Now is a Good Time

Now, I don’t usually make a point of commenting on adverts… OK, who am I kidding? As my charity shop bag full of never-worn clothes dictates, I am extremely susceptible to advertising… However, I am loving the collaboration between Magners and poet Murray Lachlan Young for the Magner’s new ad: Now is a Good Time. Being a forward thinking, future-dwelling soul, this poem really got me thinking and has got me in the mood for a summer enjoying the ‘now’ – check it out:

When yesterday’s gone and tomorrow is near
Why look for a thing when it’s already here?
And tell me you never once asked yourself how
Some people end up in the middle of the now.

Now is the beat of the feet on the floor
Now is the then we were all waiting for
It’s the strike of the luck
It’s the go with the flow
It’s the sharing the love with the people we know.

See a wise fool once said kind of out of the blue
That life is a dream that’s already come true.
It’s the less of the what, of the where and the how
It’s more of the you, of the me and the now.

Things That I Forgot About Relationships

So, after 5 years of being single and a quarter-of-a-century-life-crisis, I decided to get dating. However, having been out of the game for so long, I soon realised that there were aspects of relationships that I had completely forgotten about. Here are some of the them:

1. Cost

Date nights (when did the cinema get so expensive? And when did it cost more to have a decent centre-of-the-theatre seat?!), eating out (especially at the start when you’re too embarrassed to pull out a 241 voucher…), dining in (cooking properly compared to my regular can’t-be-bothered-beans-on-toast dinners), travelling here and there, telephone bills, Christmas, New Year, birthdays, Valentine’s Day… Hello overdraft/worth every penny.

2. Absence

When you look back to previous relationships, you remember the time that you were together. You forget about time that you spent apart. I forgot what it felt like to miss someone. To crazy miss someone. To viscerally long for someone – teenage dream style.

3. Jealousy

It hit me, out of the blue, during a hypothetical discussion about top three hot celebrities. It was not logical; I am sure that the television screen is not the only thing keeping him and Anna Friel from being together. I had forgotten what it felt like to feel possessive and jealous. I was struck by how wonderful it felt to feel something so instantly and intensely – like a dormant organ located somewhere in my gut was defibrillated back to life.

4. Family

Nervous first meetings. Embarrassing conversations about you as a child. Better understanding a person by seeing them in context. And after a while, expectant glances at your ring finger/womb…

5. Sacrifice

Sacrificing personal preferences and viewing pleasures to accommodate someone else’s plans, favourite food and television habits. I am glad that I learnt how to make the most of being single by pursuing hobbies, doing what I wanted when I wanted (within reason), and learning what makes me tick, as it has helped to discern what I can and cannot sacrifice in relationships. For example, I learnt that I cannot sacrifice time with my friends, efforts to run my own business, and weekly creative time as they make me who I am and bring me to life, but I can sacrifice Made in Chelsea for a cricket match, or a fuzzy and very American Rom-Com for a heart-rendering Michael Haneke film. But deeper than that, there is something about sacrificing your time to welcome someone else’s presence, pleasure, and problems. Something that I forgot about when I just had me to think about.

6. Gender

Men forget things. Hanging the tea towel back on the rack, putting the seat down, or what you just said.

Women remember everything. Even that tiny comment about a ten-year-old, worn and puff-less puffa coat being ugly. IT’S COMFORTABLE.

7. Love

How difficult it can be to let someone love you. Sacrificing your self-sufficiency (I can carry that bag!) to let someone do something loving for you. Though, one of the benefits of being single for so long has been how easily being loving has been. I am so grateful for the opportunities to be caring and romantic towards one special person after five years or baking cupcakes and sweet treats for my colleagues…

Four Year Finance Freak Out

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was going to view a flat that seemed too good to be true. Turns out that it was better than I ever imagined, so I took it on the spot. It was back at the estate agent’s that I first felt it: a slight twinge in my chest. Dismissing it as a lack of lunch, I signed the contract and stated my conditions, one of them being a six-month break clause in the twelve-month contract.

The next day, the estate agent got in touch to say that my offer had been accepted and that every one of my conditions had been met except the six-month break clause; the landlord wanted a me to commit to a year. That was the second time that I felt it: a definite twinge in my chest. Desperate for security and sanctuary, I agreed, and after a while felt fine. More than fine – relieved, excited, and as if I was finally on the way to getting my act together, as per the elaborate life action plan established on my 25th birthday.

What followed was what can only be described as an adrenaline induced surge of suburban fantasising: Laura Ashley, Victorian style screen-prints, and useless home decoration, such as a bouquet of paper roses crafted from the pages of Pride and Prejudice or Mills and Boon – your choice. Hours of browsing, wish lists, catalogue requests… I was really getting in to it.

Then it happened.

