Tuesday 1 December 2015

Welcome back, Joey



I've been back in Australia for just over two weeks now. It's been really special to be back with old friends, old haunts and the beautiful views and environments that framed my life here. Of course this is to be predicted. But something unusual struck me on that first day when I got to the beach, my jet lag blurring the edges of my focus. It wasn't happiness, or the excitement for the months to come that hit me the hardest, it was a sense of overwhelming relief.  Relief wasn't an emotion I was particularly expecting. But there it was, it's energy firing through my entire being, forcing itself through my veins at a rapid speed, illuminating all the fibres of life that had been lying dormant for the last year. It was a strange feeling to come to terms with, and it made a few decisions for me there and then.

The last year at home has been one of healing. It's been a year of realising that to stay above the surface I have to be paddling relentlessly. In the final few months I really did start to feel like myself again and the year wasn't without it's positives. My oldest friend and I had fallen out of closeness over the last five years, and although we both knew the love was always there, we didn't talk that much and didn't know the intimate goings on of each others lives. Last year that old friend saw me in my struggle to stay afloat and made it her mission to teach me how to swim. It is emotional even now to think about the love and support she unfailingly gave me, when her world was falling apart, when her problems were so much more terrifying than mine. I can never, ever thank her enough for that. She is my unofficial sister and my superhero. The rebuilding of that friendship brought me an immeasurable amount of happiness and gratitude for the life I have.

I did some other fun stuff this year, one of which was spending some time with a couple. I met them on valentines day and we instantly connected, sharing many common interests and the same sarcastic sense of humour. At a time when my heart was still broken it was beautiful to be able to see love in its purest and most perfect form, between two wonderful people. To some people being with a couple might seem to be the worst idea for someone with a broken heart, but in them allowing me into their world, I was able to remember the utter bliss and companionship that love brings. It's like art - looking at it brings you joy and being an observer to their love brought me happiness and reassurance. It gave me hope and I am forever grateful to them both for allowing me to share in all that they are. The den making, the dinners, the fire alarm incident and all the beautiful little things in between that make up a relationship are moments I will treasure forever.

I also made some very special friends, people who I never would have crossed paths with if my life had gone the way I had hoped it would. I am not a believer in fate or 'everything happens for a reason' but I am so happy that the road I took lead me to meet people who have filled my life with happiness and friendship, support and sister-ship. Buppy I love you.

So, I sit here now at an internet shop (hoping the person sat next to me doesn't feel too unnerved by what she sees on my screen) and I ask myself the big question - "What now?".

The answer to me is in the relief, it's in the people who tell me I belong here, it's in the sense of feeling I am home whilst living out of a backpack. It is having tonsillitis and not still not wanting to go back to the UK, even though a cuddle off my Mumma would be wonderful.

I have found home.

I will be returning to Wales at the end of January with a new mission - to save enough money for a student visa, and to hopefully come back in January 2017 to find myself a place and to start my life here again. But as anyone who makes plans will know, plans don't always go the way you..well...planned. And that is something I've learned in recent years -  things change - people and situations and opinions and opportunities change and morph and move, and so do we. So, who knows, something might change that plan, my life might veer wildly in the opposite direction, and that's okay too, because you have to adapt to all of those changes with energy and curiosity. The world is out there and it is wonderful.

All for now,
JoJo 
x

Monday 31 August 2015

I'm 24 and I am still a waitress. Here's why that's okay.






Like many of my friends, I am firmly nestled into my 'mid twenties'. When I was younger I imagined this age to be one of contentment, success and self assurance. I imagined I would have nurtured a passion and be working in that area, feeling my skills were being positively put to use. The reality has been a few years of not knowing what I really want to do with my career, flitting from one idea to another in a matter of days.
I was sure I wanted to be a journalist, I was sure I wanted to work in charity public relations, I was sure I wanted to become an author. Then I was really sure I didn't want to work in an office. So then I was sure I wanted to crew on fishing boats, then I was sure I wanted to crew on super yachts, then I was sure I wanted to go back to Australia. Now I'm sure I still need time to figure it out.

Life in your twenties, for many of us, is a time of comparing ourselves with our peers or old school friends. It's a time of feeling you aren't good enough, assuming the fact that we are living in a job crisis has nothing to do with the fact that we can't get a foot up in our careers. It is a time of parents and grandparents asking you painful questions about your 'plan'. It's a time of thinking you should have a plan, but not having a fucking clue on where that plan begins or ends or what to put in it.

