Straight out of 2014 (because I absolutely do not conform to trends/am always quite late to everything because of who I am as a person) I decided it might be fun to create a ‘Sally’ starter pack.
I honestly don’t know why, but it’s Sunday and I’m not really that interested in the football, so you’re welcome.
So now you know how you can get my life in just a few simple steps (which I know is what you’ve all been waiting for, you’re [doubly] welcome)
I love getting lost. Not “I-was-meant-to-arrive-half-an-hour-ago-and-I-still-can’t-get-off-this-ring-road” lost (a frequent type of lost I encounter), but the kind of lost where you’re wandering along and then look up and realise you’re somewhere new and interesting. The kind of place you only find accidentally, probably because you’re already lost in your own thoughts.
I hate feeling lost, however, which I feel increasingly often. Sometimes it feels like the world is moving very quickly and I’m struggling to keep up, and I don’t have people there to egg me on in the same way, or help me work out which direction to go when I get confused and scared. Or rather, I have some people, and those people are great (cheers to those people) but they can’t always be there, and sometimes I lose them as well accidentally, and then it’s all just a whole bundle of lost.
So, like everything in my life (apparently), I’ve approached it from a linguistic point of view. Why am I worried about feeling lost, or being lost? Maybe I should just be focusing on getting found.
And before we continue, let’s clarify what we mean by get found. I am not looking for talent scouts. Photos of me are not posted somewhere on the internet (except here, and Facebook, and Instagram, and…shut up). I just mean getting that feeling of comfort you get when you’re in a place you know really well, or with people you know really well. Warm and fuzzy and home.
A great way to get found is to make everywhere feel like home, so I’ve been paying more attention when I walk. Which is more impressive when you remember quite how obsessive I am about my surroundings and seeing new and interesting things (for reference, my instagram)
I know that 10 years down the line (if blogging/the internet/the Earth still exists then) this is going to be one of those posts that I look back on and cringe, but right now, this is the thing I want to capture. Sometimes, life is scary, and it takes you in directions you weren’t expecting which almost always means you don’t end up where you’d planned. Don’t let it get to you. You don’t have to feel lost, you can find yourself (this is the cringe moment, you’re welcome) instead.
A couple of years ago, I think if you had asked people what I most commonly said, they’d have replied immediately “sorry” – I used to constantly apologise. For just existing most of the time. I’d apologise if something went wrong in my presence, even if I was completely uninvolved.
I apologised so much that in the end, my other half told me it didn’t mean anything to him any more. Despite the fact that (still) whenever I say sorry I mean it in a very heartfelt way, that was now totally lost on him, and no doubt on other people as well.
I still apologise a lot, but I think I’m a bit better at it now. And instead of apologising, whenever I can, I say thank you instead.
Now, I hear what you’re thinking. Thank you is not the same as sorry. But hear me out on this one.
It works. And mostly I think it works because people don’t like hearing the word sorry. It implies blame, and often it’s blame which they haven’t placed. Saying sorry can make people feel guilty that they’ve made you feel bad, but saying thank you just reassures them that you are aware of the imperfection of the situation, and you appreciate the part they have played in it.
It’s not a big change, really, and honestly I still apologise ALL THE TIME, but I do try now to really think about when I can show my gratitude for the effort that people put in for me.
You’re welcome, and thank you.
(Listicles are still a cool and popular format, right?)
The Wedding Singer was incredible, and I am ever so sad to say goodbye to it. I’m excited to revel in my free time of course (barring the two board meetings and two subcommittees I have this week) but I’m so excited to be part of a new community of people and I’m excited for the next thing, whatever it is. Probably panto to be honest. Remember the time I dressed as a fish for a pantomime? A story for another day.
LIDOS, it has been swell.
…and if you need something to do over the summer, can I recommend the fabulous Left Bank Opera Festival?
Left Bank Opera festival – 22nd-26th Aug, Left Bank, with Northern Opera Group
Happiness means different things to different people.
For example, to some people (Pharrell Williams), happy means feeling like a room without a roof. Some people (Pharrell Williams) have an odd description of happiness.
I think my definition of happy is a pretty standard definition. I feel happy when I see other people smiling. I like knowing that the people around me are having a good time, and that they have the things they need and that they are enjoying life. Sometimes (read: literally constantly) I help people feel happy by providing them with copious amounts of baked goods. Less frequently I give people hugs. Sometimes I make jokes.
Normally my jokes are terrible and don’t make people happy.
I’ll do just about anything though, to put a smile on someone’s face. It’s utterly selfish. I truly believe that we all deserve to get that warm fuzzy feeling of genuine proper happy, which is a little bit lacking in the world at large these days.
Sometimes I get caught by surprise by happiness, because it turns up in unexpected forms. Today, for example, I was thanked for a bunch of things I barely realise I’ve even done. It was so unexpected that I caught myself actually grinning (which is terrifying and I think we can all agree should be avoided). I hope that someone else got their happy from knowing how happy they made me. God bless all the happiness vampires of the world.
Given that this has taken a turn, it’s probably time for me to set my keyboard aside and go back to the other things that make me happy (my bed, netflix, late-night coffee) but before I do, please don’t forget that the best way to make me happy right now is to come to all of the things – as a reminder, they are:
Leeds Vocal Movement summer concert, 16th June, Left Bank
Wedding Singer – 19th-23rd June, Carriageworks Theatre, with LIDOS
Left Bank Opera festival – 22nd-26th Aug, Left Bank, with Northern Opera Group
You know sometimes you have one of those weeks which just ages you. Like, it goes on for a 1,000 years and everyone else is just confused by why you’re tired CONSTANTLY but it’s because time is going differently for you.
