Stuffing

I've just been reading the blog post I wrote at almost exactly this time last year. I was twenty-nine years old, flat, work-worn, weary and anxious of letting Christmas pass me by. Is this year any different except for the fact that (gasp!) I'm thirty now?! No, I am feeling almost exactly the same, maybe flatter. Kind of like this year has knocked the stuffing out of me in a variety of ways. I look at how few blog posts I have written since then, a lack of my words on this page perhaps, but that doesn't mean my words haven't spilled out and scattered elsewhere over the year. They have danced and shimmered out, so so many of them, threaded excitedly, lavishly and warmly into a fabric that slowly came threadbare and hopeless in my hands, wastefully fraying into unexpected nothingness. Those ones took my best stuffing as they went. Oh it went back in, not clean and fluffy anymore but tangled up with grit and dirt and flatness. Other words have sprung out of me carelessly and thoughtlessly, taking bits of stuffing out of other people. More recently, words I didn't even know I had, came out in the right order despite myself, and have left me still stuttering and speechless because somehow they have molded an unbelievable and fantastic opportunity for me to give people words in this new year in a very different way and place from before. Lots of carefully chosen words will need to be knitted and purled before then to cast off the transition without holes or unravelling. I will have to choose to weave in the words from myself and from others that bring my finest stuffing back, ignoring the ones that leave me tatty and mouldered. So I wish both for you and for myself the best quality stuffing this festive season. To fill us back up with soft and springy hope and to restore us for whatever weird, wretched and wonderful things the next year on this loop-the-loop may bring.

Fluff

Alright so I have a confession to make. I'm being a little cowardly making it on this blog and not on Facebook but I know this is WAY safer as the Stat Counter tells me my visitors are few and far between at the moment! But enough procrastination, I must get to the point before I lose my nerve. OK here it is, deep breath....drum roll....awkward clearing of the throat....here goes.....I have watched Big Brother this year. More than one episode. In fact, quite a lot more than one episode. And hey, I may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb...reader, I've been enjoying it. I have been in my little flat of an evening, chuckling, chortling and generally LOL-ing because of this programme. The reason I daren't admit this to anyone is that in the past few months I have seen a couple of people majorly crash and burn on their ill-advised and daring decisions to bring BB into a conversation, in the hope that some like minded soul would admit to sharing the guilty pleasure. But no, I have seen them subjected to a sudden outpouring of scorn, judgement, dismissiveness, and actually extreme rudeness on some occasions, and I have to say this reaction has shocked me a heck of a lot more than anything I have seen on Big Brother this year. Don't get me wrong, I don't need anyone to tell me that it is not an intelligent, highly cultured programme, or that it's not particularly intellectually, morally or spiritually enlightening, but any time I have seen it it has done what it says on the tin: provided amusement, clever and funny tasks this year (really!!), interesting chats and general entertainment enought to have me thoroughly chillaxed before bedtime.
I know that our TV screens are full to bursting with reality TV rubbish, but there does seem to be a hierarchy of what is more or less acceptable than others. Come Dine with me seems to be an example of one that it's fine to admit to watching. (although apart from the interesting recipes it can't really claim to be more high brow than others, the narrator is amusing but cruel and I know that all the more because of the mortification a colleague of mine suffered by going on it and being edited and manipulated beyond belief.) It got me thinking about what gives us the right to judge what I will now call other people's 'fluff time'. I mean let's start off working on the assumption that most of us spend the vast majority of our lives very productively either working or studying. Then let's go crazy and assume in addition to this we spend our time doing many of the following activities: spending time with family and friends, cleaning and tidying, grocery shopping, helping other people, eating, going to church, pursuing hobbies, going to the toilet, praying/meditating, doing exercise, reading intellectual books and sleeping. So really from a time management point of view, unless we are majorly neglecting things that are both essential and important to us and others in our lives, surely for some proportion of the day we are all entitled to a little 'fluff time'. No matter how highly cultured we are, surely each one of us has some 'fluff time' where we need to leave our brain at the door and going into a zone of just floating unthinkingly along. Some may just do this by staring into space but I personally spend mine doing the following: reading Heat (although I have a degree in English and French Literature), going to see romcoms at the cinema (although I often also go to QFT to watch French films too), watching Hollyoaks, Desperate Housewives or indeed Big Brother (although I watch serious and thought provoking documentaries too...sometimes), and going on Facebook (and no this is not a replacement for human contact, no I'm not addicted to it, yes I still actually speak to people in person and on the phone, I still send text and e mails and sometimes even snail mail), and listening to cheesy pop music (and I have a Grade 5 in Piano, Clarinet and Music Theory but I still enjoy chilling out to a cheesy and repetitive tune with vacuous lyrics that reminds me of a happy time or just gets my foot tapping). Your list is probably different to mine, and I would really love to hear it if you get a chance to post it below! You may roll your eyes, shoot me down, or mercilessly mock me for some of my choices on the list but have a think of what your own 'guilty pleasures' involve and tell me if they are really superior to mine. And surely enjoying a small amount of well earned 'fluff time' is more harmless than being mean and trying to judge or belittle people for how they use theirs, even if it's under the thinly veiled disguise of an attempt at humour. Dang, this has ended up pretty ranty, hasn't it? But do I have a point? You decide.

