On support

I'm going to be very honest about something: I've had a rough couple of months. A number of things have got the better of me, and it has been a bit of a struggle to keep my head up. What follows is going to be a bit messy, and a bit meandering, but I do feel that I need to get this out somehow. So please bear with me.

Generally speaking, I am quite adept at putting on a brave face: I find it very difficult to ask for help. This probably makes me seem like a walking contradiction at times, as I simultaneously wear my heart on my sleeve with the people I trust. When I open up about my feelings though, it tends to be more about a need to vocalise my thought process than it is about openly soliciting or inviting guidance. In fact, when words of wisdom and advice are offered to me, I can sometimes feel myself acting defensively and putting up walls - as though it would be a sign of weakness to admit that I was looking for support.

But support is everything, and I am trying to train myself to shy away from it less. I am extremely lucky in that I have a wonderful network of friends and family around me who try to pick me up when I am down, and accept me and my issues without judgement or comment. Over the last couple of months, when things have unravelled, they have been there to step in and stop me from getting too bleak in my outlook.

For example, my support network rallied around me when I had my heart broken. When I thought that I was building something with someone, and the rug was pulled out from under my feet when they let me down. I don't hold this against the person in question - they had issues of their own to cope with - but it did mean that the bridge I thought I had been building towards a better future for myself had crumbled away, leaving me stranded. This represented, in its own horrible way, the loss of an important source of support. They had been the one I turned to when I needed to talk, when I needed to feel better, or just when I wanted to be distracted from life's stressful minutiae. Losing them was like having a crutch ripped away.

Though I sorely felt the lack of that particular person, the kind words and reassurances I got from my friends made me feel incredibly grateful to have them around me. Just to give you an indication of how phenomenal the people in my life are, here are a few of the messages I got when they rallied around me:

"Just remember that you are Jess, and Jess means wonderful."

"Always respect the Jess. She deserves the respect. She's a wicked and wonderful lady worthy of all good things!"

 "You, on the other hand, are fucking great. Remember this. It is supremely important."

That's just a small smattering of the generous and thoughtful missives I received, and doesn't even touch on the many other ways they - and my wonderful family - stepped in to pick me up.

And when, recently, things got on top of me in a different area of my life, and I felt like it was all becoming a bit too much to cope with, they came through again. They listened to me, they reassured me, and they provided sensible and practical words of wisdom on how to fight my way forwards, towards something better.

Even though I still find it hard to reach out and ask for help (often until things have gone too far and I'm already a bit of a mess), I know that I have people around me to give me strength. When I was told to be strong "like I know you are", I recognised that I can be strong in the face of adversity - but only because I am not going through it alone. I will learn to be better at reaching out for help when I'm struggling, because trying to fix everything by myself - to fix me by myself - is not the answer. It's only through the support of others that I can and will move forwards.

On honesty

Over the course of my 26-odd years, I have come across honesty (and its polar opposite: dishonesty) in various guises. It's always a contentious issue, and I have yet to find two people who have exactly the same opinion on honesty and how best to employ it. Personally, I think this is because there is no simple, one-size-fits-all approach to honesty that can apply to any given situation. Most people I've met that do have a very strict policy on honesty do so because of a particular life experience or set of circumstances they've had to navigate around.

At one end of the spectrum, I spent a lot of my formative years with someone who preached the gospel of "brutal honesty". It served him well - I think it made him feel justified in speaking his mind, and not having to worry too much about the consequences because he claimed it was always better to be honest above all else. I'm sure many of us have had teachers or guardians who have espoused a little of this particular brand of honesty as well: the kind of honesty that is served up "for your own good", and which will probably make you cry or curl up into a ball of self-pity. It can be a pretty harsh philosophy to live your life by, but I do think it serves its purpose on occasion. Sometimes people need to be shaken out of a black hole or funk with a hard truth or two, and only then can you switch to more kindly helping them to move forwards. Everything in moderation though. If one clings to brutal honesty as a kind of code to live your life by, you'll probably find yourself losing friends left, right and centre.

Somewhere in the middle is the kind of honesty that most people are comfortable with. The gentle kind. Telling people the truth because it will benefit them to know it, but shielding them from any unpleasantness that they probably don't need to hear. This level of honesty generally comes hand in hand with "little white lies", which - though not entirely truthful - can help to avoid uncomfortable situations where people get hurt. Was a particular friend's drunken rendition of "Killing me softly" the best thing you've ever heard? Was it heck. But given that they're not pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter, there doesn't seem to be much harm in giving them a warm and fuzzy pat on the back.

