by

Disclaimers:- All the characters in this story belong to me, please do not use them without my permission. If any bands or people sound familiar, it is purely coincidental.

Love/Sex Disclaimer:- This story will contain scenes of sex between two women, if this bothers you than please don't read on. The sex scenes will not be graphic.

Story Note:- This story isn't your typical story it's more of a journal of the characters thoughts and feelings, so there will be grammatical errors. Have you read a journal that was grammatically correct? There are bits of scenes written here as well. Hopefully it isn't too confusing for you. 

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Let me start by telling you a little about myself, so will you know the person you are reading about. My name is Jessie Robinson. I'm 23 years old and while my life hasn't been the easiest I've had a lot of fun in it too. I'll tell you more about my life history later on in the journal... this intro is just for basic facts at the moment.

My Dad, Jack Robinson has always been my support system. He's been a mountain of strength to me when I felt I had none. My mother, Trisha King and I have not seen eye to eye on many things for years but she has been a great help to me over the last couple of months and my step-father Michael King has been a godsend to my Dad and I. My sister Debbie and I used to be really close but you know what happens when kids grow up.... you meet boys or whatever, fall in love and when your family doesn't approve of the boy you've chosen you distance yourself from them. That's what happened when Debbie met David Mitchell, who is 19 years older than her. It all hit the roof when the family found out she was pregnant, after just three months with him.

Anyway you've met my family now. I'm sure you'll learn more about them as we go along and you'll probably meet more of my friends.

You know the weird thing is no matter how often I try and write something it doesn't seem to work anymore. I have all these ideas and I just can't put them down on paper. It's actually quite annoying. I've been writing for years, it's been a hobby of mine since I found out what  a pencil was. I wrote my first script when I was 10 years old although I can't find the flaming thing now and that's really annoying as well. I wanted to improve it and get it all done to a proper standard but pardon the pun I lost the plot....

This has been the state of my writing for over four years. I wrote a novel that I enjoyed writing immensely, but as soon as that was finished I couldn't do anymore. I've seen and read authors that have about five books a year coming out and it amazes me that I can't even get one finished in a year. Even Youthful Heart took a year to write... At first I was telling myself that I just needed a rest from writing but it never seemed to go away, four years have gone by and I still can't write more than two paragraphs. Talk about major writers block.

Maybe it's a lack of inspiration that has caused my block... nothing seems to impress me anymore. Nothing actually makes me want to sit down and write. Depression can do that to you, also knowing that what you are writing is being read by people and you get letters and emails saying that the story is crap and that your writing is totally pointless and you really shouldn't bother. It didn't bother me at first, all I wrote for was fun. It started to get to me when I was trying to get my book published and the people I sent the manuscript to didn't even reply. I tried not to take it personally I figured they didn't like the story and didn't have the time to reply to me but as this happened more and more often I started to give up. Why was I writing stuff that it seemed no-one actually wanted to read?  I knew I wasn't the most talented author in the universe, far from it but I put my heart and my soul into everything I wrote and that just didn't seem to be enough. I worked through the pain of losing my grandfather to complete my novel, I put up with flamers and in the end it just didn't seem worth it. During the year I was writing I cut myself off from everyone, it literally took over my life and I was determined to not let that happen again. Maybe that's why I lost my inspiration... towards the end of my novel, after the death of my grandfather, I started writing because people wanted me to finish the book, not because I was enjoying it.

I'm writing this as more of a journal than a story, hoping that somewhere along the way I will find my inspiration again. Maybe I'll even find the strength and the will power to write another novel, maybe even a sequel to the last one.

Well a day has gone since I started this new project of mine and already I'm running out of things to say.  I'm sitting here spending most of my time looking out of the window watching some elderly people have fun. They are out there, having fun and I'm sat in front of the computer wondering what I'm going to do next. There are so many things going through my head at the moment, I watch them and I wonder what I'm going to be like when I'm their age... Will I still be as lonely as I am now? Will I still be wondering what happened to the writers block I got when I was 18 years old? Nobody knows the answers to this but I'm already dreading that I'm going to be on my own when I'm older.

People have funny fears. I don' really fear much but the one thing that I do fear more than anything (and it's a morbid thing) but that's I fear dying on my own. I fear being dead in my living room or my bed for days before anyone realises something wrong. I know that can happen whether you've been married in your lifetime or not and like I said it's a kind of morbid thought but that is the one thing that scares me.

To do a complete change of subject I've been thinking that the whole of the last year should have enough stuff in it to make a good story. It would be a story of struggles, grief, happiness and disappointment. I can't even find the best way to write that. I've already tried but it isn't going to happen. It just sucks so bad.

Let me tell you a little about the last year..... my Dad was made redundant last year and he decided to go into a Public House as the landlord. It seemed like a great idea and I said I'd work for him. We both had all the qualifications to run a pub and to make it a success for. What we didn't account for was the pub company we leased the pub off being total prats, to put it mildly.  Oh don't get me wrong they couldn't do enough for you when you were making money but when you were going through a rough time, they made sure it was even rougher.

