First off, some life updates: my most important message of this post is that if you are the right age to be eligible for a smear test please go.
My nurse was super sweet and helpful and kept me talking and relaxed through the whole thing - which was not only fine with very low-level discomfort but also over very quickly. Of course even if it was the single most painful five minutes of my life it still needed doing and she told me that 92% of people who died of cervical cancer in 2015 didn’t get tested - so it literally saves lives friends, please please please don’t put it off.
The second is that I went to a wedding! It was beautiful and emotional and I felt very honoured to be part of such a special day. Everyone looked absolutely gorgeous and the wedding was completely their own, including the flowers and table centrepieces which her wonderful mum made (get in touch if you’re getting married in the Yorkshire area and still looking for a florist).
I’ve also been planning the rest of the month, filled largely with festive activities, and other activities which aren’t in themselves festive but are taking place in December so everything is by default a bit associated with Christmas. The words ‘we’ll have to see each other before Christmas’ keep coming out of my mouth, despite the fact that I have no family commitments beyond the day itself, and therefore, I am actually no less free than any other week of the year. Before January would probably be a good idea though, I have a feeling 2018 might bring a lot of change with it, including a possible change of location (?).
I’ve almost kept my commitment to never complain about being busy, despite how much this time of year is a nightmare for everyone, because I am trying to accept that I actually enjoy it and not get trapped in complaining for the sake of it.
Change of location not advised when home looks like this.
What a segway, now on to the topic of today’s post.
The disclaimer I surely don’t need is that I am not at all suggesting you just snap out of feeling depressed or any other mental health issue you might have. I know that is impossible, and I would never tell anyone feeling that way to just ‘think about things differently’, I am not about to tell you to go for a walk to cure your clinical depression. I am lucky enough to not feel that way all the time, but I am also guilty of not always taking good emotional care of myself even when I don’t.
The thing is, although I’m a huge advocate of feeling your feelings, when those feelings become a general mindset that I could do something about (i.e. I’m not suffering mental health-wise I am just being miserable) I have a responsibility to myself to try and be better. At least with the way I talk about things if nothing else, I am so guilty of being drawn into finding something to complain about when my friends are doing it, and the way I talk about and frame things has such an impact on how I feel about them. Incidentally my best friend is my best friend for the very reason that she encourages me to be excited where I could be stressed, to be proud when I could feel defeated, and to embrace being busy where I could be overwhelmed by it. She’s wonderful and I’m very lucky.
I am lucky, not just for that reason but for a million others. 2017 was such a year. Describing it as great doesn’t feel right but it WAS, look at all the things I’ve done and the friends I’ve made and the things I get to do now because of it all. I can’t measure the year by its worst moments because that would be unfair, every year has had its troughs, and 2017 has been no worse than any other in recent memory. How many times have people sent me messages saying ‘looks like you’re having an amazing time’, ‘so jealous of your Instagram posts’ only for me to be like ‘yeah they’re right, this is all pretty great, thanks for reminding me’.
It really is as good as it looks, I have had an absolutely brilliant time.
None of that is manufactured, or put on, and I wouldn’t feel like I could put it on social media if it was. Even the parts that aren’t Instagram-worthy are pretty great, I have friends I can have two-hour phone conversations with, who call me when things are bad and when they’re good, and I just generally love the company of other people. I’m trying not to complain about being busy when I make my life that way because I love it.
The problem is that I don’t hold on to that feeling, and I don’t look at all of that for what it is - a really wonderful collection of people and opportunities which I am so blessed (#blessed) to have. I don’t take the time to think, actually there is so much in this life that you can handle but only because you have such a support network around you. I don’t say ‘actually I couldn’t give a sweet shit about having a lot of things, but having my friends close is something I really care about and have’. I have everything I could ever really need, including the sort of relationship with my parents which allows me to live in their house long-term-temporarily, and it infuriates me that I don’t even enjoy it.
Any google of ‘social media comparison’ and you could read enough think pieces to fill a lifetime on how awful Instagram is and the relative evils of following people on social media. When it comes to body image and Instagram I am a complete advocate, please unfollow people who make you feel bad about yourself, you do not need that in your life. Fuck those beauty standards and fuck that pressure when we’ve all got better things to do and specifically fuck anyone who promotes that revolting ‘diet’ tea.
What I often also find myself doing though, is feeling bad about myself because I’m not a business mogul aged 25, because I’m not giving TED talks on how to build your brand or manage a social media career. I don’t even want any of those things! I don’t want to be an entrepreneur, or a social media personality or have a personal brand. I can barely think of anything worse. I would quite like a podcast and a blog and some articles published sometimes but I also crave a 9-5. I want to go home and do nothing and have a normal schedule and some people don’t want that and that’s fine, but why am I jealous of things I don’t even want?
I wonder if maybe it might be a bit harder to be content with what I have than I expected, and if maybe I’m not surrounding myself with the right people. I should make absolutely clear of course, that I do not insist on everyone around me being happy 24/7, but there is something to be said for surrounding yourself with people who cheer for you and encourage you to remember everything you’ve already got and achieved. That responsibility is on me too, to make sure I don’t take things for granted, and to make sure I don’t make my life a race against milestones that don’t even exist. I want to be able to scroll through social media and enjoy pictures of someone’s gorgeous holiday or fancy work event without using them to beat myself up with.
I don’t want to have to convince myself that ‘no one’s life can possibly be that good’ because that feels like I’m hoping someone has struggles in their lives that I can’t see. I hope it really is that good, and I just want to remember that my life is that good too. Your life is good in its own way and I hope you enjoy it as much as social media looks like you should be, I want to enjoy mine as much as I should be, too.
*****
I’m on Twitter - @clairegillesp - with a festive name but still on lockdown for the foreseeable future. It isn’t the dream but it is a necessary measure so I don’t worry about it every single day.
I’m on Instagram - clairegillesp- where there is more winter and Christmas content on the way.
I just read The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, The Upstairs Room & The Silent Companions - all ghost stories and very befitting of my winter mood. Someone commented I was ‘reading my feelings’ and tbh, yes, and I’m loving it.
xx
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