Does there actually come a point in life when you stop dreaming? Or when being ambitious goes from being encouraged and praised (as a young person) to something that is looked down upon and suspected? At what point should we be satisfied with what we have, and accept that what we have is our lot in life? Because the way that I am going, I am only becoming more impatient. Perhaps it is a subconscious race against time, trying to get as much as I can before the alarm clock rings and I have to sit down and stop trying. When is enough enough? For me, I don’t know if it ever will be, and is that a good or a bad thing?
I remember reading an interview with Janet Jackson (as good a source of life advice as any, considering she certainly has lived!) where she would advise young people to make sure that they appreciate their journey, rather than always striving, striving, striving for more. This makes sense to me, but I must admit that I am not very good at it. In the quest for seeking to do something that fulfils me but that also “matters”, I seem to repeatedly experience disillusionment once I realise that what I’m doing with my life isn’t quite what I intended. Pretty soon, I move onto the next in an attempt to climb the ladder, all the while hearing the clock inside my head ticking more loudly with each birthday that goes by.
Why is the clock so insistent? At this point, I am lucky enough to be able to say that I am happy with my life, that I have accomplished a lot in a relatively short time, and that I appreciate what I have and don’t take it for granted. So where does the nagging insistence that it’s not enough come from? I think it’s because I feel that I still have plenty of potential that I’m not utilising, because there are only so many hours in a day and because there is only so much money in the bank. Yet, if I had all the money in the world, I’d probably not quest and strive quite as hard, because a little bit of the struggle would be taken out of it. Don’t get me wrong, if I won the lottery tomorrow I certainly wouldn’t rip up my ticket or choose to donate all of the money to charity. I would take all of that money and use it to improve my life in the ways that money can. But not only is money not everything, but money is only something; and when I say that I want it all, I am not referring to material possessions. I mean achievements, I mean developing my intelligence, awareness and having all the life experiences that I feel I want to have. I don’t know if I will ever be satisfied, or ever stop working. Does that make me greedy, immature, honest, ambitious or just restless?
Hannah and I have come up with a new phrase: “making faces” = “making money”. It comes from a quote by some movie character or rapper – I really don’t remember who, but Hannah picked it up. Apparently, having “big faces” means that you are rich (I guess from the faces which are on money notes). By extension, “small faces” must mean small amount of money, and thus “making faces” must be making or earning money. I imagine “making faces” to be said to the tune of Usher’s “Trading Places”. My head is a funny place.
Anyways, in my pursuit of making faces, I have decided to clear out my room and I’m selling 90 or so CDs, and about 30 DVDs that I really have no use for anymore. What’s more, I have bundled up my old Playstation 2, leads, controllers and games as I haven’t touched them in nearly 2 years (since I got my PS3) and I might as well gain the extra space and some money at the same time. As I am now saving up for a car, every little will help so why not make some faces and some spaces at the same time?
Talking of which, as I somehow accomplished all of my aims for 2010 (boyfriend, driving, job), let’s make my list of aims for 2011! Here goes:
1. Buy a car.
2. Get a job in London.
3. Move to London.
4. Stay with Toby and make sure that our relationship grows even stronger!
5. Buy a new microphone and record a new album.
6. Pay off my credit card and student overdraft.
There. That should keep me going for a while! And although this year I have more goals than last year, I feel confident that I can achieve them all and if anything, my success this year has only made me optimistic that next year will be even more momentous! I am sure that it will have its setbacks but as Happenstance dictates, it’s not what happens but how you capitalise on unforeseen circumstances and make strides towards your goals that really counts. I proved this year that I can do well, and next year is going to be better! I hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas and I wish you all a fantastic 2011. Let’s do this! xxx
I was saying to one of my friends that it’s been a while since I blogged one of my dreams! I guess that sometimes if you speak something, it has a funny way of coming into existence. I also must give some credit to the kebab I bought with Mike on the way back from our last course night out watching the England match (which was dull, although cheering along with the mindless supporters was amusing; I don’t think they realised Penny and I were taking the piss out of them) – the stomach ache I bear as a result, coupled with the disrupted night’s sleep I had, worked together to produce this crazy dream as well as my decision that, like crisps and popcorn, I will never eat another kebab again. Anyway, here goes:
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I found myself at university, staying in a dorm building which had several of my friends living on the same corridor as me. The hall was brightly lit, with a peach coloured carpet, and Toby lived a couple of doors down from me. A few doors in the opposite direction, towards the end of our corridor, lived this random guy whom I don’t know in real life, and whom I didn’t know much about in the dream, except he was gay and had quite a youthful face and a happy-go-lucky, slightly crazy manner. I remember on this particular day, Toby was getting ready to present a presentation he had worked on with his friend on a song they had written for a team they’d been given in a World Cup sweepstake. He hadn’t let me hear the song, and he was quite nervous about it but pretending as if everything were fine. To give him some space, I decided to get a bus and go to a string of shops which looked similar to the top of Gloucester Road, except with less shops and shops which looked even more run down than what’s there in reality. The trip seemed fruitless, and I remember returning back to my corridor pretty promptly.
