When I Grow Up

There's a funny smell and a constant tickling sensation in my nose...

I've broken free of the template, I'm no longer ticking my way through life's objectives of passing through various levels of education, seeking an internship, graduating and getting a 'proper grown up job'. I've found myself singing to my own tune, driving along my racing line and cooking without a recipe. I don't have any secure plans for my future, I'm engaged but that doesn't mean I'm going to be a wife any time soon. We're creating a life along our own time-line, making decisions when problems or opportunities arise. I seem to have a discussion with various individuals every couple of months or so, it sounds something like this: I grew up a certain way, I lived with two supportive and extremely hard working parents who wanted the best for my brother and I. I'd say that I come from a working class background, I know how to 'muck in' and I know what hard work looks and feels like. I've always seen myself having an alternative type of career, I'm not seeking the mega money pay cheques and I don't want to live to work. I choose to work to live my life. Or at least that's the idea. I used to see myself working in a creative role. From a young age I wanted to be an artist, I'd draw until my pencils were teeny stubs and until my felt tips were exhausted and could only wheeze out ghostly bits of ink onto a page. However, as I grew up I realised how hard it would be to live in that way, it would be hard to carry out an independent life if I couldn't sell artwork to pay the bills. I've always said that the Foundation Art and Design course felt alien to me, spending hours cutting up bits for a random collage and using up an entire biro for a doodle didn't feel like art to me- the teachers loved it! When I looked around at the other students there, they seemed so enthusiastic, they looked the part and seemed to live and breathe art. I didn't feel like I wanted it enough, so how could I be an artist? I can remember being quite smug when I sat in the library revising for A levels, I only had to worry about getting fairly decent grades for the Foundation course whereas my friends were fretting about UCAS points and conditional university offers. I never foresaw ending up at university. I'm glad I did, I don't regret any decision I've made so far as its got me to this point in my life. I may be weighed down by depression and anxiety sometimes but it isn't constant, I do have a very good life. I'm incredibly fortunate for what I have and that I'm in the position where I can take the time to heal myself after a lot of years of (self) neglect.

Its got to the time of year where I'm becoming surrounded by people that are heading off to 'grown up jobs', they're graduating as undergraduates or finishing PHDs, heading off on summer internships or starting their year in the workplace. Of course its an exciting time for them and I'm happy for their successes. However, its quite unsettling for me. Once again I will have the conversation about where I am in life. I'm hanging out in 'gap year' limbo, I'm focusing on my health, fitness and happiness. I'm making rugs, writing, rearing a puppy, growing sunflowers and entertaining a hamster. I belittle those things, when I compare my position to others. Ask me any other day and I'll be proud of those achievements, seriously check out my sunflower plants, look at the stem on that beasty! But the doubts do creep in and I do find myself asking whether its OK if I end up being a housewife or if I never have a stable career. The answer is always 'yes' and that the support will be there. I've started to realise that perhaps I'm the one that has a problem with it. Why should I be able to have a cushy life? But the sociologist, and feminist in me says that it will still be hard, staying at home isn't easy and there has to be someone to fill the creative roles in the world. I'm struggling to make the transition in my mind, I've gone from living with two hard working role models and believing that I'd live the same way, to considering a very different lifestyle. Neither choice is bad, some of us need more structure in our lives whilst others prefer to be able to drift towards a more unstable but free lifestyle, go where the mood takes them and accept any exciting and interesting opportunity that comes their way. Whichever way I end up living, I'll never see money as a measure of success, happiness on the other hand...

A Difficult Journey

Sensory overload with the photos?! It was a glorious day up North, days which are few and far between so I took full advantage of having my camera out in the sun.

This is the post that I had intended to write for last week, but alas the sinusitis struck me down! I'm still battling with it but I've manage to compose a 'proper post' for this week. The photos above were all taken whilst on a visit to the Botanical Gardens in Durham. Yes, Durham! I finally made it back up there after a year of being away from university. I'd manged to place all of my bad feelings onto the physical location of Durham as a whole, so for a long time it seemed like an impossible task to visit my friends up there. The reality is that there are a few physical locations in Durham that I'll probably never return to. There are panic attack hot spots for me, places where I repeatedly had panic attacks no matter how well prepared I was for the circumstances. I had been saying that I would try to go back for the college ball at the end of May/beginning of June as I remember it being a really great event despite the headspace I was in at the time of our first ball. Unfortunately we couldn't make it for various reasons, and I was quite relieved. I was aiming far too high for my first visit there. I must remind myself that baby steps are essential during my recovery! Getting up to Durham would be, and was, a massive achievement in itself. The trouble with me is that I'll think that they are achievements and feel pretty chuffed, but as soon as anyone else acknowledges them I'll be quite bashful and downplay those achievements. We eventually decided to head up by train for a long weekend with a stay in a hotel in central Durham so I didn't have to worry about long treks back to our safe place! We could have saved money by staying with friends in our former college, but I have a lot of bad memories of locking myself in my college room for weeks at the end of the first year, so we thought it would be a safer and more positive option to treat ourselves to a big comfy bed! 

