Monday 13 December 2021

Just some words

So, I wasn't going to write today. I have had a long day at work. I have sent emails, and inputted data, and logged and saved and 'actioned' various things. Eight hours filled with that and then I went and did the shopping. I had to get the marzipan and the royal icing ready for the Christmas cake. 

And then I got home and I unpacked the shopping and I opened the bag of 'Christmas nut selection' for a snack. Then I sat down and applied to anything I could think of that might give me an acting or a writing job. Did I mention? I'm looking for anything that might allow me to act or write. For money. Or not. 

And I'm tired now and I'm thinking, "I'll write tomorrow." I'll stop now and I'll scroll through TikTok on my phone to let my brain turn off. But do you know what would happen tomorrow? I would get to this exact point in the day and say "I'm tired, I'll write tomorrow." 

So I wrote today. It's not much, but I did it. I got some words down. I constructed sentences. I feel the better for it. I can cross off a thing on my to-do list. Now I will stop and turn my brain off. 

Good night. 

Wednesday 1 December 2021

I have turned 24.

I turned 24 last Thursday. I have reached the age now where every time a birthday comes around I think "God, that went quickly. How on earth can I be this old?" and also "wow, remember when I was younger and I felt old then? That Mollie didn't even know what was going to hit her." Which I'm assuming is just a sentiment I will now have forever and ever. Not least because I haven't actually reached a quarter of a century yet. 

To celebrate I ate a lot of very delicious food, drank copious amounts of alcohol, and sang very loudly into a microphone with my closest friends at karaoke. I felt very full, in multiple ways, but mainly with love. 

In the last few years I have become a softer, calmer, more accepting version of myself. I move forward into a future I have no way of predicting, and it no longer frightens me so much. I accept it. I accept that there may be harder times ahead, that I may feel greater pain than before, that I may lose and grieve and get lost. I also accept that none of that is real until it happens. I have no control over anything except the way I experience the world. I choose to be calmer, I choose to be softer, I choose to be compassionate in as many ways as I can. 

And whatever happens, whatever happens, I know that I am surrounded by people who love me deeply and who I love deeply back. It's all going to be okay, baby. It is all okay. 

Monday 15 November 2021

The quandaries of arm knitting.

On Saturday I went to an arm knitting workshop. I went by myself and I had been excited about it for a long time. I sat in a room with some other women and learnt to knit with just my arms and a ball of yarn twice the size of my head. 

And yet, for some reason, I still felt by the time the afternoon came around that I "hadn't done enough with my day." I had successfully made a blanket with my arms. This, according to the little voice in my head, was not enough. 

I think the idea is that I am not "pushing myself hard enough." Not applying for acting and writing jobs every hour of the day. Not practicing. Not doing every little bit I can. The two hour workshop I had enjoyed that morning, a gift to myself, was not good enough. 

The fact is that learning a new skill was every bit as rewarding as it sounds. I chatted to some nice people. I physically made something that I am proud of. The blanket a beautiful, bright green and is very warm. The fact is, not everything I do needs to contribute to the future of a career or a way of making money. The irony is that by doing something mindful and rewarding I was waking up that creative part of my brain. The fact is, I had a lovely Saturday being peaceful and relaxed. The fact is, that little voice in my head should, for the most part, be completely ignored. 

Thursday 4 November 2021

Forgetting to write.

It is surprising to me that I haven't written a blog post since August. Although, for the last two years my regularity in posting has been getting worse. I am busy at the moment, but I have always been busy. I wrote pretty much every week through out sixth form and my degree. So what's changed? 

I think perhaps I am more inwardly contemplative than I was before. I still write, but I feel more hesitant to share my views knowing that they are something which evolve and change constantly. Most of the time I am simply unsure of what to say. Do I write about current affairs? Do I express my opinion on the hot, controversial topic of the month? 

In most areas I have a lot of listening to do. I am not sure that my voice is necessary in some of the topics I have been thinking about. I am still a part of the conversation, but I don't know how much my blog posts can contribute to that. 

On the other hand, maybe all of that is wrong. Maybe I've been ignoring my writing, ignoring building up that muscle. Maybe, when and if I write something about myself and my experiences, or try to shed light on something, I move at least one person. That is more than enough for it to be worth it. 

