Obliterate

The power of obliteration is now in our hands. Technology primarily has functioned to make us; who we are, who we have been, more easily accessible to others. I did a little experiment the other day and googled the name I use on social networking sites. Within seconds I had found a page which I had forgotten existed, something created during my later teenage years, something which I didn't think would still be accessible to others now. More irritatingly there were other links to more current pages of mine, which connect teenage Frankie to present Frankie.

I'm told that you can remove your trace from the Internet. I have friends who have deleted their Facebook page, not something I particularly want to do, but I can see why people are concerned to ensure they don't get sucked into the social networking game, and don't want some things visible to prospective employers etc. But in addition to this, by storing information about ourselves and current situation online, then when this information is no longer relevant, no longer connected to our lives, no longer of use to anyone, then it can just as easily be deleted.

Think of how long it takes to remove a friend on Facebook, to block someone from IMing you, to unfollow somebody on Twitter; these things take a matter of seconds. All of a sudden, access has been denied. The same thing goes for pictures, videos, any other stored memories on the Internet. Removing these things can be done almost instaneously (yet it sometimes take SO long to upload pictures to the Internet...)

I think really this is in contrast to how memories and information works outside of the Internet. It can take as little as seconds to make a memory or selection of memories but deleting them...? It is impossible. There are a few memories I have which I would quite like to erase, to obliterate, to wipe completely, but there's no way of doing it. Even when I think I'll never think about that moment again, it will come to haunt me in a dream, a smell, a sound, a taste will take me back to it...

Not being able to obliterate memories is a good thing though. Would I want to negate the existence of who I am today? Because all those memories, yes, the bad ones too, they have made me, they have built me upon the foundations that were only already there because of, well, more memories.

There have been far too many amazing memories in my life so far for me to seriously want to obliterate any of them. Even the bad ones are tinged with good. I am a believer in things happening for a reason, so let me remember things exactly as they were, allowing experience to teach me the meaning of each one.

You don't have to hold onto the negativity in your past - let it go. But acknowledge it's there. You wouldn't be half the person you are today without it.

The Catalyst

Somehow time
and a little distance
has taken our friendship
and rendered it useless.

I tried,
I have a vice -like grip
but I still felt it slip.


When I reach through that barrier you put up,
it's like a blank stare
is waiting there
to proclaim the truth
'I do not care'
and so you burned me with your haste
and left me with a bitter taste.

But the one thing time, and a little distance,
and some reason that remains unknown,
can never take away from me
is all the precious memories.
You can't empty my mind
of the laughs and the lines,
the smiles and the times,
that I re-play in my mind.

It's all I have now
you've allowed yourself to not exist in my world,
and maybe I need to take the blame for that?
But you don't say a word
so how am I to know,
to correct,
to put right?

Somehow time
and a little distance
was all the catalyst needed
for you to render me pointless...

The Probability of Getting Fat from One Bar of Chocolate

The mind is a powerful tool and, in many cases, a weapon too.

You don't need to be a great thinker, a fantastical imaginer, a brilliant inventor, a scientist, a philosopher or any kind of creator to be able to use (and abuse) the power of your own mind. Consciously and sub-consciously we create our reality, and I don't mean by perception really, I mean by the way we approach what we perceive.

True, some people have more horror to perceive than others, and I don't dispute this. What I mean really is that when faced with any situation, we have the power to take meaning from it in any way we choose, or equally to take no meaning from it whatsoever. Positivity and negativity are the way we approach what we perceive, and we have the power to choose positivity over negativity every time.

I don't always make the correct choice; as I mentioned before these decisions are sub-conscious as well as conscious. My mind creates all sorts of anxiety, worry and trouble of its own. It particularly enjoys imagining horiffic worst case scenarios and living them out scene-by-scene. It enjoys turning my musings into a whole selection of possible worst case scenarios the most. Dreams and reality become blurred, I can never quite re-call which is which. Situations I fear will happen become reality because I forget that they haven't happened. Instead of living in the moment, I live in a moment that may never come.

Sometimes I think I would enjoy my life 100% more if I just stopped imagining a traumatic future for myself based on a current situation which, on the surface, can only be approached with positivity, and started seeing things for what they were before my mind warped them into something new. This is a cup of tea, it isn't cancer. This is a bar of chocolate, it isn't being fat. This is honesty, it isn't jeers and jibes from onlookers.

