Mind Over Matter

I'm sat back in the familiar surroundings of my bedroom in London, cuppa at hand and a mass of clothes and bags strewn across my floor. I'm not great at unpacking. In fact, in the corner of my room there is a dusty suitcase still clutching onto the last few bits and pieces from my trip to Los Angeles back in JUNE, so "not great" is actually an understatement and "fucking terrible" would probably be more fitting.

If you read my last post, you'll know I took a little break to visit family last week, after feeling a bit overwhelmed by life, although I'm quite unsure as to whether I was overwhelmed or underwhelmed. Either way, after four months of being apart from my family, I knew it would do me some good to catch up and relax.

It is the strangest feeling coming home. Each time I get off the train and into my parents car, to drive through my hometown to the house I grew up in all my life,  it feels more and more peculiar. Everything is the same. I can explain to you where every road leads to and tell you who works where and how long it will take to get from A - B. I can tell you all about the familiarity. It's a little soothing, you know, like home comforts. But I can also tell you all about how my stomach feels like it is doing a thousand backflips at the same time. This is the norm. Each time I come home, I feel a little more alien, continuously and rapidly changing whilst my hometown stays the same.

I spent the week catching up with good friends, laughing, road tripping and just being. I played guitar, shamelessly danced drunkenly to fifties swing music, had a heart to heart with a girlfriend at 3 in the morning trying to figure it all out. Those are my favourite type of conversations. I will take an hour long deep vulnerable conversation over a week of small talk any day. When you've had a little too much to drink and it all comes out and that other person really fucking gets it.  Those moments are golden.

Perhaps my point here is that you have every right to feel not okay sometimes, even when you feel like there isn't anything to make you feel that way. We are all just human, you know? You just have to make damn sure it doesn't get the best of you.

On my return to London I ended up being booked for several shoots over the next few weeks including a modelling job (yikes - it's been a while!) and a 3 day job in Greece! I am so pleased that I am traveling more with my career and it seems that these things always fall more so into place when I'm feeling doubtful. My painstakingly positive mental attitude and attention to mindfulness is key. It's good to be back, London, show me your best.

The Not So Great Escape

Standing at London Bridge station, with my backpack filled with little more than my diary, notepad, wallet and a few hair grips rustling around at the bottom, I wanted out. The anxiety in my chest rippling up to the back of my throat. I stand so still and close my eyes whilst the workers and the commuters flit around me, they know where they are going, which is more than I can say for myself.

"Go home" I tell myself. "Just go home girl."

I am not a good decision maker. I mostly try to go with my gut on a lot of things. I knew what I wanted to do, but I worry a lot. My decision was a slight cop out, whichever tube arrived first would determine my route. Northbound taking me to Waterloo and inevitability to my hometown in Somerset, southbound taking me back to my own place  in South East London. At least that way I can call it fate, right? 

I stood there with my eyes still closed and wondered how I had let myself get so caught up. Striving for peace of mind is a funny thing. I try too hard with it all. I throw myself into work, into learning new things, into socialising. Keep busy, don't let life pass you by and all that. I want to be open to every single opportunity humanly possible. I want to inspire people an awful lot. But all I can do is be who I am, and I am always striving to be a better me. 

It is this enormous unnecessary pressure that I have bestowed upon myself that gets the best of me, and suddenly a getaway sounds more and more appealing, to become a renegade in my absence. My heart fell a little when the southbound tube came screeching in to a halt, but it had won, and so true to my word back to Etta street I went. London had me still for a little while. 

I met my sister the next day, we went to the Tate Modern in the heart of London, and sat ourselves down on the floor in an empty corner. We weren't here to take in the art, we didn't come to be tourists. We sat in our empty space and talked, talked until it felt okay again. Sometimes when you exhaust yourself with overthinking, you don't leave any energy to do it anymore, and you end up with a somewhat relieving feeling of nothingness. Numb. You just let yourself be. That's the point when you can pick yourself up and say "fuck this". 

I knew what I needed. With my new found clarity, it was time to make time for myself. My train is booked this time. I'm coming home.