Success?

There is a famous saying: good girls keep diaries - bad girls don't have time. 

Not so, according to the diaries I managed to fill in the late 90s. I've been reading over them for something I am working on and 97 - 99, when I'm a budding reporter/presenter, is spent in a blur of filming, parties, launches, cocktails and stumbling out of the Met Bar at 4am when the lights came on - like a cooler version of the Shane Park school discos where the bright lights illuminating your dodgy neon leggings and even dodgier frosted lipstick, were a sign of - get the hell home now.  

Reading my antics, let alone living them, is exhausting. I am so busy STRIVING for attention and acceptance and well, love - that I barely have time to eat. I tell myself, shamefully, that if I am famous, if I get that glorious next job, if I rise up the ranks to dizzying heights (not sure what these precisely are) then I will be happy. It is goalpost after goalpost. Rarely do I stop to saviour the moments of triumph (blagging my way into and then backstage at Stella McCartney's first ever Chloe fashion show; lying my way into a Bond Premiere and getting a one to one with Bond himself; surviving attending a human autopsy with a Brit party induced hangover). Also, are these REALLY moments of triumph? Or just moments where I convinced myself that at long last I was 'enough.' I am certain that validation is waiting at the end of a camera, or in the arms of some fly-by-night director, or a morose comedian.  What I never realised is that I had to give it to myself first... 

Of course we live in a capitalist society where success is valued in monetary gains and status symbols - but at heart we are hunter/gatherers, desperate to belong to a tribe, needing to be amongst nature. We adapt  behaviours to compete - when we don't even realise who we really are competing against. Or what for. 

I listened to an amazing podcast at the weekend: 'Feel Better Live More,' where Dr Rangan Chatterjee chats to physician and author Gabor Mate. (I'm a fan). They discussed former rugby union player Jonny Wilkinson - who dreamed of playing for England, in a world cup and scoring the winning point... This was his ultimate goal. Then - it only went and bloody happened. In the World Cup final in 2003 he kicked the winning drop goal in the last minute of the game. According to a story he told, before the ball had even dropped to the ground, he started to feel low. The following morning he could hardly get up out of bed and then sank into a deep depression. He had a goal - it gave him purpose in life - but at the ripe old age of 24 he'd achieved his dream - so what then? Jim Carrey wishes everyone could be rich and famous to see just how it doesn't make one happy... When you fail and have to get up or when you are trying endlessly to get to a point in the distance and then suddenly, miraculously it appears - who are you then? Society says you are rich/famous/gorgeous/successful - so why do you feel like an imposter or if you take your foot of the pedal your house of cards will all come tumbling down?

Michael Jackson woke up one night (I know I know, he's persona non grata these days but hear me out) and he had a banging tune in his head. Rather than go back to sleep or just write it down, he got up and went into his recording studio, desperate to record it. At 7am in rolled his studio engineer wondering why on earth Jacko wasn't getting his beauty sleep.  Jacko tells him he has been up most of the night laying this tune that was in his head. Surely they could have recorded the song that morning muses the engineer? Jackson turns to him and replies: 'No, because if I'd gone back to sleep, God would have given that tune to Prince.' 

In the podcast Dr Chatterjee talks about a time when his book was coming out and he got a phone call to tell him that it had done well. Exceedingly so. He took the news, thought 'oh ok,' and then went about his day. He admits that previously, news like this would have given him a high as his ego would have been royally massaged. But, he's done a heck of a lot of work on himself and he doesn't need success (book sales, fans etc.) to validate who he is.  He discussed believing in his work, regardless of how others viewed it. The moment we look to outside sources to give us validation, we lose our own sense of power. 

Another quick story: I listened to another podcast, where the writer of 'Call Me By your Name (SUCH a beautiful book) Andre Aciman was talking about his newest novel. The interviewer was commenting how Call Me By Your Name was huge and even moreso because of the Oscar-winning film adaptation. She wondered how all this interest and attention had affected him? Aciman said that whilst yes, it was lovely that the film had brought him a whole host of new readers, that they will disappear, the attention will vanish and then his core readers will remain. He didn't pay much heed to the glitter, the noise, the sudden interest, because he didn't need it nor desire it. He was just happy, sitting in his little office in New York, writing as he always did, enjoying the journey. It struck me just how assured he is; how happy in his own skin and how joyful he finds writing, regardless of how his books are received. 