All actions have consequences, and yes they should effect decisions you make in the present. But living in the moment isn't about denying that the future exists, or that there are ramifications for poorly made decisions. It's about allowing yourself to see the beauty before it withers. Don't let an imagined worst case scenario consequence stop you from living your life with positivity, peace and happiness. Don't let your mind warp the likely consequence into something far removed from reality. Live the dream and deny your mind the power to destroy the moment. Probability is your best friend; use your mind to enjoy those things which are, probably, there to be enjoyed.

The Bob Marley Theory and why it's okay to listen to Jedward.

Currently I am listening to Bob Marley. For a long while I wouldn't even consider listening to his music. There was no reason for this at all, from a musical perspective anyway. It's just he was always one of those people that everyone's like "Oh yeah, he pioneered the movement of reggae into mainstream music, and like he didn't take nothing from the man, yeah..." I switched off from 'pioneered' let's just put it that way.

In music there are always people you are 'supposed' to like and people you really just shouldn't. And then there are those people it's okay to like in an 'ironic' sense. So, you know... Mick Hucknall sucks, you can like Jedward as long as it's only on a Friday night at 2am, and there's something wrong with you if you don't like U2. Well I grew up listening to Simply Red, giving me a particular soft spot for Hucknall, I've never much cared for U2 and as for Jedward, well let's just keep them for 2am on Fridays...

My point is this, who cares? People say a lot of rubbish, but they don't mean half of it. When I was a teenager I told my little sister that I hated The Darkness and she told me she hated Busted. 2 months later I'm singing along to 'Love is only a Feeling' and I caught her blasting out Busted's 2nd album 'A Present for Everyone'. People are fickle, they change their minds. One day something is 'cool'. the next it's old news. I have decided to stop thinking things just because everyone else does.

I was reading on Twitter yesterday that George Lucas has made some alterations to the original Star Wars for its release on Blu-Ray. Horrified fans couldn't believe he was yet again messing with his creation. I analysed my thoughts on the subject and came to the conclusion: I don't really care. Bearing in mind that Star Wars is one of my absolute fave films, for me I just wasn't bothered he was 'destroying' the poignant moment between Luke and his father or whatever it was they were complaining about. It's not cool to love Star Was 'cause of R2-D2 or C-3PO or because Harrison Ford looks mighty fit back in the day or because you simply enjoy watching Good defeat Evil. It's just a simple film for me, and changing another little thing probably isn't really gonna affect my enjoyment of it. I don't care what anyone else thinks.

What people need is a Bob Marley Theory. My love of Bob came when I was feeling particularly good one day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, blimey - I just needed a feel-good song to sum up the moment. It didn't take me long to find a copy of 'Sun is Shining' on youtube. Blasting it out my speakers full volume and dancing around my living room, I realised just how good I felt. I felt RELAXED.

Now everytime I put Bob Marley on, I automatically feel good. If someone came up to me tomorrow and told me it's not 'cool' to like him anymore, I wouldn't care. It doesn't matter if I'm failing to get the rich array of Rastafarian metaphors or whatever it is. I just like it 'cause it makes me smile. I don't care if that's not how I'm supposed to be enjoying the music - can't I just enjoy it?

The Bob Marely Theory could just as well be The Jedward Theory or The U2 Theory or, yes I am gonna say this... The Miley Cyrus Theory. Who cares if they wrote the misic themselves, or whether it's an original, or whose track they sampled? Does it make you happy to listen to it? Good. Then it's totally cool for you to listen to it :)

Fate & The Ending of Something That Never Really Was

You never know until it's too late
that this irresistable personality
was matched with yours by Fate

By this I mean
it's not a dream
what you feel
is real
but not supposed to begin.

It's always supposed to end.

Maybe it could try to start
if you have a particularly willing heart
but it will be short-lived.
You know it as much as I do.

You can't beat what's laid down.
If the pack of cards is wired then you'll always lose.
And life isn't a set of actions that you chose,
but something that is always meant to be the way it is.

And maybe you'll meet your match
soon or in the distant future,
but for now that dot you're chasing is ever getting smaller.
It's always going to be there though.
Always meant to end
with; just friends.