Edging towards the spikier end of the scale, we move from honesty to dishonesty. I have experienced plenty of instances where lies being passed off as "sins of omission" have come into play. Generally speaking, people choose to omit sharing critical information with others because they believe they're protecting them. Or - as is more likely to be the case - protecting themselves. The arguments "I didn't want to hurt you" and trusty old "ignorance is bliss" are often dusted off at this point, but I take issue with that line of reasoning. I believe that a short burst of pain in the short term is a lot better than finding out way down the line that you've been deceived - even if it has been with the best of intentions. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’d always much rather know where I really stand with someone.

When sins of omission become larger and more insidious, the dishonesty becomes much less about protecting the recipient of the lie, and more about the liar getting away with questionable behaviour. There’s a big difference between, say, not telling someone about a rumour you’ve heard circulating about them, in an effort to protect their feelings…versus not telling them that you’ve betrayed their trust and done something hurtful behind their back. At that point, no matter what you tell yourself you’re doing, you are really only trying to save your own skin. And if you care about the person you’re lying to, you should fess up. They deserve to know the kind of person they’re dealing with, and if it’s something that won’t happen again – and the two of you have a strong enough bond to be worth saving – I would always argue that you come across better if you’re honest and admit the truth than if you leave it to fester.

We’ve all been on both sides of the honesty question. No-one can really claim to be 100% honest, and (hopefully) no-one is wholly dishonest or deceptive. Working out the right balance can be a complete nightmare, and – unfortunately – has to be reassessed for each different situation you find yourself in. But if we’re conscious of what we’re doing, I guess that’s a first step towards a more considerate and thoughtful attitude, at least.

On faith

I find faith to be an interesting concept. Living where I do, it’s hard to avoid the constant barrage of sermonising that hits you as soon as you walk out of the station. I don’t resent this – everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and to express them extremely loudly on the high street if they so wish – but it does make me reflect on my own views around what having faith means.

It’s not the first time I’ve had occasion to stop and ponder on what faith means to me. When I was learning to drive, my instructor was a very bubbly born again Christian. She was nice, and we generally plodded along without hitting too many sticking points, but there was one point at which she succeeded in making me feel pretty uncomfortable. Just as I was about to reverse around a corner (a manoeuvre which to this day strikes me as being utterly pointless), out of the blue she asked “Jessica, do you have faith?”

I was a little taken aback, to say the least. I paused in my mirror checking and looked at her. “Sorry?” She went on to espouse the way in which finding God had changed her life for the better, and how she was on a path to spread the word to as many people as possible. Fine. I wasn’t going to stand in her way. But I also wasn’t going to be backed into a corner (coincidentally whilst backing around one). I calmly told her that I do have faith, but that it is in the people around me – my family and friends – and in myself, and that that is enough for me. Surprisingly, that seemed to be a convincing argument and she stopped her line of questioning.

I really don’t have a problem with faith as a concept, and I’d never suggest to anyone that they should reconsider their views on the matter. Though I myself have never been able to believe in a God or an afterlife (and as such am rather envious of the comfort that must bring to those who do), I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion and belief system. I have many friends that believe in God in one form or another: it is an important part of their life, and comes hand in hand with a sense of community, a moral code, and respect for the people around them. Faith can be a source of comfort, of reassurance, and of strength – no matter what form it comes in. Where I start to get uncomfortable is when other people use their faith as an excuse to infringe upon the rights or happiness of others, placing judgement on those who are different to them in a hurtful and thoughtless manner.

An example – several years ago, whilst I was still at university, I opened the door of our house to be greeted by an elderly woman collecting money for Christian Aid. As door-to-door collectors are often wont to do, she immediately launched into a spiel without giving me room to say hello. I let her continue on for a while, nodding and smiling until there was a brief lull in the narrative flow. At that point, I calmly let her know that I was already a regular donor to a couple of charities, and wasn’t looking to sign up to anyone new on a whim. I was polite, I smiled, and I didn’t slam the door in her face. But the immediate response I got was “Why don’t you want to do the Christian thing and help these poor people? It’s your duty to God to lend a hand. Do you not have any morals?”

Oh my.

I was not happy about this. My demeanour instantly changed from friendly and understanding to bristly and short-tempered. I don't doubt that she was a rarity amongst Christian Aid charity workers in her extremism and rudeness, and that it was a highly unfortunate encounter. But it felt intrusive, aggressive...like I was being pounced on in the safety of my own home. We don't accept or expect that kind of behaviour in any other walks of life, and I was angry that she was using her faith as an excuse to verbally attack me.

