Safe:
I'm in my safe place. Do you have one of those? A place you can go to feel safe? A place you're glad you can always get to? For me it was often bed. Or a person. But it's getting recently to a place where I have started to doubt people. There, I said it out loud (or I just typed it. Hold on... There - I said it). I don't know how it happened. I used to be the usniversal believer in people being there for one another, not afraid of being selfless or afraid to listen to people. Becasue I do know in truth that's all you can really do for someone when they're being washed away.

But maybe mostly since the Dom thing, I don't believe much in the milk of human kindness. It#s going sour. Although - to say this discredits all my wonderful friends. So I won't. I guess it's just easier to doubt when you've seen it happen before. But this is another subject, I was talking about my safe place.

Walking down the street with Emmet I said "you know, if the gates of Trinity were open now I'd go and sit in the prefab." They were open. And here I am in the prefab. As I stepped through the gates I breathed a sigh of releaf that they'd not stopped me. I felt at ease. I felt safe. I didn't care that I won't make it to bed yet another night. And I really think that's an issue. Bed was my safe place. Bed equalled home for me. And I don't feel at home anywhere anymore. I didn't feel at home when I was at home. I don't feel at home in Christchurch. I've spent less time in that bed since I moved in (officially two weeksa ago according to Nora) I've slept three nights in it. Two with James, one with Johnny and one (aparently) with Rachel. I've never slept alone in that bed.

And I feel a little miffed after the gig. Especially after the dreams I've been having of late. Especially after admitting to myself I've gone out with my last two boyfriends for the wrong reasons and - I'll say it again - I am not sorted. I'm not ready for the relationship I know I need right now. So I was thinking about what I'm becoming and what will become of me and I ended up getting a little indoor upset. Watching Rufus and Martha on stage I was so happy to see them, but more that that? I was jealous. That's what I've been looking for the last few weeks when I say home. Not parents, but siblings. That don't exist. Not except Paul and Ain - who are my brother and ex-sister - and Louise. Hold on though. Blood-ties are a whole nother post as well.

Where the true safe post begins:

I must have spent twenty nights here. I mist have been here over fifty times. When I need to be somewhere I am here. Like I say, bed used to be my safe place. You can curl up and know nothing is going to happen. That you won't need to get out of it, that you're alone in it and no one is going to be there or care what you look like when you're in it. I think maybe the point is, for a long time, there's always been someone in my bed. Since ebby, through Dom and with Johnny, even when it's been a random, I've often gotton up from bed in the night and slept on the floor to be by myself. And the next moening everyone asks why I'm sleeping else where and I don't think I've answered properly in a long time. It's becuase I need to just be. And be alone at that. Often at night, when my head's been set reeling. I just can't share a bed.

And yes, bed is still safe, but if I was at home I'd be able to go for a walk and sit by the sea. It's the same thing. If I'm here I'm here. It used to be "If I'm here past 12:30 I can't get the Laus home," and now it's "if I'm here past 12:30 I can't walk home through Christchurch." I come here and I can be. t's warm. It's light. The security guards can't see you. You're ok here. You won't hurt yourself here. You don't need to be anything. You can just be and be here.

There is a tree outside that I've wittnessed throughout the year loose its leaves, become bare and covered in frost, grow buds and explode back into bloom. I think even if I had the interent elsewhere. If I had a lap top I could use at home, I'd still come here.

When things get too much I come and sit in the prefab and turn off and stop worrying. It's kind of like being on a bus journey or a train (my other favourite places) becuase once you're on it you've no responsibility, you've no need to do anything and no way of doing anything. You're absolbved of living. Imagine - this is my week in europe. This is my holiday, sitting here in a warm white box and typinf til my heart is lighter. And that's what I plan for the night. Indeed, I'm even known for being here. People expect it of me.

When there are no friends around or nothing is going well - if I've no where to be or can't communicate, I'll be here, just waiting it out. Just waiting for the real and the metaphorical sunrise. And I feel safe. Safe. What a word. It's a word in itself.

adj. saf·er, saf·est
Secure from danger, harm, or evil.
Free from danger or injury; unhurt: safe and sound.
Free from risk; sure: a safe bet.
Affording protection: a safe place.

Free from danger - as in not in danger of anything I can't control. I'm safe and sound. Everything is fine. I'm not injurred. My favourite is free from risk. Becuase risk is a self-made danger. I'd no doubt be taking risks with myself when I'm unstable and not here. And I guess I wish I could stay here. Which means stay protected - which means I feel unsafe else where, which means elsewhere I'd suffer from danger which means... there is danger in my life. And I'm protecting myself, since no one else truly can. Or so they'd tell you. And I think when it comes to friends that what I'm beginning to loose fait in: the fact that other people can protect. Because when I think about the night I freaked out and called Dom - he couldn't protect me. And I know that distance is an excuse for that, but that's not what I mean - not physical protection - I mean protecting my mind, allowing me forum, allowing me to rise out some kind of inner darkness. And I don't have that with anyone becasue as far as the people in my life go I feel either that thaey a) can't protect me or b) won't protect me.

So I guess what I want is to feel protected. And also to prive I can protect. And I once asked someone would you rather be in a safe relationship or a happy one. True, the word changes in that context - safe meaning that someone is not risking anything in their life by being in the relationship. But maybe that's something that needs to be redefined. I don't want to do things that would risk the relationship, (or maybe I do, but I do want to keep taking risks. I guess maybe I want someone who'll take risks with me, weather that means allowing them selves to be vulnerable to me or allowing us both to be vulnerable to the effects of the world. In a good way and in a bad way.

I will share a very private moment here. When I was at home I went into the backyard with a cup of tea to have a cigarette. I was wearing my jacket and my pants and my mind began to drift. It was spitting rain and the sky was gray and my mind was wandering as I looked at the clouds. And it lead me to a little daydream where I was in france, at someones country cottage, we were visiting friends and my fella was there. My future fella. And I'd come out to join them in the garden and in the dream I was wearing my jacket and my pants and was driunking tea and smoking. For a moment I was in my fellas mind, and his thought was "God... I love andy becuase he's the kind of guy who would wander into the yard in his jacket and underware with a cup of tea to have a smoke." And that is how I dream of love. Those are my terms.

And nothing's changed. I said long ago that loving someone was being caught smiling at them and them not understanding why. Being loved is catching someone smiling at you and not understanding why. Like the REM song:

I read bad poetry
Into your machine.
I save your messages
Just to hear your voice.
You always listen carefully
To awkward rhymes.
You always say your name,
Like I wouldn't know it's you,
At your most beautiful.

And here's admission number three of my night. I want love. God do I want love. God am I bored of sex and thrills and lonelyness. And of non-commitment, of people who scan the room in case better comes along. Of people 'keeping their options open.' The thing is, I know, much a sI want it, I'm not ready for it. I am not sorted. I am not fixed up. And I don't want to be in a relationship again that evolves with my being fixed. I don't want to be with someone so they can look after me. I want to be with someone who I can build with. I don't want them to make a safe place for me. I don't want to have to try and get them to build with me. Love is archetecture. You have to discuss where you want the wings to be, where the windows on the turret should look out - do you need two balconies? And you both bring skills - one of you mentions that the sun will be blocked out if it faces north. The other remembers that it's hard to plumb an upstairs kitchen. It's building together. Choosing colours that you'll both be able to live in.

God - sharing a bed room is the one thing I dread about love. Becuase sometimes I need protection that can't be found in bed. And if he's always to be found in bed - if it's our house, where will I go then? What is the 'prefab' of a relationship? Anyway. The prefab will do for now. I think it's time to write.