Forgetting to write.

Gosh it's been a while since I wrote my last blog post. I think it was last year that I got properly out of the habit of writing one weekly. The discipline and regularity was something I was proud of. I worry now that losing the habit is the result of laziness. Perhaps some of it is. 

But I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now. About having something to say. About producing "content." Surely the value of what I am saying diminishes if I am just writing it for the sake of posting it. 

The other thing is this year has felt like a black hole for creativity. Or thought in general. Lockdown, especially in winter, turns my brain to mush. This time of year, as jolly as the festivities can be, the rest of it feels bleak and slow. The short, dark days make me want to just hibernate. I know I am not alone in this, and yet part of me is suckered into believing that watching a few people on social media posting great, clever, creative things means that I am the only lazy, tired one left behind. 

Also, I am being very harsh on myself. I have been writing regularly, it's just not something I can post or share. I have a deadline and a goal but it might not even become anything. That's a new thing I am having to learn. That not everything I work hard on will manifest into something bigger or something shareable. I think that is what I am having to get over, that I can still be productive, creative and work towards a greater goal without having to show everyone to prove it. Let's be honest, it's the instant gratification that blogging provides that I feel the lack of in other writing. But that doesn't reduce the creative worth (for myself) of either. 

All that said, I have yet again reminded myself of the benefit of writing a blog post. The cogs are whirring again. My mind feels a bit clearer, having written through some thoughts. Like anything that you put off, when you actually get round to doing it it feels great. Maybe writing for the sake of posting has its merits after all. 

Birthday love.

On Wednesday it was my birthday. I turned 23. I have worried for quite a large chunk of this year that I was not going to feel very happy on my birthday. I thought I would feel lonely and scared and sad. Maybe that's a little bit silly, it is only a birthday after all, but I find them quite significant. It is the marker of another year that I have lived through, new milestones that have passed, new pains, new joys. It is a reminder to be thankful and that the world keeps on turning and that I am still here, still breathing and being. 

I was worried that I would be sad and that it would all be a bit of a flop because of all the sadness and anxiety over the last year. But this year, on my birthday, I was reminded of all that is good. I can even say, quite confidently, that it was one of the best birthdays I've ever had despite the fact that it happened in lockdown during a global pandemic. 

The thing about my 23rd birthday is that I was reminded quite overwhelmingly that wherever I am in the world and wherever I end up going next I am and will be loved. There were a lot of people who put a lot of effort into making the day special for me, my parents especially. I was thrown a Zoom party by friends I have only made in the last few months who were determined to celebrate with me. Two of them even performed a rap they'd written for me, which is something I never would have predicted for any birthday. I was given flowers and cake and bottles of fizz and cards and presents that had a lot of care and thought put into them. I felt spoilt, if I'm honest. I felt gloriously joyful and thankful all day long. I felt so loved. I felt, so completely, the opposite of loneliness. 

This is not to brag, though perhaps I am boasting a little bit. This is to show my enormous gratitude. I felt on top of the world and that is because of the people in my life. How extraordinarily lucky am I? 

I am too scared to write.

I am too scared to write. I am too scared to sit down and type something, anything, out. Writing makes feelings and thoughts come out that you were trying to avoid. I am trying to avoid feeling things other than a) neutral or b) happy. I am feeling happy a lot at the moment, actually. But I can sense things lurking and I don't want them to visit me.  

I am too scared to write because I feel anxious. I think that's the word that would best describe it. A vague but definite sense of almost panic. The fear of what happens when I do that, or this, or when I sit down to write. What happens then? What is lurking in me that I don't want to feel? 

The truth is I know exactly what is lurking in me. I know where it's coming from, and what it's about. But I don't always want to confront it. Not now. And that's what writing does, if you let it. 

I am too scared to write, but I wrote this. I almost confronted feelings. I certainly faced a fear. And that's enough, for now. 

It's funny, the way something so irrational can get all up in your head. 

Lockdown part II.

Lockdown when the days are shorter. Lockdown when it's cold and dark and meeting with friends for warmth and support is limited to the outside when the sun is shining. This time there is less uncertainty (all things considered), and more freedom. Still this time round I am safe in my home, with my family who are healthy, we have food, we have warmth (when the heating's working), we can sit in front of the fire watching Netflix. The Indian food van in my local town is still selling the Best Samosas Ever. 

