DEAR CLAIRE 2015

Though I love Christmas, if I'm really honest, I find this time of year to be filled with all kinds of pressures on my time and my general well-being that I don't feel as much during the rest of the year.

One of them is to have an extended family to take up copious amounts of the time in between Christmas and New Year's, and of course to tell hilarious eye-roll inducing anecdotes about to everyone in the first days of January. The other is to have a huge friendship group to spend the other portions of my time with.

If I'm honest I spend most of the Christmas/New Year period by myself. I spent a lot of that time sleeping. If I'm really honest I'm too exhausted by now to imagine that anything else could have worked without me collapsing by January 2nd.

I also think that this period is rife with people telling you to think about yourself and the ways you want to change.

So based on these few things, I'd like to send my own incredibly non-reflection inducing messages into the new year of 2015, for myself, and anyone else who might find them useful.

xx

Dear 2015 Claire, 

First of all, please take your make-up off every night. You never get home later than 9 so the fact that you get into bed straight away and never get up again, whilst understandable, is making you spotty. It's taken ten long years to get your skin into this state, stop ruining it for us.

Next, do more exercise, or don't. And eat better...or don't. You do whatever the hell you want as long as you promise to love yourself and feel happy in your own skin every single day. Keep on blowing metaphorical (and literal) raspberries in the face of '#fitspo' and '#strongisthenewskinny' and you go running to clear your head and help you sleep better and if you don't like it just stay in bed and read books and watch shit TV and eat to your heart's content. Basically keep doing what you're doing. 

I do want you to do one thing though, well really it's more like two things. I want you to write more, and read more. Those are the things you really love and I want you to dedicate more time to them please. You'll be loads happier and more confident in your potential, I promise. 

We're probably still going to be stony-ass broke by this time next year, so don't worry about travelling or seeing more of the world or any of that crap. You focus on moving out and visiting your friends and stuff that will promote your emotional well-being and the relationships you put so much work into so far with the people you love. You don't need to find yourself, you're fine.

You don't smoke and you don't drink. Good job. Pretty sure we'll keep that up. 

You're fairly good at saving money. You've paid for everything yourself so far so you have everyone reason to be proud of yourself for that if nothing else. And no overdraft. 

You're really, really good at kicking out people who don't treat you properly and don't love and respect you. You carry on doing that scary-side of Claire. Carry on being an absolute, unforgiving bitch when it's necessary. 

You're also really, really good at loving other people. And you can carry on with that until the cows come home. You can do the aforementioned scary-Claire shit because you know what you deserve and you deserve care. I hope that by this time next year you're still texting the same people at midnight that you'll be texting tonight. You put everything into those relationships because the people you have them with are amazing. They're worth it and so are you. 

You got good grades! And you're trying really hard and you love your subject. Everything you ever wanted since you made that careers presentation in Year 12 and someone laughed when you said you wanted to get a PhD is so so close.* You can do it. 

You don't need to be better, in any way, you're fine as you are. You just keep on going just like you are.

I'm so proud of you, I hope you're proud of you this time next year too. 

Lots and lots of love, 

Claire 

xx

*I did not make life decisions and direct my career in this direction just because someone laughed at me when I was 17. But I am very excited about achieving what they thought I couldn't nonetheless. 

Am I A 'Basic Bitch'?

Spoiler alert: Probably.

I hate the term 'basic'. No, actually, I don't. I hate the 2014 internet use of the term 'basic'. I hate that instead of being an insult you throw at someone you don't respect it's now used by everyone and their dog to trivialise women.
I hate it almost as much as I hate having my desire to have a meaningful conversation with a female friend reduced down to 'talking about boys' by a male acquaintance.
Both of these things trivialise me and my feelings, and both of them stop me from expressing that I'm comfortable with myself because they take aspects of who I am and use them to make me sound like a mindless moron.

So this post comes in response to this article entitled: 50 Signs You're Dating A Basic Bitch, obviously meant to serve as a warning to any man who's dating a girl that might enjoy, well, anything. After all, everyone knows that anyone who likes things is basically an idiot. Now let's take a look and see if I am a 'basic bitch', or if I'm actually a 22-year old woman with numerous jobs and a master's degree as well as the ability to maintain strong personal relationships.
My money would be on both but everyone knows women can't be more than one thing at once because we don't get to be complex like that.

