Thirty Days of Truth: Complete

Phew.

TDoT(30): A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Dear Shiny,

I love that you’re you. A so-very-you you that nobody else could ever be you. I’m pretty sure nobody else really wishes they were you, but that’s beside the point. I love that you try to smile at everybody, or acknowledge their presence. From your Big Boss to the guy begging at the traffic lights, I love that you truly believe in the common human spirit.

That worrying thing? I love that you worry about worrying too much, it just shows how very silly you are. I love that, every now and again, you actually lift your head above the water and realise that most things have a funny side and it doesn’t all have to be So Serious or So Dramatic.

I love that your lips look good when you put lipstick on. Would you, please, finally, realise that and maybe make a bit more effort with it? You’re 35-years old, you can stop feeling like a child playing with her mother’s make-up when you use blusher or paint your lips. I love that you don’t feel the need to slather yourself with make-up every day.

I love that you’ve surrounded yourself with lovely friends. Some who’ve been around for many, many, moons; some not-so-many, yet. The fact that you know they’ll also be here for the long haul makes me love you more.

So your body’s not exactly something which is going to grace the cover of Sportman’s Illustrated (or, for that matter, even the inside pages), it’s still kept you going all these years, so I love it too – it’s fine-tuned little mechanisms for breathing, digesting, blood flowing etc, they’ve had their problems, but they’ve all pulled you through, and I love them for that.

I don’t wish to inflate your ego, so let’s leave it there.

Love,
You x

TDoT(29): Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.

I'd like to change my worry button. Not necessearily turn it off completely, but just turn its volume down a bit. I wish that I wouldn't worry so. I can lie awake for whole nights worrying about things, mainly my precious people.

I'm that person that insists on a phone call from you if you’re driving anywhere at night, to make sure you’re safely at your destination. I worry until I get the phone call. If I don’t, I’ll call you, to check. I'm the one who panics if I phone you, and there's no answer.

I’m not saying that this is, necessarily, a terrible thing, but it is emotionally exhausting. I’d like to just be able to relax it, just a little. I’m just not sure how to do that.

TDoT(28): What would you do if you were pregnant?

Urm, well, that's an interesting one for me. If The Tragedy had never happened, well, then, I would eat well, not drink, take my supplements and grow the little thing as best I could. Then I'd have it and adore it and bring it up to be the best person it could be. If I'd gone along with my youthfully rose-tinted vision of yesteryear, I'd be having four more to join it.

That, however, was not meant to be.

What would I do now? I'd be devastated by having to make that decision. To carry through with a high-risk pregnancy, not knowing if everything was going alright, putting myself and the baby in danger?

I am completely pro-choice when it comes to abortion, this would not be a moral decision from that point-of-view. I think women have the right to choose not to have a baby (preferrably before conceiving, but let's face it, accidents happen) and to make informed decisions on whether or not they are physically/mentally/financially able to bring another child into the world.

Stepping down from the soap box again.

For me? I, honestly, don't have an answer. And I hope to never have to have one.

TDoT(27): What’s the best thing going for you right now?

I'm writing. I'm really writing. It's something I've been wanting, meaning, to do for years, and now I'm doing it. I'm making myself sit down and write. Stuff. Maybe stuff that'll turn into a book, maybe not. But I'm happy to just start with Stuff. Wierd that I don't count this blog as writing, isn't it? I must've written thousands of words by now. Is there a way of counting?

Waffling here. I can see the light at the end of the Thirty Days of Hope tunnel. It's nearly done. I've enjoyed it, I've hated it, it's been therapeutic. It's made me shed some things, or just face them head on, leaving space in my head, to write that Stuff. This is the best thing.

TDoT(26): Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?

Who hasn't? I've never collected the supply of pills or tied the rope into a noose, though. I've been through some pretty depressed times in my life, surely we all have? Life can be a bloody difficult game to play and everybody has their struggles and, sometimes, when it all seems too dark and dreary, I've thought about throwing the proverbial towel in.

I've even got to points where I've thought I've needed to get some help, before I start collecting those pills. Then I've got the help I needed. From friends, from family, from opening my eyes and seeing the bigger picture.

I've always believed people have the right, though, to take their own lives. This is a big statement that needs much quantifying. I am not saying that severely depressed people should be allowed to spiral into a tunnel from which they can't escape. There is help for that, and every avenue should be explored. But. If a person is truly tired, and feels their time on earth has reached its end, in a rational and thought out process, I feel that, as intelligent beings (most of us), we're allowed to make that choice.

The argument that it's selfish to everyone left behind? Yes, I agree, it's not a nice thing for those left in the wake, devastated, asking themselves "Could I have stopped it?" But selfish, it's not. I speak here only about the kind of suicide I mentioned above - a rationally-made decision. Desperate, sadly spiralled types are different and devastating and I'm not even going to go there. It's hard, really, to make a distinction, isn't it? I hope you're getting my drift.

