The Quiet Days

I’m standing in the refrigerated aisle in the Co-op, between the ready to heat steak pies and the cheese, grated and whole. I don’t hold eye contact with a single person while I’m in there, and it’s only on paying at the self service that I’m staring back at myself on a screen above the other screen, and a word flashes; RECORDING. No, I think, please don’t record this. Not me buying cheese and basil (I made pesto). Record me writing, mixing, reading, applying for jobs, even record me writhing in agony last night as the fist of my period pain twisted in and out, and me, literally begging myself for mercy, straddling a spare duvet, two cushions, a hot water bottle and my childhood bear, J rubbing my back and helpless to my suffering. Record that. Record my life.

*

Lockdown happened. Speaking generally, the isolation suited us. I’m an introvert at heart, so I really cherished being alone with the trees and open horizons (we were at my parents when lockdown was enforced). I wrote in my own time, we recorded and tracked the next EP in our own time, I picked wild garlic leaves and de-weeded the garden, all in this window of time we’d been gifted. I read dozens of books, and will read dozens more. I was furloughed, I was looked after, I felt happy, healthy (even when my back went and I fell on the floor like a sack of shite and had to be lowered into the bath like a malnourished whale).

Then I lost my job. I knew it was coming, of course. The coffee shop had to close for a number of reasons, but mainly due to the pandemic and the fact they just couldn’t make it work. So many people have lost so much in this time. The solution isn’t simple.  I thought to myself, rather in the style of ITV’s Vera, Look, pet, you’re good at the coffee job thing. But you’re also really capable at loads of other stuff too, you don’t have to limit yourself. Try something new! This is a door. Open it. So I’ve been applying for jobs in publishers, editorial assistants jobs, working with books, copyright, anything where I can write or read or just be around words for a living. So far, it’s going okay, but I’m optimistic. There must be someone out there that’s quite taken with my wilfully positive CV, even if I am wholly unqualified...

But then some other stuff happened and I became really negative and scared, worried about my future again, worried about the world we were coming to know and normalise. The indecision, the lethargy, the restlessness, the not-knowing-when-to-start, the heavy sighs. Even my skin was showing signs that inside, I was panicking, because:

I don’t know how my life is going to look going forward, and that frightens me.

All of my live work was cancelled, all the groundwork I’d been building up on. The portfolio of work, the earnings that were growing and might have supported me enough after a few years so that I could think about getting a mortgage or having a babaganoush (baba, kiddo, sprog, littl’un, baby).  Gone. When people lament that “2020 was the year that never happened,” I think, yeah, but I’m still losing all my eggs. 

I’m luckier than most. When I really sit and focus on what I have, if my life were a barbecue, I really am the juicy sausage on the grill drizzled in honey and bathing in fat. I have a lot to be thankful for, and that calms me. Even if I am being cooked alive. 

Weird analogy. 

I think a lot of you will empathise with this, because it’s not just the work, or the coffee job, or time that was robbed from me, from all of us, but communication and interaction. Nobody can see my face, nobody can see me smile, and I feel desperate for recognition. I want my old life back. I want the motivation, the optimism, the touring, the being able to shake hands and hug without guilt, and the excitement for making plans with friends, the where shall we go next and being able to answer the question, “When are you guys going to get married, then?” The realisation that I won’t be going back to my life before, has hit me, right between the steak pies and the cheese aisle. Knowing that the year we had planned never happened and not even knowing if we can plan the next has filled me with dread. Because what is life when every small thing we cherish and take for granted every day is removed? When excitement is a luxury, not a common occurrence? Even the jobs we thought we hated, turned out to be the lifeblood behind our choices and decisions. The people that wound us up, the people that smiled at us, the people that knew our names and asked how we were. They were all in one way or another keeping us going, moving us on, passing us forward. 

‘It's hard, we got our heads down and our hackles up Our backs against the wall, I can feel your heart racing...’

It’s not all bad. Writing this down I know that I’m getting caught in that cycle of negative thinking, and I’m freed from it a little. Thank you for bearing with me, and apologies if I’ve made you sad. But people need people. When I feel like I’m losing, I think about the very important people around me, even those who reached out to me during my grief who I hadn’t heard from in years who’d heard of my Nan’s recent passing. I think of their faces and our laughter and memories, and I think, I am lucky. I have a lot to cherish.  So if you’re where I’m at, if you’re worried and scared and sad that you lost something or someone this year, think about those people’s faces. The people who bolster you, hold you up. The folks that remind you that nothing else matters when you have love. When you have a hand to hold, a dog to stroke, and if you’re more of a loner type, a hill to climb, a sea to swim, a stiff breeze to hold yourself against.  We’ll get through it all together.

‘...None of this was written in stone The current's fast but the river moves slow And I can feel things changing Even when I'm weak and I'm breaking I stand weeping at the train station 'Cause I can see your faces I love people's faces.” - People’s Faces by Kae Tempest

We’re three weeks into official lockdown, so I’m not going to patronise and assume nobody has seen these kind of posts on Instagram:

Well, you lack the basic empathic skills to make you a canny lad, Farrah.

I don’t know anyone who can speak fluent mandarin after a month in quarantine. I also don’t know anyone who can learn how to install a flush skirting board in their bathroom after three weeks of bashing their heads against the wall from trying to teach their own kids, either. When was the last time anyone started a business in only six weeks, whilst also realising their new boyfriend, who they’ve subsequently been trapped with, is in fact the most sinfully boring person who ever had the audacity to be born (isolation increases the use of hyperbole). Never mind this all happening in the midst of one of the worst economic health crises’ in recent history?! 

Obviously, Farrah has started his particular side hustle as a mandarin-speaking joiner already. Good luck to him. All the best. Take care.

The fact is, the best of us are either on the front line, risking their lives to save others, or risking their lives getting us about on public transport, or teaching their kids geometry or some-shit, whilst also bouncing a baby in the palm of their hand and taking the dog for a walk six times a day. If you have time to focus on those goals, like learning a new language, or starting that book you promised yourself you’d write, or organising your photo albums, or finally learning the meaning of the off-side rule, then fill your boots. What does Farrah think we’re all doing? Sitting around with our thumbs up our arses, staring at the ceiling? It’s really the arrogance of those posts that really wind me up, as if they’re the font of all knowledge and inspiration and they’ve deigned to let us see what the good life looks like. Rude.

