There’s Coffee In The Sugar Pot And Butter In The Jam Jar.

I find the little things the most annoying; the little habits that people have, that sometimes they don’t even realise they have, but that stick out in my mind. Like coffee in the sugar pot, butter in the jam jar, leaving a drawer open, not turning off a light when leaving a room, not flicking the switch on a plug socket. I try my best to leave them be but it eats away at me. I can see the little red square on top of the plug and I have to get out of my seat and turn it off. I don’t even use the sugar for myself anymore but I still find myself picking out the coffee granules because it irritates me for a reason I can’t understand. Pieces of biscuit floating on the surface of a drink, leaving the milk out of the fridge, toast crumbs and butter smears all over the side are a few more. It’s not difficult, is it? Turn off the light, wipe down the side and shut the drawer. Please. It’s driving me insane.

These are little things I notice around the house. I’ve been home for over three weeks now, with only eight days to go until Easter vacation is officially over, and it is these things that are starting to bother me. It’s amazing how blind I can become to these irritating habits of my family. I miss them so much when I am away and I am so happy to see them that I forget about all of the little things they do. They’re not things that hurt me, not things that hurt anyone, in fact, and yet they get under my skin and irritate me no end. But they wouldn’t be them if they didn’t do these things. And I love them enough that I accept these things (and put them right when they’re not around).These habits are a part of who they are and I wouldn’t change them for the world. I think that is a part of what love is.

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere once that love is accepting the worst things about someone, and loving them despite this. It’s getting past crumby butter and the fact that they never text back when they say they will and seeing them for the person that they are. Their inability to shut a drawer doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person. It might mean that they can make you cry with laughter. In the same way that not texting back, or waiting until ridiculous hours of the morning to do it, or leaving on a light, or any of those other things doesn’t necessarily affect the other great things about a person. Whether it’s with your family, your friends or someone who means more, the foundations of love are pretty much the same. You can’t choose your family, of course, but they also say that you can’t choose who you fall in love with – so really, when you look at it closely, it’s all the same.

My views on love are all over the place. I believe that you can't stop yourself from loving someone, and that you can't make yourself love someone either. That is something completely beyond our control. And I believe that the process of falling in love is a gradual one; I have trouble with the concept of love at first sight. What I do believe is that you fall in love with all parts of a person, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and when that happens it's very hard to escape from it. You accept the annoying habits, like the open drawer, because the good outshine any of the bad, no matter how bad that may be, Of course, there's a line, but I'm pretty certain it comes far and beyond a bottle of warm milk.

Against The Odds

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's not use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things.

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast..."

- Through The Looking Glass

One of my favourite books in the world, full of so many quotes that can be taken as good advice. I've realised that always looking at things as they are and most likely will be makes for a pretty uneventful life. There are never any surprises. You're left without that exciting anticipation of things that could be. Not necessarily impossible, but things that might be against the odds. Those impossible things are the secrets we keep, the things that we hope for despite people saying that they won't happen; these impossible things are the things that our dreams are made of.

"Another Fabricated Self Portrait"

I enjoy reading the things that other people write about themselves, about the things that they consider important, about the qualities that they believe define themselves. It amuses me when people see themselves as the polar opposites to who they really are. People who claim to be loyal when deceiving those closest to them, those who say that they love someone and then don't show it; just in general, people who believe that they are something they are not. As people, I don't believe that we are equipped to come up with a definite and accurate perceptions of ourselves. I think we are made by the people around us, and it is only them who can see us as they truly are.

I take the things I know about myself from the things that people tell me. I believe that I'm a good listener because my friends tell me so, they call me up and say they need to talk to me because they don't have anyone else. I believe that I'm good at the subject I do and that I made the right choice with my degree because of the feedback and marks that I get. It's not hard to figure out. And who I am is made by the people who tell me these things. The friends who come to me with their problems, who trust me and seek me out, or the English teachers from my school career who have taught me, praised me and encouraged me to be the best that I can be. I'm not all good though, I know this. And I know this because people tell me so. I know that I can petty, jealous and bitchy. But I don't deny it. I am who I am, I'm proud of it, and I'm not about to change because some of my personailty traits don't live to up the expectations of, essentially, someone who doesn't matter. And this is the difference between me and one of the many people I have just been reading about: I accept who I am, I take responsibility for my actions and I don't pretend to be someone that I'm not.

