“Have you got any soul?” a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I’ve got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can’t seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn’t be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues.” – High Fidelity, Nick Hornby

As a result of a bizarre trend in cinema during my formative years, I spent a lot of my childhood worrying about quicksand. How would I spot it? What would I do if I became stuck in it? What if others I’m with are stuck too? A quick Google informs me that death via quicksand is decidedly rare, and I’m – thankfully – yet to face-off this fear in a literal sense.

But I’m starting to think the warning over the perils of quicksand may have proven allegorical. Just as Rob in High Fidelity has his remaining soul kept by the exit, next to the blues, my soul is out of reach whilst the rest of me is wading through the quicksand. Futilely grabbing at life-vines which snap before assisting any rescue.

I think I’ve lost my hope, and I’m not sure when I last had it so I can’t really retrace my steps to find it.

There’s enough reason for this boggy feeling to have arisen – not that anyone should have to feel like they must reason or rationalise their feelings for them to be valid. It’s more that, in this instance, I could see things were getting denser, the dumptrucks of life dropping off piles of sand at increasing shortening intervals but I thought I was okay. Things were ‘manageable’. This is all temporary. This too shall pass.

But now I’m in panic mode as things have bypassed my capacity levels. I no longer feel that my head is above water and breathing feels a little patchy.

Ironically, for someone who never learnt to swim, I’m pretty good at that ‘just keep swimming thing’. Dory would be proud. My work, personal and general life has thrown enough at me to test my personal buoyancy. Yet, as I’ve hit a 100% likelihood rate of answering ‘existing’ to every single variant of the ‘How’s things? You okay? How are you?’ question format I wonder if it I’ve just become numb.

Because right now I feel like a lobster without it’s shell, red raw and so vulnerable to the point of defensive – more likely to attack out of self-perseveration rather than risk another hit landing. There’s no doubt this is the by-product of burnout, of having utilised my supply of bounce-back and now the energy packs need charging.

And thus, I’m wading in the quicksand, too tired to pull myself out.

Which, as far as I can work out, leaves me with two options.

One, I keep hoping for a Fairy Godmother to arrive and lift me out of it. Not the best solution as the existence of Fairy Godmother’s is, as far as I’m aware, unfounded and unconfirmed. I’d be waiting a long old while. And, knowing my luck, the Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2 will arrive and just wreck more havoc.

Then there’s the other option. The advice for what to do when stuck in quicksand might be the key here: lean back so that the weight of your body is distributed over a wider area. Moving won’t cause you to sink. In fact, slow back-and-forth movements can actually let water into the cavity around a trapped limb, loosening the quicksand’s hold. Getting out will take a while, though.

Maybe Dory was sort of onto something with her sagely wisdom. Maybe keeping swimming is the answer, but I need to abandon those big old’ movements. Maybe I need to keep moving, slowly, a little at a time – celebrating the progress, not lamenting the time it takes.

Because, apparently, ‘getting out will take a while, though.’

Last night, I went to a singles night. I’ll avoid naming the company here. That feels sort-of unfair, although I could make an argument for the fact that perhaps a degree of transparency from their end would have made things feel fairer…

My friend and I (I’ll add her name here if she’s happy for me to, otherwise I’ll refer to her as Lady Mystery – LM) headed over to THE LAND OF HIPSTERS having booked the tickets for the event two months prior. The Charlotte back in February, she was younger. Naïve. Oblivious. She had suggested going with a blasé nonchalance. As I made my way to meet LM, I suddenly hated younger me with a passion – how dare she set me up like this?!? Why was I going to this event? Why was I turning a friend into an accomplice in misadventure?

The answer, and I have no shame in saying this, was it felt a real opportunity to maybe meet someone. Someone to hang out with. Maybe fall in love with? Whilst in the midst of a year-long self-imposed ban from dating apps (#AppFree23) going to an in-person dating event felt like a good option. Maybe the only option.

