I haven’t been this excited since my Mum bought me a Cindy doll in 1988.

Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are is my favourite book of all time.  My Granddad bought me it when I was five years old, and a few months later I had listened to the story so many times that I could retell it word for word.  I made boats out of cardboard boxes and bed sheets, and pretended to sail away to the land in the story.

The book tells a tale of a little boy called Max, who’s mother calls him a Wild Thing.  His bedroom turns into a jungle, and he sails away across the sea to the Land of the Wild Things.  The Wild Things make him their king, but he misses home and sails back to his mother, where his supper is waiting for him.

Every class of children I’ve had have been told this story.  We’ve talked about our own families and about whether we’d like to go and visit the Land of the Wild Things.  Then we’ve made boats out of cardboard boxes and bed sheets, and ‘rowed’ across the ’sea’ to the other edge of the classroom, where vines hang and children in masks pretend to be Wild.

Needless to say, most of the children I’ve taught have grown to love this book as much as I have.  And I can’t express how excited I am about the movie.  Not because I think it will be better than the book, but because it will open the minds of children (and grown-ups) who don’t yet know the story.

The movie is out in October this year.  Do me a favour, and try watch it through the eyes of a child.  You never know, you might learn something about yourself.

Click here to view the movie trailer.

I am a quarter of a century old today.
(And coincidentally, this is also my blog’s 100th post)

I have done nothing I had planned to do before I hit this milestone.
And I am nowhere near.

I have done little I am proud of, and little that I regret.
My mistakes make me who I am, and my achievements are few and far between.

I am not a mother.
I am a substitute – a teacher.
Someone who borrows your children until 3.15pm, just to feel a little bit of their joy.

I am not a wife.
I am a dirty little secret.
Someone who is not quite good enough to risk a family for.

I am not myself.
I am treading water.
Someone who only knows the path home.

I am 25.  I have a whole lifetime ahead of me.
And it doesn’t feel like enough time.

Have The T-Shirt’s recent post has inspired me!  With the dismal cloud of Christmas looming over us, I’m going to follow in her footsteps, and make a list for Santa!

This isn’t a list of presents I’m going to buy other people, nor is it a list of presents I’d like.  It’s a list of (mostly unrealistic!! things I would love to have for Christmas (if I had a magic lamp, and a totally hot genie)..

- I’d like a dressing room.  Yes, an actual room.  A whole, enormous room dedicated mostly to shoes.

- I’d like a disgustingly enviable collection of shoes, of which at least 60% should be made by Jimmy Choo or Gina.

- Obviously, I’d need a bigger house in which to accommodate my enormous shoe collection.

- I’d like two Shar Pei puppies, who would absolutely, definitely, not eat/bite/annoy my little bundle of fluff (that would be my erm, cat.)

- It would be wonderful to not be allergic to my little bundle of fluff, whom I love dearly, but brings me out in a bugger of a rash.

- I want an extra button in my car, which, when pressed – emits a deafening voice that says “Stop driving up my ass, you incompetent dickhead.”

- Oh, and another button which (somehow) bitch-slaps any incompetent dickheads (particularly those driving 4×4s, who seem to think they can railroad my car off the frigging road..)

- Screw it, I’d like a super fast, super speedy, kick-ass, midlife-crisis car.  I don’t know what kind…  A sexy, dirty-hot one! :)

- I’d like to actually want to give up smoking, let alone have the willpower to do it.

- I’d like to just be qualified to teach, now, without having to actually train to do it (obviously all the knowledge would be stored somewhere in my brain, without me having to learn it).

- I don’t ever want to see a child suffer.  I want all the children I teach to come to school in warm, clean clothes, after a good nights sleep and a proper breakfast. I want to see parents who actually give a shit.

- I want my own childcare business, with wonderful staff, and plenty of money behind it.

- And a great big stack of cash.

- I’d like the finances, and the guts, to travel the world.

- I’d like to put my old boss out of business, and be able to laugh a great big “fuck you, lady.” right in her face. :X (Yes, I realise that makes me a massive bitch, but she totally deserves it.)

- I’d like my best friend to just not make a massive mistake, and to either get married and have it work out, or not get married and be ok with that.  Either way would be quite satisfactory, thank you!  Oh, and if he has to get married, could I please not look like a total dickhead in my bridesmaid dress? Pleeeease?

- I’d like the prospective-mother-in-law to not be such a racist assbag.  Or, if that’s slightly impossible, to just come with a mute button, so I can stop her mouth making so much pointless noise all the time.

- I’d like to have a steamy, kinky threesome with Alan Rickman and Mel Gibson (I’m aware he’s an ass, but my God, I would totally violate that man).

- I want to no longer be reliant on medication, for anything at all – to be healthy, without help.

- I want to live in France, with a vineyard at the end of my garden, and a filthy-hot gardener with a tight little bum and some polished abs, to erm.. garden?

- I want a baby.  And for the other-half to actually want a baby. Now. Or at least in the next year or so..