it's all a lot of oysters

Well I can't believe we are already here, this less glistening side of the festive season. All the sparkly stuff done and dusted and packed up into the boxes again for another year. I love the way older Portadown people (well the ones I make small talk with at work anyway) seem to love saying 'Well, did you get Christmas and New Year over you OK then?' As if it's some kind of lingering illness we all have to endure and manage to come out of triumphantly. Quoi? Je ne comprends pas du tout! But but...Santa delivered! Festivities abounded! Friends, fun, family, chilling, food, shopping and laughter all mingled harmoniously together in a blissfully timeless snowglobe-esque haven ! (Yes I have my rose-coloured glasses firmly in place already!) Every time I am greeted with these confusing words I feel like spluttering and saying "Em- hold the phone, my acquaintance/colleague/fellow user of the photocopier. I think you'll find the REAL question is 'Did you get the depressing, stinking, horrible, Sunday-night-blues-inducing, bleak, drab, sombre, leaden, cheerless, grim, dismal, dark return to work over you OK??'" (Yes I got a Thesaurus for Christmas! You can thank my brother and his final chance to take advantage of having been associated with Chambers dictionaries...) But I don't say that of course, I just mumble something about back to porridge and isn't it cold.

I have to admit though that once I get over my initial sulk of getting back to reality, I kind of don't mind this calmer, less pressured time of the year. Where you can say to the diminished number of students who have actually braved the disgusting slush to come in to class, 'Let's just take it easy and see how we get on today, eh?', instead of the all-singing, all-dancing, all-teeth rottingly sugary (literally) extravaganza of a class Christmas party I'll have been enthusiastically pulling out of the bag last time I saw them. Much as I love the annual festivities with them, it is quite nice to be able to just turn up and be calm and gently warm up to being productive once more. I have enjoyed not one, but a record-breaking TWO evenings in this week, pottering, doodling some plans for 2010 in a crisp new notebook. It's nice to feel that freshness and possibility lie ahead. I just hope that I don't make like the snow in Portadown too soon and turn it all into a murky, turbid, tenebrious (thanks again bro/Chambers) disappointingly grey slush. Sometimes somewhere between the fresh-start-feeling of a new year and the first broken resolution, things tend to get a bit bleak and hopeless feeling. (it's called January/February) That's why it's good to cling to things that cheer and encourage you amid such potential dreariness. One such thing I have been enjoying recently is a blog I have on my list here called Stuff Christians Like. Do check it out if you haven't already. It is my new lunch time companion, I think I can literally now say I check it every single day! It kind of gently pokes fun at the habits and quirks of Christian culture and the write Jon Acuff is really sarcastic and hilarious. Anyway it is mostly very silly and funny, but he has started a feature called Serious Wednesdays and I always get sooo much from his gracious, honest style of writing. Yesterday's one just set me up for the whole year (I hope!) so I am going to post it on here so I don't forget to keep coming back to it. I hope I remember to return to it every time I get that feeling, as penned by Counting Crows' genuis frontman Mr Duritz, that 'it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls'. And it has reminded me once more to 'be strong, take heart and wait for the Lord.'(Ps 24:18) Enjoy.

http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/01/looking-for-goliath/
(sorry can't get this to be a proper link so you will just have to copy and paste it into your browser!)

and gently whispers 'hope'...

