A Personal Letter To 2011

Dear 2011,

It’s hard to know where to start with you, So I guess it would only be right to start from the begining. You began in a way that should of foreshadowed the events that the next twelve months contained. You began, with a bang, of a cell door and me asleep on a doorstep. My boyfriend at the time had been arrested for attacking the police again, and my “friends” had too. So I, not wanting to begin this new year alone took myself to my sisters doorstep to sleep, so I had someone to wake up to that I cared about (not wanting to wake her as she had a newborn). Perhaps that was the first sign that this year, if I wanted someone to care for me. Then I would literally have to beg at there doorstep.

So 2011, you carried on. Day in day out, for a few months nothing changed in the physical sense, but mentally for me, something did. I was in a relationship that was killing me. It was abusive and supressing, my boyfriend was jealous and angry. He could never accept the fact that people would find me attractive, he could never grow as a person. He sponged off me, used me, and abused me. He stole, he treated me like absolute crap. Four years we were together, and it was finally you 2011 that managed to teach me to see my life for what it was. I thank you 2011 for being an eye opener, for showing me, for helping me grow. Much as I loved him, I wasn’t in love with him. I loved the memories, and I clung to them. I tortured myself with the happy thoughts, and in turn allowed him to torture me by lowering my self esteem, by making me feel as though I couldn’t do anything for myself. Late spring we split, but what I became after that is what upsets me more…

2011 was the year with which I saw what I could of become, what I did become for a while. My new found freedom sent me off the rails, whilst constantly surpressing my emotions. Don’t get me wrong I had breakdowns and tears. But I couldn’t do it properly, I was too scared of going back in time. And a year is for moving through, not walking backwards throughout. I became an emotionless drone, only in it for the party lifestyle (much as I love the lifestyle, I never wanna lose my grasp on life). Nothing mattered, I’d given up on the thought of myself ever being able to care about anyone, even myself, well not enough for it to be taken seriously. I couldn’t even myself seriously.

I scared myself more than ever in 2011, and the thought of it scares me still. I never want to go back to that void of no emotion, I never want to block my heart from my mind. I always want to be able to care, whether it hurts or not. And through this fear, in summer 2011 I took a step back, I walked backwards into the summer sun. I had convinced myself that the void I had become was because I was missing the person that had walked away and left this void. So I fought for him, the first time in months I had managed to show some form of emotion. I managed to convinvce myself that this void was a hole where love had been! I got him back, and at first it was like new again, but the newness was just me once again clinging to the oldness, the memories I had through him. He was just a photograph, a photograph that a lonely old heart beyond it’s years, stared at in the darkness of it’s fear. I guess you could say, I had a fear of being unloved, uncared for. But in returning to him, all I did was make it so I was unable to love myself, I was not caring for myself. Things got worse, the arguments aggresive and scary, the violence was too much. He had scared my friends, even managed to get his own blood all over the walls of the bathroom of my flat in a rage trying to find me.

So that was it, and this was the worst part of you 2011, this 2011 is when you finally made me crack. The next day, I collected him from the police station, I walked down the streets of London with him. They were so few streets, but them streets were lined with the years of shadows I had surpressed, the shadows that had pushed me into a corner clinging to a flame. And now they were all around me and we walked together, knowing that this was a walk through the truth. The truth that we weren’t ever going to work. No matter how much we wanted it to, or I wanted it to. It wasn’t right, I still don’t know whether it was me who brought out the violence in him, or if it was him. Maybe one day I will be able to ask him if it was my fault or not.

This was the first time I was strong with him, I made him change his blood soiled clothes in the street before he got on the bus to leave me. Though I didn’t hate him, and don’t now. I hate what he would do, I hate how he would convince me he cared but then would hurt me so much. So 2011 I thank you, for taking me down the streets of my pain, and letting me walk it to the bus stop publicly humiliate it and kick it’s ass back where it came from.

This story doesn’t end there though, this is where I became two people, this is where I lost who and what I was and what I wanted from life, and whether I even wanted anything anymore. I then became my own shadow, watching me, I could see me with every step. Every breath I took it was like I could feel it more. But it was too much feeling, too much anger my heart for it to pump a careful breath. During this time, I am sure I was insane, I was lost. I would party and dance, and with this I could grasp at the void I had once found, but it wouldn’t last. This time, in the morning I didn’t only have a hangover. I had you 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and so on. I had every thought and memory of my life. And then 2011 you decided to kick me in the teeth, you decided to tell me something heart destroying, something that still I carry the worry of through to 2012. And for that 2011 I hate you, because the moment that you told me that. That was the moment when I decided that I could feel everything within myself but not control it. That was the moment I had given up on the thought that things could get better. It was kicking me while I was down. But it wasn’t kicking me, it was kicking someone I loved, it was kicking people I loved. It was, and is dangling the thought of something that I cannot bare to believe in could happen right in front of all that I loves faces. And for that 2011, I can never forgive you. But I hope that soon I can forget.

