Four times a bridesmaid...

In my opinion there are certain things you believe in when you are a little person that you don't when you grow up;
Santa, The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny etc
And for me, on that list, was the idea of weddings as a symbol of love.
Sure, I thought it was true when I was little, in fact I thought they were amazing because I got given a new dress to wear to my 1st wedding which was my cousin Ian's wedding!
It was purple with black spots and had matching socks.
Oh yes, back in the days/age when wearing socks with dresses wasn't retro it was normal!
I loved this dress, I loved the big celebration, I loved seeing my cousin's wife look like an angel, I loved being spun round the dancefloor by my uncle and I loved my first sip of babycham too!
I had a fabulous time and I wanted one of these weddings one day.
Then about a week later Ian left his new bride for another woman.
It was worse than realising the sound of Santa coming down your chimney is actually your dad retrieving presents from the loft.
Ok, maybe it was a one off, I wasn't about to give up on the idea totally just because I had one dumb cousin...I didn't know then but it would turn out I would have quite a few more...
The first time I was asked to be bridesmaid was another cousin's wedding.
She had 8 bridesmaids and put 4 of them in Lemon and 4 in Navy Blue.
You can guess what colour I was in can't you?
Yep...Lemon.
The dress was particularly puffy (as was my hair in those days) so I basically looked a cupcake all day.
I did enjoy the champagne this time - a privelege I was not legally old enough to have which added even more so to the joy of the day.
I found out later that my cousin had walked in on her groom in bed with her mother the night before the wedding and had married him anyway.
I guess my aunt was the only person who actually had a dilemma when asked what side she was on - the bride's or groom's!
I didn't feel quite so bad about looking like a cupcake...
Turns out there are worse things in life!

A couple of years later two of my cousins chose to get married in the same summer.
Until this point in my life I didn't know what true bitchiness was.
The first wedding was a cousin who is beautiful and kind spirited and had for many years been in love with a guy in the army who she hardly ever saw.
She had decided to get married rather suddenly whereas my other cousin had been planning hers for ages.
So the claws came out...
And this was not just Bride wars this was Mother-of-the-Bride Outfit wars, Father-of-the-Bride Speech wars, Cake Making wars, Seating plan wars, First Dance wars...
It was actually the loveliest wedding I had attended but was overshadowed by family members of all shapes and sizes bringing out the worst in each other.
To her credit the bride seemed not to care about the wars breaking out all around her one little bit.
I just thought it was a shame that a day full of love could be ruined by jealousy.
A while later I found out that the wedding was rushed because my cousin had gotten pregnant.
When I say her fella was away a lot, I mean he was away a lot and was to be away a whole lot more after this.
To this day my cousin has never said who the real father of her child is but it certainly explained why she could care less about the bridal bitching that day!

The wedding that was later that same summer, is actually my favourite bad wedding story so far.
It was the 2nd time I was asked to be a bridesmaid and I couldn't think of a good enough excuse to get out of it.
This time I was dressed in emerald green it wasn't quite as humiliating as the lemon coloured dress till my cousin's hairdresser decided I would wear a hairband.
This was the wrong side of the 1990's for hairbands but no one had told her!
Around the same time I had decided to stay on to college and university at the end of school and, as I was the only one of all my cousins to do this, I was literally the black sheep of the family.
A few of my cousins congratulated me and were genuinely chuffed for me but most of them decided not to talk to me.
So I literally had my hair and make up done for the wedding in silence.
Turns out the only thing worse than wearing a hair band is having it literally pushed onto your head while your cousins give you the silent treatment...

And so to the wedding...

The way these guys had bitched about the wedding earlier that same summer meant I was expecting a lot and to be fair nothing was left untouched with this one.
We drove to the wedding in a limo, I helped myself to the champagne in the back while everyone fussed over the bride.
The reception area was stunning, I helped myself to the champagne while everyone chatted.
The photographer was exceptionally talented, I helped myself to the champagne whilst waiting to be called for photos.
The wedding was ultra-traditional, they even had chimney sweeps at the church. And they did the traditional line up where you go along and shake everyone's hands.
My mum said she couldn't shake the groom's hand and I was quite drunk at this point and just wanted to sit down so we slipped into the main room without going along the line.
I asked my mum why she didn't want to shake his hand and she told me to ask one of my cousin's.
I was quite merry at this point so it took a while for the penny to drop but when it did it was a clanger...
That same cousin had confided to me on the hen party that she was sleeping with a man who was engaged.
Well, turns out she was now sleeping with a man who was married - to her own cousin no less!

