Storms Over Water

The span of time over which these poems were written is roughly nine months long. The subject matter therefore varies dramatically according to what was happening in my life at the time. For clarity I have split this set into two groups, Past and Present, according to whether the subject matter they cover was something happening at the time of writing, or something that had occurred previously. A few of these poems still look back over the ruins of my last published set (here if you want to read), it’s a grieving process that has taken months, sometimes seeming to leap forwards, other times I have found myself right back in the same place, asking again what is wrong with me. However, as I think the two final ‘Present’ poems will show, hope and optimism have steadily regained ground, and though some things will never leave me, they have at least moved aside for the moment. I feel as if this set looks more inward than my last, leans less heavily on a single outside influence and seeks to touch on a broader range of experience. The poems below are records of loss, belief and ultimately healing.

Past

Avebury Ritual (written Jan 2018)

This time last year

We drove out into the country,

Out of the smoky haze and into the bright;

Every so often when the ground rocks beneath me again

I still feel

That ancient west country pull.

The nature of the magnet I cannot be sure of,

Is it simply the pull of place, or of time?

You cast a long shadow on Avebury plain,

A human shape amongst the stones,

I understand why people worship what they cannot see.

Trying to see myself in your shadow,

Moving in that constant darkness thrown over me

To keep me questioning

To keep me confused,

To keep me near enough to be useful,

But not so near to allow me safety.

I think now that it was the golden light that had me confused.

I looked for myself in the wrong shadow.

Women do not find themselves in the shadows of men.

We are in the stones,

Gathered around in a circle

We face each other and know ourselves

Through the strength of our sex,

In the unashamed way

That we can always look each other in the eye.

The ancient circle of sisters resists weather and time,

Survives the wars and skirmishes of men,

Who have always been given care of precious things,

And who have always been reckless,

Always breaking, abandoning, forgetting.

Blow your empty gales around us,

Still our shadows are cast long and proud

On that great golden plain.

I wish he had left me something to burn,

A pagan sacrifice to my ancient mothers there

To cleanse him from that place and from my memory of it.

Yes, I still feel that ancient west country pull,

But now I seek the stone

Which was always warmer than the man.

The Many Lives (written Jan 2018)

I have been many things,

But chiefly I have been a fool.

Prostituting myself for morsels of bitter affection,

Prostituting myself for the cause, ever the martyr:

‘It’s a sad day when you stop believing people can change’.

A sad mystic,

I have drained the cold stars of meaning,

Completing my own resentful circles,

Meeting my younger self at the join,

Looking at the mirror, both sets of eyes sorry.

Desperate priestess,

A long rotten system of belief

That allows me to worship at the bloody altar

Of my own making, of your restoration,

Kneeling, I always hand the knife to someone else.

Innocence and experience come in waves,

One never keeps the other down for long.

What is the point of living and learning

When the learning stops the living

And the living is what we need.

Present

Sleeping (written Sep 2017)

These days I sleep in the centre of my bed, head on both pillows
If there's no space for anyone else, was there never space for you at all (?)
I do little things like this to fool myself.
I often go to bed with a hot water bottle now too,
Unsure if I'm like a child holding a doll or a doll holding a child.

Oxford November (written Nov 2017)

“He said ‘grab your things I’ve come to take you home’” - Solsbury Hill, Peter Gabriel

There’s a place in my mind

Where I keep uncorruptable moments

Everything seen through a solid glass orb,

Solid so there are no echoes -

Memories do not talk back.

----------

It’s bright mid-afternoon

Though I can sense the freshness of morning.

Faltering a few times

I fall into step with someone I no longer know.

We slept on a bare mattress

On the floor and I can still smell him on me

Bundled into two days worth of clothes

I am curiously light - it’s the heavy sunlight

Which pins me to the present

I would call him a ghost

But the scene is too substantial perhaps,

The sky the bricks the road

Myself

Awake for the first time since the wreck

I hadn’t realised I had been kicking

So hard to break the surface

Now I fill my lungs again and again.

Unshackled from my pain

For one easy afternoon.

Leave the magic at the door,

That’s not why I came,

Do ghosts chase away ghosts?