Still, I think, with all of those things in mind, it is okay to be frightened. It is okay to feel down. It is okay to fear the long, dark nights ahead. It is okay to feel angry and frustrated. It is okay to acknowledge that undercurrent of anxiety running through us all. It is okay to feel scared on behalf of others, scared for their businesses and livelihoods, scared for their health. 

It is okay because to ignore those reactions and feelings would be to bury them. The idea of spending the next four weeks trying to push that all away is actually more frightening to me. That's how you spiral, that's how you get lost. 

It is okay to acknowledge that mustering the courage and the spirit we had the last time round is perhaps harder now. No one wants to do it again. It is no longer new and the energy it took to get through the first one has been spent. 

Some people will enjoy this time, and that's okay too. But to feel exhausted at the prospect of going through all of it again is not something we should be beating ourselves up for. 

I am going to have to practice a lot of self-forgiveness in order to get through the next four weeks. I am going to have to be really, really kind to myself. And that's okay. It's going to be okay. Deep breaths. 

Thanks to the cat.

I have that underlying feeling of anxiety today. A sort of hum beneath my surface. I go to do almost anything and I get a little jab in my chest, my brain jumping to something sad or unpleasant. My shoulders rising to my ears with the tension I keep holding. 

It is okay. It won't last. Perhaps by the afternoon it will have faded away. I know why I feel this way. Time of the month. Global pandemic. Climate change. Incompetent, self-serving government. The lingering remnants of a heartbreak, almost vanished but still there. 

Whenever I feel this way it is often my cat that restores a sense of calm. God knows what I did in the days before him. 

Today he stepped in from the garden and, as cats often do, immediately decided to turn around and go back out. But when I went to open the door he sniffed my feet lovingly before looking up at me with that imperious manner as if to say "it is time for a cuddle." 

I sat down on the floor and crossed my legs. He circled me slowly. I picked him up. He settled on my thigh. We sat looking out into the fresh morning, the sun warming his fur and my face. 

For a moment I felt so still and so calm, that anxious hum fading away. It was just me, the cat, and the sun.  

What a deep pleasure it is to be chosen by your cat for a moment of shared stillness. 

Simple pleasures.

I have a routine now. Thank god. For three days a week I commute into London to train at a drama school.  It is completely delightful. 

The sense of purpose in itself feels like a huge relief. The movement from one place to another, the ability to leave my house for the day and see something new and different each time is a privilege I'd never have thought to be so thankful for. 

Perhaps the commute is unusually enjoyable because there are so few people on the trains. There isn't that bizarre bustle for the last few remaining seats, nor is there any need to sniff in a stranger's armpits as we are packed like sardines into the tube. Although I long to be near other people again, and I can't touch or hug my new friends. 

I love a routine that makes me feel like I am going somewhere, literally and figuratively. I secretly love the hustle of getting past bad drivers in their Chelsea tractors on their way to dropping small children at school. I love the feeling that everyone has somewhere they need to be getting to. How strange it was for us all to be standing still. 

I am not writing one of those Dettol adverts that attempted to romanticise the soul destroying office work that we will all be glad to see the back of. I just like the busyness, the energy lifting up again, the ability to see other humans in all their shapes and sizes. 

I love that one morning I stood at the platform and across the tracks I saw a young mum and her son share a moment of pure bliss, their love radiating all the way to where I was standing. He pecked her with a kiss, and another, and another and I was witness to their lovely, happy moment. Now every time I see them across the platform I smile to myself, my mood lifting with the memory. 

Some mornings I hear James, the station master, speak into the tannoy. "Hello, Mollie" he says. I wander over to the office and we speak through the glass. He asks how I am, how my mum is. He tells me about the leaf fall timetable changes, and the holiday he is going on. He'll see me in November, he says. 

I love the feeling of going somewhere. Of seeing other people going somewhere. To be slightly over the top it puts a spring in my step. 

It is a simple pleasure, and I am extraordinarily grateful to have it. 

My little sister.

I dropped my sister off at university yesterday. I didn't think much of it before but now it's one day with her gone and already I am finding myself thinking "oh, Hannah's not here." 

Being the older one I haven't felt this before. I was the one moving away to new horizons, not thinking too much about how my sister might feel without me in the house. She might not want to admit it but I know that she missed me when I was at university. 

My sister is one of those people who always comes across as very capable. She can be very pragmatic when she needs to be. So I didn't think much about leaving her on her own for the first time. I hadn't realised that she has never been away from Mum, Dad or me for longer than a couple of weeks. I haven't felt scared about leaving home for a while now, I forgot what that might be like. But when I was watching her set up in her new student home I suddenly felt both protective and proud. I could feel and remember the fear of thinking that by the end of the day our parents and I would be gone and that big house and that big town would be hers and hers alone. 

