Calm

It is late evening on Boxing day. The fire is tickling away in the hearth and there is the soft hum of contented breathing as we slow our festive pace.
My head feels a little less content. I am fearful of tomorrow because it means real life, something these past three days have been an escape from. It means revision I don't want to do for exams I dread to sit for a future I don't want to happen.
Tomorrow morning I have to get up, put on clothes and do real things. I have to go into town and I have to laboriously write history notes and I have to tidy my room and get out of this fantasy of lethargic warmth I have been entranced by.
In my head, it means the end of total relaxation until the twenty-fourth of December, two thousand and seventeen.
Don't the dates look intimidating when written in that protracted fashion.
I can't allow myself to do nothing on any other day than the joyous festive period.
That's probably something I need to work on.

Here's three simple questions with three(?) simple answers.
Leave your answers too.

Something that makes you sad
Seeing the weighted bags under my beloved mother's eyes as she tries harder and harder to repel the demons that trick her mind
The way I don't allow my aching body time to rest, unless it is officially identified by an over commercialised, anonymous holiday
The end of cranberry sauce for another year

Something that makes you smile
My luck, privilege and fortune, the freedom and peace of an illuminated morning sky
New sweatshirts

Something you wish to achieve
More calm and more zen in my overdriving mind
An acceptance with who and what I am without the need to push harder and harder
Confidence about the future

*the questions came from here
**the pic above is the view I woke up to on Christmas day. I know.

Festive Decs

In between the MADNESS of the past few weeks, I have been trying to get festive. The main element of that was these super super adorable decorations I made. We have a massive branch in our backroom that has fairy lights woven through it and lil birds hanging off it and these clay emblems look great.
They were inspired by The Lovely Drawer.

SO here's how:
I used:
Das clay (it looks grey but dries white I promise)
Cookie letter imprints (I ordered these from Amazon, super cheap and work a dream, but keep them in a zip lock bag bc there are loads of small pieces)
Round cookie cutters
Rolling pin
Red twine

All I did was roll and cut out the clay, imprint the letters (it takes a lotta practise), make a hole and leave them to dry.
There are many lil tricks that make them look neater, most of which I haven't mastered but I think you have to press the letters a lot harder than you think and the smoother the clay the better.

I've hung some on the tree but also posted some to friends-I'm thinking of making labels for my presents out of them too-the possibilities are endless.

GAhhd, I'm feeling so festive-can't wait to get school over so I can read my book and watch Christmas films and wear my pjs all day.
Christmas holidays are always the busiest, with the actual day, the preparation, seeing family and revision (ew) but I'm trying my hardest to breathe.

enough

bruised bones, curled on a chair,
tapping relentlessly, senselessly,
battling the padded wall of doubt
to get my thoughts into words.

my mind, ripped in two
aching to drift across the sea to a foreign land
to discover the remedy that ignites the
dulling fire in my belly

but also anchored, grounded in fear
the paralysing fear of failure,
whispering a repulsive slur of
patriarchal stagnation soothingly into my ear

you are not enough
you will never be enough
and my mind dotingly laps it up


***
(the bruises are metaphorical for stress idk)

Too many thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts at the moment. They have little relevance or significance but that doesn't matter, I need to get something out there.

source

There is a fly sporadically chasing my window pane, silhouetted against the greying sky-its occasional buzzing is agitating and doesn't aid my feeling of peace.

I am terrified of the future and at the moment, that future seems to be looming pretty near. In every scenario where I've needed to explain myself, I've used this to justify my fears:
I can't imagine myself in any other life/position than I am in now.
They furrow their brow, scowl-'get over it' is the message I hear silently slip their lips.
But let me explain.
When I was four, I imagined myself in primary school. I knew what the next 7 years would entail.
When I was eleven, I imagined myself in secondary school. I, again, knew what my (near) future would look like.
When I was sixteen, I saw a bridge with towering railings of security and an abyss of emptiness at the end, but I didn't focus on the abyss.
But now, I don't know what I'll be doing in a year or ten. I can't imagine myself at uni or away from home or without my friends or in another country or any age other than seventeen.
And this thought terrifies me because it feels like this is the end of my life.
Of course, that is metaphorical.
I know it is not.
But I can't imagine a life beyond school and friends and home because I don't know what the rest holds. Those who are intending to go to uni in September, while it'll be new and challenging and scary, they know what they are doing for the  next 3 years.
And I don't and that's hella fucking scary.
And this is consuming 90% of my thoughts at the moment, I can't stop thinking what next, what next. What exists beyond this life I know? What purpose can I devour all of my energy into to escape the emptiness that exists beyond?