I doubt you’ll ever catch each other.

As for me?

Try to hold water in your bare hands,

You’ll understand.

Storm on Water (written May 2018)

“Thunder only happens when it’s raining.” - Dreams, Fleetwood Mac

The air is thick with it,

Heavy night under green canopy,

By black still water,

Steady stream of woodsmoke

From the lazy embers.

The air is thick with it,

Flashes are gaining ground,

And the great lurching roar

Is growing closer,

Breathing deeper, heavier.

With a great heaving boom

It is all around, inside outside

I wait with animal anticipation

For the sky to split

And spill it’s liquid sigh.

Animal senses: you smell it before you feel it

Hear it before you see it,

One, two, one, two

Running onto the boat

Find my human voice: “It’s here. Come.”.

Rain on skin is primal, wet on warm

Snarling at the sky, it roars back

And I open myself to the touch

A burst of light and noise.
Wait

There are eyes on me.

I Bled After You Told Me

Many of you reading this will already be anticipating what this will be about, some of you will just know that about a month ago ‘something bad’ happened. I thought about staying quiet and just getting on with things, I even thought about how writing this might affect the person primarily concerned. But this happened to me, not to them – this is my experience and in not publishing this I essentially feel I would be allowing myself to be silenced. Silenced by my own sentimentality perhaps, but silenced nonetheless.

People move in and out of our lives all the time, but I’ve always been a believer that there are special people, individuals who are so important that they shift our reality just a little bit. These people often arrive at exactly the right time. And sometimes they leave at what seems like completely the wrong time. They leave us with sharp fragments of mirror broken all over the floor, pieces that we have to put back together again in order to see a new reflection of ourselves – who am I now?

At their core these poems are about exactly this; about the things that are left behind, about looking back, about what we let people do to us and about how we look at ourselves after the storm clears. I’ve always tried to live in a habit of forgiveness, but for the first time in my life I can’t find it anywhere within me. I have nothing left to give, there is nothing left to say that would change how things happened and where we are now - there is no redemption in these poems, so do not look for it.

The final time I spoke to him I said that I felt like there had been an explosion, and that for a long time I would be painfully pulling splinters from every aspect of my life – well this feels like one hell of a splinter. To him all I can now say is that I’m okay - thank you for not asking.

________________________________________________

She

Is she a girl who leaves a haze of perfumed air as she walks by?

Her things were in your bathroom,

Brazen in their position, a dusky quiet pink,

Mocking.

Feminine bear trap left to snap shut on my bare feet.

No shoes allowed in the flat.

I picture her positioning these land mines, smiling to herself,

Nailing the coffin shut from 10,000 miles away.

In your bed, in your bath, on the balcony,

How many times did you squirm inside her?

Rooting out your bohemia again and again and again,

I sit at home, ask if she’s enjoying London,

Yes, she is.

She knew about me.

Knew my name, knew who I was.

I spoke to her through you – what is her star sign?

Aquarius.

Water bearer.

A poisoned chalice, I drink willingly, blindly

from your hands.

‘She helps me in a way that is inconceivable in the west’,

Did she do the dishes after you fucked?

Quiet creature,

Impossibly thin,

Previously impossible in my mind altogether.

You said her name to me before I knew,

Why did it not turn into bitter bile in your mouth?

Say our names in the same breath,

Taste the ash, the filth,

Try to seek your shame.

I bled after you told me,

Unexpected, untimely.

Refusing to open my own veins,

My womb rung itself out,

Bleeding you out of me,

My woman’s pain running between my legs

Why is the blood on my hands?

Your hands are far away, clean,

Same hands that wiped the tears from my face,

So gentle,

Right after ripping the flesh from my bones

The quiet from my mind.

Did those salted drops cleanse you?

I think not.

________________________________________________

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Will it be her next?

Maybe you’ll treat her better

Because she’ll treat you worse

Is that what you needed?

You took a train out of the city.

It’s rained every day this week

There was thunder today,

Followed by golden evening light

I wanted to tell you

But you are far away in another golden county

Another golden time.

Stay in that past,

Stay behind that gilded shroud.

 ________________________________________________

[Untitled]

‘What? What are you looking at?’

