So, revelations of the day.

Firstly, that part of the reason why I am mad at Mia is because I'm angry at myself for not going after Ollie when I had the chance, and even though I don't want to now, she got something I didn't have the balls to try to get because she's a pretty brave chick and I wasn't. That's on me and I can't put that on her.

This means that what I was telling myself about her proving that she's prettier/funnier/more attractive/interesting/all-around-better-person than me by dating him is totally wrong. Not only because obviously no boy should have the power to 'prove' which of us is better, regardless of who he chooses personally. He's one person, and his opinion of me isn't important. And the second important part, who knows what would have happened if I'd actually gone after him. It's not like we held a contest where we showed ourselves off and then told him 'pick!'. I never took any extra steps, I never let on how I felt, and the big steps I took, while still awesome and like, go me, still weren't enough for me to say, I really put him in a position to choose me. So the insecurity I feel isn't legitimate and I think I can move past it now.

It was also pointed out to me that maybe one of the reasons Mia's boyfriend likes her is because she and I are similar. After all, we're best friends, we share a lot of the same values and sense of humour, likes and dislikes, goals. Obviously, if he likes her, he's also approving of a lot of stuff I have going for me. Rather than looking at it like Australia's Next Top Model where he's the judge and she and I are waiting to see which of us gets chosen, in like a 'yes, love it all' and 'ew get out' way, we're both great and the fact that he likes her is an indirect compliment to me too, really. Mia and I are great, of course people should like us. So the story I was telling myself wasn't necessarily accurate and while I'm not saying 'well if he likes her, then he should like me just as much!' but rather that firstly, we're more alike than different so even if he hated everything that made me different from Mia, he'd still be approving of most of me, and again, even if he hated everything that made us different, it doesn't mean that those differences are bad. It just means that he's more suited to her than me and there will be lots of boys in the future that are more suited to me. And in any case, I like the things that make me different to Mia, because I like who I am.

Also that there are a lot of reasons Mia has for the choice she made. Mia's confident, but she's not invincible and falling for someone new is a really nice, positive thing and I can imagine that being difficult to resist after a pretty rough few months. I've been dealing with Lizzy and I have been so busy and emotionally distant and teasing her about liking Jen more than her that I haven't been able to be there for her as much as I'd have liked to be. As much as I'd like to think I'm a perfect friend, I'm not. It's true, I don't think I'd do what she did, but maybe I would have. When she and Ben broke up, I had some thoughts re: ben that if I'd have acted on, would have been much worse than her starting to date Ollie. Maybe I would have acted on them if given the chance. So I can blame her, but not so much. Making really noble self sacrificing moves to save friends from hurt is difficult, especially if you can justify that hurt being minimal or subjective.

I think Mia has a possible multitude of reasons for dating Ollie. Firstly that she likes him, that he likes her and that it must be really nice to have someone there, who can be supportive and comforting and fun and exciting. When you're sad, I'm sure that's something that gets prioritised. Also, it must be quite validating to be able to start dating someone new, since Ben had a girlfriend and got over things much quicker than I imagine Mia expected. I imagine that was quite a blow to the ego, and while not a good reason to date someone, I wouldn't be surprised if that played a part. I'm also sure that she's still learning her way around the dating game and this was finally her chance to have something work. She had a bunch of pretty lame dates and one night stands, and Ollie comes with the validation of the fact that I thought he was worth dating. Assuming she values my opinion then it kind of makes sense to pick someone that has my seal of approval as a person, even though he didn't have my SOA as a potential date mate for her. I'm not saying that all this stuff absolves her from choosing to date him even though she knew I didn't approve and it hurt my feelings, but now that I'm figuring this stuff out about why it shouldn't hurt my feelings, perhaps it doesn't matter so much and I can get past it with all forgiven.

I'm also starting to recognise the other path I could have taken, instead of declaring us on a break, I could have just insisted on a long talk about it. Instead, we had a short, angry talk where I at least, was doing very little listening and a lot of just waiting for my turn to talk and then I left and came up with BREAK. Maybe I should have asked the hardest questions and really tried harder to understand. I think I didn't because I thought I already understood it all, and I didn't want to be swayed from my current path and opinion (basically that she was wrong and I was right to be angry).

