cleaning the windows

Hello friends. What are you up to? Right now, I'm sipping Melbourne Breakfast tea, feeling a fog behind my eyes I'm not sure is grief, exhaustion, screen fatigue, a bit of a hangover, or all four.

I want to tell you all the lovely things that happened in Australia and how humbled and thrilled I was by the support and love for my little book, everywhere I went. That the whole trip was everything I was hoping for and more. 

But right now I just need to get some stuff out of my head. I hope you’ll bear with me. If you’d rather not, that’s fine, please come back in a few days and I'll tell you all about Australia then. I’m not offended, I promise.

Tom has just cleaned the windows in our house. It's amazing how different everything looks.  We've put off cleaning them for ages, which only made it harder for the light to get in.  So in many ways that's what I'm trying to do here. Clean the windows, because I've been putting it off for so long, but once I do it, things might be easier, maybe even look a bit different too. And ultimately, you've got to take care of your house. It's where you live, after all.

And I've just popped in to the living room to see what Tom's up to, to find that now there's bird shit on one of our newly cleaned windows. What an apt metaphor indeed. 

Life has been quite hard lately. I didn’t disappear on purpose, but our return to the UK was such a crash to earth, that trying to gather my thoughts about everything that's happened has felt either too hard or kind of pointless.  

A week after we got back to the UK, Tom’s mother died. She was terminally ill so it wasn't unexpected - in fact, we were concerned that it might happen while we were away - but the swiftness of it all upon our return was a profound shock. Any plans we had of getting back to normal after our trip were forgotten, we couldn't think much further ahead than the following day, yet life had to resume regardless, we still needed to eat and bills needed to be paid. Having just been away for five weeks, we couldn’t take more time off work to process the loss. The family home is a seven-hour drive away, deep in rural isolation, so our jet-lagged and weary bodies accumulated several more long and tiring journeys.  There was no time to recover, from anything, or to take anything in, really. We just had to keep going.

Seven weeks later, we're still exhausted. I know it's grief - not just for the loss of my mother-in-law, but the sadness I feel every time I return from Australia, as leaving there gets harder each time and I miss my family and friends more and more. Watching my husband go through losing his mother has been heartbreaking, and has made me want to gather my own family close to me. There's also another strange sense of loss with The Latte Years - it isn’t out in bookstores in the UK yet and I got used to seeing it everywhere while we were in Australia. But here, it's nowhere to be seen and therefore it doesn't feel real anymore. I know that sounds overdramatic but I can't think of any other way to put it. That wonderful five weeks in Australia, as well as finally being a published author after so many years of working towards it, now feels like it was all a dream. It has been one brutal crash back to reality, that’s for sure. 

Instead of whatever it was I was expecting life to be like right now, I've got something else and I haven't really known what to do with it. 

And I've realised I'm not very good at letting dust settle. I like to have goals, I like to have things to work towards and look forward to. I like to have a plan. When life isn't going the way I want it to, my strategy has been to shake things up, do something about it, be bold and take life by the horns. But sometimes that just isn't the most appropriate solution. It certainly isn't at the moment. 

I'm learning things about life I don't think I was ready to learn just yet, but I didn't have a choice. And if that's how I feel, then I know it's a thousand times harder for my husband. I've tried to be a rock for him, to be whatever he needs me to be and do whatever he needs me to do. But that's been tricky as well, as grief is so unpredictable and complicated. To say nothing of the guilt that sets in when you just wish this wasn't happening. I am one of life's fixers but I can't fix this. I wish I could.

In the midst of this, I've tried to press on with what I'd planned to do when I got back from Oz and that was to write my next book. I'm sure you can guess how that's been going so far. I've been feeling so lost and wishing circumstances were better, calmer and less mucky for me to begin. But I created an entire book out of the muck that was my life 10 years ago, and everything that came after it. The perfect moment to write The Latte Years never arrived, real life was happening all around me and I had to suck it up and get it done. I was hoping things would be different for Book 2, but alas, it appears life will keep hammering me over the head with this lesson until I get over myself. 

I think that's probably at the core of this - both my inertia at the moment, and my fear of coming back to this space to report, "hey, life actually hasn't been great lately." 

I’ve seen so many writers online talking about ‘the good old days’ of blogging and why can’t it be like that again, more authentic, less polished. I forget that a blog post is just capturing what you're thinking and what is going on for you in that moment. It doesn’t have to stand the test of time. It just has to be written.

And as for the the voice in my head that says “you've got a book out, you can’t just write any old shit and put it on the internet for all to see anymore” - well, I’m telling that voice to fuck off. That’s just fear talking. Fear and I are old friends but it’s starting to get toxic again, where I know it’s not really happy for me and wants to keep me small.

Oh, the deep, deep irony of having written a book about being brave with your life, going after your dreams, believing in yourself, speaking your truth and….that I still have to work on those things every single day. 

The messages of The Latte Years have actually never been more relevant for my life right now. That life is messy and complicated and you’ll never have it all figured out. That just because you reach a goal, it doesn’t mean everything will be plain sailing from there. That if you present nothing but a shiny happy outside to the world, you’ll just end up feeling trapped and lonely. That things not working out as you thought they would really isn’t the end of the world, in fact, it’s often a very good thing. That the only way forward is to just keep going. And that if you've got the love and support of good people in your life, ultimately, everything will be OK. 

