Maybe.

With a spring in your step and a smile plastered on your face, you brave the winter air. Maybe it's been a hard week, but it's Friday morning now, it's almost over. Maybe you need it to be over. That's fine. It's been difficult. At times, it's been too much to handle. You've wrung your hands and cried so much your muscles are exhausted. Maybe you've left a partner, lost a friend, a job, or a relative. Maybe you've failed your driving test, or an exam, or maybe you didn't get the job. Maybe you crashed your car, or broke a bone, or didn't get the result you were hoping for. Maybe you spent the week in bed with flu. Maybe you got bad news, or know someone who did. Maybe the baliffs are at the door, or the heating's on the blink, or the bills are too much to pay. Maybe someone's stole your credit card, or your house keys, or your dog. Maybe you left your phone on the kitchen table and missed that vital phone call. Maybe your bus broke down and you missed an opportunity. Maybe you laddered your tights and ran into an ex. Maybe you got lost. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone has bad days, but they always end. Look at it this way, everyone has good days too. 

Happy days: #1

Okay so I've well and truly jumped on the #hashtagging happy days bandwagon and for that, I'm smiley yet also partly sorry for giving into it. It's kind of just too irresistible. I'm going to write happy posts every so often, in a list-like form, of things that make/ are making me, happy. Plus, as people know, I have a tendency to be cynical, negative and terribly pessimistic. Indeed. So, maybe, I think, this may help lift my mood, and focus on positives rather than negatives. Always a good idea, right? So here goes nothing. 

A kind of given, but Alex Turner's voice is just the soundtrack to my life at the minute. I'm unhealthily obsessed with Arctic Monkeys, and AM is, in my view, the best album yet. My favourite song, well, I have too many. I'm too indecisive for that. 

My "reading week" at uni: yes! It's finally here, shh, we're taking advantage of any time off possie. As of Monday coming, I'm off for the week (according to my own schedule anyway) so that means no uni, no stressy mornings and no boring as hell lectures at 9am. Happy days, I've needed time off for ages. Sleep time yes.

My latest read: as some of you may or may not know, Nathan Filer's debut novel The Shock of the Fall won Costa's book prize this year. Immediately, I almost sprinted to Waterstones to get my hands on a copy. As soon as my eyes feasted on the first few pass of this brand spanking new novel, I just knew I was going to love it. I'm about a third of the way through at the moment, and it's really addictive. The crisp pages are just engorged between my fingertips. It's one of the best pieces of writing I've read in ages. Read it. It's making me happy.

My old new-found obsession with My Family. We bought the boxset around Christmas time. If you haven't seen it already, I urge you to google it, or find one of the many sky channels that count on repeats to fund their viewings, because this programme will be lurking around I promise you. Originally a BBC sitcom, My Family follows the lives of the Harper family, their ups and downs, loves and losses, through chaos and celebration, turmoil and despair. I have seen every single episode multiple times, and now we've invested in the boxset (yes..boxsets are the way forward for a quick fix) I just need to watch them over and over again. Also, Miranda, yes, she's wonderful, and the sitcom is just painfully hilarious. Get watching.

Oh, and I can't forget this one. A spin off from the very well known Grey's Anatomy, Private Practise was discovered by me about a year ago, maybe less. I started watching just one or two episodes a week, and now it's five and a half seasons later and things are unwinding like never before. It's already finished, I might add. This programme doesn't run any more. It ended 13 episodes into six seasons, over nearly as many years. I have around 15 hours of it left to watch, ever, and I'm torn between savouring it and completely devouring it in one intense, bizarre, emotional sitting. The latter will probably occur very shortly. 

So, yes. Happy moments. Also, a tiny little shout out to Lukas. I'm not one for soppy exchanges and waaaaay OTT PDA's, but I don't care, this suffices, because, he makes me happy. So there you go. That's really all there is to it. 

Quips and crutches.

Believe it or not, I've actually found myself voluntarily thinking about something I've been taught at uni. According to a theorist we've been introduced to, we only understand what an object or concept is due to the existence of an opposite. This is known as dialectics. (Something I've found quite interesting!) For example, we only understand what 'light' means because we are familiar with that 'dark' means. You get it, it's pretty simple really. This then, strangely enough, got me thinking about, as the title suggests, quips and crutches. Just because something can be seen as negative, does that mean it can never be positive? If a habit, a flaw, a quip or a crutch has negative connotations, it doesn't always automatically mean that this is a negative attribute that someone possesses.

