I Stopped Trash-Talking Other Women...

...and It Was the Best Thing I Ever Did.

I used to trash-talk women. We all did, we all said some girl was too fat for that or too thin for this. We all said some girl was 'never going to get a boyfriend if she...'. We all, and sometimes still do, equate being a 'woman' with physical characteristics that exclude some women and create divisions. Hands-up if you've done it.

You at the back, I know you have, put your hand up.

It's okay because it's what we're told to do, we're taught that that's what being female is, it's snide comments, and competition for male attention, and one big long Madonna-whore dichotomy until we die. It's not easy to be a woman and it's not easy to stop chatting shit about other women to make yourself feel better. It is nice though. It's wonderful actually, to stop being so judgmental and realise that other people's decisions and bodies aren't mine to criticise. It's really freeing to love other women and take cues and inspiration from them and not to have to constantly define myself against them but enjoy defining myself with them.

So as I phase out my really awful learned behaviour I made some vows and these are they:

I will let anyone who wants to define themselves as a woman, or not.

I do not get to decide someone's gender for them.

I will not trash other women's appearances behind their backs, I will point out facts and give compliments, but nothing else.

If I am going to talk about another woman in public I will make sure I speak loud enough so she hears me and knows I am complimenting her.

When appropriate I will tell women that I think that they look great.

I will not decide what other women can or cannot wear based on their size or age or my own personal preferences.

I will realise that someone else's appearance is not my appearance so I don't really get to have an opinion on it.

I will not spout any bullshit about 'natural beauty' which implicitly demeans women who change their appearance to one which they feel more comfortable with.

I will not make other women feel inferior for wearing whatever amount of make up they wear or being interested in beauty and fashion. These things are not vapid or pointless and having an interest of them does not come in the absence of having intelligence or emotional depth.

I will not talk about personal attributes in terms of whether they are 'attractive' or not because I will not reduce women down to what other people think of them.

I will know that everyone is more than what they look like and that's pretty much the most important thing you can ever learn.

I will frequently tell other women they are intelligent and funny and kind, just as they do to me, so we can all remind each other of our value on the regular.

I will not judge other women by what they do or don't do in their sex lives.

I will celebrate whatever choices they make in their sex lives that make them happy.

I will not be made to feel uncomfortable about the choices I make in my own sex life.

I will not wax lyrical about 'what men want' from women, because I don't give a sweet fuck 'what men want' and neither should anyone else.

I will understand that a woman knows herself and her situation best and is in the best place to give advice to herself.

I will make sure all my friends know that I am an impartial observer to their behaviour, that I love them, but that I do not know best.

I will not give advice unless asked.

I will not say things like: 'you can't have a relationship if...', 'no one will ever want you if...', 'if you want a relationship you have to/you can't...'.

I will not presume that every action a woman takes is a play for romantic attention.

I will not presume that every woman's primary goal is to be in a romantic relationship.

I will not chastise others for making mistakes I haven't got round to yet.

I will let my friends admit to being hurt for as long as they are and talk about their problems for as long as they need. I will not make flippant comments about 'getting over it' or 'moving on' until they are ready to do so. I will expect the same in return.

I will not equate the length of a relationship (romantic or otherwise) or it's quality or whether it even existed determine what I think is the proper amount to be upset about it's break down or problems.

I will accept that I have made the best choices for myself and that everyone else should do the same. We are not better or worse than one another.

Writing from A to B: Leeds to Sydney, 09.02.2016 - 11.02.2016

If there’s one thing I would say about travelling alone, it’s that it makes you exceptionally trusting. Trusting and good at carrying things. Not so good at carrying things though, that I never have to turn my back on my possessions. I ditch them in vacant seats and tables at coffee shops and on trains and planes because I refuse to let suspicion dominate my thinking and I'm not going to try and fit everything into a toilet cubicle or carry my bags whilst I'm also trying to carry trays of food. Sometimes I ask people to watch them and sometimes I don’t. Mostly I don’t because I think it’s probably a given that in that situation someone would probably notice it wasn't me rifling through my belongings. Also because the places I tend to do this, like trains and airports and planes, aren't places with easy escape routes; theft is quite unlikely really.

I'm taking up an obnoxious amount of space in this café really, but then I am about to take up a very (too) small amount of room for the next 10 hours, so it’s probably okay.

I've been thinking a lot lately about moving, and not having any friends in the place you move to. I'm thinking about it especially today and right now because I always think that’s the weirdest thing about travelling alone: how little I speak out loud whilst I do it. I probably won’t have a proper face-to-face conversation with anyone for the next 28 hours. I kind of hope I don’t. The fear of someone trying to engage me on a 10 hour flight when I just came to read, eat and sleep is very present and real. I really think I'd be okay, at least I’d get used to it. I always feel guilty about how little time I spend reading and writing. That might be a hangover from academic life but those are also the things I love more than anything. They’re at the root of everything I want to achieve and they deserve more time. Rather, they need more time.  I could cook myself good meals and read loads and write more and live for myself not some perceived need of human interaction. That is not to say I don’t love the people I surround myself with now, more that I have got used to the fact most of them are very far away. Sometimes in the pursuit of having an immediate social circle, I have chosen very badly.