If you finally have the time to breathe, go for walks, cook, and just survive through this thing, then that is okay too. Christ, we all work hard enough, don’t we deserve to take this time off from the demands of such a fast paced modern world? It takes zero prisoners. We might not get another opportunity to put our feet up and not feel guilty about it, for the rest of our lives. The last time I felt like this, it was the summer holidays and I was fourteen. Most adults don’t see this kind of respite until they’re pensioners.

We’re all different. Some of us thrive on keeping ourselves busy, giving ourselves jobs and lining up support systems for those in need, or volunteering, or just getting that peeling garden set sanded and painted again, or cleaning out the fridge of old jars of spam and failed sourdough starters from three months ago. But some of us, who find the world and the competitive road we’re all herded on each and every day, overwhelming, and so it’s a welcome and quiet reprieve. 

It’s time to slow down and breathe, and I repeat, not feel guilty about it.

Breathe. Eat. Sleep. Stretch. Repeat.

Not to mention, all the while this is going on in our brain-boxes, hundreds of people are dying every day in the UK. It’s rising every day. This is a time unseen for most of us. The global anxiety level is high. I have to do what I can to establish a routine, make the most of this time I have, but check in with those numbers every day to remember, this isn’t a state paid holiday. I have personally always maintained that life is a balance, anyone reading my blog would agree. This time that has either been gifted or forced upon it (a bit of both, I’d concede), is no different. 

It’s important to remember that the people who are trying to influence us aren’t helping us; they’re feeling better about themselves. Instagram, especially. The platform exists so we can reach out and find validation, some praise for being humans. That’s the basic psychology behind it. It’s not even the more grandiose aspects of the platform that personally irritate me. It’s the mundane. “I colour- coded and ordered my bookshelf!” Thank you for that picture. Well done. It’s a bookshelf. I’m happy that it’s colour coded, I really am, it is satisfying to see, but I don’t need to know about it. What you did was sit for an hour or so and colour code your books. That shit isn’t stuff we see in Oscar winning movies. Seeing it on Twitter or Instagram, though, makes me feel guilty that my own bookshelf is not colour coded. Even though I couldn’t give a tiny mouses mitten whether it is or not. I’m suddenly hyper aware that my bookshelf is disordered, and a wave of displaced anxiety arises. Should I order my bookshelf? Am I wasting time? Should my bookcase be disordered? Yes. It’s the way I like it.  This is coming from a person who takes great pride and personal relief from tidying. I love tidying. I love ordering stuff, and I can’t relax after work until everything is in its place. But do you see me posting about it on instagram? No. Why? Because while I believe in those small, beautiful meditations, whether that’s colour-coding a bookshelf, making a coffee in the morning, writing in a journal; it’s personal. As soon as we start posting about those moments, we’re diluting the experience and it no longer has any resonance, because you’re doing it for someone else instead of yourself. Yes, we might get some gratification from it, but why does someone need to see that I cooked a beautiful meal for me to know, that, well... I cooked a beautiful meal? I have to be so careful to remember that someone else’s life and someone else’s grievances are not my own. This is the trouble with social media, in general. It’s a hive mind. Once you’re logged in, other people’s experiences becomes yours, thrust upon you, whether you wanted it or not. So you did one small workout this morning, feeling good, right? But that other slim, tanned, beautiful, make-upped person did two. Plus a run. With intervals. And a fruit smoothie afterwards. Christ, is anything we do good enough? The influencers who are posting from home about how to stay fit and keep the pounds off, they’re only wanting to feel better about themselves. It has nothing to do with you. If someone is lauding that shit all over you, and you’re quite happy wondering what kind of a potato you are, then unfollow, fren.

At the end of the day, if we come out of this a little bit fitter, or a few pounds heavier, it doth not matter a fuck. What’s important is that we come out of this thing alive.

While we can roll our eyes at these accounts, it’s also vital to know that a lot of people with the time to do all this stuff can probably afford to. Once you see it, it’s very hard not to notice how out of touch they can be. Personally, I have a safety net. I’m being looked after by my employers, I have some savings, my outgoings are small. So I’m trying to learn french. But others, aren’t so lucky. They’re either still working in a Co-op, or working from home, or have lost their jobs due to bad bosses (who will be named and shamed after this, I’m sure), and are too busy applying for universal credit to spend their spare minutes worrying whether they’ve learned a new skill or not.  This is where I’m coming to my next point. If someone is capitalising on this, whether it’s selling weight loss shakes, reusable gloves or masks for a high profit, they’re not influencers or half way decent people. It’s one thing to get by, creating work where we can get it (I set up a Patreon), and we’re quite happy to take what comes from people who can afford it. But it’s quite another to profit from a disaster like this. I might be okay for a couple of months. But if this stretches on until 2021, I’m not sure where I’m going to be.  So forgive me for not having time for holier-than-thou posts about how we ought to be spending this time isolating. I’m too busy regretting the time I’m missing with my friends, my family, sad that I can’t celebrate getting engaged (I got engaged) with my loved ones, sad for my friends who’ve had to cancel their own weddings, sad for friends who are losing work and money, whose businesses might crash. Lives. The economy is crashing, France is in recession, and here I’ve got Billy Big Balls telling me I’m not disciplined enough to achieve my goals. 

There’s a lot going on right now. The most important thing, human contact, and the people we love, that’s what we need the most. Not a new bloody skill.

So breathe. Eat. Sleep. Stretch. Repeat. 

If that’s all you can do, do it. Just staying home, we’re saving lives. We might not know it. But we are.

Can you imagine coming out the other end of this, the world opening again, only to find our favourite pubs and coffee shops closing due to a financial crash, unemployment sky rocketing, not to mention the lines of funerals of people who have died, and Great Farrah of the Dick Swinging comes out of his bubble, speaking mandarin and profiting from his new business, telling us all that we wasted our time?

Jesus. Talk about tone-deaf.

There’s a rumour going around that I’m gonna give it all up. 

The rumour is only in my head. But still.

Entirely expectedly at this time of year, I’ve been experiencing some introspective anxiety. Namely, noticing that when I think about my music, my anxiety starts peaking. Ugh, I know. So boring. The streams of panic, sending whirly moments of fear through my gut; I’m not good enough, I haven’t done enough, I don’t want to do enough. If I don’t want to do enough, then I mustn’t want this.  I’m going to escape, move to New Zealand, sell books.  You see where I’m going with this.  The slow, maddening, endless descent into spiralling negative thoughts. Let me just lie down.