And, I think I am losing myself again. I am fearful of the upcoming weekend because it is empty. Unscheduled time is the reason I obsess so much over my school work, because its 'necessary', because I don't have to think about doing it, because I can't remember what I do for fun or fulfilment and enjoyment. And I partly blame the education system for zapping any ounce of independent creativity out of me but I also blame myself for losing my identity in insignificant letters.
I work so hard at school, partly because I can't deal with the fear of failure, but also because I don't have to think and I can disappear.

The effin fly has come back.

So, this weekend I'm going to try. I'm filling my time the best I can, not with school work, but hopefully with things I want to do.
I'm buying my friends birthday present, and searching for a top for a party in a few weeks, and preparing gift boxes for the homeless, and posters for this tampon campaign we are doing at school**, and battling through essays and babysitting and reorganising my room decoration and watching Fantastic Beasts for the second time (the last one was a midnight viewing-fab but regretted when I got in at 3am then up at 7 for school) and reading and maybe journalling and-oh man that sounds like a lot.
But, I'll do it all so frantically fast, worrying about getting it done that it won't be with enjoyment.
I'll breathe, slow myself and try not to think of the future.

The fly has got inside my lampshade now, I ought to rescue it.

**basically, my friend and I have been doing research into the HomelessPeriod so are collecting tampons nd pads at school to donate to women's shelters and foodbanks. School seem game so we need to get cracking.

Questions that I want answers to

Long time no see, eh?
I have had many thoughts and emotions about the past weeks political developments. I want answers, I'm not American but these changes shape and affect the world we all live in and our future.

1. Does Democracy actually work? Does it need to be reinvented to fit our post-modern society?
2. Is Trump the final product of a free market, capitalist, globalised, commercialised society?
3. What next?
4. How has the establishment, twice in one year, misread the desires of the people to such a degree that totally unprecedented, unprepared changes hit them in the face?
5. Would the UK have chosen Brexit if this had happened prior? We now stand alone and isolated, surely Cameron could have timed it all better?
6. How can/why do people support a misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, repulsive, demeaning person and put trust in them to lead 'the Free World'?
7. What can we do in the rise of the Far Right? France, Netherlands and Germany all have elections in the next 12 months and the Right are gaining massive support.
8. Will it be as bad as we think?

I am studying the role of the perpetrators in the Holocaust for my history coursework and looking at different interpretations. One, Daniel Goldhagen, suggests that Germany was wrought with a 'different kind of anti-Semitism', the people genuinely believed in what they were doing. Does this have relevance to point 6?
And don't get me started on Nigel Farage.

25/10/16

In all honesty, this is all I really have to show for the past few days.
I am feeling empty.
I see little relief on the horizon, I am trying to remind myself that it always gets better but something in my bones tells me it won't.
Its getting dark early and when I think too much about the blackness outside, I feel a tightening claustrophobia, contributing to my already tight chest.
The past few weeks have been hard but also enjoyable, I am finding my head cloudy so its hard to reflect but I've spent a lot of drunk hours dancing and I think thats a good way to be.
Its half term (not at school) which I find embarrassingly terrifying, partly because I find it difficult to motivate myself when I am not at school but also because the stresses of summer come back. I feel a failure for not having full days but unable to give myself the break this week is intended for. I am desperate to find the relaxation and enjoyment in time off school but I find it stressful and uncomfortable.
I have topics I want to talk about on here but am unable to find the words to express my thoughts.
But, on Friday I am going  to London to see a real good friend and am meeting my pen-pal for the first time, we are going to a Halloween party which should be fun/terrifying/exhausting-but really, I am excited.
There is positivity, so much of it, sometimes it just needs unearthing.
Anyway, enjoy the collage-it was therapeutically made on Powerpoint, stylish.