The song I posted above is one of my favourite songs and when I sat down to write this post, the lyrics came to mind rather quickly:

"Look at what we've all tried not to become,

Another fabricated self portrait.

Oh, oh, no, take another glance and remember

We're the ones setting you up to take your fall."

Because not matter how much you try and fool yourself, and those around you, people aren't stupid. They see through you and all of the things you say. You could put yourself down on paper and make yourself sound like the most amazing person in the world. But actions speak louder than words. You can't show loyalty, love, commitment, honesty or any of these things by betraying someone. Your words can only hide so much. Your actions will always show your true colours.

Easter Vacation (So Far).

Two weeks down, two and a bit to go. A month is a ridiculously long time when there’s not much to do. A lack of money and friends scattered around the country does not make for easy socialising, although spending time with my best friends than home has been much more exciting than I expected it to be. Catching up with someone I haven’t seen for a long time was an experience, to say the least. It’s amazing how much people change over such a short space of time. What’s even more amazing is how much they don’t.

I sat down today to go over the list I wrote this time last year, the list of things I wanted to accomplish before I was 19. It’s my birthday in exactly one month and so I’ve already started to think about the list of things I want to do before I’m 20. It’s a big list; I definitely plan on making the most of my final year as a teenager. I tend to work on more than one to-do list at once. I spend far too much time writing them. I suppose it could be called an addiction but I think it helps: they motivate me and keep me focused on my goals, however big or small. On my Easter Holiday list there’s a range of activities from reading Ian McEwan’s Atonement, completing all of my assignments, revising and completing N.E.R.D’s ‘Rockstar’ on expert on Band Hero. The last on that list I finally achieved today. The others are a work in progress. Somehow my priorities don’t seem quite right, but I feel like I’ve working hard this semester. I’m entitled to a little break.

And so on to next year’s list. A few things I’ve already put down: maintain a minimum of a 2:1 average, go abroad, read at least 20 books on my To Read list, gain some kind of work experience that will help with chosen career, get over The Boy. (Have I ever mentioned The Boy? Spectacular in so many ways and as lethal for me as the strawberry cupcakes I am so tempted by in the campus cafes.)

One the whole, this year has been one of the best. It scared me how quickly the time has gone; in a few short months I will no longer be a Fresher. I’m going to have to really start taking my work seriously and the phrase “Its first year. We only need 40%” is going to have to become a thing of the past. And as much as I am going to miss my Fresher status, living in halls and all of the other things that come with that, I cannot wait to move into the house with the girls and move onto the next part of my life.

"I'm only gonna let you kill me once."

Trust is probably the most fragile thing in the world. One blow, aimed correctly, and it shatters, completely falls apart. Easily broken, not so easily repaired. Destroyed in a certain way and the results are not unlike those associated with death: coldness, emptiness, pain past anything you could have imagined, the wish to disappear. There are poems, art, songs dedicated to these feelings, to the breakdown of trust. Betrayal.

It’s deep. It seems worse when there’s an attachment between two people, some kind of connection that you accept with blind faith because it seems like the right thing to do. Letting that fall apart once and then thinking you can fix it is bad enough, but letting it happen twice? You feel stupid for the first time, for giving someone piece of you, a piece of you that isn’t very big but that is still big enough to destroy you. You know you shouldn’t give it back and more but it seems like it’s a good idea, you think that you can fix what broke before you that things will be okay because you want them to be and you’ll work and you learnt from last time.

You’re wrong. Never give someone something that they broke the first time round. Never give them the power to destroy you when they did it once before. And when you ignore all of these things get out before they destroy you a second time. Because if you thought the first time was bad, the second time hurts a hell of a lot more.