Ultimately, I subscribe to the “live and let live” philosophy. I think faith is a good thing – whether it’s in God, other people, or yourself – and can give us something to draw on when it’s a particularly bad news day, or life hands us an unfortunate set of circumstances. If someone wants to believe in God, or hold firm to any religious ideology, then they are perfectly entitled to do so. But by the same logic I feel I am perfectly entitled to put my faith in people rather than God, and to do so without people telling me I’m inherently wrong. I would never go door to door, accusing people of being immoral because they don't share my particular viewpoint on the world. That is behaviour that infringes on the independent spirit and happiness of another, and I strongly feel that should not be condoned in any belief system.

It’s not a simple issue. Nor is it an uncontroversial one. But if we could all just remember to be respectful of the other people around us - regardless of our differences in faith - I bet you we’d be a lot happier in the long run.

On popular culture and my brain

Somehow - and believe me, I have no idea why this is the case - my brain decided a long while back that it would be far more helpful to retain random snippets from pop culture than actual, useful information. Long division? Gone. How and when to best utilise the French subjunctive? Gone. The theme tune to Doctor Snuggles? Very much still lodged in there.

My brain is basically a breeding ground for ridiculous and pointless minutiae. It's as if the more rubbish I put into it, the more that encourages old rubbish to be unearthed and to hang out for a while at the front of my attention. You cannot - I repeat, cannot - use any vaguely well known phrase around me (or really any words at all), and not have it send my brain sky-rocketing towards an annoyingly catchy song lyric, or a line from a 90s sci-fi show. A simple example for you: ask me what time it is, and my instant reaction will be one of 3 things:

1. It's Hammer time
2. It's summer time (for all of you High School Musical fans out there)
3. It's Chico time

Yeah. I know. They're not even respectable popular culture references. Don't expect me to remember lines from A Streetcar Named Desire, or to quote Keats at you. My brain welcomes only abysmal popular culture remnants: you must be of low-brow value to ride this roller-coaster.

It can be a bit embarrassing, particularly when I find myself humming a hitherto forgotten Spice Girls tune because someone has innocently used the phrase "who do you think you are?" (Yeah. Enjoy that particular walk down memory lane free of charge). I imagine it's also incredibly irritating for those who are with me, who might not quite realise that what we've just experienced is exactly like a scene in season 3, episode 4 of The Gilmore Girls, or understand why I think it's so important that they share and revel in that with me.

On the other hand, it can also be pretty handy. You know you've found a true friend when you both have the same "aha" moment (possibly even over an A-ha reference). When someone shares your useless pop culture knowledge, it's an instant and powerful bond. It's rather like a shared sense of humour, except a bit more niche, and a bit more bizarre to anyone looking in from the outside. So even if titles of Supernatural episodes and quotes from Empire Records have pushed valuable knowledge regarding how to fix the fuse box out of my head, I'm fine with that. Electricians exist for a reason, and I've made connections with some pretty brilliant people as a result of my weird brain.

...and everyone else is just going to have to put up with me getting very excited when they ask "what's with you today?"

"What's with today, today?"

On deserving more

Recently, I’ve been pondering a lot on the notion of anyone “deserving” something from another person. When I was told I “deserved more” by somebody, I rejected the argument out of hand, countering that no-one deserves anything from anyone. However, in musing on this further, I think that was too simplistic a viewpoint.

There are two sides to the coin here. There is an argument about deserving another person to be a certain way for you (“you deserve someone much better…they’re not good enough for you…” etc), and then the argument about deserving another person to act a certain way with you (“you don’t deserve to be treated like that”).

I still maintain that the concept of one person “deserving” certain characteristics in another is narrow-minded and unfair. Whether we’re talking about friends, significant others, or family members – what makes them “them”, and the decision to embrace or to change that, is something that belongs to them alone. Considerations about how those character traits and personality quirks affect the people around them are certainly important when it comes to negotiating how a relationship works, however it is not the responsibility of the person to be a certain way in order to fit in with the lives and expectations of those around them. We should not be outraged if someone doesn’t fit the bill of how we want them to be, and expect them to change because of it. We don’t have the right to ask that. Imagine if I turned to a friend and said “I don’t want to be friends with someone who isn’t confident and outgoing. I deserve better from you. Change.” Seems ridiculous when you put it that way.

However, when it comes to behaviour that is directed towards us – there I think we do deserve certain things from other people. We deserve basic decency. No, I’m not saying we should all tread on eggshells around each other: simply that we should remember that we are not the only person in the world, and not the only person whose life and happiness is impacted by any situation we find ourselves in. We deserve not to be made to feel small or unimportant by those we care about, and who claim to care about us. Once we have created that social contract with someone – where two people have implicitly or explicitly agreed that they care about each other – we deserve to be considerate of that other person, and have them be considerate of us.