I started looking for sofas and armchairs, and navigated my way to the DFS website. A colleague mentioned that he had bought his sofas there on four years interest-free finance and paid less than £10 a month for them – rather appealing to the administratively salaried. I found a couple that I liked, viewed them in Pistachio green, stuck them on yet another wish list, and proceeded to calculate the monthly cost on finance.

I started to feel the twinge return, this time over a sustained period of time. Initially, I attributed this to the mathematics that I was attempting, but after definite palpitations realised that I was having a minor panic attack. Four years. FOUR YEARS. I had not even been in a proper job for more than ten months, let alone four years. The past eight months I had been living out of cardboard boxes not knowing whether or not I was moving to America, temp job after temp job, singleness for five years, and… and…

The commitment was all too much. I slammed my MacBook shut and went foetal.

After some horizontal processing, it dawned on me that ‘this it it’: I am now a grown up. You would be surprised if I told you that I had never really felt like one until that moment, but it is true – despite the whole foetal position thing. If I ever wanted to leave behind my second-hand, temporary Ikea furniture, then committing to proper furniture, and potentially a finance plan, would be part of that. If I ever wanted to build a proper home for a season, then I would have to stop waiting around for the next get-out-clause and commit to being in one place for a longer period of time. And to afford all of that, I would need to leave behind my positively teenage mentality to the world of work and commit to my job for an indefinite period of time.

Then I remembered the profound words of a wise and beloved friend sent to me but a couple of weeks beforehand:

Maybe, just maybe, a couple of armchairs, a steady job, and a year-long lease could be anchors. Perhaps the task now is to put the next voyage, wherever that may be, on hold and dock in the harbour of Smallesville for a while. However, the question circling my mind late at night is: do I really want to?

Too Good To Be True?

Image from: http://www.brandignity.com/2012/04/6-reasons-why-you-should-stay-away-from-performance-based-seo/#.UMUPiuOTtYQ

I sat in the winter sun enjoying brunch with one of my gorgeous girl friends. We were reflecting on the past year and how much things had changed for us both since last December. She looked radiant; her face lit up as she filled me in on her job, love life and her life in London, all three of which had changed dramatically over the past year – and for the better. “It…it feels too good to be true, Jules” she said.

I shared that I had found a property on my dream street in the new town I had just started working in. It was (fairly) affordable, within walking distance from walk and the town centre. However, the bathroom and kitchen had not been photographed. I was due to view it that Monday, and I was completely stressed out. “There must be something wrong with it. The kitchen’s probably going to be a mess and I bet that the bathroom won’t have a shower,” I fretted at her, “it’s just too good to be true.”

When did we become conditioned to expect bad things to happen and to be suspicious of goodness? As children, we approached the world with open arms. Yet somewhere along the line, we got burnt. We experienced a bad thing. Life got difficult. We got older. We grew cynical and ‘learnt’ that “all good things must come to an end” and that “if it sounds too good to be true, it is!” But what our relentless search for the catch is the thing that ruins it? What if our disbelief that something could be good, might work out, run smoothly, or be a fulfilment of a dream prevents us from the real truth – the truth that sometimes good things just happen?

What would life looked like if we lived a bit naively and took things at face value? Would we be more frequently disappointed? Probably. Would we be more happy? Maybe…just maybe…

What should I do with my life?

The other day I asked my father what I wanted to be when I was little. He told me that I went through stages of wanting to be different things: a teacher, a vet, a marine biologist, an artist, a dancer… the list went on. I asked him in the hope that I might find a clue as to what direction I should be heading in life, as for as long as I can remember, I have not had a clue. I panic when I get asked ‘so what do you do?’, or even worse: when someone asks ‘so what do you WANT to do?’ My CV reads like a multiple personality disorder. However, the more that I discuss, the more I have come to realise that most people in their twenties do not know what they are doing with their life. I had a fair few teachers at school who had been teachers since day one. My Dad’s had the same job all of his life. My current boss has been running his own business for 17 years. I think the longest job that I have on my CV to date is around 10 months…

Any of this sounding familiar?

If so, here are a few challenging, inspiring, and/or helpful links that I have come by recently.

First up: Enjoy Your Life

A great starting point: with your heart’s desires. What would you do if money were no object? What do you desire?

Secondly, the eternally popular and extremely emotive: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams (more formally known as the Last Lecture) Note: at 1hr 15mins this is a long one but worth every minute of your time.

Randy had specific childhood dreams that he wanted to fulfil. But what if, like me, you cannot identify a list as clearly as this? Perhaps Donald Miller’s blog article What if You Don’t Know What To Do With Your Life? might be what you are after. Donald had to ‘discover’ his passions and offers four very practical suggestions to do so.

