Short Letter to My Past Self

Dear Alice, specifically year 10 Alice. Age 14/15 Alice.

You do not yet know the effects of perspective. Despite your anxieties about the space you are living in, you will pull through. You are intimidated by the girls who surround you, enclosed in a ten bed dorm in boarding school. The bubble is indeed hard to pop. 

So, look at the stars more often. Try and put your life in perspective. Embrace your difference to them. But, don't rebel against the norms just for the sake of rebelling. Try as hard as you can not to romanticise sadness. 

You have just started your GCSE year. They will be the hardest exams you will take. Not because of their difficulty but because you will have to fill your mind with information you do not want to learn the way they teach it in schools. You do not like maths. You do not like science. I would tell you to appreciate your education but I still don't know how algebra will help you in later life.

I know you have your heart set on Cambridge or Oxford and you are so capable of getting there. Unfortunately you won't get there.

But, honestly, that doesn't matter one bit. In fact I believe that where I am now is better and more comfortable and much more suited to you than Cambridge or Oxford would ever be. You are going to have the time of your life at university. Trust me. 19 year old you says so. So, try not to pinch yourself every time you get something wrong. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Make glorious amazing mistakes. Even if it means dyeing your hair purple or black or keeping that awful side fringe. This is because you'll learn how god damn horrific it looks and you'll sort it out soon enough.

Please stop ironically wearing 3D glasses with the lenses popped out.

Don't fret about your body. You will not be a tall, skinny model by 19 but you will be so much more confident.

So then, your future. A lot will happen in four years so prepare yourself. You are yet to meet a couple of friends whom I'm sure you will have for life. It's worth it to keep breathing just for that. You are yet to discover how much you love reading and writing and you are yet to discover what you will go on to do as a degree (it's history by the way). You're not passionate about History yet. Well... who is? I guess you'll realise that it's your best subject and whilst that does not seem likely now, A Level will make it seem much more exciting.

Don't you worry about the hierarchy of popularity that seems to be present at all secondary schools. That tends to disappear once you get to A Levels and will be non-existent once you get to University.

Do not, and I repeat, Do not fret so much about boys. Do not ask them out by text.

Appreciate life a little more. Maybe boarding school is not the best place to discover new and amazing things but there is beauty in the most mundane spaces. Watch American Beauty and discover that even a plastic bag blowing in the breeze can be beautiful. Watch out for Katy Perrys.

Breathe because you will travel to Ghana within a year. Breathe because you will know how it feels to fall in love. Breathe because you will realise how much you value your family. Breathe because you will have incredible opportunities. I am writing this the night before I set off to travel Europe. You have that and so much more to look forward to.

Alice (2015)

Moments

Sometimes, I pause to consider a moment. 

I am lying in bed on a Sunday with no responsibilities to my name for the day; the rain makes music on my window pane. The window is open so my temperature is comfortable. I haven't moved from the position I was in since I woke. I am comfortably numb. The daylight seeps through the curtain basking my bedroom in an orange glow. My favourite song for the week repeats in my head. I couldn't say that in this moment I was completely happy but it was beautiful. I had nothing to complain about, nothing to do but lie and think of music.

A moment.

Sometimes they're more significant. I hitchhiked from Rugby to Southampton with two of my best friends for charity and the most beautiful thing I gained from my adventure was a warm heart, purely because I was astounded at the kindness of humans. The second was the phenomenal beauty of strangers. Every person I got into a car with was endlessly fascinating. I hungered for their little life anecdotes. I craved sustenance in the form of friendship through kindness.

Perhaps people were more willing to open up because of our silly fancy dress; maybe our charitable task helped others to see virtue. Maybe it was the sheer excitement that radiated from our wide eyes and smiling mouths, eager for adventure and with enthusiasm for the road. I aspired to be the modern day Jack Kerouac. “I just go along, I dig life” is what I whispered to myself each time a passer-by ignored our efforts to hitch a ride - ambitious and viciously hopeful. Each challenge satisfied our beating hearts.

The Ferris wheel caught me unguarded. At the top, I breathed in, idealistic and dizzy and truly satisfied with where the road had taken me. It was as though I had woken up from a broken heart - un-blinded and unbearably ecstatic. We had discovered a fairground in the middle of nowhere, a promise, a glass half-full. I’d collected a little glass half full of stories to tell. Moments

A baby is crying on the train. For a brief second I lock eyes with the stranger opposite me. The green eyes agree with me. We unite in mutual irritability. We reflect each other's body language. I feel like friendship is forming. It's a shame they got off the train before me.

I am sitting in my kitchen at uni with two of my flatmates giggling uncontrollably after one of them tried to eat his dinner off his plate without using his hands. Tomato sauce adorns his beard and I am laughing. We laugh together and we continue laughing at stupid things for most of the night. This was something that I didn't realise would be a memory until it was.

I like to notice moments, they make me feel as though life is worth living. 

The Tinder Test

Don't judge me. I downloaded Tinder.

I'd say it was for a laugh but I was genuinely interested. I thought I'd give it a go and see what happens. I've since deleted it but in hindsight, it was a fascinating insight into first impressions and how we judge people.

I went on two Tinder dates. Both just in town for a coffee and they were perfectly nice people but we didn't really click. I wasn't looking for anything serious however, I considered that perhaps a first date isn't enough to really assess a person. I didn't really talk to these two again and one of the reasons was because I wasn't getting the right vibes from them. Then someone recently made me reconsider that first impressions can differ a huge amount to how you might perceive them later on.

