I’m not going to sugar-coat it, this year has felt like being microwaved in hell while listening to the bee gees on repeat with bad news being filtered in every six minutes by Janice from Friends. At the start of the year I was at the top of my game as a performer, ringing in the new year to uproarious laughter and singing, falling asleep with a crappy plastic crown on and feeling the most thankful I have ever felt in my entire life, so full of love and gratitude that it physically hurt.
You know when you've found something juicy to write about when you have to tear yourself away from the screen to write it.
Very rarely And in the quiet of a bathtub I’ll feel my head get clear Is there something about being so hot and wet that steams it out of me?
Wake up, panic. That is a story I thought I was alone with for a really long time. Pinterest pages and inspirational memes are all very well and good for a lovely twee morning routine but what if you wake up every morning, with an instant adrenaline hit, the creeping panic and following wave of nausea, the dash to your phone to see if something awful has happened while you were asleep, or perhaps the meeting you forgot.
I have come to the conclusion that I and everyone else has been drip fed the notion that everyone after 30 ceases to be beautiful and youthful. I can remember countless jokes on TV where the much older male character would be dismissive of any woman over 25, as if their use ended the day they had their next birthday. I've spent countless hours obsessing over turning thirty and why it was a terrible thing, and finally, I’ve decided that everything I know about ageing and beauty is complete bullshit, and here's why.
In the UK shops are set to reopen on June 15th, and like a lot of us, I am desperate to piece myself back together, the urge to run to shops to buy fast fashion, hair dye, and buy the things that make me feel like me is strong. But then I started to think about how much of my identity is different, cue The Internal Shift.
Over the past week, I have been closely looking at my community and the inherent offence that comes with it. Why are people in my community so desperate to prove that they were not a racist before this? Why are they so desperate to prove that they aren't one now? What do they do past posting inspirational quotes? Social media is practically buzzing with defensiveness, faces behind computer screens getting redder and redder, desperate to rid themselves of any guilt by sharing countless slogans, participating in #blackouttuesday, and weeping for the black community.
Choosing to binge watch a series is a big decision, what we are all basically doing is enjoying a shared delusion that we can control ourselves around our new “favourite thing in the world ever you HAVE to watch it, it will change your life” show.