1. My casual outfits would suggest that I'm not going anywhere, They are 100% fleece. I don't own any UGG boots but I do own slippers that resemble them, and I've worn them with shorts and a hoodie before for sure.
2. I do go to Starbucks. I'm not sure I have much affection for the place per se but I definitely go whenever I'm at work because it's next door. I don't think the baristas know me but I do know them.
3. Okay you've got me I actually hate Paris.
4. I don't own a cowboy hat. I do love Taylor Swift.
5. I would really like to do yoga. I have talked about it and I'll probably never go.
6. I do own underwear from Victoria's Secret.
7. I don't really know how you'd define the colour of your underwear as 'ridiculous' or not.
8. I do keep things that have sentimental value. I think that might be less 'basic' and more valuing other people and your memories with them.
9. I have no interest in Zumba.
10. I don't think I can speak Spanish. I can speak French. It's not embarrassing because I CAN speak French. Who even says they can speak languages that they can't speak?
11. I probably would be a 'woo girl'. I'm presuming that just means a girl who says 'woo' when she's drunk.
12. It's definitely okay to be upset if an actor you like dies.
13. I have seen wedding-proposal videos on YouTube. I have enjoyed them.
14. I don't fancy Channing Tatum.
15. I do use the term 'girl crush', because other women are beautiful.
16. I don't have a 'wild side' as oppose to any other 'side'. I am a complex person and I have done numerous things as a result.
17. I wish I could afford MAC make up.
18. When I was unemployed and home during the day I watched Real Housewives. I'm not any more so I don't. That's the only reason.
19. I've been told I am Jess from New Girl. I'm really just clumsy.
20. I do own and wear lip gloss.
21. I do both love to laugh and love to have fun. I don't have a dating profile.
22. I'm not particularly religious. I think you can still be spiritual anyway.
23. Okay I don't drink but there's nothing to say I wouldn't drink cocktails of all varieties if I did.
24. I didn't go to Vegas with my girls but I have been to Ibiza and we definitely used the hashtag '#whathappensinibiza'.
25. I don't have stuff with words like 'peace' or 'love' on them.
26. I don't own anything that says 'Keep Calm' on it.
27. Chances are she might actually be a fan of Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn, or maybe just like iconic photography, or both.
28. Also completely fine to like inspirational quotes. Although there is a post coming on how healthy and useful I think they are if you're genuinely struggling.
29. I just like chicken. I didn't realise that was a social gesture.
30. I haven't seen ALL Wes Anderson films, I do really want to.
31. I don't check my horoscope.
32. Yep everyone knows that not finding jokes about rape funny means you have ZERO sense of humour.
33. I'm pretty sure no one says 'the P-word' or 'the C-word' because there are about 20 different versions of those particular words you would use instead.
34. Not red roses, and they're not my favourites.
35. No one describes themselves as 'traditional' and describing women as 'classy' is just one of the thousands of ways we've been taught to hate each other. Like describing each other as 'basic'.
36. Yep, everything does happen for a reason.
37. I don't have Pintrest.
38. It's okay to be interested in both jewellery and the aesthetics of weddings.
39. I don't like rom coms. 
40. I don't like The Hills.
41. I think everyone has the 'Hey Girl' book.
42. I do love to bake.
43. I do love cakes and frozen yoghurt.
44. #fitspo makes me gag.
45. Sick of being told that enjoying something must mean I'm 'obsessed' with it.
46. I could tell you of good self-tanners.
47. I really like brunch. It's an extra meal what's not to like.
48. I'm always dressing as a sexy ___, Halloween or not.
49. Let's make women who aren't interested in politics right now feel insecure about it, that will help.
50. Did you hear about her morning sickness? And her complete lack of privacy? No one really wants to be Kate Middleton.

Overall, it's looking pretty basic.

Actually it's not, it's just looking like I enjoy some things and don't enjoy others and in that sense I am like every other person on the planet because I have opinions on things.

I don't know how we made liking things into a way to trivialise and demean women but that's quite an achievement so maybe we should be proud of ourselves.

We shouldn't, that's fucking awful.

xx

On Reflection, That Wasn't Okay

I was bullied when I was at school. Not really for anything, and not particularly seriously. I also like to think that it wasn't in a way which has severely affected me later on; that I'm still successful and confident and that actually if anything it was people who I considered friends that let me down and hurt me more than people who used to call me a 'loser' when I was 14. In that I suppose I was lucky, because that's all they did, no one beat me up, no one picked out a physical attribute to make me insecure about, they just laughed at me and thought I was a bit weird. At the time I thought it was the worst thing in the world and I cried a lot, in retrospect it's made me very sensitive to other people's feelings and given me the ability to laugh at myself. Other people still laugh at me too, and now I practically encourage it. 

My point is that even after I left school I didn't really know what it was like to have someone pick on something really specific and make me feel uncomfortable about it. Not until I went to a very small university in the South West with my incredibly soft northern accent did I have that experience. I'd love to say that more than anything it was just boring, that four years after arriving at Bath I just rolled my eyes when someone paused to imitate my accent back at me. But it wasn't just boring, it was frustrating and at some points very isolating. 

I appreciate that it doesn't sound like a big deal, and I don't bring it up often just because of that. That being said this is my space on the internet and if I want to get angry about something then I can. So here it is: when people make fun of my accent it really pisses me off. Mostly because even four years down the line no one seemed to have guessed that maybe I might be a little bored of hearing about it, and whilst it might have been meant in friendly jest 90% of the time it sometimes struggled to come across like that around 50% of the time. That's mostly because by and large it was just aimed at me. There are, sadly unsurprisingly, very few people from the north of England at the University of Bath. That's fine, I didn't move there to be surrounded by northern people, that wasn't what I expected to need to have to feel comfortable or to make friends. I made friends and mostly I felt increasingly at home. Until someone commented on my voice, and then I felt very far from home and anything but comfortable. 