Some days she might feel like she rattles around in it. Sometimes she might feel a little lost. Sometimes, most of the time actually, she will feel like she is on top of the world. She will feel free and excited and brilliant. 

There will be streets in her new town where she can point out the places she cried, the places she met new friends, the places she laughed so hard she couldn't stand up. She will own those streets forever, even when she is one day very far away. She will become herself in those streets. 

She may feel very frightened at the beginning, or half way through, or even right at the very end. But she will never be alone. I am only a drive or a train ride away. Her big sister, watching her flourish, ready to catch her if she falls. 

This strange way of life.

I have found the weeks going by like I am living through a cycle. There is very little to break up each day, let alone each weekend. I know that this is a temporary lifestyle for me. I know that very soon there will be new places to go, new people to meet. I have realised that these are the fundamentals for feeling renewed and alive. 

When this pandemic is over, in whichever way it will end, I don't think I am going to sit still for very long ever again. I enjoy puttering about the house, being quiet and still for a few hours, taking in a slower pace of life. But when it is enforced, when it is for the sake of everyone's health to reduce your entire life to a small bubble of places and people, it is like living in some version of Groundhog Day, The Truman Show and somebody playing The Sims all mixed into one. 

I am surprised every time the night comes along because it felt like no time at all. I get confused as to what happened (not a lot) on which days and how much time has passed since the week began. My heart sinks when I'm reminded how many weeks and days and hours have been and gone since lockdown began in March. 

Even so, I have very little to complain about. I have a job, I have a beautiful home, I have a close family who I only want to kill about once a week. I have my garden, I have the local common to meet friends at and drink pints from the pub, I have my neighbours who have plied me with wine every time I knock on their door on a Thursday or Friday evening, and their children who have spent Saturday mornings with me doing crafts. All of these things in themselves have become part of the routine. The light relief, the escapism itself, has been swallowed into the repetitiveness of our current daily lives. This is not to say that I don't love all of these things, that I am not deeply grateful, but when I imagined being twenty-two, so young and carefree, this way of life was not in the picture. 

I suppose this is a way of airing my grievances, of which there are very few legitimate complaints, but I am also still surprised when I think about what we are living through. Every single person around the world has had their lives changed in some way, big or small, at pretty much the same time because of a shared human problem. It feels enormous and strange and scary and almost inconceivable all at once. I have adapted to a different way of life, and I have become used to it, but I don't know when it will stop feeling weird. 

My body and my mind.

I have always known that my mind was closely interlinked with my body. We often separate the two in their own rights, forgetting that every though and feeling coming out of your brain is as much a biological process as the heart pumping blood up and down arteries and veins. We think of thought and goings on of the mind as ethereal, unknown entities separate from any physical matter. But every thought and every feeling we ever have comes out of a lump of biological material sitting inside our skulls.

When I was younger I engaged in a type of therapy called Mickel Therapy. I was taught to recognise every physical symptom such as nausea or stomach ache or fatigue and link it back to an event in the day which may have caused my body stress. Everything my body did was connected to something going on in my brain. I was not suffering from a purely psychosomatic illness, but my body and my brain were sending messages to each other in response to certain things throughout each day which resulted in physical illness and exhaustion. This therapy changed my life and made me better.

I am pretty sure I have experienced PMS every month since my first ever period at the age of 11. It got so bad when I was 17 that I felt severely depressed every time my period was about to happen. I went on the combined pill to help regulate my hormones and for a long time this helped me feel better during my cycle. It helped so much that often I didn't really notice symptoms of PMS at all, apart from feeling a bit more stressed or down or confused a few days a month. What has fascinated me over the last few months where I have been experiencing a lot of emotional stress and grief is how much it has heightened my awareness of my hormonal cycles.

I hadn't paid much attention to the emotional part of the monthly cycle apart from feeling rubbish during PMS. I listened to a podcast with comedian Aisling Bea (it was an episode of Jameela Jamil's I Weigh, for anyone who's interested) where she talked about period shame. She spoke about the fact that researching the effect that the menstrual cycle has on her body throughout the entire month, not just the week and a bit at the end of each one, has changed her life for the better. Before this I had never heard of the 'rise' phase or the 'shift' phase. I knew vaguely that ovulation happened somewhere in between but never considered the effect of hormones in that particular process.

