Struggle Street

It is eleven months until my proposed leaving date for my year of exploration around the world, and, after having worked seven days a week all through the Summer and now six nights a week through winter, I am still somehow in the depths of a rather bulky overdraft. I understand that having a free overdraft is the best loan I'll ever get and that I shouldn't be stressing about it but I just want to be in the black and to be saving towards something. Negative money doesn't spur me on so much, as I am only working to get back to zero at the moment.

People all around me are off doing exciting things, whilst I'm here making very little progress, feeling a little left behind with it all. Tess is in Tanzania, Vicky has moved to Cardiff starting a new chapter of her life, Snakey is living in France,  the man I like is off doing things in Europe.
I am in New Hedges, with a tip stealing boss and a wetsuit with a hole in the ass. There's something enormously saddening about that.

This week I've been thinking about couples. Couples who are ready to commit. Most of my friends (and ex-boyfriends) will know that commitment isn't exactly my forte. Don't get me wrong, I am very loyal, but I get claustrophobic. I get this itchy feeling that I'm in too deep when I'm only just paddling. I crave freedom, I need air.

It's starting to worry me recently, am I destined to be alone? There have been many wonderful men in my life whom I haven't been ready to commit to, despite being attracted to them and trusting them. Is it something learned?

It seems some people jump from relationship to relationship without a second thought. I have no qualms with that, as they all seem very happy, I just have to really take my time before I can even consider belonging to someone. Maybe that's the problem- that I think of it as possession rather than just being happy with someone. Or, more likely, it's a product of a 'broken home' with divorced parents and a mother who is just a little more than wary when it comes to men. It probably doesn't help that both my dad and brother have pretty dodgy fidelity records too.

Either way, I would like to be able to imagine being with anyone for a long period of time. Because, ultimately, I want that for myself. I want to start a family one day with a man I love, in a house with a mortgage and bills and council tax. It's the in between bit that's the problem.

Maybe it's a matter of it becoming part of me without my noticing. Maybe it is a maturity thing. Maybe I need to grow up a little before commitment becomes a breeze.

I suppose all this has come to mind because there's always been one person I've assigned that role of big commitment to. Now it seems less likely that this will happen- life has gotten in the way and time changes things quicker than the wind in winter.

Things don't seem the same as they were even two months ago, and it scares me to think I've been flippant with something of such magnitude. I have always lived thinking what will be will be. It all happens for a reason. Everything that everyone does will all make sense in the end. But now I'm feeling there are such things as grave mistakes and I have started to understand that regret can haunt people for a lifetime. This will make little sense to lots of you, but anonymity often creates a roundabout way of explaining things.

On a lighter note. I have met someone that I enjoy spending time with, who I can have a real giggle with and who makes me feel beautiful first thing in the morning. That's not a bad find I reckon. Although it would be nice if I could pick someone who stays in the country for longer than a month at a time.

That's the irony of things like that I suppose. Something out there is laughing at me for protecting my heart for so long only to open it up for guaranteed instability. I was sadder than expected saying goodbye today. Took myself by surprise.

In other news I got some freelance work recently, I wrote words for this and really enjoyed it:

In the Moment by Garmin from Garmin EMEA on Vimeo.

I now have some press releases locally to write and work in China- doing website content and blogs etc for a company out there. Which is all very lovely, as exciting media-related jobs in Wales seem few and far between and I need to stay here for cheap rent so I can save for my trip.

So if you know of anyone who wants press releases, ad's, PR, portfolio writing, copy writing or any of that lot doing, give me a thought, eh? Struggling writer and all that. Sounds romantic but is really just a bit skanky. Could do with having at least one pair of jeans/trousers this winter. My pins are getting chilly in shorts.

That's all for now,
Jojo xxx

Becoming Feral

Waterwynch has my heart. It is a small beach down the road from my house, you have to do a little off road navigation to get there so it's often empty. I love having it to myself.
Something about it remedies me. The sound of the small waves falling onto the pebbles on a high tide like tonight is just delicious - the crinkling and shuffling of all the stones being jangled around by the water's undercurrent, sucking back with the pull of the moon.

When the tide is out I usually walk to the cave on the right, it's tucked into this tiny bay, snuggled up to the cliffs. I love how the sea looks from inside the cave; the mouth of it opening out onto the powerful light of the water. I like to climb here too. Nothing too ambitious, I just like moving up high and scaling the edges of my favourite place, seeing it from every possible angle.