All of that being said, there is still a question of responsibility. Just because we deserve a certain amount of human decency from someone else, that doesn’t mean we’ll get it. Sometimes it will be a straightforward and black & white – it will be so obvious that we’re being screwed over that we’ll run screaming in the other direction. Life isn’t generally that easy though. For the most part, we don’t accept that we’re not being treated as we’d like to be treated. Or we’ll look past it, because we’re convinced that things will get better, or that we might be able to influence and change the other person until they treat us more kindly. (Oh, what arrogant and naïve creatures we are).

In the end, you need to take responsibility for your own sanity and happiness. Yes, people who claim to care about you should be treating you with respect and consideration. But when they don’t, you can’t rely on them to make things better or fix the situation. You have to do that. Take a deep breath and realise that - above all else - if you feel like you deserve better, it’s down to you to change things. To borrow a real-life example here: remember to fit your own oxygen mask before you try to sort out anyone else’s. 

On cake

Tomorrow evening marks a very special moment in the life of Jess: the return of the Great British Bake Off, aka the best of British programming. Anyone who knows me can attest to just how important I deem cake to be - not just in my own life, but to the continued turning of the Earth and the fate of mankind as a whole. I self-identify as a baker. If I'm asked to introduce myself to strangers, the words "I'm Jess. I'm the one who turns up to things with baked goods" tend to tumble from my mouth in an awkward, self-effacing manner. If I want to make friends and influence people, my first move will be to pull out the mixing bowl and start throwing things in it (cake ingredients, not just random household objects...)

If anyone asks me why I enjoy baking so much, I'll tell them it's because I like the process of creating something, and then basically giving it away to others. It is for precisely this reason that I am a firm believer in the superiority of baking over cooking: in my life I am generally cooking for one, which is both phenomenally boring and highly unsatisfying. When I bake, it's often for an event - a party, a gathering, or a friendly competition - and I know that whatever emerges from my oven will be passed around and (hopefully) enjoyed by others. Who could possibly argue that whipping up a mean pasta sauce comes anywhere close to that level of satisfaction?

I am also, obviously, a huge believer that one should frequently partake of cake. And not just because it has a nice rhyming pattern to it, either. People who are constantly on diets make me sad: imagine not being able to enjoy food for the worry of constantly counting calories or weighing up nutritional values! Many of us are lucky enough to live in circumstances that allow food to be about flavour as well as sustenance, so why deny yourself the endless possibilities that that brings? And cake - well, baked goods in general, really - presents such a rich banquet of flavour combinations that to miss out would be, to my mind at least, a bit of a travesty.

I do not begrudge cake for the fact that it has settled on my hips: rounded out my curves in a way that has provided perhaps just a little too much padding for a person of my height. To place blame on cake would hurt us both, and I don't think our relationship could survive that kind of blow. However, I am coming around to the fact that I should probably be doing more to compensate for the place I have allowed cake to have in my heart (and stomach). As I gain in years and wisdom (no sniggering at the back, please), I must acknowledge that I can no longer continue to indulge in frequent portions of sugary sponge and buttery biscuits without introducing a little exercise and healthy living into my life.

So the battle has begun. After a lot of procrastinating, I have finally embarked on a Couch to 5K training plan, and have started doing the unthinkable - getting up early to go running before work. I am also learning to remind myself that seconds are not a natural and necessary progression from firsts, and that not every meal needs to be rounded off by something sweet.

Thankfully, life seems to be on my side in this particular fight. Running (when not conducted in the form of unwise, unplanned uphill sprints) does wonders for my energy levels, and gives me some much needed clear head space in the morning. Eating more sensible portion sizes at lunch time means that I don't feel lethargic in the afternoon. And most importantly - believe me, I cannot stress just how important this is - I can still indulge in a bit of cake without feeling a tidal wave of guilt. Cake and I remain good friends. And if you try to come between us...well, let's just say I was once a yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do.

On growing up

“If growing up means it would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree, I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!” – Peter Pan

Peter Pan has always been one of my favourite stories. Creative, more than a little dark, and ever so resonant - anyone who has ever fought against the pull of time, or longed to grow up and felt the frustration of a friend not maturing alongside you, can find something familiar in its pages. I was never one for climbing trees, but I can still sympathise with Peter in his desire to cling on to childhood.

I have reached that stage in my life where the prospect of growing up – becoming a proper adult – is not just nipping at my heels, but is rather violently dragging me forwards. I’m technically supposed to be a grown-up already, right? 26 going on 27, gradually approaching my late twenties…this is the point at which you are supposed to be a grown-up. My parents were probably grown-ups at this point in their lives. My grandparents definitely were.

