Second-Saturday Sundries: Living Life and Getting Through

Happy second-Saturday, everyone!

Is there anything better than a Bank Holiday? I think probably not, except for, like, actual holidays and days when there is cake. In a practical sense, what this Bank Holiday means is that I can apply for jobs without feeling like I'm losing a day of my liiiiiiife because I have a whole extra day off tomorrow where I can actually do things I want to do! (What I want to do: go to Reading with Frances and eat all the food. It's happening.)

I've probably written too much in general about how much I hate applying for jobs, so I'll avoid that line of thought today and go on a different, but still as sad route. Friday was what would have been my Grandad's 88th birthday, and tomorrow marks one year since he died, and one year of living without any grandparents. It's weird to put it that way, I guess, but when your grandparents have had an important presence in your life for 26 and a little bit years, and then they all go away in 17 months, you have to figure out how to get along without them.

Here's where I'd normally try to share things I'd learnt, or some kind of hopeful message or something, but if there's one thing I don't really know anything about it's being positive about death (also, boys. But that's another issue.) But seriously, it really sucks, and everything hurts, and then everything hurts slightly less, but it continues to suck, and I don't think it'll ever really stop sucking. Death is weirdly life-changing, and in the past year it's been so strange to not see my family every Sunday, and to not be able to go to my Grandparents' house anymore (I don't think I've really accepted that one), and just generally, to have fewer people in my life who are unconditionally there for me and think everything I do is amazing, whether it is or not.

It's just been really hard, is what I'm saying.

And yet. We carry on because there's nothing else we can do, and slowly carve out new things that we do all the time. I do still see family on Sundays but it's just my mum and dad, but that's enough. I don't get to see my grandparents on their birthdays (or, indeed, mine) but they're still always with me, and that's enough. It wasn't fair to lose three of them so close together, but it wouldn't have been any easier if they'd been spread out because I loved them and didn't want to lose them, ever. I don't really know where I'm going with this because I don't have a unifying statement, a grand message of hope, I just have this: I love them, I miss them, I was lucky to have them. Nothing will ever be as it was, but that doesn't mean it can't be just as good, just in a different way. Or at least I hope (ha! Hope) so.

So, Friday. With a touch of providence, I also got my Lucky Dip Club subscription box for the month on Friday, and in it were some seeds. I can't remember ever planting anything before, but I can remember getting my grandad to plant things for me, so it was wonderful to, even in the smallest way, be following in his gardening footsteps and planting my own little seeds, waiting to see what would flower.

I guess I'm waiting to see what else my grandparents have planted in me that's going to flower later. Knowing them, I bet it's going to be just wonderful.

Sunday Sundries: Life, Lately

Oh heyyyy it's Sunday again! I'm probably at work as you're reading this because I make very bad life choices (like agreeing to work for money. Madness.) and THAT is pretty much how my life is going lately. I think I have probably worked more (for money, anyway) this February than maybe any other month in my life which on the one hand is like 'yay money!' and on the other is like 'oh... That's all the money?' because, I may have mentioned before, my job is not very good.

ANYWAY. I shall stop there LEST I write about my job on the internet and somehow get in trouble for it (plus yesterday we got free donuts and diet coke and prosecco so who am I to complain?) but it just feels like when it comes to recapping my life lately I'm just constantly saying 'yeah I worked a lot and on my days off I was tired so didn't do stuff'. BASICALLY I need some more excitement in my life, and if anyone knows how to get that without spending very much money then I am all ears.

So instead of talking about my week (summary: work, new glasses, weird weird sickness on Thursday that was terrible, the donut thing) let me talk to you about a revelation I've been having about life since last June and which is still ongoing in the sense of actually, properly, trying to apply this new knowledge to my life to make an actual difference to it. I know I'm not really making any sense here, so let me start from the beginning.

Last June I went out with this chef guy (he's not the part of this worth talking about, ya know what I mean?) and during a gay old time at London Zoo I was saying that I found his chef skills pretty impressive (flirting, innit) and how I can't really cook amazingly, and he kind of shrugged and said "it's just repetition, really".

It's just repetition.

It's.

Just.

Repetition.

Here's something you should know about me. I'm a pretty smart person, which I say not to brag but to later criticise myself. School was never really a struggle for me because I just kind of got it- I could learn the stuff and write the stuff and exams weren't really that stressful for me. I was always kind of just good at school stuff without even trying, and even as I'm writing this I know how much of a dick I'm sounding. But bear with me because I'm about to get to my point.