The Chase

When I was a teenager I went on a trip to the seaside. Lucky me lived far enough away from the sea to get proper snow in winter, but close enough to take a short car ride to the coast. Once there, I remember standing on the pier at Saltburn, and looking out across the vastness that is the ocean. If you look into the distance all you see is blue. It gets paler as it snakes outwards, until you can't tell which is sea and which is sky. When I stood there and looked out I had that feeling you get when you see a rainbow.

You know what I mean! You look at a rainbow, and you want to see where it ends. Not just for the silly pot of gold tale, more because...it's gotta end somewhere, right? Look I don't know that much about science but I know that a rainbow isn't a thing you can touch, it's something you perceive, it can't be chased, it can't be caught. Despite this, even now I'll look at a rainbow and want to see where it ends. One day, when I was much younger, I saw the end of a rainbow. It was going right into my next-door-neighbour's back garden. I raced down the stairs of my childhood home and announced to my family that I was going out there to find it! Rushing to the kitchen, I looked out the window and was horrified. The end of the rainbow had moved. It wasn't in the next-door-neighbour's garden anymore, it was arching down a few roads away. Needless to say, I gave up easily, I didn't bother chasing it any further.

Well, that was kinda what it was like looking out to the sea. I wanted to see the end, but I knew the horizon would only get further away. In any case, even where the sea did end, it wasn't the edge of the earth. It was only the end of one journey. And if I were to look behind me, I'd only see that horizon I was chasing again.

No, what I was more concerned with was what I would see on the other end. What was through the looking glass? I asked my Mum this very question, "If I could swim...and I swam out right now, until I came to the shore on the other side...where would I come out?" Mum said, "Norway, I think." That was it, then. I looked out again and I knew Norway was there. I could stare and stare and all I would see in the distance is nothing, but I had an answer. I could almost sense the other people on the shore on the other side. It was there.

I don't know why it meant a lot. I guess I liked being connected to the rest of the world in some way. I hadn't ever been to Norway, yet I was sharing the sea with its inhabitants.

That feeling of chasing the end of a rainbow returns time and time again. When you wonder which country would be directly underneath the spot you are standing in if you were to dig a tunnel straight through the earth. When you walk into thick fog and it's not thick at all, but you can see the thick fog right there in the distance, but when you get there it's moved further away again. When you are walking along the shoreline and the sea is just stretching out, tickling the toes of somebody else, wherever it is they are in the world.

I won't ever stop chasing the horizon, because it doesn't matter if I don't ever get there. As long as I was looking for it, I'll find the answer. It's there.

Screw Loose.

When I consider so many different aspects of who I am, most of it is a re-iteration of what already exists in the world. By that I mean, I'm nothing new. My opinions, beliefs, values and ideals are nothing revolutionary, nothing to blow your mind, freak you out when you hear what's going on in my mind. I am basically recycling the opinions and values of those who socialised me. And who are these people?

Well, look, I'm not going to go all sociological on you, and I feel no need to conduct a deep analysis from a social science angle, but let's just say that who I grew up with, who I hang out with and the things I hear/see/perceive all have some claim to the framework which I use to see the world. This doesn't particularly bother me in and of itself, I mean, that's the beauty in a way, the fact that we're all sort of joined together by an invisible web which underpins society. People look through different parts of the web, but I guarantee you, it is the same web.

The part that bothers me is how many of the values that I have been socialised to believe, without even being aware, are ridiculous when I examine them. And most of them, sexist.

Now I wouldn't call myself a feminist by any stretch of the imagination, mainly because I am probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to sexism, but now that I have discovered the pins which my values pivot upon, I have the urge to take them out. But they're well screwed on.

An example, let's see. My friend opened a bottle I wasn't strong enough to - I gave him 'man points'. I tell people to 'man up'. I find the phrase 'house husband' strange. If I see anything with more than 2 legs in the house I assume I need a man to come and kill said mini-beast...I could go on.

I don't think I could really pin point at what point I latched onto these phraseologies and values, but I don't like that they're there. I want to be free to be who I am, with or without a man, but similarly, it works the other way, men are just as free to be who they are, whether they are afraid of spiders, or can never get the lid of the jar of olives. Is it getting silly to want to ditch vocabulary like 'man up'? I don't know. I think I more want to make it known that I as a woman can man up. Women can be courageous, and strong, and provide for their own. A women is not limited to simply be the things this society say she should be. Nor is a man.

