What do you do when summer hits?

Let me say before I even begin… I am the minority.

Leaves on trees, sun on the back, happy people on the tube… oh, bless. People feel happy again.

But I don’t.

I liked grey miserable mornings. They were like the perfect handbag to match my mood.

Just because the weather has changed do I have to feel happy again? Come on. As a collective group of grumpy Londoners we united. Weather shit. Tube shit. Lack of quality coffee shit. Lack of exposure of skin to sun shit.

I felt shit. But everyone did as well. Just because it is sunny do I have to wake up and feel good about life again?

What a struggle.

But I will convert. Tubes are better when you wake up earlier. Legs are seeing sun when you take a breather in the park to catch up on the papers. Job gets easier when you see a change in the pattern. Relationships grow when you know that things can only get better not worse. Holidays bring you a wave of relief that a new haircut cannot deliver.

And time can just stand still. At least for a while until I have caught up on what was an everlasting winter.

It is time to thaw. A meltdown is just as good as a springtime.

Breaking things... does it work?

The worst thing is looking back and knowing that I should’ve known better. It is not my sycophantic streak I am pampering…

It is just the realisation that some stuff needs a healthy dose of disruption. Habits are as comfortable as a welcome mat. It’s a familiar home to come to when times get tough.

That’s why holidays can be the most stressful things on this planet. The mat looks different and isn’t where it should be.

The day has a plan that you are not yet privy to and are forced to stand still. It is the home of reflection that you have stepped over. It is brimming over with freedom and potential.

How do you handle that, when routine tells you not to?

How do I deal with things that should’ve worked out on paper but haven’t? How do I let go of the assumptions I’ve made?

I made these assumptions as much as the hope I cling onto. If you work hard, you get something out of it. If you care for someone, you don’t get burnt.

With fingers scolded I realise that this is no holiday.

It’s part of waking up. Breaking patterns is good. It makes me feel scared. It’s the in-between stage that is the exciting part. Like a holiday, I realise that things don’t need to be the way they were before. Sometimes doing things differently offer up a new host of choices I haven’t previously considered.

It’s a new itinerary with some interesting destinations along the way.

Imaginery friends

Someone asked me today if I had an imaginary friend…

Boy, could I do with an imaginary friend now! This grown up thing is not all it is cracked up to be.

There is a lot more to be had than dealing with job, shelter and love of all creatures large and small.

It is dealing with expectations that is the killer.

Am I expected to know it all by 30? Should I be worried that I haven’t quite figured out the work-life balance? Should I care that I am not the person I thought I would be when I was in school?

I shed ideals for reality. I make compromises for practical reasons. And I fall into bad habits that wake me with a guilty reminder as rigid as my alarm clock.

I take shortcuts. I let people kill the kid in me to get a serious dollar go further. I stop playing to ease a mind that worries me far beyond the day ahead. I lose the passion for people’s plights a world away from me.

I stop fighting. I let go.

But I haven’t given up.

So this imaginary friend pops up in the most appropriate situations to remind me. I do have a choice. I wasn’t born with a manual or a contract.

I was dealt an ever-changing card of hands. There is a bit of a gamble, along with lady luck who makes an short-lived appearance. But I am still in the game.

Shedding skin

I thought I could do it, but I can’t.

In the attempt to be someone I am not, it has actually brought out my neurotic side. Thankfully it is temporary and nothing a hot bath can’t fix.

I can not be a doting girlfriend. I cannot spend all my time with him. With a huge sigh of relief, I realise he cannot do it either.

That’s another reason why I have loving thoughts for the guy. He gets me.

Somehow along the way I bought into the fact that in order for it to be ‘romantical’ it had to be 24/7. It was the intensity that cemented the relationship. It was the timesheet of love – the hours acquired, the small breaks in between that determined the health of the relationship.

But after striving to do that, I have realized, I have made myself quite sick in the pursuit of it. I lost the ability to function healthily without him, I lost the nourishment of friendship and I did not feel the exciting butterflies touching my insides when I was spontaneous.

Instead I felt burdened by the weight of expectations. I felt I had to perform beyond the expectations I had. I felt I had to fulfil the requirements I had conceived society would want me to. In short, I compared and contrasted my relationship to theirs.

Never did I look within and see I have a semi-annoying, but patient guy holding my hand while I nagged him down the street.

So, tonight I peel off some layers of expectations. Because he is worth the tears of onion skin, but he deserves more. Less tears, more action.