We arrived at the pub/warehouse with the deliciously awful trepidation that sets in when you have the grandiose realisation of the endless possibilities of life – at how swiftly things can change so unexpectedly. That a look or conversation with a stranger could be the start of something. Be that at a shop, an event, work or a warehouse/pub. Heck, I wouldn’t even be here writing this if one brave soul hadn’t chatted up a fitty on the Tube (Hey, Mum and Dad!) We cross the threshold, as I feign confidence I definitely do not feel inside, smiling brightly – fixed Chesire Cat grin – at the woman at the desk and wave my ticket in her face.

‘Oh! Are you here for the dating event?’ She smiles back warmly, kindly, seemingly aware of the internal trepidation I am currently enduring. ‘Just walk through the pub,’ she continues. Sounds so simple doesn’t it, walking through a pub – she may have well have asked me to run a half marathon, ‘then turn left at the bar. Enjoy!’

LM and I make our way through the pub. It is full of men. Maybe near-enough only men? And, oh my, this night is looking good. Men on their own. Men in pairs. Men in groups. LOOK AT ALL THESE MEN!?! And they’re single? I’ve found them! I feel like I’ve found the Loch Ness monster, who was hanging out with Big Foot and making weird hybrid babies. I have discovered Atlantis, the mythical place were single men reside.

Did you know there were two big football matches on last night?

I didn’t.

They weren’t here for the event. They were there to watch the footie with their mates. They weren’t here to meet me. Want to know how I realised that? As I had to queue by a door that was under a bright neon sign that declared the name of the company/event which left it in no under certain terms this was an event for singles.

Now, I have no problem with being single. I’m very open about it. You may have read things I’ve written about it before – be that how lonely it can be, how I found myself grieving being on path different than I expected, how awful speed dating on a Friday night in Bank was and how I even did a Guardian Blind Date. But, it was incredibly humbling to be stood under that sign, leaving behind the appealing-looking plaid-wearing bushy-bearded hipsters to go into a mysterious side room. Shepherded away from what we had come here before, but who knew what would be through the door…

It was a – currently pretty empty – warehouse with tables, which would later on double in size. There was a bar. A free shot card could be cashed in as/when we wished. That had been mentioned in advance. As had the 90s theme and live music. Perhaps that was an ambiguous descriptor and we had gotten the wrong end of the stick because I thought that, even if the event was a dud – at least I’d be getting a boogie to some 90s tuuuunes.

No offence to the very talented singer and her accompanying guitarist but, coming to a non-digital event to meet new people – be that new friends or potential loves of life aside – I had never imagined variants of songs by Katie Melua, Norah Jones and Eva Cassidy soundtracking my foray into a mass singles event. I want to celebrate being young(ish), foolish(most definitely) and happy (I mean, I try). I would go on to have this despite, and undoubtedly because, of these and other factors. How many bicycles are in Beijing isn’t the most applicable musical conundrum to compliment the situation we had found ourselves in. Later, a breathy cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ felt like a personal attack.

Now, all of these things are surmountable, vibes can be created and curated after all. Ascetics aren’t why we are here. Ass-etics are. (#SorryNotSorry). As women looking to date men (I know, I know. Thank you for your sympathies) we are here to hopefully meet some men. Let’s get some chatting in, maybe some cheeky flirting? Who knows?!? The night is young and full of possibilities isn’t it?

Full. Funny word that. Because the warehouse was full of people. Near-exclusively women. As the event had promised 400 people would be in attendance, I shall use that to guide my maths here. This warehouse was full of 390 women. And 10 men.

Huh.

At this point, I should say the event had not promised even numbers or anything of the short. And, of course, it hadn’t promised the impossible by ensuring LoLs would be met that night. In the branding materials, there’s an emphasis on how it’s a chance to make female friends as well as date. Talk about hedging your bets. And I did in fact make two new friends, who LM and I already have a group chat with (I called it sequins as we met both of them talking about sequins. I never claimed to be inventive!) Hanging out with them was glorious, as we mainly delivered scathing missives to each other about the event.