The thing about my voice is that there's very little I can do about it. It was formed through years of social interaction and at age 22 I'd say it was probably here to stay. In that sense it's much like my appearance in that it's an integral part of who I am but I have basically no control over it. So when someone makes fun of it, or suggests that I pronounce stuff wrong, I tend to feel much as I imagine you would if someone made fun of your physical appearance. I feel pretty rubbish but also pretty personally aggrieved because it doesn't really feel like a fair game. It's not fair because those people were surrounded by other people who sounded just like them, hence noticing I sounded different. But I spent 18 years surrounded by people who spoke just like me and I still managed to keep it together when I moved somewhere else. I was more than aware that there were people with accents other than mine and that they had just as much a right to be okay with their speech as I did with mine. 

The only difference was I was out on my own, I very rarely heard anyone speak back to me in a voice that held any familiarity, and that probably wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't also come coupled with the suggestion that there was something fundamentally 'not as good' about my accent.

It never really let up and looking back I never really suggested that it annoyed me. It took coming home and realising how much of a toll the experience had taken on me to realise how much I never ever want to deal with that again. I have no interest in being told that I pronounce things 'wrong', I also have no interest in being told the 'correct' word for something which I happen to have a different word for because of where I learnt to speak. I also have no interest in being told I'd be 'attractive if it wasn't for your voice', which is insulting and demeaning in a number of different ways that I can't even be bothered to go into here. 

I do however, have every interest in continuing to express myself in my own voice and trying to reverse the audible 'softening' of my accent that has taken place. My accent doesn't get stronger when I'm angry or tired, I just stop sub-consciously trying to hide it. The fact that, instead of expressing my discomfort, I just slowly adapted my voice, just because it was easier, has to be the saddest part of this whole thing. I let people make me feel like the way I express myself, that the way I am wasn't good enough and that I should change it; that is absolutely the worst thing I've ever heard. 

xx

Tiny Victories of the Week.

I'm usually pretty hard on myself when it comes to feeling down, I've seen one too many inspirational Instagram posts and it's left me feeling like every day should be seized with the most positive energy possible and I should end it feeling like I'd conquered Rome. 

Recently though, I've decided to give myself a break. I think I could quite legitimately choose to be incredibly grumpy at the moment and not have to take joy in anything. I certainly don't feel like I'm conquering any days so much as I'm enduring them and still standing at the end.

Hence the title of 'tiny victories'; they are tiny, and fairly mundane successes throughout what has been a very difficult week.

• Everyone I came into contact with when I was travelling on my own was more than happy to help me. People are really nice if you just ask.
• My make up lasted all of my 12 hour journey to Maastricht, making me feel a lot less like a stressed mess. At least on the outside.
• I had a bit of a disaster on Wednesday but it's nothing that can't be fixed and it had the added bonus of acting as a massive wake-up call that I need to return to my super-organised and super-alert self and not let everything that's happening around me make me absent-minded.
• At a time when I feel like I churn out bad news like there's no tomorrow, everyone who cared for me has continued to do so and not once made me feel uncomfortable about it.
• Whenever I admitted that I would need some help and that I wasn't coping, I wasn't once made to feel like that wasn't completely fine.
• One of my dissertation tutees said I helped her feel less stressed about her dissertation.
• I absolutely love my subject and I can't wait to spend the rest of my life doing it.
• I've started writing again after a break so long I couldn't call it a hiatus so much as an abandonment.

xx

On Hilarious Women, And Being Surrounded By Them

Until about three months ago, when people used to say that women weren't funny I would feel first angry, then disappointed, then an incredible desire to make a list of women I knew for a fact were funny. Now, if presented with a similar problem, I would just feel sorry for them.

I'd feel sorry for them because that means that when they went through the hardest times in their life, they weren't surrounded by hilarious female comrades to remind them that they could do (and handle) anything they damn well wanted. 

So this post is dedicated to those women, to the friend who helped me use theatre analogies to assess my now 'one-woman show' of a life after my relationship came apart. To the friend who asked me actual questions and allowed me to make actual (all be it pretty bleak) jokes about an illness in the family. And to all the women in my life who told me stories and laughed at mine just minutes after I'd told them something life-changing and often horrible.

Women who didn't only make me laugh but also made me feel strong. Women who inspired me to keep going as they did when they went through a hard time; with a smile on their face and always committed to making other people laugh. Women who never once tried to change my mind once I'd made a decision, women who always supported me, never spoke badly of me and believed in my worth even when I felt like I was trying to walk against a brick wall.

Women who can make me laugh out-loud in public with one perfectly worded text. Women who's timing is impeccable and phrasing is perfect. Women who will listen to me rant about anything and everything; from EU membership, Shakespeare in the national curriculum and that stupid guy that makes me want to hit something. Women who will rant in return and be a million times more hilarious than I was whilst they do it.

So women are funny, They are hilarious. They're hilarious every day and they're hilarious especially when absolutely nothing else could even raise a smile from me. Which if anything is the real test, because if you can be funny when no one wants to laugh that's pretty damn good. So if you're going to tell me that women can't be funny, then that's sad for you, I hope you find one soon and apologise to them for being such an arsehole in a past life.

xx