The End of an Era

To my wonderful readers,

I started A Chick Named Hermia about two and half years ago, simply wanting something that would encourage me to write regularly.
Lol, I had NO idea what I was getting myself in to.
I have met wonderful people, read posts by so many amazing writers, made ‘real world’ friends and discovered my ‘style’.
I also became part of a community that I could always turn to in times of trouble.
A Chick Named Hermia has become more than I ever dreamed it would be.
It also became a blog that was a million miles from the first draft.
At first, it was simply a place I could post random bits and bobs I came across, but gradually it became a part of me and all of you ended up submerged in my life.

Unfortunately, recent events have made blogging difficult for me.
I love sharing my stories with you and your feedback has been invaluable, but not everyone can be as lovely as you lot.
Real Lifers have taken a little too much pleasure in having access to my thoughts and stories and have pretty much ruined the blogging experience for me.

I have tried to carry on here.
I’ve put so much work into ACNH that ending it seemed unimagineable.
But those people have stopped this blog from being what it was, which meant they were winning.
And bullies should never EVER win.

I could never give up blogging completely, so while this spells the end for A Chick Named Hermia, I am in the process of setting up a new blog where I’m back in control and free to write what I want.
For obvious reasons, I can’t exactly broadcast the new URL here, but I do want to take all you lovely people who have supported me and gotten to know me over the last couple of years to the other side with me.
If you’re interested in following my adventures at their new location, enter your contact info below and I’ll send you the URL as soon as the new blog is up and running (next couple of days).

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Those of you who don’t wish to follow, thank you so much for the support you’ve given me up to now, and to those who decide to continue following me, it’s you lot who make starting over worthwhile.

Til we meet again,
Hermia
oxox

Checking In

God, I miss blogging.
And talking about myself.
And actually having a reason to write.
But most of all, I miss YOU LOT!

It’s been tough getting through the last few weeks without your support and encouragement.
Thankfully some of you offer it up to snappy moans on Facebook  and Twitter, and even better, some of you have become parts of ‘real’ life and offer it in person.
But I still miss the interaction here.

Anyway!
Unfortunately I still don’t have internet at home, so I’m not actually back.
Instead, I’m sitting at a computer in the office an hour after I finished trying to get my fix.
My internet provider – UPC – are…well I can’t say, because I’m trying to be dignified and ladylike, a la Audrey or Grace.
When really I feel like pulling a Bette and going postal.
They’re screwing me over basically.
Charging me for a service they ARE NOT PROVIDING and then charging me a colossal fee for cancelling my contract with them BECAUSE they are not providing me with the service I’m paying for.
Tossers.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be moving out of that hell-hole-of-a-house-I-now-live-in in the next couple of weeks and will get my internet from a company that will actually let me have it.
Also, it now occurs to me that most of you have NO idea what I’m referring to my current residence as “that hell-hole-of-a-house-I-now-live-in” because I haven’t been able to tell you ALL THE HORRORS I’VE ENDURED.
Yes, I know I was swooning about the place a few months ago, but that was before I became a lonely old spinster and had to fend for myself.
Here’s a fun fact: lonely old spinsters are ABUSED by the world.

I will tell you tales of evil landlords, vile housemates, dirt-encrusted abodes and other such horros.
But not in this post.
Because it’s already quite long and I have to ease you back into this labour of love that is called “Putting Aside An Hour Of My Day To Read Hermia’s Posts”.

Do you know what’s strange? Actually being called Hermia in real life. Seriously…it’s bizarre…but lovely…but bizarre.

So I’ll end this and will begin another post and you’ll have at least two posts to keep you company over the next 2 weeks.

A bientot!

Hitting a Wall

Having some internet issues at the moment (damn you, UPC, you cheating bastards!!! *shakes fist*).
It’s a bit frustrating considering I was just starting to get back into the swing of posting again, but there you go.
I am trying my best to get it sorted though, so fingers crossed I’ll be back soon!
On a positive note, I still have my Blackberry and can continue to stalk you all on Twitter in the meantime….

Paper Weight

Yesterday I bought toilet paper.

In the grand scheme of things, it mightn’t seem like something worth reporting, but I felt it was a turning point.
It ran out about three weeks ago.
For the first while, it wasn’t a problem, I simply put a box of tissues I had lying around into the bathroom and went about my business (no pun intended).
About a week after that, the tissues ran out.