We moved into the pub in September and we quickly turned the pub around. Before we took over it was a pub with a bad reputation. There were fights there every weekend, people getting arrested and it was the sort of pub that women wouldn't go in for fear of being harassed. I know it seems like a bad pub for me, a 22 year old woman to go into but we saw a lot of potential there. When we took over, the pub and it's reputation changed. It was a nice, clean pub that people could enjoy drinking in. We had one fight there on the first weekend but that was it. We didn't have the typical weekend rush of youngsters like most pubs. Very rarely we had people under 30 in the pub so there was always a nice atmosphere in the pub.

From September to December we did really well profit wise... we cleared £2,500 a week and that was with us paying the rent of the flat upstairs. After Christmas is when it started to go wrong. Now  anyone that has ever run a pub knows it goes dead n the pubs after Christmas and New Year because people don't have the money to spend on drink, well the town was particularly dead in January and we were struggling to pay the rent and the beer charges. On a good week we were taking £1,300. £1,200 of that went back to the pub company in delivery charges and rent. Leaving us £100 to pay the staff and to get the spirits we needed.... You can imagine that that didn't work... The staff agreed to not be paid to make it easier but it still didn't help. We were paying out more than we had coming in. If we failed to pay the rent and the delivery charges the pub company would stop deliveries for the week. Now our pub had two big sellers, lager and bitter... during the week when we didn't have a delivery we ran out of both. So people had to go to a different pub for their drinks for a week. This happened twice and after the second time people didn't bother coming in because they didn't know if we had the drinks they wanted.

So in February my Dad called a meeting with the Business Development Manager and asked her for a bit of leeway until we could pull ourselves through the trouble but she wouldn't hear it. If we didn't pay the rent and delivery charges on time the delivery would be stopped. We were already in the red because we couldn't afford to pay bills like the telephone bill and electricity so my Dad told them to stuff it. We had already lost £40,000 to that pub and we weren’t going to lose anymore. He told them we wanted out and we were both homeless by three days later. We had sold our house when we moved into the pub so that was gone, we didn't have enough money to put a deposit on a flat or anything so we had to stay with family and friends.

So that is my situation at the moment. I'm living with my pregnant sister and her boyfriend who I can't stand in a one bedroom flat. Not an ideal situation I know but beggars can't be choosers. I need somewhere to stay and this is it. If you think that is weird than can you imagine how my Dad is feeling? He's living with my mother and her husband. Talk about unlikely and confusing situations.

But wait..... my great year doesn't stop there..

In December I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome and the doctor told me that there was a chance I wouldn't be able to have children. Children have always been a big plan for the future. I wanted them as badly as I wanted anything else and to find out that there was even a small chance that I couldn't have them devastated me.  I did meet a boy I liked a lot though and it got really serious, we were even talking about moving in together but in March I had a miscarriage, which was in a way a good thing and a bad thing. It was good because I knew that I could get pregnant but bad because I wanted a baby so much and to have one inside of me even for a few days and then to have it gone crushed me.

A few weeks after that my boyfriend and I split up. I enjoyed spending time with him but the sex really didn't do anything for me.. It wasn't very pleasant and I was never in a rush to do it again. I think that was one of the main reasons we split up. So I'm back to being on my own again. The one good thing that I have to look forward to at the moment is I'm on the list for a council house and because I'm listed as homeless I should be hearing from them really soon.

So as you can see my year really has been a year to forget but I'm hoping it's going to turn itself around soon. Anyway you can see that my year would make a great story but I can't write about it. People always tell me to write about what you know but there isn't much I know that would be of interest to anyone else and even if I did know something, at the moment I wouldn't even know how to put that down on paper. I feel like I should just give up but I've given up too quickly too often in my life and that is something I really want to change. Starting with this. I'm going to finish it, even if it's the last thing I do.

Well I'm not going to start today's entry the same way I finished yesterdays. I'm just going to tell you about my thoughts and feelings as each day goes on, instead of dwelling on the past. I've decided to take some sort of control over my hobbies again. Apart from writing there was one more hobby of mine that I missed and that was band. Having been in marching bands most of my life I was gutted when I had to leave a few years ago and I've decided to go back. I miss the time spent with my friends and I miss the competitions we have. Hopefully this will help carry on the work that working in the pub has started to do, bring me out of my shell. I am so nervous around people, but the weird thing is I'm not so nervous around strangers anymore... it's the people who I've known for years that I'm shy around.

I've got the first practice tonight so I'm looking forward to that. It'll be nice to talk to my friends again. Hopefully I will be ok with them tonight. It's kind of embarrassing when you are too nervous to talk to your friends. I've got one or two friends there that have always made me feel comfortable, it's the reason I'm going back to my old band rather than going to a band closer to home. I'm nervous but excited about tonight so I'll be writing a lot more after practice tonight. Got to go.. see you later.