Certain things in my life are beginning to make this impetus to grow up all the more present. In a few months, for example, I will no longer be an official “young person”, according to National Rail. I will be forced to surrender that particular badge and, with it, the ability to travel around the country without completely bankrupting myself. Equally, I have attended two friends’ weddings now. Weddings have moved away from being events that I attended out of familial obligation - a bit dull, a bit too long, and a bit above my head - to occasions where my friends suddenly morph into real adults who are probably going to be starting families soon.

…FAMILIES.

That, alongside the ever-encroaching fear brought on by successful friends who are on real “career trajectories” (lawyers, teachers, editors, entrepreneurs), is making me feel like there’s a calendar somewhere with “grow up” written on it in big letters, and the number of days to cross off between now and then is reducing by the minute.

Now, I am not saying that I am a complete child. I have a proper full-time job. I pay bills, and rent, and other extortionate costs associated with living in London. I have a certain level of maturity about life, relationships, and the way in which I put myself out there. I have learnt when to stop drinking in order to avoid hellish hangovers, and am past the point where I can go clubbing without feeling like a bit of a fraud (though, to be fair, this has always kind of been the case). But…BUT…my life is nowhere near being sorted. I don’t know where I’ll be this time next year, or what I’ll be doing. Shouldn’t adults be sure of that kind of information?

Growing up, of course, is rarely something that we’re aware of doing. Maturity sneaks up on you, and before you know it...one day you'll be looking in the mirror, or will catch yourself in the middle of a thought, and you'll realise that you've changed. That you're not the uncertain, “taking each day as it comes” person you were before. Without noticing it happen, your life has fallen into a sort of orderliness around you. That is - I believe - how it generally happens.

Then again, perhaps that's not quite the same thing as "growing up". Perhaps we never really consider ourselves to be “grown up”. It does sort of imply a finality that jars with the way we live our lives, doesn’t it? As if you reach a stage and then stop developing, stop learning, and become stuck with what you have. A scary thought indeed. Maybe we’d all be better off if we strove never to be grown up. To be forever “in development”. Sounds like much more of an adventure to me.

On writing

I recently went through (read: am still dealing with) some unpleasant heartbreak. And though it's by no means the first time that I have found myself being handed the fuzzy end of the lollipop, it is the first time I've tested a new way of dealing with it: writing it all down.

I couldn't tell you what drove me to do it, but write it all down I did: from the very beginning of the story to the fresh and painful end. All 9,000 words of it. And it was certainly cathartic - pouring myself and all of my focus into that project felt oddly as though it was lifting a nasty weight from my shoulders. But it also had the unexpected side effect of reminding me of how much I love to write. This is a fact that I think I was separated from during my university years, where writing became associated with essays and deadlines and general stress-induced-foetal-position-comas. But now, with my academic years behind me and a job that relies more on my organisational skills than on long bouts of writing, coming back to it feels like I am naturally settling back into a part of myself that has been hidden for a while.

When I was younger, I was convinced that I would be a writer. That it was the only possible future for me, and to entertain any other notion was just ridiculous. About a month ago, I unearthed a short piece I'd written before going to university, also entitled "on writing". In an extremely angsty and pretentious way (come on - I was a teenager, after all), I imagined a conversation with a careers guidance counsellor in which I had to defend my choice of vocation. It was overblown, melodramatic and more than a bit cringey, but some of the sentiment still resonated with me.

Writing helps me to remember things - or to forget them, if needs be. Things that I can’t express in words or actions flow out of me in torrents when I put them down on paper. So how could I not write? I’d only be half a person then, and how would anyone know who I am? More importantly, how would I know who I am? You can’t be who you truly want to be, who you truly are, when you’re surrounded by others – I’m an entirely different person whether I’m with my parents or my partner or my friends, aren’t you? But then imagine the freedom of relating everything to a completely unbiased other, one completely devoid of influence. That’s writing. A piece of paper isn’t going to tell you how to behave, or even subtly change the way you regard the world around you. It’s just a blank canvas; its sole purpose being a backdrop upon which you can express yourself. I’m only really me when I write. Or, I’m as close to being really me as I ever have been, ever will be.

Yes, it's corny. Yes, it's full of teenage outrage and self-importance. But reading back over it, I felt a little sad. Like I'd betrayed my young, teenage self, who was so sure that writing would always be a part of who she was - a part of her DNA. How had I let that slip so easily?

So here I am: re-embracing the written word, and its power to express the things I never quite manage to get across out loud. Let's hope I can stick with it this time.