Uh oh

I live in a bubble and I’m ok with that. But then sometimes people try and poke your bubble with little Buffy like wooden vampire picks and because you don’t have slayer like capabilities, you now have holes all over your bubble. Yes, it’s a little cold and windy. Kind of like our oven at home. The glass on the door has smashed and we have mended it with sticky tape and still use it, despite there being shards of glass everywhere and holes. Ideal? No, especially when are hoping to cook a turkey in it tomorrow night. But I digress.

So all this economic bullshit, while obviously worrying, hasn’t really hit home until now. Unfortunately, we’re all kind of selfish, well, maybe it’s just me, and while we all know of people being made redundant, it doesn’t really affect your life until it creeps in and starts breathing down your neck. In and out. With a bit of spittle. Ew, that’s gross. So, what I’m trying to say is that they are making redundancies at my work. Obviously, this is putting a massive blip in my bubble. Sure, I am in negative mode on the friend front, it’s getting dark at freakin’ 3:30pm now and I spent this morning on the tube playing elbow war with a lady who thought I was a pole – but I love it here and I don’t want to leave. I know everything works out one way or another and to tell you the truth, I’m not that worried, but I just find it annoying when there are blips in my fun. Oh and when the person who is deciding your fate called you ‘icy and anonymous’ three months ago.

Speaking of fun, I went to the most amazing club last night. It was in a train station, well to be precise, through a tiny door and underneath a main railway station. Words will not describe how cool it was, but think live art, spontaneous performances, bands and random art installations and that might help with your brain painting? Are you conjuring coolness yet? Try a bit harder. Are you there yet? Ok, yes, that’s it. It was amazing. It was so amazing I lost my voice and got home at 4am. Now I have to go to bed.

Reinvention

I've been thinking about this for a while. It seems we have very few opportunities in life to undertake a massive reinvention. Most of our opportune times are few and far between. I mean, if we want to reinvent ourselves, we kind of want it to go unnoticed. Well, I would anyway. So it seems we have a few clear cut windows for transformation; the transition from high school to university, between jobs and if you're lucky or unlucky enough (I haven't quite worked out which yet), a spot on Extreme Makeover.

Sometimes, I feel like we kind of corner ourselves into a persona that we didn't mean to create, or perhaps one we grow out of. Think of the Spice Girls. Imagine being known as Sporty, Posh, Ginger, Baby and Scary for your entire professional life? Ugh. Then again, if I had as much money in the bank for doing a bit of teetering on my sparkly platforms and lip syncing like they did, I'd answer to butt mouth for the rest of my life. But for the rest of us, how do we overcome ourselves?

Let's talk work. Some of us have a divide between our work persona and our personal one. I, for one, don't. Well, I don't think I do anyway. I can barely remember where I leave my tube pass let alone not be myself for 40+ hours a week. The thing is, when I started this 'real job' charade seven years ago, I had no freakin' idea what I was doing. Because I'm slow on the uptake, it took me ages to work out that I could actually be myself and didn't have to pretend to be this mature, worldly and professional working woman, when, quite clearly, I was not. The thing is, when we kind of start being one thing, it's so embarrassingly obvious when we try and change it. Think our dear Neighbours stars trying to break into singing, or Josh Harnett doing theatre. Finished cringing?

I have no idea how I would like to reinvent myself. I think I'd like to, but I'd probably forget that I had done it and then I'd just be left looking like a dick who was smiling excessively, sporting a new walk and wearing a beret. Don't ask me why I hypothetically transformed myself into a valium taking, Parisian strutter. Weird. Maybe I'll leave reinvention to our Kylie.

Go getter

My name is Vanessa and I partake in the minimum amount required for me to get by in life. There, I said it. I’m not particularly proud of this, but it’s been with me most of my life. Actually, to be more accurate, I teeter smack bang in the middle of bulldog passion and couch potato ambition. I kind of think this is worse because it’s like my school reports used to say, I have potential, it’s just whether I bother living up to it. Every so often, I get a kick in the arse which means I try harder. Quite predictably, it pays off in my favour. If only I felt the need to try harder more often because quite comfortably, I’m an inherently lazy person and I bask in the beauty of my ideas rather than the results of my actions.

How to you find that motivation to fill up empty words?

Because I’ve spent 27 years with myself, I know when I’m going to do something and when I’m not. Therefore, I’m quite selective with what I say I’m going to do. The phrase ‘gonna’ and the often resulting white noise of forthcoming non-action irritates the shit out of me. So even though I’m a’ gonna’ in my head, I try not to live like one. But, perhaps I’m getting better. I undoubtedly have the motivation to visit all of the countries I desire and most of the time, socially, I visit all the exhibitions, performances and restaurants I want. So I guess my problem is mainly professionally. Like most, I don’t really know what I want to do with my life. I often go through freak out attacks of conscience where I find it hard to justify my crust. Do I:

Contribute to the greater good ? Nope.
How about partially contribute to the greater good? Ha, are you kidding?
Um, the environment? – Nooo.
Make people buy stuff they don’t need? Bingo, now you’re talking!

The thing is, I go to work and do something that I’m reasonably good at and mostly enjoy, and if you can find that in life, you’re doing pretty well. I lied before when I said I didn’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m pretty sure I know what I want, yet I find it extremely difficult to motivate myself to take the measures, the very small baby steps, to get there. I’d like to say I’m scared of rejection or some bullshit like that, but I’m afraid I’m just lazy and easily distracted, which is frankly, quite pathetic.

So wonley

Today it hit me. I had my fourth goodbye in three weeks and today’s was the probably the hardest. The goodbye in itself wasn’t the saddest part, probably because we made it quick and then I went and bought a load of crap at Primark immediately after. Instead, my delayed reaction happened on the tube two hours later somewhere in between Charing Cross and Embankment. Ah, public eye welling. It totally goes against my otherwise icy demeanour. Plus, you look like a loser with a defunct tear duct. Actually, I probably looked more like a loser/mentally unstable person that time I started laughing for no reason on the tube. Hmm, there’s always something worse. I think that saying is supposed to be ‘someone worse off’ and not supposed to be about yourself.

Awwwww, saying goodbye sucks arse. Ok, I know that no one likes saying goodbye. Unless you’re tonguing George Clooney goodbye and then immediately saying hi to Jake Gyllenhaal (please insert whoever necessary to build an appropriate mental picture), I highly doubt there is anyone who embraces the goodbye – wow, that’s so obvious, I’m actually a greeting card. Anyway, I guess the reason why I’m feeling all wallow like is because my world feels unbalanced and now I feel the true depth of London’s transient nature.