Back to the "Could I have stopped it" feelings of guilt. There we need to stop ourselves from the intrinsically human habit of turning everything into something about ourselves. In this case, it's not. If I decide to drive off a cliff into the sea because I am tired of it all, it is NOT about you. I have chosen to stop, that's all. Rejoice in the life that I had, rejoice in my finding peace which, obviously, if I've driven off a cliff into the sea, I didn't have.

I didn't really answer the question properly did I? Instead, I got on my ranty soapbox. Let me step down now, I have Christmas shopping to do.

TDoT(25): The reason you believe you’re still alive today

How funny. Why do I believe I'm alive?

Literally, because I can see myself breathing. Because people tend to look at me and speak back to me when I speak to them. This lets me believe I’m alive, and not a ghost flitting about. I’d think those are both fairly obvious signs of my aliveness. There are more, lots more, but I think I’ve made my point.

Metaphorically (which, I guess, is what they're aiming for here) , I think I’m here to do my bit. To live, laugh, and love as much as I possibly can, leaving behind only good things when I go. Before I start sounding like a self-help book, let me stop there.

TDoT(24): Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)

Honestly, these Thirty Days of Truth things are all so serious, it’s exhausting. Therefore, instead of making some soulful list dedicated to a long-lost love/friend I miss/other dramatically tragic character, I am making a Happy Playlist, for everybody who’s had to read/listen to my whines and whinges while doing it. It’s not (quite) over yet but, in the meatime, here’s some fun music for you to wiggle to:

Any number of people – Good Morning Starshine (from Hair)
How can you not start the day smiling with this? I regularly sing it oh-so-tunefully to friends I phone early in the morning.

Katrina and The Waves – I’m Walking on Sunshine
Because it reminds me of the story of my four best University friends singing it for karaoke at a bar in Ireland and that makes me smile. It’ll make you wiggle your bum too.

Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun
Again, wiggley bum, dance around wildly, stuff.

The Jungle Book People – Bear necesseties
Because I don’t know the difference between bare and bear, but I’m okay with that.

They Might be Giants – Birdhouse in your Soul
My favourite band, my favourite song.

Mr Jones - Counting Crows
Watching somebody else wiggle their bum to this made me smile, broadly. It sticks in my mind.

REM – Shiny Happy People
My second-most fvavourite band (as you know) and the title has ‘Shiny’ in it, therefore it must be fabulous.

Seven. That seems a good number. Oh bugger, I’m supposed to write a letter too.

Dear Readers (both of you),

This is for you, in thanks for your patience while I’ve showered this blog with gushings of truths splattered about with lashings of tragedy and a smidgeon of drama. I hope I haven’t exhausted you as much as I feel exhausted. Just in case, this list is of happy, hoppity, songs. To make you smile and wiggle.

I’m afraid pure, unadulterated, laziness has prevented me from linking to Youtube videos of them. You know me.

With much love,
Shiny x

TDoT(23): Something you wish you had done in your life

For this, I must use bullets, the list is long. That makes it sound like I have huge regrets. This is untrue. Of course I have regrets, but they don’t rule my life, I try not to let them overwhelm me, and I do my utmost to fill my life with things which I can say I HAVE done, as opposed to wishing I had:

• Danced more. More wildly, more carefreely, all of the time
• Sunk my feet into that wet bit of sand that the waves break over at the seaside more. And let more welks walk over my feet while I did it
• Had more sex, in more places. Admittedly, I have some stories to tell, but I’m shy about telling them. I’d like to have more
• Spent more time completely alone, preferably travelling to wild, desolate places
• Stuck my finger in the little whirlpool thing the water makes when it falls down the plughole more
• Swum more. I’m not sure that’s entirely possible, as I was Labrador-like in my affinity to water
• Lain on the green summer grass, despite its itching the backs of my legs, and watched the clouds above more
• Made a living being a novelist

Oh, wait, there’s one I can still aim at. In fact, there’s plenty. This list is making me sad, and I’m premenstrual, so I think I’ll stop it there. As I said, the list goes on. Equally, the list of things I still want to do, the perfectly possible ones, is just as long, so best I get my head turned in that direction, before the black hole gobbles me up.

TDoT(22): Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life

That little flick; that tiny, stupid, thing to do; that youth-filled-idea-of-immortality-induced mistake. The one that changed everything.

I wish I hadn’t done that.

TDoT(21): Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?

