Now What?

*Personal Blog*

I actually really very nearly asked Google ‘how to relax’
All my chores are up to date, laundry, cleaning and the unpleasant task of doing the loo! (a weekly must on boat life) I don’t need to go shopping. It’s raining, so I can’t decorate outside. I could carry on with the sanding and varnishing inside. I could…

Or I could try something unique for me… Relaxing…
Chill out, without being exhausted. Nibble crisps, without feeling guilty.
Watch a movie from beginning to end without jumping up every few scenes to do something (that usually could wait) Even the cats are out!

So how do I relax?

I have the whole day to myself, for myself. Which is unique, I feel happy about this fact instead of frustrated. I might even try this ‘binge watching’ thingy… I brought the dvd box set of Taboo weeks ago and not had the time to watch a single episode yet… That could be a good way to relax…

I wonder why I find it so hard to do nothing?
Why I’m always filling my life with ‘things to do’
Some would say that I’m trying to hide from issues.
In reality, the truth is far more simple. 

I feel that I have already wasted too much of my life in front of the ‘Simpsons’ and channel hopping for hours, throwing wine down my neck to relieve the boredom of an unhappy life.
I have watched my Grandmother and then in turn my Mother both become glued to the tube, both becoming reclusive, agoraphobic and angry at a world, they refused to venture out into.

I have wasted too many  (depressed) hours, crippled with the inability to move physically, locked inside my mind.  These are the remnants of my old life, who I used to be. 

I am so busy, I fill days with adventures, with work, with chores, I keep myself busy because I feel like I have wasted enough of my life already.

So to relax, to have a day to myself, for myself is a day to be treasured. For I need to learn that these are important too that I am allowed down time… I need down time, or I burn out and sleep for a whole day, that’s not a pretty sight!

So here I am, writing to relax, pondering over how I can enjoy my day (guilt free) before my next adventure tomorrow morning…

Anne Harrison 23.07.17

…and now for something completely different! (again)

The Guardian of the Glasses – A musical adventure… 

Vol. 2. – The 80’s

The Beat

“Mirror in the Bathroom”

1980

Duran Duran

Wild Boys

1984

Anthrax

Madhouse

1985

Hawkwind

Needle Gun

1985

Huey Lewis and the News

“The Power of Love”

1985

Mike + The Mechanics

Silent Running

1985

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Tupelo

1985

Paul Hardcastle

19

1985

The Cult

“She Sells Sanctuary”

1985

PiL

Rise

1986

MARRS

Pump Up The Volume

1987

Sisters of Mercy

“This Corrosion”

1987

Ministry

“Stigmata”

1988

Alannah Myles

Black Velvet

1989

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Anne Harrison 06.07.17

Dear Diary…

*Personal Blog*

I know I’m not in a good place, when anything I start writing begins with ‘Dear Diary’ …
It’s like my safety blanket,  this is where I need to pour forth my soul and if you are not interested, please return when my writers block has scooted away and I feel more human again… I hereby apologise in advance for a little self indulgent emotional drama…

On Wednesday 7th June,  this week just gone, this day should have been Mum’s birthday. I suppose it still is her birthday in a way…

It has been six months since I lost my Mother and I am stillI unable to cry, I refuse to talk about her death in detail to anyone,  I hardly ever talk about the slow dwindling decline I witnessed throughout the duration of 2016. Apart from a few scattered blogs, where I feel safe writing,  yet only ever hinting,  skipping around the surface of details with no desire to elaborate. I find myself carrying a whole years worth of pain and suffering,  totally unspoken.

Upon days, like birthdays,  these surface,  they rob me of my sleep and gnaw away at my thoughts… I want to pour my heart out and all I say is “I’m fine”
It’s nothing,  it’s hormones,  the full moon, wrong time of the month, headache,  my knee is troubling me… all the various bull shit excuses I can lean on without having to explain the truth behind tear less eyes…

I think I’m honestly struggling and I don’t know how to reach out or who to reach out too and there again… what would I say?
There are no details here! There are no haunting memories laid bare.
Just empty words and an aching heart…

Maybe it is simply hormones and I’m feeling grotty… I feel stuck in a cycle of inactivity because I can’t move forward… trouble is,  I don’t know how to…

So Wednesday has been and gone, with respectful passing thoughts.
I keep myself so busy that I just don’t give myself time to think. 
Today I utterly crashed out,  I have lost all spoons and fell asleep during the day  (unheard of for me) and my knee really does hurt and my tummy ache is quite real.

