The One Where... I am on a Mission

Ladies and gentleman of the Internet.  
Today is an auspicious day!
Today is my 32nd birthday!  
At approximately 7am on the 22nd of August 1981 in Yeovil hospital my parents greeted me in to the world.  Possibly a little disappointed that I wasn't a boy, but hey, what they got was even better right!?!

This birthday is a life changer, or so it feels.  I am literally starting this new year with a blank slate.  I have very few ties, no mortgage, no boyfriend, no job.  It means that I can start the next 365 days of my life afresh and maybe make something new and exciting with it.  Well that is what I am telling myself anyway.

So to help me make the most of the next year I have written myself a todo list.
My challenge should I choose to accept it is to complete (or at least try to complete) each of these things over the coming year.  So without to much of an ado, I present.....

32 Things to Do at 32

Work
1. Get a job
2. Do some freelance work
3. Get business cards printed
4. Create my own (business) website
5. Get something I have written 'published' (either in print or online)

Health and Fitness
6. Eat a Vegetarian diet at least twice a week
7. Aim to exercise at least twice a week
8. Finally drop that dress size I have been trying to do for the last 3 years
9. Limit takeaway food to once per month
10. Run the race for life, and beat this years time

Life
11. Develop a love life (Date, meet people, flirt)
12. Go on a proper holiday
13. Volunteer/get involved in a cause I believe in
14. Pass my driving test
15. Start properly saving

Things to do
16. Visit my friends across the country
17. Go to a sports game
18. Dye my hair
19. Go to a convention
20. Write more

Fun Stuff
21. Develop a hobby, something I will do regularly
22. Go to the cinema more regularly
23. Go to the theatre more
24. Get more involved in online communities
25. Get a Tattoo

Things to complete
26. Watch all of the BFI Top 50 films of all time http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/50-greatest-films-all-time
27. Read all of the BBC Big Read top 100 books http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
28. Listen to all of the Guardians top 50 albums that changed music http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/jul/16/popandrock.shopping
29. Watch all of the season of The Wire

Things to buy
30. Get a bicycle

The most important things to do
31. Finish writing my bloody book
32. End my 32nd year happier than my 31st

So that's my list.  Seems a bit daunting now they are typed up and numbered, rather than being vague ideas flailing about in my head.... Oh gosh.

Wish me luck!  I am determined that 32 is going to be my best year yet.

The One Where... I Talk About the Birthday Blues

They happen every year.  You know they are coming. So why does it that when my birthday clicks around it takes me by surprise?

I am not talking about good, "Oh you have bought me a brand new Chanel lipstick!" type of surprise, I am talking about "Oh my f#%&ing god you've got a me a giant clown mask!" type of surprise.

I have never been a big birthday celebrator.  I had the fortune (or misfortune whichever way you want to look at it) to be born in August, during the school summer holidays. When it was time for me to have birthday parties most of my friends were on holiday so that whole cake and magician thing didn't really happen for me.  As I got older and the big birthdays hit, yes I did stuff, but frankly I wanted to be hands off as possible, if someone else could do the heavy lifting, awesome.  If I had to arrange a birthday thing for myself?  Yeah I chose to stay in eat pizza and feel resentful that no one wanted to do something for my birthday.

Since hitting 27, when the 22nd of July, exactly a month before my birthday, rolls around I have a tendency to freak out a bit.  It’s not the ageing thing that bothers me, not really, I mean, I look great for my age (I really do, I easily pass for 26). It’s no matter how unhealthy I know it is, I end up comparing myself to my peer group.  Despite what great things might be going on with my life, and despite how I may really enjoy my life at any other point in the year, just before my birthday I freak out, and do it big.  I worry that I do not have anything to show for my life up to this point, I worry that my peers look down on me, I worry that I will end up being a lonely old woman with nothing to show for her life.

There is usually quite a bit of sobbing, not crying, all out, body aching sobbing. 

There is usually a lot of eating, binges of epic proportions, eating things that I would never usually consider food (horrible processed and chemical ridden foods that when you check the ingredients there is not one pronounceable word there). 

There is screaming and shouting, it's kind of like when I get irrationally angry when I have PMT, only worse and not confined to a couple of days a month. 

There is a lot of alone time, where in the privacy of my own bedroom I actively encourage my mind to go to dark places (would anyone come to my funeral if I died?  Who would look after me if I had a terminal illness?). 

This birthday is harder than most.  I am turning 32, this is not an appealing age.  I have just lost my job, not a joyous event.  I am still single, with not a lot of prospects.  I still live with house mates, with no real prospects of owning a home.

This birthday however, surprisingly, I am not having my usual freak out.  To date, with a week to go, there has been no sobbing, no screaming, no eating marathons, no movie marathons, no locking myself away.  Despite it being an all round shitty birthday, I feel the most positive I have ever felt about getting a year older. 

I have spent the last two weeks, going out and drinking and dancing with friends. Although the hangovers (not necessarily booze, but general late nights and lots of dancing, man my knees are killing me) are not getting any easier and my bank balance has taken a little bit of a battering, it has been the most fun two weeks I have had in a very long time. 

