This is my truth, tell me yours

After my last post, a couple of days ago, I decided not to wait until that perfect ‘1st of this month’ moment to introduce my good resolutions, but start straight away. So I started on the 27th of April... the king’s birthday and thus a day spent strolling around flea markets in the warm April sunshine with a refreshing beer, trying to resist the incredible smells of freshly made street food. I shared some deep-fried fish but managed to ignore the rest of the food stands. Dinner was a Mexican wrap with beans, bell pepper, onion and some parmesan cheese on top. All in all not too bad. 

However, this successful meal was topped by what we made yesterday. A Pinterest pin of a baked sweet potato with feta, walnuts and crispy kale drew all the attention to itself. I mean look at the photo that accompanied the recipe. Beautiful. We used Cavolo Nero (which I’d never eaten before) instead of kale, because the only type of kale you can find around here is chopped up into tiny little pieces, too small to make proper crispy bits. 

Cavolo Nero = the bomb. It’s similar to kale but has a lovely strong flavour that combined so well with the feta. It tasted incredible. It took me a while to get the inside of the potato nice and soft, I was pretty proud of the end result. 

My relationship with food is a strange one. Food in general doesn’t particularly excite me BUT still I seek comfort in it whenever I have had a rough day or don’t feel too well. I don’t even really know why I do this, because it rarely ever cheers me up. On the contrary, usually it only makes me feel lethargic and bloated, as the type of food I crave as comfort food is way too salty and full of carbohydrates for my body to easily digest (that cheapest brand of crisp that is basically pure salt? Instant noodles with extra added soy sauce?). 

I’ve always wanted to pick up healthy eating habits and sometimes I do... for a bit. It’s a cycle where I’ll eat healthy for a while (avocados and oats are my mates) and then fall back into eating instant noodles for dinner. One of the things I struggle the most with, is an embarrassing one: I am too lazy to cook healthy food. There, I said it. No ‘I don’t have the time’ bullshit, I don’t take the time. 

This is exactly where my healthy intentions always go wrong, because unhealthy food is easy. It’s right there, pre-packaged or readily chopped up, it doesn’t go bad until 2058 and you only have to pop the whole thing into a pan or add water or even just open the bag and it’s ready to eat. Plus, once I’m hungry I feel as if I could eat for three, while in reality I’m already pretty full halfway through a portion but hey, if it’s there, I’ll eat it. 

It’s the stupidest thing because I do like to cook. I do! But cooking also requires thinking about what you’re going to make and going to the supermarket and that, I don’t like. (I am the EXACT target group for those meal box things they send to you). However, I am so proud whenever I have prepared a meal and others enjoy it. 

I guess there isn’t a better time than right now to start eating more healthy because my boyfriend likes to cook. And he uses ingredients I never use. Parsnip? Sweet Potato? Celery? (Okay scratch that last one, me and celery are not a match made in heaven). It’s fun. And it challenges me to prepare good meals as well because I don’t want to drag him into the dark, instant noodly side of my eating habits. 

But I still find myself going back to that whenever I have dinner on my own -he works evenings/nights so this happens a few times a week- and these meals (or lack thereof) leave me feeling bloated and lacking energy the next day. It’s very self-sabotaging and I’m trying to find a way to implement a healthy diet as the default setting in my life. 

Choosing food that’s nurturing for my body and soul should be something I should not have to think about twice. I think it’s a similar thing to how vegetarians never consider meals that contain meat an option. I shouldn’t even consider foods that will make me feel worse an option.

How often I wish I could just say these words out loud. Instead, a ridiculous feeling of guilt washes over me and I stammer some lousy excuse you will see through straight away. 

Dating in your twenties is a weird and wild rollercoaster. And I don’t like rollercoasters because I suffer from motion sickness. I don’t like dates because... well... I have a lot of reasons. 

I don’t like dates because if I like you, I won’t need a whole evening to figure that out.