Maybe I should stop fussing and putting it off. Maybe I should just write something down, practice, get better, share something of myself. 

I wrote this and realised how much I miss it. Idiot.  

Sunday 29 August 2021

Friends and Pen Y Fan.

Two Saturdays ago (I think, time is doing its usual thing of escaping any kind of sense or reason) I dragged two of my closest friends up Pen Y Fan, in the Brecon Beacons. When we started it wasn’t raining as much as the air was wet. A cloud swallowed the top of the mountain, a cloud into which we were headed. I was determined that despite the weather we would reach the top, see no views, and come back down again. You can’t come to the Brecon Beacons without climbing a hill! I had said to myself before the holiday. My friends were ever so slightly bemused by the fact we were about to walk up into the grey, unknown mass ahead of us. 


At some point, perhaps half way up, we discovered that I was the only one wearing a properly waterproof coat. The others had coats that were fine for a light shower of rain, not for being literally inside of a cloud. I think this caused slight resentment, but onwards we pushed. 


Being a bit more used to walking up hills than the others I kept a steady pace ahead. Waiting occasionally for them to catch up with me, each more sodden than they had been before. I was excited by the weather. I couldn’t see 10 paces ahead of me, but I liked the adventure. 


Within about an hour we were on the plateau near the peak. Here we could see the dark grey of the wet stone underneath us, and the light grey of the cloud enclosing all around us. And nothing else. We giggled as the wind grew stronger and we made our way to the summit, using the strange figures of other walkers a few paces in front to guide our way. And then, all of a sudden, we were there. We stood right on the top, asked someone to take a picture of us, wild looking from the rain, and then started to make our way back down.


And that was it. That was me dragging my lovely friends up a hill. No breathtaking views, no picnic on the top, but we did it. And all the time I thought, how funny is this and how lucky am I to be walking here with two people who love me, making an adventure of one rainy August morning. 

Sunday 4 July 2021

Lots to say, nothing to do.

I have a lot to say about today's current affairs. I keep vaguely up to date with it all. I know there's a fire in the ocean because of an oil spill. I know Matt Hancock is gone, not because of his corrupt mishandling of the pandemic, but because of an affair and that the man who's replaced him as health secretary is telling us his job is to get the economy back on track. And does that mean selling off the NHS? The beautiful, wonderful NHS? 

I have a lot to say, I really do, but at the same time I want to hold back. I don't want to write about it. I don't have a particularly unique view point on it. And I'm tired. It's all endless. Each week there's something to be angry about, something to be anxious about, something to be devastated by. 

Maybe it's okay not to add my voice to that. Currently the only thing I can do is vote in elections and hope for the best. But I feel powerless, and also like I'm in a fever dream. Is that always going to be the case? I'll have a lot to say, but I'll always be powerless? 

I bloody hope not. 

Sunday 13 June 2021

Hot days.

On this hot, sunny afternoon I am still nursing a hangover from the night before. I sat outside on a balmy evening, a jazz band played music across the street, I drank far too much beer. 


Now I let sweat pool at the small of my back, lying in the luscious grass dad swears grows too quickly, trying to bronze my skin with the UV rays. 


The most recent lockdown, the long, dark days, feel as if they never existed. The whole year feels like an unpleasant, strangely familiar fever dream. Each season sectioned off by very specific, anxious feelings and interspersed, limited social events that stick out because there were so few of them. I can’t work out whether I have processed it all or not, or whether the coming months and years will bring sudden moments of “what the fuck was that?”

I think, however, that my current philosophy is to juice the life I am living now, this hot, alcohol infused summer, for everything it’s got. I am exhausted already, but blissfully so. I think we all deserve this. 

Monday 26 April 2021

Contentedness.

I often find myself feeling a need to feel something about everything. Or, at least, I anticipate feeling something. I'm supposed to have an opinion on this or that, I'm supposed to love that person, hate another, feel giddy after that experience, feel scared after this one. And when I feel nothing I feel strange. Like I'm floating. 