All of a sudden I wasn't nearly drunk enough for this so I sloped off to the bar unnoticed. In the brief interlude between the line up and being announced into the room the groom had gone to the bar too.
He didn't notice me stand behind him at the bar.
He certainly didn't notice me see him take down the phone number of the woman behind the bar.
I'm not surprised my mum didn't want to shake his hand, she had no idea where it had been!
I got my drink and sat back down.
But I wasn't sat with my mum and my brother.
I was sat with all the other bridesmaids so I made sure I drank plenty more to cope with the silent treatment again.

I looked round the table.
I was sat opposite the cousin who's groom had slept with her mother and next to the cousin who was sleeping with today's groom.
When the best man got up to make his speech he said he didn't know of a happier couple than the bride and groom and I am ashamed to say that I burst out laughing.
The champagne had helped me decide that I couldn't take much more hypocrisy.
But even if I didn't like the way my cousin bitched about the earlier wedding and even though I didn't like the groom I had no right to ruin that moment for all the other family and friends who were none the wiser.
I think my brother took me home very shortly after the speeches and I'm pretty sure we had a great night getting drunk at home.
But the next day my aunt said she would never speak to my mum again because she didn't shake hands in the line up.
My mum was ostracised from her own family for having standards.
Needless to say most of my cousins didn't speak to me after the laughing incident either but they weren't exactly speaking to me before it anyway so I didn't feel a sense of great loss.

I have been to other weddings since and most of them have been much more joyous.
My dad's was, I'm not going to lie, quite a difficult occasion.
Not one I feel I can speak about much on here but one where I learned a very important lesson that, as a writer, you have to be able to stand by your words as much as you would stand by the members of your family.

My brother's was particularly fun, even though it was the day after my university leaver's ball I loved every minute of it!
I was bridesmaid again and for once the dress was gorgeous and I had a great time.
My mum's was ace too, she got married the day before I went travelling around the world just so I wouldn't be away when she did it.
I was bridesmaid again, it was a gorgeous dress again and instead of having a table plan my mum had one big table that everyone sat around.
And this huge table had more wine on it than I had ever seen before and, yes I drank a lot and yes, I laughed a lot, but this time in the right places and for the right reasons.
I set off round the world with a huge hangover and very aware that having been a bridesmaid 4 times that I was very unlikely to ever be a bride.
But that kind of suited me.

At this point I could concede that maybe weddings weren't all bad, but only if other people could concede that they weren't all good either.
That they don't paper over the cracks in a relationship, that they don't stop the truth being found out, that they don't make up for something else that is missing in your life and certainly the more you spend on them doesn't mean the more succesful your marriage will be.

It's been 7 years, almost to the day, since I set off travelling and in all that time I have happily held the view that weddings are great, they're just not for me...until now.

I recently went to a wedding that I knew would be the exact opposite of all my horror stories.
I knew it would be a room full of fabulous, wonderful people who were genuinely filled with love and excitement for the happy couple.
The reason being that the couple are two of the nicest, kindest, most wonderful people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.
You can't choose your family but you can choose your friends and I don't know how I was lucky enough to get the chance to choose these guys.
I knew their wedding would be all of these genuinely amazing things, but I just didn't know it would affect me so much.
It was only the 2nd time in my life that I thought 'I want one of these'.

Don't worry, I think the feeling will wear off...
I still have too many objections but it definately chinked the armour.

When I told one of the many very nice men I happened to chat to at this wedding that I didn't want a wedding myself he told me that it was as selfish to not want one as it was to want one.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with him but it certainly makes life interesting to look at things a different way...

I grew up believing in weddings until I found out they weren't real.
But I spent so long after that not believing in them that it feels strange to find out now that maybe they might be more real than I was ever able to give them credit for.
It's strange, it's a little bit like someone telling you they still stay up on christmas eve to see Santa or that they still find money when leave their tooth under their pillow.
You're not sure you would do the same but you can't help admire their conviction either...