I have worried endlessly about the fact that I am still primarily a waitress. I have cried and ached and beaten myself down about the fact that all of my university friends are moving on in their careers, while I still dream of living on a boat for a year, or building a self sufficient home in the woods somewhere. I am so proud of everyone I know who has worked so hard to build themselves a living, but I can't help feeling my path will never lead to where they are.

Then something weird happened. I went for tea with an old friend, who landed a job straight out of university in a prominent company. Four years on and he has been offered a five year contract and a promotion. I always felt that he might think of me as a floater, an underachiever, a  'lost soul'  (a phrase that regretfully, has been attributed to me a few times recently), but instead, when we got talking about life and catching up on lost time, he told me how he was jealous of my life. How he worried that he wouldn't be able to travel and explore and act on impulse like I can. He spoke of how I had traveled and asked me what I'd learned. He told me of his dreams, and how his amazing career-that he loves, by the way- might get in the way of those dreams.

It was refreshing to find that the person I thought had everything under control in his mid twenties, also felt a little lost, as though he might be missing some incredible adventure by being successful early on. Since then I have relaxed a little, making a conscious effort not to be too hard on myself just because I don't know what I want to do, and don't want to settle for something I'm not sure about.

I should also mention here my housemate and oldest friend. She is unfailingly the biggest advocate for 'just being happy' in my life. She is living proof that letting go of your insecurities and paranoia about what you should be doing, will fulfill you tenfold more than taking the road most traveled. Having her around has been the best thing that could have happened to me this Summer.

I am a person of extremes at times. When I love, I give everything, every last ounce of my being. When I want to do something I will go above and beyond to make it happen. I believe in being passionate, in doing nothing by halves. This time, with a little inspiration from some friends, I'm working on what makes me happy right now. I'm working on keeping the people I love around me, and letting go of those who don't bring me happiness anymore. I'm looking at my options and putting together teeny tiny pieces of my puzzle. And with every little thing I do to enhance my own happiness, with every moment that I brush aside other peoples expectations and my own pressures on myself, I see  the full picture a little more clearly.

Yes, I am still a waitress at 24. Yes I earn minimum wage and sleep in a single bed. Yes I still feel a little lost sometimes. But I'm getting there, and being okay with my less-than-impressive lifestyle makes me happier than I could have hoped.  I can still walk the dog in the woods, I can still swim in the sea- my favourite thing
in the world, I can still camp in a friends van and wake up to the sound of hammering rain on the roof, I can still dance to music and sing as loud as I like, I can still love my family and make my friends laugh, I am still learning every day. When you think about it like that, I'm having a pretty good time in my 'quarter life crisis'.

All for now
JoJo 
x

Monday 15 June 2015

Soul Seers



Some people just penetrate your sense of self immediately. They see, not through you, but deep into you and they leave a little mark, that will always be there, even if they are not.

These people don't come around so often, in my experience. They are few and far between, like a good looking guy who isn't a dickhead. You instantly feel they are a part of you, like they have put a little bit of your puzzle together just by coming into your world. They see through all the pretences and pleasantries, they push past all the defences and the armour, pulling it away like ivy covering a treasure chest. They don't ask permission, no polite request to come in, they are just there - whoosh- all up close and personal.

It's confronting and comforting at the same time. They pull out all your faults and insecurities like a toddler delving in a play-box. But they also pull out your good points, your kindness, your skills, your achievements, they show you your beauty and your strength.

I have a friend like this, her name is Bridget. I hardly know her, in relative terms, we aren't particularly similar, and we also live on opposite sides of the world. She has brought light into the dark for me in some very seemingly-hopeless times. She is my something special. And I recently got to spend 12 days with her in Italy.(What an amazing time we live in, to be able to do that; to be able to travel and see things that a few generations ago might have seemed so out of reach.  Remember to be grateful for that when the world seems like a sack of shit.)

Being with her for that time, day-in, day-out was like having a live-in therapist, but without feeling like the man in the game 'Operation', without feeling like a wet flannel, spreading it's dampness around causing a weird smell for everyone.

It's more this sense of my mind settling, the static becoming a clear picture again, my thoughts linking together in a logical manner rather than acting like drunk moles wiggling around erratically, bumping into each other without so much as an apology.

How is it that someone can see you clearer than yourself? Is there some other-worldly connection? Are they just weird little soul-seeing aliens, sent to earth to unnerve us? Whatever they are, we need them. We need them to show us that these defences and coping mechanisms we've been working on all this time, sometimes subconsciously, aren't doing us any favours. We need them to not only point out how emotionally unstable/unavailable/inept  we are, but that we can fix it.

Bridget has this way of shattering my defences and, whilst I'm falling to my knees, telling me that I'm strong enough to get through it, telling me I'm smart and beautiful and kind and kind of kick-ass too. That I'm stronger than my weaknesses, that I'm taller than my shortfalls.