Grocery shopping and general life functioning has been a little beyond me in recent times (see previous post), so it wasn’t a simple matter of going to the supermarket.
The problem needed to be fixed with as little movement on my part as possible.

So I turned to my freakishly large stash of kitchen paper and placed a roll of it in the bathroom.

I don’t know if many of you have used kitchen towel in this manner, but it’s not the softest substance out there.
However I stubbornly continued to use it rather than go to the effort popping out to the shop to get quilted-heaven or even making a note of it to be remembered the next time I left the house.

Yesterday though, in a spacey moment where I zoned out and forgot to take the turn into my still-kinda-new abode, I found myself heading towards the local shop.
I didn’t freak out at the realisation of what I was about to do.
The horror of responsible shopping disappeared and a calm settled over me.
I went into the shop and bought a four-pack of Cushelle toilet paper.
And also bread rolls because I now needed to rebel against something …in this case, my gluten intolerance.
Screw you, Intestines *shakes fist*

I walked home with the smug satisfaction of a grown-up.
That’s right, people, I’m going to use actual toilet paper and it’s not even that cheap stuff -it’s quilted, oooooooo
I dropped my bags and coat in the sitting room and ran up the stairs to the bathroom.
Locking the door, I walked towards the toilet…and realised I’d left the toilet paper downstairs.
I paused for a second and contemplated.
I’d gone to the effort of buying it, so why stop there? I should go down and get it.
But…it was all the way out the door and down the stairs…

And so I used the kitchen towel yet again and the toilet paper is still sitting in that bag in my sitting room waiting to make its way up the stairs.

Baby steps, eh?

Riding the Wrong Train

I knew during the break-up process that it would be good to be single for a while.
I needed some time to try and figure out who Single Me was and if she was different to Relationship Me.

Turns out that Single Me is a train wreck.
Relationship Me was definitely heading down a better path.

Single Me hasn’t cooked one single decent meal in three weeks.
There may have been the odd piece of fruit, but in general, she will sit on the couch hungry rather than actually cook something.
She has no idea what’s in the fridge or the cupboard.
On the rare occasion she does bother her arse to cook something, it will usually involve frozen chips and gravy.
Relationship Me barely knew what a freezer was.
Clothes haven’t been washed, bins haven’t been emptied, the bathroom floor must be checked for underwear before visitors use the facilities.

But the worst thing facing Single Me is The Dishes.
I have always hated doing dishes.
Always.
When Relationship Me was living with Him, we had a deal -I did all the cooking and He did the dishes.
Now Single Me is forced to deal with them…and is fighting every step of the way.

Things got so bad last week that I had to keep the kitchen door closed because the dirty plates and cups were starting to smell. The next day, and less than an hour before I was to receive a gentleman caller, I stood in front of the washing machine for a good five minutes contemplating whether or not there were moral or ethical (or dignity) issues in hiding all the dirty crockery in the machine for the duration of his stay .

In the end, I made a compromise with myself -I just kept him out of the kitchen.

Relationship Me was an actual grown up.
She understood the importance of health insurance and savings and eating healthily.
Single Me just doesn’t seem to give a crap.
I feel I’m regressing back to the middle of my college years and wonder how long it will be before I show up drunk for work.

There’s an internal struggle where I pine for what I was, but love the freedom of where I am.
I’m being ridiculous and irresponsible and the weight of Life has been partially lifted from my shoulders.
Yes, it might seem that at 24 I should be moving forward instead of backwards, but feck it, I spent my early twenties trying to the A Grown-Up and look at where that got me!
Grey hairs and stress-related IBS.

So for now, I think I”ll enjoy the craziness and worry about tomorrow tomorrow (or maybe in a few months time).
And until then, I’ll take a trip to Tesco and stock up on paper plates and cups….

Fantabulous Foto Friday

Right, I’m sure you’ve had your fill of diary-esque blogging from me this week, so I’m going to direct you over to Soooali to take a look at my guest post on London.
You may also enjoy these pictures of nice hair…

Epiphany in Paris

“I genuinely would recommend anyone going through a break-up to go on holiday as soon as they can,” I told a friend the other day. “It’s the best way to clear your head and make a proper stab at getting over everything.”

Paris was beautiful.
When I’d booked it back in January with The Bessie to coincide with the end of her first year as a teacher, I had no idea just how important it would end up being to me.
A week after I said goodbye to Him, I was on a plane to the most beautiful city in the world.