Firstly, I have to be very careful that I don’t take my reluctance to do something as a sign from the universe that I’m on the wrong track. The universe, sometimes, doesn’t know shit about it. I put too much stock in the universe and all its power at the dawning of 2019 and look where that got me. Alright, all the way out to LA, but I came back, didn’t I? Quite clearly something (that I’m not going to talk about, because it doesn’t actually matter, honest) didn’t pan out as it was supposed to.

But I set my intentions! I rode the wave of acceptance! I was grateful! 

Come off it. Nah. Sometimes shit doesn’t pan out and you either fall hard or get on with it. In the end, I was glad that thing didn’t pan out, because I felt like I’d been freed. Freed from an industry that felt fake and vacuous, freed on my own trudgey path, to do whatever I want on it. I could kick some stones for a while, make some moves. Or, as it happens, stand completely still. But here’s the rub. I’ve been entertaining thoughts of doing other things. I wrote a book a year ago and sat on it for another year, picking it apart, editing, sending to my beta readers. It reawakened a very simple, undemanding love for reading and writing. It doesn’t always make me feel bad when I do it. It is a pure and unadulterated mode escapism. Excuse me while I jump off the world for a sec. Of course, there are days I have no ideas, I can’t pull together any words, and on those days, I feel like a steaming hot pile of turd. But generally, I lie awake at night imagining scenes, characters. I’ve realised I see the world through a writers eyes, always creating stories for people, craving seeing inside someone else’s life, figure out their quirks. Everyone I meet is a character I analyse and flesh out in my head.  I couldn’t quite believe I’d buried this part of me for so long. I challenged myself to finish a novel in a year, and I did it. I finished the thing, just to prove to myself that I had it in me. I can’t tell you how freeing this is. So I started wondering if music had led me down a certain path, because from a young age, I had also craved attention and being on the stage, to perform. In my head, I imagined myself on red carpets and at award shows, even though I learned in my late teens how childish and silly this was. But in the back of my mind, always, I had pictured my life playing out away from Newcastle, away from London even. I guess I existed in a different world than the one I knew, even the one that looked real. It meant if I didn’t make music, or get played on Radio 1, or play the big festivals with the other big guys, or be the one to watch... I would fail. There was nothing else. It was this, or nothing. 

Obviously that mindset had repercussions in the end. So. I’ve given up on all those unrealistic dreams. 

I have no desire to be part of the music industry. Not now, after everything. It’s like I can see through the veil, and on the other side, all I see is poor mental health. I honestly love my life, my little flat, a hot brew after hot bowl food, wasting my life on Netflix but being held by a person I love. That’s all there is for me. Everything else is a bonus. I’m not giving up. I’m just, sort of, giving in. Letting go of the things that don’t make me happy. That includes those dreams, those expectations. The way I see it is, we live in a world that tells us to want more, get more, be endlessly unsatisfied and in a perpetual state of craving. I have wanted this idea for as long as I remember, but the reality is, the idea doesn’t exist.  It’s kind of like planning for a holiday. You’ve booked the flights, the transfers, you know you can get by with the bikinis you already own, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking, I could do with a very specific vest top or skirt or shorts for this holiday, otherwise I’ll be really annoyed not wearing the right thing when you’re climbing the steps from GoT in Dubrovnik, and you’ll have to look back on those pictures knowing that vest top was cropped when you didn’t want it to be. Or you’ve suddenly got a long list of items you need for this holiday, even though you know deep down, it’s about the memories and the respite of being on the actual bloody holiday, not the new travel wallet you bought from Liberties because Marie Claire told you it was a must-have for the holiday season. We’re always being sold stuff, only valuing ourselves through the lens of how everyone else perceives us, and what’s worse is that social media knows exactly what we’re thinking, what we’re tempted by. Instagram reinforces the need for a new cross-body bag for the holiday because you googled it or searched or it on ASOS. So you think, yeah, you know, I do need all that stuff. I need to fulfill my dream version of the holiday otherwise it won’t count.

That’s life. If you boil it right down to a lovely little jus, and drip it down on your unrealistic expectations, you’ll realise you’ve been spending years berating yourself by wanting more, wanting the goal, even wanting more while you have it, while doing everything to forget to be grateful or appreciative to yourself for the work you’ve put in to achieving it already. You’re missing it all while you set your sights ahead.  Dreams about how your life is going to look are a waste of time. Dreams are full of stuff we don’t need. Spend your days with your head in the clouds and you forget how to walk in the street without being hit by a cyclist.

Look, if I can release music and write a book, while being able to go to the pub for a pint and a game of Monopoly cards, and think about the possibility of having a family one day, then I’m happy. Family, people, connections, meaning, that’s what human beings need. It’s what I need, anyway. 

I don’t want the guilt that comes with never quite achieving that perfect version of my life. My life is perfect. It might not look like how I imagined it when I first got my passport, imagining where I’d be in ten years time, but if I spend one more day looking years ahead to that perfect moment, I’d completely miss it. Miss now. I’d miss the fact that my actual life, today, right now, is better than I could have imagined. 

So fuck that, pet.

I’m still recording, and I’m releasing very, very soon. But I’m just going along with it. I’m nervous about playing live, about the music world opening it’s doors to me again. Not sure if I want to step through. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But what I’ve realised recently is that I can, as a woman, as a person, have it all. I can make my own music, release it, perform it live. I can do session work, I can tour the world with Nitin Sawhney and perform to crowds of thousands, and I can clock out. I can write a book, I can work on a second. I can work in a coffee shop and enjoy it. I can audition for shows. I can stay at home on the PS4 on New Years Eve with my love and have the best time, and not think about how there was no huge monumental moment for me at the end of the decade, only the realisation that I have all I could ever really need. 

There isn’t one line that I have to follow. There isn’t one line you have to follow! Do what makes you happy, and remember what you really need to be so.

Thinking that music was the only thing that I was permitted to do was the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I felt that trying my hand at anything else was pushing my luck. Nobody would take me seriously if I spread myself too thin. Jack of all trades, and that. I didn’t even let myself explore to find out how good I am at any of it. I told myself no. I allowed myself to cradle that silly dream of making it (I honestly don’t know what this means any more), for years, and it held me back. There is no making it. There is only work, and today. 