On my return, I bumped into the guy who lived near the end of the corridor. He was burbling about something, and invited me to go back to his room. I was reluctant to go as I wanted to wish Toby luck before he started his presentation / performance, but at the same time I wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to disturb him, so I decided to follow the guy to his room. We chatted for a while, and then ended up having (anatomically incorrect – orifices do NOT look / contort like that!) sex. Immediately afterwards I felt guilty, and made small talk while hurriedly getting out of there. I ran down the corridor to find Toby, who was due to start his presentation. I located the classroom (oddly enough further down the same corridor as where all our bedrooms were) and burst in through the open door, where Toby and his classmates were gathered in front of a lecturer standing at a lectern in front of a giant screen filled with the flags of the World Cup in some kaleidoscopic Powerpoint presentation. Toby was stood on a chair, ostensibly about to sing his song, but everyone turned to look at me and Toby’s mouth gaped as I ran towards him, hugged his legs and nuzzled my face into his crotch. He asked me what was wrong, but I decided to keep my infidelity to myself and said that nothing was wrong and I just wanted to wish him luck and let him know I was there for him. At that moment, he smiled (which made me feel a combination of guilt and immense love), and the whole class sighed as if they wanted to get on with the presentation of the songs.
At this point, my stomach ache woke me up again as it had done periodically throughout the night. I remember getting up to open the window; it was light outside and I hoped that some fresh air would do me good (as it happened, it made no difference) before getting back into bed and falling back to sleep.
I found myself going into a giant record store which reminded me of a huge Virgin Megastore from back in the day. When I walked in, the front of store display advertised hordes of Paulina Rubio CDs, books, DVDs and other memorabilia at knock-down prices. I was about to start browsing – there were items that certainly caught my eye even at first glance, when I bumped into my tutor from university, Mary. She was sat reading a book on a cube seat, and she smiled at me and started asking how I was. We had a conversation about the book she was reading, and about what some of my favourite books were. I then saw two women approaching her wearing skirt suits, and Mary explained that she was interviewing for the course intake for next year, so she would have to say goodbye for now. I smiled and left the seating area as one woman sat down and began to talk to Mary, who had closed her book; the other sat on an adjacent cube and began to read a book of her own. I was about to start browsing the Paulina Rubio merchandise, which including products which both do and don’t exist in real life, when I bumped into Simon from the careers guidance course. He asked me if I had seen Mary; I responded by indicating the cubed seating area, but then explaining that she was doing interviews so he might have to wait for a while before he was able to speak to her. With nothing much else to say to him, I left Simon and began to browse the shelves.
However, during my conversations with Mary and Simon, a lot of the CDs had been snapped up, and I could barely find half of the products which had been on offer when I’d first entered the shop. I spent quite a long time rummaging and amassing quite a collection of items, when I bumped into my mother, Deena and Davina. They said that they had come shopping looking for a birthday present for me, and immediately handed me a big box of some kind of board game, and a smaller box on top. They said that they were going to look for some other gifts for me. My mother immediately disappeared, and Davina and Deena went off in different directions. I followed Deena and asked her if there was anything I could buy for Davina, but I don’t think she had any suggestions. Eventually, I found myself left alone by them and I had to go to the till and pay for my Paulina Rubio stuff, and also for my own birthday presents!
