Love Songs I Love...

So... it's Christmas time and Christmas is all about love right? Well all the love in the air and festive spirit got me to thinking about some of the love songs I love. Not the cheesy vomit inducing kind, but the kind that you can't help getting swept up in. The kind that make you really think about what love really is. The kind that never fail to make you wish someone had written it just for you.

These are in no particular order. They are just songs that sprang to mind that make my chest heave a great big sigh and make me smile inside.


Woman - John Lennon. Oh gosh, Lennon was just the penultimate hopeless romantic really. His love for Yoko was something else.





Split Enz - Message To My Girl. Need I say more? This is just one of my favourite songs in the world.





Nick Drake - Time Has Told Me. This man was seriously underrated. He was a troubled man, and his lyrics are often tinged with melancholy, but the lyrics to this song are simple and breathtaking. "Time has told me, you're a rare, rare find. A troubled cure, for a troubled mind..." A beautiful song.




Leonardo's Bride - Even When I'm Sleeping. Leonardo's Bride may not have had the longest lasting career, although Abby Dobson is a brilliant singer. BUT this song for me stands the test of time and I had to throw it in, because it's sincerity is for me, exactly what love is all about.




Ray Lamontagne - Hold You In My Arms. Another newer one, but all the same a beautful song that makes me wish I was Ray's girlfriend every time! In fact this is one I could imagine having as my wedding song. This man is nothing short of amazing.





John Lennon - Love. I know I have already had Lennon, but this man is love itself! Sounds cheesy, but it's true! You can't have a love song list without this one!




REM - At My Most Beautiful. This song is exactly how you feel when you love someone. "I've found a way to make you... a way to make you smile". Is that not exactly the goal you have when you are in love or lust? To make them smile? This song is perfect.





Wes Carr - Tricks To Magic. Last but not least at all. I can't have a list without this man. Sorry, but I just can't. And this song belongs in here. Wes wrote it when he was only 15, but simplicity and sincerity is the key again here. And not only that, but this man who is one of the most beautiful men in the entire world, made my life by dedicating this song to me last year when he played! "And when a woman, makes you think... she's just like knowing, all the tricks to magic.."




Ahhh, so many beautiful love songs out there.... I need to make a second and third list I think! What love songs make YOU feel all mushy inside?

Online Dating...

Eeeeeeek!! So.... hands up anyone who's ever tried their hand at internet dating?! Yes. There's a few of us. It's an interesting phenomenon to me. I have conflicted feelings to be honest. I'm not sure whether it's a trust thing, or just that it somehow feels unnatural or whether I am just a bit of a coward. I guess all of our experiences and lack of, shape who we are and how we feel about certain things, and the online dating thing, well... it's taking a bit to get my head around it.

I have not had magnitudes of experience with online dating, but I have seen a few people get burned and disappointed by their potential suitors and having ventured into a few discussion forums in my time, I know that weirdos tend to come out of the woodwork online. One such person had great affect on me a couple of years ago. I spoke to him online, via text message, and often on the phone for about two years. I never told my family because I knew they would disapprove. I don't know why I went along with his game for so long. But I got caught up. I remember the first conversation we had online. It felt as though there was an instant connection. We spoke for hours and when he left the computer to make dinner I "nudged" him on msn so many times he joked that I had made him set his kitchen on fire by distracting him. Within a couple of days we had created a silly fantasy that we were going to run away together. He'd call me 'his girl' and I'd call him 'my boy'. It was weird and surreal, yet thrilling at the same time.

Until about 6 weeks later when I found out he had a girlfriend. By that time, I'd begun fighting with him regularly over his manic mood swings and tendency to get aggressive and full of anger. He'd started to retreat into a cave, just like in the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. I didn't know what I'd done wrong to suddenly be treated so coldly. The girlfriend came out, only in the heat of the moment, a blurted out fact that was supposed to somehow validate his side of the argument. Why hadn't he mentioned her before? Why should he, he said? We were only mucking around, he had no loyalty or obligation to tell me anything. He had never said he was single. This all sounds ridiculous when I write it down, but this man was a master at twisting things to suit himself and making others feel like they must have misunderstood. A bit like Jasper in The Holiday. But worse.