But, during the 3am panic I would later endure in bed that night, as I worried about how this evening was clearly a sign that I will inevitability die alone after having had a brutal hit to my self-esteem and romantic optimism, I tried to unpick why I was feeling this way. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: 1) We’d paid £15 for a dating event, where some semblance of dating was somehow meant to occur with a ratio of 39:1. 2) Some, if not all of the men, hadn’t paid or had been offered some sort of discount as an incentive. Discovering that was a kicker. They had not come on their own volition but had needed encouragement to attend. 3) Getting into a position of talking to one of the 10 men was a Herculean task, involving trying to catch their attention or joining a pre-existing circle of conversation. 4) It turns out that, when stood in a group of multiple women to one man, it can feel pretty crappy to have their eyes over your shoulder scouring for better opportunities. Now, I understand why this happened. I make no claim that I’d be doing anything different in the reverse version of this scenario. It’s like you were headed to play Supermarket Sweep at Tesco Metro but you’ve actually ended up at Big Tesco – there’s way more to look at than you expected, you’re short on time and you want to grab the best shop possible. 5) It could have all been solved with a bit of transparency in advance. An update to attendees so expectations could be suitably adjusted.

I could be really corny, and end this on – the truthful and accurate statement – that friendship really was the highlight yesterday. We sat and chatted, laughed at all sorts and desperately tried to avoid the eye contact of the Miniature Cowboy doing laps of the venue surveying us like cattle. And you know what, I’m going to be that earnest and sentimental. Because, whilst I’m sad that the opportunity didn’t play out as I hoped and I genuinely have no idea how I’ll ever met someone, last night I got to sit with a new mate scoffing free overly-fennel-y sausage rolls whilst watching one of our group perform a group Macarena on stage.

And, if there’s anything that can be learnt from the past 3 years, you’ve got to embrace and hold on tight to unexpected joy.

As a species, we’re pretty crap both at grieving and talking about grieving. It’s often a thing pushed aside, an elephant in the corner, ignored and moved around. Which is mad, as we face so many types of grief in our lives that can be truly impactful. There’s a particular spectrum of grief that comes with age milestones. I’m only recently realising that I’m mourning my twenties. Hold fire before judging here please and let me explain…

Yes, I’m heading into my fifth month of being 30 so this has taken a little while. But sometimes you can only realise the true depth of an experience or feeling when you step away from it. Furthermore, considering the emotional rollercoaster I experience pre-August 25th, this prolonged deceleration shouldn’t be such a surprise. And I’m not grieving the end of what my twenties were. I’m grieving the end of what my twenties could have been. How I thought they were going to go and how far away they ended up being from that.

This is not to moan about my lot. For I have an incredible life. My family are wonderful, as are my circle of friends. My health could be better, could be worse. I have hobbies I love and am pretty good at. There is not a single regret at where I am now and the paths I took to get there. But the bit I’m balancing internally is how the path I’m on isn’t the one I expected and arguably, due to all manner of societal pressures, isn’t the one that I envisioned at the start of my 20s.

I thought, by the age of 30, I would have experienced love. The romantic variant.

How this love looked was depicted varied over the years. At the start of my 20s, I was certain that the decade would end with home-owning child-reading with a husband. I’d gone to university expecting to meet my soulmate, so that narrative all felt totally inevitable. And yet, as the years past, I didn’t meet that person. That all-encompassing much-prophesised soulmate who would complete me didn’t come riding in on his noble stead.

Instead, in all honesty, I meet nobody. Nobody that counts. Not really. Aside from the odd arsehole who crawled out the woodwork and provided situationships that resulted in little more than demoralising disappointment and ruthless rejection.

I guess I should be thankful really. I’ve got to my big-age and my heart is intact. It has never been broken, instead it’s been a bit bruised and it’s taken a couple of dents. Which, perhaps in a rather Romantic take on it, makes me feel quite sad. Because a broken heart is a heart that has been used and taken out of the packet. It’s heart that experienced joy before the fall; that once felt alive and soaring.