But the thing is feeling nothing is not nothing, it is contentedness. I feel happy. Not ecstatic, not in love, not happy sad, not amused, just happy. And it is a strange feeling to get your head around because it doesn't do much. It just sits there and for a moment or two absolutely everything is okay. It is what comes from being relaxed. It's what I've been striving for. It's what I get to occasionally, then forget to appreciate, and then something comes along that heightens my emotions one way or another and I have to work or wait to get back to this. This slowness, this level and pleasant feeling of happy. 

I will not be rushing out of my contentedness this time. I will not think to hard about it either. I will just sit with it, pay it a quiet observance, and wonder aimlessly about the next thing that might disturb it in a way that is pleasant or unpleasant. I will just float, I suppose. 

Friday 9 April 2021

This is it.

Today I sat in the garden on the new furniture mum bought in the sun which was shining with its new spring warmth. In a rare lockdown moment, I was alone in the house. I had just made a coffee, which spilled ribbons of stream into the air next to me, making interesting patterns on the surface of the liquid. I closed my eyes. I breathed deeply. I heard the birds chattering to each other, and the soft breeze in the trees. I opened my eyes. I could see the orange and purple pansies mum had planted, the tall daffodils waving at me. I looked up and two red kites swooped over each other, playing acrobatics in the wind. 

And I stayed very still, for a moment or two, and I thought "well, this is is it, isn't it?" And it was.

Sunday 21 March 2021

Pen pals.

I have been writing to people I have never met across the Atlantic ocean. And in Germany. And in the north of England. I was drawn to the idea of pen pals as yet another way to heal, and as another activity to do in the long days of lockdowns. Now I have several across the United States, and some closer to home as well. Some of my family and friends have commented on their own lack of patience for writing letters, but I enjoy the opportunity to handwrite and to make connections with strangers in an unusual manner. 

Most of my pen pals put my dreary lined paper and white office envelopes to shame. They send me stickers and wax seals and washi tape. One sprayed their letter with perfume. I liked that idea. That a scent had travelled all the way from Brooklyn to my house. Sometimes I send a postcard too, or write in a bright  colour to shake things up a bit. 

One pen pal spent the time to make me a cross-stitched coaster. We had only been writing for a couple of months and although I have never seen her face or heard her voice, I feel as though we are friends. 

My pen pals and I write to each other about books we have read, TV and films we have seen, about the weather and what living through a pandemic is like in our respective countries, about love, about travelling, about cooking and goals and plans for when the pandemic is over. 

I don't know if I will ever meet any of my pen pals. I really hope I will. And I hope that for a long time to come I can sit down on a Saturday morning and write them a reply in pink, or orange, or green depending on where the mood takes me. I find letters peaceful to write, and incredibly exciting to receive. I can highly recommend it as a way to sit and stop and think for a while. 

Sunday 28 February 2021

Spring is springing.

Never before have I experienced the coming of spring so acutely. It is dramatically wonderful. New life is pushing its green little fingers out of the earth as the sun warms it up, a golden welcome for such long awaited happenings. 

I walk every day. In "normal" times I wouldn't be doing that but it has meant that I have watched the first signs of spring emerge, each day bringing new little gift. If I sound giddy, it's because I am. The new warmth of the sun, the birds singing their songs, the flowers appearing. Everything is beautiful. Like, perfectly, wonderfully beautiful. 

You can still read the news and feel scared, or you can read the news and feel hopeful. The hopeful bit has certainly been emphasised by the seasons changing. But it seems not to matter so much when the days grow longer. 

It just seems as if things are changing in the way we want them to, a multitude of things. A long, dark winter coming to an end. The seasons a literal metaphor. Maybe. I hope. 

Monday 15 February 2021

Happy Valentine's Day To Me.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I have never been too bothered by it, even when I've been in relationships. But it can always be a bit of a slap in the face when you're single and your entire social media is filled with people seemingly having much better days than you. The obvious solution to that is to just not go on social media on the 14th February. 

However, I haven't felt the need to do that this year as a single person. I feel like I've had a revelation actually. For the first time in a long time I feel completely fine, content, even, with being single. Astonishingly my own company is pretty great. Even more astonishing is the fact that when I think about dating, I just can't be bothered. I'm sure I will one day, but right now I am happy just plodding along without a romantic interest in my life. It feels great. It's like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I can see others in love and feel joy for them, and I don't have to compare their lives to mine. 

