Friday 30 August 2013

No typey no likey

Have just realised I won't be able to bring my laptop to the Ukraine with me. I don't actually have a clue how I am going to cope not being able to write for two weeks. I need my blogs, I need my play, I wanted to document the trip, I wanted to be able to relax and get some work done on my writing. This writing lark is oxygen for my soul and I've grown so accustomed to the ease of the laptop that thinking about the mess of pen and paper makes me feel unwell. I hate the desperate hand-can't-keep-up-with-my-thoughts scribble that I write freehand.
Plus I can hardly do reviews on my phone, or long blog posts, I can barely send a text message or update my facebook status on that little touch-screen nightmare. I actually feel anxious, unhappy and I can't really think straight or sleep knowing that I won't be able to do this stuff or that I'll have to catch up on it all when I'm back. Fuck. And a half. With great big fucking knobs on.
Apparently not reminding my father every day for the last month to bring home a back-up drive means it is my fault that my laptop isn't backed up. I've said it to him a hundred times but it should have been a thousand. It may sound very childish and petty and almost bratty from an outside perspective but I cannot cope with the idea that this is another two weeks of no work on my costume budget, no work on my play. Two weeks of blog silence. No way for me to write up my trip. I don't want to have to sit in some dinghy internet cafe desperately trying to finish a scene and a save the document before my time runs out on a computer.
I know the saying is supposed to be 'A writer writes', but it has become 'a writer types' and frankly I haven't found a better way to do it. Adventure is going to be somewhat ruined by the fact I'm going to be setting off in a state of blind panic at this drastic change to my plans. Cannot deal. No thank-you. Goodbye. Help

Thursday 29 August 2013

Sex and the TV

For a very non-sexual individual I have an odd obsession with Sex and the City. I hate the puns, I hate some of the outfits, I hate how dependant on men it makes women seem. But I love it. It's my guilty pleasure. Like Busted, or snickers, or over-knee socks.
I kinda like that it's all about men and relationships and sex. It allows me to live vicariously through a bunch of fictional characters, and I don't have to deal with the backlash when things go wrong. I'm out of relationships right now, and enjoying it, but as a women relationships are something we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about. That and sex. Every young person (and Carrie Bradshaw regardless of her age..) thinks about sex. Whether they're having it, not having it, thinking about having it, or wondering why they don't feel like having it. Even if they've never had it, or they had it yesterday. I find myself wondering about it simply because I know other people are thinking about it.
Maybe that's why SATC appeals to me. Because unlike my friends' sex lives, those of Carrie and the girls do not require my advice, opinion or, god forbid, involvement. No one on the show is asking me whether they're a slut, or complaining about needing to get laid and hoping I know someone who can help. Best of all no one on the show needs to be rebuffed for sexually advancing on me.
While some people blame the likes of SATC for the over-sexualisation of society, I personally find it a trivial and harmless form of escapism, where gingers, prudes and blonds get their kicks in a fun, safe and mature way. Plus they get to be 'fabulous' in between hopping into bed with people. There's even some interesting relationship advice, and women-empowering moments.
It's relaxing to allow some other people to deal with all the sexual tribulations of their friends. It's like a silly chat with your girlfriends, except you don't have to actually solve any of the questions-that's Carrie's job!

Tuesday 27 August 2013

I need to write. I need to create. But I feel dull inside. Like when a pan has been used too many times and the outside is the same but the inside no longer shines. I want to create. But I can't conjure my dented thoughts into something worth saying.