According to the saying being a bridesmaid 3 times means I will automatically be ruled out of ever being a bride.
A week ago I was perfectly happy to be living proof of an age old cliche.
And maybe I never will be anyone's bride.
But right now, I'm not sure I'm going to let someone else's cliche decide for me.
Why should nice weddings automatically mean a girl should want one?
Why should bad weddings automatically mean a girl shouldn't?

Anyway...sod the cliche I've actually been a bridesmaid four times, what does that mean?
Maybe it means I get a bit longer than most people to work out what I believe in.
It's much easier to believe in that which you can see than that which you can't.
Maybe that's why my cousins wanted weddings so badly, perhaps they wanted to prove something existed that actually didn't.
In my opinion weddings are for couples that are truly in love but they are overused by couples that aren't.
And so a word to the wise; when true love exists you don't need to prove it (and that perhaps is when you enjoy it most).
And you certainly don't need dresses that make people look like cupcakes.

One more for the road...

I've noticed since I finished my MA that the 2 years of studying, struggling, staying in, non-socialising, watching, analysing, questioning, creating and generally tearing my hair out has, if nothing else, given me 2 wonderful things...

1) is the confidence to say - out loud and to other people - that I write.
Ok so I'm not a writer yet and I certainly am not a paid writer but I spend my time writing and I am not ashamed to admit that's what I do, in fact I am proud that it's what I am incredibly passionate about and not only shapes the way I look at the world, it shapes who I am and what I want in this world.

2) is a fairly decent drinking habit.
I am not denying that I used to drink a lot pre MA, I just didn't need it quite as much as I do now.
I love to come home and have a drink while I soak in a brilliant piece of TV writing or go to the theatre and have a drink, or to go out with friends and drink...it's become less about binge drinking my way through my weekends which my former self used to do and more about having a drink with most things I do...I'm not sure which is healthier to be honest!

There's no doubt that writers have a reputation for being the first one to suggest going for a drink and the last ones to prop up the bar too and that got me thinking about why writers drink so much, what's in that last mouthful/last glass/last bottle that we crave?

Maybe it's because no matter how eccentric we are we are also social creatures who love to tell stories and it's in our social DNA that alcohol and stories mix well, why else does most of the population have a night in front of the TV or DVD with a bottle of wine, or do they bear to hold the obligatory plastic glasses at theatres?

Maybe it's about gaining access to the unconscious certainly the only time I cry these days is when i'm either a) drunk or b) writing an emotionally charged scene.

Maybe it's because we're constantly stressed, not stressed like I've experienced before in management jobs but stressed because we're trying to birth our creative babies a lot of times without the equivalent of a creative midwife.
Maybe like an epidural alcohol eases this difficult and painful process?

Maybe it's an insecurity that even after we've said out loud that we write and cried our way through our difficult scenes that it will all mean nothing.
And maybe what we really crave more than anything else is meaning.
We want to find the meaning in things that's why we write and we want our stories to mean something to others that's why we work so hard at it.
What if they don't?
That's more than an insecurity for me.
That's a paralysing fear.
But surely the more successful a writer is the less insecure they would be and the less they would drink...I know for a fact that this aint true.

I get the sense that I could discuss the topic of alcohol till the cows come home but I can't make much sense of it (and it might not be terribly exciting) unless I really investigate my own relationship with it.
So instead of why do writers drink, I'll ask why do I drink?
And I think all of the reasons above are valid, but there could be one other possibility too.
To me I used to binge drink at the weekend - not excessively, just the same amount as any other young Londoner would - and then I would work my ass off all week to pay for the lifestyle.
There would be times I would be 'on' meaning nights I would be up for drinking and partying then nights when I would be 'off' meaning nights I wouldn't drink.
Since doing this MA these 'on' and 'off' periods are a lot less distinct, I can have just as many (or as few) drinks on a Saturday as I can on a Tuesday.
In fact if I do fancy a drink on a Sunday or a Monday I struggle to find a friend to drink with me because most are giving their poor livers a break from the excess of the weekend whereas for me the weekends are my writing time and not my drinking time.
I'd rather be hungover at work than be hungover when I sit down to write.
Also, I am never really 'off' because I never really stop writing.
I can be thinking of ideas sat at my desk, or on the bus, in the bath, in the supermarket, in the gym, chatting to mates etc
Perhaps a side effect of this is that the more often my brain is 'switched on' then the more often I will crave a drink to help switch it off.