Now? I think I'm going to go through the next week, and after that, I think I'll message her or call her  and organise dinner. I'll tell her all of this, and if she says the things that I need her to, whatever those things are, then we can be friends again and I'll happily listen to her about Ollie or anything that's going on for her.

I think I understand now that I have no reason to see Ollie wanting to date Mia as meaning anything negative about me. If that holds true, I have no reason to be uncomfortable or embarrassed by him and maybe then I can start being excited for the fact that she's dating someone who not only makes her happy but that I think is really nice.

Update time!

Things are going alright. It's been a really boring holiday period thus far. I really want to do things but I'm flying solo right now so it's really boring. My bffl and I are on a friendship break indefinitely, which is pretty lame. I mean, it's a break imposed by me, so I shouldn't complain too much but I do miss having her around to talk to, even if it's just messaging her something funny that happened each day on facebook.

It's okay, I mean, theoretically we'll just take a month, til mid August I suppose, and then I'll start talking to her again and we'll be friends. It's a super weird situation honestly. She's started dating the boy I was into about six months ago, and while I was over him, that wasn't really the point. It hurt my feelings and makes me super uncomfortable, for reasons I thought were pretty obvious, especially to her, since she's supposed to be an expert in my neuroses (and the fact that we discussed it multiple times over the last few months, that is wasn't at all okay with me), but as she is prone to do, she weighed up her feelings and mine and decided hers were more important. It's whatever. It's who she is.

When we talked about it (as in, I'd found out from another source and confronted her, making her admit it), she knew she'd done wrong by me and I thought I was okay with it, in a 'this sucks and I'm not happy but this is how it is, so may as well get on with it'. But then I said something really spiteful and (I think) out of character about her ex boyfriend and while it wasn't out of line really, I knew it would hurt her feelings and said it anyway so neither of us were winning the best friend game that day. I feel super guilty about it, but also frustrated because it took me from being in a position of moral righteousness to also being a shit friend.

The thing is, I'm really good at being there for people and not letting on that it bothers me. I'm not saying that I'm not a selfish person, but in a lot of ways, in matters of the heart at least, because I never think I'm worth it and I always assume that the other person is more worthy, I bend over backwards to help, even when it's not in my best interests. Like, I don't want to be there for Mia and listen to her excitement over however they got together, or deal with her angst over every little thing, whether good or bad. But if we're friends, I 100% would. Like as a duty of being a best friend, I would. I don't know how not to, because I don't know how to have those kinds of boundaries. Either I'm in something or I'm not. And what I fear, is that that leads to resentment and me being spiteful and saying things that are unkind.

So instead... break. My main reasoning was that I wanted to punish Mia somehow, to find some way to say, we're still friends and I still love you but you did something wrong and you hurt me, and I don't want to be passive aggressive about it, I want to say 'this is what you did, these are the consequences.' I mean, I don't know if that's what got through to her, or if I'm thinking of myself too highly to be like, the consequences are no Lucy for a month.

I didn't know what else to do. How do you punish someone that you love and still want to have a relationship with? I don't want to keep a running tally every time she does something awful and build up hurt and resentment and evidence that she's not a nice person, I want to forgive and then hopefully forget. But are you supposed to forgive people all the time, if they don't change their behaviour? Nothing I do will stop Mia from making this same choice every time. If I was to go back into the past and tell her this was the consequence, she'd still do it. If I told her it was him or me, she'd probably choose me, but obviously that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to be emotionally manipulative and say she can't do things otherwise I'm gone, but I feel like I'm justified to say that there are rules to friendship. When you break those rules, something changes.

In this case, the change does affect me equally, which is irritating but at least I have the power over it. There is something empowering about making a choice that does hurt you, but that changes something. I think it's really easy to just let someone make you feel small and sad but to accept that is has to be that way because you love that person too much to lose them completely over something hurtful, but in the long run, not a huge friendship ending issue. if Mia and I stop being friends, I want it to be because of something massive. I can't even think of what it would have to be. Not that I expect our friendship to end. She's my bffl, we aren't perfect but we love one another and get on too easily to mess it up. I don't think anything I've done this week is going to ruin that.

