Put this in your Pipe and Smoke it.

So after writing this status on my facebook page — ‘ if you really think you can get passed the average woman with your slippery ways. Please re-evaluate your perception of yourself; or at least have the humility to accept that you may not be quite as clever as you think.’

Someone has asked me, in a very kind way, this: ‘Where is the Clare from 6 months ago? You seem to have lost you happy status. It’s so sad to see. I miss the old Clare.’

So, I’ve been thinking... Where is the ‘old’ Clare from 6 months ago? Well, first she’s getting older - and I’m dreading the thought. My birthday next month and I’m gonna be in my mid thirties. Ouch. But at least it’s a sign that I am alive.
OK, so lets go back 6 months, eh? Who was Clare 6 months ago, compared to now? I’ve been accused of changing (thank God, stagnation terrifies me).


Six months ago, my friends, I was in the midst of a long and painful breakup. My heart felt like it was breaking every day. I was trying to make a relationship work with a man who was about to relapse. I was anxious all the time, not sleeping properly for weeks at a time, not eating properly and I managed to get myself 2 disciplinaries at work. My relationship finally broke up in a very callous manner, and I was a wreck. I feared for my sanity, I felt abandoned, alone and scared for my sobriety. I felt I was on the verge of relapse, myself.

My relationship with my father broke down again, and we haven’t spoken now for months. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to continue living because i felt depressed and the reduction in some medication I’d been taking for years, didn’t help my emotional stability. I was worrying about my ability to be able to deliver a decent second book – and this was enough to make me question my worth.

I somehow managed to get into this year, still breathing, and still having a desire to fulfill my ambitions so 4 months ago I threw myself into completing my second book.

Sometimes life is difficult. For everyone. Emotions can make me want to throw myself off a bridge. That's just me. And sometimes facebook status’s are happy and sometimes they’re bland and sometimes they’re sad or angry.
This is part of life; my life. If I write a seemingly ‘negative’ status or make a direct non-frilly comment to someone, this does not mean that I, Clare, has fundamentally changed, or my general happiness levels are in the gutter.


But if you want to know what’s happening today – which of course is the day that the status in question was produced. Today, as for the past 2 weeks I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting for my fate to be handed to me by strangers. This means the potential publishers of my second book. I’ve not slept properly the past 2 nights, i’m due on my period, i’m tired and I’m fuking anxious to hear from the publishers. Sad as it may seem – this book is EVERYTHING to me.

I wrote a status today based on some thoughts I had after speaking to someone about something. I thought it, and I wrote it because I can.



I am still, Clare. Yes, angrier recently – I’m anxious. Today I’ve been erratic, demanding, grouchy, impatient and intolerant of unrealistic sweeping statements about my loss of happiness because of one or three, or four, or six recent snipey facebook statues.

I am female and with that carries many expectations, often from men. I am not sickly sweet all the time or even most of it. I have worries and I express them. Perhaps due to growing confidence in who I am and less desire to be who you want me to be – I tell things more directly these days than I did, say 6 – 12 months ago. I am growing into the woman I wish I’d been many years ago. Perhaps I wouldn’t have allowed so much abuse to happen to me, had I been this way.

If you notice a change in me this does not mean that I, as a whole, is a different woman. It means that today, in this moment, I am telling you how it is. And if you put it in your pipe and it stinks – then so be it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2wSpm9q1bI