- I would love multiple orgasms. On a daily, is not half-daily basis.

- I’d like someone to say ‘Thank you’ for working so hard to make a difference to childrens lives.

- I want gambling to just disappear completely.  It ruins too many lives.

- I want an apology from a whole host of people, and forgiveness from a whole host more.

- I want fifteen minutes with my Granddad, to tell him how much I love him, and to ask him if he thinks I’m doing the right thing.

- I want a Happy Christmas, this year, just once.  No tears, no arguments, no stress, no fuss.

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
- Burton Hillis.

- Oh, and I want a totally hot, six foot tall Santa to appear on my doorsteps on Christmas Eve, so I can sit on his lap and tell him what I really want for Christmas. ;-)
(That’s such a sordid fantasy, I know, haha).

What’s on your list?

Visit Have The T-Shirt – you’ll love her as much as I do (I promise!).

Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated
- Allphonse de Lamartine

It’s over eighteen years since my Granddad died.  I’m close to the majority of my family, but I was closest to him.  And since the day he passed, the world has seemed a little emptier than it should.  There’s been a hole that nothing can fill.

The night he died, just before my 13th birthday, my Dad told my sister and I that our Granddad had passed away, and turned into a star in the sky, that would watch over us and keep us safe.  It was the most beautiful explanation of death I have heard, to this day.

And somehow, on days when I need them to, all the stars seem to shine a little brighter than usual.  As if someone really was up there, watching and guiding me.

I haven’t been inside a church since the last Sunday he was alive.  I don’t consider myself to be religious, and I don’t believe in God.  But I do believe that people live on.  And I know that he will live on in the hearts of everyone who was blessed enough to know him.

Happy Birthday, Granddad.  I miss you almost as much as I love you, still.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, not touched.
But are felt in the heart.
-Helen Keller

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
Marie Curie.

What were you most scared of as a child? Are you still scared of those same things now?

When I was a kid, I wasn’t scared of anything. There were no monsters under my bed, there were no skeletons in the closest.

Falling over and hurting myself was a daily occurrence – that certainly didn’t scare me. I wasn’t scared of children bigger than me, grown-ups, animals, birds..

Daddy would get rid of anything scary. Nothing could hurt me, because Daddy would get anything that was scary before it got to me. Simple as that.

And now?
I’ve got a list.

I’m scared of moths, dogs, small enclosed spaces, spiral staircases, being buried alive, failure. And that’s just a small selection of things that freak me out.

What Marie Curie said, in my opinion, was complete crap. In understanding comes fear. I understand that dogs can bite me, that I could swallow a moth in my sleep, that I could get trapped in a small enclosed space, that I could fall down a spiral staircase to my death, that I could accidentally be buried before I’m dead, and that I might fail when it matters most.

It always makes me smile a bit when I watch kids on climbing frames, clambering as high as they can get – then holding on with just one hand, waving and shouting for me to look at them. They’re afraid of nothing. There’s no chance, as far as they’re concerned, that they might fall and crack their head open. There’s no fragment of doubt in their mind that they will succeed, and if they don’t – someone will help them to find the way to the top.

Nothing’s scary when there’s someone to hold your hand, to turn on the lights and chase the monsters out from under your bed.

But if you’re out there on your own – whether you’re five, fifteen or fifty – the world’s a quite a scary place.

Joshua Hoffine - Horror Photography

After ignoring my calls for a significant amount of time, my best friend called, and said the three words I dreaded most..

“Can we talk?”

And so, we talked.
(Well, he bullshitted, and I listened.)

“I didn’t mean it, any of it, it was just pre-wedding jitters, and I’m sorry.
I know I’m an asshole for complicating things, so can you just punch me or something so we can go back to normal?”

How can it be ‘pre-wedding jitters when they have literally only just got engaged? Everything should be full of excitement and love!

I tried very hard to explain what was preventing us from going back to ‘normal’, but he just didn’t get it.

It wasn’t that I wanted to marry him, it wasn’t that I wanted to entertain the idea of anything more than friendship between us, it wasn’t that I didn’t want him to marry her. It was quite simply just that I didn’t want him to make a mistake.

As far as I’m concerned, we’ll probably both end up settling for someone who isn’t quite everything we’ve always wanted. But I don’t see why that matters, if you go into it with your eyes open. I don’t need a husband who’s going to be my best friend, I just need a husband (applications in the post, please!). I see no problem with keeping those roles completely separate. He, however, seems to have an issue with being closer to me than he is to his fiancé. But you can’t steal someones history, all you can do is make your own, over time.

He loves her, she loves him, I like her – how could I possibly think that their marriage will be a mistake?
Because, before he’s even got the ring on her finger, he’s trying to change her into someone else.

And that, is a recipe for marital suicide.

As for us, we’re trying. Everyone makes mistakes, and our motto has always been to forgive and forget.
We’re not ‘back to normal’. The dynamics of our relationship has changed in such a way that, I’m not entirely sure I know him as well as I thought I did. Forgiving is a given for us, but forgetting.. How do you forget something like that, when wedding plans are being forced in your face on a daily basis?

