.: Entry One-Hundred and Eleven :.

My name is Elliot Parker, looking back at when I started this experience I feel like a completely new person. I know it sounds like a cliché. But that doesn’t really matter. I’ve grown, I had to, and it is for the best. When I started I think I was trying so hard to be so good at being a deliberate creator when all I had wanted at the time was to be different, to feel differently.

Since then the strange dreams have changed, but that’s ok, they are less clinging to an old life, an old way of being and wanting. I no longer get the dream invasions. That is good though, I am not looking back thinking where did it all go wrong, because I can see where it all went right. I started to believe in myself, I started having some self-worth and strength. I found the courage to finally cut the chords that had me bound to the past and walk away. I have outgrown situations that just seemed to hurt me more than anything.

The biggest change? I am happy, genuinely happy, even when I am heartbroken I am finding happiness. Happiness I deliberately created in the best way. In a way that makes it feel like a happy accident, when it turns out I have what I really wanted all along. And sure I can always deliberately create more stuff. But I am grateful and happy every morning when I wake up with just one thought, and every night before bed. I am back to focusing on all those good moments in my life.

I went from not being able to break a toxic immature cycle with my ex, to finding a new job, to finding the love of my life at the new job. Sure that is over simplified, and I have had some difficult friendships, very difficult friendships, but that is ok.

I think, to a degree Clover and I have grown apart in a big way. It’s not exactly sad, I don’t think that would be the right way to describe it. We aren’t as close as we used to be, I doubt we will be that close again though. And that is ok. I don’t mind. Not really. Life is a lot quieter, a tiny bit less chaotic, and I am glad she got back together with her baby daddy, even if I don’t necessarily think it will work, I think they might get a few years out of it, another kid maybe, something like that. It’s what makes her happy and she deserves to be happy. I guess that separation had to happen, she made her position clear when she was unwilling to support my relationship with Dyl for no good reason other than he wasn’t my ex, no matter how much she tried to bring the ex into conversation and make him relevant it didn’t matter, not really. The ex is the past and Dyl is not only my present but my future. Clover not supporting that was her choice, but I didn’t want to live in the past. I guess it took a long time to realise that.

Clover and I went to dinner a few months ago and she spent the whole time trying to one up whatever was going on in my life, like I could feel her trying so hard to be insistent that her life was better than mine. That’s definitely not an environment I wanted to be in, because even when my life is going wrong, she wants to say hers is worse. Our friendship shouldn’t be a competition, just because I understand that doesn’t mean she did or does. I don’t want someone always trying to be the core of any and all attention. That is ok, it’s her prerogative. I just don’t want to live like that.

So yes, I guess that friendship seems to be on its last legs.

I look back at what has changed and how I have changed and I can see all the ways that it is working out brilliantly. And I am great and happy with being a not always deliberate, deliberate creator.

Because now I am looking to the future. I am deciding what I want to do, how I want to live in this future that I am building.

When I close my eyes and let myself picture the future I think about waking up in the morning, laying in a warm bed and rolling over to find Dyl there beside me. Having extra cuddles before getting up, getting ready and getting organised to do something I love. I can see my vocation and passion being profitable. I can see myself sitting at my desk, re shuffling, looking through my papers and starting work, my fingers hitting keys after keys. Stopping for lunch and going for a short walk. Coming back and having a music lesson, before I settle down at the keys for another hour preparing tomorrows work. Taking a short break before I make a nice tasty dinner for the two of us. Relaxed and ready to watch some tv before bed. A lovely perfect day in the future, where life feels productive and simple. Being able to do that would be a wonderful dream world come true.

Sure one day that image would have to change, because that would be a great short term future, a great near future dream, but one day hopefully there will be the addition of kids to look after. So maybe that dream day schedule will change, but the core of it, being with the man I love, being able to pursue my passions (and it be profitable) and looking after our kids, to me, sounds like the most perfect future. And while I can’t wait for that future, I am in no rush. I know that the future is wide open and all sorts of things can happen, life doesn’t follow plans.

.: Entry One-Hundred and Ten :.