And, anyway, I really don’t make enough money in one of those fields to warrant me only trudging through one. At this point, I have to think realistically, financially. 

It’s winter. I spent the summer challenging myself to like the look of my soft, hairy thighs because shaving my full leg takes too much time and irritation. I can’t afford the wax. I’m self-conscious, but I’m powering through. It all falls within the bell-curve. Most of the worlds population don’t know I exist, so why should I hate myself because I’m afraid someone might look at me with disgust?

I still sometimes look at myself in disgust, but powering through has forced me to see my grown woman body with love, appreciation and respect.  My partner turns to me, asks, “If you’d shave your legs for a gig, why won’t you shave them for me?” I’m quiet for a little while. I sigh. So that’s when I decided to stop shaving my legs for gigs, too. I realised that as much as the audience can’t see the orange winged liner I chose to apply on my eyes, they can’t see the downy hair on my legs either. And if they can? 

Get used to it. Trump is literally causing WW3 and someone like James Jordan is tweeting about how gross female body hair is as if it’s the most important thing in the world. 

Yeah, me neither.

I’m sure he expected me to bow to his argument in defeat. After all, he’s right. Kinda hypocritical of me to do it for someone else’s gaze, but not his, and after all, he is the most important person in my life. His gaze matters more than anyone else’s, and no body else’s matters a bit. I reply. “You love me as I am, yes? Well this is who I am. This is the most armpit hair I’ve ever seen on my body, period. Ever. From the moment it started sprouting, I was told to get rid. Nearly twenty years of my life, I’ve not seen my own body hair fully grown. I’ve never felt proud, or even just complacent about walking out of the door. I check myself constantly. Can they see it? Every day I look at the hair on my legs and question my femininity, all because society tells me to. Imagine looking at yourself every day and feeling disgust, a lack of sexiness and beauty, simply because you look the way you’re supposed to look.”

I think I have him there. “I understand all of this, and it’s a whole load of bullshit. But I just don’t find it as attractive. Would you not do it for me?” I only ever do it for him. That does matter to me. But how I see myself matters more. I sigh again. “I only ever do it for you. You’ve said yourself though, that you don’t believe women should look like pre-pubescent little girls, that anyone with a brain cell wouldn’t find a grown woman sexy with zero body hair on her body. When you tell me how I should look, which body parts are acceptable with hair on, and which aren’t, you’re censoring me. You’re choosing for me. At the end of the day, if you grew your beard, if you choose never to go for a run, that’s your choice. I love you still. I would advise you to stay healthy, but imagine if I asked you to shave your chest, your legs, what little hair you have on your arms. Because I don’t find you sexy or beautiful the way you are.” J is a reasonable, grounded person. I know he listens when I talk like this. It’s a discussion, never an argument. He really is the best person.  “I’m imploring you to question your masculinity and your privilege; society has told you that women are more beautiful without hair on their bodies. That is not something you believe. It is something you were conditioned to think. I was conditioned to believe that I was not beautiful the way I am. I refuse to spend another day hating my body, because hate is fear and the world wants women self-conscious and ashamed of themselves.” At the end of it, he tells me he loves me just the way I am. If I choose to stay the way I am, that’s fine. But I also reassure him that I will be waxing and then epilating, so that the hair that is fine and softer. But even that is a decision I’m making to cater to the worlds gaze. Believe it or not, this act of resilience is not an act of feminism, even though it’s definitely a part of the discussion. It’s purely my choice; I don’t want to live another day feeling shame about one more thing about myself. I am a grown woman, with curves and breasts and child bearing hips and dark hair all over my body. If I remove some it, I have to remove all of it.  If this disgusts you, then question why you feel that way. If you’re okay with hating yourself, go right ahead. But I absolutely refuse. Don’t give me that “talk to your friends about your problems,” or “let’s talk about mental health,” bullshit if you’re going to censor women, their bodies, and the daily mental health issues that arise from the shame that arises from inequality from the conversation. I only ever, ever removed my hair for the male gaze. Thought I’d never be sexy with it. So every morning I looked in the mirror, I hated the way I was born with my dark, beautiful hair that everyone complimented, because it meant the rest of my body was cast in the same shadow. My Mum recently apologised to me on behalf of her and my Dad for it. That made me sad. Even she thought my hair was something to be ashamed of. I thought she told me I was born perfect? My brother doesn’t have to worry. My sister neither, not really. She chooses to shave, but she’s never been as dark as me. Her choice, her body. But I can’t help but feel sad for all the women in my life that have to spent money, time and pain on hating themselves for the comfortable gaze of the many. 

At the end of the day, do you really mind it?

Or do you mind what everyone else feels about it?

Working in this industry makes it harder. It doesn’t make you a hard-core feminist artist just to have agency over your body. It just makes you a person. The core difference between someone who presents as male, and someone who presents as a woman, is that if that man chooses to shave, there’s no shame. We shrug, that’s their choice. The direct opposite, that same privilege, does not apply to us. Where’s my shrug, huh?  ALL I WANT IS A SHRUG. 

If I walk out onstage, having not shaved, I’ve apparently made a statement. Well I’m afraid I haven’t. I just didn’t shave my legs. Shrug it off. Now lets get to the music. The statement is there shouldn’t be a statement. 

*Shrug.*

I’ve been walking around with a frown on my face.

Especially when the sun is hiding behind the clouds, when it isn’t bright enough to warrant my eyebrows furrowing so deeply in the middle of my face. 

I’ve realised that I walk around like I’ve got a fucking chip dancing on my shoulder. Like I’ve got something to say. I’m more serious than any of you. I have a sadness you’ll never see. I have fear that you’ll never know. Why do I do this? The more I notice it, the more I notice it in others. 

I think the most sensitive among us tell ourselves stories about who we are, as a kind of buffer between us and the rest of the world. If there’s a soft barrier of fluff, protecting us from all the plastic and all the pollution and idiocy and noise, nothing can get in, right? We’re a naturally resistant bunch; resistant to trying, resistant to the journey, resistant to the work. All because, deep down, trudging past all our past experiences, our sad memories, the crushing feeling of historical failures, of genetic behaviours and inherited pain, at the very core of everything, we’re afraid to fall. 

Neither has it escaped my notice that we also tend to have the most ideas, we really do try the most, we really do work hard to move past that resistance. We just give ourselves a really, really hard time about the work that we do do.