Some other things that I have found helpful:

• Mentoring – Finding people further along in the journey of life than you who have been there, done that, and know what you are going through; professionally, personally, whatever it is that you are struggling with. They are hard to come by and you will have to put some effort in to finding one, but the right mentors are worth their weight in gold. Mine have changed my life.

• Pirates of the Caribbean  –  No, seriously. Sometimes when I think about the future, I feel as if I am a compass with the needle spinning round and round frantically trying to find north. If you recall in the Pirates of the Carribean films, Captain Jack Sparrow has a compass that does not direct north, navigates to the explorer’s heart’s desire – “True enough, this compass does not point north.” “…Where does it point?” “It points to the thing you want most in this world.” Knowing what you want to do is really a matter of the heart. We can think about it, take as many aptitude and character tests as we like, but ultimately they will not tell you want you want to do – only your heart will.

• A glass of red wine – Worrying about what to do takes up so much energy and can distract you from just getting on with things. Breathe… and trust that things will figure themselves out at some point. “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

You will be alright, poppet.

P.S. If you are wondering more widely about the meaning of life, try an Alpha Course: http://www.alpha.org

The Quarter of a Century Club

On the 1st November 2012, I joined the quarter of a century club. I then proceeded in having a minor freak out, followed by some serious goal setting for the year ahead. This is the very serious master plan that I came up with:

1) Get my sh*t together

I have been living out of cardboard boxes for the past six months in temporary accommodation waiting for a visa to move to America. Now that the opportunity has fallen through (more about that another time), it is time to rebuild my life. I need to find somewhere to live and I need to find a more permanent job to be able to afford it.

2) Find a man

I have now been single for five years. This has not been intentional – I have just been busy. However, I would like to meet someone significant this year. The basic criteria is a) single and b) not an idiot. Hello dating websites, singles events, and friends who know people.

I was motivated by a moment in life that was sadly not too dissimilar to this scene in the extremely high brow cinematographic delight that is Definitely, Maybe:

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/definitely-maybe/will-loves-april-part-2/

Day 1

Today I started getting my sh*t together by definitely deciding where I want to relocate to. I absolutely love the town – let’s call it Smallesville. It is charming, small, there’s every shop a girl could possibly want, restaurants galore, bars-a-plenty, lots of history, the arts, and but a short drive away from vast parks and a gorgeous lake.

As a gift from me to me to kick start the search for a man, I decided that I would buy a six month subscription to match.com. In the past, I have tried Christian dating websites but was overwhelmed by – to be perfectly blunt – the number of complete freaks on there. I feel mean being so rude about my Christian brothers, but after seeing profile picture after profile picture of complete bizarreness, such as a crying man gazing heavenward whilst wearing a crown of thorns or a Mormon standing in front of a Virgin Mary and child painting, I can honestly find no way to sugar coat things. A friend suggested that I sign up to a more general dating website and explicitly state that I have a faith. So that is what I have done.

Upon completing my profile and starting to peruse, I was encouraged: the odds looked good and the good weren’t odd. With my new relocation destination in mind, I decided to search for men aged 25 – 35 in Smallesville. And guess who appeared in my search? Yep, my current office crush who would not consider dating me in a million years.

Cue Alanis Morrisette and her ironic ways…

Silence is Golden

Silence. One condition, five different experiences.

1) Exploring the vast expanses of an art gallery, feasting on the fruits of artistic labour. He turns to you and comments on how nice it is to be with someone and to not feel the need to talk. A joke follows to ascertain whether or not he is being sarcastic and if the subtext might be that you talk too much. The confirmation of his sincerity reassures your insecure self. The inexpressible comfort knowing that he is walking alongside you and that he just…knows. You do not have to say a thing.

2) Your fixed stare at a blank computer screen while they are bonding over the latest shortcomings of an absent colleague. The longing to fit in, be accepted, and the allure of the act of participation. The curiosity as to whether or not anyone actually notices that you are not saying anything. The hope that you will be trusted for your silence in the long run juxtaposed with the sacrifice of being seen as boring.

3) Stealing glances in an attempt to establish whether or not he is interested; if his spontaneous text was an attempt to reach out to you or simply a message meant for somebody else. The tension of knowing that he knows that you know that he has not explained himself. Avoiding eye contact for fear that a glance caught might demand an explanation. The clutching at the straws of things that you could possibly say to ease the awkwardness, and the acute awareness of a lack of words that might have the potential to save you from looking like a complete plank.

4) Dinner. They are talking at you, not to you. You can see their lips moving, but you cannot hear what they are saying. They realise that they have been talking for the past half hour and that you have not said a word. Yet, through their own inability to connect with you, they simply continue talking. You sit. You sit and hope that you might get your ‘King’s Speech’ moment before the meal is over.

