A magic pill

What happens if you take a pill and hope that it solves all your problems? What happens if it solves them but creates a whole host of other issues? Is it ever possible to find a solution to everything, or is that just a too big a pill to swallow?

I feel that with one thing I find a cure to, another alement will follow. This is not to say that the whole world is against me or that my issues are worse then others, because they are not. But, as a very valued friend said to me, it does not matter how your problems compare to another persons, what is important is that those problems are yours and thus they are important to you.

My issue is that I feel that I'm self medicating, finding my own remedies to lifes issues, but when they work, I feel there is a whole list of side effects which I had not anticipated which suddenly need treating. I feel stuck in the oppositional area where do I reverse the original solution to remove the side effects, but in doing so, I land myself in the original problem. Is this a case of one step forward, two steps back?

I wish that things were simple and had some direction which would be a clear path to follow; an NHS yes/no chart to diagnosis. There isn't. And if there was, I would most likely be told to ask the help of my GP, for the world or good that is likely to do. Where is the cure all which will heel a broken heart, stitch close a wound and drive the body to a full recovery? Which branch of life's learning teaches us the alchemy of the pure mind, the biology of the body or the mechanics of the heart? As we all know there is no simple answer, no one area of life can teach how to solve the problems of the soul, without sounding deep. Where is my solution?

Can I take an evening class in the hearts desire, a first aid lesson in avoiding damage or an open university class in avoiding people and their baggage? At what stage does one become equiped to live a happy healthy lifestyle which is not about to be roused to conflict by petty influences whose judgment we hold higher then our self beliefs? When does everything become simple and why is the answer some great secret? Surely the answer to a life which rides an optimistic equilibrium runs on more than whole wheat, a veggi box selection, a restricted unit intake and 30mins of exercise a day! Surely if it was that simple, everyone would be doing it!

If I roll this idea around inside my head I keep comming back to a memory of a plastic wallet which held life's secrets, blutaced on the kitchen wall. An unlikely place to find the answers but i feel that it may be a starting point. It read:

Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like know one is watching.
Love like you have never been hurt.

I'm not so sure the answer to life's problems can be solved through tap, but I feel that if I can love like I've never been hurt, than I believe that I could be on the right track.

So, there may not be a pill to swallow, but lately, the answer may be found at the base of a bottle; a couple of wine nights have highlighted the value of many things, in the price of good bottle of wine under the cost of £5!

A house worth £94 a week

Having been infused with positivity recently I am very much aware that time is moving faster and this year is the final sprint of the known world, that is to say, my known world; come June, life as I have known it for the last three years will come to an end and I will have to find something else to whittle away my time. In the spirit of good things coming to an end, I have taken the advice where I should breath in and feel the excitement as apposed to my general view of the world where I should take a deep breath and get over it. In leu of embracing my final year, I decided that this year would not be a year where I would have to live in a petri dish of mould and damp and strove instead to live in the house where dreams are made of!

A fresh start, a new street, a fresh white - off white - house! A sturdy front door, bolted and locked three times to keep out the droughts and not an indicator of potential crime in the area. Windows, bolted closed to prevent damp. A few bricks missing out of the wall is not a structural issue but rather a method of increasing ventilation. Cracks in the walls enable a little more natural light to filter through from outside. Patchwork painted wallpaper improves the natural insulation of the walls, whist a radiator which hangs off the wall allows extra heat to escape out the back. The HotPoint Ice Diamond has been keeping food fresh from the mid eighties, some of which still lingers from the primary installation date. The garden is well overlooked to ensure maximum visibility in this neighbourhood watch area. The stairs are functional, allowing both residents to ascend whist the rungs of the banister descend in pieces on the ground floor. The bathrooms both long and short allow appropriate distance from the rest of the house allowing business to be conducted away from other housemates. The living room houses sofas which are so well made, supports which form the framework of them are so uncomfortable people choose not to sit on them, thus preventing scuff marks on the faux leather seats. The bedrooms are all of a good size. This house is perfect for it's purposes.


Im positive that this house is made with the student in mind. Magnolia throughout provides that institutional feeling which students like to experience at all times. Im also positive that this house is perfect in every single way.

And lastly for my dedicated reader, an extra note of positivity; School and education is the best time of your life. It goes down hill from here. And if this is as good as it gets, you may as well end it now.

Lost Shavings.