It doesn't just go for dates.  My flatmates, who I moved in with back in September last year, are not the same people I thought they were in the first week. I thought a couple of them probably wouldn't be the kind of people that I usually get on with but, now they're the closest people to me at university - physically and figuratively. I didn't even consider that we might have the same sense of humour or that we had such similar interests. Similarly, looking back on previous relationships, my first impression of those people was different to how I perceive them now and how I perceived them whilst we were together.
But, if we really took this to heart when scrolling through Tinder, we would pick out and look at in detail each potential date, studying each photo and why they decided to display this one and not another. Perhaps you'd talk to every single one of your matches, probe them with questions, even assess their use of emojis.

But, online personas are rarely totally reliable. You may get on better online than you do in real life. Maybe you think you like one person but you discover that they're different to who you thought they were. At the same time you may have swiped past someone who you would have gotten on really well with, a potential soul mate, someone you knew when you were a child but didn't recognise initially.

Strange how a simple swipe can dictate one's future relationships.

Additionally people will change in your eyes too, even if you've known them for a really long time. With the benefit of hindsight, we can so easily analyse past relationships and friendships which change our view of the person. Sometimes someone isn't who you think they are and their actions may surprise you one day.
The way you saw your parents as a child is different to how you see them now. When you realise they had a rebellious teenage lifestyle you no longer perceive them as all knowing, all good deity-like individuals.

Nevertheless, I feel like I base my friendships and relationships around people who I click with upon first meeting or people who I feel are similar to me. Yet, in contrast I have friends who are so different to me that we get on like a house on fire; opposites attract. I often people watch on public transport or look at people who are merely just acquaintances and wonder whether some time in the future we could become great friends or even lovers. I admire someone on the bus and think, if I start talking to them today, will I be planning a holiday with them in a years time?
I often look at people in my life and think, if I'd known when we'd first met what we've been through now...how weird that I had no idea at that point in my life.

The Art of Letting Go

Letting go is one of the most difficult parts of human existence. It envelops us emotionally so it can't be cured by painkillers or physical operations. Letting go is something that we all have to face when it comes to death, break ups, lost friends, lost memories or simply just leaving somewhere to move on to pastures new.
And, sometimes, letting go or having to leave something can make you feel so much emotionally that it almost affects you physically.
Some people say that the way to hack this feeling is to never become attached to anything in the first place, whether its an attachment to a person, a place or even just an idea. But, you can't control the way you feel when something affects you so fiercely. It brings out the primal aspects of our being. We follow our hearts and souls and ignore logic. Yet, looking back, feeling attached, is so human. We shouldn't shun ourselves for allowing ourselves to feel this way because it just makes us human.
Some say that letting go can be compared to taking a hand out of water. The hand slips so easily out of water, some may say because the two are not attached and yet the reason we pull our hand out of the water in the first place is because of the will power to do just that. In the process, some water droplets still remain on the hand just like a piece of the person or place you have left, still remains with you for a time. The water droplets on your hand will eventually dry, just like the way that the feeling numbs over time.

My English teacher at college told me that he believes that one should not look back, but remembering the past in small doses can be wonderful. I agree with this because looking back may mean looking back on past mistakes, analysing events, worrying and simply worrying so much that it affects the way you live now when really, worrying about the past is of no use at all. When you lose something, it is tempting to revel in the way that it made you feel and to remember the familiarity of that person, place or idea. However, it is best to think of these changes as part of a path in life. Life changes, people come and go, you move on, you change and people change. You are moving onto another phase of your life where, because of the changes that have occurred, you may have different and more exciting opportunities for experiences that you never had before. Soon, the way things suddenly are, will become part of your comfort zone and new changes will come in time. Wallowing in the past will only stop you from embracing the present.

I suppose, when you hurt so much from losing something, you can be safe in the knowledge that you have the power to love. As cheesy as this sounds, it's undeniably true. Someone who can care, may be in danger of getting emotionally hurt, but, someone who cares is a million, billion times better than someone who doesn't care at all and lives their life numbed from emotion.

Here is a quote from The Little Prince which I think really sums up what I'm trying to say:

"Of course I'll hurt you. Of course you'll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence."

If This isn't Nice, What is?

When Kurt Vonnegut spoke to Graduates in Georgia 1999, he told them many important truths. In reading this speech, it was what Vonnegut's Uncle Alex said which I was interested in the most.

"But about my Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now. One of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when they were happy"

This has struck a chord in me. I have thought about all the times I'd complained about anything at all. I thought about all the times when the news was bad and all the times when the topic of conversation was cynical - how very British: "Isn't the weather terrible?".

Perhaps the reason we notice when we're sad is because it's unusual to us. Most of the time we are content. When your nose isn't running and your throat isn't sore, you don't think about the fact that your nostrils are clear or your throat doesn't hurt because normally its okay. We notice the bad more than the good and we forget that life is better than we think it is.

Often, so much is to do with jealousy and considering what others have that we don't. Think about it. You've survived with what you have now for a long time. Do you really need more? I suppose now would be the perfect time to haul out the cliché that money doesn't buy you happiness. In a way, money adds to your general comfort and decreases stress when you know that you have enough. But, we too often think about what we don't have. We too often think about what could go wrong instead of what could go right. There is a little cynic in all of us.

I think the fact that we rarely notice it, says a lot about human happiness . I've tried to notice when I'm happy and to say or think, in the words of Vonnegut 'If this isn't nice? what is?'. As a humanity, we are rarely satisfied, constantly seeking happiness when the trick is to just accept the here and now instead of seeking it relentlessly. I don't know if there will ever be a means to an end in terms of seeking true happiness.

I think it's fascinating that happiness is something that so many great thinkers have considered and discussed be it Kurt Vonnegut, Blaise Pascal, Friedrich Nietzsche etc. It just proves even more just how much it matters to us and how much we seek it. I'm not going to put myself on par with these great thinkers but I'd at least like to contribute to the bigger questions.