There are some things I've struggled with doing in life. I'm not naturally good at exercise, so I've given up on it a lot. I'm not naturally good at languages, so instead of learning them I pretty much just give up on them. I wasn't immediately good at driving, so I stopped having lessons and, ya know, I walk everywhere (I actually don't mind this one). Because it hasn't been a struggle to learn a lot of things in life, when something is difficult for me, I just give up on it. I just hide behind 'not being naturally good' at something like that means I can't actually do it, when in fact: it's just repetition.

Repetition doesn't come naturally to me. I'm not good at telling the same story twice because I get bored (genuinely. If I want people to know something I'll just tell one person and let it circulate) and I'm no good at being bad at something. I get frustrated easily if something isn't easy to me, and because I'm also naturally lazy (I really am) that means I give up. This is all a revelation to me because until that guy said 'it's just repetition' it was honestly like I didn't understand that if you just keep on doing something you get better at it. I was operating more on the idea that if I'm not immediately good at something then I never will be, so what's the point?

And I honestly feel like I get the point now! That one little comment sparked a whole brain revolution that has made me see that if you just do something A LOT then you'll naturally get better at it because how could you not? I try to apply it to everything I do now, good or bad, because run didn't go well? Do it more and you'll get better. You don't understand this paragraph? Read it again and see what happens. I'm trying to learn Japanese, and even though I feel like nothing is really sticking in my brain* and I feel like I'm really bad at it, I'm sticking with it because IT'S. JUST. REPETITION. Regardless of how long it takes to learn, repetition is what it is.

So there you have it. This guy definitely has no idea that he set a bit of a revolution off in my brain, but I honestly feel like I've uncovered my biggest weakness and I'm actively trying to change the way I think about learning and doing new things. I can't pretend that it's an easy thing to do, and more often than not laziness wins ('but why don't I just naturally know all Japanese? That's not fair!') but trying is all I can ask of myself and that's what I'm doing. BOOM life changes and all that.

*Seriously, do you know how hard Japanese is? You need to learn a whole new alphabet, plus the sounds that the symbols make, PLUS what those sounds mean in English and omfg

Growing Older, Or Just Better?

If my blog was a child, it would have started school by now. Since I have a blog but not a child, it's ok to not get freaked out by this, but still, 5 years... Woah.

The first, I'd say three years of blogging, this place was incredibly important to me- real life wasn't really going as expected (which is to say it was mostly dull and sometimes really terrible) and the internet, and this blog especially was somewhere that I could reach out, and talk to and find people I really liked, and wanted to share my thoughts with. I don't think I'd ever felt as home anywhere as much as I did on the internet and I can't tell if that's sad or if it's awesome, or maybe it's a little bit of both.

Anyway. Not long before my third blog birthday, my nan died and kind of changed everything in my life. It was, at the time, pretty much the worst thing that had happened to me, but it also made me a little bit fearless. This fearlessness meant that I applied for a Masters, I started letting people in where previously I might have shut them out, and in a more general sense, I had things to do with all of my spare time that meant blogging fell by the wayside. Except that it was always there, because I think one of the most important things I had already gotten from this was the fact that actually, I can talk to people! And they sometimes like me and think I'm awesome! (Trust me when I tell you that this has not always been my attitude towards other people).

So. The internet has weirdly taught me real life social skills, but it has also provided ample opportunity for real life socialising too. Just in the past year, I've hung out with Bex and Katie in London (twice! Three times? Twice..?), been to see Bex (yes, her again) in Canterbury, and in a wonderful twist of fate, in the space of one month, when I really very much needed them, I took Tika to Hampton Court Palace and Harry Potter Land, I took Kayleigh around London and (ahem) to Harry Potter Land, AND THEN spent the greatest afternoon with The Other Kayleigh in Piccadilly Waterstones. My screen people became real people for a few magical days and I can't even describe how it's the greatest when people you've talked to for YEARS become real and huggable and oh my goodness the love for all of you is immense.

Here's the deal. Last year I wrote a total of 34 blog posts. Lots of the people who were around when I started blogging don't really blog ever anymore, I clearly have dropped it to a part time activity, and who knows how much I'll write this year. But the deal (as promised) is that none of that matters because the people I have picked up along the way, who are really important, are still here. All of those meet-ups, the email threads (THE EMAIL THREADS), the Facebook messaging, the twitters- the medium doesn't matter, but the people are irreplaceable. I've always said it, and I'll say it again and again- I never, in a million years, thought that writing some words on the internet would lead to real life... anythings, but those real life somethings have often been some of the Best Things in my life at the time.