I have learnt that during the 'rise' phase I feel absolutely amazing. I feel positive about everything going on in my life, I feel that I can manage anything that comes my way, the future looks bright, the sun seems to be always shining. I now know that this switches in the course of 24 hours when I enter the 'shift' phase and I become gradually more upset, exhausted and unable to deal with anything emotionally right through to when I get my period.

Weirdly, I have been able to monitor this closely due to the emotional impact of a breakup. If I feel generally okay about the situation and able to focus on moving on, I know that I am in the height of my 'rise' phase. When, and it can be literally the next day, I suddenly feel deeply upset about the whole thing and like the sadness will never end I know that I have started my PMS.

This has helped me to understand my body and my emotions even better than I did before. It has helped to know that even when I do feel catastrophically upset everything will improve dramatically in the next week. It has helped me to forgive myself when I suddenly feel like any emotional progress I have made is erased during the height of my PMS, because I can now understand it as a completely natural, intrinsically physical experience and not something that I have made up in my head.

Living in any body is a privileged, unique experience, particularly when you have a very healthy one. Understanding that everything my mind and body does is an interlinked, biological experience both makes me appreciate my corporeal vessel even more and allows for greater mental health. This doesn't mean feeling on top of the world every second of every day, but it does help in not beating yourself up for those inherently human, completely natural and forgivable moments or days of feeling  less than okay.

It is also important to add that, for anyone who has a menstrual cycle, every single experience is different and getting to know your own quirks and tendencies is a healthy process. As a bonus, it is also a step towards smashing that socially accepted shame surrounding the daily physical and emotional experience of over half of the world's population.

Hopeful embroidery.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/NellyMakesEmbroidery?ref=shop_sugg

Over the weekend I finished an embroidery project. It was my first ever piece of embroidery, and I am quite proud of it. It was another form of therapy that I sought out during lockdown for feelings that seemed to have no end. I have noticed this about myself before, that with extreme emotion comes a sudden outlet of creativity, but I thought it only extended to writing and performing. In fact, I thought myself completely inept at any artistry that involved painting, needles or drawing. It was another thing in my life that I had prematurely signed myself off from but, unlike running, it was an activity I constantly desired to settle down and do. Lockdown, being temporarily unemployed, and living through a period of extreme discontent opened up the time I needed to discover a different creative side to myself.

Actually, this side was awakened within me on a random trip to Hobby Craft just before last Christmas from which I spontaneously bought watercolours and paintbrushes. Much to my dismay, just by buying these products I did not immediately acquire the ability to paint well. I expressed this dismay to a close friend on our trip to Paris in December after we saw some students sketching in the Père Lachaise cemetery, complaining that I just did not have the inbuilt talent needed for that kind of art. She disagreed that this could ever be the case and argued that most artistic talent is about building up a skillset that anyone can learn. I wasn't convinced, but at the same time I didn't stop thinking about her take on the matter. Just before I went travelling I sat down with my watercolours, looked up a YouTube tutorial and miraculously produced a watercolour bee. It is not a groundbreaking piece of art, but it looks like a bee and I had frankly astonished myself that had managed to produce it.

Then came lockdown and I found myself with more time to practice painting. I got better at it because I took the time to learn, and copy, and have patience with producing the final piece. I now have a small collection of paintings that I feel proud of.

Then came heartbreak, as I must have mentioned about 100 times now, and for a week or two I couldn't bring myself to do anything at all. The only thing I could manage to do was read, and I found myself drawn to a collection of essays called The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater by Alanna Okun. Okun wrote so lovingly about her passion for crafting and the way it has seen her through periods of anxiety, grief, heartbreak and longing that I felt quite inspired to give it a go.

I was desperate for some form of distraction, for a way to move through my pain. I found myself wanting to gain something out of my pain, too. I wanted a physical manifestation of my progress. I wanted to work hard at something that I would one day look back on and say "Look how far I've come." In the past, this desire to do something with emotional pain has resulted in a play at the Edinburgh Fringe. This time it has resulted in a few things, one of which being a beloved piece of embroidery.

I searched Etsy for an embroidery kit to teach me the way and allow me to create something pretty and special. I found the perfect one, and waited impatiently for it to arrive in the post.

The design took me a couple of months to complete. I would work on it listening to podcasts and in the evening watching the television with my family. I would even go to it when I felt sad, just to be able to do something with my hands and make my thoughts slow down. Embroidery came to be something that could make me feel so wonderfully serene, that could work away painful feelings without ignoring them or pushing them away.

