I am My Mother's Daughter.

So... last night was my jazz gig at Le Quecumbar, a great little gypsy jazz bar in Battersea.

This was all very last minute, a friend of a friend had passed my name on to someone who desperately needed a jazz singer at the last minute and i desperately needed the £50....

So... there we were with two hours of rehearsal and 40 of your favourite jazz tunes up our sleeve ready to go. We started out fine, finding our feet in the venue, singing the songs that we knew and early on in the first set walked a group of late 30's people. They all sat down at the table right in front of me and ordered food... One of them caught my eye. Tall, Black hair, beautiful eyes, stubble... and was it just me... or was he catching my eye a little too often....?

something in me started to rumble... single amy was back... the panther was once again prowling the african deserts for food. And she was hungry.

The set contiuned... a little rough and ragged, Will and i had only known each other for two days.... so it was very "fly by the seat of your pants" gig, but we were doing fine. Ended the first set and went to have a drink with all my mates who had come along (a surprisingly good turn out...)

I was having a big catch up with an old friend of mine when... tall dark and handsome came up to me to have a chat.

He was intelligent, flirty, witty and sweet, his name was Mark, worked as an architect and was out with friends... could this be the best re-bound present the universe could ever give!?!? I think so!!!!

And so.... the all singing, all dancing, Amy is single show came back by popular demand!!!

But, before i could do my dont you think i'm funny and great tap dance.... it was back to the grindstone, we had a second set to sing... but, really... since when has that ever got in between me and a cute architect!

so there we were belting out the tunes having a ball... mark starts requesting songs, i sing them for him... he buys me wine, i drink it.... we're winking at each other, there is a vibe in the air.... it was all good!!!

We finish the set and tall, dark, handome Mark comes up to say goodbye and gives me his phone number. KER-CHING!!!! Mission accomplished!!

"let me know when you are singing again..."

"maybe i should just txt you anyway..."

"maybe you should...."

"well maybe I will..."

and with that he took his designer stubble and ralph lauren sweater out the door.

oh yeah... I sassed my way to the women's bathroom, looked in the mirror and said to myself... YOU STILL GOT IT MUMMA!!!

So... in the flirty boozy haze i was now floating in, i sent a flirty little text.

Hi mark, it was great to meet you tonight, give me a call if you ever want to go for a drink, Amy the singer. xx

(apparently last night i decided i now have not just a name, but a title... Amy the singer is how you all must now address me)

So.. the night wore on, we all kept drinking and before i knew it i was on the bus home at 4am... and supposed to be at work at 8am...

One call in sick to work later and i am sitting on the couch today watching home and away reruns... day dreaming about my future life with a hot architect when my phone bleeps with a text message....

it was mark... my heart started to flutter... i couldnt help but smile.... the message was as follows...

Hi amy! It was great to meet you. We had a really fun evening and the music was great! Sorry if i was a bit flirty but I have to tell you I'm actually gay. (who else knows all the words to somewhere over the rainbow) would still love to meet for drinks anytime - you're good fun. Mark xx

all i could do was laugh and laugh and laugh.....

yep... Amy is back...single and picking up gay men again!!!!

My Oprah Moment.

After all the crying is done... after all the noise of the immediate, short term hurt... after the clanging and clattering of the fall... there comes a moment of silence.

A quiet part where you sit and be with what actually is. When you let the gremlin questions wash away. The "why didn't he, why couldn't I, why wasn't it, what could have been...." Where you take a breath and slowly start to dust yourself off.

Yep... there are some cuts and grazes, a few bruises here and there... but these are all things that heal. Yes... there is a little pool of sadness that sits in the pit of your stomach... but with each breath you take - every time you inhale slowly and deeply enough - that little pool of sad starts to dry.

You can't rush this. It deserves to be there. You are mourning a loss. But if you can acknowledge it, hell... make friends with it, this too... will become easier.

Only when you get to this silence can you hear the ringing in your ears stop, feel the pain in your head subside and let the small voice in your soul once again start to say... "you're ok kid... this is going to be ok."

And then... only then... can you start to realise that when something major has fallen away, you can see clearly that something remarkable has been revealed. The essence of you. The soul that can love, recover and learn, once again emerges not just intact, but more awake than before. A mask, a weight has been removed from the person you define as yourself.

As I negotiate my way through this world, moving from one challenge to another, I contantly find myself gazing down to find that somehow... my feet are still on the ground. I am still breathing, still living and still going.

And then, I get the Bhuddist joke of it all.

We are not (nor are we ever) the people we think we are. We are not locked to the thing we fear to lose. What we are, is the soul that is left when everything else is gone.

Losing what we think cannot be lost compels us to remember who we are...

"With the walls of my house burt down/I have a better view of the moon"

"Each time we mourn a loss its as if we've lost a ballast, been bounced and made more luminous."

The art of losing is hard to master. But losing yourself... your joy of being... that is the only disaster.

Sometimes you have to raise a flag, a white one, and say "Love - as incredible as it is - sometimes isn't enough. Sometimes we're just not the right fit, we're not the match we hoped we were. But that's ok. Maybe we'll fit together in a different way... some other day."

And then you look down at the pieces of your heart you swept up off the floor and you realise you've already put them back together.

No - its not exactly the same shape it was before all of this... but that's ok.

Because that is the whole point.

"THE NAPKIN" or "This is going to Hurt"

"welcome to the O2 messaging service, the person (your boyfriend) you are trying to speak to cannot take your call, pls leave your message after the tone."

"um hi... its amy. listen, i wanted to say this to you directly but i couldnt manage to catch you, and now you are apparently on a plane to L.A. Thanks for getting your secretary to tell me that.

Hon... we are going to be okay. But I've been giving this alot of thought. This is a well thought out decision, its not a rash tantrum or a cry for attention.This is not a tactic.

At the end of the day, what you need and what and i need from a romantic relationship, just dont co-incide. Its not about who is right, or who is wrong, it is the simpe fact that we are not a match. its not a crime, its no-one's fault. It's just sad becuase we do love each other... and i do hon. i love you so much i dont even understand it.

But, i had to say this before we got into smaller, irellavant details or about any particular hurt or incident. i wanted to say this before things became too sour for us to EVER have any kind of relationship, because that is not what i want. I want us to be in each other's lives, i just don't think it can be romantically - or not romantically right now.

I cannot love an empty space, I cannot love you if you wont let me, i cannot be your girlfriend if you cannot let me in.

I love you, I always will, this breaks my heart and causes un-imaginable pain. but i wish you every happiness, becuase you deserve it.

I guess that's it"

and with that... i picked up the shattered pieces of my heart.... and went looking for the sticky tape.