Don’t get me wrong, big girls do cry – even those who haven’t been in love. Those disappointments still resulted in tears to the point of dehydration and some of the most awful moments in my life, I refuse to undersell or underacknowledge those pains I have overcome. In theory the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows, so I deeply begrudge that the darkest shadows that came from the hands of others were caused by the human equivalent of dim light bulbs.

I am incredibly appreciative of the love and joy I have from my friends and family. I have little doubt that, not matter what or who crosses the rest of however long I have left on this planet, I have a handful of friends who were some of the true great loves of my life. It almost feels disloyal to them to be asking for more.

But I hope that even though romantic love didn’t arrive in my past, it will be awaiting me in my (please, oh holy deities – near!) future. What I would give for something to counter those pangs of loneliness that arrive from not having and never have felt it. Especially as the form of that loneliness has unexpectadly shifted over the decade.

If I had a pound for every time I’ve ever said ‘I’m going to die alone’ I wouldn’t be a millionaire, but I’m pretty sure I’d have a damn nice pair of Louboutins. Sometimes it was a phrase uttered as a joke, other times (and I’m being frank and open here) whilst crying into a pillow. Or on a train or bus. Once or twice, on a park bench. Several times over several alcholoic beverages with friends.

But nowadays that feeling I link with that fear now actually arrives when I’m not alone. It arrives when I’m with friends who are in a couple. It’s not an omnipresent feeling, it’s one that arrives and disappears as suddenly as lightening. But, like thunder, it’s one that strikes at the very core and deeply echoes within. It’s for a craving of the intimacy they share, the knowledge they have their person and the certainty that comes with that. As taboo as it may be to say, I really crave that.

That’s the thing I find myself trying to find acceptance with. That’s what my five stages of grief for my twenties have been tied to: the denial that I felt so profoundly about it, the anger that ‘everyone else’ got to have that whilst I didn’t, the self-bargaining I made in how to ‘deal’ with it and the sadness at having ‘not, and never have been, feeling wanted’.

By writing this I’m trying to finally reach a degree of self-acceptance of it all. That experience isn’t one-size fits all, life cannot be predicted and that I didn’t do my twenties ‘the wrong way’.

And, I can also feel that way whilst also wanting to experience romantic love.

I don’t *need* romantic love, but I’d like to be able to give it a try. To love someone and be loved back. To have my person’s back and they have mine. I’m not looking for the centre of my solar system, I’ve formed a most-excellent one all on my own. I’m looking for another solar system to rest next to. We can sit in the rocketship, exploring our respective solar systems and the rest of the galaxy. Together.

Here’s a list of just a few things that occurred during my PGCE (training year of becoming, in my case, a secondary school English teacher):

• I spent five hours cutting out butterfly templates for a series of lessons on Ray Bradbury’s ‘A Sound Of Thunder’. They were utilised for about 20 minutes of a lesson before being abandoned.
• I dressed up as an alien called Lady Stardust so students could help ‘send me home’ by asking me questions, as they had social & communication difficulties.
• I had a two month stint as head of media, setting up the subject as the school had never taught it before.
• Had a three month spell of crippling depression where I lived, quite literally, on a day-to-day basis.
• Got bullied by a class of year 7 students. There were only 12 in the class. Words cannot do them justice.
• Had the loveliest year 8 class who I taught story writing to. They wrote wonderful stories which I compiled in an anthology I still have tucked away in my memories box
• Helped a new student settle in during a school merger where the school population increased by a 1/3. He then surprised me with a bee shaped thank you card that said ‘You’re the bees knees’. I cried in front of the aforementioned year 8 class. Not the year 7 class, they would have eaten me alive – even more than they already had done.

