Space and clarity really do seem to be the running themes in my life at the moment, don’t they. I’m coming at you presently from the lobby of my office building, where I have taken myself on a bit of a time out. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, my relationship with myself is often like I’m raising a toddler. Or a pet. In either case, it’s light and open and cool and empty and quiet down here, and that is what my brain needs right now, so I have brought myself and my trusty bottle of water down for a breather.
Was just looking pensively out the window thinking about how together I am when I choked on my water, so there’s that.
My life is a shambles. The illusion is shattered. There is Evian in my lungs.
My life is a shambles. The illusion is shattered. There is Evian in my lungs.
Not even though, really, because I'm feeling infinitely more collected than I was a few days ago. My mental necessities are going well, although back in this post I did forget to include one of the Big Guns, which is a clean environment. I'll probably write an entire post about the importance of a clean environment at some point, but suffice to say that since moving from the office to this vacant, monochrome lobby I feel like a new person, and the idea of going home and cleaning my room tonight is almost too much of a thrill to handle. Physical space impacts mental space, and I very much intend to create for myself a light and airy Scandinavian-inspired brain.
One thing that has been bringing me a fresh layer of jubilance lately is London. And the sun. London IN the sun, don’t even get me started. When the sky is visible and the sensation of an open window becomes more uplifting than cryogenic, it reminds me of home, and everything feels very easy and inconsequential. Not in a reckless burn-this-building-to-the-ground-try-and-stop-me way, but more of a Pantene-ad-Lizzie-McGuire-Movie-Soundtrack-everything-could-be-an-insty-picture one. The other day on my way back from a google event I was on the top level of a double decker bus going through Fitzrovia and I felt like throwing caution to the absolute wind and just doing something MENTAL like recklessly, impulsively going to a museum. I know. I didn’t, I went to work like a good girl but I COULD have. I COULD have gone to a museum. And that’s what’s important to me.
Today has been a lot. I didn’t really sleep last night (see: very literally did not sleep at all) and I was working flat out from 9am until about 4.30 when I hit the wall and had to come downstairs, but I have a job where I can do that. I can get up and go somewhere else, I can go for a walk around central London in the middle of the day if I want to, I can legitimately use my actual work time to scroll through Instagram and NOT have it count as slacking off. There are so many things in my life that I would have thought were incredible if I’d been magically fed spoilers by some kind of wonderful woodland sprite a year or so ago, and I’m only really starting to appreciate that now. There are also aspects of my life that I was happier with a year or two ago, in the time when the sprite would have found me, but even those aren’t that bad and they’re all things that will change with time.
Recently I’ve started viewing 2014 as a kind of golden era for multiple facets of my blessed life. I’ve never been one to want to move backwards, as impractically nostalgic as I am, and when Jake said the exact same thing to me a week ago I was very, very quick to remind him he was sugarcoating what was actually quite a turbulent bitch of a year in both our lives, but I dunno. I think this specific nostalgia might be useful, because it’s helping me identify things that are important and feelings I want to recreate, and because I have such a clear picture of what it is that I want to achieve it seems a lot more tangible to me than it might otherwise be.
It’s all about perspective. In 2014 I had a sick ass apartment next to Albert Park Lake and spent a summer in Italy and formed some of the most important relationships of my life, but I was also dealing with an engulfingly painful heartbreak and a lot of massive change. I might not love my current house nearly as much as I did then, but I live in London, which is exactly where 2014 me would have lit a bitch to be, and she'd be SO pissed if she knew I didn't appreciate that. The relationships that were important and exciting then are for the most part even stronger now, and have actually grown and changed so much over time that they’ve become exciting all over again, and most importantly, I am so done with EVERYONE’S shit at this point that guess WHAT yall I am feeling more '2014' creatively than I maybe. even. did. then.
I don’t know what this was even meant to be, and I need to go back to doing my job now, but as far as I'm concerned the overarching theme is that I’m genuinely very excited about my life again. And that is frickin grand.
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| I took pretty much this exact photo in December 2013 and it is frickin insane to think about how. much. has changed. Like I can be standing in the EXACT same place as I was then, and I don't surface level feel that different, but literally everything else in my entire life is completely flipped and it's not how I thought it would be at all but in a lot of ways it's actually better and I just think that's crazy, guys. It's 1.03am as I am writing this caption, and I think that it is crrrrrazzzzzy. Were any of you around then? Do you also think it's crazy? Just wonderin'. Tweet me. x #muchlove |
