Reasons to be cheerful.
Lots really. Have decided to get over myself and just roll with it. No, actually, not 'roll with it' - rather, make a concerted effort to enjoy life and be grateful for the good.
To this end, I have made that gigantic and terrifying leap from SMOKER to NON SMOKER. We love this.
I definately have more energy, though I do feel dizzy a lot of the time too, and vague. Not eating a grotesque amount of food though, so this is good. Allan Carr is the man. Not sure if I believe everything he says but I just went with it.
I had a sort of ephinany last week during my lunch break. I was sitting on a bench outside Asda, smoking a fag (I know, classy) and I looked at myself and it wasn't pretty. This was not the way it was supposed to be - there was concrete, newspapers and rubbish flying about - there was a tree, a big one, a plane I think, but it had been butchered so it looked like an amputee victim - at it's base, some moron, presumably from the local council had concreted it in and I spent the whole time wondering how on earth this poor tree got anything to drink. Then I started thinking that I was like that tree. Rooted to the spot and suffocating myself. It wasn't a happy comparison.
So anyway, I did it. Just stopped the following day while reading the Allan Carr book. I know this is going to make me sound deluded, because it's only been a few days, but I feel younger, and more than that, I think I look healthier- my skin is brighter. I am happier, definately.
I felt that some sort of reward was in order so a pair of perfect silver earrings have been purchased in celebration and I'm wearing them every day. They were £20 and I know that I shouldn't have, but what the hell they made me really happy. They are divinely chunky little hoops, with a tiny fat heart hanging off them (I've made them sound horribly tacky - they are actually very sweet).
Going back to my list of things to make my life better too - I now have two bags of herb seeds. I haven't planted them yet, but I've looked at them a lot and thought about it. This is progress.
Life is moving forward. Baby steps. There's going to be some writing too. Book Three, Screenplay. It's going to happen. And soon.
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Friday 5 March 2010
My world, I've realised, has divided into two camps. Those that go to Boden house sales, and those that spend the day in the police station.
I've spent a few years with my toe (only my toe) in the first camp - a kind of swarm of highlights-shearling coats-handbags-silver bracelets and rah rah privilege. Now I'm definately in the second.
In the second camp, life isn't quite like that. In the second camp, things happen to you, and I don't just mean a bad haircut or the intolerable irritation of Waitrose not stocking something that you need. My friend, for example, I'll call her Anna. We've been great mates for years. She's a single mother too and has been for 5 years now, so she's hardcore Camp B, so to speak.
Lately, I've noticed that we seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time bitching about those in Camp A - which is a real shame because we both have lovely friends who hang out there the whole time. Some of the time I'll admit it's just jealousy, because everything is so easy and problems just have money thrown at them until they disappear. At other times, it's their lack of comprehension, the unhelpful things they say. I pointed this out to Anna the other night while we were chatting on the phone. 'What's happening to us?' I said, 'we're becoming complete bitches, and so bitter - it's incredibly unattractive.' Anna was having none of this. 'You know what it is,' she said, 'You get tough, you have to, it's the only way to survive.'
God knows, Anna needs to be tough because last night at exactly 2.17am, something woke her up suddenly. 'There was that moment,' she told me, 'when you know that something is happening,' something has roused you from sleep but you don't know what it is.' And then she heard it again - the sound of breaking glass - impossibly loud, like someone lobbing windows into a skip. Only it wasn't a skip, it was some nutcase breaking into her house. There she was, all on her own, utterly and completely responsible for the protection and safety of her four children. And it's moments like that when you know you're in Camp B. Because in Camp A, firstly, the security company would have arrived with a SWAT team by the time the first brick touched the window, and secondly the husband, even if he is some bumbling patsie who couldn't fight his way out of the FT, would, inevitably be the one to dispatched downstairs to ward off the psychopath with the baseball bat. In Camp B however, you're at the sharp end. It's just you baby.
As it turns out, he fled, thank god. Leaving Anna to calm her children, call the police, clear up all the glass off the sink, the counter and the floor, wait for the police to arrive, stay up all night, call the office to say she wouldn't be in, call the insurance company, call the glazier, be interviewed by the police, wait for the glazier to arrive, have to go the police station to identify the suspect in a line up, etc etc.
A mutual girlfriend from Camp A heard about all this and called her to see if she was ok, which was sweet, it really was. Except that she texted Anna later in the day 'Anna, forgot to say earlier, but there's a Boden sale in my road - they've got some lovely things!'
I've spent a few years with my toe (only my toe) in the first camp - a kind of swarm of highlights-shearling coats-handbags-silver bracelets and rah rah privilege. Now I'm definately in the second.
In the second camp, life isn't quite like that. In the second camp, things happen to you, and I don't just mean a bad haircut or the intolerable irritation of Waitrose not stocking something that you need. My friend, for example, I'll call her Anna. We've been great mates for years. She's a single mother too and has been for 5 years now, so she's hardcore Camp B, so to speak.
Lately, I've noticed that we seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time bitching about those in Camp A - which is a real shame because we both have lovely friends who hang out there the whole time. Some of the time I'll admit it's just jealousy, because everything is so easy and problems just have money thrown at them until they disappear. At other times, it's their lack of comprehension, the unhelpful things they say. I pointed this out to Anna the other night while we were chatting on the phone. 'What's happening to us?' I said, 'we're becoming complete bitches, and so bitter - it's incredibly unattractive.' Anna was having none of this. 'You know what it is,' she said, 'You get tough, you have to, it's the only way to survive.'
God knows, Anna needs to be tough because last night at exactly 2.17am, something woke her up suddenly. 'There was that moment,' she told me, 'when you know that something is happening,' something has roused you from sleep but you don't know what it is.' And then she heard it again - the sound of breaking glass - impossibly loud, like someone lobbing windows into a skip. Only it wasn't a skip, it was some nutcase breaking into her house. There she was, all on her own, utterly and completely responsible for the protection and safety of her four children. And it's moments like that when you know you're in Camp B. Because in Camp A, firstly, the security company would have arrived with a SWAT team by the time the first brick touched the window, and secondly the husband, even if he is some bumbling patsie who couldn't fight his way out of the FT, would, inevitably be the one to dispatched downstairs to ward off the psychopath with the baseball bat. In Camp B however, you're at the sharp end. It's just you baby.
As it turns out, he fled, thank god. Leaving Anna to calm her children, call the police, clear up all the glass off the sink, the counter and the floor, wait for the police to arrive, stay up all night, call the office to say she wouldn't be in, call the insurance company, call the glazier, be interviewed by the police, wait for the glazier to arrive, have to go the police station to identify the suspect in a line up, etc etc.
A mutual girlfriend from Camp A heard about all this and called her to see if she was ok, which was sweet, it really was. Except that she texted Anna later in the day 'Anna, forgot to say earlier, but there's a Boden sale in my road - they've got some lovely things!'
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