I know, now, that I get along great when I'm not in a relationship. I have more time for my friends and family, and, quite significantly, I have more time for myself. I think of all the skills I have learnt in the time I have been single, all the opportunities I have found for myself when I'm not worrying about a boy who isn't texting me back, and I'm just not sure a lot of it would have happened if I wasn't focussing primarily on me. 

When I was going through a breakup last year people kept telling me to pour all of that love back into myself, and for a while I couldn't understand what that could possibly mean. And now I do, I used it all to repair broken heart and love myself a little more than I did before. I just rerouted the direction of all that energy. I feel the calmest I have felt in years. 

And I know, now, that one day it will happen again. Falling in love, I mean. And maybe after that it'll happen again, and then maybe again after that. But I'm not so worried anymore, I don't feel like I'm being left out of some great secret to life. I'm just much more prepared to go with the flow, which is pretty exciting. 


Monday 18 January 2021

What a life.

Today I am excited about the prospect of doing a big food shop at the local supermarket. For most people across the country, this is currently one of the only activities besides walking that gets you out of the house. A trip to Tesco's now the only marker of a week passing by. Everything else is a blur. Endless days mushed together filled with the same things over and over and over. 

I want to try and get my family to play boardgames, just to shake things up a bit, but the only person who doesn't hate them is my sister and two person Monopoly is a bit shit. Everything has become so monotonous that I find myself wanting to scream just as a way to release tension every single day. I haven't actually screamed yet, I fear it is just building up. 

The saddest thing is that I actually got excited about big food shops before the global pandemic. I'm now wondering if I have in fact mentioned this before on my blog. I can't remember. Time means nothing. At least I can methodically walk up and down the aisles of Sainsbury's on a Monday evening to waste a couple of hours. What a life. 

Sunday 10 January 2021

Gratitude for the small things.

There are ways to fill days that seem long and almost endless when the government says we must stay in our houses for the foreseeable future. At first it seems impossible, but there are ways. I remember saying, the first time round, thank god this didn't happen in the dead of winter. Somehow days feel less doom like when the sun shines for longer. But we are here again, and we have to make do. 

I have gone back to exercise again. Not running this time, it's a little too cold for my liking. But I have been jumping and stretching and sweating around my living room every day for an hour or so. I look forward to it. I like the nice woman in the HIIT workouts I do who shouts at me and makes good playlists. I like pushing myself. I like noticing a difference the more I do it. I love the endorphins afterwards. I think that's why I keep going back. I spend all day at a computer and moving my body in the evenings, pushing it hard at what it's made to do, feels pretty wonderful. And it is something to work towards. Goals are pretty good way to fill the days during a lockdown, I've found. 

But I am not just staying indoors. I thank my lucky stars (and my parents) every day for growing up and still living in some spectacular countryside. I walk almost every day. It clears the head instantly. And I could do the same walk over and over again (I don't, but I could) and I could find something new and beautiful each time. 

I am actually loving the cold. I love wrapping up to go on a walk. I love my nose going red. I love the frost, and the fog, and the ice. Today even the tops of the trees were white. It was magical. And I love coming back into the warmth of my home, putting the kettle on, putting the fire on. It may feel like Groundhog Day a lot of the time but somehow sitting in front of the TV with my family, the cat stretching in front of the fire, each evening is still joyous. Simple, but joyous. 

I will start my drama course again in a week which will also make lockdown seem less gloomy. It will be online, which is a shame, but I cannot wait to see my friends faces and to work on a skill I feel passionate about. 

The thing is, gratitude is what keeps me going everyday. Frankly I am living through this pandemic in an immensely privileged way. It can still be difficult, it can still make me anxious and down, it is still affecting my life and my future, but I have so many reasons to be grateful each and every day. I think Pollyanna was really onto something with 'The Glad Game'.

There are ways to fill these days just by being thankful, just by finding some joy in anything that might bring it. Tonight I will find joy in sitting down to watch The Great Pottery Throw Down with my family. That might sound really sad, but I don't care, sometimes you find gratitude for the smallest of things, and it makes them joyous.