This is really just an organisation of my thoughts over the past couple of years, I'm not really coming to any hard and fast conclusions. All I know is I like being feminine, I like being a woman, and I'll never be able to get rid of spider with my bare hands... but that doesn't mean I'm not strong.

The Network

You are my best friend.
You are the person who picked up the phone when I was scared
or
the person who gave me your arms when I had nothing else
or
you are the reason I believe in humanity.

Yes, it's YOU
if you haven't yet, you will.

You might give me a laugh when I want to cry
You might send me love when all I've had is lies
You might tell me it's gonna be fine

Or

You might just smile when I pass
Maybe you sat next to me in class?
Yeah, back then, when I was too afraid to ask
you give me the courage to go back.

I'm writing this for those who see
You didn't realise it, but you believed in me
because you are a part of my history

You are practically my best friends.

My capacity to love is beyond time and space
because you are a member of the human race.

When you are the one who needs a best friend
Tell me.
Let me know.
I won't miss a beat.
Because you...

You were like my best friend.

Born This Way

So, I was just watching the Glee 'Born this Way' episode and got totally inspired for a blog post. You see it's funny what people remember about you isn't it? I don't know what people remember about me after they've met me, but thinking about all the people I know, certain things stand out. Sometimes it's what someone has done, sometimes the way someone looks, sometimes it's a positive thing, sometimes it's a negative thing.

Take my best friend for example. I have made it no secret that the first thing I thought when I met her was 'how come I know someone so beautiful?' There's something very wrong with that sentence, and it isn't my appraisal of her looks...it's just the fact that I thought there was some link between being aesthetically pleasing to the eye and social circles. When I analyse my first impression of her, what it comes down to is that she is gorgeous and I thought 'hey, this is breaking the mould, I'm usually way down in the social pile, I never know someone like this'.

Hmmm, well that's just not true. I can't think of one of my friends who isn't stunning. And I mean on the outside. So, where did this stereotype come from exactly? And why is my subconscious buying into it?

Another thing that was brought to my mind whilst considering this episode of Glee was, evidently, inner beauty. Because we're told that's what is the most important. And we're told that looks are nothing, are worthless. (It's sort of a conflicting message though when we see the perfectly formed, air-brushed celebrities on the other side of the camera. How does my subconscious war against that?) Inner beauty can't be bought and it's never a 'quick fix'. That's why it's the most difficult sort of beauty. The Glee clubbers were encouraged to boast their 'warts and all' on a plain white tee-shirt, but few were boasting flaws in their inner beauty. Kurt 'likes boys' whilst Finn 'can't dance' and Emma has 'OCD'. None of these things are their fault. But are they necessarily the things that stand out about these people?

I mean, there are people I know, for example, who I primarily remember for what they have done wrong. That's a stupid thing to remember about somebody...but it sticks in your head, doesn't it? Even though what was done was ages ago, even though the past is the past, and even though since then said person has proved to be truly beautiful on the inside...it's not forgotten.

That made me reflect on myself and my inner beauty (or lack thereof) What will I be remembered for? 'Cause if someone else was writing my tee-shirt they might plaster the slogan 'vain' or 'loud' or 'selfish' across the front, and I would have to be accountable for that. And if I were to reflect who I truly am on the inside, for every perfect part of my body there would be at least 2 eye sores to behold. I'm not sure I am beautiful on the inside, so even though I complain about the way I look as I am, I feel like I might be more ugly if my looks reflected my personality.

There's loads of things I do like about myself. I'm a positive person, and I smile a lot. And I have a moral compass, which I can generally rely on to show me where to go. But I'm a work in progress. I'm not sure if I was born this way but, who I am now isn't necessarily how I want to stay for the rest of my life. I want to be less self-absorbed, to speak out more against injustice, and to use my moral compass more widely - not just to decide what not to do, but what I should do as well.

