Say My Name

Say my name.

Let every syllable roll off of your tongue so slowly

That my ears are shocked when they realise,

The word fat did not follow.

Say my name,

So loud, so often that I no longer tense-

Expecting it to be punctuated

By the thud of a fist hitting a wall.

Say my name.

Sing it so melodically that it is impossible

To feel insignificant,

Whenever I hear it spoken again.

Say my name,

close to my face; so close

that my nostrils no longer burn with the scent of whisky,

just by association anymore.

Say my name,

So gently as we lie together,

That my ears no longer strain to find

The tone of manipulation, they are so used to.

Say my name.

Say my name.

Say my name.

Because when you say it,

It’s my favourite sound.

Love Yourself

I spent a very large part of my life hating myself- in fact to this day, I still have days where I can’t stand to look in the mirror. It’s not even solely about my appearance, to an extent that would be easier to deal with; it’s also about me as a person; I have always found myself annoying, vain, selfish and simply an unlikeable/ undesirable person.

However one of my main goals to accomplish while I’m seventeen is to learn to love myself- considerably the most important lesson a girl needs to learn before she grows up. I am aware that there is still a far way to go before I truly reach self- assurance, however I have noticed a massive change in myself due to the changes I’ve made and hope maybe they will help you to begin this same journey. So here we go...

1.      1)  Eat right- and by this I don’t mean live on kale and cook everything in coconut oil, although both of those things are a part of it. Take care of yourself and eat healthily and sensibly, don’t eat right before going to bed and choose a salad over pasta every now and then. But then also let yourself eat a bowl of ice-cream with the X-Factor or eat a pizza at a sleepover. The key is to neither restrict or over indulge; you don’t have to deny yourself what you enjoy, because that’s just as bad as eating it all the time. Just listen to what your body needs and then on the occasions it wants a treat, let it have one- just don’t take the treat too far.

2.       2) Exercise- you don’t have to run a marathon but just choosing to walk to school once or twice a week will ultimately make you feel better. The exercise will release endorphins which are the happy chemicals- just look at Mo Farah, he’s always smiling.

3.      3) Date yourself. This may sound sad at first but dating myself is the best idea I’ve ever had. You don’t necessarily have to take yourself on a candlelit dinner to achieve this; just have lunch alone every once in a while or take half an hour a day to really think and get to know yourself without any distractions. I especially like to go shopping alone and then grab lunch at a coffee shop- there’s something therapeutic about reading a book to the smell of freshly ground coffee.

4.     4) Give yourself credit. This is one I’m still trying to master but so far I have learned that there is a massive difference between humility and self-depreciation however it is a line easily crossed. Be proud of your accomplishments and relish in the praise, just give credit where it’s due.

5.      5) Treat yourself. Slightly different to food but in the same vein. One of my best investments is pretty underwear- it just makes me feel good about myself even though no-one can see it. Whether your thing is makeup, clothes or even something completely unrelated- just find something that makes you feel confident and invest in it.

6.      6) Be honest with yourself. If that means admitting your favourite jeans are too small now or that you could have tried harder on the test- being honest with yourself just allows you to create goals for you to achieve that will be rewarded with a feeling of pride and general happiness.

7.     

            7) Surround yourself with good people. Remove negative energy and surround yourself with love and eventually the love they have for you will catch on to you. Friends and family are a priceless resource that will change your whole perspective, choose wisely and they will cause you to forget all of your unhealthy inhibitions and insecurities.

8.      8) Capture the good memories. Whether you keep a diary, take endless photos or make a playlist for every occasion, just find something that allows you to revisit the happier times on your bad days.

9.      

       9) Find a hobby- having something productive to occupy your time when you feel like shit will always help to pull you out of a bad mood. How can you feel insignificant, talentless or worthless  when you just crocheted an Eeyore?

And finally, the most important lesson of all- embrace the bad days. You’re stuck with them so use them to your advantage; find what makes you feel bad and fix the problem, whether that means changing your lifestyle, job or bad relationship and if the bad feelings don’t change, use them to your advantage until they do, some of the world’s greatest creations were born from the worst of experiences.

