from like to loke #2

Oh my! Is it really Thursday?

These past few weeks have been going super fast, between organising timber and supplies for Aunty Sandra's new planter boxes and making a wholesale order for the store I don't know where the time has gone.

Today I thought I better finish more from the story of our first day together.

The Language of loke

from like to loke part 2
read part one here

We have made our way to Glenelg. Our adventure around Adelaide has come to an end. It is dinner time. We have selected a table in the alfresco area of a restaurant, one big enough for all of the Tasmanians. We are tight like that. We wait as groups slowly filter in and friends find old friends and new friends to sit with.


Our table fills up with Tasmanian friends. Kyle comes to sit at our table, he brings jugs of lemonade with him. We are happy to welcome him as an honorary Tasmanian. Anyone who offers drinks for the whole table is welcome.


We may be tight but we are also easily bribed. 


I think about the day. I think about how he kissed my wrist. How my shoes gave my heels blisters and Kyle looked high and low for some bandaids - bandaids which he found and then dutifully unwrapped while I placed them on my heels.

I knew I should've worn different shoes.However, for the first time that day - I am glad I didn't.


I am glad because it gave me another chance to be swept off my feet. He seemed to keep doing that - the knight in shining armour routine. 


Things are heading in a direction that is very predictable.


Jess is swept off her feet, Jess is falling, deep. Jess gets scared. Jess self sabotages. Jess leaves, heartbroken.


Many of the relationships I had, could've had. They never even started because I was too terrified I would ruin it. Again.


Many of them ended so badly I still cringe to think about the way I treated them.. 


I had felt I was ruined. Ruined for men. Ruined by men. It hurt to think about what others thought of me. A man eater. How girlfriends soon turned to frenemies when brothers were involved because they thought I was stringing them along and deliberately hurting them. 


My anxiety, the kind which had been rearing its ugly head all day - the one I had been squashing back into its box.


It exploded. The fragile box it was kept in shattering into a million pieces.


I sat away from Kyle at the table. I couldn't bear to be near him- to be associated with him. I felt sick. I wanted to run and bury my head under the covers. It was all wrong, surely my feelings were wrong. I barely knew him.


I had a guy back in Tasmania. One who hoped I'd return and fall back into his arms. But I'd been out of his arms for months. I couldn't understand why he'd called in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I'd just made the decision to spend time. Time on my own. It was so hard. Why were boys so darn difficult to understand.


I frosted over. He could tell. After dinner he made a swift exit.


I watched him, walk out that restaurant door. My heart, my heart it broke in two for a guy I barley knew.Right then and there I knew I would do anything to be with him. Anything to stay with him.


He was my forever.


But my forever had gone.


Its interesting for me to write down all the emotions I had that day. Anyone who knows me, knows I am a very emotional, passionate person. For people who don't know me, they may think the complete opposite. Its funny how things work like that.


Often the most confident people can be the most unsure of themselves within.


It has taken years for me to understand that being an emotional person is not necessarily a bad thing.


I fall in love easily, I sob during adds on the t.v, I get angry and hot headed quickly and I am very head strong. All of these things that I had been trying to hide made me a very angry and unpredictable teenager.


I am still learning to embrace my emotions, but as I do I find even though there are moments where I want to tear out my hair and scream to the mountains. There are also greater moments of passion, love and joy which I missed out on truly enjoying because I was spending too much energy on hiding the 'bad' emotions, which ironically made me unable to feel the good.


My thought process is like a switch. It doesn't take much effort to switch from one extreme to the other but as I learn to accept my emotions greater happiness envelops me.

I can't shake the feeling that it will probably take me the rest of my life to find the peace of middle ground.


read part three here