During my NQT year, the adventures continued. Ask me some day about the attack of the GIANT bee that sprayed liquid at the class during my first ever lesson as a ‘proper’ teacher. Or the fight that occurred between two year ten girls bigger than me (I’m 6ft – have a think about that) but they both separately snuck out of internal exclusion to apologise and they became my total favourites for the remaining 18 months I taught them. Or the day my year 7 boys spent a week planning and then performing film pitches to their visiting head of key stage who posed as a famous film director.

I’ve got 9 years worth of stories that I wish I had compiled more formally than snatched memories that come in waves. Ask any teacher to tell you a story and they’ll have so many you’ll most likely regret asking. Stories that will make you laugh, stories that will make you wince and stories that will break your heart.

Quinta Brunson, creator and star of Abbott Elementary has managed to capture the bittersweet insanity of schools so wonderfully. In fact, it might, quite possibly, be the most accurate depiction of the bittersweet joys of being a teacher. Which I don’t write, or throw my total seal of approval at, lightly.

When I share some of these anecdotes with loved ones, quite often I get the response ‘I don’t know how you do it!’ Occasionally, ‘Why do you keep doing this?’ Lately I’ve found myself struggling to answer either question. I’ve continued to know it in my bones but had difficulty getting the words to string together and articulate it. Because, when you think about it, it’s pretty mad isn’t it? We work silly hours, for silly money following the mindless dictations of government officials who really have no idea. We’re overworked, overstretched and underfunded. Yes, we might get those long holidays but most of us work those and when we’re not working them we’re desperately trying to refuel our batteries before the next cycle begins. We’re running a marathon at the pace of a sprint. We’re working with young people, the only thing that is predictable about that is how notoriously unpredictable they and it can be. We work a job where the good is fantastic. Phenomenal. Brilliant. Effervescent. Magical. But the bad can be soul-destroying. Heart-wrenching. Devastating. Demoralising. Hopeless.

But we keep on doing it.

Why?

I reckon you need to watch Abbott Elementary, now on Disney+, to get it. Within those 13 x 22 minute episodes, you will see why we keep on doing it – laid on in the most accessible, universal and properly hilarious way possible. We do it for those smiles, the recurring in-jokes, the comradery, the joy of helping young people learn something new and seeing them believe in themselves. We are cheerleaders, coaches, parents, social workers, police officers and allies all wrapped-in-one. We are sages on stages, guides on sides and *ahems* at the fronts…

We do this oft-beautiful, sometimes-awful, job because we are compelled. Something has drawn us to it. That want to help. To make a difference. To encourage, support, nurture and instil in our young people wonder and joy and hope and kindness. To make a building strong you need to make sure it has strong foundations. To ensure ‘good bones’ as that brilliant Maggie Smith (not that one) poem says. That’s where we come in. We do this job as we continue to believe in countless possibilities and want to be that helping hand along the ladder to whatever comes next.

No tv or film deception has ever shown our profession so earnestly, with neither cynicism or cloying melodrama. With an estimated 50% of teachers in the UK saying they plan to leave the profession within the next five years, maybe this extraordinary can serve as a reminder of why we do it but perhaps, most importantly, this can serve as a timely callout of how greatly our educational institutions and practitioners need supporting.

Lately, I’ve found life to be tinged by an unidentifiable grey. As the French or pretentious may call it, ennui. Leech-like, it’s bled away so much joy from my day-to-day life – growing in mass and potency by the hour. And I’ve not really been able to pinpoint why. So, I’m hoping this word splurge might help me draw some conclusions – or someone out there can set a good therapist on the case.

For a whole host of reasons, lately it’s felt as if I’ve become aware of The Matrix. Although, in my case, The Matrix isn’t this far-reaching nebulous conspiracy – it’s an over-awareness of the passing of time. In August, on the 25th to be precise so you can add to your diaries for celebration/gift-giving – as you see fit) I turn 30 years old. I still haven’t worked out how I feel about this fact. For the most part, like 99%, I am enjoying being 29 way more than I enjoyed being 22 (in your face, Taylor Swift). I feel more certain in myself and who I am. Right now, I am the most confident I have ever been. I even made a complaint about a cold meal, and resulting bad customer service, in a restaurant last weekend. This is the most comfortable I’ve ever felt in my own skin and I’m starting to actually enjoy my own copy. For the first time in my 29 years, I’m starting to become my own cheerleader. Or, at the very least, have gotten far better at faking it till I make it.