I remained "friends" with the person for two years, like I said. He gradually opened up a little to me. I learned that his girlfriend had cystic fibrosis and had a few years at most, left to live. He'd lost his dad to cancer when he was 15 and had been deeply affected. I felt sympathetic. And when things were good, and we were having great conversations and laughing with each other, I forgot about what he was like when the coin was flipped. He would get nasty and manipulative, but always somehow made me feel it was my fault. Despite his obvious personality disorder (bi-polar???) I adored him. Eventually one day when he was deliberately trying to pick a fight in my forum, I told him to knock it off or leave. He lost control for the last time and defaced the forum, writing nasty things about the members in every thread he could get his hands on. I found all the comments when I logged on the next morning and vowed that I was never EVER going to speak to this toxic person again. And with the exception of about three brief times, I haven't. Those times have been emotionless for me. He has wished me well. Told me that his girlfriend had passed away only about two months after we stopped speaking.


That experience has made it hard to trust on the internet. I never want to get sucked into someone's warped little world again. I deserve much better than that. But alas, at the persistent "encouragement" of my mother, I have recently dived in for another foray into the world of online dating. She paid for three months (expensive) membership at eHarmony. At sign up for this website, one must fill out a painfully long survey which is then processed through a data system to find the best matches which are delivered to you by email. It has a high success rate, yet the process of guided communication (questions, likes and dislikes, must haves and can't stands) is incredibly mundane. I had one guy skip to email and tell me I could do better than to get to know him. "Cool, suave and sophisticated are the watchwords" he said. I felt bad afterwards, but I told him he might have better luck with those tactics at the pub. And then I felt worse because he replied and sounded genuinely nice even though his email and profile made him sound like a wanker with a capital W. Oops.

Actually the one person I have really liked, I shall call Jimmy. Jimmy is in my local area and he is an enivronmental scientist. When we moved to email, he told me honestly that he had just started seeing someone but still wanted to get to know me as a friend. He didn't want to be an arsehole and decieve me. Ten bonus points for honesty. And the worst bit is, that we have been getting to know one another by Facebook email and he is SO nice. He is just normal, writes and spells well, he's clever, likes the outdoors and keeing fit. Is interested in what I have to say. And he calls me "miss". "You're a bit cheeky, Miss". He is just lovely. And even funnier, some might recall me a while back sighing over Eddie Perfect and saying that I'd like to marry him just for his name. To be Mrs Perfect. Well, Jimmy's last name is Saint. Imagine it. Mrs Saint! hahaha

Ah, but he already has a girlfriend. What is with that?? Just as my faith in online dating is restored, the one I like the most, is the one I can't have.If there is a god out there, can he throw me a frikken bone, please??? If you are listening God, I would like to fall in love, hard...and I would like to love someone who deserves to have my crazy love thanks. Someone who will love me like crazy back. Someone like Jimmy, or even better yet, "Tom", who can be all for me.

On the whole, online dating is legitimate. There is nothing any more exciting about meeting someone at the pub than there is meeting them online. It's a growing industry. I'm not sure it feels right for me. What does everyone else think of it?

Body Wars vs Body Love

“Nothing can be said, to pacify the war raging in your head” Powderfinger - Think It Over

A friend of mine recently won a media award for three articles she wrote for the online disability community called DiVine. Carly suffers from a chronic and confronting skin disorder called Ichthyosis. About a year ago she was brave enough to start her blog, Tune Into Radio Carly, putting herself and her challenging condition out there for people to see. To educate people about what it is like to live with such a condition every day, both medically and socially. One of the articles Carly was awarded for was titled Love The Skin You’re In.

She wrote:

A few people have told me they would hate to look like I do. They said they could not cope with looking so different. They could not cope with the comments and stares. I think this is a reflection of their own personalities, not my appearance. I think their insecurities come from how the media emphasises and defines external beauty and perfection.