To put it another way: I'm really proud that my blog has made it (limping) to another blog birthday, but I could give it up in a minute (if I had to for some really weird reason) as long as I could keep the people it has connected me with over the years. Here's to another great one, and hopefully, another year of making excellent friends and excellent connections.

The really short version of this post: I'm really glad I found you guys. Let's never lose each other.

Sunday Sundries: Some Things I Forgot

This week, I went for a run for the first time in five and a half weeks. I'd been building up to it for a couple, psyching myself up to get back out there whilst simultaneously telling myself that yoga was quite enough exercise for one person, thank you.* Thursday morning, I woke up at a reasonable time, and I wasn't horribly exhausted. It was a good start, and it was a really good run- I outran the fear of falling over (the tragic end to my last run attempt), I outran the fear of not being able to run properly after so long away, and I enjoyed myself just because I was actually out there and not just laying in bed like a lazy lazy Laura.

The rest of Thursday I felt pretty knackered, but on Friday I felt AMAZING. And I realised that there was a time when I felt that alert and good pretty much all the time, and that it was directly linked to the amount of running I'd been doing. I was so awake on Friday that work dragged on rather than passing me by in a foggy haze,** and I was still awake enough that evening to watch about 4 and a half hours of Breaking Bad, which may or may not have been ill advised. But it was awesome.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, other than to state, once again, that running is sort of amazing. Like, seriously, endorphins might be my favourite thing on the planet. But I guess it's just sort of as a reminder to myself, that things are always going to crop up, but I'm still going to need to make time to move my body because it makes me feel the best I know how to feel. And the fact that this is me typing this makes me feel like I don't even know myself anymore, but I guess that's ok because, you know, people gots to change.

(For more exercise-praise, please see Frances's blog post here. It's pretty much everything I want to say about it, without exactly knowing how. Good Frances.)

Here's another thing I forgot- When something new is going to happen, I do my best not to think about it until I absolutely have to think about it, which is at the last minute. I am, of course, talking about my return to education, and yeah. Really not thinking about what it's going to be like, but I also think that subconsciously it's on my mind all the time. It's not that I'm trying not to think about it, I think it's more that there are things that are more immediate that need my attention (like, you know, life) but every so often I'll go 'OMG I AM GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE ESSAYS' (like I don't write you guys essays all the time) and I get a little bit freaked out.

I think I'm going to be fine. In fact, I know it's going to be fine, but until it actually gets started I'm not going to know what it's like, and what it's going to be like juggling a job and a full time course and everything else, so yeah, I'm a little bit nervous. Here's a thing that I don't mean to do but I always do- I think I get more scared about things than excited about them, so that if they don't work out I can pretend that I wasn't that excited about them anyway. It's the saddest thing about myself, I think, and I should probably be in therapy or something, but it's why I didn't tell anyone when I applied for the MA and I think it's why I'm ignoring it now- as long as I don't think about how much I want it, then I won't want it as much as I do.

You don't need to tell me how fucked up this is, I'm telling myself right now. But you know what, I've identified it, I'm working on it... I'm going to be ok.

As for the rest of my life? It hasn't really got much quieter, but I haven't been so tired that I've fallen asleep on the arm of the sofa this week (neckache. Serious neckache) which is good. I also basically haven't read anything, which makes me wonder WHO AM I? but this might be one of those things I also return to when I just can't bear not to anymore, and then read about 10 books in a week. Hey, it could happen (sort of).

You're going to want to excuse to confessionary nature of this post, it just turned midnight into Sunday so I'm sleepy (running!) and apparently very honest at this hour. And everything in the world is as it should be. Now tell me, how was YOUR week? What personal truths would you like to share with me?

*Don't get me wrong, yoga's amazing. But that's not really the point here.
**Which is worse? You decide!

Sunday Sundries: Worries and Books

I really dropped the ball on last week's Sunday Sundries, huh? No excuses, just, you know, I watched Orange is the New Black all day Saturday and hung out with my family all day Sunday and weekends. You know how it is.

I didn't really have much to report anyway, (see: Watching Netflix all day Saturday) so I probably saved you a dull post, you lucky things! This week is much the same- I worked a lot at the start of the week, and then towards the end of the week I worked less but it was sunny so I made friends with my back garden* and also built a clothes rail for mine broke (SOB) which has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for my new one has SHELVES, and I now have a shelf for running clothes, and yesssss this is great.