She acknowledges the torment, the heartache, the  hurt and rejection - sometimes that's what you need the most - for someone to acknowledge what you've withstood. Because you start to question yourself, you persuade yourself that you're weak, that you're no worse off than a toddler with a stubbed toe.

For someone to say 'I have seen your pain, I watched you picking up the shards of yourself from the dusty ground, slicing your hands with every piece you tried to put back together. I have seen what someone else did to you and I am here to tell you that you are strong, that your exhaustion is not a sign of weakness' is such a powerful thing.

You never know how to thank these people aptly. You are forever indebted to them, to their love and support. You thank them and thank them and thank them until they tell you to shut up. You piss them off with your thanking, but you don't know how else to show them what they have meant to you. To your whole self.

So this is my way of extending that thanks a little further. Bridget, you are a mad genius, you are a beautiful mermaid, you are a mysterious creature, you are my angel. I can never repay you for the strength you have lent me. I'm not sure I would have made it out without your love.

All for now,
JoJo
xxx

Tuesday 31 March 2015

Take Me To The Sea, It Knows Me Well



Since being back home I've felt a little colder. Not due to the twenty degree temperature drop, but to my hardened sense of self. I know that this is a product of a somewhat emotionally difficult year, and it unnerves me. It makes me like myself less.

I hate feeling that coldness inside, it's icy touch creeping all over my little heart. I have this feeling that maybe I will never really be the same again, that this is one of those things that happens as you grow up that makes the world seem a little less easy, that makes life seem a little bit more fragile. I have always been resilient, in the sense that I have always been able to see the other side, to know that the other side is inevitable. And I still feel that. I just haven't crested the monstrous hill yet.

The months following my return have been so bloody busy that I have hardly had a single evening to myself. I've crammed my days with work, and my evenings too. I've been running and going to classes and applying for jobs. Recently, due to a project reaching it's climax, I have found myself with more time on my hands. And I've realised that all that busyness was a somewhat calculated plan on my behalf - if I was busy, then I wouldn't have to face what was stirring up inside me. Now I can see that the dark thing that was once an iceberg is still near-freezing water, burning at my insides. And now that I am forced to look at it, I'm scared it will flare up again, spurred on by the cold winds of my focus. I'm scared that it will bring down all the work I have done, piecing myself together.

I have never been so afraid of my own darkness. I have never wanted to run away from something, but I really, really don't want to spend any more time trying to defrost. It exhausts me, it takes my breath from me.

Things in Cardiff are slow, in a hectic, busy way. In an everyone-rushing-about way. I find it harder to meditate here.In an unrewarding way. I find myself checking my phone instead of checking my feelings. I find myself surrounded by consumerism, waves of sales and plastic bags and statement hats.

All I really want is heavy, powerful, pure waves of water rushing and crashing over and around me.

The water and I have this special thing. It's something I think people who have grown up around water share. I went back to Pembrokeshire on the weekend and I took a chilly dip in the icy sea, my swimming costume clinging to my goose-bumped skin, the wind rushing around me, pinking my cheeks. I only swam for a few minutes, but I felt instantly calm. Instantly cleansed. Instantly closer to myself. My soul came home and I was able to see through the fuzzy, white noise that has been plaguing my mind for so long.

I whispered a thank you to the water and got out. I changed and sat in a cave watching the water gently stroke the sand, like a lover stroking a cheek. I was able to think in linear. I was able to stare and I settled within. I was able to get lost in the magic of that enormous being.

My whole body buzzed for hours afterwards, and I remembered how much I needed the sea. How much I was magnetised and hypnotised by it.

I am returning to Pembrokeshire, to the sea, where I can submerge my body in the water, submit my mind to it's power.
Because life just feels better with it by my side.

JoJo 



Sunday 8 February 2015

Why I'm Turning My Back On 'Fate'



I used to think that life was somewhat pre-determined. That if I didn't get the job, it wasn't meant to be. If I lost in love, the right person was yet to be found. If I missed the train, it was beyond my control. 
I thought that things were meant to just fall together, and that you should let the universe do it's thing. Now I'm not so sure. 

Maybe I needed to word my CV better. Maybe that love I lost needed a little more compromise, a little less giving up, a little less defensiveness. Maybe I needed to be organised, then I might be halfway to my destination, rather than sitting in the rain, at a train station saturated with the smell of dehydrated urine. 