Night Drives

The dashboard illuminates his toothy grin as we drive through the night; the only sound for miles being the tyres of your beat up truck on the gravel road. I’d called you over an hour ago now after hours of tossing and turning in bed, of course as soon as I told you what was going on you came to pick me up for one of our drives. 

I don’t know when this had become a tradition- it seems like I couldn’t remember a time when we didn’t do this. Whether it was because of my racing thoughts or your dad’s drunken anger, whenever one of us needed the other we would take a drive to the lake. It was already 5AM but thanks to the changing seasons, we still had a good couple of hours before the sun would come up and we’d have to return to the real world. 

You killed the ignition as soon as we pulled into the dusty parking lot and without a word we climbed out and started walking to our spot. I hadn’t bothered to change out of my sweats and vest top so the cold wind made goose bumps pinprick my arms. As soon as you saw my shivering body you gave me you’re old denim jacket- the scent of your aftershave engulfing me immediately. 

It didn’t take us long to get to our spot on the shore but the early hour meant that there wasn’t a soul but us in sight. From where we sat we could see the lights of the city twinkling against the red sky and hear the sound of sirens in the distance. It always amazed me how the night could make the hell we call home seem beautiful. 

We sat like that for what felt like hours- I curled up under your arm as you smoked your cigarettes and spoke about nothing in my ear. Your low morning voice had started to lull me to sleep when you pointed out the sun peeking over the horizon. Without a word we got up and made our way back to your car, mourning our little adventure and anticipating the next one. 

Maybe it wasn’t just the night I loved, but the company- either way I was never as happy as I was on those sleepless nights.

Lipstick and Feminism

I am sick of being underestimated. People assume that because I love high heels and doing my make-up is my favourite part of the day, that I am somehow lesser than them. I am tired of having people think I’m stupid or ignorant to the world around me just because I enjoy classically feminine pastimes. Time and time again I have been told to “not talk about things I don’t understand” or to “stop pretending to be smart” all because I take genuine pleasure from shopping as well as having an interest in activism for equal rights. 

Worst of all, many of these comments come from other women. To an extent I can forgive a man who may subconsciously feel better informed or superior to me- that is down to the subliminal sexist messages and gender roles society has educated them in since birth. It’s not right but it is understandable. However, what I cannot understand is the messages I receive from women who are of equal age, if not older, telling me to not play ‘feminist’ just because Taylor Swift made it cool- they try to tell me that by conforming to certain elements of gender norms, that I am not worthy of the title ‘feminist’. 

Was it not Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who wrote a whole article on this very argument? That a woman can be interested in fashion and her appearance without it at all affecting her intelligence or of her part in the movement of gender equality? We no longer live in a work where the only way to take on the patriarchy is to defy it completely. We fight so that we can make our own choices based on our own interests and beliefs- how can we expect to be given the rights to this freedom by men when we are still refusing to give each other this right? 

Women did not die for you to tell me that I am oppressed my MAC palette. They died for me to have the choice to vote, to get an education and to have my own job. Because of them I am going to university and travelling the world instead of starting a family and running a household. Because of the suffragettes I am able to write a novel without needing a pseudonym, because of them another woman can be a stay at home mother and because of them a woman can be prime-minister and still love her red lipstick.

Slut. Whore. Vain. Self-absorbed. Narcissistic. Bitchy. We give each other these labels then expect men to stop labelling us in the same way- the only way we can win this fight against the patriarchy is if we stop enforcing it ourselves. Until women- hating is dead in the water, the patriarchy will continue as it always has. 

So for future notice- I will carry on winging my eyeliner and wearing dresses while I continue to fight for equality of the genders. And I will crush the patriarchy under every step of my Louboutin heels.

Falling for a Devil

He was the type of guy your parents would warn you about; his fiery red hair and the tattoos littering his arms made him look like danger personified.

I was the type of girl mothers dreamed of their sons marrying; my long, brunette hair and collection of simple tea dresses gave an illusion of sweetness.

I had straight A’s and half of his teacher’s couldn’t even match his name and face.

He spent his evenings in bars and pool halls; I spent mine in the library or in my room.

I was tipsy after one wine cooler and he drank Jack Daniel’s like water.