My name is Elliot Parker and I know I am the luckiest girl on the planet, even if I am the most heartbroken right now. Even if I am the most messed up I can be right now. Even if I am the coldest inside I have ever been, the most in pain I have been in years. It took a lot to get to get to this point again. But there is one difference, the one thing that is warming me up, the one thing that is right now, the brightest light, the brightest star in the galaxy. Dyl.

Some days, some nights, some stolen fractions of a morning, I just stop and have to thank my lucky stars. I feel safe with him, really safe, the kind of safe that won’t let me second guess a single thing. The kind of safe that I never imagined. From what started out as something so casual, something where I felt so afraid to fall to where I am now. It’s been the most amazing transformation. No matter how hard I had been fighting it, falling in love with Dyl now feels inevitable.

There’s that thing they say, you have three loves in your life. The first, the second and the third. The first taught me what I did and didn’t want and what I could withstand as a human, it made me grow in ways that I couldn’t have predicted, it made me change and loose the innocence of not knowing any better. The second was pretty much definitely Adrian, some kind of toxic mess. And the third (Dyl) they say lasts forever. I hope with no uncertainty that Dyl is that forever for me.

There’s that thing, he is lacking any real way to describe it as my soul mate. I love all the little nuances. Like the way his lips do this little curly smirky thing when he’s drinking. Or when is really, really happy, like crazy ecstatically happy and excited he smiles a certain way, his cheeks go all bright and he get those funny little dimply things and his eyes crinkle and twinkle. Now that, that is my favourite smile, my favourite face that he pulls. It could light the whole world; it really is the best smile ever. Even writing about it now, it makes me smile just thinking about it. I love seeing him happy it is like the world just seems to filter away a little. Seeing him excited, it really is like a child at Christmas, wide eyed and beautiful. The absolute best place in the world to me, is in his arms. The world just dissolves and falls away and becomes that blurry haze where it can’t harm me. Being in Dyl’s arms? It is like the safest, happiest place I can think of. I couldn’t compare it to anything in the world, I just can’t get enough of spending time with him.

I love baking with him every week, just a little something to do together. It’s fun and silly. He is the chief whisker and I do the measuring and do a little mixing when I get the chance. We have very different styles. He’s more make a mess on the baking tin when trying to put the cake mix in. I am more of a try to keep it neat kind of person, he says that’s where all the fun is. I say all the fun comes from baking with him and rolling my eyes at him when he says that. We are slowly getting more baking adventurous. To a degree. But it is fun to just spend that time working together. It’s the best fun and best thing to do on our day off together. That and watching lots of TV.

We watch all the shows we like to watch together, all kinds of silly things and some cooking shows, a couple of comedies. At the end of a day of doing not much and making lots of cakes, we lay in bed and we watch Cake Boss and chit chat before I inevitably fall asleep first. That is our usual pattern and it is perfect. Plus, it’s kind of cool I can burp like a bloke and be congratulated on it. Even though I can burp like a trouper, his farts could literally melt plastic and he is bizarrely proud of every single one no matter how much it makes the paint peel.

I guess I didn’t realise just how much I needed a relationship like this. A centre stone, a rock in all the chaos, especially at the moment. Dyl, has been so incredibly patient and I guess this is my way of saying my own kind of thank you, from the inside out. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful man in my life. I can’t wait to see what the future holds, there is so many wonderful things that I could say, that I could suggest. I just want this happiness to continue, our fun to continue.

I found my third love, the forever kind.

I don’t know how or why, but we just work, we are alike and polar opposites all at once sometimes. It is one of those things where I can reign my childish tendencies in a bit and do the responsible thing and then there goes Dyl flying by me reminding me its ok to cut loose once in a while. I don’t have to be responsible or switched on all the time. Sure enough I don’t doubt, he is the one. He loves me for who I am the good and the bad and I love him all the same, I love him from the bottom of my heart, even when he does a fart that could melt plastic and peel the wallpaper off the walls. It doesn’t feel like trying, it just feels so natural and so right, I have never been so certain of someone and something before. It feels incredible.

.: Entry One-Hundred and Nine :.

My name is Elliot Parker.