I think that Carly is right. As a society, the world today is obsessed with physical perfection. And there is no doubt that this obsession is perpetuated by the media in various forms. The average age of girls first beginning a diet in 1970 was 14. Today the average age girls are starting to diet is 8. 70 million people, mostly teenage girls and women under 25 have an eating disorder. Most will never recover. About 20 percent will die within 20 years of onset.

Recent studies in the US have brought to light some shocking statistics. After viewing photos of fashion models, 7 out of 10 women felt more depressed and upset than prior to viewing them. Young girls are more afraid of getting fat than they are of nuclear war or cancer. After viewing pictures of various body types 30% of women selected an ‘ideal’ body that was 20% underweight and a further 44% chose an ideal body that was 10% underweight. So let’s get this straight. Almost 75% of women had a perception of an ideal body that was at least 10% underweight!

Yes, I know we are all gasping at these statistics. But let’s get down to be the nitty gritty. Let’s be honest. Maura Kelly at Marie Clarein the US ignited a lot of controversy over an article she wrote about whether or not “fatties should be on television screens making out”. Disgraceful yes, that someone would think that “fatties” should not be able to be seen showing affection. But in all our self righteousness, I’d bet a lot of money that everyone reading has at some point had a judgemental thought about someone else’s appearance even if they never vocalised it.

I have thought to myself “how did they get like that, and don’t they want to do something about it?” when I have seen a grossly overweight person who is completely out of breath sitting or standing still. I have watched Biggest Loser and been glad I am not that fat. I have seen people with eating disorders and been glad I don’t look like them too! I have seen overweight or obese young girls in the latest fashions like skinny jeans or really tight short shorts and wondered if they actually looked at themself in the mirror that morning.

And further, we have all, at some point, had critical thoughts about ourselves. “Gosh my bum looks big”. “If only I could lose 2 more kilos” “My arms are so flabby” “I wish I had bigger boobs”. In today’s world, it is so easy to be dissatisfied with how we look, and to be judgemental of others. We are confronted constantly with picture perfect fashion models and movie stars everywhere we look. Even when we read an article in a magazine about Body Love and celebrating diversity of body types and appearances, the very next page often has an underweight bikini model or an article about the latest fad diet, or a new procedure for getting rid of cellulite. Even a show like The Biggest Loser which is supposed to educate about healthy eating and healthy lifestyles, truthfully just educates many young people to be scared of getting fat, or promote self hate in those who are already overweight and are subliminally being told by the show that it’s not ok to look this way.

It is important that we all have realistic attitudes about how we can look, and that we show ourselves kindness every now and then. Whether it be by buying a new outfit, or getting a haircut or just doing something nice for ourselves.

The Happiness Index

So it just recently came out that the UK government is trying to implement a happiness and well being survey as part of their national statistics campaign. An article was in The Guardian a couple of days ago. I bring this up on this blog, because there is no doubt that happiness is directly related to how one feels about oneself. And it is so subjective, it is almost impossible to measure. I question the value of such data really. What does the UK government actually want to guage? Job satisfaction? The relationship between financial wellbeing and emotional wellbeing?

Someone said to me yesterday that when she left her first husband, her mother asked "why????? You have a nice house, a good job, you are financial secure. What else do you want?" and she said "mum, I'm unhappy". Her mother then said "But you CAN'T be happy forever!" But you can. And it has nothing to do with anything material. It's not about money. It's not about health. And it's not about education. Of course all of these things can have an influence over the way we feel about our lives, but I think we all get to a point when we have to realise, and decide for ourselves, that happiness can be independent of all of that.

That's not always easy. But it's possible. To put things into perspective for myself personally, I am physically healthy. I'm 5 foot 1 and 50kg (110 pounds). I wear size 8 clothes. I am about 7 months away from finishing my university studies (teaching), I have discovered a passion for writing in the last 2 years that I can't and don't want to shake. I own the one bedroom unit that I live in. And I have a supportive network of family and friends. I should be completely happy, right?