I feel recently not all myself. Those who know me well may know that that isn't too unexpected, but I feel that it is more so then just the obvious. I am coming to the end of my second year at university. I feel tired of this year, it has felt strained and difficult. It felt more political then I expected. Last year felt like the point of opportunity and experience. I had made changes and decided to take control of what was happening in my life, decided to take some direction. I had left home and decided to do what I wanted for a change and just sort of ran with it. I decided to do what was right for me. I remember this time last year I was getting ready to leave the city. I remember the drive away for the last time and the sadness that bought me. The sun setting as I had stayed late to clean my flat, the feeling that it was the end of something. My summer was one where I would be taking a bigger step then I would have thought I would have ever done, tried to commit myself to something, but it was something with many unforeseen's. Looking back, I wonder how I manage to put myself in such situations and get out, not just alive, but with no damage either. I had to make some hard decisions and as soon as I had, I didn't have time to think about it for I had thrown myself into another year at university.

This second year at university was no where near the same as the first. As I said previously; it seemed very political, the previous year seemed simple by comparison. I felt myself get caught up with the current of things at times, but I would then drift to the edge and sink a bit, get stuck at the bottom, unable to come up for breath and in this time I would experience panic as I would realise that I simply did not know what I was doing. I wondered how I had gotten here? What direction had I been following to lead me to a point where I did not know what I wanted or what I was doing. I started to think about the future and what I was to do with myself. So I set about making a fragmented future of ideas. While I was working on where I wanted to be going, I was being told information which I, at the time, did not realise would hold such a grip over myself. I had discovered that for one reason or another I would be denied the biological normality of recreation. This caused a conflict which I could not really share with others because I had for as long as I can remember been apposed to the idea of children. I had carved such a deep impression that this was my opinion, that were I to challenge the idea, my original opposition would be put up in my face and discourage me from continuing my argument. Thus it sat around and I thought about it continuously. Daily at least. You see, it is different to choose not to do something then to be not given the choice. This was the problem. I had start to think beyond this. What would I spend my life on? The question of the future suddenly took over and I could think about little else. I realised that sooner or later I would have to choose a direction and for once, it would not be chosen for me. I suppose I had always imagined some small tributary of an idea where has my life ran dry I could invest myself in a future generation. A selfish perspective perhaps, put a possibility which, for the idea, I was not the architect. But with this door closed to me, I had the realisation that life will have to be made for me, for it will always be just me. And now I started to notice those around me, not because I have been self absorbed but with the change in me I have started to draw similarities. I have listened to many of my friends that they are apposed to having children. I thought a small spark that maybe I wont be alone in this and that while my friends move into the realm of parenthood, I wont be left at an outsider, drifting through, trying to find and fulfil my own goals and little projects, while they live out their lives through their children. But then this idea was quickly extinguished by the suggestion of what had been my thought as explained above 'Well, you know, I will probably end up having children anyway, through some mistake or another.' As if this is some finite moment which keeps people moving. This has been such a pressure on my thoughts that it feels good to be able to type it out quickly in blog.

But now there is still the problem of me. Why I feel not so clever. I keep feeling like I did in primary school, first grade, where I spent what felt like a year sharpening pencils, not to get them sharp, but for the byproduct of shavings. I seemed to spend a huge amount of time collecting wafer thin pieces of illuminated shavings. But I was thinking while I feel like I did back then, not really absorbing anything, drifting through life, I start to wonder how I got here? Did I just get lucky? I mean, as one unhelpful doctor once told me, 'why should I worry, I have an education, I am doing fine.' But, not to sound ungrateful, but I am not so sure I am. I feel directionless. As if I have stopped and stumbled and I wonder, how did I get here. What good can come of shavings? This I guess echo's that saying of making mountains out of molehills, making a connection between two things and assuming they correlate. But what I am trying to project is that I feel the same as I did thirteen years ago. And having calculated the number, to be suspicious, maybe this seems to be something rather unlucky. How did I get here, and now I am here, where do I go?

To cut this blog short, as I know it is growing and continuing with a theme of being unclear, I have concerns because I suppose my self confidence has taken a bit of a hit and I don't really know where I am going and I have no plans. I wish I had the direction of some, but instead I just meander. I am not the first person to feel like this, I know many people feel this way. But what I learnt today is that if things are going OK, then you can't complain. But if I never say anything, where will I end up?! I am contented for where I am now, but the future concerns me. I haven't got any plans, but I guess I can't do much more but hope my luck holds and something new comes up.

Thinking

I seem to have spent a lot of time thinking. I think I would say that I don't seem to remember a time in my life when I did not think. I guess that leads us to the point of 'I think therefore I am'. I also think that some people would say that I sometimes don't think at all, and others would say that I over think and often use this to play with 'a big wooden spoon'(Goldthorpe,2011,daily). I think however, very simply; I just think.

So why blog about this? Well, I was thinking, about what it is to think. I guess it was like a sort of russian doll situation, or a mirror reflecting a mirror within a mirror, or a camera filming a TV, linked to the camera, filming the TV... Yes, I have been over thinking again.