I taught myself the techniques and spent hours on tiny little things that ended up looking like flowers. I used to think that I couldn't bear the fiddliness of the needle and thread, that it would drive me mad. In fact, it did the opposite, it made me calmer and provided another form of meditation.

My Granny is the queen of craft. She has created the most exquisite pieces throughout her life, some of which have ended up in exhibitions. She has spent many hours attempting to teach me how to knit, casting on for me on several occasions, only for me to give up after about 20 rows each time. I always thought that in that regard I had been a disappointment, unable to take on her endless talent. My Granny may not have very much time left in our world, but the other day I was able to show her my first piece of embroidery. She thought that it was beautiful and we got to share a sweet and special moment of love formed out of what I had created. When I started the piece I did not expect this to be an outcome, but I am so happy that she knows her legacy did not go to waste on me.

I can't say that I will ever produce anything as beautiful as my Granny did, but I have a feeling that embroidery might stay with me for a long time. It is too peaceful, too lovely to give up on now. The design that I embroidered has the word "hope" in the middle and colourful, wonderful flowers sprout out around the word jubilantly. That is why it was so perfect, and it did not fail to please.

Running is cool.

Plot twist: I really, really enjoy running. For anyone who knows me even remotely this is something I don't think anyone saw coming. For my entire life before now I have declared myself an anti-runner. I could not think of anything I would like to do less. I despised cross country PE lessons and walked in rebellion at the back every time. I thought that the 100m on sport's day was okay but only because it was over very quickly. I thought that people who ran for fun were crazy and scoffed when they suggested that I tried it out. I thought that it was painful and boring and exhausting and I could get my exercise elsewhere. Except for the fact that after I gave up rock climbing and dancing the only exercise I got was the enforced 2.5 mile cycle from my college into town, and after that there was nothing. For my entire adult life I have done little to no exercise. I thought that I was fine with that, I thought it was just my personality type. Now I am beginning to realise that I was missing out on something.

I am not going to write about how everyone should run (although, coming from someone who hated it and now loves it maybe everyone genuinely should give it a go) I just wanted to express the newfound pleasure that it brings me.

I started with the Couch to 5k app, and I am now on week 9 and I can run for 30 minutes without feeling like I might drop dead. Jo Wiley has been the encouraging voice in my ear, interrupting whichever podcast I am listening to tell me I've run for "5 minutes", "15 minutes", "you've got only 60 seconds left!" I started running at the beginning of lockdown because I felt unfit and at a slightly uncomfortable weight and I felt that I should do something about it. Then I stopped the app because I had to deal with feeling incredibly sad. Then I started the app and started running again because I felt incredibly sad and I wanted to give myself something to focus on. Turns out that was one of the best decisions I made in a bad situation.

I built up my runs week by week. At the beginning I was impressed when I could run for 3 minutes without stopping. I couldn't really imagine what running for 30 minutes would be like so I just took each run as it came, never looking into the future to worry about it. Each time the minutes spent running increased I surprised myself. Running became easier, then harder, then easier again. I don't think I have ever experienced physical training in the same way before, the way each improvement makes you feel proud and positive.

Now that I might in some small way be able to call myself a runner I can truly say that the most satisfying, most enjoyable part of running is the mental bit. I know that everyone told me endorphins would make me feel really good, even on really sad days, but I didn't realise they would feel that good. It is addictive. The rush after completing a run lasts for the rest of the day and I know that in retrospect that pleasurable, relaxing feeling was building up during the run too. I know this because when I imagine myself running now, or when I think back through my run, it makes me excited about going out to do it again. I forget when it was hard, or when I wanted to stop, I just remember that I kept going and how good that felt.

The meditative and mindful quality of running is something I was surprised by. I can notice my body in ways that I usually don't. I can notice and enjoy the rhythm of my steps and become so entranced by it that I forget I am running. The simple 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 fading in and out of my awareness. I am always so amazed by how at first my breathing is ragged and almost panicky, but I push my way through it until the breath is calm and rhythmic and it carries me through. I always think, right at the beginning, that I can't do it, that I'm going to give up and then only a few minutes later I am rounding the corner of that country lane and the yellow house comes into view and oh... I have been running for five minutes and I forgot how hard it was to start.