So is the pain in my heart…

Thank you for taking the time to read my words, if you have got this far, please allow me to reassure you that I am quite alright  (mostly) I just really needed some space and time to pour my hurt into words… and…

Anne Harrison 10.06.17

Forgotten Poetry

 

Anne Harrison

Posted – 26.05.17

Written – Date Unknown…

There’s nothing so cruel as memory

*Person Musings*

 

As a child, my first experience of being humiliated and disillusioned was a painful experience at Sir Jonathan North. I was deeply passionate about history, I wanted to study history and either be a historian, librarian or work in a museum. That was my goal, my fascination with ancient cultures… Especially the Romans, meant that I had collected a fine display of Roman pottery and coins. When we covered this era in history class, I was beyond excited and chose to take my collection to class to share in a ‘show and tell’…

Well that was a disaster, my class ‘friends’ mocked my collection… Calling the whole thing a waste of time and boring etc…
My bubble was burst, I was disheartened and at that point neglected my life goals, feeling humiliation and bullied…

My passion became a dirty secret, I lost a lot of the pottery (because it reminded me of being bullied) but somewhere in my heart the ancient Romans refused to let go of my interest…

So when the chance arose to visit the dig site in Leicester last weekend, I couldn’t resist, waiting an hour in drizzle and cold with hundreds of others, for a glimpse of Roman Leicester awoken some of my passion, but also a fair deal of humiliation.

However it has thrown into light an interesting concept in my mind, how one painful experience changed the whole direction of my life, because I was bullied for something I loved… Had I not took comments so personally, had I shrugged off such negative attitudes, would I have never been bullied for so long?

Had I just ignored them, would I have followed my dream, fulfilled my goals and become an academic? How different could my life had been had I reacted differently to one singular event?

 

Anne Harrison 15.05.17

Gathering my Thoughts

Reflecting on current events…

I’ve not written to you for a while,  mainly because I’ve been exploring regions with limited WiFi, which can be nice. To step back in time to an era where your phone isn’t pinging every few moments with a new ‘like’ on something someone else said weeks ago and is still doing the rounds…

Secondly, I have not written as I have needed to give myself some time to (try) and process a very traumatic event last week.  Mostly I fear I’ve become some dandy snowflake, easily offended and reduced to tears by harsh words. Yet being threatened with my life, feels like more than simple harsh words. Even if the threat was shallow and directed at not just me personally… I saw my companion shaking so deeply with shock, that in reality,  even harsh words may have a physical effect.

Forgive me if I am unable to go into detail regarding events. However I can assure you that this did not happen abroad,  but instead on home soil. Even writing so much, so vaguely makes me feel ill at ease inside. My nerves and anxiety have taken days to calm down, my thoughts churn events like a tornado of words…

I am reduced to a weak and feeble female and I hate the fact that someone can destroy my peace of mind so wretchedly. I need to regain myself and my independent spirit that ventured forth to begin with.

I can not allow one bitter vile person to ruin who I am, when in reality I (hopefully) will never cross paths with them again.

But currently, I just need a little time…

… Thank you for reading x

Anne Harrison 01.05.17

Sweet Dreams

 

Sometimes thoughts can be so overwhelming that there is only solitude in sleep…

 

 

Anne Harrison 04.04.17

On the Ledge

A Personal Blog

 

I had a dip, you might have noticed in some earlier thoughts I shared, mainly regarding losing my Mother and being reminded of this by the fact that my Parents Wedding Anniversary and Mothers Day being within three days of each other.

My Blog is my safe little corner of this cyber world, here I have always felt safe to express myself and write more than I could ever say in person and I write only a fraction of what I would like to say.

Having this space has given me the ability to work through my emotions and safely express myself, no one is forced to read my words and no one is obliged to reply, which places me in a comfortable situation. My life is interwoven with my ongoing ‘Not-so-short-short-story’ and I can find some measure of peace of mind.

A fellow Blogger recently sent me these precious words of wisdom:

So I started to write, and write I did… It took me three days to write the following notes and even though I know I am not an expert in such thingies, you need to understand that I wrote these words for me… I know that sounds selfish, yet at the same time, I am sharing them… Because maybe, only maybe, they just might resonate to someone else out there in cyberspace…

*Dedicated to all those who find themselves lingering on the ledge*

 

With Love,

Anne Harrison 30.03.17

The Face of Depression

A Personal Blog…

I was utterly horrified when an old photo of me surfaced at work. Taken near the start of my current job,  around 2010/2011 time… I am beyond embarrassed,  so here I am,  sharing the monstrosity on the bloody Internet instead of putting it through the shredder…  Because, my very first thought when I looked upon myself from (not that many) years ago, was ‘OMG… I was so unhappy’…