I had a really great conversation with a friend recently. He mentioned his own resistance, and it gave me pause. How much do I resist? What gives me the most anxiety? I tell myself fables about how I don’t need to try, I’m quite content and happy without all that, thanks very much. I like my quiet life (I do, as it happens), but what was all this for if I’m just gonna jack it in because I enjoy my living room?!*

*I did actually think this.

So as our feet dragged around in circles around the colourful streets of Soho, it occurred to me that my fear would literally do anything it took to keep me contained in a similar cycle. Conditioned by it, never moving, never progressing. The people I admire the most are the ones that just do, and yet doing gives me so many willies I’m considering filing a lawsuit against the very sentiment.

#willies

Oddly enough, things that are well within my remit are the very things that I instinctively reject. Push against first, think about second and finally do third...reluctantly, hesitantly. I’m not leaving that part out. The most successful of us would have us believe they over-came their obstacles to achieve their goals, but my bet is that even when they did it, they felt sick about it. Nobody is ever sure of the outcomes of their work when they’re doing it, it’s only when there is a result that we can lament over our past anxieties. But those anxieties never go away; they’re just hovering around the next goal. Accepting that is important, and I know this because I’ve been known to be very smug about my good days, and humbled in my bad. So I have to do the work every day to hardwire the brain to make me happier. 

The path to happiness is a constant, quiet journey. I’m only just coming to realise that. So while I’m trying not to guilt myself about my fear, I’m focusing on doing the things that I’m good at, instead of worrying about getting it wrong. It starts by doing. Doing a shitty job, doing the bare minimal of what someone has asked of you, it’s just trying. Nothing more. Personally, once I’ve climbed that first barrier, I realise that the drop isn’t really that high. When you’re climbing an actual cliff above the ocean, it’s not scary. You can fall back in the water, but it won’t hurt so long as you don’t bash your head off the rocks and drown. What I’m saying is, you just get another foothold and learn where not to step, what not to do this time, but, you know, the journey just isn’t straight forward. Life isn’t a parallel line between where you started and where you finish. The line is traversing and squiggly and sometimes doubles back, checks itself, surges forward, stops for a while. Life is not linear, one point to another. It is constant. Going, doing, moving, moment after moment.

It’s easier to stay in bed. It’s easier not to do. It’s easier not to try. You don’t miss anything.

It’s also way better to get up and see the warm razors of sunlight coming through your curtains and the little dust motes dancing within it. It’s way better to hear the annoying cawing of two magpies chattering at 6am. It’s so much better to go for the run and see the old guy on his too-small moped with a half smoked cigarette hanging from his mouth with a trail of traffic behind him and minding his own sweet business, or the little girl riding what must have been a ridiculously expensive display-of-wealth-furry-horse-on-wheels in a South London park. It’s so much better to have written the song, to have written the book, to have looked someone in the eye and smiled and received one back. It’s so much more fulfilling to have gone to bed knowing you tried. 

Even if it was the bare minimal. Even if you made a mistake; the mistakes just carve out the path ahead so you don’t make them again. And if you do make them again? Doesn’t matter. You didn’t miss anything.

I’ve resisted trying for a long time. Resisted seeing friends, resisted committing to plans, resisted making myself vulnerable with the people I love. Resisted talking back, resisted standing up for myself. Resisted writing, singing, making. Resisted my art. 

So part of the battle is recognising when we’re resisting doing the thing because we’re afraid.

And so fucking what? We’re all afraid. Everyone’s afraid. The vast majority of people in the world don’t know who you are, and even if they happen to, what makes you think they’re not so wrapped up in their own worlds to really care about yours? They’re too terrified about their own. So you might as well just do it, right? Everyone fucks up. Nobodies looking. What makes us so bloody precious?

I need to stop treating myself like a faberge egg and more like the relentless and resilient oak tree that I am. It’ll take some work.

Not doing means I’m not living.

Sometimes meditation doesn’t work.  Sometimes being mindful of your downfalls doesn’t work. Sometimes yoga doesn’t work. Sometimes writing doesn’t work. It’s a little hard for me to describe how I’ve been feeling the last month or so. Of course I’m going to try, that’s why I write a blog. *sly face* So I’ve talked about cycles before. Being aware of the small turnovers of life makes the every day manageable; being aware of how our emotions and vibrations fluctuate certainly makes everything seem a little less daunting.

I’ve been conscious that I’m entering a new cycle of my life. I’m not so far away from turning 28, an age I’m told is the beginning of the fourth cycle in life. And whether you buy into the hokey-pokey, it makes sense if you suspend your disbelief for a moment. Apparently you have the first 7 years, the years of your childhood and innocence, of unadulteratingly questioning and experiencing the world you live in. Then the second stage, taking you to 14, where you’re contemplating adulthood and experiencing massive physiological changes and all the outcomes of that. Then to 21, where all the shit hits the fan and explodes outwards all over you and the people in your life. I’ve been dealing with the proverbial shit of this third cycle for a while, experiencing existential fear and anxiety for the first time, sorting through the people in my life, assessing how I relate and love, seeing my familial relationships through new eyes, shaving off the bits of me I don’t like. Essentially, the un-conditioning of myself and becoming a new person. 

The last time my life seem to change, there were signals. Life threw me signs that I was about to turn things upside down for a bit. I emotionally and spiritually gave up on London and I lost two friends to the music industry; its hold over all of us to get as much out of our creative outputs as possible (i.e money). This is important enough to mention because it damaged me a lot. It affected my trust with people and I felt so betrayed and let down. I’ve made my peace with them and with the situation, but I’ve learned from it, because at the time, it was just another knife in the side, and I didn’t want it happening again. From that point though, I headed steadily downhill somewhere close to the bottom, where I was thinking of jacking it in altogether. I considered going into property with my savings and my Dad. I considered opening a home-brew shop with my partner, who really was my anchor when I was close to floating off unmoored. I didn’t though, because my other anchor was my own spirit, the relentless resilience I seem to have inherited, that I’m sure I don’t deserve; my music and my innate and absolute desire to howl at the moon. Nitin played a huge part in getting me through this phase. Had I not worked with him, I might have forgotten how important singing was to me. He was a kind of the lifeboat that kept me chugging along in the rougher waters for a while; I was desperately unhappy but those days of rehearsals, shows, and being involved in the dance piece were all life rings that I could swim to and gradually get closer to solid ground. At this point, I believe I was shedding off the things I didn’t need to prepare myself for this next stage.