I don't think I have a conclusion to why writers drink or why I like to drink maybe I'll think about it some more...
Maybe I'll write about it and see where the story takes me...
If I'm going to write about it maybe I'll have to do some more in-depth research...

Now, where did I put that corkscrew...?

It's been a while...

I haven't written much on here recently...I like to delude myself that there are fans out there eagerly awaiting my next post but there aren't, yet it still feels important to me for some reason to explain my absence:

I finished my MA.

I was so busy doing that I didn't have time to do anything else.
And then I celebrated finishing which took up all my time and even though I finished the course a month ago I have only just finished the copious amounts of celebrating!
And now...?
Back to business as usual.
Except, I have no idea what that is anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I couldn't wait to finish the course, to get to the end of the stress of delivering that final script, the end of the pressure knowing it would be used as our calling card and the end of the intensity of not having room for anything else in your life.
But I miss it.
I miss the structure, the deadlines, the constant challenges and surprises, the great tutors and mentors and of course my fellow writers.
I miss having someone to blame, for two years I have been saying - I can't go out/stay out/spend the day/night/watch this/read that/stay up/sleep in/drink this/eat that/buy those or generally afford to do anything...because of the MA.
There is no way I would want to carry on studying but there's also no way I would want to carry on living the life I had before the MA either.
And that's the scary part.
A lot of my friends have said they are glad to have me back on the social scene, glad I can actually say yes to their invites again, glad I can have dinner or a few drinks on random week nights again etc
And I have been doing a lot of all of that in order to make up for lost time!
I'm touched that they have welcomed me back with open arms but I am also terrified of actually embracing them back.
Because if I go out half as much as I used to I will never have time to write...
If I drink a quarter of the amount I used to put away I will never write anything of quality if I am doing it whilst suffering through a hangover...
If I travel across London on the sprawling nightbus network for just a tenth of the time I used to I will be so sleep deprived I will never even be motivated to write...
So it's clear that I can't go back to my old life and I can't carry on the one I've got used to whilst on the MA.
I need to forge a new path.
New rules, new discipline, new goals, new deadlines, the lot.
It's a bit like breaking up with someone, suddenly there's an MA-sized hole in my life and I don't quite know what to fill that hole with yet.
This last month I've been to the theatre 6 times, celebrated my birthday on 5 different occasions, had 4 friends come to stay, been to 3 friend's birthdays, had 2 weekends away and 1 massive 'end of MA' blowout has been liberating, rewarding, exhilirating, depressing, terrifying, inspiring, surprising, tiring and expensive!
But it's been exactly what I needed to get over the 'break-up'.
I think now my life will naturally be divided into 3 parts; my crazy TV life pre-MA, the none existent life I had during the MA and post-MA.
And this 'life post MA' is the one story that has not yet been written.
I suppose the only thing I can do is get writing...