Last night was the first night in two weeks where there hasn’t been the unavoidable, unstoppable onslaught of tears before I sleep. Whether it was because I was willing it or because I felt a little better for having begun to tackle how I have been feeling.  There is some kind of inexplicable therapy in the form of getting a new tattoo. It can transform how you are feeling about something or somewhere. It makes sense I suppose; you are undergoing a transformation. It is a choice every time. I suppose that is the beauty of it, when you sign the consent form it is like signing to say, yes I am ready to transform and grow and turn whatever brought me through those doors emotionally into something beautiful. Getting a tattoo for me, it makes me feel better, stronger, transformative, different, brighter, newer… it just feels like some kind of preparation. Some kind of allowing on a different scale. Sure it hurts, a lot. This one hurt a tonne, I was glad I chose something smaller. But it was perfect. I let go of the executive decisions on colourings and let the artist take over, I trusted him to choose what would look best, as long as the pattern followed what I had in mind, and it did.

After the tattoo, it just felt easier, walking with the pain, like there was some connection forged where I didn’t feel so alone, as crazy as that sounds.

That’s when some of that caring a little more about myself kicked in, making some of those moving forward steps began to happen. I got home and ate dinner with nana, having a nice chitter chat about nothing in particular. I went and cleaned my tattoo off and put that first wonderful soothing layer of cream on to make it feel better. I loved it. I didn’t really think it through too much before getting the tattoo, I didn’t have major expectations for it, in fact I just had some vague idea and I couldn’t picture it on my skin until it was done and it was right, it was just exactly what it needed to be. It was me, I even found the colour pleasantly surprising, most of my other tattoos are black work with a little colour pop here and there, this was full colour and it was perfect. I couldn’t help but love what it was, it was the perfect symbol.

So yes anyway. I cleaned off my tattoo, came sat back down, put a base coat on my toes and watched whatever was on the TV, I can’t say I was paying much attention. Then I put on a nice shade of lilac I must have had for a few years that I have very rarely used. I treated myself to just feeling a little pampered. I painted my big toes in a different lilac, a similar shade but this one was super iridescent. It just felt nice, to have that little pampering. The lilac isn’t too far off the lilac that’s been used in my tattoo. I don’t have a blue nail varnish that would match my new tattoo, yet but I have seen one that would look like a gorgeous complementing colour.

It was a nice way to start putting some real self-care into action. I prepared my vitamins for a week while I was at it. I tidied up a tiny bit of my bedside table. I wrote in my book of positive aspects. My three good things that happened that day. I do it every day, it has become a bit of a comfort thing, I like it. It sounds like something small and insignificant, but it has helped me in so many ways. I relaxed and watched TV last night with my nana and spent the time chatting about anything and everything.

Going to bed was easy enough, sleeping is where it got harder. It was hard, falling asleep in the darkness, but it was the first time I didn’t fall apart at the seams. I can’t promise the same tonight but it doesn’t mean I won’t be trying to not try but to just be.

I just know that today I want to keep looking after myself a bit. While this computer took forever to sort itself out I trimmed, filed and painted my nails in some sparkly stuff that is called fairy spell unicorn addiction. I just liked the twinkle and sparkle and fun. It’s basically unicorn jizz- sparkly white stuff that has no real colour it’s sort of transparent but has a lot of sparkles and shimmers in it. Such a wonderful description right?

I guess I could say I had a good day at work, excruciatingly tired but it was essentially a good day.

Right now I am listening to Bring Him Home, a song that would usually make me cry but right now I feel strong enough to listen, strong enough to let it just be with me. To let it be my prayer for JJ, even though I don’t know where he is or what happened to him, it just feels like the kind of song I would be hugging him while listening to right now, because that is what I want to be doing right now. Hugging my big lump of a crazy dog. I don’t think there is any shred of doubt in me when I say I will never, ever, ever, ever forgive my mother for rehoming him without even letting me know, for hiding it for months, for not letting me find another, for not letting me have a choice, for not letting me even say goodbye. On what planet did she ever think that it was going to be a good idea, a forgivable action? How could she think there would be no consequence, not when there wasn’t a good enough reason to do that in the first place.