Paris had always been Our place.
The first night, myself and The Bessie sat on the steps of Palais de Chaillot as the sun began to set and waited for the Eiffel Tower lights to be turned on.
We amused ourselves by watching the rollerbladers perform stunts and tricks, in the same way I had watched skateboarders in the exact same spot with Him two years beforehand on our very first night together in Paris.
That was difficult.

However, as the sun beat down on us the next day, trips through the city to Notre Dame and the Sacre Coeur started to clear some of the clouds from my brain.
As I skipped down the steep stone steps on the butte Montmartre, clutching a precious bottle of water I felt so far from my life that the pain eased and I felt positive for the first time in a long time.
Later that afternoon, I sat on the curb across from Oscar Wilde’s tomb after a walk around Pere Lachaise.
As I watched tonnes of people scramble to take a picture of the grave of a man whose work they probably never read, I thought about whether the flesh coloured tights I was wearing were too shiny or if I was getting away with faking ‘the natural look’.
Probably not what Wilde would’ve hoped for, but it was nice to be thinking about something as shallow as that after so many heavy thoughts.

A couple of days later, we travelled out to Versailles and after a gruelling walk in high temperatures that Irish people are just not made to survive in, we reached the home of Marie Antoinette – the Petit Trianon. It was possibly the most fascinating place I’ve ever seen in my life and we were both awe-struck and disgusted at how much money she pumped into creating the most unbelievable fairytale-like village.
I wanted to live there.

Every night, we visited the same restaurant I always went to with Him.
No break-up should stop you from getting the best pizza in the world.
I sat there wondering if the owners would recognise me from the other times I’d been there.
Mr Owner did not disappoint: “You’ve been here before, yes? Yes, I remember you. You look like Lily Allen.” Last summer, he told me I looked like Sophie Ellis-Bextor…neither comparisons are true, but I definitely preferred the original one.
On our last night, he presented us with large shots that tasted of Lemon Sherbet, after his wife removed our plates, chuckling at the fact I’d ordered the same pizza yet again.
“You are special,” he said to me. “You are one of the special visitors.”

I knocked it back and headed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe to get one last look at the city that had stolen my heart.
Standing up there, with the wind whipping my hair in all directions, I watched the people around me – families, couples, friends, all smiling and happy.
American girls laughed as they tried to get every possible pose pictured with the Eiffel Tower behind them. I knocked into one of them as I tried to squish by their large group.
“Whoops! Sorry about that, “ I said.
“Omg, no,” she exclaimed, “that was so totally my fault”.
Smiling at her and waving off her apology, I nearly walked into the Japanese man who had walked up the long flight of stairs in front of me. He smiled apologetically and bowed.

I felt it would be nice to stay up here forever and just continue to have pleasant moments with complete strangers.
People are so lovely when they’re happy.
And that’s when it hit me.
We hadn’t been lovely to each other, because we weren’t happy.
It wasn’t the other way round.
I felt a surge of relief.
It wasn’t our fault.
We hadn’t caused it by doing something awful
We hadn’t done anything wrong.
We just didn’t make each other happy.
That was all.

I floated down the hundreds of steps and emerged from the structure feeling new and hopeful.
Everything was going to be okay.

Warm in your Dream

“Ok, it’s decided,” I announced to The Bessie, over brioche and cafe au lait at the patisserie down the road from our hotel. I’d been staring at the Arc de Triomphe and suddenly it was all clear to me.
“What?” she asked.
“My life,” I said, sipping my hot coffee. “I’ve decided what I’m going to do: I’m going to move to Paris and become a poor,struggling writer. I will compose a wondrous, but under-appreciated novel, that will become revered after my premature death and will be a beacon for generations to come.”

Wandering around endless Parisian streets, it seemed the only option for me.
Anything rather than go back to my dreary, crumbling life in Dublin.

How could I return to a large, cold, empty house in a country that seems to be constantly damp when I was standing in the most beautiful city in the world?

My imagination was coming alive.
I was coming alive.
So many colours, endless supplies of cafés and pastries, an abundance of picturesque avenues and life-changing events all seemed to be telling me I needed to do this.
I needed to be that crazy writer who ups and leaves her humdrum life to pursue the craziest and most fragile of her dreams.

The only problem was that I wasn’t that adventurous or crazy.
I wasn’t even a writer.