With all of the stress in my life I have really needed to blow off some steam before I get back to hard reality of job hunting.  The old adage of all work and no play? Yeah that's totally been my life for a while.  The focus on the crap caused me to forget that I work to live, not live to work. 

I am not quite sure what has happened, because something has definitely has, but I feel different.  Yes I still have hang ups when I compare my life with others.  Yes I am still worried I am doing to die alone and not be found until one of the neighbours complains of a weird smell.  I am approaching the forthcoming year with more optimism and hope than I have had in a long time, yeah some of my freaky thoughts scare the shit out of me, but they are just thoughts, not reality.

I guess I am becoming wiser with age, or is it, that in my perpetually hungover state, I don't have the brain power to focus on the negative so much? 

Either way I want to pass on some of the life lessons I have learnt this past year.

1.    Why care what a complete stranger thinks of you?  Is your life anything to do with them?  Don't worry about judgement from people who don't matter

2.    If you feel attractive, don't let anyone else convince you otherwise.

3.    If you don't feel attractive, look in the mirror, man you are hot, what were you thinking!

4.    You can love your friends as much if not more than any romantic partner

5.    You can't measure your life with material things.  Experiences, fun, laughter, love those are the things that make a life.

6.    If you can't change it, why stress about it?  Focus on the stuff you can influence.

7.    Most of the best things in life cost nothing

8.    Sometimes putting some lipstick on and facing the world is the best solution when all you want to do is hide.

9.    If your friends make you feel bad about yourself, they aren't really your friends…unless you have been a total douchbag, in which case that is their job

10. Flat shoes are almost always the best option, don't drink on an empty stomach, drink a pint of water before you go to bed, always take your makeup off before you crash and fluorescent paint is a pain in the arse to remove.

The One Where… I talk about being a grown up woman

That's me in the pink.  Man I was cute.

When I was a girl I couldn’t wait to grow up and be a woman.  I wanted to go out with my friends, meet handsome men, and wear glamorous clothes and red lipstick. 

I watched Ally McBeal hoping that my grown up life would be as zany, glamorous and successful.  Surrounded my hot men, taken on fabulous dates, going to fabulous locations, being serenaded by Robert Downey Jr…..Oh Robert *looks off wistfully in to space*

Oh 16 year old self how wrong you were.  The reality of being a grown up is a bit different, and mildly boring.  Although some of us women in the world are blessed with glamorous, creative and fun work environments not all of us are that lucky. 

There is mundane bureaucracy, office politics, bitchy colleagues, working late for no overtime (or recognition). 

There’s housework, broken down appliances, ailing parents, recession, redundancy, credit card bills, funerals, biological clocks, misogynists and the glass ceiling.

The glamour and romance of your imaginings is often fleeting and overwhelmed by the mundanity of everyday life.  Men are not going to serenade you.  Robert Downey Jr is not going to know that you exist.

But oh 16 year old self, lets not say that everything about being a woman is bad.  I feel waaay more confident about myself.  OK I’m short, fat, and incredibly short sighted.  But man I make this shit look hot.  Yeah I like to look nice and am perpetually on a diet, but I am the most comfortable with who I am and what I look like, imperfections and all, than I have been ever.  All of the neurotic Ally McBeal shit?  Nope, I am freaking awesome.

There are cocktail hours, babies, the ability to question expectations, high heels, the opportunity to make your own choices, to break barriers, and men with beards.

There are beer festivals, scary movies, weddings, christenings, and parties, learning to cook, choosing your friends, staying up late, and discovering yourself.

I love being a woman, but bloody hell it is hard sometimes.

Would I want to be a man?

Well…. I could pee standing up.  I wouldn’t be judged for not wearing makeup.  Prospective employers wouldn’t ask for little hints about my personal life to see if I was planning to get up the duff.  I could do my hair in less than 5 minutes.  I could like the stuff I like with out people being surprised (“Star Wars? Really?”).

No.  I wouldn’t want to be a guy.  Regardless of all of the societal, social and personal pressures you are put under by having an innie rather than having an outie, being a girl is great.  In fact it is bloody fantastic.

16 year old self, keep having those fantasies because even though real life isn’t always as glamorous as you think it might be, in so many respects it s even better than you imagined.

The One Where... I Return from the Dead

Hello Internet, I've missed you.

So I haven't blogged in a very long time.  A very long time indeed.

I stopped because I had some stuff going on in life and with all of the crump, blogging went by the wayside.  But because I wasn't blogging lots of other stuff ended up there too.  Without the accountability of someone else checking me I fell unceremoniously off the WeightWatchers wagon. Without the ability to vent out in to the depths of the Internet I became very closed off and kept my problems to myself.

OK I know I do not run a popular blog, yes I know people don't actually read it, but it just knowing someone 'could' seriously helped. In lots of ways.

I have had another big change in my life and I have realised that blogging/writing is something I need to do for my piece of mind.  So I am not making any promises, I have done that before, but I am going to try really hard to get back on the blogging wagon again.

I am going to make a few changes and updates to my page, so mysterious reader (I am pretty sure there is only one of you) keep an eye out and I will be back.