And this time, I’ve also lost two friends. I’m not going into any great detail about this, only that I believe it was for the best and ultimately the whole experience told me a lot about the people in my life, who I am, and what I stand for. It had a lot to do with how I’ve allowed people to take advantage of me for too long. This ties into one of my previous blogposts about saying sorry and not wanting to rock the boat. I have been conditioned to be nice and I am actively changing this. I have Jameela Jamil to thank for opening my eyes and forcing me to see that it doesn’t make me difficult or manipulative to call out the truth and stand strongly within it. They ended up deleting me from their life because of it. But I hated the entire situation. It hurt. Needless to say it had a big affect on me. That combined with new opportunities taking a while to come to fruition seemed to trigger my anxiety and low mood for the first real time since I wasn’t well. It brought back a lot of bad feelings about inadequacy, self-doubt and the need for external validation that I’ve worked so bloody hard on eradicating. 

Validation is the key word here. I believe it is what most of us struggle with going into our adult lives. I’ve worked very hard to not rely on other people’s voices to bolster my own self-esteem. I’ve done my soul-work, I only listen to my own. I’ve learned to tell the ignorant slut (pls read past post re this: it’s what I call my anxiety) in my mind to shut up when she’s being unkind. But over the last few weeks and returning from LA, which now seems like a dream, the voice has elbowed its way in and I’ve allowed it to have an affect on me. I’m waiting; waiting like I did before, waiting for good feedback, waiting for someone else to come at me with the next opportunity. Stagnant. Waiting for the world, looking for someone to blame.

So what the fuck am I doing? I mean, really. I have been arranging my own sessions, writing my book and flirting with a second, being open and vulnerable about my talent and about my humanness. I’ve been rocking it.

But recently, the difference was that I was doing my yoga, not practising it. I was forcing myself to set an intention of success, orienting everything around my goals. I meditated just to check it off the list. But you can’t apply mindfulness with brute force, with a shotgun to the head and your arm twisted behind your back. What I was doing went hand in hand with the thought that, “If I don’t, I will fail.” Before I knew it, I was telling myself I wasn’t worth it. I’m not creative. I don’t have any ideas. I don’t have an emotional scale. I feel nothing about anything. Have a baby, do something else. You don’t belong in that world (LA). You don’t know who you are. You’re not passionate enough about your art. You’re not passionate about anything. Why is nobody getting back to you? You’re forgettable. It’s because you’re not assertive enough. They deleted you because you meant nothing to them. They didn’t apologise to you because they don’t value you.

The rabbit hole is deep and it is wide. Once you’re on that slope, it seems pre-destined that you’ll end up at the bottom before you even notice you slipped. But I noticed. I’ve my best mate and flatmate to thank for a conversation that made me realise what I was doing, ‘cos I was feeling pretty low there for a minute.  The truth is that it takes real mental effort and strain to drag yourself up the mud slide back to even ground. When I was feeling pretty bad, I used to dream about doing the same thing over, and over, and over again and never reaching a resolution. I dreamt that I was at the bottom of the muddy bank and I could not get to the top where the grass was still green. So doing yoga and meditating over and over to force wellness doesn’t work. Negativity does not beget negativity. You have to accept your feelings and do the work to counter-argue with yourself in a gentle and loving way. I am worth it. I am creative. I feel everything, that’s why it hurts. I know who I am, more than ever. I’d be a great mum, but if I have a baby now I’ll probably forget about it and leave it in the washing basket. I am passionate. I am open and patient, and I trust that things will work out. I am hardworking. And they deleted you because they didn’t value you. That says more about them than you, you stone cold, lovely, bad ass bitch. 

Bye felicia.

I am entering a new chapter of my life soon, and I feel my world shifting to allow for it. It isn’t waiting if I regain control and organise my life. Just because someone is giving you an opportunity doesn’t mean that the work is done. It means that you’re just getting started, and you have to work, now more than ever.

Last week I wrote a song on the guitar. This has not happened in a long time. I was consuming a lot of emotional TV (Queer Eye, k thnks), and I was inspired to assess my own mental health. I got complacent, and the doubt got in. It never really goes away, and just because I was feeling better there for a hot minute in LA, doesn’t mean that the work is done. It continues. Always. I don’t want to wake up one day and realise I’m missing something vital because I looked to others to tell me what I’m worth. Everyone else wants as much as possible for themselves. If that means cheapening you so that they’re worth more; that is what they will do. Know. Your. Own. Worth. ‘Cos even your friends will undervalue you.

Self doubt waits at the door, constantly. It wants to be let in, but you keep it at bay. You nod to it, but you don’t allow it across the threshold.

After I recorded the song idea into my phone, I sobbed. Hard. I cried my eyes out. And then I was done. I let the tears come out, unbidden, because I needed to feel it. I think I needed to remember the power of that musical release, why I do what I do. Sure, I’m not like other musicians or singers. Maybe I am depressing, but I’m communicating something that is honest and what we all go through. I am me. And that is enough. It doesn’t matter, all that other stuff. It doesn’t. What matters is how I feel about my music. 

I’m getting to my conclusion, I promise. I meditated earlier this week, and the lovely Andy Puddicomb at Headspace told me to see my mind as the sky. Behind all the clouds, there is always a blue horizon. Just like when you’re on a plane and you finally get above the candy cotton clouds, and in your head you do a little Peter Pan style bounce across them. There’s a soft kind of release I get when I see that. Peace and quiet. Space and breath. Everything else; feelings, thoughts, how we dress, what the world might think...they’re the clouds. When I feel low, my mind seems like an overcast horizon that will not break. An endless, grey, unfeeling cloud of bleak whatever. When I feel good, it’s a summers sky with fluffy white clouds rolling through; you know they won’t stay forever. Meditating is grounding, and reminding yourself with nothing more complicated than breathing that your default setting is a vast blue sky. Warm and peaceful. It might even feel like nothing, but that’s ok too. Everything else is temporary. Clouds are impermanent. The sky is always clear.

So this is my point. I set my intention that day to have a good day. 