The World is my Oyster

I recently worked on my bucket list with my best friend. We had the scary realisation that 10 years from now we will be on the cusp of our thirties and - shock horror- adults. Hopefully with jobs and a partner and maybe even a house or kids, who knows. So we reckon we have 10years before all the things we're going to do become all the things we should have done.
Now to anyone older who is feeling horribly offended by that statement I am not making the assumption that life ends at thirty, only that real life will have kicked in by then, complete with taxes and bills and a car and cooking all our own meals and only visiting our parents on special occasions or when we're lonely. 
I feel like I have a finite amount of time where I can indulge my childish side to the fullest extent and I am terrified of wasting that and becoming one of those middle-aged creeps with no friends their own age because of their inappropriateness and lack of responsibility for their own life. 
While looking through things that other people want to do before they die I've discovered that I've done plenty of interesting things already. I've swum with dolphins, been snorkeling on a coral reef in the Caribbean, I've gone on a trip with friends, and one with a special someone, I've done a spiderman kiss, I've made something from scratch, I've been to a ball, broken a Guinness world record, had a bonfire on the beach, jumped from a cliff and even milked a cow. 
I want to make sure that, even though I know my best adventures will be the normal ones, the family, the house, the job and the future, I want to be sure that I do all the things I might not be able to do when I have other people to think of, or when I'm too old to enjoy them. I don't know when my muscles will get old and tired or my joints start to ache or whether I'll have an accident so I want to expose myself to as much culture, adventure and excitement as I can! 
I want to be sure I appreciate the years between childhood dependence and grown up responsibility where pleasing only myself isn't to anyone else's concern or detriment. After all, the world is only my oyster while I'm able to treat it as such. 

Sunday 25 August 2013

Off into the great blue yonder

Soon I will be creating a new blog about my travels. It will be mostly be to act as a time capsule of my trips (I plan to take many during my next few years of college) and also to act as a way to keep my family and friends here in Ireland updated on how I'm getting on and the adventures I'm (hopefully!) having.
I am overcome with nerves as the one week countdown to my language course in Ukraine starts. I received info about my homestay and my class timetable but am very much throwing myself in at the deep end with next to no clue what it will be like there or even whether I will be fed of be able to go to the gym.
I am also extremely excited for my first trip to Eastern Europe as this is going to be a huge part of my life in the next few years. I can't wait to actually try to communicate in a language I've been learning for less than a year, to experience a new culture, new foods, new sights, a new way of living. I'm glad to be going with friends but nonetheless being thrown into things while still more than a bit unprepared. It's exhilirating in the way a bungee jump or a sky dive is- a heady mix of mild terror and anxious excitement mingled with the thrill of the unknown.

Giving

I have a friend who I have reached the stage of being near unable to hold a conversation with. Every interaction causes me pain, sadness and sometimes downright misery. Despite having struggled, hard, to get myself to a stage of independence where I have made myself an item of priority in my own life, and knowing that this person is a detriment to my happiness, I refuse to give up on them.
This person claims to know both depression and happiness, but would rather accept depression that refuse to continue placing conditions on their happiness. I am proud of myself every time I amn't sad, not only when I'm genuinely happy. Being able to get out of bed feels like a win when there was a time in your life when life was something you didn't feel you were able to manage. This person sees every misfortune as a crippling loss and a sign never to strive for anything, while I try to tell them that the only way you can get of these hurdles is to keep sight of the fact it is a hurdle, not a brick wall fathoms high.
This person claims to know love and to have been destroyed by it. But I know love to be the only thing that can only build you up. Knowing that I have people I care about, who's happiness is my happiness, who's achievements are my delights and who's tribulations are my opportunity to build them up is a constant reminder that I have a value and a purpose.
The worst thing about this friend of mine is that, they do not know how love should work. I love them, so I do my best to be supportive despite the fact that for months now they have done nothing but tear at my fragile happiness, that their lack of awareness of their effect on me makes me realise constantly that they do not love me, nor do they seem to know how. This person does not want my help, they practically push my friendship away and crush my emotions constantly while reminding me that if I go they have no one, guilting me into staying because I am so desperate for them to appreciate the other things they cannot see, if only to allow myself some piece of mind. Being a part of someones happiness is a gift. Being responsible for it, is a terrible pressure. Especially when nothing you can say or do will make them realise the pain it is causing you to care. The great expense to your own happiness it is to keep them just a millimetre from total misery.
But that is love, you care til it hurts, you care some more, and you sometimes have to be content with nothing in return. The fact that this person doesn't deserve your love doesn't stop you trying  to give them what they need. Even if they don't appreciate how much you are giving.