But 2011, I do not hate you. Firstly through all of you, I learnt something very important. Something I thought I knew, but now I know, I knew the thought of it but never been able to grasp the importance of it. That, is friendship. With 2011, came the best friendships I have ever had, old friendships became stronger and new friendships just as strong. You 2011, gave me the most amazing and caring friends. The type of friends that would drop anything in a second just to give you a cuddle and tell you that everything is going to be okay. The type of friends that would find you wandering around in public crying, and would shepherd you back into the privacy of your home and coax you back to happiness, with a vodka and lemonade (my drink of choice if anyone is offering). The type of friends that when they find you rocking back and forth crying with insanity, they join you, and rock back and forth with you. They are the type of friends that when you need to go out and party and get absolutely trashed they will gladly do it, even if they have got an essay or deadline in two days, because they are the type of friends who have the capacity to love another without wandering what they get out of it.

And it’s with that love and friendship, that I managed to carry on through 2011. And then the next big thing happened, well to me it feels big and it feels like it’s getting bigger. It gives me a hope for 2012. I met someone who proved that the romantics aren’t all dead, you gave me someone who shows a new side to me, brings out parts of me that I am glad to take with me into 2012. 2011, you delievered me a guy that brings me excitement and is sweet and kind and funny. And that is another thing I would like to thank you for 2011, thank you for giving me a bit of light, and I hope that you have a word with 2012 and let him know the work you have put in (in the end anyway, don’t get ahead of yourself) and tell him to just keep it up, ye cool!

So all in all 2011, you have been one rollercoaster (cliche I know) of a year. I have learnt so much from you, and there is so much I didn’t wanna learn about myself and people in life. But now I have you can’t take that back. But hopefully 2011 was just a year with which to prepare for the rest of my life, the year with which I can say, if I conquered 2011 I can conquer “meeting the evil mother in law” or “I can get his job” Hell I might even be able to conquer Rome one day thanks to you.

2011, it’s been a rocky ride..I wish you all the best of luck in the archives of time. I promise that at times I will look back and give you a cheeky wink, or possibly a tear at times. But for now, I’m looking to 2012. My year, I can just feel it!

Yours forever and always,

December 30th 2011 Aaron James Trotter

Tags: 2011, 2012, breaking up, breakup, depression, diary, emotion, fear, history, illness, insanity, inspiration, letter, lifestyle, looking back, Love, New Year, personal, personal letter, relationships, romance, self esteem, spirituality, Teenage, the past

People on coaches..stereotyped!

So I am currently on a six hour coach journey, and can think of nothing better to do than rant about the stereotypes of the coach journey in britain!

The Young Intellect-This one is always a girl! And she is always a hard faced sour bitch, reading a book about bio-chemistry (even though its clearly her christmas break from uni). She wants the whole world to know that she is extremely intelligent, and does so by surrounding herself with textbooks, ensuring she is wearing the most dullest of clothing and still has the middle parting she was born with!

The Token Oriental-This guy is angry looking, has no sense of others personal space and wafts a smell of old boots around the coach! He stares into the back of the chair at all times ensuring he does not take his eyes off of a certain spot. He is clearly attempting to repress memories of his crazed mother beating him with a rolling pin for not exceeding at maths, and sits with a stone face as any emotion he shows quickly becomes rage!

The One On The Phone-Thats me! The one that has sooo many friends he needs to catch up with and finds that sitting in a small rolling space surrounded by people who do not care about his friends sexual encounters or what his plans are for his week at home is obviously the most suitable of times. He clearly wants this complete group of strangers to know his life is exciting and filled with drama! This guy is awesome to epic proportions..he cannot be faulted for his actions.

The Most Beautiful Metrosexual Man You Have Ever Seen and He is Clearly In Love with Me-I think the title speaks for itself. And the fact that he keeps looking at me in the reflection of the window clearly proves that he is in love with me, and not at all getting pissed off because I am ranting away on the phone to another friend!