Loving someone on the inside is about accepting someone for all their flaws, because nobody is perfect. Accepting someone for who they have been, who they are now and where they want to go. Accepting things which can't be changed about them, and things which are works in progress. The time I felt the most beautiful on the outside was when I was told all the time how beautiful I was. This suggests to me that beauty is about feeling valued. All humans have value simply because they are human. But more than that, because all humans, as humans, have value for someone else because they are who they are.

You see, I might not be totally happy with my inner beauty at the moment, but I know someone values me for being me. I know it when someone says 'thank-you' for my advice or just for talking to them when they needed a chat. And even when I mess up I know I am valued for being me because God accepts me for who I am; the best parts, the worst parts, knowing who I've been, who I am, and where I want to be. And everyday I pray for the vision to know where He wants me to be, who He wants me to be, because who better to help me address my 'inner beauty' than the Source of Beauty itself?

I think if I had a tee-shirt a la Glee it would say 'Under 5ft'. I'd rather people remembered me like that than for all the mistakes I've made.

Smile Challenge: Update

As Lent draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on the last 40 odd days, my dream, and whether I really am completely crackers.

I think the answer to that last question is a resounding 'YES'.

So, let's re-cap, my challenge was to make 132 people smile during lent 2011. I had the will, surely there was a way? I first set the rules, and made it even more challenging by including any friends added during the lentern period. In all honesty this only added the grand total of 1 extra smile into the challenge, but at least I got them smiling within hours of adding them to my friends list.

Anyway, with little more than 24 hours to go....how am I getting on?

Well, it's not going quite as badly as a car crash, but I do feel I'm up a certain reknown creek without a paddle. Numerous people have 'enjoyed' smiles this lent, but did I make them smile? It's impossible to tell. My attempts have been numerous, and the list of people who I have attempted to make smile has become smaller each day (I actually printed out a list and have been crossing people off as I go. I then realised it looked like a hit list and hastily added the title 'Lent Challenge - Make all your facebook friends smile =D' in pencil, as an afterthought)

But I'll be honest. You've not all smiled. I haven't attempted some people, time slipping through my hands so quickly, whilst others I have attempted but I feel unsatisfied that a smile has been achieved and therefore drag my feet in crossing names off. As a result, probably about 50% of my list remains. RUBBISH!

So, should I give up? NOOO! I refuse. Rather than accept defeat, I will accept that lent isn't long enough for a full time teacher and part time writer to make 133 people smile. But, I will keep trying to make people smile until this list is complete. I don't give up, and I never say no to a challenge. Yes, I wasn't exactly successful but I have so many good ideas for more smiles in the future that I sincerely hope it will be worth the wait.

As I said when I started this challenge, I'm not doing this for me really. It's more about what I can do for other people. And I've realised how diffcult it is to make people smile in an ever-changing, media-dominated, pessimism fuelled, economically challenged society such as ours. That makes it all the more important for people to enjoy smiles. I'm going to keep trying until everyone is crossed off this list. And then I'ma shred it, so no-one thinks I got rid of you all.

Apologies,

a slightly ashamed Franks xx

Falling

I am a woman of habit. Of compulsion and obsession too (oh no, it's obsession and compulsion, not compulsion and obsession, how could I have got that wrong? OBSESSION and COMPULSION) See what I mean?

Today I was walking round the glorious retail mini-paradise that is the Metro Centre and had to inform my friend that we were 'on the wrong sides' and I had to swap round from her right to her left. Seriously.

And then I was standing on the upper floor where there is a balconette type area. You can stand by a bannister thing and look down to the floor below. See the people walking. They look like tiny ants (Well, they look like people only smaller, I think I have confused myself for the BFG or something....) Anyway the point is, there I was looking down...and I wanted to jump.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not suicidal. I have not had the best week this week but I am not a depressive. I don't WANT to injure or kill myself by falling from great heights, but....the thought was there.

Perhaps, more worringly, this isn't the first time this has happened. At University I remember we had a lecture in a large room on the upper floor of a huge building, affectionately known as 'Parky'. When I'd climbed the stairs and was leaning against the railings, looking down, I would often announce to my friends 'Don't you just feel like jumping off?' to which they would reply 'NOOO' insistently.