Running, in so many ways, has been an extremely effective form of therapy over the last few weeks. I have taught myself the value of focussing solely on the task at hand and not worrying about what happens next. I have watched myself improve and grow and learn to love something new. I have put in a lot of physical and mental effort and been able to reap the benefits. And when I feel like complete and utter crap I have a way of getting out, giving myself an endorphin rush and a reason to feel proud and coming back feeling calmer and more positive.

I am not a good runner and I have a lot of improvements to make but that makes me love it even more. I have more to look forward to, more to work on, more things to discover about myself and my body. I don't care that right now I must be pretty slow, because it is such an enjoyable thing to do, such a wonderful and loving thing to do for myself, that I am not self-conscious or competitive about it in the slightest. It is a personal journey that allows me to see the joy in solitude.

I am most likely preaching to the choir here. So many friends and advice columns and health nuts have told me how great running is in the past and I have just dutifully ignored them. I thought I hated running so much that it would never make me feel anything other than miserable. I guess that is another lesson I have learned: the older I get, I realise the less I know about myself and that countless, unpredictable joys and adventures lie ahead. Even when I am moping about thinking that nothing good or exciting will ever happen again, I can counteract that with the absolute fact that they most definitely will and they will be bigger and better and more surprising than I could have ever imagined.

Like clouds across the sky.

I am so fickle when it comes to my emotions. I have had moments of such plain sailing that I wish for something, anything, to make a splash whether it be happy or sad. In these moments I forget how exhausting it is to be either. I forget quite how dark dark moments can be. I think, "have my emotions gone now? Will I be flat-lining forever? Did I use everything up?". The answer is, of course, no. And as soon as I stop "flat-lining" on feelings and dip below into something unpleasant, I wish once more for the sense of being just 'okay'.

It is hard to accept any status of being. When I am happy I fear for the end of the happiness, when I am excited I wonder about possible disappointment, when I am sad I wish desperately for it to be over, when I am neutral I forget all of that. I wonder what would happen if I just was. If I just listened and observed, or simply allowed any feeling that I might have, would I enjoy and appreciate it more? Or, with feelings that are uncomfortable, if I stopped trying to fight them would they dissipate quicker?

I have been trying to forgive myself recently, and trying to be kind, and trying to let myself be. If I sink low I try and say "Yes, that's okay. That's normal. Just let it be".  And most of the time it works. It comes and goes. I let it in, and then it leaves me more peacefully that if I had tried to put up a fight.

The same goes for moments of lightness, if I let it come in, if I don't question or analyse it,  I find it stays for longer, it is more enjoyable. I ignore my thoughts when they say, "why are you happy? Let me find all the sad things. Remember the turmoil? Should that come back? Remember why you were sad? When will this end? Happiness doesn't last!"

I think it is working. I feel softer, more at peace. Even the moments of turmoil feel less sharp when they come and go. Even the moments of plain sailing, the flat-lining, the neutrality of feeling, they feel calm and gentle. If I just stop and observe, or if I just let it be, I feel the tension drain away and I watch as all these different colours and feelings wave in and out like clouds across the sky.

Sitting with the pain.

Some days there is no other choice but to sit with whatever discomfort has settled in your chest. Some days the emotion you are experiencing feels like actual physical pain and there is nothing to do but let it wave through you. It might feel like you are drowning, but eventually the wave is going to spit you back out onto the shore. You just have to relax, close your eyes, and wait for the moment to pass. Even if that moment lasts for days, it will end.

I say this like it is easy. I say this like the feeling of helplessness does not emphasise the pain with additional rising panic. I say this like my instinct is not to fight, even when there is nothing to fight, even when the only option is to let time heal.

Time takes so long to heal, but when I look back it will be no time at all.

Today I have sat with such pain. It is still there. I needed to write this down just to say that I have sat with pain all day. I needed to call into the void (that is not the void but instead filled with so many lovely people) and say hello? is anyone there? i have felt so much pain today. 

And as soon as I write that down, as soon as I hit 'publish', I know the pain will go away a little bit. Just a little bit. At least there is one way to take away some of its power.

My brain is a bad friend.

I think it was Deborah Frances-White who did a skit on 'The Guilty Feminist' podcast in which she imagined that the negative voice inside her head was her psychopathic room-mate. It sounded like a thriller. No person would ever speak to another human like that, let alone someone they loved and cared about.

I remembered this the other day when I was imagining what it would be like if I said the horrible things I can say to myself to my friends. The result would be that I would have approximately zero friends afterwards and it would be completely understandable. Imagine, for example, if a friend came to me straight after a breakup and I said "Well, of course this means that you will never, ever find love again and you will suffer with this heartache for the rest of your life. Also, you must have done something to deserve it because you are probably not worthy of being loved." Rightly so that friend would likely back away slowly and never return.