I think he’s making a terrible mistake, and I hope to hell and back that I’m proved wrong.

This site contains a (strangely, horizontal..) list of polaroid pictures of real people, each with a caption that states what that person would like to do before they die.

Here are some of my favourites polaroids from the site..

What do you want to do before you die?

My answer is below. :-)

My best friend is getting married. (Yes, he beat me to it, the bastard.)

Thank God we wont have to honour our 30-year-old-and-single agreement though (everyone has one of those, right?). The thought of spending the second half of my life sleeping next to his hairy back and loud snoring is enough to tip anyone over the edge, no matter how desperate and middle aged they might get.

I was over the moon when he told me he was going to propose to her, and even more over the moon (if that’s possible..) when she said yes. I cried (happy-cried!) when they announced their engagement, and almost died of shock (and fear) when his fiancé asked me to be her bridesmaid (let’s face it, it’s not like I could have been best man).

And so, we celebrated their engagement in the traditional way. We went out, got ridiculously drunk, ate a burger from a van on the way home, and when everyone else collapsed on their beds – my best friend and I carried on drinking, and collapsed on the kitchen floor, about 6am, in each others arms. Just like old times.

Somewhere in between all those drunken frolics, there was the moment when my best friend decided to pull me to one side and inform me (me, the fucking bridesmaid, who was helping his fiancé plan the wedding, choose the dresses, the flowers, the car, the everything) that actually, he ‘probably shouldn’t be getting married’ to his fiancé. I asked why not, and he said

Because, actually, I should probably be marrying you.

F-uck.

I’ve known my best friend since we were kids. We’re actually more like brother and sister than we are friends. He’s probably the only person in the world that I’d actually and honestly lay down my life for. I love him more than anyone I’ve ever met or will ever meet. But I don’t love him.

I dealt with the situation in the most mature manner I could muster after one (or twelve) too many beers.. I handed him a shot of tequila and told him not to be a tit.

An arguably more sober attempt at the conversation, the next morning, revealed more than I wanted to hear.

No one understands me like you, and no one understands everything about you like me. She’s not you, she doesn’t compare. I love her, but she’s not everything. She’s not you. I’ve never tried to love you, I ruled it out, I just stopped at platonic.. How can I marry a woman who I’m constantly hoping will be more like you? Better with kids, better at listening, better at making me laugh. Better at loving me. Better at just being you.

I’d known this man before he could even be called a boy. I had known him when he pulled my hair and knocked my sandcastles down. I’d never even entertained the thought that we were meant to be anything more than best friends, phone-calls at 4am friends, share a bed and actually sleep friends. And in that awful moment, somewhere between wanting her to be better, wanting her to change, wanting her to be more like me, and wanting me to just be more – we lost everything we’d built over 15 years.

And now, I’m torn between helping his fiancé plan this farce of a wedding, and telling my best friend to pull himself together, and pull out. She is perfect for him. But in all honesty, I get it. I get that no one compares, I get that no one will ever be enough. I get that sometimes you stay with someone who isn’t quite your everything.

But truthfully, I expected more from him. And honestly, I’m scared that everything we had was built on a lie. I’m scared that we will never find anyone who comes close to what we are to each other. That we’ll never find anyone who has 4am phone calls with Joni Mitchell playing in the background, that we’ll never find anyone who doesn’t judge us, who doesn’t forgive and forget like we do.

I’ve never met anyone who I can honestly say I’ve wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Not even the-other-half. Because I’ve always known that I’ve got a proper other-half, one who I don’t need to marry to spend the rest of my life with – one who will just be there, no matter what.

It’s not about settling. It’s about knowing when you’re lucky, knowing when you’ve got something that most people spend their whole lives searching for.

And knowing that, has, and always will be more than enough for me. Because we’ve got more than most people find in an entire lifetime. And to risk friendship for love, for marriage and sex, and all those traditional, expected mistakes – would be giving up something more precious than we will ever be blessed to find again.

I never loved a man
I trusted
As far as I could pitch my shoe..
’til I loved you.
I’m a lucky girl,
I found my friend..
( Joni Mitchell – Lucky Girl )

Muhammad Ali said that children make you want to start life over. That quote sums up exactly how I feel about my new job.. It was a chance to start over, and I certainly feel as though I have and I do, every single day.

I get up at 6am every morning to be greeted with cuddles and kisses, instead of deadlines and meeting schedules. For the first time in over eight years, I eat breakfast, I smoke less, and I haven’t had a drink in over a month.

I’ve made more than a few sacrifices to get here. But there is nothing I miss. Nothing I regret about making this decision.

- There are twenty two reasons why, that greet me every morning with smiling faces, and the question,

What are we going to do today?

I think the most beautiful thing about children is the innocence that allows them to greet each new day with excitement and hope. The answer to their question?

We can do, make, be, absolutely anything we want to.

Every child in that classroom believes in that statement, and in me.
And so do I.