It was that thought which compelled me to keep the photo and to share the photo.  This is the face of Depression,  this was me at my lowest ebb, this was the self destructive,  self harming, suicidal,  drinking, eating junk, miserable and ill… I was slowly killing myself and I hated myself…

This is my face and I’m wearing my depression in my eyes, it lays heavily on my shoulders along with the weight I was carrying.  This is me, this is who I was and I can’t hate her,  she’s my past,  she’s all the horrible things I’ve been through… But she survived… Because she is me…

This is me now, this is who I am, who she came to be…  I no longer live with depression… It’s been a long path, that journey to self love,  to love life and grasp crazy adventures (like Glass Walking)…

If I had given up,  if I had vanished into the bottom of another empty wine bottle,  I would never had thought I could have achieved all I have done in just a few short years.

I am not perfect, but I don’t need to be perfect. I still have moments where I’m gripped by anxiety and  I am still overweight (Damn You Cake!)…

I never anticipated that I could change my life around so much,  so drastically… Sometimes you need that blast from the past, that smack in the face to help you understand just how far you have come and give you the courage to continue…
Love Anne x

09.03.17

Character Portfolios

Putting Faces to Names

Just in case you wondered who was who in the attached PDF, I’ve managed to do some wonderful funky editing to pull the images out of the document. I had invited my lovely invisible audience out there to guess which image related to which character in my on-going, not-so short story… The images are fairly  old and have been horded in my note book pages for numerous years, so long ago that I’ve lost the original picture files and I suspect they were from Tumblr once upon a time…

So, if you are curious to know who is who please read on…

Let me start with a confession… I think the phrase ‘in my note book pages for numerous years’ might have given you a clue, these are really old characters, roughly connected to an ancient D&D game, dating back centuries, lost in the mists of time… Well, my teenage years actually…

So without further ado, I shall introduce you to the first couple (above) meet Lord Death and his only daughter Lilly. I realise that the concept of Death has been used in various forms of fiction from The Sandman to Terry Pratchett  the reminder of our fragile mortality has been transformed into a physical character, a Grim Reaper. The idea of Death as a Father, to actually create life, gives Death himself an ounce of mortality… Lilly herself was a silent beauty who held some of her fathers skills, yet she could also stay his hand, therefore she was sometimes known as Mercy.

Brooding Gothic Characters, handsome male models, Vampires, Werewolves and fashion magazines have all forms the basis of inspiration. Picking names from thin air, falling in awe with sexy eyes and establishing a background story for nothing more than a picture on a poster (or Tumblr)…

Allow me to introduce Storm, above, please don’t let those dreamy eyes fool you, he’s a vicious killer, an assassin, the head of the guild Stormground…

This whisky slugging, shadow hugging sex bomb is known as Sandy, a member of Stormground and a little rule breaking ambitious rogue. A thorn in the side for Storm and a law unto himself…

I honestly can’t remember if I used this rather dreamy image for Elsam or his Son Nathainial… Both are Pirates, Pit Fighters, General Thugs and the ultimate unwilling hero… Both would be far happier in the pub with their mates, but usually ended up saving the world, accidentally…

Meet Storm’s Brother Akdov, who also has the dubious honor of being Sandy’s father. He is the silent partner in Stormground. More of a business man than a killer, he lets others get their hands bloody while he takes a cut and sets up contracts… His business ventures have spread widely through the underground, including various bars, gambling dens and whore houses. Life generally would be perfect, if he didn’t have to keep bailing Sandy out of trouble…

Apologies, this image did not transfer well out of the PDF… However, I should like you to meet Lorn Blackthorn and his lover Scarlet. Both are vampires, if the picture is too distorted to tell. They have a distinctive love/hate relationship, both too alike in their thirst for power and blood for truly love one another without hating each other.

Our final character in this Rogues gallery is Feral, he’s a thief, with quite a good reputation for causing mischief and pranks. He’s a soft heated fool with a wicked sense of humor and enjoys a challenge to really push his abilities, without getting caught!

***

I honestly feel a little weird about introducing you all to these characters, they have been with me for so many years, so long ago they were hatched into an evil plot somewhere on a game board, their actions determined upon the roll of a dice. I feel weird giving them life here, so far removed from what I’m currently writing, yet there is also a fraction of tales which remains the same. I don’t know if I will ever give them life again, or if they simply remain in character limbo, trapped in a picture, until I give them a storyline.

I think the last irony I will leave you with, before this post drags on too long. None of the pictures actually ‘look’ like any of the characters!!

… Yeah, that confused me too …

 

Anne Harrison 21.02.17