Afterwards, I returned home with all my purchases only to find that my mother had already arrived at home. She looked at the amount of carrier bags I had, and then she engaged me in some meaningless, forgettable conversation. I don’t remember what was said, but I remember taking a yellow sleeping bag with me and leaving the house. I wandered the streets and before long, found a wide grey pavement outside a run-down block of flats. For some reason, in my head I had decided that this was an orphanage, and the area of town did not look very Bristolian nor very friendly; it was all quite dilapidated, and I felt quite tired so I decided to lay down on the pavement and curled up in my sleeping bag. However, the sleeping bag was double-sized, so I still only took up half of the bag; the other half covered the rest of the pavement. After a few moments, Mike came strolling by as if by chance, looked down and noticed me laying on the floor (I wasn’t asleep). He spoke to me briefly, and we chatted before he told me to budge up, got down on the pavement and slid into the sleeping bag next to me. This time, nothing sexual happened but we just chatted for a while and I remember feeling happy and lucky that I had a friend to spend time with.
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That is about it! As always, any thoughts or light that you can shed on this is more than welcome. A few connections that I can make: I watched the World Cup match last night, so perhaps the football was in my head; I’d seen Deena earlier in the week and I remember we were walking around HMV and she was considering looking for a present for her friend’s girlfriend. During the night out last night, I was speaking to Mike about how much his friendship meant to me and how lucky I was to have him in my life. I also spent a lot of the evening texting Toby, who is currently sunning it up in Florida (lucky man); I miss him. Finally, Simon was the only person who hadn’t managed to get into the bar last night where we were watching the football; although Mary wasn’t invited to watch the football with us, it is interesting that Simon is the one who was asking me about her whereabouts, as if he were looking for someone from our course just as he was last night. But the rest of it is beyond me!!!
I haven’t written in a week, and that’s because I don’t really know what to say. I don’t just want to write album reviews because that’s just one facet of this site. I just don’t know how to word how stupid, how complacent I have been, and yet how much I have overthought things and let my overthinking nearly ruin my relationships (both friendships and romantic). And yet, I’ve been so lucky, because I’ve realised in time, and I managed to put aside my pride, my severe need for independence, and let someone else in. I’m so lucky because I am with somebody who realises my problems without me necessarily saying anything, and he is willing to stand by me while I work on myself and work it out.
Nobody is perfect, and I’m pretty hard on myself. Everyone says that, and I suppose that it’s true. But I think it’s so illogical, so backwards that I can love other people and yet I can’t love myself? How does that work? I do love aspects of myself, but I also hate things about me. I guess that’s normal, but the things that I hate seem to throb, vibrate and I constantly am aware of them. I guess that as I get older, I’ll learn to accept these things and feel them less vividly, but I don’t understand how someone can love me with all of these faults that I have. So on the one hand, I cover up any weaknesses and portray myself as sociable, confident and outgoing, so that nobody will know that I have these weaknesses. Sometimes I can even trick myself into believing that I am this way. And yet on the other hand, I find it so hard to let anyone get truly close to me, lest they see who I really am and go running a mile. Pushing people away has been easier for me, and I finally realised that I have someone so precious that I don’t want to push away. So I am learning to let him in, because I do love him. I just feel so stupid that it got to the point where I could nearly have lost him to really wake me up and finally allow him to see me for who I am.
That’s why I feel so stupid and yet so lucky. Looking at my family, thinking of my past, I shock people when I tell little stories about the emotional abuse I endured growing up. Things that are nothing compared to the atrocious things some people suffer, but which niggle my brain and fold into my subconscious until they are a part of me. I shudder when I recognise parts of my mother’s personality becoming more blatant within me. Mike and Toby both laugh, but I know that they are surprised… adding up why I am the way I am, impressed that I seem to have made it out more or less ok, confused as to how it all happened to me. And when they tell me things about them, I guess that I go through the same process. Getting to know someone, not just the good but the bad too, is a cautious evaluation that involves trust on both sides. And I’ve finally learned enough to know that if I chose to be alone this time and forsake someone who seems to offer me everything I could need for the sake of independence and security, then I truly would be stupid. I’m glad to say that I’m not that stupid anymore. 🙂
Love is risk. Misery can be like a pillow, so comfortable and familiar. If Toby is brave enough to reach out his hand to me and offer me a way to happiness (and this whole year has taught me that I can be happy, that I deserve to be), then all I have to do is push my way up through my own fears and insecurities and take it. That was really scary, but I did it. I am with him now, and it feels really good to open myself up to that feeling. I think I can make it, and I think that life will be good. Looking at my family again, I don’t want to have a relationship where there’s constantly drama and sadness and questioning. I know that a certain element of that is inevitable, but when it takes over the joy of being with somebody… I don’t need that. I don’t want to end up like that. After all, like I said in a previous entry, not everyone gets the chance for love. I have that chance, and all I have to do is take it. So I’m taking it. Deep breath, here we go. I am truly, truly lucky.