But what have I been thinking about? I think I have been thinking about what I am. 'I think, therefore, what am I?' This is what I have been getting the cogs in my mind to turn over and over. And as time has gone on, and the valves in the mind have been trying to break the code, I noticed that I was not only thinking; I was feeling also. But what did I feel?

I suddenly realised that I had been thinking about what I had been feeling. I felt very connected and at one with myself, which is lucky for I would hate to see the mess if I was torn apart, and putting ones self together is about as difficult as M C Escher's hand drawing a hand. Quite impossible, a sort of chicken or the egg situation. Anyway, I have been thinking again and going off topic. So I had been thinking about what I had been thinking and decided that it had a lot to do with what I had been feeling. Confused? Well, I was. I found it difficult to decide what I has been thinking to make me feel that I was over thinking too much about what I was feeling.

In the end I thought instead of thinking and trying to work out what I was thinking and feeling, instead I would just think and feel and live, but try hard not to analyse. This is lucky, as with most things, if you leave them be, they will come to their own natural conclusions.

I had been feeling the very same to what I had been thinking.

I have indeed fallen in love.

'Ts the season...

Christmas for me started 25th November. My housemates, suddenly feeling very festive decided that they would start to spread christmas 'cheer' all over the house, smothering it in red felt, eco plastic leaves and sparkly gold miniatures. I should have known the lame plastic tree with its cardboard prosthetic third limb was sure to be a metaphor of the month to come:

The end of term had me returning to my roots. Such a regression isn't a healthy experience. Arriving back home to a cold room, left in a state of gross disrepair from the rush to leave it several months before further dragged me down. An intense need to clean and and restore came over me, thankfully occupying me for a day or so. Then the wait set in. The week or so of waiting for christmas to finally drag its sad rag over the country, with its' intoxicating veil woven from biscuits with cheese, Quality Street wrappers and other unnecessary foods, foods where gluten free is replaced with lead. A sudden urge grips us, tells us not to leave the house, to stay inside and eat until one is so heavy, should they want to leave, they couldn't. Pinned down by one last toffee penny a sleepless night awaits them only to have a rude awakening earlier then the milk man is familiar with.

The excitement of presents in reality is just pent up disappointment. The wrapped gift containing any possibility is generally more exciting then what it really holds. What could be a slate of chocolate turns out to be a pin board. A large box turns out to be mainly foam quaver curls and an assortment of charity shop (give away) finds. With the 'its not what I expected' finished, the true scale of what is about to happen occurs, for one looking for a small bottle of milk to spice up a bowl of cornflakes; there, in the fridge, threatening to collapse on the person who dares remove the Lurpak from the Jenga tower of christmas destined-for-the-bin dinner. Cludo's who killed Big Bird challenge now narrows to the occupants of the house, as a brail covered raw slump of turkey frowns down from the top shelf. Baby carrots, potatoes; all varieties, sprouts, jars, cold meats, bottles and even that lump of mould that should have been better forgotten stands to be scooped up in the rush to the roasting dish. Hours are spent in the preparation of Christmas dinner. Many layers of goose fat, is lathered into the meat, the result being one very relaxed roast. Balls of stuffing; the foodie equivalent of the russian doll is pulled out of the bird, along with a slice of lemon and and a bay leaf. The masking gravy turns all things white and fluffy into the hue of the day; brown. An increased desire to play with mild explosives is well within reach at the table. For crackers, costing the equivalent of a deposit of a static caravan are balanced on the desert spoon. An enthusiastic pull, requiring a referee of fair pulling boils down to a disappointing 'pop' and a smashed class as stainless steel business card holder propels to the table. The rustling of a paper hat against ones ear is the white noise distraction from the dishwater conversation available. The end result is a group of people all looking like the red attired santa clause who turns out to be an unlikely role model. The table, once cleared, but not washed, is later to be adorned with frozen christmas deserts. No longer do we get the fun of burning brandy over an antique spotted dick pudding. Only at the last crunch of mint chocolate Vienetta do everybody admit defeat and experience the Herculean effort of moving oneself to the sofa, where one must lounge and be blasted with 'comfort telly'.

At about 8pm, when everyone is sick of each others company, and NHS direct are diagnosing cabin fever, everyone decides that it is time they go to bed as they are all very tired. At this point Christmas should be over.

Instead however, it drags on into new year until finally the cut off period seems to fall about the 5th of January. Christmas is over. Just about.

Christmas for me seems to have taken a long time to get over. One day on a calendar has managed to consume a whole season, and yet it is not over me yet; "You will get your christmas present emailed to you" I have been told. If this is an Elf Yourself experience, I would have to inform them that the closing date of that has gone. Now I just wait and see with anticipation. I suppose the good thing about an email is, you don't expect much of one, thus, what ever is inside, you cant be disappointed.