Self-deprecation

She will always be far more appreciative of others than  she is of herself. In fact, most of the things she likes about herself she credits to her parents, either genetically or for encouraging her when she was growing up. She never takes full responsibility for things she thinks she might be good at, though she accepts as her own any and all failures, weaknesses and troubles in her life. 
She has always accepted others much more readily than she accepts herself. She tend to rarely be critical of others, even though she notices the flaws in others almost as much as she notes them in herself. She forgives those imperfections, irritations and issues much more readily in people who aren't, well, her. 
She doesn't have a reason why. She knows most of us are more critical of ourselves, but she is pretty much exclusively critical of herself, which is perhaps why it can be so vehement. She just assumes that everyone judges her as harshly as she judges herself and if they don't that they are simply being overly kind.
She can always think of dozens of things wrong with herself, yet struggles to think of things she is genuinely bad at. She punishes herself for mediocrity and refuses to reward herself even for things approaching impressive.
 I wonder sometimes why I am the first to praise, support and nurture everyone but myself. Even now I am criticising myself for writing this where people will have to read it only to discover I'm a boring, self-deprecating fool with a laptop. I'm also criticising the lack of literary flair in this destruction of my character, I should really have made it a poem, or a tale or woe worthy of pity. But it isn't sad, simply true. It is no dreadful thing, only something I cannot reconcile with the logical part of my brain.

Thursday 15 August 2013

Mystery

It's fascinating to be at this midway stage in life. Every day you might discover something that will make you who you'll be in the future, every day could be the first time you see your future neighbour, future best friend, future spouse. Every day could be the day that one person moves out or moves on or is no longer a part of your life. Every day is touch and go, but in this scarily exciting fantastical way that you can't quite get your head around.
 Everyone wants to know who you are and where you're going and what you want to be and whether you're with someone. You are at your most developmental stage. People think your childhood and teenage years are the most formative years, but can you honestly say that your college years weren't the time where you started to lay the foundations of your adult life? The longest section of your life.
It's astounding to me that I may already have encountered the person I might marry, or my future boss, or my room mate when I move out, or the friend who'll help me plan my wedding.
It's also fascinating to consider that in a year or two I may have entirely different friends, plans, interests, relationships and aspirations. I may go in some completely separate direction. I may become a different person entirely to the one I picture myself becoming.
I'm still trying to become the person 7 year old me was dreaming of becoming (only I'm probably not going to be an astronaut after all!). I'm still trying to stick with the things I'm passionate about and not just let go of them because I want to appear more grown up.
I only have a few more years where I can still call my parents when I'm scared or tired, where I can dye my hair all the lovely colours I want and not be looked at like I'm crazy, where I can wear what I want and do the things I want before I have to assume a set place in soceity, a set role, a set look. Everything is so fluid I don't want to let go of that, yet one part of me is excited for when it finally happens. One part wants to peek out from behind the curtain and see who I am 5years from now, 10 years from now. One part of me wants to see what stores I'll have to tell my kids and grandkids in the next few years, what pictures will be stuffed into albums and giggled over with a bottle of wine in my thirties.
I guess the greatest mystery in life is our own selves, because even we in our own heads have no real knowledge of ourselves. We won't know ourselves fully even until we're probably about 80 years old, and even then there will be things we don't know about ourselves.

Warning!

I was thinking recently about parental warnings. We are warned constantly on packaging, on TV and in our homes. We remember to eat our greens, not to talk to strangers, never to drink and drive, how to protect our beverages and our bodies and what things are safe an what aren't. What we are never warned about the things that often have the most impact on us-other people.
True there are some of us who have the kind of parents who vetted our friends but even the best friends in the world can be harmful. Even the great loves of our lives cruel and painful. We are a species with a very unique capacity for damaging others, often without even intending to do so.
I have never had trouble with a stranger, skipping my vegetables has never caused me serious harm and I have yet to develop ink poisoning from drawing on my skin. I have, however, been hurt, abandoned, let down, betrayed and even punished by people from whom I never expected it. No one ever warned me about them, no one ever warned them they would hurt me either. It is not something one prepares to do or prepares to react to- yet it is much more damaging and dangerous than almost anything that comes with a warning label. Even without the warning common sense tells us not to drink bleach or wash red sock with white shirts or to leave the stove on. Common sense does not protect us from the people we trust, we love, we look up to.
Maybe it's we that should come with a warning label.

