Just keep swimming.

Today I am scared and sad. A week of home and nothing else and suddenly it all feels quite a lot. I am still getting up, having coffee, watercolour painting, reading, writing, cooking. But I can't even hug my sister because she's quarantined in another part of the house (the old playroom, not the East Wing of our mansion). I haven't hugged her since I left for South East Asia two months ago and I can see her through the window doing yoga in the garden and it's making me want to cry.

I miss a lot of people. I miss my boyfriend. I miss my friends who I haven't seen for months. I am craving sitting in one of their beds with a cup of tea, catching up on each other's lives. I think the entire nation is dreaming of going to the pub with their mates. Little did I think I'd miss bumping into anyone in the local towns.

I am avoiding the news but I know what it's saying. Doom, gloom, death, doom and gloom. Can you imagine if we reported deaths for the other illnesses that kill in high numbers the same way we are reporting this? Perhaps it is a way of getting the public to take these measures seriously. Perhaps. It just makes me feel scared and sad.

And I am lucky. I am safe in my lovely home with my loving family. We can go for walks in the beautiful fields just outside our door. My mum takes great pride in the garden and it brings a lot of joy.

I am, on most days, doing pretty well and staying pretty positive. I just wanted to share how I felt on this gloomy Monday, because I think nearly all of us are feeling the same. And it's okay, to feel scared and sad, because God knows this time is so uncertain.

I keep thinking of that bit in Finding Nemo when Dory is swimming into the depths of the ocean and she's scared so she sings a little song, "just keep swimming, just keep swimming". It's actually quite helpful. "Just keep swimming". We'll get past this dark and scary bit eventually.

How lucky I have been.

Travelling is probably the greatest example of, or the greatest way to experience, time as non-linear. I spent just under two months exploring three countries in South East Asia. There were many trains, planes, boats, buses. Some overnight, some cutting through the day. I spent about seven weeks continuously going somewhere, and always somewhere I had never been before. Time stretched out, time seemed to skip a beat, time went in a blink and now it feels like a dream.

This is the weirdest part. On Saturday 21st April I woke up on Koh Lanta in southern Thailand and 36 hours and three planes later I arrived at my home in Buckinghamshire, England. And then, all of a sudden, it was like I had never left at all. Asia was a long and lovely dream. It was as if I had pressed pause on my house. I was back again and we started where I had left it.

Perhaps it is all made weirder by self-isolation. I was constantly moving and now I cannot even go to the shops without good reason. Did that all really happen? The pictures keep telling me that it did.

I can close my eyes and I can see everything that I saw. I can open them and it is like I never left. I am going back and forth and back and forth and yet I turn and I look at the sunlight on my bed and the open window and do all those places even exist?

The smells, the loudness, the quietness of the waves on the beach, the people, the tastes, the colours. They were all so different from where I come from. But I saw it. I went and felt it. And now I have this long and lovely dream and time is no longer one straight line. And how lucky I have been.

Flappable.

I am one of those people who is easily flappable. Well, in certain situations. Mostly in situations in which other people wouldn't even bat an eyelid. I become easily overwhelmed. Much less often nowadays, but I can still get wound up.

Bizarrely in moments of extreme stress, or when I am faced with potential danger or difficulty, I am incredibly calm. I get myself out of a situation quickly, I don't panic, I sometimes don't even get upset about it afterwards. It was what it was and all that.

Sometimes, however, I flap at what afterwards appears to have been nothing at all. Like forgetting a book I wanted to exchange at Waterstone's and having a short, frustrated cry about it in the car. Wanting to ring my mum up and complain that everything is going wrong today, even though the world outside is in crisp, clear sunshine and I have so many things to be grateful for everyday.

I've always been like that. Always been easily overwhelmed by little things. I know at the time that I am completely indulging in whinging or crying or huffing. Sometimes that feels good, especially when it releases excess emotion I have when I'm tried or hormonal. And that's fine, the world can often be just a bit too much. Even tiny, tiny things that make no overall difference to the grand scheme of things.

But it is so much more important, if you are going to indulge in a little self-pity, to come out the other side and notice what an absolutely stonking day it is. Because the little things are really nothing, and everything else is so bloody good, it would be a shame to waste it all in a flap.

Unsure.

I find myself so unsure nowadays. Once upon a time I would have found such uncertainty frightening. At the moment I am unsure about what I think, about what I want, about what I like and don't like. I grew up, as most teenagers do, with a burning conviction for anything that I believed or did. Everything was weighted with such importance, I was die-hard about it all.

I miss those days sometimes. I miss the complete abandon I could feel from being so passionately involved in something. I miss the escapism of loving a book or a film or a Youtube community so much it was all I could think about, all I wanted to be.

And then comes the confusing, earth-shattering self-doubt of being 17, 18, 19. The world is suddenly enormous and you are really tiny. Everything you believed or loved is not absolute or everlasting. Every emotion swallows you whole, making love and friendship and desire a vast landscape covered in landmines. Your conviction is still there, but uncertainty has crept in and it feels catastrophic.

Uncertainty used to mean not knowing who I was. It used to mean apathy or being apolitical or, God forbid, politically centrist. It used to mean confusion, which was horrible, and an inability to make decisions. The last two, if I'm honest, sometimes still stand.