Enjoy the little details, enjoy my trial shift at the cafe, enjoy the look on southerners faces when I have a bit of craic with them. Enjoy cooking, enjoy the process, enjoy the walk between here and there, the blossoms, the warmth of the sun on my face. Choose happiness. Choose the blue sky. Decide to be positive. It’s not always easy, and maybe it doesn’t always work. After all, life throws us curveballs and it hurts to get whacked in the face, but it’s a damn sight better than choosing to be an arsehole about it. Try it.

Decide to be happy. 

xxx

So recently, I caught myself apologising for not keeping up with some chords in a session. I’ve been collaborating on a song with a really cool brass band, but just writing solely with this one lovely dude. This guy arranges, writes, sees, breathes and shits music. That’s my very earthy way of telling you that he’s very. very skilled.

But he worked so fast; I could feel that old familiar sensation of fear creeping up my spine. Could I keep up? My strengths don’t lie in musical theory, I feel they lie in sounds, in feeling, in scribing my emotions. 

So what followed was a soft explanation of this, and I apologised before I realised the sin that fell from my mouth. I then politely retracted my apology, held the sin up in my hand, making really hacky eyes at it, and thus informed him that I was trying very hard not to apologise for something I’m GOOD AT. 

Because in essence I wasn’t saying sorry for the things I couldn’t do, I was asking forgiveness for the things I could do; I was acknowledging my skills as something less than his. And that shit won’t fly, son.

I used to apologise a lot. I did it so often it was a reflex. I said sorry for being myself, for being weird, for saying something funny, for not knowing the answer, for getting an order mixed up, for just being...for being HUMAN. I don’t know where this stemmed from, but I reckon it’s as closely tied to my being a woman as I am to my cosy, cosy, polar bear dressing gown.

^^^DEAD.

Obviously I can’t speak for every woman that ever has been but I have a strong inclination to believe that from an early age we’re taught not to rock the boat, talk too loudly, be too assertive, or cause a scene. There was something deeply ingrained in me, that, when faced mainly with male industry professionals in close quarters (studios, bedrooms (don’t even)), strengthened. These guys knew more than me, that much is true. But instead of navigating that particular world with an attitude of learning, wherein I could softly caress my own talent, nurture what I already knew and take every experience to build upon it, I used it as a reason to berate myself. To me, it was evidence that I wasn’t good enough. So when I didn’t know what I wanted, I apologised. If I sang a note wrong, I apologised. If I asked too many questions...you get the picture.

What that resulted in was seriously low self-esteem with a spine constructed from fear; I perpetuated the notion that I would never be any better because to try and learn would expose the naked truth; that I was coasting, sailing through, and relying on others. 

Whilst I can say through a small mouthful of humble pie that it isn’t wholly false, I also spit out some of the crumbs. I won’t accept that admitting your weaknesses makes you weak;m. No, it’s when you insist your strengths aren’t as good as others.

I’ve had this in me all this time, but I got in my own way, simply by apologising.

So saying sorry is no longer my vibe. It’s the reason why I forced myself to look like a crazy bitch and raise a finger to myself next to that piano and that highly talented dude (who I’m sure just accepted that I was little bit mental. Note: I am), and remind the part of me that still felt the need to ask forgiveness for nothing at all, that there was no need for such a word in my vocabulary.

It goes some way to acknowledge the way we use, “kind of,” “sort of,” “I guess,” “Maybe,” when we’re asking for what we want. I half committed for so long, and in doing so half committed to myself and my goals.

Celebrate yourself! Appreciate what you got, remember what you don’t, and use every opportunity to add to one list and take away from another. 

So the leaves are finally starting to drop off the trees around here, giving me all the autumnal/winter pinterest-your-way-to-Halloween vibrations. Nature has a canny way of living and dying and getting rid of what it doesn’t need, taking time out, taking a rest and putting its feet up while the cold weather sets in. It doesn’t need to tweet about it, or update an instagram story with the caption “Branches are dying off lolz.” Autumn marks the beginning of death and decay, it won’t be long until we start posting pictures of our favourite streets coated in leaves (I’m into it). It’s amazing; so many of us love the colours of the fall but in essence, it is the death of living things that we celebrate, so that everything can start anew next year. That’s reality, and I think that’s beautiful. 

Here’s my point. I wish social media would take a break; I wish it would curl up in front of the fire, maybe die off and come back better for everyone next year. I know so many people who now log out of their apps, only to be sent emails from the apps themselves trying to help them “get back online.” This happened to me two weeks ago. 

I don’t know whether I was suffering from PMS, or if I’d been sitting around too long, but my anxiety came on through flood gates I’d obviously forgotten to shut, so it took me a little while to realise the frequency had returned and was buzzing underneath everything before I tried to counteract its presence. I’ve realised I find it quite difficult trying to relive just how my anxiety feels in those moments, because everything seems like a big grey, squishy worm that bleeds into each passing minute, floating midair, making the atmosphere dreadful and vehr wormy. So there are no definitive emotions. Just worry, dread, pressure around my brain and the existential worry that I am not enough.  What I can recall, though, is that I was on social media so often I must have feared it was going to miss me. I have noticed that in times of my quarter life existentialism, the less I have going on around me, the more I automatically, without thought or intention, find myself immersed balls deep in social media. It takes around an hour of surfing absolute dink before I even realise how deep my balls are in the first place. I scrolled mindlessly, and through that open window of my phone, that little ignorant bitch named anxiety flew in as easily as a mother-fucking pidgeon, and I felt just as bad as that time I accidentally pronounced Pinot Grigio as Pee-not-Gri-guy-O. But alas! What did I do, but continue to swipe my poor little finger, as if it would find some answer, some pick-me-up that would relieve the overwhelming feeling of I-HAVE-FAILED (and believe me, when I ordered a Pee-not-Gri-guy-O to that waitress in the restaraunt I did feel that same sense of existential failure). I couldn’t explain to you or myself what I was looking for, and yet the more I found myself looking the worse I felt.

Let me tell you, that shit is as dangerous and addictive as gambling. 

Did you know, Twitter was the first application to develop the pull-to-refresh feature, which was essentially mimicry of a slot machine? It wasn’t long before all the others followed suit (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat et al); ever wonder why you keep refreshing your pages? Do you hope to see something new? Something more beautiful? Something you’ve been tagged in? What’s the difference between you and the fella in Aspers, feeding in twenty after twenty into the machine, in the hopes that this time, this time, he’ll be rewarded? What about the woman who keeps getting four fifties changed at a time, laying all her chips on the roulette table, and losing it all, only to change more money, because this time, this time, she might win? 