Band was brilliant tonight. I really enjoyed being back... we didn't get much done because it was the first practice of the season and we were sorting everything out but that's what makes it fun. Being there from the beginning. Seeing how bad everything is at the beginning and then in a few months seeing the final product.. It's kind of like giving birth and then watching the child graduate. During the weeks between you watch the baby stumble as it takes it few steps, get into trouble and there are times when you wonder why you even bother to try and then the graduation leaves you feeling a sense of pride as you watch the baby do what you knew it could do all along. Bands are kind of like that. At the first practice, everything is a mess... nobody knows what instruments they are playing, there isn't a display to practice and you have new members there that have never marched before. Over the next couple of weeks the band will start to take shape.... it will be a few weeks before the display gets finished and there will be mistakes along the way, but when the band has the uniform on and it's the first competition they will be great. 

  Everyone was glad to see me tonight which made me feel better, I was a little worried about the whole going back thing but everyone was saying I'd been out of band too long anyway and they were wondering when I was coming back. It's a little strange to be thought that highly of.

When you were growing up did you ever have a crush on a female friend, even though you were completely in love with a boy? I did. When I was 15, I had a massive crush on one of my best friends. She was 2 years younger than me and at the time my feelings for her felt a lot more than just a simple crush but I never let myself believe it was anything more than that because I was having feelings for a boy... and those feelings were the gives you butterflies in your stomach when you think of him sort of feelings.... That was the sort of thing I have always associated with love.. I didn't have that with Natasha.. Ok I had this urge to talk to her and spend as much time with her as possible and I would get excited when I knew I was going to see her and I was devastated when we had an argument, but that was it, so I put this down to a crush. Anyway, why I brought her up is... she is in the band now. It was a shock to see her there and at first I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it but luckily I didn't feel anything for her. I never even spoke to her, which did upset me a little because she was my best friend and now we aren't even speaking for no other reason than I finished band a few years ago. That's how I met her... she was in another band and we started talking and we were friends from then... when I left band she just didn't seem interested in a friendship anymore and that hurt a lot but I let it go and moved on.

Have you noticed that my thoughts are all over the place? I'm always told that but it's the way I am. I've tried to organise my thoughts when they are down on paper but it seems really manufactured and not me at all. That's the whole point of this journal... it's so people can see me for who I am, whether they like me or not is a different matter.

Sleep didn't come easy to me last night. There were thoughts going through my head most of the night. I was thinking about band a lot, how much I enjoyed it before and hopefully how much I'll enjoy it again. Going to the competitions, meeting up with friends I haven't seen for years.. There's also the competitive streak in me, the one thing I've always had faith in is my ability to do my job on whatever instrument I'm on in band. I've been given a new instrument now and I have to learn what I'm doing but I know I'll do it well. Maybe that sounds cocky but it really isn't. Everything I've ever done in band I've done well, I've got the trophies to prove it. I was on a major winning streak when I left:- 17 competitions without losing and I would like to carry that on.

The one thing I noticed last night as well, and I don't know how much this ties in with the whole writers block thing, is my lack of dreams. I don't dream anymore. I used to have really vivid dreams that told a story, it was how I got most of my story ideas. I haven't had a dream I remember for years. When I was going to sleep last night I tried to manipulate my dreams by thinking about what I wanted to dream of, it used to work, but not last night. I used to enjoy my dreams and sometimes I used to hate waking up. Now I'm going to sleep at 3am and I'm up by 7.30. So not much sleep and no dreaming.. :-(

After two months of being on the housing list I had a phone call from the council about a flat that is available for immediate occupation. I'm going to have a look at it this afternoon. It's a first floor flat, which I'm not too pleased about because I don't like having people living underneath me. I hate having to watch how much noise I make because I might disturb the people downstairs. I can't complain though, it's somewhere I can call my own. Hopefully it isn't on a bad council estate. I can handle most things but not living on an estate that the Police visit a few times a week.. I had that in the last house, that was enough for me.

I saw the flat this afternoon. It looked good and my step-father Michael told me it was a quiet area, so I've accepted it and I'll be moving in as soon as possible. I've got some stuff that I need to get and it needs decorating but I've got friends who will help me do that. I bought a lot of paint and wallpaper that I want to use for the bedroom and living room. The one thing, which is a good thing, is the flat is a two bedroom flat isn't on one, so I've got a spare room. There is also a designated parking space around the back and parking space on the road so at least my car will be pretty safe.

I'm looking forward to moving in now, it'll be nice to do whatever I want in my own home for the first time in my life. I can walk around naked if I want to, without worrying about someone walking in. Not that I would want to do that anyway but the opportunity is there. If I get involved in a relationship, I can have sex without worrying about getting caught. I'll be fully independent for the first time.

Anyway I'd best be going. I'll be back tomorrow.

Tell me what you think... muzza799@valuehost.co.uk.

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