Life is fucking short - I have witnessed this on several occasions over the past few years, when I've lost people I dearly loved, who died young. Why spend what time we have here, striving for something that only will temporarily boost our egos? What a horrific waste of time... 

I look back at those painfully detailed, raw and exposing diaries and feel compassion for my younger self. I was looking in all the wrong places. Now I get my kicks from the most mundane of activities. A dog walk yesterday led me to pass by a small library of books hidden within a little nest of bushes near the end of my lane. One book jumped out at me to read: 'The unexpected joy of the ordinary.' I picked it up because I've learnt (as the film 'Soul' so beautifully depicts) that it is the very minutiae of a daily life that makes it so thrilling: the perfect cup of tea in the morning, a robin landing outside a window; a hug from a friend; the chatter of my kids over dinner; a glass of red as the fire roars. Over the past few years I have very deliberately carved out a very simple life for myself; living on the edge of town, with a little stream babbling in my garden; venturing into cold waters every week and walking my dog through fields and forests every day. I've studied and graduated not only to counsel teenagers but more importantly to counsel myself. People keep asking - will you now be a counsellor? Or a writer? Can't I be both? It is surprising how similar both jobs are... 

Speaking of jobs - why does there have to be competition? Another thing Jonny Wilkinson said is that winning the cup meant he no longer played rugby for the joy of the game. Isn't that a shame? When does an activity you have loved become a ball ache - a means to simply make money? I've written diaries since I was a child, blogs as I got older, scripts for a living. I will never not write - regardless what it is for. Does it even have to be for something? My son has just done his GCSEs and I told him simply to pick A levels he would enjoy. That's it. If you don't enjoy what you are doing - studying/job/life - then why the hell are you doing it and who exactly for? 

Which brings me back to all that success I was busy networking for and hustling to get back in my stardust days. I think my nights on the town brought me one job in the end. I lied to myself that I was busy trying to get the glory and get my face on screen because I was 'good at my job.' Which maybe I was... But really it was to be seen, to be heard, to be wanted. It was all just ego.  All that comparison with others - it is only ever going to bring misery. A good friend of mine in the arts, rang recently - upset that her particular artistic endeavours were not being received with as much applause as some other people's. I told her that it was all just noise and fluff and instagram bollocks. I reminded her that she would still have to make dinner that night. Take the bins out. Iron school uniforms etc. That really all that 'success' is just bullshit. In the grand scheme of things, whatever you put out, however it received isn't really the point. What is one person's trash is another's treasure and art is subjective; we all respond to a painting in a completely different way. If you are doing it to be on best seller lists or to get awards - then what does that say about your needs and how fragile they are? What if they fail? Or perhaps worse - what if they succeed? Then where will you be? Trumping yourself I guess.... 

This year I had some bad news about a work thing in January. I walked up the hill, in the rain, through the muddy fields and wept. The next day, I felt completely normal again. Back at the wheel. In August I had some amazing news and I smiled to myself, told my husband and then got on with making dinner. The highs these days aren't so high and the lows aren't so low. That locus of evaluation is more internal. I don't need to feed my ego. Thank god. 

I only wish my 24 year old self could have discovered the above much sooner. I would've saved myself a fortune in lipstick and heels. 

Still, I got there in the end. 

Now I just need to burn these bloody diaries so my kids never get their mitts on them.

All endings are new beginnings....

 ... Or so the saying goes. 

2022 has been a vintage year for me (bar one sad loss that I'm still getting to grips with). 

Hand on heart I'm not one for change. I like the comfortable falling apart worn slippers, the roads travelled, the familiarity of faces. So I understood perfectly why my 11 year old was utterly distraught when she had to say goodbye to her much loved primary school in July. The horrifically warm weather had put paid to a few of the school's plans, so she suddenly had her leavers' service on the same day as the leavers' show (where she played a resoundingly natural Peggy Mitchell) and then promptly left the following day. A day she declared as 'the saddest of my life.' I can only hope that stays true for the rest of her days as then she will be truly blessed... 

Meanwhile Sproglet - (which seems an insane name for my now 16 year old) had to contend with GCSEs and then a long stretch of summer with absolutely nothing to do. That of course changed the minute I herded him out of the house, suit on, CV in hand, with the words: 'get a job.' He is now a cherished employee (so he tells me) at Costa coffee, where I am delighted to report one of his duties involves cleaning the bogs. Amazing. I also have witnessed him empty and change a bin there - something he has yet to do at home. Coupled with refereeing money, he had enough to spend when he went camping at Reading estival for 4 nights. He survived. Perhaps also as importantly, I SURVIVED this - although a fair amount of alcohol was consumed to make me forget that my first born was doing god knows what in a tent in a field surrounded by people off their faces. 

