Stopped Ruttin'!

"I'm infinitely frustrated at the limbo I'm still hanging in after three years of living in Belgium. I know I'm at a point where I just need to stick it out just a little while longer and I can't force things to change any quicker... but god damn, I'm tired of this rut." 

Oh boy. If words ever did come back to haunt me, these are they. Haha! I laugh but my eyes quickly widen with disbelief. Oh god. Where do I start?

Things hadn't been going well between me and my now ex for a couple of years. I've always tried to make things work out and always tried my best. Sometimes your best just isn't good enough and some things can't be fixed. The final straw came when I found out that he was hitting on some other girl. Some other girl on the internet. She's already engaged to someone else. Yeah. Awesome. Good luck with that. There's also a fuckton of other juicy gossips there, but I'll save that for later. I suddenly realised that even if I could fix it, I didn't want to anymore. Only took me six years. BWAHAHA! I'm slow, don't laugh. Loyal too. Loyal to the point of a fault. That much has been proven.

So, I'm getting the hell out of dodge. Only there's one snag: my passport expired while I was living over here. I have to renew it in order to be guaranteed that I can enter my home country. That takes "a week to ten days if you're lucky" according to the embassy and "at least six weeks" according to their website. Not sure which one I should take heed of, but I'm planning for worst case scenario.

I'm not going to lie, I never used to be good at dealing with drama. I used to be a real overreact now, regret it later kind of girl. Now it's a lot more like this, as a visual metaphor:

Not to imply that I've caused an explosion, but I am walking away from an inevitable one. I'll be laughing from a great distance later on, trust me.

Now play these songs while you read if you want to hear something that's a) ultra cool b) a window into my soul at this current moment in time.

Alright, I yelled at first. Choice words like "cunt", "twat", "arsehole" and "retard" were used repeatedly that Sunday which shall be henceforth known as "Bloody Sunday".  Since then I have risen to the occasion, sorted out my passport renewal application, found a new home in England, relentlessly tied up loose ends and not had one sleepless night.

A friend of mine took me out for a drink as soon as she heard the news. After four or so rounds she said "I was expecting carnage and tears, Kat... what the fuck?". I laughed, supped my beer and started rolling another cigarette as I explained that, despite the fact that I had always reacted badly to stress in the past, I've always been good in a crisis. I think this whole thing has really shocked and slapped me into growing up and being less of a pussy when things go south. I feel invincible. Hell, I think I could handle anything you could throw at me right now, but please lawd, please don't fling any more of your shit at me just until I get this one sorted, okay? 'Kay.

I drank a lot that night and oddly didn't even feel tipsy. I really enjoyed my first night out as a single girl with another single girl. We had to tell at least three guys we were lesbians. Some of them took that as a challenge instead of a brush off. I think I'll be staying independent for the forseeable future. I'm enjoying it too much and I really need this time to be myself and not worry about some moody cocksucker back at home.

An enormous source of frustration was realising I would have to leave Belgium without my apprenticeship. My once in a lifetime opportunity of an apprenticeship that had fallen out of the fucking sky. Oh boy, I was angry. I've wanted to be a tattooist for fifteen years and I was finally getting somewhere.

I got in contact with a few tattoo shops in the area I'm moving to and asked them their advice. I was and still am determined to make it. An artist that I greatly admire and respect replied expressing an interest in maybe mentoring me, but can't make promises yet. He's been following my progress for months. Say what now? It's almost too good to be true. To top it off, I'll be living with my best friends, all creative and social, just a stone's throw from the beach in southern England. I can't fucking wait.

People have been using a wide array of unfamiliar words to describe me lately. Words like "badass", "cool", "independent" and "strong". I would have told you to sling yer hook a few years ago for taking the piss. It's weird, but I think they're right and I can actually see it now. Would it be conceited to say that I'm proud of myself? Proud that I'm not meddling, causing drama or making life difficult for others? How I've restrained myself when other people have done it to me? How I've just kept things simple and I'm just walking away, tying up loose ends as I go? Proud that I just don't give a fuck anymore and moving onto the next big thing in my life? Proud that I finally have my shit together? Because I am proud of that. I'm proud that I've grown out of retaliating. I'm proud that I don't need to go ballistic to get my point across. I'm just getting on with it. No bullshit, just getting the fuck on with what I need to do.

You know, I was ruminating the other week about how I wish I knew someone that would smoke, drink red wine and listen to Bob Dylan with me whilst putting the world to rights. It's funny because that's where I'm actually heading. Praise the lord.

Here's another Bill Hicks portrait. I have a newfound love and respect for comedy as an art form now. I also have a slight obsession with him, not that I agree with everything he came out with and I don't hold him up on a messianic pedestal, but seriously, goatboy. Rawr. I would have hit that so hard.

TL:DR, I'm single and liberated because of it. Here's Bill and some tunes.