But, all too often I don't feel it. Sometimes I feel lonely. Sometimes I feel scared of failing at the career I have chosen. Sometimes the state of my finances (as interest rates and cost of living keep increasing) makes me feel sick. Sometimes I still look in the mirror and don't like what I see. Sometimes my sense of self worth is low. I think that I am simply going through a phase of change in my life. A metamorphosis, if you will. And no amount of measuring on the happiness index is going to truly guage how I feel right now about life.

I'm throwing the happiness index out the window. Clearly it's bollocks. No-one else can measure how happy you are. It's something you have to find out for yourself. And no-one else can draw any conclusions about what it is that you need to make you feel happy either. That's another thing you have to find out for yourself. Happiness is a subjective and personal thing. I hope mine comes soon.

Love Thyself

This afternoon I received a private response to the previous blog entry, relating to “Tom”. She said to me “there will come a time when you will have to let ‘Tom’ go and hopefully it will be because you have found your own happiness”. She also reassured me that everyone has infatuations with people who we put on a pedestal.

I just wanted to take a minute to reflect on this because I am not sure if I expressed exactly what I meant when I spoke of Tom earlier. I described the way I felt as unrequited stupidity. Perhaps stupidity was inaccurate. There’s nothing stupid about seeing the best in someone, no matter who they are. I don’t think I have Tom on a pedestal necessarily, but I do think my strong admiration is a reflection of how I feel about myself. I think I said it before, but I believe that sometimes certain people or certain feelings or certain places in our lives are hard to let go of because they represent something bigger than their physical form. They are symbolic of something we were looking for at that time of our life. Tom, for me, is a manifestation of my deep need to take “self doubt” by the scruff of the neck and throw him out the door. He did exactly that. And so will I.

When the time comes, when I find total peace with myself, and let my insecurities go, I am fairly sure letting ‘Tom’ go will be redundant. I will always support him. I will always see the very best in him. I will always see the qualities that I once set out to find in myself, and I will always see the qualities I hope I find in a partner.

I hope this makes sense. I’m not trying to paint a picture of myself as a crazy person without a firm grip on reality, I’m really not. This writing journey is a self indulgent one and the topic just happened to be a place to start breaking down my thoughts. It’s the only way that I know how to try to understand myself. And understanding me is the first step to loving me.

I hope you are enjoying reading so far. Feel free to comment any time.

Love Thyself,

L

Love With A High Degree of Stupidity

Since I’m on a roll with the whole honesty thing, I’m going to disclose something else that’s quite hard to write truthfully about. I once, when I was very young, believed that I loved a pop star and I decided I was going to marry him the first moment I laid eyes on him. I was 15 years old and I had switched on Rage one Sunday morning only to see a video clip for a new Australian band called Savage Garden. 24 year old Darren Hayes took my breath away. With his cropped red hair and devilishly good looks, I knew immediately that this band was going to be huge and I wanted Darren. I wanted him right away. That day Savage Garden’s debut single ‘I Want You’ was about number 30 in the ARIA charts. It went on to hit number 4, followed by 2 number 1 singles from their debut Album. Most of you will know that between 1997 and 2005 Savage Garden sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. Their success was staggering. After Savage Garden broke up, Darren finally announced that he was gay. By this time it wasn’t a surprise to me and I was no longer harbouring a stupid degree of lust for a worldwide superstar. But in the moment it was so very real.

Okay, it wasn’t actually love at all, and I giggle about it now. But this was a man who loved his fans. And I wanted to love the same things as him because I thought he was cool. No-one else did, but it didn’t stop me from developing an addiction to vanilla flavoured chuppa chupps just because he liked them. It didn’t stop me from loving Star Wars and U2 just to be like him either! I still love Star Wars and U2. But I don’t love Dr Pepper (soft drink) I’m very sorry Darren. Foul tasting stuff. I digress. He was a breath of fresh air for me, as an introverted teenager. He made feeling like a bit of a round peg in a square hole a whole lot easier. I felt connected to him because he was a writer and he understood how it felt to be a fan.

