back up blog

In four weeks I am going to India to train as a yoga teacher. (Life seldom takes the turns you thought it might, huh?) I don’t know where to begin in explaining. Because it’s not just this one thing that makes this feel like something I don’t so much want to do as have to do. I feel like I was always going to end up signing up for a 200-hour yoga teacher certification. That’s for so many reasons. I suppose it always is. It’s January 2014, when I started my journey to get strong and sexy , losing all that weight and learning how to respect my body. That was the beginning of a revelation. Self-love. It’s exactly 13 months ago, where, to stretch out the tight body that training for my first 10k race made, I committed to a weekly yoga class to see if that might help loosen me up a little. It loosened me up a lot – and I’m not just talking about my legs. It’s how that weekly yoga session became two, sometimes three, times a week – until even when I wasn’t running I’d go, because holy shit,...

Seeing his name in my inbox took my breath away. No, I thought. Is it really him? What we’d had, all that time ago – four years ago? five? – was deep and real and intense and I walked away from it. There hasn’t been much talking to him since. And then there his name was, on my Gmail, and I thought, nah… Really? I walked away from him to fly to Italy. I walked away from him because technically he didn’t ask me to stay. I would’ve walked away anyhow. I did it in the same way that I’ve done many times since (and before), because I’m always leaving. I really only ever try when there’s already an exit strategy in place. That’s not easy to admit.   When I had my heart broken last summer , Megan made me list, out loud, unblinkingly, every man I have ever said no to. I cringed and told her stories of bad behaviour and good-behaviour-mis-interpreted and the times – more times than I'd let myself remember – where I’d gone first. Cut loose before the other. Run away, in most cases. Some mi...

In January, I made £953.83. In February, I made £1,550. In March, I’ll make about £1,300. I want to write that – exactly how much money I make - because it’s what I wish I could know about other bloggers. I wish I could know exactly how much they earn, and from where, and what their days look like for it. I wanted to write it so that I don't attach my worth to it.  The Internet is powerful in the way it makes us feel. In the way it reveals just enough to be beautiful or intriguing in the lives of those we follow, but not enough that we’ll ever know the full truth, financial or otherwise. And let’s be clear: the writers of the Internet owe us nothing. We don’t deserve to know this information. It is the right of everybody, with an “online career” or not, to tell the version of their lives they want to tell, and its our job to consume those stories (and Facebook statuses) responsibly. I really believe that. But we’re nosey about the base facts anyway. I am, at least. I always want to...

I dream that I am dying, and everybody but me knows it. “You really will be missed,” I am told. “It will be so different with you gone.” When I wake I am afraid, startled by such morose thoughts. But then I read that dreams of death signify death of the old self. Change. Big things coming. When I tell Meg this, she says, well, of course you are changing. I am witnessing it. You are changing. Transforming. Stretching. Growing into and out of yourself, all – holy smokes! What an endeavour. What a wild ride. What a blessing. This feels bigger than me , I think. I don’t know if I can . I can, but I worry anyway.   *   “You know, when I met your aunt, I knew who she’d marry.” I didn’t know she was a clairvoyant. I knew she was kind and welcoming, generous and warm. I only found out afterwards, from my mother, that she had a gift. And my lot don’t buy in to that sort of carry on. “I told her. I said: he works in the same industry as you. Is tall and wiry. You’ll fall hard and fast ...

I’m doing a #NoWorkWeeken d! I told anyone who would listen . I’m going to the beach! Without my laptop! Because I am totally in control of my life and my worries and definitely haven’t been developing a severe teeth-grinding problem or waking up in the middle of the night to check my emails!!!! Off I went, then, booking somewhere to stay, organising buses and taxis and packing an impressively compact bag. I had thoughts, in the back of my mind, niggling sort-of-almosts , but I ignored them, because I! Was! Going! To! The! Sea! To! Relax! And listen, it’s not that I have this awful life where I work in a coal mine to make a minimum-level wage that barely feeds my four kids and my heroin habit. Obviously. I live in Bali . And write life-affirming words all day. And eat a lot of vegetables. But I am also white, and middle-class, and university-educated, as well as an avid viewer of GIRLS: this means that I can find angst nestled up between my privileges without trying very hard at all. ...