So this past week wasn't much, but this week coming has a few things. Firstly, I'm working three full days instead of 5 half ones, which sounds like I'm totally being lazy (I have 2 days off in the week! YAY!) but actually works out to more hours, and hopefully to more hours spent doing productive stuff on non-working days (but don't count on it). I'm quite excited, or maybe just optimistic about the change, so we'll see how well it works out.

The other big thing for this week coming is that my cousin's baby is having an operation. I say baby, he's 4 and a half, but he's still OUR baby, at least until my other cousin has her's later on this summer. I can't remember how much I've talked about him on here, because it's kind of not my story to tell, but he had brain cancer when he was tiny, his first operation when he was 1, tons of chemo, proton treatment... the whole kaboodle. When they operated on him before, they had to take away a big chunk of his skull, so he's been wearing a helmet for the past three years, and now this operation is to close up his skull again. Which, in one way is a really good thing, because it kind of feels like a proper ending to everything, but at the same time it's just really scary and awful and I can't really think about it without being kind of upset.

So. That's happening on Wednesday, so if you just keep him in your thoughts and, if you're so inclined, your prayers, that would be awesome. I know that's all I'll be thinking about all day, so.

And now, for the slightly less heavy topic of the books.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic was the top ten books you've read so far this year. Now, I've pretty much retired from Top Ten Tuesdays, mostly because I rarely remember when it is Tuesday, and also because eh, lazy. However- I thought this week's topic was really good, and it seems like a lot of people agree with me, because I've seen people still doing the list after Tuesday, which is practically unheard of. So, if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. Here they are:

Top Ten Books I've Read So Far This Year

1. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt- Still so so so incredible that I can hardly stand it. Would re-read again in a heartbeat. Review here.

2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion- So good that I've even forgiven it for making me cry on public transport. Was exactly the book I needed to read, at exactly the right time, showing how even though grief is always different, it's still universal. Review here.

3. NOS4R2 by Joe Hill- The second book on this list that I actually started last year, this was both so much fun and made my skin crawl- although with me, those two things aren't always separable. Easily as good as some of daddy Hill's (Stephen King's) good stuff, and way better than his bad stuff. Review here.

4. Bleak House by Charles Dickens- The first readalong of the year of my very first Dickens. It's difficult to say if I liked this better because I got to discuss it weekly, but Lady Audley's Secret is not making it to this list, so this really must have been good. I don't know if I can say I'm not scared of Dickens anymore, but I definitely luxuriated in his writing in this, so that's not nothing.

5. Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger- Franny and Zooey is the reason I won't be saying mean things about Salinger anymore. I really liked this, it reminded me a bit of Sylvia Plath (totally a good thing) and a bit of something awesome. It's pretty great. Review here.

6. World War Z by Max Brooks- Everything about this book is perfect. I'm still surprised by just how much I liked it, but I probably shouldn't be considering it's that rare and beautiful blend of good writing AND pure entertainment. It's probably up there with The Goldfinch for best best book of the year so far. Review here.

7. The Housekeeper And The Professor by Yoko Ogawa- Japan strikes again, with this beautiful and quiet novella that I still can't quite get out of my mind. Highly recommended. Review here.

8. Running Like A Girl by Alexandra Heminsley- Encouraging a new love for running with books about running, I didn't necessarily expect to love them, but it turns out I really did. This was especially great, running from a female perspective (rarer than you'd think) with bonus history of women's struggle to even be allowed to compete in marathons. Great fun, and weirdly emotional (another one where I cried on public transport). Review here.

9. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami- I may like this one less for its running stories than for its memoir-qualities, but either way, it proved to me that Murakami can write non-fiction just as well as fiction, and I guess you can take that any way you want to! Review here.

10. Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi- A bit of a left field decision here, and apologies to some of the great non-fiction reads I could have chosen instead, but this graphic novel completely sucked me in, and I really feel like it left me with a better understanding of people, even though that's such a hyperbolic thing to say. Shut up, it was good. Review here.

And there you have it. As a slight mid-year (ish...) update, I'm going to say that I've been reading books that I've pretty much universally liked, but not that many that I think are going to be lifelong favourites. I'm reading a pretty even male/female split, and although the women were winning a week ago, I've managed to finish 3 books by dudes in a week, so I'm now on 15/14 male/female. Which is fine, because I'm in the middle of 3 books by women, so it's all good. I'm still reading too many white people, and I'm reading more on my kindle which is great in terms of validating its existence, but not so great at reading the books I have in physical form. But never mind, it's all just good fun, right? Right.

