...and the rest of the week in bed.
I will get on to the exciting part of the week soon but is anyone else completely exhausted? Why is January the first month of our calendar when it is legitimately the worst and most tiring month of all months? What's the deal why did we do this?
Off the back of this feeling I have spent the final three days of the week largely stationed in bed with one venture out to be stationed in a friend's house for dinner. Not so for the first half of the week however...
What can I say there was a Eurostar sale so I was reunited with my Paris partner in crime and we basically did Paris 2017 2.0. We saw all of the things we'd tried to see last time but didn't have time/they weren't open because Monday is a completely pointless day to spend in Paris. This includes a very cute raw vegan cafe called Raw Cakes which we failed to visit after we failed to want to wait for two hours to get into the Catacombs (Paris is a city of failed attempts for us and most people I think). This time we did both of those things, the Catacombs are a longtime love of mine because they were featured in a truly terrible horror film called As Above So Below but ever since I saw it they have been a firm bucket-list item.
It's just lots of skulls and bones arranged into walls but I bloody loved it.
We went to museums and ordered food in every evening and what else could anyone want from a mini-break really? I have revised down my dream of living there largely because everything is so expensive and also because I would end up existing only on vegetables and eggs which is not the life I want for myself. Also because it is cold and after spending so long in very hot places I'm now pretty certain I would only permanently relocate somewhere if it was objectively warm for nine months of the year or more. Paris is very beautiful in the winter but I am grumpy when I am cold so unfortunately it remains a holiday destination and nothing more.
London was a different set up all together because I am lucky enough to know many people who live there and who will have me in their homes and rush out on their lunch breaks to meet me, it was a whirlwind largely because of tube and bus delays which meant I spent a lot of time looking stressed on public transport and fixing my hair and makeup in public toilets. I don't live there but I feel this is a large part of the experience of people who do, and in that sense, I feel well-prepared for any living I may do there in the future.
I had so many more conversations about resolutions and making and not making them, in truth although I wrote a post about things I'd like to do more of I feel like maybe the best one would to make this a no pressure year. 2017 was a lot of pressure for a lot of reasons and some of those things came to fruition and some didn't, but they certainly didn't seem to yield results based on how much energy I expended on them.
Working hard is important but so am I, and I don't need to excessively push myself in any area of my life to get what I want, I have good friends who don't drain me and a family who supports me and I mostly have my health and enough money to live. I want to push myself in ways that feel exciting and make me happy and not because I think everything will fall apart if I don't. I don't want to bend over backwards for anyone or anything, and I want to get better and making decisions based on what I don't want as much as what I do.
This isn't to say I don't need to try, I've just scaled down the things I want and need and also decided against trying to achieve everything possible by the age of 30, because if every year was like last year I probably won't make it to 30 anyway, at least not with a full head of hair. I could resolve to stop stressing about things I can't change, maybe too big, but maybe I should stop complaining about them instead. Once I can't verbalise something I find it much easier to push it to one side and move on from it, so that would be a good place to start.
Maybe nothing needs to be better, I could just leave myself alone to age and change normally, you know, without trying to document my every thought and feeling and constantly psychoanalyse myself. Now that would be nice.
Whatever they are, they will be starting in February because I'm already over January and its seeming endlessness. Here's to a quiet January filled with a lot of food, tea, hot baths and slow weekends writing from my bed. Here's to a January that ends as quickly as it arrives, and to an all-guns-blazing rest of the year.
*****
I'm on Instagram - clairegillesp - where there are pictures of Paris a-plenty, and also a very nice purple mohair M&S jumper.
I'm listening to Romesh Ranganathan's Hip Hop Saved My Life, I realise I am very late to this party but in case you haven't heard it then please do. I am also forever loving The High Low and I just finished reading Joe Sacco's The Fixer which became my first book is 2018.
xx
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