‘You’

Drink me in then until there’s nothing left,

Take it all, please, God knows I don’t want it.

Brown eyes that move from rest to

Sharp surprise at inexplicable moments,

Eyes of a wild thing first,

Eyes of a caged animal later.

________________________________________________

December, Boscastle

Bowl of stars pricking their way through the salty darkness,

Distant tide swells and collapses away into the night,

‘If you look at the sky for long enough you’re guaranteed to see a shooting star’

Have you ever seen those balls of flame burn so bright, so far away?

They feel closer than before, particularly tonight

Our breath turns air to cloud, we were making rain before we even sensed the storm

That night I did actually see a shooting star, bursting across the cold sky,

I had hoped and been granted.

Driving in your car through the pitch icy midnight

Nothing to see, only silence to hear, nature cracks her knuckles and the night presses nearer

But with you I am safe, you won’t let anything hurt me

I close my eyes on the journey back, trusting you to find the way

 I don’t need to grapple through the darkness to find home

I’m already there.

***

So crash the car and let the metal twist around me

Metallic branches of willow take me in your arms

And I will grow roots to this place,

To that shooting star and that look in your eyes

Then I can be a memorial to these moments

I can be a home for you, bones snapped and wrought with metal.

A grave on the Cornish coast,

Come back from time to time and visit your sweetheart

Enshrined after the fire

You won’t know the shape of me anymore, 

Perhaps you’ll feel a flicker of home.

Darling you did crash the car,

So come sing to the metallic willow,

She waits,

But now must refuse to sing back.

________________________________________________

Circles

June

I met you at a party and honey I knew right away,

We found an acid bottle of wine under the sink,

Laughing, went walking out into the misty yellow dawn,

Brushing my hands on leaves, you telling me their names,

Later that afternoon I walk home mostly barefoot,

Spinning ecstatically in my senses, in strange freedom.

See you around maybe.

November

Meet you on the bridge, 9 o’clock in time for the fireworks,

Lost and late as usual, we find each other at last, look up.

Coloured fire streaks the sky, standing high above black rushing water,

Rather an appropriate beginning wasn’t it?

Later sitting close together in a crowded pub, 

Cheeks flushed, cold hands, words rushing out,

Had we both saved 21 years of things to say?

December

This might be my favourite memory;

The afternoon before the party we go for lunch

On the way home we acquire a seven foot Christmas tree,

Carrying it home between us we’re helpless with laughter,

Laughing all night, sometimes you sit and draw,

Sometimes you tell the story and I look at you,

Shining across the room, I am so unbelievably happy.

January

I wake to the New Year in your arms,

Spending all day in bed between sleeping and waking,

Maybe this will be the year, I think to myself.

Later we stand in the middle of a stone circle,

Climb the highest hill and can see for miles,

Golden sunlight bathes England’s patchwork

And for a few moments everything is timeless,

Nothing could sour, rot, decay, not here and not you.

February

One ordinary day we take the ordinary walk,

Your hands are fidgety and you have to go,

Rush away then love, whilst I walk home in silent tears,

I plant seeds in the garden, knowing what comes next.

Later an evening walk that drags on until night,

You’re leaving me.

For Japan, for your freedom, for an easier life

With less noise and less guilt,

See you around maybe.

March

Darling you were never going to leave that party,

Lock the door and leave your shoes on,

Returning to the crowd newly affected by a subtle shift,

Happy, happy birthday, I’m 22 and the world rocks beneath me

With nothing to grip onto I just let myself go

You, me, us again – why the hell not?

May

You left on the most beautiful morning of the year,

I watched planes strike out across the great blue beyond,

You had said goodbye to me and I had seen it in your eyes,

That great undefinable it, and there was at last peace in letting you go.

Women have been doing this for centuries.

A week later I left too, struck out for the countryside,

For the green and the gold (baby, baby it’s a wild world),

To feel nature move in and around me

And by being alone, knowing I was never alone.

Summer

Write me from the cities,

Write me from the fields,

I’ll write you from the manor house,

From the sea.

Returning to where we met,

I throw my arms in the sky again,

Same freedom, different feeling.