I honestly think, and fear, that I could let Christmas completely pass me by this year if I'm not too careful. I have by now opened the third window of my advent calender ('Fame' is its theme this year, Dad's choice as mum currently has a broken foot so was unable to have an input) and am fast hurtling towards the fourth. But I haven't yet written a Christmas card (although I have bought them) or put up any decorations, and have only bought one person's entire present so far! (Lucky Sarah K!) I have already been to my first carol service of the year, which was wonderful, but still with that weird and frustrating sense of distant 'make believe', as if we're just going through the motions of Christmas and acting it out, but it's not actually real. I'm enjoying the feeling of my ears carefully unwrapping and dusting down the Christmas repertoire of songs unheard since last year, and it feels strange but gratifying to have memories from my sister's wedding last year, which was the last time I heard many of them. Dancing to 'Fairytale of New York' with my cousins and other friends at the tail end of the evening do, and swaying with that sense of relief and don't-care-that-my make-up-is-now-smeared-across-my-face-or-that-I've-spilt-a-drink-down-my-very-expensive-dress euphoria. Those memories all unexpectedly rushed back to me when I heard the gravelling tones of that classic a week or so ago, like tinsel unexpectedly springing out of a dusty box hauled out of the attic.

Last night I was debating whether or not to 'bother' putting up my tree this year- please hear me out before you threaten me with the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future, or humbugs, or miserly tendencies, or small ill children with walking sticks- but my tree is currently chez les parents, and I am going away this weekend so the next chance I have to retrieve it would be next weekend. Essentially I would therefore have one mere week to enjoy its splendour, in solitude (not because I am a total loser- but just as all of my festive events involve me socialising outside of my flat) before heading back to Bangor to enjoy total festive warmth and joy at that juncture. Persuaded? Yes OK so part of me still thinks it would be some kind of defeat not to do it, like I'd given up on the brief window of opportunity to enjoy it, yes it perhaps serves no practical purpose, but not to do it would be like some kind of surrender to being a person who doesn't go out on a limb and do something 'just because' or seize the moment and join in. And I don't want to be that person. Driving home last night I passed a veritable grotto that garishly lit up the night sky along a country road and found myself chuckling to myself with delight, just with the pleasure of knowing that someone had gone to such effort just to mark the occasion and get into the spirit, and it cheered me that someone had had the cheer and energy to go overboard like that just to be part of this season we all share.

But no matter what motions of Christmas festivities I will inevitably end up going through in the coming weeks, it's whether I really end up getting into the spirit- the fizz and warmth and glow and spice and glitter (not Gary- pity though I did like that song back in the innocent day)- of it all. The type that sizzles in the pit of your stomach and makes you have a dance-around-by-yourself-for-no-reason type moment. I usually have at least one peak moment of this sort during the festive era. I distinctly remember it from last year, it was the first Saturday in December, I went to St George's market with some friends, there was snow on the ground which we slipped and slithered along to get there, and a band playing, we bumped into more friends and I bought myself a lovely necklace with buttons on it just because I wanted it, my cheeks were rosy and I started to feel giddy for no reason. I came home and put on my cheesiest Christmas CD and did a seriously energy-burning dance around my flat for at least 15 minutes on my own. I can't imagine even being anywhere near that point at the moment. I feel my head is still stuck in the mundane and the nitty-gritty of life and I'm not really looking around me and savouring it all. It's kind of like that quotaion about life being what happens when you are busy making plans, I'm kind of feeling that way about this whole festive season. Today I had my usual 12.5 hour working Thursday to trudge through and as usual I went into autopilot, totally focussed on work and calmly getting everything done. I forced myself to go out to a local shopping centre before my evening class and I marched, robot-like, past the glimmering lights and decorations and pottered around a few shops, until the grey haze of the office has all but lifted from my mind. I decided to pop into Starbucks for an energy-boosting treat to see me through rigours of the the 3hr class that lay ahead. I was standing in the queue and then I started to soak it up, a different feeling in the air. Two people huddled together over a laptop, making plans, their faces glowing in the light of the machine, and each other's company. People with rustling shopping bags, a louder and livelier background chatter than before, laughter and anticipation, and something kind of stirred in me from that mechanical, work-dulled state of mind, and because I wasn't yet free for the day I momentarily felt like an outsider looking in on all this crackling warmth and buzz. A feeling began to grow somewhere in my soul- not quite longing, not even sadness, or even weariness- it hadn't quite taken shape when I glanced up and saw a beautiful red bird that said 'Hope' on its side, and I felt my soul latching on to that word and lifting up from wherever it had been heading to. (No I wasn't hallucinating, it was just a decoration from those corporate giants and no doubt mass-produced in their 100's of stores but it was pretty nonetheless...) Yes, hope. Hope for a zombified, work-worn girl staring bewildered at the fading embers of her twenties, and hope for everyone else around me trudging through life with their own fears and confusions. Hope that life can still be warm and surprising and shimmering and cinnamon-scented and just plain unwrapped and new. And you'll be pleased to know this gal who is addicted to the-moral-of-the-tale is going to sit on her hands and not conclude that way- it's just enough to know that sometimes it's possible to glance up on a dull day and catch an unexpectedly soul-refreshing glimmer of hope on the side of a pretty red paper bird.