And now I shall leave you to your lives, and your days. Have good ones!
*Not a euphemism

Sunday Sundries: The Good With The Bad

Oh heeey, so this must be the first Sunday in 2 weeks, huh? Yeaaah... Last Sunday was both Mother's Day and Daylight Savings started, so I was an hour behind anyway and I had to be nice to my mum and had an emotional visit to my nan's grave, and then went and saw my nan in Ascot and yeah. Let's just say the day got away from me.

Kind of sadly, because I was going to tell you about all the awesome things I was going to do with my week off work! But instead, you know, I'll just tell you what I did. Which makes more sense. Because I actually did the stuff. I'm going to do this day by day because that'll make it so much more interesting...

Monday: I met up with my mum around lunchtime and we had lunch and did some food shopping together. It was brief, but nice. Then, in the evening, I went out to dinner with my sister and we went to see Dallas Buyers Club (FINALLY) which was pretty good, but mainly reminded me that I haven't watched a film in a reaaaaaally long time, so my attention span is shot. Probably need to work on that.

Tuesday: Pretty much just chilled out in the house, watched some TV, sent some emails and did some internetty things I've been meaning to do, but most importantly, I went for a run, which means the day wasn't wasted. Which is good!

Wednesday: I took myself up to London. Ostensibly to go to the National Gallery and look at the two versions of Van Gogh's Sunflowers they have hanging next to each other (and to unintentionally think some arty thoughts about them) but I also saw some other paintings and some Van Goghs that I didn't even know existed and it was good. I also ended up walking around Chinatown and going in alllll the oriental supermarkets, and got a few bits and pieces. And then I walked to a million other places. I can't overstate the amount of walking. There was a lot of it.

Thursday: More lunching with my mum! Plus walking around Richmond, plus I bought her cake. A jolly good time was had by all.

Friday: Pretty much another day at home, although I did go to the library to pick up The Giver which I'd reserved, and then I read it in an afternoon. So that was pretty cool. Also, a run. EXHAUSTING.

And that was basically my week! It was pretty nice and relaxing and all the things a week off work should be, even if there have been times where I've been like 'I should be doing MORE THINGS. Or maybe reading more. I DON'T KNOW.' because, you know, I have issues.

But now to the week ahead, which is really where the subtitle comes into play. This Wednesday is my birthday, which is technically a good things because, I assume, there will be presents and also cake and also I have another day off work which is obviously always the best. But. This is going to be the first birthday of my whole life that isn't going to involve my nan, and the thought of that makes me unspeakably sad. I know that this is the first one, so obviously it's going to be the hardest, and obviously it's ok to be, you know, sad and upset, but also it's my birthday and I don't really want to be sad and upset.

So, it's kind of a Catch-22- the fact that it is my birthday is going to upset me, even though I don't want to be upset on my birthday, and it sucks but that's the way it is. I've said a few times 'I don't really want to do my birthday this year...' and I get a bit of 'you know that nanny would want you to have a nice time' and so on, and I know that she would but at the same time I can't. To be honest, I'll consider it a success if the time I spend crying is less than the time I'm not, and hopefully that will be the case.

This grief thing, guys. It's really hard.

Sunday Sundries: Run, Run, Run

Firstly: My deepest and most sincere apologies for not writing a Sunday Sundries post last week. I don't have a good excuse at all, other than that Sundays are family days that tend to consist of getting up-going to my grandad's house-eating-not having internet til the evening when inevitably I just want to watch TV or whatever. Like I said, not an excuse, but just an inevitable chain of Sunday events.

Probably I should write a weekly update post on a day other than a Sunday*, but ehhhh, no.

So, it's been two weeks. I would say a lot has happened, but it kind of really hasn't. This last week I worked extra hours for no overtime pay and pretty much no thanks, and to say that I'm so over my job is a giant understatement. I know it's not the best idea to be mean about your job on the internet, so, you know, no details, but I'm definitely feeling undervalued and SO ANGRY I WANT TO PUNCH THINGS at the moment. So, you know, if anyone knows of anything... *winks significantly*.

But anyway. Since it's the weekend and I'm trying not to think about it, let's talk about the thing that's probably been on my mind the most recently, and that thing is running. 