Now I'm starting to think you have all the control. Not over death or governments or who someone else falls in love with, but with your own life and your own future. It's easy to be inadvertently defeatist, blaming failures on some sort of cosmic order, when actually you could have done things differently to create a different outcome. If I had been more fierce and independent I would have seen a lot more of the world. If I had been less terrified of love I would have felt a lot more. If I had been more brave I might have given myself more opportunities. But instead I have lived safely, protecting my heart and my pride, putting it all down to 'fate'. 

I now refuse to assume my 'fate' is to be underwhelmed by my life. I refuse to blame 'fate' for my heartbreak. I refuse to hold anyone but myself accountable for where I am and how I feel. If you let someone break your spirit, then you are doing all the hard work for them. 

I didn't want to leave Australia. As I was driven to the airport, I felt this innate feeling that it just wasn't right, that it 'wasn't meant to be like this'. But the truth is, I just didn't play my cards right. No-one else played my hand for me. I had all the control.

Now I am home and I have a new set of cards. I'm going to play this hand right. It's going to be outstanding. 
I have the ability to shape my future. You have the ability to shape yours. It's time we all started working on our masterpieces.

Papa Smurf Knows What's Up
All for now,
JoJo


Friday 2 January 2015

This Year I Made Resolutions


After a month of feeling less than ecstatic about my life back in Wales, I have decided to try and lift myself from the sticky swamp of depression that often follows those who return home. As a result, this year I have made some entirely self-indulgent resolutions.

They are as follows:

1. To have more faith in myself, in every aspect of my life:

I often say that I am a writer, but don't really have the balls or the get-up-and-go to try and make something of it. I write this blog and I write my diary, but other than that, despite a real ambition to write a book, I just settle for where I am, too scared to fail.
I'm going to run further, eat better and push myself physically. There is nothing but laziness to blame for the fact that I do not look like a swimsuit model. I am not basically deformed, I am not physically disabled and I have access to various forms of exercise and good food. I'm fairly active and health conscious, but there is definitely space for improvement.

2. To better accept compliments:

I am often quite self deprecating in response to compliments. I'll often quip back to kind words with some insult to my appearance; if someone says I've got nice eyes, I'll often refer to how they are weak and that I already have wrinkles. If someone says I have nice legs, I'll mention how I haven't shaved them for a month
or how they are bandy, and that my feet are really weird (my feet actually are weird and I do think it adds something to conversations, so maybe I'll keep doing that one. See photo for a LOL).
I don't mean to do it but it's surely having some negative impact on my self-esteem. I should be letting the good vibes in, not batting them away. Someone has gone out of their way to be nice to me and, regardless of whether I agree or not, throwing it back in their face is a completely shitty thing to do.
Similarly, if someone says they like my song, or enjoyed my blog, I'm going to try and accept the compliment rather than picking holes in things. I often reply to these kind of compliments with: 'Oh, I was pretty flat and I can only play about six chords' or 'I find it hard to believe that anyone enjoys reading about me whinging'. The fact is that I put it out there, so I must have some level of satisfaction with what I'm doing. Therefore it's just annoying to shoot nice words down.

3. To learn to love myself again:

There was a time when I was really comfortable with myself, when I didn't have heaps of insecurities, when I could be stupid and weird and not worry what other people thought. There was a resounding, mental 'fuck you' to anyone who looked at me like I was a dickhead.

Dis bitch didn't give a shit
that she was dressed as
King Henry VII
When my last relationship ended, I realised that I had lost some of those  traits. I noticed I was less outgoing and although I was weird inside, I found it a little more intimidating to express it. It wasn't anyone's fault, I had just lost sight of myself. I used to be the first person to jump off a cliff into the sea with reckless abandon, but just a month ago it took me twenty minutes of encouraging to do just that. In that moment I realised I'd lost my gumption. I'd lost my fearlessness, something that I have always been so proud of. So I'm going to work on being a bad-ass again.
I'm going to allow myself treats. I very rarely buy clothes for myself and often feel like I'm living my life as though I'm camping, making do with the bare essentials. And although it's shallow and materialistic, I often wish I could dress nice and present myself in a way that makes me feel good about myself. So instead of telling myself that I don't need anything, this year I'll get myself a new top or a pair of heels once in a while. Because then I will own  a pair of heels.



This is a very self indulgent post, but I think the new year is a time when everyone thinks about themselves that little bit more. It's good to think about ourselves. To assess how we are and who we are. If we are happy or sad, good or bad, a doormat or a stone wall. And although there is no point in striving to the impossible perfection, it is good to keep trying to find a good balance.

This year, don't be a doormat, stand up for what you believe in, be pro-active and  love and respect yourself and those around you. Because if you just do those things, life will be a little nicer for everyone.

All for now, 
JoJo 
x