It’s not about the money any more. It’s about seeking the reward, the win, the fulfilment, and in social media’s world, validation.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/08/social-media-copies-gambling-methods-to-create-psychological-cravings

So I’ve known for a while the power the internet and social media apps have had over me; all the articles I read in research for my novel really opened my eyes. Sometimes, though, I’m just as good as all the other people on the bus; neck craned, eyes cast downwards, quickly researching Ariana Grande’s insta feed to salivate over her aesthetic, or to see why everyone thought she was responsible for Mac Millers death (hint: she wasn’t). It’s because, just like everyone else, I’m totally addicted to my phone.

Aside: I’m not blaming my bout of anxiety on social media, I’m just noting that it is a huge factor in how I perceive my life.

I use social media as a drug for my restlessness, and I receive sweet fuck all from it. Every time I look, it’s a reminder of how little I’m working, because I’m spending all my time thinking about working and looking at other people succeeding. It integrates this sense of failure, the smallness of my successes look in comparison, to be puney and frail. My lovely living room, amidst the quaint backdrop of my London suburb, looks boring against other artists hanging out in studios and lounging against LA backdrops online. What a failure I am; I’m eating into my savings to pay rent and afford food, I can’t buy that nice contouring set they’re selling to look the part, I’m flogging my clothes on Depop for spare change, I can’t afford flights there, I can’t afford any of this and I’m still chasing this pathetic goal of making money from my art. Every time I leave my parents house, my Dad hugs me and says, “Keep your head up, it’ll happen,” even if I haven’t spent the last two days complaining, even if I’m content, even if I run a bloody half marathon. Everyone’s still aware that she’s still trying, she’s not there yet. It’s really quite easy to lose yourself in those thoughts, it’s easy for me to reel all this off for the sake of a blogpost, but in the end I have to remind myself of the reality.

And that is, I’m fine. I’ve been doing better than I have for a long time. I’m excited, I’m getting motivated, I’m trying, I’m earning, I’m positive about the future. I’m looking after myself.It’s uncertain at times, but life is uncertain. I’m not stepping forward to play the victim in the play of me life. But that’s the kind of outlook I have in hindsight when I haven’t been on my phone all day, because social media does not help my anxiety, or hinder its progress at all. It encourages it. Instagram feeds off of my insecurity and isolation, Twitter feeds off my desire to be all knowing, Facebook creates the illusion that I’m connected when in reality I’m more separated from everyone on there than I’ve ever been.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/19/popular-social-media-sites-harm-young-peoples-mental-health

As a generation, we’re so very disenfranchised but we’re all part of this huge market. It feels as though we’re connecting, and don’t get me wrong, social media is great for self expression and identity and openness. But at the end of the day, it’s a business, and we’re it’s blind, salivating customers. It’s a marketplace for everyone to sell themselves, even when they have no goods to offer. We’re advertised products that an algorithm predicted we’d like, we’re told to post daily to reach more followers, but most of them are bots or strangers who won’t look at your page more than once. Everyone follows each other but we don’t support or give like we used to. I get the odd comment on Instagram complimenting me on my “content,” but that “content” is just my life, I don’t plan it, I don’t create it, it just is. When did our lives become fictional?! I’m all about real action, not figurative or hopeful. I’m about judging my relationships on how they are outside of an app, not what’s said inside of it. It’s too easy to lose ourselves in the virtual version of reality, where we can create how we’re seen. That’s the side of social media that I see, in terms of how it reflects back to me; it’s dark and foreboding, it’s void of meaning. And that is why I’ve been logging out. I want to enjoy it when I’m on there, not reminded of every flaw in my makeup. I rarely login in to Facebook now. I allow myself, twice a day, to look at Instagram (my main vice and source of all my first world anguish), and now I’ve been off-line, my desire to browse the app has diminished dramatically. I notice my boredom better than before; It doesn’t hold my attention. I caught myself scrolling half loaded pictures (bad wifi connection) this morning, and realised fifteen seconds in that I wasn’t actually looking at anything, I was swiping, endlessly, but the pictures were blurry and it was only the subconscious idea that something would appear that kept me going. So I put my phone down and finished my poop.

Has anyone else found themselves doing something similar? Has anyone else tried logging out? What kind of an effect did it have on you, on your mental health? What kind of an effect does your active participation on social media have, as a whole, on your mind? Do you feel less connected to the world, or more connected to those around you? Perhaps you have a better relationship with your phone than I do. *shrug*

I know I sound like a real doomsayer with my dark cloak (I’m not really wearing a cloak, but damn I think I’d like to) and and my seemingly pessimistic outlook. It’s not my intention to negate social media’s power to instigate positive change; just look at iWeigh, Help Refugees, Political Jules or Coppafeel. All good people using a Instagram to better spread their message of good health, equality and better body image across all platforms. I also believe the people who have really nailed social media are the heroes, the mums and dads of Facebook and Instagram, using Facebook to share with friends and family. That’s the whole point, and I personally think that we’re missing it as a younger generation. It’s so easy to lose ourselves in a business who’s main priority is traffic across all its apps. It doesn’t care what the traffic is, whether its bad or good, friend or foe, wizard or troll (I’ve been re-reading the Harry Potter books again), only that we’re there and we’re active. 

I reckon I really am an old woman at heart; so shoot me. I love my plants and painting, and I dream of living in some log cabin with an art studio, with a huge allotment, my main man and a couple of dergs, Bob Ross style. I love making music and getting on stage and performing, I love acting and I love media and I love galleries, I adore bookshops, beaches, forests. The whole, soppy whack. So what? I’m a romantic.

(That’s the only cool old lady gif I could find)^^^

I’m tired of stalling real conversations because either they or I have been sucked into apps, emails or jigsaw puzzles (it me). I want to live in this real world and create in this real world, but the discontent and conflict I feel is sometimes really, really irritating; I don’t want to use social media for my art, but it seems the only way you’re to be judged by labels and music makers. How much of a following do you have? How many likes do you pull in? How often do you post? It’s not about your art any more, it’s how good you are at selling it. I have enough trouble dealing with all the cogs turning in my brainbox without thinking about all this bullshit. And it goes beyond all that, it’s really irrelevant what career I choose, social media is addictive regardless of what we do.