Feuille a feuille

I've always found Autumn to be an exciting, and even semi-magical time of year. Admittedly I do usually go through a slightly panicked phase at the very beginning where I realise I've worn my flip flops and sandals for the last time, and when the dark evenings seem to be drawing in alarmingly quickly, and all those evening walks that I never really took anyway are suddenly all the more appealing due to the fact that they're no longer an option at all. But somewhere in that brief time period between the end of the summer when I'm on high spider alert, and the Hallowe'en-to- Christmas period when I move to high mouse alert, I start to feel the odd spark and crackle of excitement and change in the air. I love the colours of Autumn, I love donning scarves and boots and tights, I love the rich melancholy magic of Eva Cassidy's songs about falling leaves and memories, and yet somehow amongst all the death and regret associated with this poignant season, I always feel a crisp sense of hope somewhere as the Autumnal air hits my lungs.

When I was studying in St Andrews my favourite time of year was always between the start of the first semester and reading week, when my new batch of stationery was as crisp and fresh as the leaves on the ground and I knew I had a whole year's lovely routine to look forward to with the stress of deadlines still far enough away not to be nagging. We were all drawn out into those three streets by the hourly bells that saw us flitting kaleoidoscopically from class to coffee, or to another class or home, always guaranteeing friendly faces and lighthearted chatter with the people who flickered across our paths. Hopes for what lay ahead were fresh and as clear as the bright Autumn sun. Everything was unspoilt and ready to be enjoyed, like a big pile of brightly-coloured leaves just begging to be kicked around and dove into.

In my French course we studied some poetry by Apollinaire, a little selection of poems called Alcools and for some reason this guy too seemed to be a little entranced by l'Automne. One of my favourite poems in the selection was entitled 'Automne malade', which clearly implies he had perhaps more melancholy associations with the season that I do, but I love the final lines of the poem which read:

'Et que j'aime o saison que j'aime tes rumuers
Les fruits tombant sans qu'on les cueille
Le vent et la foret qui pleurent
Toutes leurs larmes en automne feuille a feuille
Les feuilles
Qu'on foule
Un train
Qui roule
La vie
S'écoule.'

So bear with my extremely rusty French skills, but a rough translation of the above is that he loves the rumours of Autumn, the fruit falls without being gathered, the wind and the leaves in the forest which cry all their tears in Autumn leaf by leaf. The leaves that one gathers, a train going past, life flowing by.

Another beautiful aspect to this season is harvest, celebration of plenty and life always seems to mirror that abundance at this time of year, plenty of social events, plenty of new things to try and energy to enjoy them, and no time to feel depressed or stuck in a rut as Christmas goodies appear and the countdown to the festive season never feels far away. So many good things happening and not enough time to gather each one up and enjoy.