What a silly question. I don’t do conflict and can’t, ever, say goodbye without resolving an issue, if there ever is an issue, so this is highly unlikely to happen. However, to answer the question: I’d go to her, immediately, make sure she’s okay, hold her hand, hug her, take her flowers, sit by her, bring her food or a toothbrush or a book to read or a pair of pyjamas… whatever’s needed. Who wouldn’t?

TDoT(20): Your views on drugs and alcohol

I love a cold beer on a hot Summer’s day and I’ll happily drink a tequila every now and again, make the tequila face, and be the Energizer bunny of the party (and not be able to sleep after.) My tolerance, and desire, has diminished for sure. Gone are the carefree university days of R2 Tequila Tuesdays and still being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Wednesday for lectures. Then there was R10 for five beers Wednesday, Thursday Sundowner Specials etc.

No, in my middling years, I find the hangovers last longer, are more severe, and make me want to cry. I'm going for the drink or two option these days. Sometimes I get it wrong. Of course, I am still waiting to learn my lesson, and stop. My overall view, though: each to his own. I’ve seen the scary side of alcohol, I know the dangers, I’m (generally) okay with it. Those who aren’t (poor sods), should avoid it like the plague.

Drugs? Well, yes, again, each to his own. Experimenting… cautiously; having fun… occasionally: no problem. Giggling like a schoolgirl with your friends, who have shrunk to the size of fairies, in a safe, beautiful, place… wonderful. The frightening thing is, though, that you don’t know if you’ll be the unfortunate one for whom ‘occasionally’ is not enough. I’ve seen people crumple into a heap due to drugs, dragging those who love them into a terrifying black hole.

Oh, and people doing coke bore me. As much as I say ‘each to his own’, pleasepleaseplease, don’t put me next to the guy who’s a cokehead at the dinner party. I am not interested in how amazing he is, nor do I want to listen to him sniffing in my ear, or getting edgy about phoning the dealer before his coke-induced personality fizzles into a little puddle of white powder on a mirror next to a crumpled banknote. I’ve never understood why it’s necessary, especially at a dinner party. I blame it on boredom. Come on, people, you’re far more interesting without it.

Did I say each to his own? Look at me being all judgey.

TDoT(19): What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?

Ooo, controversial, this one, isn’t it? Do I do religion? Or politics? I’m not a lover of either, to be honest, but the fact that most politicians are fat cats puts me off that completely. Religion it is then.

I’m not a fan of organised religion but I believe each to their own. I think it’s safe to say that, through the ages, religion has been the source of some pretty nasty things and that’s the religion I’m against – the one with the idea of “My religion is the only right one, therefore I will spend a lot of energy convincing you of that and, possibly, resort to violence to enforce that fact.”

The one that encourages community, love, human respect – that I can see the point of. I don’t need to go to church for that however, I don’t need to concentrate my efforts on defining one superior being, or another. There may well be a higher power of some sort, I don’t feel the need to define it. In saying that, those who do, are welcome to do so, as long as they don’t use it to give themselves permission to judge anybody else.

I taught Sunday School at high school, would you believe? Admittedly, it was the toddlers we looked after, and we spent the time getting them to draw pictures of their family, who they love and such. I guess I’d already worked out my affiliatons by then.

TDoT(17): A book you’ve read that changed your views on something

I think, honestly, every book I read changes my views on things, shifts my brain slightly left, slightly right, shakes it up a bit (this is starting to sound like the Hokey Pokey, I'll stop there.) I'm a fan of fiction, often of the fluffy sort, but not always. Even those open one's eyes, always, to something one hasn't thought of before. One that's not fluffy, The Blue Notebook, didn't change my views as such, but rather made something known to me that previously I hadn't realised. A chilling, sad, monstrous truth. And that's just one example. I'm going to warp this topic a bit, though, and not go on about one, specific, book.

Okay, they're not, by any stretch of the imagination, books, but you'll get my point... Women's magazines. They're also not high on my list of desired reading matter. I'll happily read them in a waiting room but I would never buy one unless it was under dire circumstances. I have always had great faith in humankind. I think, intrinsically, we're all good people, and have the greater good at heart. Even if some people don't try very hard to show that, I'm certain it's there.

Then I read women's magazines, and discovered a whole population of people to whom The Outer is the important bit. You will never find a man unless your toenails are pedicured, your face is covered in a layer of make-up (and, preferably botoxed, collagened, stretched and tightened surgically) and you resemble a stick insect in a bikini (preferably designer). God forbid you're seen outside the home without the latest Vuitton/Gucci/Balenciaga handbag. The world might crumple in on itself.

My views changed, I realised there is a vast majority out there who are completely driven by the material, the labels, the outer beauty. So I stopped reading them. There are, also, a bunch of people, apparently, who can bury their head in the sand, and pretend it's not happening... Me? Never.