In the end I suppose the best you can hope for is that you find the peace you need to be able to see other people happy, even when you've all but forgotten it, and not begrudge them their joy. In a late night conversation with my best friend she said she hoped I found the happiness and the love that she had, and I said not to worry, that I would choose it for her over myself every time, and I was fine without it. It’s not because she isn't robust enough to cope without it, goodness knows she has waited long enough and endured enough. It’s because I find it much easier to grasp the actual impact of my own pain much easier than I could imagine it in other people. I would be devastated if she listed the many ways in which I had been hurt as her own and (as she is) I would be very angry that the world had conspired like that. Seeing it through my own eyes though, it all feels very mundane and very ordinary, not insurmountable or even particularly unfair. ‘Rather you than me’ works for the good things as well because I can be more patient for myself than I can for others and more sure that it is coming, no matter how slowly.

Not everyone will take this approach and I appreciate that, you certainly can’t apply it to everyone. But I would say that we should all be aware than in place of this peace, is a resentment and jealousy and overall bitterness that can make you do and say very ugly things. All that and you certainly won’t be any happier any sooner.

Well you know you can scrap that, because in classic form, I've assimilated myself into a group of women doing the same journey as me. Thank you to the worldwide sisterhood for bringing such interesting and diverse women into my life every time I step out of the door. Thank you to these individual women for making me feel so worthy of your affection and praise on the daily.

You know I'm so terrible for telling other people how much other people have changed my life and how many thanks they deserve from me. Start telling them yourself you dreadful idiot. Share the love you have. Tell them as soon as you can, face to face.

Not as much silence as I have planned on this journey but that’s okay too. There’s still another long (long) haul flight to go and plenty of time for silence in the rest of your life. Plus you’re still working now aren't you, you absolute nightmare. Freelancers don’t take holidays and writers certainly don’t take breaks. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but my mind is constantly thinking about what I can write next and one day it might not be so go with it whilst you've got it I suppose.

Honestly that little boy being pushed in a trolley by his dad in the airport may have made my day. What day is it? Can it have made my day? It’s  6 am at home. 2.30 pm here. 5.30 pm there. Get me to my destination and get me a shower and a change of clothes and then some sleep.

Reclaiming My Clothes [Time].

When I talked to someone about this post I lied and said the dress I would talk about was the one I wore when the last boy I dated dumped me. It wasn't.

It was actually the dress I wore to my brother's funeral. I lie about that, and avoid talking about it, all the time I don't know why. I deny myself opportunities to talk about it even though sometimes it's all I want to do. But that's another story: let's talk about that dress. 

It was a Christmas present in the Christmas of 2013, I wore it to New Year's that year. It went to university with me and I wore it on a couple of nights out in my final year. It's black and faux leather so I usually confine it to winter because even without tights it's damn warm. 

The funeral was on the 3rd February 2015. I had to go back through my diary to find that. He died on the 15th January so the funeral was some time after that and obviously one date it much more memorable to me than the other. I remember it all so clearly but looking through my diary made me realise exactly how much it happened within the confines of my life. There are appointments and deadlines and social events littered over those two weeks and I kept all of them. I remember it as an expanse of time; a gap, and saying I'd do things 'after the funeral', but in reality I didn't stop and I didn't let anything give.

We decided to keep the dress code as black because sometimes grief is just bad and you don't want to celebrate life and wear colour. That's fine if you did but we didn't and I stand by our decision.

I smiled and felt uncomfortable and let out the smallest of sobs in that dress and then I was reunited with members of my family and chatted about everything else. Later I got changed and ate and cried a lot more. The day was weird because everyone looked lovely but no one felt like they could say so. It was weird because I asked advice on what to wear and if my lipstick was even and my mum asked me if I thought her dress went with her shoes and looked okay and it did but it felt strange to say. I'd lost a lot of weight at this point and I'm not sure I was even happy with how I looked in that dress, but it felt like a good demonstration of how we were all coping that we could manage to get dressed and be well-presented even after what had happened.

I wasn't sure if I would ever wear that dress again, not because of the bad memories but because it felt strangely inappropriate to acknowledge that it was nice and I looked good in it because you're not meant to notice that sort of thing at a funeral. But it's my dress, and it's for me to wear. It's not just my funeral dress in the same way that I'm not just grieving. It is my funeral dress in the same way that I am grieving. It's also my 'End of Term celebration' dress because I also spent the evening with my friends and enjoyed their company. It is both things because I am both things. It hasn't stopped being my funeral dress any more than I've stopped grieving but I don't want my clothes to be put into categories any more than I want that for myself.

This felt like the right time to write this because I'm walking back through the four months between his diagnosis and his death and everything feels so familiar sometimes I have to remind myself it's not happening all over again. I want to wear that dress again this autumn on no day in particular and for no reason. Probably just with a jumper thrown over it. I want to claim back my favourite time of year and that dress I look great in.  I want to spend this time talking about all this as much as possible because I've learnt so much about myself from it, and about other people. I hid it for such a long time and I refuse to be ashamed by my pain any more.

I need to reclaim that dress because I need to reclaim my memories as mine, as times I felt happy because of the life I've built for myself not memories of the things that happened to me without my say-so. I need to wear it to my good job, and around my wonderful friends, and on days I'm out by myself and feeling 100% me. I need it to have multiple meanings to me because I need to have multiple meanings for myself. I need to be open about all of them. I want to be able to list 'grieving' as comfortably as I list 'successful'. I am both.

I want that to be my 'funeral dress' and my 'if you can do that, you can do anything dress'.