Then he brings out the image of the leaves being cried on to the ground, which is a sad image, but somehow implies cathartic cleansing and the shedding of the old. It implies the old making way for the new, and the passing loss that inevitably involves, which is something we all experience at different times in our lives. The time old rule as steadfast as the law of gravity that for an oak tree to grow the acorn needs to first be buried in the ground and lost, the idea of surrender and sacrifice so central to my faith and idea of personal holiness. All the things I'm bringing and surrendering to God with tears but somehow hope and a crackling anticipation of what beauty and sense He will make of it all in His precious time.

He ends with the train going past and life flowing by, a sense in Autumn that life is not going to be the same forever, and with each Autumn the changes that come and the shedding of the years that have already been. I think this theme may become more pertinant to my blog in the next months as my particular train of life hurtles along to the big event of my 30th, as I have already started to ponder the fact that I am not going to be young forever, which is something I have never really had cause to grapple with before, and something I hope that will end somewhere along the lines of liking myself more with a bit of wisdom and experience under my belt and a few metaphors making connections to fine wine and cheese (can't let all that good French education go to waste!) but those will be ponderings for another day.

Now for settling down to the simple joys of the season, fluffy slippers, central heating, sparklers, the cosiness of being inside on a dark night, a rapidly filling diary, toffee apples, conkers, coin pie and a rich sense of abundance and having lot to look forward to, oh and hopefully a good big pile of leaves to crunch through in a lovely new pairs of boots.

harboured memories

This past weekend Belfast hosted its' biggest ever event'. Yes the Tall Ships sailed in to pay us a visit again, having last visited Northern Ireland's fair shores in 1991, and it seems the world and its dog turned out to welcome them back. I was among the estimated half a million visitors to the event, and I'm sure I was not the only person there who does not exactly harbour an active interest in things of a nautical nature per se, but still had a great day out enjoying the buzz of what was going on.

It's funny, the nature of people in this odd little province of Norn Iron. Maybe I'm being too cynical, and maybe the fantastic display of the ships themselves did lure the majority of punters in (they were pretty impressive after all) but are we not all just suckers for 'not missing out on a bit of craic when it's on the go' when it comes down to it? As I was pushed and pulled through the heaving masses of screaming children, family disputes, whining and whinging people of all ages and stages of life, and was starting to rue my decision ever to bother coming down, I heard one man behind me gently remark to the person he was with, 'Sure God knows when they'll be back, they may never be down our way again.' I think this summed up a lot of what drew people out over the past weekend, and this was confirmed by what I later read in the local paper, one woman quoted as saying, 'This doesn't happen all the time, goodness knows when the next time this will come to Belfast, so we were determined to come and have a good day, despite the weather.' Ah this made me smile, 'determined' to 'have a good day', it sums up so completely the Northern Irish attitude. We WILL have a good time, even if we get wet, muddy, trampled on and crushed in the crowd. We WILL see these ships, which have made it as the main news item on our TV screen all week, and we WILL have our own experience of it to share with all the people we know at work and in our street and in our families, so we don't feel we've missed out on any of the bizz! What other ENTIRE COUNTRY* would turn out for an event that is probably of interest only to some, just because 'who knows when they'll be back' and we wouldn't want to miss out on a bit of craic and a wee nosey around now, would we?! This is part of the Northern Irish spririt that I absolutely love and I have to say it does make me feel proud to come from here, which is something I've not had occasion to say much over the years.

Another part of my fascination in being there was remembering life back in 1991 when we last went down to see them. Eighteen years ago and I still remember all the hype there was then. Let's be honest, not many events dared or bothered to come to Northern Ireland back in those days. (I'm still recovering from thr excitement of finally getting to see New Kids on the Block in Belfast in January 09 as apparently it was not safe enough for them to come over in the late eighties/early nineties when we adored them!)""> As one article that looks back to event writes, 'the city, which was still badly affected by the Troubles, was now the centre of a positive, major event which on average had 100,000 people visiting every day. Chairing the committee behind the visit was Robin Dixon, now known as Lord Glentoran“Nothing on the scale of fun like this had happened in living memory of many people,” he said.


And didn't we look like we were having the most fun we'd ever had on our lifetime?! Maybe not!