I bring this up because having those kinds of feelings about someone famous and unattainable is quite taboo and so not cool or dignified. Yet for me, at that young age when I knew nothing at all about love, that was how I felt. It was love with a high degree of stupidity. And it was my first indication of my own capacity to love and adore another human being. Sometimes I think unrequited love/lust is an expression of a desire to have love in our life, rather than actual love itself. It’s not always entirely about that human being. It can pave the way to finding things out about ourselves. I think we look for bits of ourselves in other people. And when we come across someone who has those elements, we cling to the feeling. At last. A soulmate. But that isn’t really what it is. It’s a defence mechanism designed to help us feel less alone. To help us feel validated as a human being. Ironic isn't it, since those exact feelings tend to drag us down and feel worthless!

It pains me to say it, but there is someone else who currently fits this mould for me. I shall call him ‘Tom’ since he knows exactly who I am. I have some minimal contact with him. He is known to the country. And he is a beautiful human being to me. I say this from a different perspective than the one I had as a 15 year old pop music enthusiast. I don’t have any delusions about marrying Tom. He is happy and in love and he deserves to be. But if I am to speak the truth, I like him as a human being very much. And I have come to see him as more than a rock star. A good friend of mine summed it up the other day when she said “I think you just like who he is more than you like the music itself”. I think I feel a gravitational pull towards people who are creative and Tom just happens to have the heart of an angel. I feel silly saying it out loud. It’s not easy to write actually. But this blog is about being honest and open about how I feel about other human beings and forgiving myself for feeling things that involve a high degree of stupidity. And this man evokes something hard to describe in me. I want to be loved by someone the way I see him love his girlfriend. I feel this emotion about other couples sometimes too. I call it love envy. But it is amplified when it comes to him, because of the person he is. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel attraction, but this is less unrequited love than it is unrequited stupidity! Perhaps it just comes down to feeling a bit lonely sometimes, but that’s another blog for another day, because otherwise I’ll just get all teary.

Some of you may be wondering what the point of all this is. It may be foreign and alien to some people, but these types of feelings about people (not just well known ones either) have affected me. They shape who I am as a human being. And this is one small part of my journey to find love; to love myself and to understand who I am and what makes me tick. It’s all about finding out what ‘love actually’ is.

The L Word...

Nope, not Love. Long term relationships. This is not going to be easy to write about. But given the topic of this blog, I’d be a fraud if I didn’t write it. Deep breaths. At thirty years old, you’d expect that I would have engaged in at least one, maybe two or three long term relationships by now, yes? Well what if I told you that I haven’t? That with the exception of the odd short lived fling, I have never been in a relationship? No, I am not making it up. Most people look at me like I have three heads if I admit it out loud. I struggle with it all the time.

The thing about relationship experience is that as you get more of it, the less frightening it becomes to be intimate and completely vulnerable. And the longer time goes by without experiencing that kind of intimacy, the more terrifying it becomes. Sometimes I think I have no idea how to be in a relationship, and it might be easier to just to welcome spinsterhood with open arms and tell people I’ve missed the boat and it’s too late. If I make fun of myself, try to avoid thinking about it, and run a mile when the opportunity for intimacy comes up, things are whole lot easier, right? Wrong.

Other people may be able to do that. I am sure many probably do. Perhaps for them it is better to have cushioned their pride than to risk being hurt. Sometimes it is easy to see that as logical. But the truth is, however heightened my terror is of being laughed at by a man for my lack of experience, it is not as painful as the idea of always being alone. Of never loving a man with every ounce of my being.

Amazingly I have two good friends the same age who have never had long term relationships either. One, who I am closer to, feels the same way I do and finds it just as difficult to talk about. The other falls into the latter category of accepting impending spinsterhood. I believe there are probably a lot of women out there like us who don’t like to admit it. Who maybe despite relationships with others, still have a love-hate relationship with themselves and are a little bit frightened of intimacy and vulnerability. Those are the people I hope to reach by writing this blog.