But at what cost? That’s where the ennui is setting in. I am finding these benefits of aging at the cost of my beloved aging too. Truly, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this aware of the inevitability of death. The fact that I will die someday is far less frightening than knowing all of those I love will die someday. Is this the best my life will ever be? The happiest I will ever be? The most amount of loved ones I will ever have? How am I supposed to cope?

The most difficult thing about human existence (and I’m paraphrasing from someone far more intelligent and eloquent than I) is the fact we live our days knowing that someday it will all end. But we just don’t know when. It’s cursed knowledge. I’ve spent the past few weeks, months perhaps, living in the brace position terrified for unbearable news to arrive at my door. So focused on the now, clutching my head and stoically starring downward – waiting just in case – that I’m missing what’s happening in the world around me. I’m forgetting to stop and smell the flowers as I’m already anticipating their wilting.

You don’t need me to tell you how frightening this world is. How much trauma we’ve all endured these past years. As I wrote before, in a previous blog post, we are all fatigued and adrift in different sized lifeboats. And the hardest thing to do right now is let ourselves feel that. We hide in books, records, films – these things matter, call me shallow but it’s the fucking truth. As much as absolutely possible, we avoid being still with our thoughts and we avoid letting ourselves feel. Because to feel can mean to hurt. To be open to feelings, that requires the truest extent of bravery and strength. To allow ourselves to be vulnerable means exposing ourselves to the world and inviting it to hit us.

And yet, is that also not the beauty of life – the infinite possibility of feeling and emotion. The profound potential of feeling ecstatic joy and jubilation. The very act of feeling seen and known and understood and loved – irretrievably, unequivocally and unreservedly for and despite those things. That’s our purpose and our reason for living. But how to hold onto that, and to stay open to all those wonderful possibilities? Now that’s where I don’t have the answers. Not right now at least.

Back in 2019, in those halcyon pre-pandemic days, I set myself a list of dares instead of New Year’s resolutions. Those dares varied from the small – go get my nails done in a salon – to the big – perform a poem at an event in public. The idea behind The Dare List was simple, why set big targets such as ‘Try to be braver!’ that felt so nebulous and unachievable. Using a bit of school vernacular, these SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals would be baby steps to building up that bravery. These goals were personal and related to my direct personal experience – after all, who else would have ‘Go to Madame Tussauds’ on their dare list because they are incredibly frightened by wax mannequins after an incident with a Roman Centurion model at Canterbury Roman Museum aged 7? The list ended up being a working document, with some edits here and there and some additions along the way. It was incredible experience that I’d fully recommend, and would happily write about in way more detail for any publishers out there..!

It was such an impactful process that I endeavoured to repeat it in 2020, with dares building upon those earlier ones and the successes I found along the way. Then March 2020 hit and – you can guess the rest. Hitting Lockdown 3.0 at the start of January 2021 reduced any want or real possibility of cracking on with a Dare List, so that got quickly abandoned. We’re now 3 days into 2022 and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking whether I’d want to do another list. It was working through and evaluating the benefits of undertaking the list that lead me to this solution.

This year I won’t have a dare list because the theme of my year will be to dare. Every single day, in some way or another, I will dare myself to be braver in whatever way fate provides. No approaching this task with to-do-list in hand, instead I want to reshape my overall mindset. That’s not to say I’ve totally ruled out coming up with a list of activities I’d like to try and dare myself to accomplish – I turn 30 in 234 days, and I can see a 30-before-30 list on the horizon. But, for 2022, I’m going to dare to be me. Dare to finally and fully live within my skin, my brain and my personality.