Diversion Ahead

I have made a countdown calendar.
The no# of days left till my final deadline for my MA.
Today it sits on 43.
My fingers shake slightly as I type that. I think I'm in shock because, first of all, I am now counting my deadline down in days (how scary is that) and second of all I feel like I have so much work to do I should still be counting down in months (where did all the time go)
Such is life...right?
Writers - far more experienced and talented than me - deal with much more stressful deadlines than this on a more regular basis, in fact they deal with multiple deadlines at once.
But this one, for me, is as big as it gets. I really hope it will be the first big writing deadline of many big writing deadlines. As well as hoping it will be the first, I also hope it will be the last. The last one where I am labelled a 'student of writing', or a 'wannabe writer'.
Despite my hopes and my state of shock...I am feeling blocked.
BLOCKED!
I'm not even a proper writer yet but I get writer's block?
What is that about?
It got me thinking about that fact that a few years ago I had a man pal who I loved dearly and it turned out he loved me dearly too. In fact too much so - he wanted us to get together and I just didn't feel strongly enough about him to get into a serious relationship with him.
So for a while we just stayed friends. Not for long though. In true When Harry Met Sally style it was not possible to 'just be friends' - we would go out on nights out, have fun and then one of us would get emotional, we'd argue and then we'd talk for hours on the phone and meet up the next day and make up. I realised I was having a relationship with this man without actually having a relationship with him.
I talked to him about this and he said we needed to move forward or move apart.
We decided not to be friends anymore and - true to his word - I haven't seen him for about 3 years. Whilst there is no doubt in my mind that we had to stop our pseudo relationship somehow I'm not sure going cold turkey was the best option and I'm almost 100% sure that if I could do it over I would do anything but that.
Why am I thinking about all this?
Well, it seems the parrallel is I was having all the problems of a relationship without having an actual relationship and now I am having all the problem's of writer's block without actually being a writer.
I need to move forward or move apart from this story.
Seen as I am 43 days away from deadline it is too late to move away so I can only go forward.
If this block is a wall I am going to have to smash it down.
Ok maybe not smash it, but perhaps take it down one brick at a time.
Why am I blocked?
1) I feel like I don't really know what my play is about.
I mean, I know what it's about - I know what happens, who to and when. But I feel like I am still struggling to know why. Has this play evolved too far past what I originally wanted to say? Can I still say that? Should I be trying to say something else if the story has taken me somewhere else? Why have I come up with a story that doesn't say what I wanted to say in the first place? And how did I do that? I feel like I've been painting a sunset using green paint. Do I still say it is a sunset or is it actually just a green picture now?
2) Until I 'know' what it's about I feel like I won't know what the right form is.
And I have David Edgar to blame for this (no, not the new Burnley player)
His incredibly insightful article in the Guardian last weekend pretty much ruined my life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/11/drama-edgar-plays-theatre
Until then I thought I was telling a nice, little, interesting and dramatic story about Burnley. Then he made me see that the story is one thing, the plot is quite another.
And the plot, well the way the plot is shaped shows you what the meaning of the play is. That's great, so clever and true, I'm really glad he pointed that out while I am still in the process of writing my play. See point 1.
Oh...Crap.
3) Points 1 & 2 have - over the recent two weeks - combined forces and like some looming transformer-type monster have dwarfed every creative decision I've made till I have got to the point where I can't type a word without deleting it again.
Writing is putting words down in a shape that gives them meaning. Not putting them down, being unsure about the shape and then taking them away again. That's just typing.

I don't want to be a typist.
I want to be a writer.
I want to write this story.
I want to give it the best form it can have.
I want the meaning to resonate through each and every word.
I want to smash this wall.

If anyone out there has a sledgehammer...or a chisel...even a fork sized amount of wisdom to help me do this I would be most grateful to hear from you.

Well, gonna go and score another day off my calendar.
42 days to go now.

Gulp.

Long Time No See

Well, I haven't written anything on here for nearly 3 months...

I never promised myself I would write everyday or even every week but this gap has been a bit excessive even for a commitment-phobe like me!
I did promise myself that I would write when anything inspired me - whether it was good, bad or ugly inspiration and yet I find myself typing away again when I feel momentously uninspired.
And less than two months away from my final MA deadline is not when I can afford to be uninspired.
So, I'm trying to work out why this is so in the hope that I can overcome it.
Perhaps I should do a recap of what has been happening for the last 3 months in case it offers me a whirlwind view of my life which inspires me into action...ok it's a tall order but worth a try and at least I'll feel slightly less guilty about my absence.

Well...Burnley won at Wembley and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion too - and shortly after I went to see Oasis in Manchester something I have wanted to do for ages and I am not ashamed to say that I cried - mostly tears of joy but also slightly of exhaustion - (hhhhmmmm is there a pattern emerging here?)
Then we had a showcase as part of our MA (part of the reason for the exhaustion I think) and it was amazing (don't worry I didn't cry) and erm then I went off on holiday to Stonehenge, Cornwall and Scotland.

Thinking about it, it really was a big relief to get out of London and away from everything I'd been worrying about and working towards...in fact that may be the problem, that once I got away I didn't really want to come back.