I don’t want to be trapped forever by my own fear of myself. I hope this blog will be in some way therapeutic and help me find that belief in myself. The belief that I deserve to be loved, and that I deserve to be happy, no matter what my experiences are. This is a belief that I have to work hard to foster and nurture inside me. It always has been. I can remember reading a self help book about attracting love into your life. Like many of those kinds of books, it asked the reader to visualise the love and happiness in they wished they had. It almost chokes me up to admit it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t visualise myself happy and in love because my head was so full of self loathing that all I could think of was ‘who in their right mind would love me?’. I knew at that moment that there was my biggest hurdle. I didn’t even love myself, so how could I possibly attract the person who would love me wholly for everything that I am?

I’m not in that place now. Although some days I sit perched on the edge. I want that edge to be as far away from me as possible. I deserve to be loved and happy and cherished. I deserve to be someone’s princess. I will be. I believe that.

The Inner Poet...

We all feel sorry for ourselves sometimes. We all wonder where our soulmate is. Sometimes we even wonder if there is such a thing. And sometimes the impossible loves creep back into your being and make you wonder what is that made you so unlovable. And why is it that you are so weak that you choose to fall in love/like/lust with people you can't have.

For me, it's those times that I find my inner poet.



There's no pain like a wasted heart
Charred and beyond repair
If you will, just tear me apart
Look inside, if you dare
Last night, you know I saw your sweet face
A gem, radiant, perfect, and rare
I stood quite still and breathed you in
It was almost too much to bear
So I sang a languid tune
Wondered "does the world even care?"
"Will all this end soon?"
"And isn't love made to share?"
I heard a distant voice answer my cry
"Time knows no despair"
"It has no mercy, it won't ask you why"
"It hasn't a moment to spare"
Then the old grandfather clock chimed in
"It's true life is unfair"
"Give in. Give up... you'll never win"
Then it stopped, silence flooded the air
I laid with my soul inflated that night
Inflated, but really quite bare
There was nothing left to put up a fight
Only my armour, not a suit, just air
My wasted heart, it only loved you
Til it was beyond repair
Oh how I wish that you knew
Oh how I wish that you'd care..
I cried inside, "please tear me apart"
"Please look inside if you dare..."


Does anyone find a need to express themselves like this?

About this blog...

"I want to make some noise. I want to make you cry. I want to see the life on the other side. I wanna fly away..." - Wes Carr

This blog is about love. Everyone wants love. At least that is what we have all been conditioned to think we want. Society has become increasingly complex over time. We all want different things. The dream job. The fancy car. Financial freedom. Spiritual Enlightenment. True Happiness. The pretty house with the white picket fence and 2.3 children. Travel. A sense of individuality. A sense of purpose. But the one thing we all want deep down, is to be loved. Over the centuries the need for a mate, and to be loved and desired and feel beautiful has remained essentially the same.

I want love. I truly do. Perhaps my expectations and view of what love actually is has been distorted by sappy movies like The Notebook. Maybe I am waiting for something that doesn't actually exist. But, with all my heart, I want love. I want someone to make me laugh. I want them to make me cry. I want to feel the whole rainbow of emotions that are possible. I want to be loved by someone as much as I love them.

Ah yes. To have love returned. It seems like a pipe dream sometimes doesn't it? I think we've all had love that's been unrequited. I've had a few. Some normal. Some weird. Even some famous! Ha! Some unrequited loves make no sense whatsoever when you think about them, but sadly the heart wants what the heart wants. So often, as young women (and men if there are any reading), we have great capacity to love. And great capacity to forgive someone over and over for their mistakes, for causing us hurt, for their imperfections, and even for not loving us back. They are just human right? So we keep on loving. And yet we have great difficulty forgiving ourselves for being human and loving ourselves in spite of not being perfect. I know that I do and that is why I am writing this blog.

I have chosen not to disclose it to my family or to many friends, or to publicise it on my personal Facebook page. I want this to be as up close and personal as possible. I want it to be honest. I want it to be relatable. I want to share myself. And I want to write from my heart. But sometimes it's hard to truly do that if you feel that you are being judged or analysed by those who know you. In saying that, the search for love and fulfilment is so universal, it seems a perfect topic to write about. I hope you enjoy it.