Back in Dublin a few days later, I sat eating fries in the same diner I’d been visiting for years.
My friend’s mother popped in for a second and told me she’d heard ‘what happened’ and that she was sorry.
She then proceeded to tell me that she’d been reading my blog and that  I should “write a book”.
I made my usual array of nervous jokes in the face of compliments I didn’t know how to take, but through it all her earnestness was really touching.
The urge returned and I found myself calculating how long I could survive in Paris with my measly savings, since I wouldn’t be able to get a job without having the language (which I have little chance of learning).

“You know,” I told my friend, “after the break-up, I tried to comfort myself by saying that being single would help make my blog a little more interesting. I thought I could be the next Carrie Bradshaw, writing about the complications of my newly-acquired relationships with strangers. It’s not really working out that way though. I’m not big on the random, drunk scoring of strangers and you can’t write an honest account of relations with a person you know, because they or their friends will end up reading it. It’s just mean.”

And so I’m back at Square One, although it feels like Square One-Minus-Five.
I’m living the uninspired life, because of a need to get by financially.
I’ll continue to drag myself into my dreary job, which isn’t just content with taking the 9-5 working hours, but leaves me too drained to function during the evenings.
Sure I’d love be daring like Hemingway or Fitzgerald (yes, I did go to see Midnight in Paris the other day) and experience Parisian life, while churning out great novels, but unfortunately, I’m a little lacking in their talent and so there are practicalities to consider.
But is that what makes a good writer?
Is that what it takes to write The Great Novel?
An utter belief in yourself and your ability, the daring to go for it, the willingness to live in poverty and the single-mindedness to never give up?

It does seem that way, but admittedly, a huge fortune could also help.
Maybe I’ll start doing the Lotto…

Musing at the Diner

Sitting in the same area of the same Eddie Rockets that we conducted the first two years of our relationship, I didn’t know what to feel.

“So what happened with you two, or am I allowed to ask?”
It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked and it wasn’t the first time I had to shrug my shoulders and have a quick think about it.
And even with all those opportunities, I was yet to come up with a satisfying answer.

“I dunno,” I told Sinead honestly. “It just wasn’t right anymore.”

We chatted about other long-term couples that had broken up in recent times.
It was the same formula: couple got together during college, stayed together for years, many lived together, everyone thought they’d be together forever and then BAM they were no more.

“I think it’s just the way it is now,” I mused over a chocolate malt. “I mean, years ago people did their Personal Growth thing during the last years of secondary school and in the couple of years afterwards so they had it together by the age of 20. But now, we don’t start until after college and those few years are supposed to be the time you sort yourself out, find out who you are and become comfortable with that. I did my growing as part of a relationship. Most people that do that grow into One Half of a Relationship and not into a person.”

“I know it sounds very American and cringe-worthily clichéd, but I feel like I need to ‘find myself’,” I said. “I’m not sure who I am or what I can handle or even what I want right now. I’m completely different from the Me in my final year in college.”

Sinead nodded her agreement. “You just need to live life a bit and have some fun!”

After a chat about general Life Stuff, I said: “Isn’t it crazy to think back to that summer in the shop five years ago when we had The Plan?”
“Oh God yeah,” said Sinead.
“The guy I liked was away for the summer and you had just met yours and we made a pact to win their hearts. And we did,” I added somewhat triumphantly. “And since then my whole life plan has changed so many times, I’ve had a few other boyfriends and a ridiculously long relationship with a boy I lived with, and now I’ve no idea what I want to do with my life. You also broke up with your guy and you’ve been around the world and you’re moving to Australia next week.”

It was head-spinning to think about all that had changed and how it seemed that all the work I’d put into life over the last few years had been erased and I was starting again.
Out on my own.

“On the plus side,” I said as an after thought, “my conversation topics are far more exciting as a single person than they were as the Long Time Relationship Girl. It’s nice to know there’s a silver lining.”

A little letter to….The Boy

The 21st of May 2011.

We joked wryly about the apocalypse that everyone else laughed so flippantly over.
On the inside, on some level, we were believers.
Everyone joked as the day ended and they were still in one piece.
But we didn’t.
Our worlds – correction: our world – did end that day.
By midnight, we’d dismantled the life we’d created together and I slept alone in what had been our bed, staring at a blank future.

Subconsciously, I’d tried to warn us a few weeks early.
Without fail, whenever I feel like I’m losing control of things, I cut my hair stupidly short or I stubbornly attempt to pierce the cartilage in my ear yet again.
This time is was the hair.
I was too preoccupied with other things to pick up on it and you just didn’t see anything unusual about it.
Why would you?
I haven’t felt the need to do either of those things in four years.