It's funny the kaleidoscopic pieces of memories that stick in your head from such an event. Queuing up against metal railings. Eating a packet of Cheeto's while we grumpily waited. Dressing up as a 'small ship' for CSSM the next week. Being in that unsettled summer between primary school and secondary school. Feeling embarrassed to be seen on a day out with my parents. Noticing a few months later that a girl from my class at school had randomly ended up in the foreground of one of our pictures and we didn't even know her at the time. These are the flashes and fragments I remember from the last time they were here.





Some things I had forgotten until I dug out these old pictures, which are dreadful and hilarious in equal measure. I didn't remember that David and I had had our faces painted, Rachel must have been 'too cool' for it by that stage (in a peach-and-white-T-shirt-wearing, Simon Cowell-waisted shorts-wearing kind of way... hahaha) I had expected my Granny, who is the only significant member of my family who has since passed away, to be there in the photos, but when I saw them I remembered that she mustn't have come along that day as she isn't in any of them, and I can't remember why, althought it was probably something completely insignificant at the time.


When I was wandering through the crowds last Saturday taking it all in, a realisation hit me that almost made me vomit on the street. No I hadn't just eaten something dodgy from one of the market stalls, or gone on one of the dizzifying rides... but it dawned on me that if the Tall Ships return another eighteen years from now I will be FORTY-SEVEN years old. How could this be?!? Surely I can't be as close to that strange alien age as I am to being eleven, which I remember relatively clearly. I don't even think I really want to know anything about my forty-seven year old self, in all honesty! This thought is really quite horrendously disturbing, and it kind of makes the average expected lifespan seem shockingly short. However one slight reassurance is that when I do think back to my 11 year old self, I don't think I could have even imagined being 29, or cared much for the person I would be at that then strange alien age, and period of life. Part of me wishes I could go back and ask myself, but another part of me doesn't, as I would have probably thought my life as I knew it would be over by then, much the same way as I feel about being 47 right now. And when I think of all I have done since then, it simultaneously seems like such a lot and such a little; in a nutshell I've done secondary school, university and a few years of work. Full stop. Under the microscope I've done and said and thought and felt an infinity of different things I'll never quite remember all at once, and grown and been shaped in ways I'll maybe never even recognise or realise. Oh and I've definitely done the vast majority of my allocation of 'being young' in all the wonderful, terrible and just plain 'blah' ways that has entailed over the years. I didn't know I'd be on this strange thing called The Internet, writing this even stranger thing called a blog. Wouldn't that be like leaving your diary on the bus for dear-knows-who to read? How embarrassing. I didn't know I'd be teaching international people to speak English so they could integrate into life in Northern Ireland. Why would anyone want to come and visit, let alone choose to actually live and work here? I didn't know I wouldn't be married or wouldn't have had all my children by now (as that fortune prediction thing I'd done by drawing round the outline of my hand and couting up to a random number told me it would definitely happen at 21! And I knew it would be either Joey McIntyre or Ned Nickerson) or stranger still, that I'd actually be semi-OK with that! I didn't know how amazingly wonderful university would be, (after all my mother warned me it would quite a difficult period of my life where I'd be quite poor and may have to live in a not very nice house for a while and work hard) or what fantastic friends and people I'd meet, the laughs that would strain my stomach or the tears that would hurt my throat. I didn't know I'd have a fish called Amber or a navy Fiesta or dye my hair blonde or start Tae Kwon Do. I didn't know my sister would marry somebody called Jeremy or my baby brother would grow a beard. I didn't know about the troubles that were yet ahead in Northern Ireland, the bombs that would go off, the people who would be shot or the fear and anxiety there would be. I didn't that progress or development or tourism or hope would exist here, however deeply it's rooted or to whatever extent it may be the real deal.

But one thing I could probably have managed to guess; that nobody from 'the Pravince' would ever dream of allowing a little bit of rain to let them miss out on a bit of craic, a wee nosey around and a free day out.



