A year can make all the difference. What are 12 things that are new and different in my life from September 2014?
1. New career: a year ago, I quit TV, and started volunteering at the Sutton Women's Centre. By December 2014 I'd organised a fundraising event and I was a committee member, running the social media. In May we had our 30th Anniversary which I largely organised, and soon we'll have a 30k walk, plus a new marketing plan and our annual Christmas fundraiser that I will have contributed to. My contribution to the Women's Centre fills me with enormous pride and I look forward to seeing it continue to help and support local women for another 30 years (even though one would hope it wouldn't be needed in another 30 years...). I also started volunteering for the Tanzania Development Trust, a role that teaches me new things about the world all the time. After a brief return to TV earlier this year, I got myself a job as Marketing and PR Executive for a charity. Exactly where I wanted to be.
2. Losing my Granddad: words couldn't begin to describe the grief I felt when my granddad died. I have never seen a person die, but I am glad I was there and that he was surrounded by family. Of course the pain of his loss has diminished but I still miss him everyday. I just wish I could hear his voice again, even if it was to grumble.
3. My mum's engagement and impending move: neither of which I am impressed with.She knows this. I've spent hours talking to my counsellor about it. I don't like him, she could do much better, and Lincolnshire is even more the arse-end of nowhere than Burwell. But it's her life. I'm not saying I'm ok with it, but I accept her decision. It's taken me months to get to that.
4. Getting myself back to therapy: following the loss of my granddad, growing resentment over my mum's plans and building frustration at my life, I referred myself to counselling, marking a return after 5 years out. My weekly therapy sessions are a lifeline for my mental health and there are times when I need it and times when I don't, and times when I can't get out of there quick enough, and times when I could do with several hours not just one. I have struggled with my mental health for most of my life, but referring myself to counselling could only ever be a positive step in safeguarding it.
5. New Zealand Take 2- jumping off a suspended gondola and free falling 134m: when I went to New Zealand the first time, I made the mistake of telling the bungee jump company that I have a chronic pain condition. I didn't make that mistake when I booked it, and I was totally fine. In fact I was better than fine because it was an absolutely incredible experience and I desperately want to do it again! My second trip to New Zealand also heralded my first football match - Wellington Phoenix vs Brisbane Roar. We've got the wind, the rain and the phoenix...
6. The gym- my second home: I first went to a gym when I was 15, and my mate persuaded me to go because we both desperately wanted to be thin. I wasn't even fat to begin with but vulnerable to suggestion that I needed to lose weight, like many young women and older women, and teenagers, and even now pre-pubescent girls. And men too. I only went a few times, and mostly stuck to the treadmill. The second time I joined the gym was as a birthday present to myself in 2013 (I also had just split up with the guy I was seeing...). I joined the BBC Club and that gave me the gym at the bottom of my building for cheap. This time I explored more machines, and even weights. I went a few times a week, usually late after work, until I got the craving to playthrough Mass Effect again and I stopped going...
So it is third time lucky. A new gym opened up at the top of my road and they had a pre-opening offer. Spur of the moment, having started running and training for a 10k (running had fallen by the wayside by January 2015 because I was so upset and exhausted over my Granddad, and losing my uncle too in December) I decided to sign up. And it has changed my life. Before when exercise and dieting was a path to beauty, working out and healthy eating is now my path to strength and fitness. The way my body has changed and developed in the last 7 months is something I could never have anticipated at the beginning. I miss the gym when I'm not there. Running is my relaxation, and one more rep is always my ambition.
7. Studying again: I decided to take up a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification through the Oxford College of Marketing. I knew I wanted to make the move, and I knew that volunteering would only get me so far.It was the right decision, though it is hard. I've done one module so far, and due to holidays and timing, I now have two modules to complete by the end of January, for assessment by the March boards. But I know I want this, and I will do it and do it well.
8. Network, network, network: Networking used to fill me with fear. I started attending the I Am Networking charity drinks in January and the first time I went, I had a panic attack and almost didn't go in. I stood in Covent Garden in floods of tears on the phone to my nana. Then I went in, talked to someone in the lift, and then kept talking to people. The awkward moment where you sidle up to some people having a conversation - just swallow your fear and get on and do it. I've now been to 7 out of 8 monthly I Am Networking drinks, and I'm going to another Charity networking event next week. It's the researcher in me - I like asking people questions and being nosey.
9. 10K: Linked to the gym (no. 6), I ran my first 10k in June, and finished in 1 hour and 12 minutes. There's nothing like the feeling of crossing that finish line, and knowing I'd raised money for Cancer Research UK made it even better. On holiday in Croatia I ran 10k in 1 hour, and I'm due to run the Oxford Half Marathon in October, this time for the Samaritans. I bloody love running.
10. Losing the person I thought was my best friend: pretty self explanatory. For reasons I don't fully comprehend, the person that I thought was my best friend was apparently lying about being my best friend for the last two and a half years. What a waste of our time. Now I know what kind of person she is, and she's not the kind of person I want in my life, and doubtless I'm not the kind of person she wants in hers. I was devastated, heart-broken. Then I was angry, betrayed. Now I am grieving, but calm. It is what it is, I don't wish her any ill-will, but a weight is off my shoulders and a breath of fresh air flows through my life. To adapt an old, much-used phrase, you don't know what you've got weighing you down til it's gone.
11. Topdeck: despite the aforementioned schism with my tent buddy, I had a fantastic time on Topdeck. Yes my last night was kind of ruined by the bull, but actually I had a nice night that night, and many other nights. In fact all the other nights, and days. The lack of sleep, the boiling heat, and the cold and damp and the flooded tents. The walking, the running, the dancing. The setting up and packing down camp, the food Gemma cooked, the food everywhere especially chimney cake and borscht and spinach dumplings. The News, the quiet time, the Wake Up song, the fight over the electricity points. The sweet relief of hostels and cabins.