We couldn’t have been more different- which is why everyone was so surprised when he asked me on a date. They nearly had a heart attack when I said yes.

                                                      

We balanced each other out. I kept him grounded and taught him that he didn’t have to break every rule in the book while he taught me that it was okay to let go sometimes and I didn’t have to constantly prove my worth to the world.

He worshiped the ground I walked on and I held him on a pedestal like a god.

And somehow it worked.

He didn’t even acknowledge his friends when they constantly commented on him being whipped and I just ignored my parents whenever they told me how much better I deserved.

Sure sometimes he carried my books and went out of his way to walk me home safely. And maybe he did smoke like a chimney and swear like a sailor. But none of that mattered to us. He would carry my floral folders and pink bag without the bat of an eye and I wore his smoke infused leather jacket like a medal.

I bandaged him up every time he had gotten himself into a drunken fight and he picked me up in the middle of the night when all of my work had overwhelmed me. He didn’t talk about his ‘work’ and I never mentioned my parents. It was just about us in our own little world and that’s the way we liked it.

He once drove for 14 hours straight because I’d confessed that one of my biggest dreams was to meet Princess Belle and I can’t recall the amount of times I ‘borrowed’ my parents car at 2AM to pick him up from some bar.

And of course we had our fights.

Sometimes I would get sick of his attitude, or the drugs or his filthy temper and sometimes he would get hurt when I refused to defend him from my mother or when I bailed on another date to revise. We would scream and curse, he would throw things and punch walls, I would slam doors and pack bags. But we always got through it, the fights were fiery and passionate but would be over as soon as one of us started to cry and after it would be like nothing had ever happened.

People would tell him that I was too boring or innocent and my friends never ceased to try and convince me of how ‘bad’ he was. But nothing ever came of their words. The truth was he loved the little trinkets that littered my room and would choose a hot chocolate of mine with a Disney film over a beer in a seedy bar any day.  And if I was being perfectly honest, his tattoos and all black clothes were what ignited my interest in him in the first place and I loved all of the late night motorbike rides through the city.

 Some saw his appearance or his switchblade attitude and all the trouble he got himself into and assumed he must be a bad boyfriend and too much work for what he’s worth.  But honestly he could be Satan himself and as long as he loved me the way he loved hell, I couldn’t care less what other people think of us.  

I am a mess

I am a mess.

I start notebooks and never finish them; I chew my pens to death. I will paint my nails and I will have chipped off half the varnish in no more than two hours. I refuse to pair my socks and I can’t remember the last time I brushed my hair. I think a coffee with two sweeteners is an acceptable meal and the smell of cigarettes reminds me of home. My room is rarely clean and I never do my own laundry.

I have a switch blade attitude and a glare that could freeze over hell. I break the spines of books and cut up magazines. My notes are always covered in doodles and illegible, my homework is rarely done on time and I can’t remember the last time I was in a good mood for a whole day of college. My lipstick is always a mess and my feet are constantly aching from the heels I wear and I always complain. I am unintentional flirt who is incapable of recognising when someone is flirting back.

I am unnecessarily stubborn and refuse help even when I need it. I am never on time and I have turned making up excuses into an art form. I am pathologically sarcastic and I have a savage sense of humour. My mouth has no filter and I make promises I never keep. I hoard pointless things and I live on a tangent. I procrastinate for weeks on end and then get ridiculously stressed out.

Money is no object until I have none left and I spend too much time shopping online instead of studying. I have no concept of how to react to other people’s emotions and I am sometimes too blunt for my own good. I crave love but I am terrified of commitment. My first reaction to bad things happening is to hide from them and I put too much love into drinking. I over think everything and I am indecisive. My mind is constantly going at a million miles an hour even though it seems like I'm going nowhere. I have a lot of walls up that prevent me from being close with people and I am very picky about who I let in or how close they get.

I am always embarrassing myself and making bad choices. When something won’t go my way, I give up and I am irrationally secretive. My self confidence is at rock bottom despite how vain I am and I am easily bought. I am a walking cliché and pretentiously poetic. I know what I want and I will do whatever it takes to get it.