Last week felt like one of the longest weeks of my life, and like everything which could go wrong, did. Murphy’s Law in full force, from all sides. I think I let myself get secretly ill (which I sometimes do) and that probably didn’t help.
And then a huge old thing happened to give me a massive smack in the face of perspective. Funny like that, life.
Sometimes it genuinely is about looking around you, and measuring your life by the things you have, not the things you don’t. By the choices you make and the chances you take, not the things you miss or the shoulda-woulda-coulda. I’m not trying to be poetic here, I just mean that we live in an age where we are constantly seeing everyone else’s half-full (or overflowing) glass, and finding ours lacking in comparison, and we should just stop. Take a deep breath. Look at all the wonderful things you have.
I used to have a rule that I never went to sleep angry, and recently I’ve probably broken that a few times. But I’m standing by it. Life is too short to get angry. I’m not saying the bad things don’t exist, but try to not let them throw a shadow on the good things, not all of the time.
They are all just things, in a big old world of things.
Spoilers: It’s totally an ad.
It’s an ad for a show I’m so keen about that I drove all the way to Horsforth today without actually checking to see if I was needed.
I was not needed.
Good thing it was a lovely day for a drive.
So, what is this show that I am happy to drive all around Leeds for? And what do you mean I’m in a show again, didn’t I grow out of this? WELL. That’s what you thought (and I thought, and I mean I think we all thought I’d move on from this phase but now look)
This won’t be the first advert either, because of several reasons (to be elaborated on later) including the fact that I have to dance, that I have a child (possibly numerous, still unsure), that it’s genuinely hilarious, and that I potentially (unconfirmed) get points if I bring people. And points, as we know, mean prizes (probably).
(If you’re struggling to read my post today because of all of the bracketed clauses I’d like to apologise and say I KNOW but I just can’t help it, so there we are)
I’d also like to advertise gardening as an excellent thing to do with your life. Having discovered I didn’t need to be at rehearsal I promptly went back to the shop and bought wild flower seeds, which I’ve not planted yet because my garden is a hideous lumpy mess of weeds. But slightly less hideous and lumpy now that I’ve given it 5 hours of my life. Look at me, being all kinds of an adult.
Other things to advertise include Avengers: Infinity War (but only if you’re quite into the MCU) and the Lego Avengers game (because let’s not pretend I’ve actually fully become an adult – that may never happen).
It’s a good thing that I didn’t resolve to blog more frequently this year, because it would have been disappointing to fail so soon. I’ve been so busy owning a house that I’ve not had the chance to write slightly whimsical stories about it all.
Owning a house is expensive y’all. Admittedly, I did know that the house was going to need work and was therefore going to cost me money, but I didn’t expect things like ALL THE SNOW which made my kitchen roof leak within days of moving in. I didn’t expect to discover a series of ropy electrical choices that even I, with my limited knowledge of household wiring, know to be incredibly questionable. And which I have now had to pay someone to essentially just turn off.
I’m also still stuck with prepayment metres. I have called to try and get this changed (not because they are particularly more expensive, actually, but just because I don’t remember I need to top them up and then suddenly I just have no hot water – it’s not ideal) but there are no appointments. No appointments. Like time maybe just stops in about 2 weeks, and all the engineers are booked til then. So, great.
Some news is good though. I was incredibly lucky to get a lot of furniture given to me, so the house feels very much like a home. A slightly wobbly, slightly death-trappy home. Which I have only made worse by doing things like touching live wires (don’t worry Mum, I’m fine) and by taking things apart in a slightly wanton way.
But I can, because I OWN it. Which is not an excuse to immediately break it, but at least it’s my own damn fault if I make the place completely unlivable.
Which I won’t.
I mean, I own scatter cushions. It’ll be fine.
For those not in the know, I don’t do new year’s resolutions. I don’t want to do anything in January except sleep and eat cheese. A far better time of year is April, when the sun is beginning to shine (intermittently, admittedly) and the birds are beginning to sing, and everything is right with the world (apart from famine, and institutional racism, and Trump, but you get my drift).
So, this years resolutions are:
What do you want to do this (tax/financial) year?
9 year old me was hilarious (which in interesting, given that my inability to take a joke is practically a talent now).
Why do I say this? Because in December 1999, we made time capsules at school, because of the millenium or something (the rapture, the end times. I don’t know). And 9 year old me, in her infinite and wonderful wisdom, set a very specific opening date for this time capsule. Not December 2009 (10 years later) as you might expect. Oh no.
Little me told me to open it on April Fools day. Because little me is hilarious, as previously stated.
As these things do, it got packed away in a pile of books and papers, and only resurfaced this month when I moved into my new house. EXACTLY 10 YEARS AFTER I WAS MEANT TO OPEN IT. You can’t write this stuff.
So yesterday, as instructed by tiny me, give or take a decade, I opened my time capsule. And it was magical.
There was a checklist of things to include in the time capsule – some personal details, a list of favourites, a picture of your family, and then some weird things like “the top 10 things in your house” (mine included books, bookcase, the Video [no idea why definite article and capitalised, but it was clearly significant]) and an odd spider-diagram with the central field time:web.
Personal high points include:
– How pale I am in my family drawing, and how tiny my brother is
– The importance of ART
– Enid Blyton and JK Rowling as categories of books (distinct from author)
– Mystyrys
– The fact that rather than actually including any additional things apart from the key ring, I just wrote a list of “ephemera” and included that (lazy child)
– The fact that I knew the word ephemera at 9.
Good work little me. This really was a hilarious thing to open on April Fools day, even if I was a decade late.