Nostalgia

Around my room, pegged up on loops of twine, or blue tacked to my mirror, or in a gift bag under my desk, I have physical encapsulations of my life.
Photos, tickets, postcards, letters.
The flittering memories that dance around my mind as I try to focus are engrained in still moments of the past.
Fingering through these makes me nostalgic and empty.
It makes me long for a glorified time that never existed in the pure form it is presented.
I wish for a time that I spent wishing for another time. It's messy.
Curled on the edge of my bed, under a quilt with melancholy music playing in my ears, I am enchanted by the photos that I have framed on my wall.
An image of my friend and I hugging around a birthday cake, bikinis in the north sea, watermelon on a Nicoise balcony, suited and booted before prom, idyllic summer fields and so many of friends and smiles.
And while every pixel is cherished and prized, they make me sad.
The ease and belonging feels arduous and messy and there are faces that belong to personalities I no longer know. Pictures where I have bossily dragged my best pals to the mirror, clad in our black dresses, to take what will be one of my most treasured possessions.
Today, these images feel impossible, complicated with our drifting lives.
I look at their familiar faces and miss the laughter and fun before A-levels and opinions and fears invaded.
A faded image sitting around a camp fire, in an assortment of patterned pyjama items, blankets and scarves, empty pots and pans discarded on the grass. The serene comfort I remember feeling makes me blue, such events become almost impossible to organise as our lives become busier and we move on.
God, I miss them.
They are captured in their purest, happiest forms, rose tinted and deceitfully beautiful. And even if I coerced the participator to pose with me (which I have a habit of doing), it doesn't show.
They are false tickets of the past.
And while I know these memories will be replaced with new ones, new faces will appear and new stories will be told, I can't help but feel the dilution of an integral part of me. Faces that have shared tears and firsts and fears and laughs and memories and have been my absolute insurance for the most formative years are fading and soon I'm going to have to go this journey alone.

It is a dark autumn night and I have been working hard and stressing hard and while such circumstances are prone to tears, I can't help but feel sad about my longing to be crossing a golden field to watch the sun set or dancing in someones living room or curled up watching a movie and feeling at home around the people I have grown up with.

Life

Life is b-u-s-y.

Last weekend was undeniably shit, I was worried about my head and feeling trapped and never enjoying myself.
I've lost those captivating fears as the days have drifted on, they'll return one day.
Over the weekend, I discovered one of my triggers is an empty schedule. I had mixed thoughts about triggers, an annoying fragment of my brain told me that avoiding the trigger is like hiding from the problem. Possibly partially true, but not going to help me get anywhere. I will find my triggers and avoid them.
You should too.

So, I have packed my days. I am busy, perhaps a little too.
I have spent this week bare faced, watching Bridget Jones Baby (fantastic), working (as in earning DOLLA-I have a job!), writing essays, reading books, playing my flute, planning a London trip, going for meals, buying new pens, walking miles and sleeping. I am finding there aren't enough hours in the day to do the things that tend to my soul. I will crash at this rate, but at the moment it feels good.
I've been so busy I haven't watched GBBO.
Friday evening was spent in the place that housed the majority of my 16 year old drunk memories, happily induced by rum and coke, playing cards and taking pics.
It didn't feel as joyous when I had to get up for a train at 5:45 the next day, tired and groggy. I went to Manchester for the open day. The university was totally not my thing, the accommodation was horrific, and would, I know, be disastrous for my mental health and over all it feel uninspiring, incoherent and massive.
After boycotting the talks, we replenished eating mezze in the trees and enriching our minds with art, of which I managed to capture a few prohibited photos.
A raucous train home sat on the floor and I ended up at my pals, playing cards while they drank wine and I refreshed myself with Ribena.
Sunday I made a banana cake and ate it on the beach and washed my plaits that hadn't been touched since Wednesday (rank I know).

What have y'all been up to?


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