Tonight it is a light evening. The sun is low, creating a syrupy blanket of soft light on the water and cliffs. The waves are kissing the pebbles right up close to the stone path that leads back up to reality. My body absorbs the views and sounds and textures as much as it can, they settle something inside me.

Whilst I am here I can think.
I don't come here very often any more. Mostly because it feels like a sacred place to me. I rarely bring people here. I'm protective of it. Like it is a part of me. Like if someone comes here the sea will whisper my secrets back with each lulling of the waves. It feels personal here, intimate.

I usually come to Waterwynch when I'm feeling a little low. Today I'm feeling a little lost. The months following the end of university have been fun, I've worked hard at a job I adore. But there has been something else. An underlying itch, a niggle, an undercurrent. It's asking "what next?".

Other people are asking that too. My parents, my grandparents, my friends, and I suppose I have been as well.

But I just don't know the answer. I don't want to go to a job that I don't have a passion for and end up turning grey inside. I don't want the money and the pencil skirts and that sinking feeling when my alarm goes off every morning.
I want to explore, to see the world. I want to explore my abilities as a writer, decide what it is exactly that I want to do, I want to get to know new friends, see new opportunities and paths. And I don't want to jump into something just because it is what people would want or what is expected of me.

If I'm completely honest with myself I know what's keeping me here in a tiny town with little job opportunities, gossip and extortionate drink prices. It's the sea.  I want to be in it. All of the time; preferably on a board but happily just swimming.
It's gotten so under my skin this year. I ache when I'm away from it, it frustrates me if  I can't get to it and it has started to bother me when there aren't waves.

And I know I can't flounce around being romantic about the sea forever, getting more and more feral as my money runs out, but I want that for now (not the feral part). I will be a responsible young adult and make big decisions and pay council tax one day, but I have the rest of my life to be a grown up. So I am going to enjoy being excited about nature for a while. It could be a lot worse. I could be into hard drugs and dangerous men.

And at graduation when everyone is talking about internships and jobs and their new lives I will be proud of my pals and their achievments, knowing I will one day have mine.

That's all for now,
Jojo xxx

Why Do You Always Want More?

Why do some people want stuff, Just STUFF? Like clothes and shoes and rings and bags?

Does it really make anyone happy for a long period of time?

Sure I bought some vans last week and I love them, when they arrived I was excited and happy. But I find with shopping that feeling doesn't last. It's so easy to get sucked into it all. It's so easy to want more. More of these things that have sell by dates. Things that you'll get bored of.

It's like we've become so addicted to getting presents and gestures and money so we start doing it for ourselves.

But how have we earned this 'treat' and, more to the point, why do we need it?

Clothes aren't going to change you as a person. They aren't going to make you any nicer, or prettier or more intelligent. They will only help construct an image. An image that's been sold to you. An image that a group of people in an office somewhere have cleverly created. Then it's marketed to make you feel like you NEED those cherry coloured jeans or that backless dress that, lets be honest, you'll be bored of after you've worn a handful of times.

And we are so fucking stupid because it doesn't MEAN anything. It only helps create obstacles socially. It only ostracises people. And it's we that are to blame. It's YOU that made you not good enough for that guy. YOU helped create these rules of style and beauty and image.

Well what does it mean when you get some guy over someone else in a club. It doesn't mean you are any better, it doesn't make them any worse. It just makes you part of it all. It makes someone else out of reach to you.

When you lie down naked on a bed with someone it's all gone. You are a blank canvas and no amount of layers of make-up or freshly bought attire can hide you any more. You have to face up to who you are eventually and I want to be proud of that.

I buy clothes sometimes. I like to look nice when I go out. But I definitely don't think I have the addiction that so many people I know have. And addiction seems like a crazy-strong word to use but that's what I think it is.

It happens more in cities I think. Where shops are everywhere and the high street becomes a catwalk. Where people check each other out and eye-fuck on escalators.

I don't want to live like that. And yeah, that probably means someone else will get that guy in the club but I'd rather earn attraction because of who I am and not what I've created.

I get that some people are passionate about fashion. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's when it becomes about proving yourself through your outfit that it gets a bit dodgy.

You are enough for anyone in the whole world. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to find someone who loves you. But they are going to fall in love with YOU and not what you're wearing.

Wow. Monster rant.

That's all for now.

Jojo xxx