I've been thinking about 'what's next' for me ever since The Latte Years went to print nearly six months ago….but maybe it’s OK for me to just be, to let go and see what happens. I don’t know. 

What I do know is that there is no accumulated competence or confidence when it comes to this life and vocation I have chosen, that every day you start again, from scratch. It is a practice, it is a process and it doesn’t have to be perfect. 

Most of all, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude to be alive. Seeing someone I cared for deteriorate over the past year has made me realise how quickly the life you’ve built and all the little pieces of yourself that make up who you are can be snatched away, and there’s nothing you can do when it does. It was tragic to watch. 

I am so grateful for my life. For the gift of good health. For the balm of hope and the heart-lifting joy of true love and friendship. For the little things - spring flowers, the freshness of cold air, the comforting smell of onions and garlic frying. Life, in all its highs and lows, wonders and puzzlements, its many tiny moments of clarity, its storms and sunrises. All of it. I try so hard to never to take it for granted. 

So, yeah, that’s where I am right now. 

Thank you for listening. Here's to keeping it real, eh? *clink* xx

the week that was

Well, this has been quite a week. A strange week, filled with sadness and thrills in equal portions. The older I get, the more I realise that happy and sad times can’t be neatly sectioned off from each other in life, they often coincide, or crash together in the same car. 

On Friday, January 8, Tom and I wound down from the working week with David Bowie’s latest album, Blackstar, which I had pre-ordered so we would get it on the day it was released. We sat with red wine, listening to it and discussing it, our minds blown by its vision and poetry and darkness. 

Only a few days later, early on Monday morning as we sipped our coffee and checked if the trains were running on time, the news broke that David Bowie had died. Both of us felt numb and shocked as we made our way to work. I put Radio 6 on my headphones as I worked and felt more and more emotional as the tracks were played and suddenly ‘Changes’, ‘Life on Mars’ and ’Space Oddity’ sounded different, and now meant something else.

My husband's 'desert island' Bowie collection.

I loved hearing other listeners song requests, their memories of Bowie’s music and what it meant in their lives, and was moved to email my own song request and story into the station. It was thanks to my then boyfriend now husband that I got introduced to Bowie beyond 'China Girl' and the Labyrinth’s Goblin King. His music has been the backdrop for my life in London - there has been a song for every moment, happy and not so much. 

To my surprise, a producer emailed back and asked if I’d be on the show on Wednesday to share the story, and the original mixtape Tom made me when we first met, which was my first proper introduction to Bowie. Here’s the story and here’s the show itself if you’d like to listen (I come in around 40:48). Lauren Laverne even asked me about my book! Bit of Bowie magic happening there, for sure. What a thrill it was. It made the sadness a little more bearable. But then of course we got the sad news about Alan Rickman....it wasn't the best week to be a British man aged 69. We've spent a lot of the past few days watching our favourite movies that had Bowie and Rickman in them, feeling bereft at the idea of a world without them in it.

Also, in the week that was:

• Femail.com.au have posted an interview with me about writing The Latte Years, check it out here

• SHAPE Magazine Australia describe The Latte Years as ‘a page turner’! Whoop!

• I also have a piece in this month’s ELLE Australia - reflecting on the art of making new year's resolutions and why I don't think you need to wait for January 1 to change your life.

There’s a few more articles I’ve written that will be coming up in the Australian media soon that I’m rather excited to share once they’re published, so stay tuned! 

Winter has wrapped itself around London now, and we woke up to a light snowfall this morning. It seems a little bizarre that in a few days we’ll emerge from a plane, dazed and confused, and it will be summer.

This is my backyard:

And this is where my book is! 

Hope you’re keeping warm or cool, wherever you are, my friends.  

the first

Today is New Year’s Day, 2016. 

It’s been a cloudy, cold, intermittently wet day here in London. Somehow my husband and I managed to start the year without hangovers, despite drinking two bottles of champagne and chasing it down with whisky before crawling to bed around 3am. Perhaps we aren’t getting too old for this after all.

Today my husband also fixed my phone, which has been driving me batshit crazy for months. It was one of those things I just don't have time to sort out.  It finally has enough memory to update all its apps. WhatsApp finally works again and in it I found many messages I had missed over the past few months, including one from a friend who, it turns out, quit her job before Christmas and is now cycling around Canada. I had no idea. I’d seen her snaps on social media but thought she was just on holiday. 

I suppose that’s a metaphor for how I feel about life in general right now. I finally have enough memory, enough brain power, to plug back in to the world and life now that The Latte Years is ready to be released. 

The process of having a book published has been nothing like I thought it would be, at all. Every author says that and I didn’t believe them. It’s been a rollercoaster, in the most incredible, amazing and challenging ways. One minute you’re fantasising about what it will be like to see a book with your name on the front cover. The next you’re running along a frosty street at 6:30am to get to the sorting office when it opens, because a copy of your book has arrived, but as you work full time, you weren’t home when it got there. Later that day, you’re sitting in a cafe on your lunch break, reading it, and people walk past the window, burrowing themselves deeper in their coats against the cold, back to their offices, life keeps going.