No, that's not true, I did want to come back - I just wanted something to be different when I returned, some sign that all the things I had been struggling with were worth it...someone to say "well done", "it was all worth it", "keep going", "almost there"...
Truth is there was no sign that things had changed...there still is no sign that they will.

Well, I need to do something about it. I'm going to do what I do when I'm lost and there's no signs...I need to stop looking for that sign, choose a direction and head in it and then stop and work out a little later on if it was right or not.

It might not inspire me...but it's worth a try!

All's well that ends well...

Sometimes the good guys finish last - we are all used to that, but sometimes, just sometimes the good guys get to finish...at Wembley.
I didn't intend to write this blog about football but I did promise myself I would write it whenever I felt inspired and frankly there are certain nights when those eleven men in claret and blue make me feel like anything is possible. Tonight is one of those nights.
After having victory snatched from us in the semi final of the Carling Cup and being defeated in the FA Cup we could have easily thought that our chances at Wembley had come and gone but we didn't. Beating Reading by 3 goals over 2 games means Burnley will now face Sheffield at the mighty Wembley for a promotion place to the premier league.
In less than two weeks our 61st game of the season will come to define our season for the rest of time.
We want it. We deserve it, but will it go our way on Bank Holiday Monday? Who knows...
What I have learned since I started this blog is that it's not the outcome that's important, it's the journey.
That may sound bizarre from a football fan who's team is only 90 minutes away from promotion but it's true.
Like the Burnley players I have put so much pressure on myself to do this, achieve that, be there by then and have this to show for it. Unlike the Burnley players I am still waiting for my day out at Wembley, but, like the Burnley players, I now believe I deserve it.
I have worked hard, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. I have faced my fears and weaknesses and stared them down. Most importantly of all, I have dared to dream. If I achieve any success now there is no doubt in my mind of the price I have paid for it. Sometimes you aim for the prize and you decide that it's worth giving everything you have to get it. At that point you realise that getting it is not important, the giving everything to it is.
The price of success is knowing that the struggle was the success.
Owen Coyle, the majestic, much loved manager of Burnley said on Sky TV of the Burnley players that "each and every one of them gives me everything they can on a daily basis" - how many people can honestly say that?
If you can say that then I shall raise my glass to you, you may have to wait awhile though because the next time I will be raising a glass will be 13 days from now, amongst 30 thousand other Burnley fans, on the inside of Wembley stadium.