During the tail end of 2021 I found myself sometimes casually, sometimes cruelly, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously thinking – you have wasted your entire 20s waiting for your life to begin. Stripping that back, I can see the bullshit. When nice brain mode is activated, I can see so many of the things I have achieved and that I am proud of, the adventures I’ve had and the wonderful people who have been along for the ride. But I think I’ve spent far too much time thinking of what comes next that I often don’t feel these joys at the time and am often unable to live & relish within the moment.

I’m definitely way happier in my skin at this end of my twenties, I feel braver and more certain of who I am. There’s definitely less self-flagellation and more self-acceptance of what makes who I am. And yet, there’s still a lot of work to be done. Quite often I live my days at a slight distance or remove from what is actually happening, assessing possible outcomes and probabilities, emotionally preparing for the arrival of what could occur. Not to mention the overthinking that happens after, of how things could, would or should have gone. Which leads me on nicely to how I’m going to dare to change that up a bit:

• Dare to be nicer to yourself.
• Dare to say more of what you’re thinking, rather than what you think people want you to say.
• Dare to be less rigid and regimented.
• Dare to appreciate what you have got, rather than lamenting what you haven’t.
• Dare to let the universe take the wheel sometimes.

That last one is the one that most relates to my love life, such as it is in it’s continued dormant state. Being perfectly honest with myself – and daring to do so! – that’s the think I feel like I’ve wasted the most time over, lamenting over surely being broken to be so unwanted. Not being enough to be wanted, not being enough to get them to stay or to pick me. I’ve simultaneously let my love life happen to me yet also define my sense of self-perception. No-one wants me so I must be unwantable. Not good enough. Not attractive enough. Not palatable enough. It feels like I’ve spent my twenties on a reserve bench waiting to be picked, whilst all around me are others getting picked.

What I’m currently trying desperately hard to do is reframe it all and reset the mould on how I view both myself and the chaotic situationships that littered my twenties. There’s societal expectation, articulated both aloud and sublimely, that makes me feel like I’ve failed. That, no matter what I achieve in life, it’s a failure if I don’t leave behind a family and romantic partner. I can’t tell you how excused I am by beating myself over this very fact, of draining so much joy from personal achievements and appreciating the now when that relationships section of a future biography or Wikipedia page (what, I’m *daring* to dream!) remains decidedly sparse.

In a move that may seem initially counter-intuitive, I’ve deleted my dating apps. Again. In theory, for a month, but I’m aiming for longer. I’ve been intermittently using them for 7-odd years and, during my most recent spell of usage, I think I finally admit quasi-defeat as I fundamentally don’t believe they work for me. Aside from minute boosts to self-esteem, they genuinely make me bitterly unhappy. Whether it’s me and how I’m wired, we are just not compatible. During my last stint, I just could not find the capacity to maintain messaging. I just don’t want to do it anymore. I’m not designed to chat to 6 different people, develop a measured emotional investment in them, then possibly date 3 of them whilst they date 3 others. And that’s the toll matches took on me, let alone how personally I’d take people not matching or unmatching or not replying (yep, even when I was doing the same. I didn’t say I wasn’t being a hypocrite..) In all honesty, by the end, it just felt like I was wasting time and energy – which is something I try to reassure myself with as a face another tidal wave at rising panic over if I’m doing the right thing. Then I start to do the calculations of how much time I’ve spent on dating apps over a near-decade vs what little benefit I’ve ever had from partaking, and things start to plateau a little…

Which, all in all, is me starting to be a little braver really. I’ve been using the apps as a crutch, a pinky toe in the dating pool – snatched minutes here and there to make me feel like ‘at least I’m trying’. Maybe I need to actually dive in, daring to be more present within moments and take more chances. Daring to admit that I’d actually like a love life this year, instead of playing a bit part in others people, means daring to accept myself a bit more and appreciate who I am a bit more. It’s easy, far far too easy, to berate myself for not having met the supposed love of my life because I’m not good enough. But maybe I’ve not met a right person yet, maybe because they’ve also got a bit lost on the way. But maybe I’ve not put myself out there nearly enough, global pandemic aside. Obviously.