The new and amazing places I've been. Venice on a gondola, Croatia to party, Budapest to steam out my pores. Krakow to hear the trumpet, and to feel the history at Auschwitz. Prague's 5 story club, Berlin's history, and Copenhagen's Little Mermaid. Hamburg gave me white wine spritzers, but Amsterdam gave me so much more. Already made a list of those to go back to. A haul of 9 new snowglobes for the collection too.
12. Me: The previous 11 points are all things that I've done, or have happened in my life. But the biggest change in the last 12 months is of course me. I've grown, and I've shrunk. I've taken steps forward, and steps backward, and then a few shuffles sideways and sometimes diagonally. I've aimed for one place and ended up another. At the end of it all, I am still me, but changed. Same same but different. I have learned so much, done so much, seen even more and all it's done is whet my appetite for life more. At the beginning of the year, it didn't seem like 2015 was going to go this way. A brief recurrence of self-harm and traits of eating disorders. But I've been there before, and I wasn't intending to get stuck there again. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and carried on fighting. Like so many people do every damn day.
So with a new tattoo on my right foot, I step into the next school year. I'm ready. Bring it on.
Showing posts with label maturity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maturity. Show all posts
Tuesday, 1 September 2015
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
I might be a grown-up but I'm still growing up
I can be quite an excitable person. Although I do not get excited about Christmas or birthdays, I get squealy over new film or TV releases, epic wins such as same-sex marriage, and kittens. (If you don't get squealy over kittens, I suggest you have your heart examined, although the same might be said of my lack of googliness over babies.)
I'm vaguely aware that my behaviour is not always very... grown up. I have the advantage (?) of being short and I think (without any scientific evidence to back me up whatsoever) that short people are allowed to be less grown up for longer. My evidence for this is that my sister is tall and she has always been quite grown up. Usually she looks after me, even though I am the elder sister.
Growing up is not just about making it through education or work, and taking on "grown up" responsibilities like a mortgage or kids. It's about negotiating your way through friendships and relationships and just life in general, and not necessarily coming out unscathed. It's about learning how to handle successes, defeats and experiences.
For me, growing up is watching your childhood home be packed into boxes and seeing my mother prepare for a new life in another county, and not feeling bitter or abandoned but feeling proud and content to say goodbye. I never liked that house anyway; it was haunted. (I kid, I kid...)
For me, growing up is working out who to make an effort with, and when to recognise that you have drifted apart from someone that at one point would have been your everything, and to let it go. Growing up is recognising the loss, and being okay with it.
As someone still growing up, I'm still figuring out whose opinion should matter to me. Once upon a time I would have cared what everyone thought. And when you made a mistake, you thought everyone was looking, and judging you. But I suppose life is a bit like being a learner driver. When you stall in your car, you might think that everybody is staring and laughing and pointing and you feel mortified. But everybody has stalled before, both in life and in their car*. It's easy to falter in new situations, or even familiar ones. You can stall at the bottom or the top of a hill. What's important is that you get going again. Forget the people you think are paying attention to your mistake. They are probably too wrapped up in trying not to stall themselves.
I learn every day more about who I am, and who in my life I care about and whose opinions matter to me. I can respect your opinion, and yet not let it affect me. And I am still working out my opinions.
Although... if your opinion is that women shouldn't be in power/flying planes/doing anything except getting their tits out, cleaning the kitchen and making you a sammich, then I will declare your opinion stupid and I do not have to listen to it.
Come back when you've got something far less sexist to say.
*this metaphor really only works for those who can drive. But the idea of stalling - essentially a false start, being unable to get the right balance of power and clutch - is applicable to everyone.
I'm vaguely aware that my behaviour is not always very... grown up. I have the advantage (?) of being short and I think (without any scientific evidence to back me up whatsoever) that short people are allowed to be less grown up for longer. My evidence for this is that my sister is tall and she has always been quite grown up. Usually she looks after me, even though I am the elder sister.
Growing up is not just about making it through education or work, and taking on "grown up" responsibilities like a mortgage or kids. It's about negotiating your way through friendships and relationships and just life in general, and not necessarily coming out unscathed. It's about learning how to handle successes, defeats and experiences.
For me, growing up is watching your childhood home be packed into boxes and seeing my mother prepare for a new life in another county, and not feeling bitter or abandoned but feeling proud and content to say goodbye. I never liked that house anyway; it was haunted. (I kid, I kid...)
For me, growing up is working out who to make an effort with, and when to recognise that you have drifted apart from someone that at one point would have been your everything, and to let it go. Growing up is recognising the loss, and being okay with it.
As someone still growing up, I'm still figuring out whose opinion should matter to me. Once upon a time I would have cared what everyone thought. And when you made a mistake, you thought everyone was looking, and judging you. But I suppose life is a bit like being a learner driver. When you stall in your car, you might think that everybody is staring and laughing and pointing and you feel mortified. But everybody has stalled before, both in life and in their car*. It's easy to falter in new situations, or even familiar ones. You can stall at the bottom or the top of a hill. What's important is that you get going again. Forget the people you think are paying attention to your mistake. They are probably too wrapped up in trying not to stall themselves.
I learn every day more about who I am, and who in my life I care about and whose opinions matter to me. I can respect your opinion, and yet not let it affect me. And I am still working out my opinions.
Although... if your opinion is that women shouldn't be in power/flying planes/doing anything except getting their tits out, cleaning the kitchen and making you a sammich, then I will declare your opinion stupid and I do not have to listen to it.
Come back when you've got something far less sexist to say.
*this metaphor really only works for those who can drive. But the idea of stalling - essentially a false start, being unable to get the right balance of power and clutch - is applicable to everyone.
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