These are but a few of the typical coach passengers I have noted on my many journeys! None of them will ever beat the Snoring Fat Woman whose head rolls about her many necks! She is clearly the best for aesthetics and for imagining her snores are clearly growls as she dreams of cake and custard tart and all things fatty..

I am now in the latter part of my journey, and need a cigarette. So am therefore kranky! I have just had my heartbroken as I came to realise the metrosexy man, is reading psycology magazine, clearly making him a prick. Him and intellectual girl should just make a realling boring baby! If she is willing to spread her legs and let him into her vagina which is clearly just like gringotts filled with goblins and impossible to get into! I hope they do get together and have a really shit life and she uses sex as a weapon in order to get a new conservatory while he’s off fuckin his pupils that he teaches in some crummy university in the south..and they have two kids one of which develops a drug habit and ends up in prison for getting off his face and having “that incident with the family dog that they’d rather not discuss”

Tags: boredom, humour, judging people, People, Rant, Ranting, Travel

The Most Beautiful Moment I was Lucky To See..

I was 14, a bit awkward, definitely immature and excitable. I had friends, two great friends in fact Lily and Hope. They were both great girls, they both liked a bit of drama like any 14 year old girl. There would be fall outs and bust ups. Me and Lily would argue a lot, but we knew really that we loved each other (and are still best of friends now).

I was a bit of a wild child at that age and didn’t care much for anything, spent most of my time getting drunk, smoking weed or on the hunt for guys. But this is the earliest memory I have of when something managed to stop and make me think about how lucky I was, it was a moment with which  could say will always exist in the back of my mind and will come to me when I am wallowing in self pity.

Hope was a great girl, she was confident, fun and a good friend and had a big heart when she wanted to. And Lily was also all of the above. They were both very Intelligent but again hadn’t reached an age with which you don’t see past there own bubble of life. Everyday after school would finish, we would leave school and go to Hope and Lily’s for them to get changed before we would go off and do something pointless like sit on a bench for hours. I couldn’t go home because I lived too far from school. So this was just a normal day like any other. We causally walk up to graces house, happy as could be for a normal afternoon.

Now Hope’s family were a bit different, and her parents should be commended for there ability to love and care for Hope. And through it all they both had sight problems. Both were blind.

Now personally I would think it horrible to be blind, like most. But her parents never seemed angry about it, in fact her mother always spoke in such a soft nice warm tone, as though talking to a child, but it was never patronising. Don’t get me wrong things weren’t perfect they obviously had arguments like most families etc.

Anyway on this day me, Lily and Hope arrived on Hope’s doorstep. Hope went in and her mum was there in the corridor waiting for her. She looked very happy, like a child on Christmas morning there was a sparkle about her. She was a bit excitable, and she explained to us how she had been given some new glasses by the NHS..And that these glasses had made it so she could see slightly, especially close up.

So she then turns to her daughter Hope, who remember is 14 years old, and says, “come closer, Hope” and Hope is a bit confused but shuffles closer. And as she gets quite close in, her mum turns to her and says with tears gathering in her eyes “This is the first time, in 14 years that I have been able to look at my daughters face properly!”

Time seemed to freeze in that moment, and even now when i think back and relive it, I still freeze at the picture. That epic moment with which this woman’s life had changed dramatically. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to have the knowing that you had never known what your 14 year old daughter looked like. But more so, that moment for her, must have been something that no amount of words could describe. At this moment me and Lily are a blubbering mess, this was a moment that two 14 year old’s were not prepared for. It was like a blessing to be allowed to see such a warm and loving moment. And still to this day I remember it, it may be blurry with time, but its there warm in my heart. As the moment I learnt a lot more about life and love, and the capacity to appreciate the things I had.

 I would like to thank Hope’s mother for that moment, because no matter what even in the midst of all that teenage angst, I could still stop to recognise a moment of pure happiness. So perhaps those out there who have yet to feel a moment of pure happiness, perhaps they will never. Perhaps they treat others with hate and discrimination perhaps it’s because they haven’t had a beautiful moment to keep them in place ad remind them that beauty can be found in the most unexpected of places, at the most unexpected of times. And hopefully one day they will be blessed.

So when Hope steps into someone’s vision and you see that, then remember that Hope exists around you whether it exists in your current moment or not. It will come even if it takes 14 years or 14 minutes. You’ll be able to see hope one day, but you may have to wait until it is right in front of your face to see it clearly.

Tags: Blindness, Clarity, Growing up, Hope, Life changing moment, Love, Realisation, Teenage