It’s surely about time I dared to let myself accept that maybe I’ve been good enough for myself all along, and it’s about time I listened.

Although I’ve experienced it for longer than I care to remember, it always seems to arrive as a surprise. Winter comes every year, yet somehow, upon each return, we seem unable to compute it or work out how we survived it last time. For some of us, Winter comes knocking at the door hand-in-hand with Seasonal Affective Disorder. It’s essentially depression which is more apparent and hits harder in the Winter months; with reduced sunlight the body’s internal clock seems to struggle and the production line for both serotine & melatonin seems to run dry.

For those who haven’t had direct experience of depression, be that at any time of year and in any incarnation, the best way I can describe is having a grain of sand halting the cogs of the brain. It’s invisible, unseen and often unnoticed until it’s toll is felt with a vengeance. It often makes an appearance with anxiety, a complex web of overthinking and unease. Together they can stop day-to-day living as you know it, leaving behind scare resources to just about exist instead.

I didn’t get my first diagnosis of anxiety & depression until I was 21, working on an academic essay for my PGCE somehow became the thing that upturned my life completely. I struggled with it, for reasons both logical and imperceptible, to the point that my battle with it became the centre of everything. My ineptitude of writing it meant I was an awful person. Useless. A waste. As the deadline for the essay approached, the spiral worsened and deepened – to the point of near-total consumption. In all honesty, I don’t know how I got through it. The diagnosis of anxiety & depression provided a name to the monster and brought with allies to help fight it.

Retrospectively, it explains so much about things I struggled with as a child. My 60% attendance at school in year 11 makes more sense. The deep-rooted fear that arises from the deepest pit of my stomach when even remembering my secondary school years becomes that much more understandable.

I’ve written before these struggles. I’ve even written before about my fear of SAD, and how September is the start of a new school year and my internal countdown. I think I was in denial about it’s return, naïve and hopeful that maybe – after 20 months of a global pandemic with all the emotional & mental & physical turmoil it brought with it – just maybe, it might take a break this year.

Instead it has arrived with the kind of entrance an all-consuming diva could dare to dream of. Except not only has it arrived bang on time, it arrived with horrific efficiency and timekeeping. For me, SAD arrived precisely at midnight on Monday 1st November. The clocks changed on the Sunday, going back an hour which means the mornings are a tad brighter but the nights get darker quicker. The sun now sets at 4.30pm, leaving us stuck in the bleak blackness for far, far too long.

I’d gone to bed on the Sunday happy and rested, waking up just two hours in – at midnight – feeling the weight of everything. The back-to-school dread, the countdown timer to Christmas already unwillingly started, mixed with the sudden realisation that this would be it. Until March.

I’m only three days in, but these three days have felt brutal. It feels like a Dementor arrived like a Grim Reaper of joy, taking everything that makes me me with it. My appetite is one of extremes – I’m either too hungry or too full. I’m aching and tired, yawning constantly and craving just to be still. My passions have gone from technicolour to grey, I struggle to motivate to do anything beyond staring into space. Social interactions seem harder, forming sentences becomes a Herculean task when the words feel just out of reach. Hope has been zapped, dread and worthlessness grow where it once sat. Everything, even the most simple of tasks becomes a battle. Whilst surrounded by people, the loneliness settles within the bones with an ever-present ache.

I’ve already lost count of the amount of conversations I’ve already had that involve the phrase ‘Are you okay?’ It’s a question that’s becoming increasingly hard to answer. Not because I’m afraid to say I’m not okay, but because even just finding the fuel to say that feels a waste of deplenishing supply.

The only hope is that this a transitionary period, that these are a form of growing pains of adjustment that are transitional. Temporary unwelcome residents that will swiftly depart. Soon this weather and the every-present dark sky will be the new temporary normal until it reduces it’s overtime and lets the sun return from supporting to main act.

Because I desperately wanted to feel like myself again, not a barely-there shadow.