Totally what I wear to run.

You might not know how ridiculous it is that I want to talk about running. I mean, you might, considering that I write exclusively about reading books and watching TV and movies, all of which are sedentary activities, and none of which contribute to fitness in any way. But you probably don't know just how much I hate(d) running- just the pure, PE style horror of having to run and then being out of breath and still having to run and feeling like you're dyyyying and just no. No.

Things have changed in my mind a little bit over the last year or so- the internet is such a great resource for anything you might be interested in, and there were a few bloggers I already liked and felt an affinity with who started writing posts about running and how amazing it feels, and I was... intrigued. Not intrigued enough to do anything stupid like actually running, but intrigued nonetheless. Enough to put 'attempt to do a couch-to-5k thing' (note the word 'attempt' in there) on my 24 before 25 list, and yes I realise it's March now.

So, last Monday morning, I put on my neglected trainers and left the house early to attempt to do a couch to 5k thing. And I did it. I did 8 minutes more running than I've done since I left school, and I felt incredibly (over) impressed with myself. I ached terribly for three whole days afterwards, but I kept going and, incredibly, it got easier. Which made me feel amazing, and made aching feel like it was a good thing and all sorts of other decent stuff that I never expected to get from running, at all.

Let's be real here. I've just finished week two of the Couch to 5K podcast I've downloaded, which meant running for 90 seconds, recovering for 120 and repeat. I am in no way an experienced runner, and I don't even know how I'm going to feel about the whole thing when I get to stages where I have to run for, you know, longer than 90 seconds at once. 

But here's what I do know. Before last week, I hadn't run IN MY WHOLE LIFE unless someone was making me. After that first run, my ribs hurt more than they ever had, I could barely walk up stairs and, you know, everything hurt. I could have easily given up then, but I didn't and the next time I went, it got easier, and I was suddenly like 'OH! This is how exercise works!' and it was honestly the biggest revelation ever. 

I'm going to stop going on about this now, because there's not a lot more I have to say about it at this point- suffice to say, the basics are: I am running. I don't hate it. It's all good. I will definitely have more to say about this in the future, but I'm happy to leave it here for now. 

*To be fair, I am writing this on Saturday morning, so.

Devouring Books: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Joan Didion is one of those writers who I'd heard a lot about (although I don't know where from), but who I had never actually read (see also: Alice Munro, Charles Bukowski, Zadie Smith, I could go on but you don't want me to...) I have had a couple of her books for a while now, so obviously I thought it would be a good idea to read her memoir of grief over her husband's death while I'm in a fairly fragile state about death and, you know, all sad things.

It wasn't really a good idea. But read it I did, and I actually got a lot out of it. There are no inspiring words about meaningful lives lived, or 'oh wells' of surviving, but instead, a lot of the absolute what-the-fuckery of grieving. The crazy thinking, the running through events over and over and over again in your brain, trying to see how they could have been different, how you could have made them different, and the wilful forgetting that, actually, they won't need their stuff anymore because they're not coming back. It's honest, and raw, and beautiful and devastating, and so different from a typical grief memoir that I can't even deal with it.

So. I took this as my train read one day because it's a pretty light book and I wanted to read some Didion. That first time, I cried a little bit on the train. The next time I read it, also on the train, I cried a little bit more. And repeat for the next couple of times I read it. It got easier as it went on, but it still kind of hurt to read, and it's the weirdest thing, because The Year of Magical Thinking manages to be both an intensely personal memoir about exactly how Didion felt after her husband died, and to say something more universal about death and how it affects us. I still don't know exactly how that happens, but somehow it does, unless, of course, my experience of grief has been similar to Didion's, and no one else has had such an experience, which, you know, I doubt.

I don't really have much more to say about this book, because, I mean, memoir about grief, you get the gist. I don't know if I'd recommend reading it soon after the death of someone you loved, but you know if it's the kind of thing you're going to find useful, and I for one find the majority of my camaraderie in books. Reading is kind of how I work things out, so this was sort of a perfect timing read for me, crying on the train aside. Most of all, it's made me want to read all of the Didion, because I'd really like to read things about her that won't have me crying on public transport, and because she's really a kind of awesome writer.

And, because this wasn't really a review, some quotes for you:
"In both England and the United States, he observed, the contemporary trend was 'to treat mourning as morbid self-indulgence, and to give social admiration to the bereaved who hide their grief so fully that no one would guess anything had ever happened.'"