I wasn't certain that I would even make the trip up to Durham. And hour prior to us leaving I was still in bed crying because I already felt like a failure, I was scared that people wouldn't want to see me and I was more terrified that I wouldn't be able to see them and end up letting people down. I'd been in that state for a few hours before Robbie came home from work before we were supposed to get our train. He's a very chilled, comforting being. Without him saying much at all to me, I realised that I could either spend a weekend without him sobbing in a bed in Epsom, or I could take a risk head up to Durham and potentially just spend a weekend crying up there with him popping in to check on me. Fortunately my reasoning won over the dark monster in my head, and despite a nerve-wracking journey through London,  I made it onto the Durham train unscathed. Arriving at a very late hour made it hard to distinguish the surroundings, I hardly knew I was in Durham (!), except for the obvious signs of an illuminated cathedral and castle. We took control of the weekend and all plans. I'd decided that I would do better without having firm plans in place as I could easily fail to attend things if I had too much time to think about them. Instead we opted for a spur of the moment mentality, doing what we felt like. Surprisingly I came up with the idea to head up to the Botanical Gardens which is very close to our former college. It was a trip that we hadn't managed to do as a couple whilst we were at university, despite it being all of a 5 minute walk from our college accommodation. I got trigger happy with my camera. Robbie had to prop me up a bit as there was a fair amount of walking to do, and it was an uncharacteristically hot day in Durham! That combination together with my anxiety left me reaching for my inhaler for relief a few times. I soon got over it as I was super excited to show Robbie the giant greenhouses full of cactus plants and GIANT lily pads, in my eyes the best aspect of the Botanical Gardens which he'd managed to miss out on previous visits with others. 

The remainder of the weekend consisted of spontaneous dinners with some uni friends as well as some time spent together as a couple. It seems ridiculous that I can be terrified of seeing friends, but I genuinely was. We managed to keep some anxiety at bay by arriving to the restaurant early and having a few cheeky cocktails to perk me up a bit! Ultimately I had to keep in mind that these people could easily make excuses if they didn't want to see me. I even managed to have some fun with Robbie's former housemates, we were all friends from the same college corridor from our first year, but I always found them a bit intimidating. Deep down I know they're all teddy bears really, and I've managed to comfortablyy have one-to-one time with most of them. I was really happy to spend time with them casually playing the Xbox and surprising them with my skills on a certain game called "hidden in plain sight". I managed to have a really great time with all of them, catching up with some close friends from uni and being really excited for their future plans after graduating. It can be really difficult for any student to meet up with uni friends after graduating, so I'm even more concerned that I won't see some of them again. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up in a convenient location for everyone at some point.  I know this seems like a 'me, me, me' post but I hope you can identify where I've attempted to reason with my inner demons to control a potentially stressful trip and end up having an enjoyable time by doing things the way I needed to. It also really helps knowing that everyone up there knows about my situation now, whereas whilst I was at university they didn't have a clue and either thought I was quite shy or may well have never given any thought to it at all! Its never easy admitting to something like that, and you might lose the support of some friends but the ones that matter most will stick by you and hopefully those friendships will last for a lifetime.

Wrap Me In Cotton Wool

I'm currently being reminded of just how bad and maddening depression can be to live with. This wasn't exactly the post I was hoping to publish today. My mentality with blogging is that I post what feels right at the time. I do have a lot of pieces written and scurried away to post when it seems appropriate. Most bloggers produce posts on mass and schedule them weeks in advance to relieve some of the pressures that come with producing a blog. I seem to be able to write in this way, but I like to post on the basis of whether the written material matches how I've been feeling and thinking that week. 

Unfortunately my shoddy immune system or lack thereof has been under attack since my surprisingly proactive weekend (to be commented upon in a future post). I've been plagued with sinusitis multiple times a year for a long time. Apparently I broke my nose at some point in my life, I cannot recall this ever happening, which has left me with a deviate septum. Woop woop in need of a nose job, but it's risky and could leave me with a botched nose in the centre of my noggin. I'm nowhere close to having enough confidence with my appearance to warrant risking the worst case scenario. So instead I'm left with feeling like my head is trapped in a mace, every bone in my skull feels like it's been battered and should leave me looking mottled with bruises on my face. It's another one of these delightful illnesses that you feel a great deal on the inside, but it doesn't look like I'm going through hell on the outside. Combined with an increased sensitivity to light and sound I'm left to wallow in pain in bed for most of the day with my gloomy thoughts to torment me. My mood swings would make for an impressive line graph. The good comes with the bad, the higher you climb the further you have to fall.