well. Asked now, could you still confidentially state the other person’s favorite colour? Me neither…
We are just plain and simply want to be special. We spend our lives in and out of partnerships, friendships, and all for what? We are searching for something. Maybe it’s the person we can share our lives with. Someone to love. But behind all of that, you must be special to someone. They confide in you, trust you, look after you, all as you do them. So being someone’s most special person must be important for us…
So then…is the hardest thing realising that you aren’t as special to them as they are to you? I mean, you’ve been with them in all the hard times, worried about them and for them, put your plans aside for theirs, become so involved in their life that you’ve lost yours…and yet…They don’t really need you? They are happy to go out alone and not need you? They can plan their future away from you without considering how it will affect the relationship? They can wake up one morning and realise that they want something else. They are bored of you. So goodbye to another not so perefect, perfect relationship. And you know, all the days, weeks, months after their departure, whilst you still think of them, worry about how they are doing, they have replaced and forgotten you. Maybe we cling on so hard to a person is to try and force them not to leave. Not to forget. But that’s the shit.
EVERYONE leaves. Everyone forgets. Everyone moves on, gets bored, changes. And you can sit there and wonder what you could have done to change it, but nothing can stop it. So you come to a conclusion. “It must be me…I’m not worth it”…
Let me tell you this. You are worth it. I know, even now when I reach that point I tell myself the same thing to excuse their choice. But there’s nothing you can do. People always move on. They leave you behind. And eventually, yes, they forget you. And another thing, no it never gets easier. The more times it happens, the more you think “this is the one that will stay” and then they go just the same…
My mum told me not to put all my eggs in one basket. I never understood until..I only had one egg that I protected in my little basket. Looked after it. Kept it all safe and warm…and now that eggs gone and I have nothing… And right now? Yes, I’m feeling like I’m not worth it and it’s my fault.
So take my advice because I can’t take it myself…

Dan -x-