While a quip sounds positive, whimsical even, a flaw or a crutch immediately make you think pessimistically, right? Well, what if that way of thinking isn't to be encouraged? Think of some habits you possess, do you put a positive or negative spin on them, and why? In my oh-so-deep train of thought, I got wondering why do we let our flaws define us, when really, they are only a tiny part of who we really are. I am, perhaps, quite proud of my habits. Well, most of them. I practically advertise my daily dose of caffeine, my occasional binge drinking and inability to stop tweeting. I bite my nails and swear too much and I'm really annoyingly pessimistic at times. I'm overly opinionated and can sometimes be offensive. I'm slightly OCD at times, and like everything my own way, I play with my hair a lot and I life way out of my means. I'm a creature of habit. And all of these things, well, are they necessarily bad things? Since when did our habits become our downfalls? Why should my coffee addiction be a negative? Or the fact I'm slightly predictable, -it just means I'm reliable and pretty easy to track down if/when you need me. I don't think my habits are flaws by default, nor am I solely defined by these things, instead, they are just a small part of who I am. If you know my habits, you are one step closer to understanding who I am, under the smiley exterior. I like to think that my habits, crutches, quips, flaws and failings are what make me an individual. United and apart, they are a small piece of who I am, as well as who I want to be. Some conscious, others unconscious, these things make me who I am, and who my friends and family know and love. Sure, I have things I wish I could change, but then again, would it be the same? My gullibility, my stupid, slightly 'blonde' moments, my obsessive streak, these are what sometimes I'm known best for, even if I don't like them, someone does. 

So, maybe we should be appreciating those flaws, instead of trying to hide them. Who says anyone else sees them as flaws except you? Insecurities are only just that because you feel a certain way about them. Just think, imagine if what you hate about yourself is exactly what someone loves about you?

Misery loves company.

"Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

-J.K Rowling.

Have you ever just wanted to disappear for a while? Get up and vanish? Imagine your life without you, or perhaps, with someone else living your life? I have. A series of low days caused me to fall into this negative way of thinking. I'm a pessimistic person anyway, but I sunk pretty low recently, and ended up mulling over stuff like this. The feeling of being away from it all. A break from the life you're living to just relax, chill, forget, de-stress, some necessary R&R. 

I've had all the cliches fired my way, including "it's their loss" and "everything happens for a reason" and eventually, I just wanted to scream. It was right, I did want to escape. I strived for more of an escape than music, or television, or film, or literature, or friends or even alcohol could give me. I wanted the solace, the solidarity, the absence of something more than just a sitcom or a song blurring in the background of my mind. However, I found, that during a hard time, the more I tried to isolate myself, the more company I found myself in. I shut my bedroom door and hid beneath the covers. I turned my phone off, and was absence from any social networking I'm usually such a big part of. I ignored texts and phonecalls. I missed the escape of television. I lost interest in the outside world. I fell behind on my Uni work and reading. I didn't pick up a book, or my ipod, or anything. I sat in such a deafening silence that just made me want to cry and never stop. It was awful.

So, that's when I thought, what if there are people out there that don't want me to go AWOL for a while? What if there's someone out there depending on me, needing me, or just trying to get in touch with me? I gradually reappeared. I left my bedroom. Turned my phone back on. Tweeted, logged into Facebook, Blogged, emailed, Snapchatted even. I put some make up on, and got dressed up. I turned the television on and the radio up and did all I possibly could to drown out the silence I was now stuck in. And apparently, that was all I needed to do. My support system leaked through my walls, and every social networking site you can think of. Friends text me, arranged meetings and made plans to see if I was in fact as 'fine' as I'd told them all. Nights out were arranged, smiles slapped on faces, drinks poured and heavily drank, laughter was even heard. Turns out, misery does love company, but not in that sense.

I gave myself some space to cope. Some silence to appreciate the noise I was trying to drown out in the first place. Now, I thrive in the shouts, the constant whir of contact I have. While at my lowest, I questioned everything and everyone in my life, as a personal matter of insecurity, when I needed them the most, they forced themselves into my life (and me out of bed) and refused to take "no" for an answer. I got hugs and happy messages thrown my way. Positivity was practically drowning me, and yet, I had the wonderful support system around me to keep my head above water. As it happens, lonesome misery is exhausting but sometimes, it's necessary. I didn't want to sit and vent to loved ones about something I felt so strongly about. It was, in a sense, private. I didn't know who to tell or speak to. But after coming out of a temporary hiding, they were all there for me. Eagerly awaiting my company, and being ready, if I needed it, to be the shoulder to cry on. For this, I am undeniably grateful.

So, this is for everyone who helped me through something that hit me really hard. Something that left tears in my eyes and a suffocating feeling in my chest. To my family, who were there and didn't ask too many questions, and my endless string of friends who gave me time to sulk, cry and get back on my feet. For all the hugs and positive words, the venting, the coffee (and alcohol) supplied, the comfort food, never saying "I told you so" even when you know you did, the silly laughs, the reminder of what I'm worth. I won't name you all, because you know who you are, and that's what I like about it. I just really need you all to know that I'm very thankful for you being there for me, and not walking away even when I pushed you.


...If I stopped lying, I'd just disappoint you.