There was also that time I was in Tesco with my Mam. On the upper floor, surveying the clothes, I suddenly turned around to see the aisles of food below. I said to my Mum 'I just feel like jumping down' to the horror of a nearby shopper who mumbled something such as 'Oooh no I don't, it doesn't bear thinking about' wheeling her trolley away in disgust.

But I'm not mad.

Well, I am....but this has nothing to do with that.

It's that feeling of being free. Of 'I can do anything up here'. The potential adrenaline rush. The fear. The blood pumping. The lack of your comfort zone. Of just being 'close to the edge'. I just feel good like that, looking down. I don't want to jump down, I want to feel jumping down. I want to feel like I could jump down if I wanted to. Like for a second the impossible is possible, and I could defy gravity, I could prove Isaac Newton wrong, I could reach into my dreams and take a dose of fantasy, and float near the ceiling like I have there before. Everything becomes brilliant, no matter how small the gap between my feet and the floor. Everything becomes a possibility, no matter how far my feet from the ground.

I found out recently that these thoughts of jumping from a high place are linked to OCD, something which I do suffer with considerably. But I think the message of this irrational split-moment thought remains all the same. That is,we all want to feel free, to feel challenged, to feel on the edge. For things to happen for us so easily, as easily as just falling - it requires no skill, just the daring to jump.

Next time I'm hanging out my window, or walking up Roseberry Topping, I think I might refrain from launching myself to the ground on a whim. All the same, next time I'm at a metaphorical high point, with a beautiful view and the audacity to believe....I'm going to jump.

SMILE it's Lent (nearly)

This is my project over the next few weeks. Starting 9th March, Lent begins, and therein a bunch of people fumble through a 40 day fad. Well, this year I have decided that my 40 day fad is not going to be a praise-seeking, worthless stint of giving up chocolate or coffee (or Johnny Depp...) but instead I'm going to do the pro-active, DO SOMETHING type of Lent activity. I wondered what I could do precisely which would meet this criteria that could actually, seriously be something. And as someone of tiny proportions I decided that maybe starting small would be a good idea. So, this year, my aim is to make EVERYONE on my facebook friends list SMILE at least once before Easter. Now, there are a number of potential to objections to this, which I will examine briefly as follows...

1) That's not really much of a big deal.

No, not really, I did say I was starting small. But maybe it is more of a task than you had originally thought. I mean I have 130 odd friends on facebook, the vast majority of which I have limited actual contact with. Just a quick look at some of the names on there faced me with friends of friends, people who have me on limited profile, family members who I see only twice a year and...exes. Some of those people I don't much feel like making smile. But then, that's the whole point. Jesus didn't come to Earth thinking 'I'll just save my bessie mates, the rest of them I'm not too fussed about' If He had, I doubt I would have made the list. No; love is universal, and it has nothing to do with liking someone, or, indeed, how much you talk to them. So...you know, not a HUGE deal but a LITTLE deal. For now.

2) You can't measure this!

The Sheldon Cooper in me pointed out that in order for this to be success I needed some way of measuring the number of people who smiled before Easter and whether those people smiled because of me. And how on earth do I do that? It is so impractical I feel it's not worth bothering with. This social experiment is not scientific, it would be nice if people did let me know whether my attempt to make them smile worked but it's not always gonna happen, but if I have attempted to make everyone on my friends list smile before Easter that will be enough. And if some people let me know it didn't work then I will definitely have another go at it!


3) It's not selfless.

This brings me to that episode of Friends where it was more or less discovered that every seemingly 'selfless' act is actually selfish in one respect at least. I'm not especially doing this for a gooey 'I did good' feeling, but I won't complain if it turns up. And yeah maybe I'm not doing anything life changing or anything amazingly selfless like that, but I'm making a start. Seeing if I can actually help people within my Internet community. Maybe I can? I don't know.

4) How does this work, practically?

Basically, I'll do it whatever way I can. Via snail mail, e-mail, facebook, in person, whatever I think is appropriate. I might get it wrong, but I'm willing to take that risk.

This brings me onto the rules for the Lent challenge, because, let's face it, there needs to be some sort of guidelines. They are as follows.

1) I am not allowed to delete any facebook friends between the date of this blog post and Easter Sunday.

2) I can add as many friends as I want between now and Easter Sunday, but any added friends must be included in the challenge.

3) I am allowed to tell the person that I am doing it for Lent, but I am not obliged to.