A friend in need...is the one with the broken laptop

2 days ago my laptop died.
I got home from a long day at work, grabbed a snack and sat down to my evening of re-writing but it wouldn't turn on. Then it came on for about 3 seconds then went away again, it did that again once more, flashed an error message at me then refused to ever come on again.
I was heartbroken, mortified, inconsolable...
I know that may sound dramatic but I am less than 11 days away from the deadline for the second draft of my full length play for my MA. This period, between the first and second draft, is one I can only describe as hell.
I thought things were bad over the Easter weekend when I was fretting over the structure of the second act and wrestling with my awkward female characters...I had no idea.
Not only could I not do that evening's work on my play, I didn't know if it was ever going to come back on and let me do my work on it again.
Luckily, I back up my work every Sunday so I hadn't lost huge amounts of material but time - and with it hope - was rapidly slipping away.
I rushed it to PC hospital the next day and a very lovely man did a few tests and told me the board was gone.
I don't know much about computer healthcare but I knew that was not good.
The very lovely man told me it would be cheaper to buy a new laptop than to save this one.
I ranted at him that I was less than 2 weeks away from a big deadline, flat broke and unable to buy a new one and that only two weeks ago I had paid another nice, but not as lovely, man to restore it because it had been poorly then.
He said there was nothing he could do but that he would give me my money back that I paid for the restore which I could use towards buying a new one.
This is what earned him his nickname.
I had to go back the next day with the receipt and get the refund.
In the meantime I phoned a few friends for advice, advice on ingenious ways to get a laptop without paying any money for it or advice on ways to raise enough money to buy a laptop without breaking the law.
All the while, I was still trying to keep up with my work using good old-fashioned pen and paper which was romantic for about 10 minutes before it became gloriously frustrating.
What struck me in those few, painful hours was how wonderfully helpful my friends were. I had offers of laptop loans and money loans from people I knew couldn't really afford either and I was sincerely touched. I also had offers of help finding and choosing a replacement and one to sit and type as I dictated my play to them to help make up the lost time which was ludicrously kind...or maybe just ludicrous, I'm not sure.
Anyway the point is...I felt lucky.
In a difficult time, when disaster struck, I felt lucky to have really wonderful people around me and it made me even more determined to get through it all and to get through it all without bitching and moaning about it.
Today I went back to the very lovely man and when he gave me my money back he offered to 'dispose' of my laptop. I wasn't ready to let it go yet I knew there was no point keeping it.
I tried to work out why I was being reluctant and it hit me.
It's not just that I loved it, it's not just that I used it every day for 5 years and it's not just that it went everywhere with me.
It's that it represented everything I have recently achieved.
The plays that audiences have laughed at were written on there, the casting briefs and call sheets for the theatre nights I've produced were emailed from there, the essays and script reports for my course were created on there. We had built this world I now live in together and we'd never get to do any of it together again.
Even now, as I type this on my housemate's PC, I wish I still had it, even though I know it would never light up at my touch again I miss it and I can't help wonder where it is right now.
I have been telling my friends that it has gone to laptop heaven.
They laugh, as if a child has said something cute and naive but that's what I need to believe.
Right now I just need to believe that all the years of hard work and sweat and tears and stress and fears and worry and frustration and doubt and hope that has poured out of me and into that laptop has gone on to a happy resting place and not an empty techie-graveyard.
There will soon be a new laptop, and probably many more, but there will always be the memories of my first laptop that was with me through so many inspirations and discoveries.
And no matter what there will always be my wonderful friends if one ever breaks on me again.

The dating game

Going to the theatre is like dating...
That's my new theory.
You pay out money, there's usually alcohol consumed and then you sit back and hope for magic...
But you never know what you're gonna get.
That's why millions of pounds is poured into the West End Tourist-friendly theatre trade because people like to know what to expect. It's the same with internet dating sites, why talk to someone in a bar when you can read their profile? Because that way you think you know what you're going to get. But the thing is you can't...not really.
Even if you think you know because it has X writer or Y director involved, because you have the same hobbies or interests, the evening can still take you completely by suprise.
Sometimes in a really good way that you'll remember for a long time and sometimes in a way that makes you wish you could get a friend to phone you and pretend you your gran fell down the stairs.
Lately a lot of the shows I've seen have left me feeling like this, wishing for an excuse to escape. Not because they were bad (though some were) but because I don't think I really wanted to be there.
Me.
The person who is forever trying to drag her friends to the theatre?
The person who pre-books tickets months in advance?
It didn't make any sense at first so I ignored, brushed it off as tiredness yet I couldn't shake the feeling that I just didn't care and that...well, I just didn't have enough patience to wait and see which way it would surprise me.
I was half thinking about this when I heard someone (in a movie ironically enough) say they had fallen out of love and frankly that terrified me.
I had to pause the movie.
I had to go get a drink, pace up and down for a while and think this through.
Was this what had happened to me and theatre?
What about my theatre-is-like-dating theory?
Sure, you can fall out of love with someone, you can even fall out of love with quite a lot of people, but you can't fall out of love with everyone in one go and surely you can't fall out of love with the very notion of trying to find love, can you?
And if you can - what does that say about me?
Was I giving up? Was I becoming a bitter cynic? Was I losing faith?
I couldn't work it out so I decided to press play on the rest of the movie.
The person had recently met someone who, though they weren't romantically involved with, they had more in common with than their partner and it had made them realise who they were and what they wanted and it had just changed everything.
That's how I feel about theatre.
I will always love it but recently I've met something else and it has changed everything.
The something else I've met is my own writing.
I have written lots of stuff before now, some of it has even reached performance, but what I'm writing now is different.
I don't know why it is...I just know that this movie had a point.
Sometimes things don't change, you do.
I'm not giving up on dating, I'm just ready for something more.
Having a one night surprise with a pre-prepared play is not enough, I want a relationship, I want to see it grow and develop and be part of that process.
The irony is I doubt I would feel this way if I hadn't been to see so much theatre.
So I guess I was right, it really is like dating.
When you're really ready for more the novelty wears off having anything less.