The other reasons I thought a break would work is that it means she and her boyfriend can have their merry little honeymoon period and I won't have to think about it or hear about it. And I can focus on other things and other friends.

Oh, the other reason that I thought it was a relatively empowering move is that I've been quite sad lately, thinking about my friendships as a triangle. Though now a very broken one. One dead, one on the other side of the world and one on a friendship break (who could have predicted that on the first of January 2015? Not me). I thought I wouldn't ever be able to react at all to Mia because she was my last remaining, close, intimate friend and I'm too much of a wuss to be alone. But not true. I'd rather be slightly more alone than be a pushover forever.

Besides, to be fair, I have a lot of close friends. Not close in that I see them all the time, but emotionally close. There are five people I could text or message right now, and say 'I need to talk' and they would stay up until 3am talking with me if I needed it. Half of them would probably come over. All of them would hang out in their next available free moment if I asked. I've never lacked intimacy with girl friends. And you-know-who probably. He'd stay up.

Another thing that's new as well recently is that I started to see a therapist about my problems. Not because I couldn't deal with them myself, but because help will get me better faster. One thing I was told today was to do this test which tells you what your strengths are. There are 24 all up, and it gives them to you in order. The advice I was given was this-- in your life, you shouldn't focus on bringing up the strengths you don't have, by doing things you hate. It's not about getting everyone to a certain minimum standard or benchmark, the way it is in school where everyone is forced to do a bit of everything. Instead, you focus on your top three strengths, the things that you do best and that bring you the most joy. This was a bit strange for me, because I always try hard to be very well rounded, but it's not saying that you shouldn't do the things that scare you, but that you shouldn't do the things you have tried and really know you don't like.

So, I did this quiz and my top strengths are (drumroll please)....

1) Creativity, ingenuity and originality.... which tbh I knew would be my first one, didn't need the quiz to tell me that.

2) Curiosity and interest in the world.... again, I guessed that one. I take a lot of personality tests, I know where I fit. The other very similar one to this, which I thought I might have third, but actually I got 6th, was love of learning. I think it makes sense that I got curiosity higher than love of learning. I much prefer to just know things, I like to be trusted with things, I like to have a mind boggling question and finding the answer, but I'm not so interested in everything, just because it exists. Jen reads non fiction for fun but I don't. I try, I buy the books, but I can only take history most of the time in stories. If they don't bring it to life, it's not very interesting to me.

3) Capacity to love and be loved.... I wasn't sure I'd get that one. I noticed it and was like... mmm yeah... that sounds like the Harry-Potter-will-defeat-Lord-Voldemort greatest strength that would probably apply to me. And voila, I love hard and I love intensely and I would be such a good fucking girlfriend because I love everything and apparently, I have a great capacity to be loved, however a test can measure that.

4) This one was super lame, but forgiveness and mercy. I think I got that one because I kept thinking about Mia and what a pushover I generally am, with all my forgiveness and endless capacity to give everyone a million chances. Honestly, I think this one needs to be moderated. I love people, even the ones that hurt me and while I don't think I'm going to be an abuse victim, you-know-who did teach me that I definitely know how to romanticise hurt and disregard for my feelings as signs of tragic love. I like to think that this strength is a benefit in moderation, when it's sensibly dolled out.

And last but not least, 5) Citizenship, teamwork and loyalty. Basically, I'm a good person. Not the most interesting, but I'm a team player, I do my fair share and I'm loyal.

I don't really know how you combine those into something useful and fruitful long term, like a career. I personally think the way is to become J K Rowling, by finding something that I find so curious about the world and the human condition and write something so endlessly fascinating and creative, that I get millions of fans and can spend my life connecting with people and being a source of good in the world. Voila.

Or teaching. Kids are curious, I'm creative and I'd get to form meaningful relationships with 25 kids each year.

I need to work out how psychology fits.

Anyway, good talk. Until next time.

It's been about ten weeks since Liz passed and I feel so confused about it.

Like, genuinely, confused is the only way I can describe it. I don't feel particularly sad about it. I could, I think, if I tried. Of course I understand that it is a very terrible thing and there is so much grief there, it's just that it's locked away somewhere I can't - or don't want- to access.