The last 8 months have represented the happiest period in my life that I can remember. I’ve grown so much as a person, I have made some terrific friends, I have started the longest relationship of my life to date, I have lost weight, I have tattoos (it’s my most recent tattoo‘s one-month anniversary today!) and I have finally started learning to drive again. It’s like I was in a chrysalis up until this point, and now I’m finally starting to spread my wings.
However, I can slowly but surely feel that happiness starting to fade a bit. Perhaps it’s growing pains, because in December I had a tough couple of weeks – maybe I just need to ride it out. I still have all the things I named above, so I can’t really complain too much. But my growing discontent I think is largely due to the fact that I’ve not had instant success when applying for jobs. I haven’t had an interview out of the six jobs I’ve applied to so far. I won’t give up – I am committed to this new careers guidance career, I want to make a difference in other people’s lives, to young people. And I want to carve out my own life, get a car, get a job, get a place to live. I can’t do any of those things without the finances that come from a well-paying job. So I really need this, and although I’ve had my applications checked and approved my tutors, and my CV was given a glowing review by the UWE Careers Service, I guess it won’t come that easy.
So here’s the part where I start to connect my life at the moment with the song above. Listen to the words, and things will make more sense. I was complaining to Mike about the fact that I have yet to secure an interview for any jobs, and he said to me “Well, I am sure there’s nothing wrong with your applications and it’s probably bad luck, nothing personal, but I don’t know if we have the skills for some of the jobs you applied for”. In other words, try not to worry, but don’t apply for such weird stuff. But I thought that I had a good shot at being capable of the jobs I went for, and the fact I was able to fill out the application without really questioning it means that I didn’t really think that the jobs I applied for were that leftfield.
Then I bumped into Henna (from the Perfume Shop) and her friends in the uni café, and after chatting for a while, one of them turns to me and says “So you did languages at Oxford, why on earth aren’t you becoming a teacher?” I explained that even after my teaching assistantship in Spain, and enjoying teaching more than I expected to, I’d never gravitated towards teaching and it wasn’t ever on my radar. Even though I’m now working towards becoming a careers guidance practitioner and working with young people, it feels quite different to me because I’m instrumental in helping a young person shape their entire life and future, rather than wholly responsible for one component of that. I just feel that this fits me better, but perhaps I’m missing a trick? Then I start to think that perhaps I am just running away from the one true vocation I’ve always wanted: music. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to sing, dance, perform, record and entertain. I’m good at it; I’ve won prizes for it. People loved what I did at high school, sixth form and university, and since then I’ve grown as a musician, performer and person. Why aren’t I following my heart? Although I release my music online and I have very positive responses, will that ever truly be enough? By keeping total control, am I sacrificing my dream of making it big? Is being spurned by employers left right and centre a subtle hint that I can’t really avoid my destiny?
I keep wondering if I’m missing something. I’ve had other reasons to lately wonder what the hell is wrong with my brain (read my previous post for some of that), and I don’t consider myself so eccentric or out of the ordinary to have made it to age 24 that I haven’t realised. But sometimes, I look at the way things are and just think, what is going on? Am I on another planet? I do often think I’m an alien, from another galaxy: in Kingswood, I seem to dress like nobody else, have desires for things that just pass everyone else by. In my family, I have different aims, different values. I seem to have been only partly informed by my upbringing, and a lot by the media, and my parents say that I am 10% of them, and 90% of something mysterious and random. Where do I get it from, who am I, and when I find out, where do I go from there? I am glad I am my own person and I wouldn’t change that for anything, but sometimes it gets a bit lonely out here.
☆ I am... chase. ★ 