10th September 2016

As I sit here in my kitchen drinking my normal morning coffee, in the same house that I live in every day, with my dog Freddy, it is just another day…apart from today it isn’t. 10 years ago my cousin Matt was killed. It has changed me from who I was before. Not quite as much bounce resides in me, I have a constant worry in the back of my mind (could this happen again) and I live with the loss of Matt every day. Some days more than others don’t get me wrong, but it is always there. Sometimes it’s the painful memory but I am lucky that a lot of the time it is through happy memories, such as watching the sun set. It is these positives that I try to focus on the most. My favourite memory of Matt is that he would called me his ‘favourite cousin’. Now I know he will have loved us all the same, but for me it always meant so much. Matt was a lot older than me and I was the youngest of all the cousins. Sarah and Alan are very close in age and so Matt would always go out of his way to make sure I was having fun too and never felt left out. He was someone who lived to look after other people, he was such a fun and loving person who also had a very dry sense of humour. There is a picture of me and Matt back in 1991 standing by the garages at our house in Threshfield, even though it’s one of the memories that happened furthest away in time, it is certainly the one that is closest to my heart. As soon as I look at this photo I instantly feel loved by Matt and am reminded of a very happy childhood, which was luckily spent growing up seeing all of my cousins. It reminds me of the fact that he isn’t here but it’s a different feeling now than before. Sure the underlying feelings are the same but the way I have experienced them has changed over the past 10 years. I remember the extreme wave of sadness and pain that was felt initially, followed by such anger which I chose to direct at the driver responsible. It still turns my stomach writing that but it is different to before. For a while it consumed me, it was all I could see, all I could feel and that is a very dark place to be in. Over time though this started to subside, the difficulty was the lack of understanding and to this day, it is the part I struggle with the most; but I have to let that struggle go, a person cannot live struggling with such huge questions. I have to let that go. That was most certainly the hardest part to understand, that letting that struggle go did not mean I was letting Matt go. I am left with the memory, the love, the joy that he brought to me and many others. I am left with the picture of his smile and not of a car. I have changed because of all this but it is not all negative; I love harder, I appreciate the wonders of our beautiful world more, I have a deep feeling of beauty at every sunset I see, I am even more grateful to have my sister and she is my best friend in the world. I have changed. But I am still me.

not feelin so good right now....

im not sure whats going on at the moment, im getting on with my life fine, just started uni all new beginings and that but i seem to be getting constant waves of realisation about whats happened in my life. i cant seem to move on from them or learn how to live with them. all i can see is so many people being taken away, even midge, a dog of a friend of ours got put down and ive known her since i was about 7 i think we worked out. and i know shes only a dog but honestly when u feel as crap as i do it is a much bigger event than normal, then stephan gately...it confuses me. ive always had death around, i lost grandma when i was 6 so i understand the natural process of death but its when there is no reason for it. it hurts me every single day, some days i dont want to get out of bed. the thought of going to church is hard as i dont feel i belong there anymore, ive never been a strong believer in heaven, personally i just want this to be it, live life then done. much easier to get ur head around. i know i sound so depressing but this is just how i feel and this is my only outlet where i speak truthfully. im not even gonna read this back cz i dnt want to read it lol. im just writting because my head is so full i cant sleep. its full of questions and my heart is full of hurt. i just wish i had a restart button and i could wake up in the morning with no more hurt, no more pain, no more wondering why dave didnt want me, why people that i care about the most have been taken away from me or moved away from me, just dont want any more....

its coming up,,,,,

ok so in just over a months time im gonna have to go through the one year marker of loosing my dear friend mark. of all days its on fathers day!

ive just been lookin at articles on the internet about him and have come across one with a picture of the accident on it and you can really see just how bad it was. i wasnt expecting to see it and its broken me, i havent grieved yet for mark as i cant come to terms with what has happened and have just been thinkin he's at uni this whole time. but now that ive seen this picture it seems to have released it all and right now im even struggling to breath...it hurts. my friend is gone. and i want him back. i know that life is unfair but this is just too far, i honestly dont think i will last out if i loose anyone else, im broken and im gettin further away from being mended... i know im still gonna have my good days, you always do, and i have college to concentrate on, i cant let it take over my life but right now, at this very moment in time i am broken beyond reapair and my whole body hurts with the pain of loosing my friend

another day full of memories......

so... tomorrow is marks birthday. i hate that there are so many days in the year that will bring up the memory of people lost. it is also a good thing too but right now its hard to see the good side, currently these kinda days just make me feel empty all over again, especially with mark. i still cant quite come to terms with it all even now. i missed his funeral because i was on a plane to ecuador and i think for me that has had a massive impact on the reality of it all for me. it just feels like hes still at uni but then days like tomorrow come along, and thats when you know that something isnt right because instead of all going out to the pub, were all sat being quiet, thinking, remembering.....

strike two!

sunday morning - 00:12am

me and my friend poz were woken up by my parents with some terrible news, one of our dearest friends has been killed. mark was killed in a car accident on the saturday afternoon at around 3.30pm.

his funeral is due to be on either the tuesday or wednesday of the following week.
i am meant to be flying out to ecuador on the monday of that week.

i have so far come to the conclusion that life is shit.

i had been gettin on so well with what happened to matthew and literally a month ago i felt a huge change inside me like it was all gonna be ok, and then just as im back on my feet i get thrown back to the ground!

i know that life isntfair and that god does not always intervean but i personally right now feel that there is something not right here and that there are two people who have been takenfrom my life for no valid reason at all.

i am still in total shock, half denile, floods of realisation and then anger(the one im scared of)

what to say...

the past few days have been so hard, espesh this friday just gone. i was having a great day, trying to have a good memory day as it was now 11 months since matthew left. it was getting so hard and half way through the night i had to just stop and let it all out. i just couldnt face the thought of knowing what we are all gonnna be facing in a months time, less than that now. its a horrid thought and i know im not making it any better for myself by thinking about it being hard as that will then make it hard but i cant help it. it strange to think that this time last year we were all so happy so unaware of the tragady that was soon to strike our lives. and yet i still dont feel like i have come to terms with it in the slightest. ive been distracting myself which isnt always a good thing. like not going down to birmingham, i need to go but it will be too real so i don't. im sure that in time i will make it down again cause i love all you guys there so much and i never want you to think any different.

i feel bad for all of you reading this as i never seem to post very happy blogs but this is my outlet i guess for when my head gets too full at work and i need to scream or burst into tears, so now, instead, i write. it helps if only for the next half an hour.

hello hello

its been along while since my fingers have touched these keys, too long, so here i am back again! the past few months like the ones before have been filled with ups and downs. at the moment i have been struggling so much with my faith and i decided to talk to dave (my boyfriend who is not a christian) about this, and i think i got more from him than talkin to super holy people! he was just open and honest and didnt try to make things sound complicated and i think thanks to him that i will be staying at church as i was seriously thinkin about jacking it all in, its not that i dnt believe it, i do, i just don't really want to, it seems to make my life feel more complicated, i feel let down by god and without thinkin about it all it just makes life crap which doesn't feel half as bad as being let down and hurt by your 'father'.

anywhos my ups have been great and i am now thinkin of looking for a new job, as there are only a few things in life that you have control of and this is one of them so i shall try turn the things in my life round that i dont like and then hopefully when the uncontrollable things hit i wont have a deep hole to fall into just a safty net!

ta ta for now one and all!