I don’t like dates because, for a pretty laid-back person, I will feel surprisingly awkward and will return every second of silence you give me with a minute of talking. And when I talk, I talk. No, I will not talk- I will ramble. By the end of the night you will know more about nebulas, Fleetwood Mac, Pterosaurs, beat poetry and the very boring process of making whisky than any person needs to know in their lifetime. 

I don’t like dates because they put a lot of pressure on me. If you ask me on a date, all my brain will register is “I kind of like you” and if I can’t answer that with a straight-up “JESUS CHRIST I LOVE YOU TOO”, I will feel guilty. Really guilty. I-will-pay-for-your-drinks-and-ramble-about-nebulas-guilty. 

I don’t like dates because they are the axe that cuts loose the last string of the rope that holds the drawbridge between our friendship and an unrequitable desire for more together. A lot of drawbridges have fallen and a lot of castles have been abandoned. Please don’t force me to let this one fall into ruin too.

I don’t like dates because I am not flowers and chocolates and drinks and sunsets and picnics and laying in each other’s arms until the sun rises and my housemate finds us and will ask me questions that will make me blush. 

I am just not who you want me to be, deal with it. 

a feverish night spent filled with paranoid thoughts and worries, turned into an unexpectedly lovely day where the sun finally fought its way through the clouds for the first time in almost a week and I spent most of my time out of the house in coffee-fuelled bliss. 

Trying to stay awake in the evening proved troublesome after my broken night’s sleep, so I took to watching Notting Hill and am now shamelessly daydreaming about yellow houses, Tardis blue doors and that weirdly charming kitchen that at least has the same checkerboard tiles mine has.

“You should have graduated by now.”

The world is asleep and so should I be. Yet, I am counting the lines on my ceiling, wondering why my lamp isn’t hanging exactly in line with them and listening to a distant sound that may be water streaming through a pipe in the wall but it might also be blood rushing through my ears or electricity leaking from what I think could be one of the chargers close to my head. Can electricity leak from a charger?

So many useless thoughts to try and ban out the panic I feel deep under my skin. The type of restless anxiety you feel right before receiving the grade for an important test, or before a date with someone you really have a crush on. Except, there is no test and there is no date. It’s thoughts of your everyday life that’s fencing away the sleep your body is yearning for. Anxious without having anxiety. Lying awake at night, terrified and paralysed by your own life is not normal. But it’s not a reason to get diagnosed for something either. Thank god.

My head spins.  You should have graduated by now. You are ruining your life by taking so long. You’re throwing away days as if you have an infinite amount of them at your fingertips. What if you died tonight? What have you accomplished? You’re not living every day as if it’s your last. You’re barely living at all, only going through the motions to get through another day. You’re waiting for life to start while the internet preaches about seizing the moment and how YOU are the only one who can make yourself happy. Taking life into your own hands.

My mind keeps going on and on. Your friends think you are actually quite boring now they got to know you better. Your colleagues thought you had a lot of potential but now wonder why you haven’t graduated yet and got yourself a real job. Your parents worry why you’re not yet where they were at your age. Your cat thinks you’re away too much. Your housemates are disappointed you’re not as funny as they thought you would be.

Expectations, basically. Why am I afraid I never live up to the expectations of everyone? Why do I even think everyone expects so much from me? 

My mind turns the positive sour again. You are really horribly arrogant for thinking everyone has such high expectations of you. Because maybe they don’t.

Why do thoughts go so fast? Before you have found a solution, they’re gone, and when it’s their turn in the endless cycle to pop by again, you can’t remember how you thought about them earlier.

You are hungry. Why haven’t you brought up the discipline to go running yet? You have bought all the stuff; installed all the apps. Your old classmates would laugh to themselves if they could see you now. They would wonder why you have failed in life so far. Why are you still working in a shop at 26? When people ask what you do, you tell them you study journalism.

Because you like writing, but you barely write anymore.