The thing is, not only would I never, ever say that to a friend, or even a stranger, I wouldn't actually believe it. I have complete and utter faith that every single person in my life is not only worthy of love, happiness and success in whatever form that might take but also that they will inevitably find those things throughout their lives. I believe so wholeheartedly in my friends being deserving of love that I will personally be the sole provider if things should ever come to that.

Why, then, is it so easy to believe and say the complete opposite to myself?

As I was writing this my dad sent me a blog post by Mary O'Malley about the concept of things being "unfair". This line seemed particularly apt: "But then I remembered that our minds have been trained to struggle and, instead of contracting, I began to laugh." And then, "There is absolutely nothing that your mind does that you need to judge." My dad didn't know that I was sat in my room writing this blog post, so perhaps he is secretly telepathic.

Of course the voice in my head is a harsher critic of and a worse friend than I would ever be to another person but the key is probably in recognising this. I have set a challenge for myself that the next bad thought I think about myself I will ask, "would you say that to or believe that of your sister? your friend? a girl you met drunk in the pub toilets?" and when the answer is inevitably "no" I will, like Mary O'Malley, simply laugh. And those kindly, gentle, beautiful things I would say to the people I love I will repeat to myself because, like everyone else, my feisty little head deserves that too.

My virtual support group.

I often find myself plunging into books and podcasts as soon as anything goes wrong, or not how I'd planned it, or when I am overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the future. The books are almost primarily autobiographies or memoirs written by women and the podcasts follow the same sort of theme. I want desperately to find similarities between my life and the lives of women that I admire. I am mostly drawn to women because I feel I can more readily relate to their experiences. I need to know that they failed, that they felt heartbreak, that they had bleak thoughts about the days that lay ahead of them. I try to fill myself with as many examples as possible of the light at the end of the tunnel. I seek constant reminders that, no, it will not feel like this forever.

Comparing my own life with the lives of others has its benefits and downfalls. It allows me to remind myself that I am not alone, that there will always be 'downs' but also many 'ups', and that if I work hard my life will eventually ebb and flow in the direction that was meant to be. However, the comparisons can often become arbitrary and futile. If I find out, for example, that at twenty two the author had a string of successful relationships, a job that was leading her to her dream career, and she wasn't still sleeping in her childhood bedroom I instantly think of my own life and assume that I have already failed. What I forget in these moments is that, actually, I am not living anyone's life but my own. To compare something as completely personal as relationships and aspirations is to ignore the nuances and even the beauty of my own experience.

At the same time I find reading and hearing the witty, clever words of women who are wiser and more experienced than I am incredibly soothing. I escape into the actual lives of others to quieten my own mind when it whirs on and on about the future, or about the state of the present. I think particularly at this moment in time when surrounding myself with other people is impossible, instead I surround myself with a sort of virtual support group, finding voices that can soothe a troubled heart.

Oversharing therapy.

I have no qualms with airing my dirty laundry on the Internet and in my writing. Of course, it depends on what the laundry is but if it is something I would talk about openly in person then I will write about it and share it online too. I know that I have said this before, but right now I am finding myself airing my dirty laundry all over the shop.

I have no qualms because in every single sense sharing my pain, my worries, my thoughts with almost everyone available is intensely therapeutic. It allows me to connect with others when I feel lonely or afraid, it allows me to process how I am feeling, it allows me to ground myself in hope and move forward when staying in my own head makes me feel like I am drowning. Occasionally, it allows me to comfort others as well as being comforted myself. That is usually the sweet spot - to feel less alone, to have helped another person, to know that we will both get through whatever it is.

I have made friends through "oversharing", it has made way for life-changing opportunities, and I have connected on a deep, emotional level with fellow human beings.

So, in order to not drown in my own head, I will continue to write and share my way out of this pain, these worries, these thoughts.

Keep going, keep going, keep going.

Being twenty-two feels like the worst thing in the world even though I know that it might be one of the best.

The problem with being twenty-two is that I am not old enough to truly know that life is long and sprawling, and not young enough to see it all hopefully before me. Even though I know that it is all before me, and I know that it is long.

I know that life will keep being thrown up in the air and I may or may not get better at dealing with it but I will always get through it.

I know that right now my heart is hurting and it feels like it might never stop hurting, but I know that it will because it did before. At least I am old enough now to know that.