Eventually you remember to look up and sip your coffee, and it hits you that this isn’t just a book you’ve borrowed from the library. You wrote it.

Books aren’t books to you any more. You know what the author went through to write it. It is all-consuming, intense, exhilarating, powerful, exciting, frustrating, even heartbreaking. You know about deadlines, about getting up at 6am to write before work, writing in the evenings, writing for nine to ten hour stretches at the weekends, your social life dropping dead. You know about days when you forget to eat, you’re so caught up. You know about drafting and redrafting. You know about cutting 50,000 words. You know about the frustration of feeling golden sentences forming in your brain and your typing fingers not able to catch them before they slip away. You know about fighting that nagging voice in your head that tells you you’re a fraud, you’re going to be a laughing stock, that you’ll never be good enough. You know about the sick dread you feel when you realise it’s over, it's gone to print, and you’ve just thought of something else you wish you’d had time to change. 

But then you realise your book is a bit like you. Flawed, but still lovable. Still able to find a place in the world. And lucky - so very bloody lucky - to have so many people who believe in it. 

And that’s why I can’t wait to do it again. I’m already writing the next one.

So, that’s my wish for 2016. To keep writing. To learn, to grow, to push myself. But to keep going, above all.

What’s yours, my friend?

Much love, Phil xx

things I've learned this week

• Guacamole is very easy to make at work.
• A good mechanic is worth their weight in gold.
• Today is going to be a good day.

a letter to my 22 year old self

Last week Sarah Von Bargen launched the Post-College Survival Kit and as part of the promotion she had a bunch of lovely wise ladies write letters to their 22-year old selves, sharing lessons, wisdom and encouragement. I thought I'd write one too. This is it.

Dear 22 year old me,

I'm 11 years older than you are right now - that's right, half as many years as you've currently been on the planet right now...that's scary...and wow, how much you will live through and witness and experience and lose and gain in those 11 years. I can't wait for you to get started.

To be honest, it's taken me a very long time to go easy on you, 22 year old me. For a long time I just wanted to shake you, knock some sense into you. "What were you thinking?" "Oh God, why didn't you know any better?" Well, the reason you did the things your future self paid for and tore her hair out over was because you actually didn't know any better. You did your best with what you knew.

You're currently in the most unfulfilling period of your life and I wish you knew that it didn't need to be that way.  And as powerless as you think you are, the life you're living is actually the result of choices you have made.  Poor choices, admittedly, but choices all the same.

You have nothing but good intentions, 22 year old me, and yet you can't figure out why you're so unhappy.  But you will. And once you do, your life will change forever.

I can't tell you much more, because it would ruin all the surprises, but the things I most want  to tell you are.....

It will get worse before it gets better, but it gets SO much better. Hang in there.

Make the most of being in Australia and being able to see your friends, your sisters, your parents and your nephews whenever you like because one day you'll live on the other side of the world and you'll miss them all like crazy.

Stop settling. You don't have to put up with crap jobs, crap friends or a crap relationship just because they came along. Until you have some higher standards you'll keep attracting the same kinds of things.

Stop drifting. Life doesn't just "happen", you have to make it happen.  You have to have a plan and some goals. All those people you're so envious of, they've worked hard to get where they are and what they have. Stop being so defeatist and expecting it all to be easy.

Stop letting people walk all over you and treat you badly. You're allowed to stand up for yourself. (In all fairness, it will take you until you're nearly 30 to start doing this!)

Get out of your comfort zone. Trust yourself a bit more.

Stop waiting for permission and stop waiting for someone to knock on your door and rescue you from this mess.  Only you can rescue yourself. The world won't come to you on a silver platter, but the world is waiting for you.

The most important thing you will ever do is learn to love yourself. It takes a long, long time. But it transforms everything.

I know you're very unhappy right now, but actually this time in your life is laying the foundations for everything that is to come. It will make you stronger, more capable, more determined and so, so grateful for all the good things in your life in years to come.  Everything that happens does so for a reason. Even the big mistakes. Well, especially them.

If you had any idea what you're truly capable of, or what lies ahead of you, you wouldn't be waiting another minute.

But, much as I hate to admit it, where you are right now is exactly where you need to be.  I'm not sure you would have learned what you needed to learn any other way. If anything had been different, perhaps you wouldn't be where you are now....and that's something I wouldn't change for the world.

I gave up long ago any hope that the past could have been any different. Everything will work out. 

And don't ever, ever think - not for one minute - that the mistakes you've made mean you don't deserve to be happy in the future. Your mistakes and errors in judgment will only scar you for life if you let them. Don't listen to the naysayers. People will talk, so let them. True friends only care about your happiness and won't judge you for how you got there.

The life I'm living now is the one you constantly dream of and hope for, so don't give up. You will get there. I'm proud I (and you!) made it happen and I'm grateful for it every single day.   I'm sorry for the dark times you had, but I'm so glad you started running towards the light.

Love always,

Phil xxx

What would you say to your 22 year old self?