But now I feel unsure and it is almost freeing. It is making me question and consider everything in greater detail. It is making me more compassionate, more empathetic. I am not apolitical, but I am evaluating what my beliefs mean. The idea of political centrism is no longer a great evil depicting someone who doesn't care. I am just thinking a lot more, in a sense, and taking time out from deciding on an absolute, definite opinion on everything. My uncertainty is allowing me the time to think.

Uncertainty as a pleasurable or self-improving time in one's life is, I realise, a great privilege. Recognising that makes me appreciate it all the more. I never thought I would be so content to be so unsure.

Deleting Instagram

I deleted my Instagram app from my phone for a few weeks. I didn't miss it much, and I only re-downloaded it because I kept missing photos of friends and family that I wanted to see. I deleted it because I found it tiring. All the best and beautiful bits of people's lives and what was I doing? Scrolling through the app late into the night like I didn't have the willpower to turn it off.

There is nothing new in this. Everyone has something similar to say about social media. But I didn't actually feel so negative about it until recently. Every time I opened Instagram I found myself wondering why I didn't look better, why I wasn't going to certain places, why I didn't have the money to eat at beautiful restaurants all the time, why my life wasn't absolutely aesthetically perfect. I kept wondering what was missing from my life, and then having to remind myself that my life is bloody brilliant and I am lucky to have everything in it.

I didn't like the feeling of inadequacy and jealousy and envy I kept getting when I went on the app. They weren't emotions which made me want to strive for more or better, to work harder or appreciate what I have. They made me feel bitter. I found myself wanting to find pictures which made my life look as constantly exciting as the people I followed. I wanted people to think my life was cool and beautiful and something to envy.

Eventually I got bored of this and decided to delete the app until I got a grip. I wasn't going to sit there scrolling through something which made me unhappy hoping my life would somehow turn into an Instagram filter and I would never be bored or disgruntled ever again. And now, having done this, I have the app again and I forget it's there. I only look to see what friends are getting up to. I get bored of aimlessly scrolling. I haven't posted in a while and I don't really care.

The thing is this isn't really about the evils of Instagram, or me preaching against those who use it. I enjoy it sometimes. I like getting creative with how I take photos. I like seeing what my friends are doing. I like how it encourages me to catch up with people I haven't seen in a while. The problem with social media is rarely about the apps themselves but with the people who use them. Your ugliest side can come out, people are competitive, insecure, scared. And when I see that side of me rising, I really have better things to be getting on with. It is my responsibility to make that decision, and I'm really glad I did.

Well rested.

I have spent the entire Christmas period being as indulgent as humanly possible. I have been lazy, as well as busy with cooking and wrapping and tidying. I have eaten rich foods every day and though I am pretty sure my body is screaming out for a salad and a fast I will only consider such a thing after New Year’s Day. I have drunk copious amounts and stayed very merry, very warm, sleepy and happy. I have snoozed in front of the telly, with the fire roaring and my family all around me. I have given and received lovely, thoughtful gifts. I feel very full, and rested, and peaceful. 

And I have not written, for a blog post or any other means, for longer than I can remember. I have done that a lot this year. If I were a field, I would be letting myself grow fallow. But now I have itchy feet. I have taught myself that although slowness and time to think and be is invaluable for the soul, I have other things to be getting on with. I want to be busy and creative and excited for as much of my life as possible. I just needed to stop to reaffirm this. I am extremely lucky that I could even consider such a thing. But off we go again!

The little things.

There are much more important things going on in life than worrying about the quality of each cafe you go into, but if life is about enjoyment and pleasure where you can find it then caring about the little things sometimes goes a long way.

I currently work in a cafe. I have worked in two cafes. The experience for each has been quite strikingly different. It means that when I go out for a meal or a drink I accidentally find myself closely observing the service. I think many people in the industry do the same, particularly if their own place of work holds a high standard of service.

This has started to sound nit-picky and snobbish, but here's the thing - in any industry where the producer, worker, creator, or server really cares about every little detail of whatever they are selling the experience for everyone involved is much greater. This is pretty basic, obviously, but this includes the quality of social interaction which in turn improves the mood of a person who will then be able to spread that good mood wherever they go.

How do I say this without sounding wishy-washy?

In my experience at my current workplace, I feel happy and energised with and by people even after a 10 and a half hour shift. The food is of a high standard, the service is of a high standard. I care about the customers and the business I represent because I am a well-looked after employee who is proud of what we sell. Even down to a mark on the crockery, or the placement of cutlery, everything is looked after. This makes it sound like a posh, stuck-up place. It's not. It is completely relaxed. We just all really give a shit about everyone's experience of the place. It is not just a money-making motive, it is caring about a nice place run by nice people making nice experiences for other nice people. Because life should be, wherever you can get it, filled with enjoyment and pleasure. Even when you're at work.

The customers are nice, most of the time (sadly some people refuse to be pleased), and our interaction with each other is energising. I smile all day. I laugh a lot. I make sure people are having a good time. I get things wrong, I get frustrated, I get tired, but for the majority of my working hours I feel happy. And the thing is, it takes nothing at all to make somewhere that good for both its employees and its customers.

I am currently sat in a different cafe and I was served tea in dirty crockery and my food was forgotten about, followed by a weak apology. And it's no big deal, really, but I can't help thinking what a shame it is. Why not just care about the little things and make someone's experience really lovely? It takes nothing.

It takes nothing, but a smile, enjoying something, feeling pleasure, and sharing that enjoyment, smile, pleasure with others- is that not everything?