I am ridiculously bitter and pessimistic even though I am always laughing or being loving towards my friends. I put way too much of myself in to pointless things and many of my relationships have been unhealthy at best. I spend too much time caring for others and not enough time looking after myself and I spent a lot of time chasing and loving people who didn't treat me well. It's only recently that I have gained a big group of friends whom I know all care for me and treat me well; but even though these relationships are better for me than previous ones- they still frighten me.

I know I have these flaws, as do the people I surround myself with. These imperfections make me who I am, and they love me for them –or enough to put up with them- just as I love theirs. Some of these things I am working on, I try to improve my habits even if I can’t entirely fix them, but some of these character faults I know aren’t going anywhere soon.

These are the traits that make me who I am, I own them and work with them; I have accepted them for all they are, as have the people who matter most. It’s time to move on and grow with them as best I can.

(Credit for the GIF goes to the creator, I'm sorry I have know source :/ please let me know if it's yours)

I am a 'Lazy Perfectionist'

As seems to be tradition within my blog, I’m going to apologise for my infrequent posting. However this time instead of making some form of promise to post more or give some half- hearted excuse, I am going to give you the truth- and if there is only one promise I make on this blog for the rest of its existence it is this; I will always be bluntly honest here, this is one of the few places where I am unashamed to be unapologetically and entirely myself.

As the title of this post may suggest- I have given myself the title of a ‘Lazy Perfectionist’. This title is coined from a conversation I had with an old councillor when he tried to explain to 12 year old me some of the things going on in my brain (more of which I may delve deeper into as I adjust to this blunt honesty shit I’m pulling here and feel more comfortable admitting it not only to people I do and don’t know, but to myself) in the simplest of terms. We were having a conversation after I had gotten a detention for not doing my homework- which he later got me out of- when he explained to me a common trait of people in the same boat as me was procrastination. He explained that they have a need for everything they do to be perfect, however do not have the self belief or motivation to make it so and find it easier to not try at all so that it can be played off as lack of interest instead of lack of capability. He then chuckled at my amazed little face as this revelation took root in me and made the load on my shoulders feel a little lighter, and then simply said “You’re just a lazy perfectionist.” And since then, I have carried the term with me- seeking comfort in not only the fact that I am not alone in this habit but also that I now have a name for an issue I struggled with blindly for years. This term meant I now knew what I was up against and could work out a way to beat it.

However despite this term having given me the new found resolve to fight my own habit and force myself to work despite my obsession with perfection and lack of faith- I still sometimes struggle. Since my last post I have written a dozen things I could have used in this period of radio silence, but with my hectic schedule I didn’t feel like I had the time or energy to edit them to my own standards- my internal perfectionist couldn’t cope with the idea of me putting something into the world that wasn’t good enough. Sometimes I still myself to put on the “I don’t give a shit” facade when in actual fact I’m afraid of looking like a fool when I do try but still fail- just look at my attempt at AS biology or my half filled sketchbooks (only one of which I plan on making an effort to amend- the new pack of pencils may give a hint to which one I’m talking about).

This mindset is not only my reason for struggling to begin something, it is also the reason why I often fail to finish them- the amount of times I’ve started new projects, or exploring new hobbies but not finished them because I don’t see them as good enough without knowing how to fix it or not seeing myself as good enough to justify spending time on carrying on (looking at the unused guitar strings and book of tabs I bought after my only lesson with Rosie). It’s not an excuse I know- it means I’m often unreliable and at times a complete mess when it comes to organisation and keeping on top of my life- if anything it is one of my worst qualities. But it’s the truth, a truth which my nearest and dearest have had to adapt to handling.

So- this evening I decided it was time to take a step, and I thought the easiest way to do that would be to post an un-edited update and begin working on some new posts- one of which will be uploaded by the end of the week, whether I see it as perfect or not. I have also realised that one of the easiest ways to quieten that little voice that niggles at me while I write to rest by leaving all of my posts unedited then getting a second opinion before reading it over again myself- thus taking away some of the pressure from myself.

Already I feel this plan working, just the act of writing has gotten the cogs turning and my mind overflowing with new ideas and plans for old ones. I am going to kick this habit’s ass but I’m going to need you to hang on with me while I do so, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Thank you for supporting me and my writing- 

Georgia xx