22 & not a clue

My boyfriend showed this video to me in bed the other night, and after it finished I was in tears and he smiled and said 'you don't see who you really are'. That got me thinking, no I'm not going to start Carrie Bradshaw style asking ridiculous rhetorical questions, but we as women are really quite hard on ourselves. The simple act of describing our face to a stranger does not marry up with how that stranger would necessarily describe us.

Yet we're becoming a society who take 'selfies' and send 'sexts', we are giving away our bodies soo freely these days thanks to the internet. It's this perpetual contradiction that we take photos of ourselves and yet can meet a stranger and struggle to say one positive thing about our physical selves.

I've struggled with my body image all my life. I am still struggling. I have never met a woman who is  100% happy with herself and I don't blame the media, I see it more that we don't promote a healthy outlook on our bodies within society from a young age. Mum better not be reading this, but daughters don't grow up being told to love themselves, instead mothers take the chocolate bars away and furrow their brows. Words like diet and weight creep into everyday language as that little girl creeps towards tenuous teenagedom. There's suddenly this sense of urgency that she'll become a hefty teen, life will be difficult for her, the other kids will pick on her because she's heavier.

Life will always be difficult, instilling a sense of foreboding about body image at the tender age of 11, 12, 13 and beyond isn't going to help. We need to teach our daughters to love themselves. Then teach them to make better choices, involve them in cooking, make them do at least one kind of sports or regular exercise from an early age. Basically, encourage being healthy to be happy over being thin to fit in.

It is my sincere hope that this generation of women, who have grown up with slut marches, fat shaming, thin privelege and rise of the plus size modelling world will go on to raise their daughters to love themselves first and appreciate being healthy second. Loving the skin you're in should be a given.

The trouble with being alone & single for an extended period of time is not that it gives you unrealistic expectations, but that it teaches you what you need. You need a man who asks how your interview went, who responds to his emails & who is sensible with his money. You don't want someone who talks about themselves, ignores their emails until asked & is forever broke.

Unfortunately the longer you spend independently fine tuning all the things you did badly in your formative years, the less likely you are to accept that shit from someone else should the opportunity for commitment present itself.

Accepting yourself and working on the flaws should teach you some compassion & patience, you would hope? Wrong. It teaches you life is short & other people don't work things out unless they're forced to. If you get into a relationship with someone who doesn't know how to be an adult how do you ever expect them to be a man.

Perhaps leaving him out to dry, whoever he is, for a little longer is for the best? Because frankly if you haven't sorted your own shit out then how do you ever expect another persons problems to work with yours in a relationship? People throw themselves together in dire hopes of happiness without ever truly getting to the bottom of what made them miserable or useless in the first place.

He may need to grow up, but you sure do as well. Take time to consolidate where you're going wrong with people, life, career or worst of all your day to day emotions. Only when you work those things through will you be in a place to meet your man half way.

It was the moment when I lay back & thought about falling asleep right there on my Australia towel that I knew trying to do pilates today after work was too big an ask. Motivation is hard. It only gets harder when you add in a 9-5 & take away a support network. You reach a stage in your adult life where you have thrown yourself so far away from your family in hopes of 'independence' a word you have bandied about since the age of 15 that you realise you are either too proud or too far away to ask for help; literally and metaphorically.

You have gotten yourself up on your feet by hook or by crook, you have savings & a flat & maybe even a boyfriend. Ok maybe not. What you don't have is sleep or a stress free mind but you are independent. Welcome to adulthood. The next step? Keep going. No one is behind you cheering you on, you're past that now. You are out there, on your own & the only person stopping you is yourself. Aim high they said, dream big they said. Well you did & you're out there. Now what?

Telling yourself to keep going is tough. It is hard bloody work & sometimes it is so exhausting all you want to do is spend the day in bed watching Geordie shore. We all need an off day from being an adult; to revert back into your 17 year old self. But how do you keep motivating yourself day after day? Life now is mapped out in weekends. It is about getting through the next five days to revel in the remaining two. Pretty depressing when you put it like that really. But that is our reality. We are striving for everything, fighting tooth & nail to get recognised, earn our place and prove our worth. Will it be worth it? Who can honestly answer that.