Now when I think about Liz not being there in years to come, it just doesn't feel real. It feels like she's just on a long trip somewhere, but she'll come back and then life will go on as normal. Because I don't feel sad, her being gone doesn't feel impactful, it's just like, yeah that's a thing.

My friend Orion and I were talking about her on the train the other night. Well, he was, he brought her up and I didn't know what to say. I told him I can discuss her completely emotionlessly. Who knows what he thinks of that, considering how important it was to me that he and everyone understood how desperately important to me she is as she was dying and after the funeral. It's just true though, I feel like I just took all the emotions out of dealing with her death. It only makes me uncomfortable when I have to say 'death'. I just tried taunting myself then, telling myself that she's dead and her body is in the ground and that freaks me out and if my mind didn't automatically shy away from all of that completely, I think that would make me feel something.

I don't know. Even when I got my dress for the funeral, it was when I was shopping with Jen for a friends birthday present and we just stopped in at the clothes store because she mentioned she needed a new black dress (in a 'every girl needs a little black dress' type way) and I was like, yeah I really need one too, for the funeral. That didn't make me sad, I just did it. Maybe I wanted to shock her a little bit when I said it because I wanted to talk, I don't know, I have no ability to deal with talking about Lizzy in an emotional way with other people. Not in real life. I could say, with no emotional investment, that I feel sad, but I couldn't feel sad while talking about feeling sad. It's like I'm too chilled out. I don't have a trigger to release all the bottled up feelings. I think of her because of a lot of random stuff but she still just feels so present, because I'm doing so many things that she did and loved, all my friends are people that she knew and that we talked about, so much of the gossip and drama is stuff that she was still around for, and the TV shows I watch are shows we watched together. When I condition my hair I remember conversations we had about conditioner, when I think about my hair I remember that she helped me dye mine, the only time I dyed it. When I think about a movie I just watched, I remember that we watched it together, a long time ago. When I listen to Hilary Duff's new album, I think about how many times I forced her to watch the Lizzy McGuire movies and how she must have known all the words to 'This is what dreams are made of'. When I stumbled upon Nikki Webster music, I cried because I remember her suffering through me watching DVD's of the music videos. She commented on all the fashion choices and because I knew nothing about fashion, I took everything she said as legit and never forgot. I remember going to the Easter show and listening to 'Never Been Kissed' on what must have been my Walkman, with her.

Her being really sick and dying feels like a dream, like a story.

I barely believe it, that's the problem.

Like I said, thinking about that just feels confusing because it doesn't seem real. It's like, why am I focusing all this mental attention on her, she's fine, you can just text her if you want to talk to her. Only I can't, and I haven't really worked that out yet, not deep down.

It's frustrating to feel like I'm not doing this right, that I'm both feeling too much and too little and in the wrong order. If I could just... I don't know... have a long cry and feel devastated for awhile, maybe that would help, but I cry all the time already. I've been to her grave. I wear her ribbons every day. I don't know how else to grieve to make things seem real. It doesn't matter what small choices I make, because it's all supposed to be in reaction to the ultimate thing, death of a loved one. I have to react, because I'm human but I only know how to react in human ways, with changes of behaviour, and no action is big enough or loud enough. Even killing myself doesn't seem like it would be a big enough gesture. Nothing I do feels like symbolism, it all just feels like one of the millions of small actions that we make every day. Move this limb here, perform this action, speak to this person, eat this, get through the day, it doesn't matter what action you take in the aftermath of a death, it's all still action, it's all still proof that while everything has changed, not everything has. You still go on. It should be a binary switch that when one person dies, everyone dies and all feelings, and hopes and behaviour ends.

Every act of behaviour I do, even the stuff that is supposed to commemorate her or express my devastation just feels like a tiny action in the face of the universe, that I'm belittling the sacrifice.

I can't explain it better. All actions just pale in comparison to dying and anything I could do would fall short.

I don't know what to do apart from keeping on keeping on, especially because as concerned as I am and as convinced as I am that the truth is in focusing on my feelings and whatever else I'm avoiding in my noggin, I don't want to do that. It's hard to explain but it feels so exhausting that I can't manage it, truly.