The great circle has turned and baby I’m still yours.

August

Both barrelling back into the city,

Crashing back into each other,

I remember how I wondered if this would be the year,

There are still a few months,

And this month I would be so happy once again,

Feeling us settling into each other,

My every question mark disappearing one by one,

I lay down beside you in the quiet and finally finally it was enough.

September

On the first day of the first autumn month,

You told me about her and what you had done,

You were leaving me for good this time,

We both cried, but it was my world that lay in pieces around me

Careful not to cut yourself on the shards.

Goodbye,

Goodbye,

I can’t imagine where I would see you again.

However many times we would have orbited around each other,

However many times repeated this circle,

However many years spent pushing at pulling at one another,

I don’t think you would have ever let me give you everything I tried to,

Never let me within the holy ring you keep around yourself,

Keep the circle turning love,

Winter, spring, summer, autumn,

Winter,

Spring,

Summer,

Autumn

Afraid / Unafraid

Actively worried

Are we meant to get more or less afraid as we get older? On one hand we’ve got more experience so know that things we might have irrationally feared as children (the dark, those weird Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp) are no longer cause for concern. But on the other hand the more we experience the more we learn what to logically avoid – all the cuts and bruises we lump around with us and label as emotional baggage are reminders that serve to make us afraid. They’re the lessons we’ve chosen to learn from the worst of times – key word here is chosen, sometimes we elect to learn lessons that are easy, rather than the more difficult ones that might prove genuinely helpful. For example, I believed that if I swore off dating science students my relationships might be more successful (lol), when the lesson I really needed to learn was not to choose men who saw me as utterly disposable. I’m still trying to learn this lesson properly, (it’s PhD length) and yet this is my biggest gaping scar – my greatest fear is being deserted for no reason. Because I haven’t learnt how to avoid these kinds of situations the fear isn’t measured and it so doesn’t fulfil its function as self-defence. Instead it crops up at weird times, often when it’s already too late and consumes my thought process. I think being the age that we are is terrifying because we’re full of these half-learned lessons that don’t quite protect us from making the same mistakes, yet don’t quite allow us to enjoy the process of making said mistake as much as we used to. Sigh.

Last week I was in the middle of one of my periodic anxiety meltdowns, these aren’t triggered by anything, just kinda happens but it has honestly been absolute hell. To cheer me up my pal Tim took me to an amateur open mic night – show tunes and a bottle of wine, ideal for curing the blues. Now I’m a great believer in things happening for a reason (see my domino effect post here); being in the right place at the right time, seeing something happen, hearing something – these important moments happen, whether you believe in fate or whatever, there are undeniably times when you know something important has been offered to you. About an hour into the night the most sparkly man I’ve ever seen took to the stage with a rendition of ‘I’m Not Afraid of Anything’ from a musical called Songs for a New World. I’d never heard this song before this night, the video with audio is below but in case you can’t be arsed to listen it’s a song about lack of fear and not understanding why other people are afraid of irrational things – ‘Jenny’s afraid of water, / I mean she swims so well but still, / She’s afraid of water’.

Watching that sparkly man sing his heart out took me right back to a time when I felt absolutely and totally unafraid – May week last year. I was unafraid because I had nothing except whatever I was holding right there in my hands at the time. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. The reason I’m capable of feeling more fear nowadays is because I have things that I don’t want to lose – I’ve started to build pieces of a life that might be more permanent than a few weeks, and if it’s ripped out from underneath me what will I do? Yep, I’m afraid that it’s all going to crumble and that I’ll be stuck in the rubble when it falls. But you know what I’m not afraid of? Being afraid. I mean, I don’t enjoy it, but when I’m scared I refuse to be ashamed, I refuse to employ shitty diversionary tactics, I proudly claim my right to cry and scream and let my ugly, raw honesty spill all over the floor.

I’m scared I’ll be unemployed, that I’ll have to sack it all in and go home. I’m absolutely terrified that one day someone is going to kick me so hard emotionally that I won’t be able to breathe, and the worst thing about it will be that I’ll get up and ask for more, never learning my lesson. Being scared doesn’t make me special, and knowing this is key – I get on with my everyday life, because I know we’re all secretly shitting our pants. I think if there’s something that you don’t want to do, something you’re pushing away or putting off then we should teach ourselves to look at it in terms of fear. More often than not fear of something is at the root of these problems, and once we bring ourselves look this fear in the eye, it might not get less scary, but it will offer you an opportunity to handle things with honesty and (dare I say it) nobility.