The day before, he had held at our house an 'arts and crafts' day where with the help of his 3 buddies and my old schoolmate H, we had popped unbroken caps off water bottles and filled said empties with pure vodka. Another mother had made vodka jellies, disguised in shower gel bottles. Four bottles of shower gel carried in by a teen boy at a festival? Unlikely...  The house was a hive of activity that I image was similar to bootleg stores during prohibition. One of H's 11 year old twins asked to to sip water from a bottle she found in the fridge, lest it be pure vodka... 

GCSEs done successfully, he is now suited and booted and off to sixth year, to do A levels. I cannot quite comprehend that when I started this blog he wasn't yet 2 - and somehow in 2 years he will hopefully be heading to Uni... Where has the time gone?

This year began hopefully and ended up exceeding my expectations. Sproglette's school team won nationals at table tennis and bless her, she won Dacorum's Elite Sportsperson award from over 80 schools in the area in July (always a great time to sweat in a school hall for 3 hours).  From April - July was INTENSE. Juggling two scripts, the last term of a degree, counselling for Rape Crisis and at school for a day, plus supervision and actually attending college on Thursdays from 1-7 meant I worked every weekend for 7. It was punishing. My whiteboard looked like the diaries of the serial killer in Se7en.... I thought July would never come. Then suddenly, it did. College after 4.5 years was over. Those people know me in many ways as well as my oldest mates - and here I was saying goodbye. My supervisor asked me: 'what will replace college for you?' I'm still pondering that answer. I passed my counselling diploma in August, fittingly hearing on holiday and duly celebrated. A string to my bow. Writing is keeping me busy, but hopefully I'll manage to do a bit of both. There is nothing quite so rewarding as helping someone help themselves... 

Every week I still got in the lake with my mate KR and said to her - I will get to Greece. I am holding the thought of getting in that warm water. It keeps me going.

That warm water was worth waiting for. 

Especially as one of the places we island hopped to ended up being right smack bang next to an abandoned water park. The stuff of amateur horror films - and yet, I had several beach coves to myself, with water so aquamarine, it was as if I had dreamt it. On our last day I went for a swim alone, drinking in the beauty of the place; taking a mental picture to go back there when I need to. Paros, you were perfection. 

The summer was a haze of ABBA (My My!), cocktails, family and friends visiting, home made slip n slides, fishing in the stream and bizarrely looking after chickens. On one evening, I suggested a dog walk to a pub along our canal, where inexplicably two sets of Morris dancers decided to have a dance off. No fever dream I have had came close. Three gins later and I nearly danced with them. Three weeks later upon our return from Greece I ventured back to the same pub - only to discover - yep, those dancers were back for one last hooly. While my husband cried about one of the dancer's blind dog Stevie (as in Stevie Wonder) I found myself almost agreeing to join their group. Is there anything as joyful as a morris dancer?  I think not... 

And so, the summer is coming to an end. Sproglette headed off for her first day at big school today - the first time she has donned a skirt since nursery days... Sproglet advising her on skirt length/tie wearing/teachers... After the chaos of summer, the jam packed working calendar since March, the house was silent and I returned to my desk. 

On it is a photo of me aged 17, in London visiting my older, much more glamorous and beautiful step sister. Her bright blue eyes shining, her white blonde hair flicked out, her face tanned and smiling. It was July 1990. We lost her on May 13th this year. Well, losing her isn't quite right. Cancer devoured her until there was little of her left. The last time I saw her she stripped and said to me 'look, this is what cancer does to you.' It is a brutal, humiliating, savage bastard of a disease. 

So instead of mourning all the change in my life; fretting over the unknowns, the 'what ifs' - I embrace every single day. Sounds cliched doesn't it? I made a pledge to myself every day from now to Xmas, I'll throw on my trainers run out into the lane and up the hill and take in season.... I'll hurl myself into those cold lakes; I'll plan that up-coming 50th no matter the cost, I'll dance with those Morris dancers next time they appear in town. Because we only have today. That's it. The temperature may start to dip. The longer nights drawing in. Embrace it all. Who knows what's round the corner?