"In each of those long illnesses the possibility of death had been in the picture... Yet having seen the picture in no way deflected, when it came, the swift empty loss of the actual event. It was still black and white. Each of them had been in the last instant alive, and then dead."

"We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself."

"We imagined we knew everything the other thought, even when we did not necessarily want to know it, but in fact, I have come to see, we knew not the smallest fraction of what there was to know."

Sunday Sundries: February Resolutions

Hey guys, it's FEBRUARY! What? I want to be like 'Omg, January went by soooo fast' but that's the biggest lie (for me) because for the whole month, it was kind of like it had always been January, and nothing had ever been any better and that it was never going to end.

But it did. January ended, and I have to believe that the way I feel right now is going to end too, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in even getting out of bed in the morning, to be honest. Right now I'm kind of trying to just keep swimming *pauses to find gif*

And, you know, see how I go. Basically.

So, it's February, and this week I'm planning on moving back to the actual house I live in and pay rent for. I'm kind of apprehensive about it, because WHERE WILL MY MUMMY BE I NEED TO HUG HER A LOT (I really do, it's kind of pathetic) but at the same time I'm kind of like well. I'll just see how it goes and, if I need to, I can always come back to my parents' house for however long, and it'll all be fine and whatever. The thing is, at this point, I don't know that being here is helping me that much, in that it's like I'm putting off getting back to what my actual daily routine needs to be, so that, even if I feel vaguely happy here, I'm just going to have to relearn a new way to do things and that might throw me out of whack and I'm just now realising that I sound like a crazy person.

Well, so be it.

So anyway. 5 miles away from my parents I go again (I know) and I'll keep you updated on how I get on, if that's something you care about (actually... I will even if it's not). Shall we talk about these February Resolutions now? I shouldn't really call them (it?) resolutions, actually, it's more of a rededication of myself to this blog right here. January was almost my lowest posting month ever, and even though there are obvious reasons for that, and I'm not beating myself up about it, I just want to do more with it and write more stuff and just generally distract myself from feeling terrible by thinking thoughts about stuff. Hey, it's worked for me before, I'm trusting it to work again.

Fortunately for this goal, the Bleak House readalong is happening this month (aaaand the next) so that's four posts right there, and then there are Sunday Sundries posts (I am DEDICATED to them for this next month, at least. I'll think of crap to write, even if I have nothing to say) and I guess I should read some other books or possibly just ramble about other things and annoy everyone in the process. Either way, I want to try to mildly neutralise my urge to do nothing and lay down all day with writing about stuff whilst, let's face it, probably laying down. BUT AT LEAST I'LL BE DOING STUFF, HUSH!

So that's about it, really. Everything is still The Worst, but I'm trying to make it The OKest. We'll see how this goes.

Three

I love blog birthdays. Blog birthdays are a big deal to me because they represent that time, however many years ago, that you decided to take a big leap and share parts of your brain with the entire internet. In a way, it's a bigger deal to me than my actual birthday, because that's just the day I came into the world, and... didn't really do much else (this is especially true for me because I was born at 11:58pm) whereas my blog birthday is the day I made something myself and, you know, did a thing.

The fact that I would probably have forgotten when it was if I didn't have a little calendar record in my sidebar is neither here nor there.

So, yes. Three years ago today, I took a leap into the unknown, writing valiantly about how terrible Season 5 of Brothers and Sisters was (SO terrible. And still no one has acknowledged that particular post) and it continues to be one of the best things I've ever done. I always say this, and I know it's probably really boring at this point, but when I started this three years ago, I could never have foreseen all the friends I'd make and all the amazing (and hilarious) discussions we'd have, and I definitely never ever even considered that it would translate to real life activities with real life friends, but it has and it's wonderful.

And so. Even though I don't really feel like celebrating anything right now, and even though it's been weeks since I've posted a review of anything, and even though I didn't even bake my blog a birthday present (which I do. It's a thing.) I still want to acknowledge this date because this is a pretty special place for me to come to and write things down and communicate with all you lovely people. I haven't even thanked you for all your lovely comments on my post about my nan, but I really really appreciated them and I just thought, how wonderful- that people I haven't met in person (mostly...) care about what happens to me and are there to console me when things are horrible and celebrate with me when things are good. It makes me feel like I'm doing pretty ok at life, to be honest.

So thank you. For being here, and for being you and for being awesome. Basically.

