Fat, debt & emotional instability

So, I have two days left at University. Two days. 

The entire emotional roller coaster has done the loop, thrown me up in the air, gone vertical, and now it's bringing me back to the sanity of solid ground beneath my feet. Two whole years have gone by and now I've got two days to get my head around the fact that the real world is out there waiting with the smell of my fresh naive blood in its nostrils. 

The worst thing is, university has provided me with three things. Fat, debt and emotional instability. Who was I at the age of 17 to decide the direction that I wanted my life to go in!!?! Who is anybody at the age of 17 to decide anything apart from what pair of bloody shoes they should wear that weekend? I wasn't ready, and now, the sad truth is, I feel like I've wasted two years of my life studying something completely irrelevant to what I really want to do, I was never going to be a lawyer for Christ sake, my morals are far too prominent and I have a concience the size of Kilimanjaro. I also prefer to be barefoot with flowers in my hair than dressed in a tight skirt surrounded by misogynistic men wearing gowns and wigs. I almost feel like if anything, I'm completely back to where I started, what the hell do I do now? 

So, I'm writing the rest of this year off. Which is a sentence I can almost hear myself saying every May for the next ten years. But literally, I am going to write the rest of this year off - if I want to get anywhere as a novelist then I'd better get cracking. Back to the impending doom of the big wide world, I also feel as if my university experience has sort of fizzled out, melted away into the depths of my mind that are filled with boring subjects like cheese and cricket. (Sorry if you're a big fan of eating cheese whilst watching the Ashes, I had no intention of insulting you) the problem is, I'm a creative, and I feel like when i say 'I want to be a writer' I might as well be saying 'I'm moving to Hollywood next week because I'm tipped as the next Marilyn Monroe' - it feels unrealistic and juvenile. But I'm never going to find out if I don't try. I look at my hardworking, honest, loving parents and I just wish they'd have pursued their own dreams, rather than doing what everybody else did because that was the safe option. And at the moment, as much as it pains me, I see my sister doing the same. Heading for a mortgage and a steady  job that keeps her here, the problem is when you love someone so much you want them to be fearless, to get out there and see the world and meet crazy people and be influenced by how your life can be something totally different when you just tweak your outlook. 

I could have tried harder the last two years, even though I've worked myself to the point of tears, anger and head-imploding frustration, I've known that my heart wasn't in it since about the third week in. I'm the typical average student, heading for a solid 2:2 and complete confusion. But even though it's taught me that I am seriously not cut out for a career in law, it's also reminded me that I am free spirited, craving adventure and anything wild, and I'm proud of that. I'll take my Desmond degree and the knowledge that I won't be settling for a desk job quite happily, thank you very much. 

So, my point is, so what if ive taken a detour? 

So what if I've taken a minute out screaming WHAT THE HELL AM I GONNA DO NOW?

So what if I've gained stress weight? 

So what if things went wrong? 

I've officially come out at the other end - I've passed everything, I've made some beautiful friends for life, I've got back into writing, I've done it all in TWO YEARS!! A bloody law degree in two years! And so what if it's not entirely relevant? I'm a strong believer that if you're a positive person who believes that they will reach their goal, you will attract positive vibes, positive people, positive opportunities! 

If you find yourself sitting around mourning the loss of a lifestyle that you never really had, obsessing over the happy, candid pictures that someone posts from the fucking Bahamas doing yoga whilst drinking coconut juice from a young Johnny Depps cupped hands, I've got three things to tell you:

1. Life isn't all drinking sweet liquid from Johnny Depp's hands - those people have shit times too 

2. Yes, you have to pay to travel, what a shocker, but you're also paying for that phone contract every month as well as all those outfits and possessions to display all over social media, why don't you save your money for something more worthwhile? 

3. You can make any dream a reality - you just have to want it bad enough. I was lucky enough to meet and chat with the lead singer of my favourite band recently, and told her about my law-school writer complex and she was more impressed by my desire to be a writer than my law school pompous bullshit, and she told me to never stop chasing my dreams, no matter what anyone says to you. 

So, university of law, this is me, being completely done with your shit, with you making me feel inadequate and mediocre (and fat) and making me feel like a disappointment. I know and I've always known deeply that I'm going to live an extraordinary life, and it's all in my power to do so. 

Sex Discrimination in the City

So, I packed my bags, bundled it all into my ever reliable Suzuki swift, and off I popped up the M56 to my new home. Ever the independent little soul, I had made the leap of faith which required me living on the outskirts of a new city with a very distant, far off relative (complete stranger) for 8 weeks, travelling home every few days.

But this isn't going to be a post about me, and nor is it really a post about sex discrimination in the city (sorry - I'm just studying discrimination under employment law and happen to be located in a city)  and finally, its not really a post about the far off distant relative woman and her crazy dog Hector - even though they warrant a story of their own.

Its about how the city makes you feel. Large enough that it has a gravitational pull of its own, luring you down side streets and into the metropolis of glass, steel and of course, gloomy grey concrete and brick. Manchester is, after all, a post industrial graveyard brought back to life by the masses of scurrying people, crowded like ants on the top of a dropped lollipop.

The city, be it Glasgow, Paris, Amsterdam or New York, has an unbelievable power to do three things. Firstly, I believe it makes us feel deceptively independent - there are bars, there are shops, there are people, there are trains, there are buses, there are taxis - you can go anywhere, do anything, meet anyone. That or you can get hopelessly lost and end up on a street corner with anxiety desperately trying to get hold of your mum back home. But in all seriousness, cities have a sky that never seems to end, it's easy for your optimism to creep up to the level of the high rise buildings that surround you.

Secondly, the city makes you lonely. Those big buildings and bright lights can fill you with warmth and optimism, but on a bad day those big buildings are empty and cold, and those flashing lights are false and far away. The city is a mysterious, ambiguous thing, an urban jungle where you can make friends and live happily ever after, or fall victim to evil predators. Cities can sometimes feel so false, like an illusion, pretty to watch, but if you reach out and touch it, it's never really as it seems.

Thirdly, and most importantly, cities inspire me. They are the central hub of activity, growth, diversity. People that walk the streets from all cultures, nationalities, you see the introverts, the extroverts, the artists and the wallflowers. As a writer, I find it easy to read people, like inside-out books where the content in their character is splayed about their bodies, people in cities amaze me. The way they dress, move, talk, walk and eat. Not only that, but the smells (good, bad and ugly) and the heat, even on some winter days there is still a smog about the streets of the city, a think opaque cloud that lingers on your skin and in your hair.

For me, also, cities remind me of how much of a country girl I really am, I need green open spaces, the azure sky, the emerald sea, the need to have wind in my hair and sand on my feet, but I enjoy the injection of chaos, life, diversity and intrigue that a city brings to me, the possibilities as endless as the narrow streets.