If Greggs was a boy, he'd be one of those guys who let you know how amazing they are before fucking you over and running away, never to be seen again

During my time in the UK, I got to know Greggs. Greggs was nice. Before long, Greggs had knocked me off my feet. The cheddar cheese and pickled onions baquette, the adorable 'best mum ever' cookies they had around mothers day and my absolute favourite: the steak bake- Greggs was my number one sandwich shop.

Now, I hadn't seen Greggs in a long time because I moved abroad, but when I visited London last December I was exited to see him again. But I couldn't find any trace of Greggs. It was like he had never existed. No matter how much I looked around for his blue and orangeness, he was nowhere to be seen.

Then earlier this January, I came back to England and drove all the way up north and somewhere along the motorway I saw a familiar sight. Greggs. In all his former glory. I walked in, all excited to see him again. My heart jumped when I noticed there were two steak bakes left and I quickly got in line, all the while telling my parents and aunt, who were with me on the trip, how amazing Greggs was. Then it happened. A young truck driver- as seen by his bright yellow vest- was ahead of me in line. He had the guts to buy the last two steak bakes. BOTH OF THEM.

I was furious. Never had I imagined someone could ever come between me and Greggs. But it happened. And Greggs said he was sorry, but there were no steak bakes in the oven and it could take between 30 minutes and an hour before he'd have any new ones. And I didn't have that long.

- McCoys crisps - Mature cheddar - Warburtons seeded batch - Chocolate oranges - Batchelors super noodles - Curly Wurly - Pickled onions - Greggs steak bake

Lists are exciting. And I bet everyone has had this moment, when you read an interview with your favourite artist and think about what you would answer when asked about your all time top 5, musicians, classic rock records, romantic comedies, cheeses or colours. Well, I fucking have.

And now I write for a music magazine. And not one of those with an editorial office full of music critics with theirs heads so far up their own ass they can't even hear the music anymore, but a genuinely awesome, rock and punk magazine.

And November 2012 was the first time I was asked for my top 10 albums of the year list. I'm not gonna lie and be a cool journalist: I was fu-cking siked. I mean, for someone who loves High Fidelity (the book... oh, fuck it AND the film), and has had her top 10 list about EVERYTHING in music ready since the age of 12, this was a dream coming true.

But the pressure is so high.

So damn high.

First off, TEN albums isn't much. But then again, who says the 10 albums you loved in 2012, were also released in 2012... no one, because most of them weren't. And what if you would send in your list and then realise you had forgot to include your favourite record of the year?

And I like a lot of music, but I wouldn't necessarily include them in my annual top 10.

I wanted to include The Blackout, but their 2012 album wasn't very good. I wanted Yellowcard to be in there because I'd interviewed them for the first time that year, but their new record wasn't my all-time favourite either. And So I Watched You From Afar - SUCH a good record but it dates all the way back to prehistorical 2011 so it's a no-go. Besides that, three months of actually being present in the office had presented me with a buck-load of bands I'd never heard of before but that went straight into my most played list on the mp3-player. Sadly, most of them aren't active (or even alive) anymore.

But after a week of going through things, it ended up looking something like this:

1. Every Time I Die - Ex-Lives 2. Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood of Colour 3. Will And The People - self-titled (I've never seen anything look so misplaced since I included scrambled eggs in my 'favourite things to have for dinner'-list) 4. Emmure - Slave to the Game 5. The Cribs - In The Belly of the Brazen Bull (OR maybe Yellowcard - Southern Air after all) 6. Bongripper - The Great Barrier Reefer 7. Japandroids - Celebration Rock 8. Attack Attack! - This Means War 9. The Maine - Pioneer & The Good Love 10. The Menzingers - On The Impossible Past

But I wasn't happy about it and, frustrated with my inability to form a list, I forgot about it. Literally. I forgot to hand it in so my list wasn't featured amongst the writers.

The sadness I felt when I realised I'd forgot about it, went straight into the list of 'most randomly disappointing moments of my life', along with when the Natural History Museum said the dinosaurs were 'on holiday' (I know you lied, I could see them behind the screen!) and that one time I needed a great hangover breakfast and there were no eggs.