TDoT(16): Someone or something you definitely could live without

I could happily live without helplessness. I've mentioned it before, my intense dislike of it in others, and now my having it thrust on me, unasked for, unwanted, hated, but immovable. I am the type who, if something needs doing, I like to get it done. I was a light bulb-changer, a toilet roll thrower away, a cook dinnerer.

It changed in a matter of seconds, a crushing sound of metal, some thorn trees. And I could definitely live without it.

TDoT(15): Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it

My hot water bottle. It's like a security blanket. Without it I struggle to sleep. I have tried to not use it, hearing the jeers of my friends. I had to have it back. It has to be above 25 degrees (celcius) for me to not want it. Seriously. This is Thirty Days of Truth. I cannot lie.

TDoT(14): A hero that has let you down

Oprah. I love her, but she let me down. Not on purpose of course, but she promised me, oh, years ago now, that if I visualised and mantra-ed about something it would happen. And it sort of did, but then it didn't.

Dear Oprah,

I'm a huge fan, and please don't let this letter make you think I'm any less of a fan now, but I just must let you know that I feel a little let down about something. It's not huge, and I wouldn't ordinarily have bothered you with it, but I'm doing Thirty Days of Truth you see, and this one's on 'A hero that has let you down' and I promised to write on the first thing that came to mind, and that was you, and this.

Many, many months ago, you did a show on visualising what you want, and saying it to yourself first thing each morning. You and the expert on your show that time (sorry, I can't remember their name) promised that, if I did this, it'd come true.

Well, I thought very hard about it, and created my mantra, and repeated it each morning for many, many moons. Then something happened, and I thought it'd worked. Then something else happened, and I thought it hadn't. Now, though, as I write this letter, I realise it did, but perhaps just not in the way I'd thought. Makes me think of the saying 'Be careful what you wish for.' Except that I'm not sad that this is what I got.

Oh, blast, I just talked in a complete circle. You're my hero, you let me down (in a very roundabout way) but now I see maybe you didn't.

Hope you're having a lovely weekend.

Lots of love,
Shiny x

TDoT(13): A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days (a letter)

This is a hard one, there are many people I'd need to write to - Eddie Veder, Tori Amos, the guys from The Shins, but the one who's seen me through most, who, if I had to pick one band to play my soundtrack, is REM, so here goes:

Dear Michael, Peter, Mike and Bill,

You have consistently, through the past 20 years (shit, how did it suddenly get that long?), provided a soundtrack to my life. I remember listening to Nightswimming at full volume on my Walkman, walking up a quiet, moonlit street at university, tears pouring after my first boyfriend (not first love, just boyfriend) had broken up with me. Those spattered teardrops on the pavement with that song filling my head made me feel okay.

Months later, lying on the carpet of my First Love's parent's lounge floor, we listened to What's the Frequency Kenneth. Loud. It coursed through me. I still can't listen to that song without feeling the carpet on the backs of my legs, his fingers on my stomach.

And then the happy, dancey ones, that made us shake our little booties, even if we were heartbroken or tired or just gatvol - Stand, Shiny Happy People, Near Wild Heaven, even Losing my Religion. The list is endless.

So thank you boys, for the music.

With love,
Shiny x

TDoT(12): Something you never get compliments on

I've never been complimented on my nose. Probably because it's a nose of the type that has a good appetite. Kindly put, I'd call it big-boned. Not the whole way, just at the bottom, it's fleshed out. Good grief, it sounds revolting.

When my sister was born, her nose was disproportionately big and my mother made my father promise that he'd pay for a nose job for her when she was older, if she so wished. She's still allowed to take him up on the offer. It's not necessary, though, she grew into it beautifully.

Being the second-born, by which stage my sister was as cute as a button (seriously - looking at her photos I'd swear they made up that phrase for her), they weren't perturbed by mine when I popped into this world, and so I don't have that promise bestowed on me. Not that I'd use it anyway. It's really not that bad, and I'm quite fond of it even if it's not compliment-inducing.

TDoT(11): Something people seem to compliment you the most on

I used to get complimented on my smile, all the time. It has slowed down though, now that I'm thinking about it. I wonder why? Is it because I'm older? Isn't it a nice smile anymore? Or, how terrible, am I not smiling as much?

Now there's something to think about. I try to smile a lot you see. I smile at everybody. It just seems so much nicer to do that than to just look vacantly through people. Admittedly, I don't smile at everybody, all the time, because sometimes I'm just in my head and am not actually noticing things in this world. If I am in this world when I see you though, I'll smile.

Hmm, maybe I need to think more deeply about this. Maybe I'm spending too much time in my head, so not smiling enough, so not getting the compliments anymore. How complicated. Only thing is that I need to work out how to stop thinking so hard about it (and dwelling in my head) so that I'm available to smile.