Adulting: What I’ve learnt and what I got spectacularly wrong

Just over three months ago I moved out of my family home where I lived out the fantasy of childhood, the agony of being a teenager and the downright confusion/bewilderment of the last few years (click here to revisit my post on moving to London). Against various bookie predictions, I have made it – I am alive, well and have also managed to learn a few things (hurrah!). So without further ado here is what my time as an undercover child in the adult world has taught me:

#adulting?

1. Want to fit in at The Big Smoke, i.e. the shining metropolis, i.e. London? Literally all you have to do is pretend to be in a rush to do something really important. Look at your watch and sigh in frustration when waiting for the tube/the bus/the loo. Walk with deadly purpose, preferably in shoes that make a satisfying noise and vitally, you must never stop, stopping is for tourists.
2. Adulthood is mostly about touching things that you really don’t want to. Get your mind out the gutter; I’m talking about slugs, spiders, mould, your life savings. Basically all the things you would beg your parents to do instead of risking your precious pale aristocratic hands.
3. It’s a terrible idea to drink two bottles of wine. This doesn’t need explanation, just don’t do it, learn from my implied tale of woe.
4. The government doesn’t want you to have anything nice. With almost £50,000 of student debt I kind of knew this already, but in trying to live a normal life I have once more attracted the wrath of ‘the man’. I earn minimum wage, but this is apparently still enough $ for the government to think I might be able to buy myself something nice, and so to put a stop to such nonsense they demand a nice slice to put towards stuff like Buckingham Palace’s restoration.
5. Lies always get found out. Every friendship group is simultaneously a collection of people who just like to hang out together and master spy ring.
6. Chiswick is not the kind of neighbourhood where it’s the norm to wash the filth from your oven at 10pm, in pyjamas, on the street. People walk small dogs around here, that’s how you know it’s nice, and incidentally not the place to do this kind of thing.
7. Canapes are terrifying. It seems fancy chefs everywhere have entered into a secret agreement that canapes must consist of at least twelve components; none seem to go together and at least one is so fancy it might as well be made up. The most terrifying thing? You eat canapes all in one. That’s right, no sample nibble, it’s all or nothing. Now there are three possible outcomes: the canape’s great so you enjoy it, it’s vile so you go for the gag and spit, or the middle line – it’s nasty but you swallow it down all in one like some kind of canape python.
8. Everyone gets lonely sometimes. It’s just a sad fact of life I think. There’s inevitably times when everyone is busy so you’re physically alone, and even if you’re surrounded by people you can still feel isolated. But the real ironic kicker with loneliness is that you’re not alone – it happens to literally everyone, and thankfully for most of us it’s just a brief stint.
9. Family Whatsapp groups are spaces where the standard rules of grammar, reason and sense do not apply. This is the real twilight zone, leave it for two hours and there’ll be 42 new messages that are absolute nonsense but require you to urgently call home to discuss something you casually mentioned three months ago.
10. Always say yes to everything. Yes, I know I’ve talked about this before but it’s still true and still the most important thing. To my joy it’s still been possible even when adulting 9:30-5:30, hurrah!

Nobody's baby, everybody's girl

I think lately I've been worried about saying important things and making bold statements in case they turn out to be wrong. Perhaps it's a symptom of starting out in a new place with new people, I'm not sure. Regardless, it's cowardly, and there's nothing that I hate more than a coward. Maybe one day I'll look back at this blog and think God how wrong I was about x, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to stop saying honest things, how they appear to me at the specific moment – I ain’t got the answers. So hold on tight kids, it's a big one this time.

So, I have this theory (and ample evidence) that I can be anybody's perfect girl for roughly two weeks. Now this of course has certain restrictions; the men who are attracted to me, as well as 'perfect' not meaning flawless - it means being right in that moment. I should also explain that I'm under no illusion about my faults and merits, I know where I stand. I desperately want to dispel this theory, to find evidence to the contrary or another explanation, so this is my way of working through the options I guess. Welcome to the ride.

