IN TIME

There are a few things that haven’t changed. One being I still don’t know how to start. This feels eternally awkward and part of me wonders if it always will. I’m sitting in the exact place I wrote the duly named ‘WHAT THE F*CK’ (April 2019), my personal favourite and most liberating “work” yet. As per my historical intro, it is once again, raining. I have the exact UE boom beside me, the same one that’s blasted through nearly every mood of the past two and a half years. Disclaimer: I used a Date Duration Calculator to work that out, for accuracy and because my arithmetic skills remain largely unused. 

In 2019’s ramble I talked about being alone and, in the traditional sense, I have been ever since. In the absence of a single go-to person, I’ve thoroughly discovered what it means to put myself first. It sounds lame and perhaps a bit self-serving, but I truly do believe I’m the best version of myself now that I’ve had to make decisions with mainly me in mind. As is one of my favourite passages, “unless you fill yourself up first, you have nothing to give anybody. Therefore it is imperative that you tend to You first. Attend to your joy first. People are responsible for their own joy. When you tend to your joy and do what makes you feel good, you are a joy to be around and you are a shining example to […] every person in your life. When you are feeling joy you don’t even have to think about giving. It is a natural overflow.” On the contrary, sometimes I do have to think about it and that in itself forces me to realign. 

The idea of ‘post lockdown’ was a fabulously chaotic mess. It meant I had a few months up my sleeve to let loose and make the most of my last moments in London, sans couchbound Saturday’s. Although this in turn led to many a couchbound Sunday and that’s exactly how I wanted it. More recently, amidst feeling sorry for myself amongst a renewed Auckland Level 3, I checked in with a friend presumably living her best life in the wake of the UK’s eased restrictions. The way she phrased her experience has stuck with me ever since. She spoke of expectation and reality recalibrating and it made perfect sense. After spending a year in-and-out of lockdown it is only natural to assume things on the other side are going to be better. But what happens if they aren’t? And unresolved feelings linger and creep into real-time? That, she told me, is when you should sit with it. As sadness isn’t always a problem to be fixed. She likened it to a golden ratio of feelings to fixtures and I couldn’t agree more. It’s a hyper-emotional experience and recognising its intricacies can be beyond valuable. 

Time is weird and I don’t think we’re supposed to fully comprehend it. I certainly don’t and spend most time oscillating between memories and manifestations. Despite the state of the world, I’m the most excited I’ve ever been. Things are going to be great, I’m sure of it.