But the truth is you have gotten this far; don't stop now. Keep aiming high & keep fighting the good fight because there's space in this world for you; you just have to earn it first. All that you sow so shall you reap. It may just take the best part of the next decade. In the mean time remember to appreciate the little things. Like the fact that your crazy family will be there come what may, whether you want them to or not. Like the fact that as you move through life you will not know why you meet the people you do until they are there just in time.

Relax & enjoy the ride the say? I say sit back & give yourself a break. You've made it this far. You're doing alright kid. Breathe.
Now what's the next plan & how are we gonna do it?
Thatta boy.

This blog is brought to you from my bedroom. For a change. Normally it is ferociously typed out on my broken screen of an iPod next to the Thai lady in my armpit & the bearded man at whose feet I pay homage each morning.

Look here's the thing, I've been thinking. Uh oh. But really, how relevant are magazines like Vogue and Elle to twenty-somethings? I can barely afford TopShop. I mean, is anything in those beautiful pages affordable for a 22 year old, on a budget, with a penchant for red wine and vintage clothes? I think not. I spend more time checking for Judy's Vintage Fair updates and ASOS sales.

I bought Vogue in London when I wanted inspiration, if I was sick of the sight of my wardrobe & wanted advice on 'pieces' for the coming season I would delve within. I nearly always finished reading feeling even more broke and hopeless. Yet still I clung to the hope that each time I spent £4+ on it there would be something in it I could aspire to. Unfortunately not. It has left me with a crippling envy for all owners of Dior, Valentino & YSL instead. Now that I live in Melbourne Vogue is $7+ so it stands even less of a chance of leaving the 7/11 shelf for my handbag.

How many graduates actually buy Vogue? That's what I would like to know. If the photos are of 16-25 year olds then why is it only 30-50 year old women can afford the clothes? If the models are all my age and the designs aimed for my age group then why is it soo far out of the average twenty-something's reach? Maybe I should face facts; Vogue is not for me. I buy my jeans from Miss Selfridge because I'm a size 14 & my tops from TopShop Tall because I'm nearly 6 ft. I like vintage shirts and jackets & I will never fit into H&M because I have hips. The fact is I am too young, too big, too tall and too poor for Vogue.

Or maybe Vogue is too old, too small, too short & too unrealistically expensive for me ?
It's magazines like Look that I pick up these days, for less than £2 I can get an on-trend update with suggestions from affordable high-street (including Primark!) brands. Who, better yet, do real sizes that cross the double figures thresh-hold (Gasp!). Fancy that!

Look feels reachable, I can afford tops for £12 or jeans for £40. I can also aspire to their models. I recently met a winner of Look's 'Search for a Curvy Supermodel' competition, Lyndsey O'Hagan in Sydney. Besides being an absolutely blast to party with she was the most 'normal' looking model I have ever met. The Guardian wrote a lovely piece about the competition where she won her contract with 12+ modelling agency. O'Hagan believes she is normal & it's the industry that's fucked.

The high-street reigns supreme these days and so it should. What I want to see is magazines like Look gaining even more respect on the shelf so that it becomes that no-brainer fashion fix for women. Like myself, Look is slim, colourful but loud and proud. Really come to think of it, we have a lot in common, On a good day.

I have been reading PostSecret since 2006. That is almost a decade. At 22 a decade is a long time. I have checked this site religiously every sunday since forever. Forever being 15. Because before that nothing really mattered. I have opened this webpage and found countless postcards which have struck a chord or rung true for me. They have comforted and given voice to thousands of black thoughts, doubts and secret happiness' that if you have never seen it before you cannot understand until you do.

The site gets updated every Sunday morning US time so I usually check it in the evening. It has always been part of my sundays for as long as I care to remember. I have two of the books, have written endless articles about it and given one memorably awkward classroom presentation. So today when I remembered to check it, this postcard was sitting at the top waiting to greet me.

Fate. I have always believed in signs and things happening for a reason. This is yet another one of those. This made me smile, I am not alone, someone else is in this lonely boat. Smile guys. We'll get through.