4) I do not have to use facebook to make the person smile.

5) I must have attempted to make everyone on my facebook friends list smile by midnight on Saturday 23rd April 2011.

6) Any attempts made before midnight on the 9th March 2011 do not count.

That's basically it, before this task becomes less a spontaneous, good idea construed on a whim and more a carefully structured, mundane activity done out of a sense of duty.

Hopefully this will be a worthwhile challenge, and hopefully I'm not the only one who thinks it is worth anything... so I think that's it. Oh and, if you are interested...don't forget to check my blog for further updates once the challenge begins.

The handbag diaries

I have an awful lot of handbags. It's no surprise really, given the current cultural stereotype of the typical 22 year old female graduate, I suppose I feed such characterisations. Anyway, yeah, the point is...handbags...I have lots of them. I don't suppose I really need them ALL, but necessity isn't really on my mind when choosing and purchasing bags. It's really not the point. And since I met my best friend and discovered the art of co-ordinating my bags with outfits, well....you can guess the result.

My main problem with the quantity of bags I own (other than storage; my current system can be summed up as chaotic) is the faff of changing bags around. You see it's not just a case of take out the purse, phone and keys and shove them in another bag...no, it always seems to be much more complicated that. As I have a tendency to be lazy when it comes to cleaning out my bags, things accumulate in there, and so I end up with bags here, there and everywhere, with bits and bobs still stuck in them. Over the summer, when I tend to take lighter or smaller bags out with me, it's noteable how much of my life can be pieced together through old receipts, bus tickets, train tickets and such like in pockets and pouches, I neither think to, nor feel compelled to remove.

I came to consider this whole situation because I have just been swapping a bag over and I decided it was time to clean out my good old reliable black bag. Said handbag is trendy and sufficiently big enough for all my work things, as well as passing 'the handbag test' (i.e does it look good hooked over your arm?) Anyway I was changing it over because I have a new one I got for Christmas which I think will cheer me up with its bright colour. As I tipped the contents out onto my bed to appraise what was there I was shocked, not only at how much rubbish was stuffed inside, but also the length of time it must have been stuck in there. Of course there was the usual Tesco receipts, bus tickets, and train ticket (goodness knows which train journey that was from...I seem to take trains quite a lot!) there was also an empty tube of handcream, a lipgloss I thought I'd lost and a folded up piece of lined paper.

I decided to open up the folded paper to see what it was. There's no good throwing out something that was important. I actually thought it might be a mock-up register that I needed to dispose of (i.e the computer wasn't working at work so I get all the kids to write their name down on a bit of paper) Anyway I opened it up and the handwriting wasn't my own.

At this point I should probably say that I was playing music and the song had just changed over to 'Movielike' by Jimmy Eat World, a song which takes me straight back to 7am on the bus in early November, heading to work. As soon as that point in my life was flooding back to me, the paper in my head more forcefully brought that point in time to the forefont of my mind. What I was holding was directions to 2 Costa Coffee shops in Norfolk.

Now, don't laugh! These kinda things are important to the caffeine hooked Costa fans on the go. The writing was my sister's and it was from the 13th Novemeber, when we had road-tripped down to Norfolk to see Jimmy Eat World tour their new album. I was back there, in a flash! And it made me smile when I saw it. I remembered that she gave it to me 'for safe keeping'. She knew there was no way I was letting anything so important out of my sight for even a second!

When I surveyed the contents sprawled on my bed, what I was actually viewing was memories. Good, bad, the mundane, the ordinary, the extra-ordinary. Sometimes I think the odd bits of paper like that could tell stories. I think if they could speak, they would speak volumes, and they wouldn't waffle, they'd be precise and funny, maybe even sad.

I haven't kept all the tickets and receipts and rubbish and things from all the events in my life I consider important. Some memories were painful, thus train tickets were discarded with in a theraputic manner, tears streaming down my face. Other bits were hastily disposed of in a rush to get a bag clean and tidy again, not considering what fun it could be to look through old memories. But I think, if I did, it could be thought of as some sort of record of my life, not just a boring account of where I went when, but a point for reflection on different moments in my life and what they mean to me.

I really love that black handbag. I can't help but wonder what junk will be in it this time, next year.