Sunday Sundries: The Worst Kind of News

Oh, internet. Everything in my tiny corner of the world has changed so much since I last wrote something here, and I don't even know how to process it yet, really. On New Years Eve, my darling nan passed away and my heart is broken.

It would be pretty redundant of me to try and explain just how much I love her, or in what ways, because which words can you use to sum up the impact of a person who has always been there for you, or the depth of the loss when you realise, over and over again, that she isn't going to be there anymore. For anything. Ever. I will carry her in my heart for always, and sometimes that feels like a wonderful gift but mostly it just doesn't feel like enough because I want her here, and I want to hug her, and I want so many things that I just can't have anymore. 

It's been a rough week or so. 

Right now I'm not really living in the present so much as the past and the future at the same time. This can make my brain feel a little complicated, sure, but it's difficult to stop remembering (there are a lot of memories) and it's difficult to stop thinking about things that are coming that are going to be so difficult and, you know, grief.

I don't really have the stamina to add much more right now, but here are a couple of things I've discovered this week:

• I'm pretty sure that the internet and especially social media were invented purely for the grieving. I've spent so much time reading blog posts (without having the energy to comment) and flicking between twitter and instagram and facebook and tumblr this week that it's ridiculous, but it keeps me occupied without taxing my brain too much.
• But the downside: when your nan dies on New Years Eve, everyone's wrap up of the year posts and resolution posts and ESPECIALLY Happy New Year posts will not be easy to take en masse. I still kind of want to slap anyone who wishes me a Happy New Year, even though it's not their fault, obviously.*
• It's really really difficult to read when you're stuck somewhere between the past and the future and barely have enough energy to watch TV all day. I'm hoping to get that skill back, and soon, though.

And that's about all I've got for now. I didn't want to leave you hanging, but I also didn't want to labour the point here, really. There's some important sofa sitting and TV staring to be done, you know?

*And seriously, if you did this to me on twitter or on the comments of my last post, then please don't think I hate you! I just... hate the situation. You know.

Devouring Books: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

"My experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there's a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck."

Sometimes it feels like Hyperbole and a Half (the blog) was written exclusively for me. I say this, not because I think I'm so amazing and hilarious that this entire blog is like my spirit animal, but more because, it was there when I needed it really badly, and continues to pop up at trying times in my life. 

Here's my story with the blog: nearly three years ago, I was having some really really bad anxiety and depression issues (actually, at that point more anxiety than depression) and I couldn't settle down or do anything or feel anything except freaked out and it was a truly truly awful time. It was also during this time that I started this blog, which makes me feel like I should be kind of grateful for being mentally ill, but... Even with how awesome this all is, I still would give it all up never to feel that way again.* But anyway, in this time, I found Hyperbole and a Half, and for the first time in about a month, I laughed myself silly, and actually thought about other things than feeling like shit.

It was amazing, and I've never forgotten that Hyperbole and a Half is SO FUNNY that it can actually drag you out of your own miserable head for at least some of the day and make you feel better. When Brosh disappeared from her blog for a looooong time, and then returned with a post about depression, I was kind of stunned, but also I felt the most understood I had ever been in my whole life. I think it's an almost impossible sensation to understand unless you've actually been there yourself (and that's ok. You don't want to go there), but Brosh does the best job I've ever seen at explaining what depression actually feels like. And so she is the best at being funny AND the best at being serious and this is why I love her the most.

So, she wrote a book! It's definitely a mixture of stories that had already been on her blog (The God of Cake couldn't not be there, right?), like the aforementioned posts on depression, as well as some entirely new stuff. I ate it allllll up- I basically finished this book in one sitting, and it didn't really bother me that some of the stuff I'd already read before, because when I read her entire blog over a weekend like my life depended on it (which, not to be dramatic, but it sort of did) I didn't exactly commit everything on there to memory. If you've read her blog before, obviously you need this book, and if you haven't then you should probably start right now and not stop until you're done. I mean, if it can make a horribly anxious person laugh out loud, then imagine what it could do to you? You might die of laughter!**

I realise this isn't even a review so much as a 'This is what Hyperbole and a Half means to me' post, but you know, it's not that often you get to show your appreciation for a website and this one really deserves it. I really mean it when I say you need this in some form in your life, and even if you don't buy the book, you have to go and read some blog posts. I recommend this one, and this one, and also this one. Happy reading!

*Not that that's what I'm going to do, and also I LOVE YOU ALLLLLL.

**Note: You will probably not die of laughter. Also, please don't die of laughter.