5) The rare and surprising turn of events when you realise that a thought has not popped in to your head for a good few minutes. You have been distracted by the vast and beautiful landscape before you commanding your stillness, asking that you give yourself permission to be absorbed by your surroundings and inviting you to be part of something bigger than yourself.

Silence. One condition, five different experiences.

The Humble Laundry Basket

Airing my dirty laundry in public…

What object symbolises stability for you?

My mother gave me a cute, white laundry bag with washing symbols on as a gift when I went off to university in 2006. Since then, I have lived in halls of residence, lived with a family, had a couple of rented flats, sublet from friends, and on one occasion stored half of my belongings under my desk at work whilst transitioning from sofa to spare room. The benefits of a laundry bag over this time have been its compactness, its squishability, and its ability to be transported from halls of residence to laundrette to parents’ house with the greatest of ease.

Stability can be embodied by bricks and mortar, a ring, nine to fives with a health care plan, relationships, routines, family or familiarity. Me? I long for a solid, old-fashioned wicker laundry basket. Nothing speaks to me of stability more than a slightly awkwardly placed but very permanent hamper; one of the most humble and homely objects that I can think of.

Our Lost Ability To Blush

We can spend hours crafting an epistle, weeks planning a proposal, months refining a poem, or years writing a novel. The desire: to contribute something profound to the universe. To challenge a mind. To win a heart. Yet the most profound thing that I have read in ages has been a tweet. A 140 character thought. In this instance, a thought belonging to Rick Warren. Whilst perusing my Twitter feed as one might a morning newspaper, I spotted this:

It was not so much the debate on scandal, morality, etc., that tickled my fancy, rather the notion of having an ability to blush.

That blushing is a visual manifestation of emotion fascinates me. A purchasable product to achieve such an effect, aptly named ‘blusher’, has an air of irony about it – particularly, I think, when worn to attract. Those of us who blush know that it is not something that we can control, and I think that is its beauty. Embarrassment is such a transparent, honest emotion, whether it manifests as the spread of crimson across a cheek or as an explosion of anger in an attempt to divert attention. To develop an inability to blush takes practice. To build a threshold requires the demolition of walls of inhibition.

The workplace can be an arena for scandalous, disgraceful, and apparently shameless conversation. I once worked with the most outrageous colleague. She was brash, crude, rude, and a notorious gossip. Every other word was foul. She could make men who had been in the armed forces for years turn in to thirteen year old boys with her sexual explicitness. She was openly and proudly gay. One day, a fellow colleague teased her about a past sexual relationship that she may or may not have had. Imagine my surprise when I saw that she was blushing! It struck me that she was able to joke about sex with the entire office so openly and without shame, yet her threshold for embarrassment was an intimacy from her past.

And d’you know what?

In that moment she was quite attractive. She seemed more approachable, more vulnerable, more innocent and, well, more human.

I went on a date with a bit of a lad once. He was known for being, for want of a better word, cocky. Now, in all honesty I do fancy a bit of arrogance in my men as I see it as a challenge. However, this chap pushed my limit. The date was going a bit too well – to the point where I wondered if it had been scripted. He was a little bit too smooth and I had suspicions that the lines and the moves he were attempting may well have been recycled. However, mid conversation and without warning, he said something awkward. He knew it. I knew it. He knew that I knew it. He blushed.

And d’you know what?

My heart melted a bit.

Why?

Because it was real.

‘Embarrassment’, ‘shame’, ‘vulnerability’, and ‘innocence’ are not ‘comfortable’ words or emotions. They are a little bit dirty in some situations and they are often abused. I know that I have gone to great lengths to avoid them. But sometimes, just sometimes, can they not be beautiful? As beautiful as the shade that we turn when we feel them?

What is this life, if full of care

Can you see the down-pouring rain?!

When was the last time that you stopped? Stopped and gave yourself time and space to think?

This morning I woke up, grabbed my iPhone and jotted down a long list of things to do. On the drive home from a rather flustered morning in Windsor crossing off items from the list one by one, the heavens opened. I found myself wishing I owned a car that could brave the elements with more dignity than Helen, my little 1.1, could muster. I rushed home, put a load of laundry on, and sat down at the dining room table intent on bashing out my emails, VAT return, invoices, meeting agendas and ideas for business pitches. However, my thoughts were drowned out by both the sound of the rain and Bon Iver, who started charming me with his ways upon the opening of my laptop.

I stopped.

I stopped, stared out of the window, and realised that I was breathing.

It is a funny feeling when you remember that you are living. I became aware of the weight of the week on my shoulders. I thought of the people I care about and what they were doing in that moment – travelling, grieving, working, preparing for marriage. I stopped, thought of them, and listened to this song.

All of a sudden, the world made a bit more sense again.