On a 5-hour train and my phone and headphones are both out of battery. So, what better time to share some recent thoughts.
It’s been a strange few months. Busy, sad, exciting and more present than any other, overwhelming. My part-time job at a café/bar got hectic with the reopening of the garden and with a drama fit for a thrilling Hollyoaks storyline (i.e so farfetched you wouldn’t believe it’s real), it’s been challenging to say the least. Finding the time for all my music and fashion endeavours, amongst work and vocal coaching, I’m left feeling like I’m just about keeping my head above water. I also must find the time for my relationships and as restrictions on meeting others lift, saying no to a friend you haven’t seen in a year and half because you just need a minute doesn’t seem acceptable.
I am coming to the end of a few days “off”, but filled with some tricky moments and the constant concern that I have far too much to do to be relaxing in a beer garden, I don’t feel recharged one little bit! Rather I feel more anxious at the mountain of things I need to get done. In reality, the mountain is probably a mole hill, but it feels huge, like a looming volcano ready to erupt with missed deadlines and accidentally ignored emails. But my mum always says, just do one thing at a time. Like grains of sand falling through an egg timer, you can only do one thing at a time so don’t try to tackle it all at once. Those who have read my other pieces will know, I live by my mum's wisdom and it's done me very well so far.
For so long now, as with many, I have yearned for the end of this whole ordeal. But as it comes around, with the end in sight, I almost feel a little ill prepared. As I think about how to articulate what I am feeling, it seems I am stuck in a dichotomy between cursing the restrictions that have prevented me from progressing with my life, while also feeling a little comforted by the fact they offer a justifiable reason for not progressing. I suppose the question then is; would I have progressed had we not found ourselves caught in a pandemic? I feel I would have, I was just getting ready to leap, but then I don’t feel I am in that same place anymore. So, my fear now is, without the restrictions will I continue to flail about, making the teeniest of steps at best, like I have been doing for the past 18 months, or will I reconstruct the platform from which I will attempt to leap again, using all the developments and discoveries I have obtained over the past few months. My answer to myself; the latter. The truth is, I still possess all the qualities and talent that I had before. They belong to me and although they have felt a little worthless and dimmed at times, they are still within me and I have the power to re-ignite them.
I also return home to so much love and with an abundance of support, cuddles and laughter, I can’t go too far wrong. With all life’s complexities and demands, the things that seem to be important, are sometimes imposters. I have found with so much certainty, that as long as I am loved and laughing, I am happy. And as I crawl into bed every night, and I force my brain to rest and my world to stop moving, I am left with the purest form of happiness and that makes me one very lucky individual. Noting what makes you fortunate, appreciating all that you do have and all that is successful is far more worthwhile than dragging your mind through the trials and tribulations that clutter life's landscape. It's a beautiful thing when you're left with the basics.