Convincing fake relationship (still give it 2 weeks tops)

I wonder sometimes maybe if the men I've been involved with have seen me as an embodiment of the life I lived at Cambridge; perhaps they wanted a piece of the glitter, of the fun, of the (often slightly idiotic) abandon. Every romantic involvement that has been of any kind of gravity has begun with tumbling intensity, snatched moments and urgency, urgency. The reflection of myself I could see in the mirror of them is beautiful, it's me at my best. Suffice to say I'm not perpetually at my best, (especially spending 50% of my time hungover). It’s just not possible to run around all the time, to constantly have arms open to the air - one has to catch ones breath between the laughter. Thought: volatile living attracts changing minds? It was always in the quiet moments when I could feel them slipping away - it's easy to make someone want to keep you when you look like you might bolt any second, harder in the stillness. Waking up in the mild mid-morning to find them already awake and staring at nothing, me waking next to them perhaps more hard work than they'd bargained for. 

One person who I was involved with told his friends that he'd "found the kind of girl he wanted to spend his life with". Now there are two tell-tale red flags that arise from this statement; firstly the wording - "type", what type am I? His type? The type? Can anyone actually accurately be described as a type when we're all such walking balls of contradicting, ever-changing chaos? Nah. Secondly this happened the morning after the night we met. This is where my part of the blame begins to sneak in - I unashamedly love a love story, so when one is offered to me, regardless of how temporary and how ill advised, my god I will take it. Is it my fault for being so naive or their fault for offering me a grand romantic narrative they can't live up to?

To be honest I don’t think that assigning blame is all that useful in solving ye grande riddle. These guys don’t know what they're looking for, and before being sure, they think they've found it in a sweet little package, so throw everything in because that seems like the right thing to do - I don't think I could ever blame anyone for doing this, it's the way I believe life should be lived, and this is why every time I’m so willingly complicit. My flatmate suggested last night that this happens to me so often because I expect it to – I attract these difficult guys because I subconsciously anticipate things being difficult – like I said, I love a love story and aren’t all the best ones difficult? Yessir. But I don’t think I distinguish very well between things that are worth the fight and things that are best left alone, (I’m from the north, everything’s a scrap). In the end I need to accept that for some people I cannot be the answer; as both Bob Dylan and Johnny cash said; it ain't me babe. If people try and make me into their answer, into their perfect girl, of course things will unravel, of course I can't live up to what their questions demand, I cannot be enough for them if I rightly demand to keep some of myself, for myself.

____

For throwback to past blog tirade of relationship-based outrage click here

It's not about you, it's (about) me

Starting at the end of exams and continuing over the summer I went through a phase of reading autobiographies. Prior to this I’d never been keen at all on non-fiction, even less so on autobiographies, so I don’t really know what triggered the sudden switch. From a psychological point of view maybe I was subconsciously desiring to see how other real lives had played out, given that I was on the cusp of beginning my own ‘real life’ (we all know Cambridge doesn’t strictly count as real). During this period I read three notable books; I’m With the Band by Pamela Des Barres, Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher and Wild by Cheryl Strayed – all of these books are incredible and I cannot recommend them enough. I finished all of these a few months ago now, but like a bad breakup, I’m still not over them, I can’t stop turning them over and over in my mind. Perhaps as a result I’m finding it difficult/near impossible to engage properly with fiction at the moment, a little voice in my head won’t stop saying; ‘yes but do you actually care what happens, it’s not real, this didn’t happen’. These autobiographies came along at just the right time; during the last months of Cambridge and for a little while afterwards I felt more awake to reality and more in touch with my place in it than I ever had before (disclaimer: I did not take LSD) – this was not a moment for fiction when the real world was so utterly compelling. 

A common idea about fiction is that it’s our tool to escape, I believe autobiography as a genre is the exact opposite of this. Because the events being recounted actually occurred, we are forced to face them with the author – the most human and genuine problems presented to us by a genuine human voice. The best autobiographies are written with unflinching honesty, at certain points we should know that the writer is uncomfortable with what they are telling us, that they are offering to the world a self-confessed uncomfortable truth about their deepest selves. This is part of the bravery of self-narration and also part of the catharsis. 