*some exaggeration may have been employed at this juncture

but trust me on the sunscreen

I was thinking of writing a blog a few weeks ago before I went on my travel adventures to Seattle, followed by Cambridge. Unfortunately I didn't have time, so am doing it at this stage when I still have a lovely 2 and a half weeks of holiday time left to enjoy. What I really wanted to do was to capture the moment of being on the cusp of my holidays with so much adventure and free time stretching out unspoilt before me, and my return to work not yet even a distant dot on the carefree horizon. I'm not sure why I was so keen to do this, perhaps to let the future 'me' , who would no doubt be painfully jealous of the super-chilled 'me', know that the holiday-happy 'me' really treasured and enjoyed that period to the full. Then maybe the future deflated and work-saddened 'me' would forgive the footloose and fancy-free 'me' and then....what? Maybe the return to work will be equally painful either way! Or maybe you're thinking, when she returns to work she may be able to get this freaky mutliple-personality thing under control again and have less time to think weird thoughts! This is also true!

Does knowing that you really made the most of every moment of 'the good times' help ease the pain of the future when the rose-coloured specs seem out of reach? I guess I am widening this out to a larger scale of life in general, not just summer holidays - in case you think I detest work so much that I should look for another job before I go completely over the edge! In this final year of my 20's I have felt a renewed vigour to enjoy every last minute of being a twentysomething as it hit me a few months ago - I don't get to do 'being in my twenties' again- ever! Like ever ever EVER! I've never had to 'do' anything other than 'young', 'younger' or 'pre-young'! I look back at my most of my twenties and know I didn't fully appreciate being young, there were moments when the current 'me', and definitely a LOT of future 'me's' may be tempted to shake that unappreciative young scalliwag and tell her to wise up, seize the day and live for the moment!

But then there is a certain sympathy for the 'me' that didn't know any better, and only had the resources I had there and then to make my decisions, and tried to do the best I could with what I had. There is a slightly depressing saying that 'experience is the comb life gives you after you have lost all your hair' and I guess it's important to remember this before being too hard on yourself for things you did or didn't do! It's easy to have 20-20 hindsight but harder to see the woods for the trees at the time! I don't know what the conclusion is, I would love to end by saying I have found a great formula for living life to the full and eliminating regret, or that I've had 'Carpe Diem' tattoed on my brain and I'm never going to miss a moment or an opportunity again, but I know that isn't true. I love how Donald Miller takes the focus off trying to follow formulae in his book Searching for God Know What - which I really recommend for a refreshing, humourous and challenging look at living through ups and downs of life as a Christian. He writes:

I know there are some people who have actually gone from misery to happiness, but they didn't do it by walking through three steps, they did it because they had a certain set of parents and heard a certain song and knew somebody who had a certain experience, and saw some movie, and then read some book, then had something happen to them like a car wreck or a trip to Seattle, and then they called on God and a week later read something in a magazine, or met a girl in Wichita, and when all this had happened they had an epiphany, and someone may have helped them to fulfill what this epiphany made them feel, and several years later they rationalised this mystic experience with three steps, then they told the three steps to us in a book. And I'm not saying they weren't trying to be helpful; I bring this up only because life is complex, and the idea that you can break it down or fix it in a few steps is rather silly. The truth is that there are about a million steps and we don't even know what the steps are, and worse at any given moment we may not be willing, or even able to take them, and still worse they are different for you and me and they are always changing. I have come to believe the sonner we find this truth beautiful, the sooner we will fall in love with God on His terms, who keeps shaking things up, keeps changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in him, teaching us not to rely on easy answers, bullet points, magic mantras or genies in lamps, but rather in His guidance, His existence, His mercy and His love.

I have found this REALLY helpful and incredibly freeing in the past year or so, and I think your life will really improve if you too follow these next 3 steps.....just kidding!

I was also inspired by this poem that was read at my friend Matt's wedding to a Danish girl called Gitte last Saturday. I think it is translated from the original Danish-hence maybe slightly clumsy in English although still true!- and was written by Piet Heins:

To live in the present is the art of life, and all people do their best
But half of them choose the now that has gone and half of them choose the next one
And both the now that is past and the now still to come are never life's true present
And all people's lives pass by anyhow, just remembering and waiting
For the now that has passed is gone for ever and the next is never right either
Always ensure that the now you live in, is today and forever the one.

And just in case you're not feeling that profound whilst skimming over this, have a listen to Baz Luhrman's 'Sunscreen', it's probably far too long since you've heard it and reflected on its teaching!