Being twenty-two feels like the worst thing in the world because I just want to know that I will be okay when I do not feel okay and I can't see into the future. I want my older self to come and cradle me. I want her to show me all the things I do, all the people I meet, all the love I have. I want her to come and tell me that the fear that spreads out through my chest right now is futile. There is nothing to fear.

There is nothing to fear but I am scared of wanting things in case I never get them. I am scared of disappointment because I know what it feels like and I want it to end.

But at the same time I am not scared of failure because I know that I never will fail. Not truly, not finally, not permanently. I know that I am strong enough and brave enough and wilful enough to keep going, keep going, keep going.

Being twenty-two feels weird because I know that there is a future self that is telling me all these things right now. She is there, and I am here, and we co-exist. I move towards her but she is never still. She whispers back to the self that I am now and says that my big, beating, bleeding heart only ever gets bigger, only ever keeps healing.

Being twenty-two is the best thing in the world because I am here, I am living, and my heart is beating so fast and so hard and I can look forwards and backwards and know that life is good and pain is good and love is always, always there.

And, being twenty-two, I will get up off the floor (get up, Mollie!) and keep going, keep going, keep going.

Hoping.

This is, without a doubt, the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced. I think for anyone who hasn't lived through a war or any situation that turns "normal" life for an entire population on its head this is so... weird.

I don't imagine that lockdown and the threat of a virus is anything like living through a war. I'm not going to make comparisons, because people are experiencing grief and fear in different measures, I just don't think they are the same thing.

But this is of course coming from a view of the world that, up until this point, life moved smoothly and without significant disruption. World war, cold wars, etc were a thing in the history books. Something we learnt about at school in the safety of classrooms. Disruption happened on a personal scale, only affecting one family, one person at a time. It didn't happen to everyone all at once.

I think the thing I'm most surprised about is how quickly we adapt. Nothing like a crisis to remind ourselves that life goes on, we make it through. No matter what happens, we will come out the other side.

There is also a reason for that. Most of us pull together in bizarre times like these. We re-group, reconsider, work as a community. We do it because we are social animals, because we need to protect the pack, protect the tribe, protect the human race. We do it because we are sentimental, because we feel love, grief and, perhaps most of all, hope.

What I hope continues into "normal" life once this is all over is the kindness we have finally allowed ourselves. Kindness to yourself, kindness to others. Forgiveness, understanding, being gentle. I believe it is proving the only effective thing getting us through. Everything else, the selfishness, the greed, the lack of community spirit, has proven entirely useless. We have found a much greater level of compassion, and it is allowing the world to keep spinning.

I don't know. Perhaps I am being too wishy-washy. Perhaps my ideas and thoughts are not grounded in any "reality". But I am just hoping, that is all, and it is getting me through.

Pontificating on 'The Tiger King'.

'The Tiger King' is a documentary on Netflix about private zoo owner Joe Exotic. It has been an extremely popular, binge-worthy event. You watch for the shock-factor, the voyeurism, the horror, the intrigue. I finished with a bad taste in my mouth.

It is like watching an adaptation of a Graham Greene novel. Every time you think you've located a source of good, a source of morality, every human involved demonstrates the capacity for potential, or actual, evil. On all "sides" there is incessant greed for power, status and money. There is incessant violence, incitement of violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, exploitation, betrayal, lying, entrapment, preying on the vulnerable. Deep, deep misogyny.

I felt so angry at the end. There are characters in this story who continue to behave in the most damaging, horrific way. They did not get their comeuppance.

But, of course, that's the point. I've projected my ideas of right and wrong onto this story and I expect them to be met with a sense of justice. I expect it all to come full circle.

As well as making parallels with a Graham Greene novel, I kept thinking that the structure of the documentary follows the same structure of a Shakespearean tragedy. A protagonist falls from some sort of elevated status due to an act of evil, and the whole story world collapses. I even felt, at some points, sorry for Joe Exotic as if he had some sort of tragic flaw. But I wanted the conspirators to fall too. I wanted 'The Tiger King' to be like 'Hamlet' where every character compliant in the moral wrong dies (gets their justice).

But Shakespeare knew, like Greene, that that is not how the world works. Our sense of morality is futile after a point.

Despite all this pontificating I am still holding out for a hero. The hero being any vague sense of karma, justice, satisfaction. I want Jeff Lowe, Doc Antle etc, etc. to have their worlds collapse too. That would be fair, wouldn't it?

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.