I originally started this blog in order to reclaim my own narrative that I felt had been taken from me (see the sass that started it all here), since then I guess it’s become an autobiographical space of sorts. At the beginning I was so so scared of writing about myself - I didn’t want to do something narcissistic. I was also worried that what I had to say wasn’t worth saying, because who am I but another 21 year-old dot on the planet. FOOL. Why would I ask who I was to write about anything when there was only ever one possible answer anyway: myself. I exist within a narration and have a voice to share it and, given these two very fortunate circumstances, it would be almost rude to keep myself to myself. The women whose autobiographies I’ve read have led incredible lives, but that does not make mine any less extraordinary – in any autobiographical narrative the same things crop up, and this is because they are the things which make up the crazy experience of a life being lived.

Still not a narcissist

Even though this is bad marketing, possibly encouraging competition in blogland (got ma eyes on you), I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone do a bit of self-narration, don’t let anyone tell you your life isn’t interesting enough to be recorded – it damn well is. Though this cry is universal it goes out especially to women; men have been navel-gazing for years, writing women for centuries, dominating the autobiography for bloody ages – create your own narrative, come and claim what’s yours.

Adulting (kind of)

So the blog has been v quiet for the past few weeks but I do have a very good excuse, I promise – last Sunday I moved from Sheffield to London, then the day after began my new (and first proper) job as Online Intern for House & Garden magazine. It’s been an absolutely insane whirlwind which has had me jumping for joy one minute and on the edge of a nervous breakdown the next. But not to worry – after the first week I love love love my job and am happily settled in my little flat.

Home sweet home

The most stressful part of the whole business has been finding somewhere to live – I had two weeks to find a place within budget, with a decent commute time, that I could make feel like home. Naïvely I thought this wouldn’t pose much of an issue: London’s a big place, must be full of places looking for tenants right? Wrong. It is a jungle. JUNGLE. So after my shitty experience I thought it might be good if I shared what I’d learnt so that it might help someone else avoid the renting nightmare:

1. If it looks too good to be true it probably is. So obviously try and familiarise yourself with common online scams so not to fall victim. Scams aside, some listings have other less criminal, but just as pressing issues. I got my hopes waaaay up about a beautiful, lower-end-of-budget flat in Camden. It hadn’t actually been built yet.

2. Go and view the places in person. Another obvious one but again v important – one place I went to see wasn’t the room advertised, instead of a spacious double it was a teeny tiny shoebox room.

3. Trust no one. This sounds a little extreme but it’s unfortunately necessary. Confirm and double confirm everything, take phone numbers, call agents, send endless emails. I had some landlords completely neglect to turn up to viewings and others who were uncontactable until I saw them in person. Some people literally do not give a shit about what happens to you so expect to feel a bit bashed about.

4. This being said, it doesn’t mean you should be a shit back to these people. Yes be tough, be sassy but also be polite, be nice – in a land of whiny Frodos be a Sam (sorry not sorry).

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Most people would call my moving away a ‘fresh start’, an opportunity to remake myself, to start from scratch in a new place. But I don’t see it like that at all. The last time I made a true fresh start was three years ago when I started at Cambridge. I needed this opportunity to start again desperately, I wasn’t the person I knew I could be and needed a chance to reinvent myself urgently. Long story short, I did, and managed to graduate happy with who I was. But this time I have no old self to escape from, I don’t need a fresh start but nevertheless I’ve been given one, and in all honesty I don’t really know what to do with it.

Trying to force who I’ve been as a Cambridge student into the stencil of London working life will be near impossible without making some changes, and I suppose this is what I’m scared of – losing who I am when I’ve been so blissfully happy. I’ve managed to crack the code to looking like a native Londoner – look busy. But I don’t want to become someone who never has time – I think that’s how you really lose sight of yourself. I reckon this semi-identity crisis is coming from a combination of golden-age syndrome and fear of growing up. Stay tuned to find out how long I can resist the demon adulthood.