Not hiding

Golly goodness me, where has that semi-properly-employed wench got to?

(re: the rant below. This followed a below average day in the ongoing war between retail and customers. Thankfully, there was no blood, as glasses are suprisingly sharp. I’m also annoyed at the sensation of boldly going nowhere. Now, an hour out of my mood, I feel better, but I am keeping this entry up to show that even people, such as myself, who are willing to bend over backwards to be nice to everyone  and will always see a silver lining on every cloud, want to scream loudly at something too. Or, at least that is what I’m telling myself, so I don’t feel embarrassed. I take a traditional ‘if you can’t talk about it, then don’t speak about your feelings’ approach to letting rip.)

LOLcat: speaking the emotions that people struggle to say since 2007.

1. Firstly, tiredness sucks. However, tiredness with an unhealthy amount of existentialism is slightly worse. There is nothing to wallow in self pity about around here, but I got wondering if I used my time at University wisely, and now I can’t stop thinking it. I got a lot out of broadcasting, working and reading up on dead Cornish people during my three years of freedom.

However, almost two years later, I look back on all of the opportunities I missed, academically and otherwise, and I feel like crap that I didn’t see them as opportunities at the time. I was so focused on getting through the next month, week or hot wednesday afternoon in the library, I did not look at the same wider picture that everyone else I know seemed to see. I did not chase up my link to BBC radio. I didn’t consider staying in the area. I never bothered learning a new sport, or joining a team. I had a bit of an empty feeling, that made me wonder what I was missing (I don’t mean God, I mean feeling like I knew what I was doing half the time, and wondering why everyone else seemed capable of making decisions about their life when I sometimes seemed to constantly forget about buying lunch), and I wish I had explored that further, but I didn’t even know where to begin. I’ve always felt that, in the encyclopedia of life, I’ve been using the index when others use the content page.

I probably didn’t apply for the right kind of radio jobs, and couldn’t find the links to things that others do. I wish I had put more emphasis on getting the radio job I would have loved, instead of wondering what on earth happened. I wish things would come easier. I hope no-one is thinking ‘God, she wasted so much time’. I wish I could pass my driving test, without hearing the word ‘test’ and have my brain fall out of my ears in panic because I couldn’t bear it if I failed for the 5th time.

I watched so many of my friends get to their degree and know exactly what they wanted to do that September, and I wish I had too.

In all, I feel that I am sometimes not using my strengths. I want to be a novelist, but don’t feel confident/have enough self-esteem in my writing abilities, I have struggled to find radio work (all the more reason I am grateful to Hospital Radio), and my attention span tends to waver if I think about the same thing for too long. I love teaching, and I think I’ll enjoy my course. Good gravy, I’m so excited about moving away that I’m just stopping short of ticking down the days on a calendar.

Yeah, so this is the whiny blog entry that I always wanted to avoid. The one that lists my failures. The one where I don’t consider all of the wonderful friends and family I have looking out for me, and the other good things that I imagine other people see. However, I can’t escape from the fact that there is always a teeny tiny person in the back of my mind who wonders what others ‘What do ‘they’ think of me?’, ‘what am I missing?’, ‘why do I assume that other people are judging me?’. Call it low self-esteem/ADHD/being needy/paranoia, but if I’m on this blog not being honest with myself, I think I will go crazy.

2. Currently, work is doing all of the things that work does (serving customers, putting glasses back on display, emptying the paper chomper). It’s been rather hectic over the past couple of days, but the beautiful afternoon I spent sat out in the garden yesterday (slightly worrying about what productive thing I could get on with-Localfreak, the parcel is almost complete!) more than made up for it. I did slightly wonder of what the Christian Lord would have made of my only trip to the local village church… to buy asparagus from the local farm stall, but staring up into a contrail free sky and walking through the graveyard wild meadow while listening to Simon and Garfunkel was fairly idyllic. It was just a shame about the trucks and the glut of rhubarb the stall was left with.

3. Hospital Radio is going rather well at the moment. I recently acquired a new co-host, A, who is lovely and puts up with my rambling on with good grace. The interviews also seem to have found their own ebb and flow. Now I am not panicking so much about structure, and feel confident in getting their views across with me going ‘Yes’, every five minutes.I wish I could put them on this blog, but radio laws are Kafkaesque, especially if you don’t have the cash.

4. I’m knitting my first piece of lace knitting, and I haven’t had to restart it yet-huzzah!