Sunday 11 August 2013

Legalise Cannabis

This is something that is currently being debated in Ireland and a lot of my friends have been inviting me to protests about it. Frankly I don't want to be involved, I'm not against cannabis, I'm well aware that safe cannabis has dozens of useful and even helpful properties and that for many people it can have a positive effect on their lives. Unfortunately I am certain that the vast majority of people interested in legalising cannabis just like the idea of not getting in trouble for smoking weed.
I get that people enjoy it, that it can be fun. But drinking can be fun too and there's a reason there's an age limit, cocaine probably can be fun too but we don't want everyone taking that either. Like alcohol, while not the most harmful substance to the human body, weed can be problematic in the wrong hands, the wrong amounts, the wrong circumstances.
Someone close to me got into weed when he was 15 and ended up fucking up his exams and getting expelled from school and a mate of his died in circumstances with weed. I have another mate who smokes weed nearly every day to help him relax after work, or de-stress from being with his family.
Despite being someone who sometimes wishes I could just take something to make me relax, or to help me be happy, I don't believe that any substance, especially a legal one, is going to help those feelings. Because they don't fix the problem, they just help you forget about it.
If I thought that people were protesting for something genuine, something that would be positive for society, I would be out there marching too. But frankly, when my friends, or guys I'm dating, are high or stoned, they really aren't as fun, or nice, or interesting to be around as they normally are. I guess I like things real, even if the real is less pleasant to deal with sometimes. At the end of the day, I feel like weed isn't a life experience I should have, life is something I want to experience, and weed changes the real world, the real way you see thing and feel things.
When I meet one person my age who wants to legalise cannabis for a real reason, a good reason I'll think about marching. Til then, I'll stick to my guns!

Triviality

I spend hours becoming stressed about things that should be trivial. What to have for dinner, whether or not to go out, when to have a shower.
Sometimes just looking at myself can make me stressed because I feel like I have a thousand things I have to do and fix and improve. I think way too much about food, photos, clothes and text messaging. It sounds completely shallow, and even self-obsessed.
Even thinking about it a little while trying to write has me all pent up and stressed and nervous. Like my chest is constricted and there's a weight on my shoulders. In my house there are frequently arguments over trivial things, such as TV or the last potato waffle or whether or not someone is allowed to use something belonging to someone else. The problem is that even the most trivial of things have a connection to more deeply rooted needs, feelings, thoughts, they can spark and idea or emotion that is all consuming. I hate the way you appear like some sort of bratty petulant child in reaction to something that should mean nothing, and really does mean nothing, but just set off a tornado of bad thoughts which cause you to turn everything into a nightmare.
I was just bothered by something trivial, I was at a party recently and took a lot of photos. I was in a few with a friend I used to be very close to and I notice that on facebook he has hidden any of just the two of us from his profile. Now if I think rationally and logically he may not have liked them, or thought there were too many similar ones, or not wanted to look like we were together because it was just the pair of us. But ma brain catastrophises, spiralling into a dozen negative reasons and becoming sad and angry and anxious and generally upset about all the things I think it could be!
A few deep breaths later and I'm calm but it will niggle at the back of my mind til the end of the day. It irks me even more that this has upset me than the actual reasons behind the upset. Maybe it smacks too much of change, or failure, or rejection to my mind when it's actually not that complex.
I wish I could switch off these parts of my brain that do this. Instead I analyse them. And I write.

Saturday 10 August 2013

Gifts

Yesterday I received a really perfect gift. There is something about gift giving that makes you feel special and loved, but nothing more so than a gift that perfectly suits you, that shows how well your friend knows you and makes you love and appreciate them all the more.
My friend brought me a copy of one of my favourite novels in Spanish. I love reading in other languages and I was so delighted I almost wanted to cry!
Being a girl you often get a lot of crappy default presents. People seem to think that toiletries or jewellery are the things that girls want. I do love an accessory but  I almost never receive jewellery that is the kind of thing I would buy myself. As for toiletries, I only ever had baths when I'm sick and if I get another Lush bath bomb that smells overwhelmingly of sherbet I may throw it at someone.
Gifts are sweet but gifts for the sake of giving someone something mean almost less than no gift at all. If it's the thought that counts and you put zero thought into the present then what on earth is the point?
I am very lucky to have some lovely friends who know me and think of me and remind me just how well they get me.