Running On Empty...

Last time I was on here I wrote about running on the treadmill but now all I feel I can write about with any expertise is running on empty.
I am exhausted, I've never felt so tired, not in a I can't get enough sleep way and not in a I'm tired of life and want to give up way but somewehere yo-yoing between the two.
I feel chronic guilt if I'm not doing as much as I can/should/need to and sheer exasperation when I do as much as I can/should/need to and feel like I fail at it.
I know what you're thinking - take a break, chill out etc etc but I'm in the last 7 months of a 24 month MA course, taking a rest now would be like the hare that has a nap and gets overtaken by the tortoise.
The dilemma is not whether or not to work hard, it is simply what to work hard on.
I joked with my housemate that if I had put as much time and effort into my lovelife as I have changing careers I'd be turning them away in their droves at the door (which would be nice)!
But I haven't because all I have wanted to do for the last two years is open doors to a different future for myself and now I feel like all I ever do is run between the doors that might open frantically trying the handle instead of choosing one and preparing to step through it with both feet.
For anyone who's hesitated when choosing which carriage to get on in the tube and watched the train pull away might know what I mean.

I have got into a terrible habit recently of quizzing friends about certain aspects of their lives - travels, purchases, jobs, affairs - if I think it might make an interesting aspect of a future play and I keep saying "it's all material".
Most of them are supportive and quite flattered but a few of them seem to wonder when these stories are going to materialise.
They're not the only one, I feel like I need to stop collecting material and start telling the story.
And if I could just figure out which story that is that would be a good start...

Keep on keeping on

I've recently joined a gym.
It's not unheard of and in fact it's pretty common around this time of year.
The gym is very nice, spacious, not too expensive, is quite near my house and some of my friends are members too.
Despite this - on my first visit there something about it unsettled me.
It's not the fact that they have a 'young person's gym' though I find that quite disconcerting (why aren't they getting fit playing team sports like we used to). It's not even the fact that I have discovered that I am not nearly as fit as I thought I was. What has struck me as peculiar about this is how it seems to reflect my life at the moment.

The fact that I can barely decide what machine to get on seems to expose how indecisive I have become recently, constantly changing my mind, procrastinating and rearranging things, I seem to spend more time wondering what to do than doing it.

Then there's the fact that once I get on the chosen machine I seem to spend a large part of my time on it justifying the decision I've just made in my head. This is something I do in real life too. At an age where promotions, proposals and pregnancies are defining the life choices my peers have made I, in the absence of these things, have become used to defending my current position in life as the exact position that I always intended to be, regardless of whether it's true.

Finally, when I manage to get going on the chosen machine and I actually get to the point where I am too exhausted to care about whether it was the right decision or not I flip into 'Countdown' mode. This can be how long on the next machine, how long till the next gym visit, how long till my next deadline, how long till my next lie in...

And it hits me.

I am literally running on the treadmill of time.

Everything I do has become a series of 'I just need to get to X point in time then I can fulfill X ambition/desire' statements.
I am constantly sticking markers down in the road ahead as if when I arrive there the marker will turn into a welcome party with a balloons and a brass band. "You made it here in one piece - let's celebrate". Which would be nice, if it weren't entirely fictional.
Don't get me wrong, there are definitely occasions which don't pass by without some sort of ceremonial rites of passage (usually alcoholic) but it just seems these days I am back on that road to the next three markers before I've had chance to let the last one pass.

I don't mind life being busy, I don't mind the relentless, exhausting pace of London life but my recent adventures in fitness have reminded me that sometimes being too wrapped in getting somewhere means you don't ever really get anywhere.

Getting back on the treadmill made me realise that I want to get off the treadmill. I want to learn how to enjoy and celebrate where I am right now and who I am here with.
They do say it's about the journey not the destination after all.
I'm pretty sure whoever said that wasn't trying to get back into their favourite skinny jeans at the time, but you never know, if my trip to the gym brought a metaphorical revelation for me...just maybe it did for them too.