A Product of Divorce - Or Not
Through my parents’ divorce, I realised my mother was one of the strongest women I know. Fast forward some months after they had announced their legal separation and my mother and I were driving to the gym. She had been trying desperately to engage me in bonding activities and the gym was another to add to the list. As we pulled into the car park, she grasped my hand in between hers and, with tears forming in her eyes, whispered “please don’t hate me”. I paused, unsure how to respond and she continued “I’ve fallen in love…with a woman”.
Read More
Living With Borderline Personality Disorder
For me, I have had my own close call. At nineteen, I entered the worst mental health crisis I have ever experienced. I was paranoid, hallucinating and very suicidal. I reached out for help from mental health services only to be told that “we don’t treat people with your diagnosis”, “we treat people with mental illnesses, not personality disorders”.
Read More
From Folklore to Real Life: The Geographical Locations of Legends and Myths
If you could visit anywhere in the world of fantasy – where would you go? Would you go down the rabbit hole to Wonderland or fly to Neverland? What about a visit to Mordor or a secret visit to Hogwarts? Perhaps you would visit Winnie the Pooh for a picnic in the Hundred Acre Woods? Just imagine the chance of visiting the Cave of Wonders and finding a genie in a lamp! The possibilities are endless although impossible to visit, your imagination can only take you so far after all – or so I thought.
Read More
My Love’s More Ponderous Than My Tongue: Musings on Fathers and Daughters
Cisgendered ‘gender roles’, and indeed the performance of gender altogether, has formed the basis of the family unit for years. At its most basic, men are expected to be powerful, leading figures, while women must be subservient and completely charming.
Read More
Dancing Through Life: Travelling with Children
As single mother to a little boy, I must confess that I have an addiction and I hope that it is one I will never be cured of. The awe and anticipation that travelling the world brings, plus all the lessons along the way, is a passion that I cannot escape and one that I am determined to pass onto my son.
Read More
The Importance of Silliness
Like flares drifting through a dark sky, these little moments of goofiness light up the monotony of lockdown. It might be a daydreamy waltz around the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil, or tuneless yodelling floating from the bathroom while the shower runs.
Read More
A Life Outside Of Routine
I’ve always thought of myself as a spontaneous person. One day when I was 17 I logged onto my UCAS account and rejected all my university offers (much to my mother’s despair) in favour of going to theatre school to study sound and lighting design.
Read More
Living with Hypochondria
For much of my life I’ve suffered from anxiety. Eczema. Pins and needles. Overwhelming emotions. It’s come out in various forms. However in the last six months I’ve experienced a continuous wave of hypochondriasis.
Read More
Slash and Burn: My Housemates from Hell
To this day, I’m still not quite sure how I survived all my housemates at university. Before going to university, I never thought I would struggle so much to understand and be understood by other people but living in a house with a bunch of psychopaths really changes your perspective. And trust me, I don’t use that word lightly.
Read More
Glastonbury: The Good, The Bad and The Bloody Brilliant
Glastonbury. That one word, for so many people, triggers a firework display of thoughts and memories - the good, the bad and the bloody brilliant.
Read More
This is a Funeral for the Potentiality of my Past Selves
Every choice I make kills a potential future…Some of these future selves are trivial duplicities, undistinguishable from my current self, but others are wildly different. They deserve a proper burial and a proper wake.
Read More
A Return to ‘The New Normal’
It’s been two months of lockdown. I have never in 26 years of life gone through a crisis that mirrors this pandemic. I am still not sure I understand what is going on, two months in. A lot of things that I once took for granted, now seem obsolete.
Read More
Suicide, But Why?
When most people my age were thinking about the song they wanted played as their first dance on their wedding day, I spent my time thinking about what song I wanted to be played at my funeral.
Read More
Friendships - Coming Together When Not Together
For the first time in our lives, we are experiencing the same devastating, bizarre sequence of events simultaneously. Yes, coronavirus is affecting us all in different strengths and volumes, but we can each immediately understand one another’s thought process. It has released a heightened sense of empathy.
Read More
You Do Not Need To Be 'Qualified' to Qualify
If I am completely honest, I was petrified by the thought of this. I was a 20-year-old girl at University, studying a subject utterly unrelated to the music industry, and with no business qualifications. I was definitely ‘unqualified’. But there I was, and there was no turning back.
Read More
A One Way Ticket to South America
It was Jose; my partner; who assured me that my mum and brother, the people who I wanted to please so much, would be happier with a large smile on my face rather than with a large house in the beach
Read More
Creating During COVID: One Theatre Maker’s Journey to Creating Work Online.
Every time I pick up my phone or open my computer I am inundated with invitations to watch theatre online. From archives of shows I’ve been dying to see to play readings on Zoom, there seems to be something for everyone. As an avid theatre goer I should be reveling in the onslaught of content, right? So what’s the problem? It’s just not the same.
Read More
Road To Nowhere: Travelling Isn't A Necessity
I’m not much of a traveller, in fact I’m quite an avid NON traveller. I don’t like to go in cars, I’ve never been on a plane, I’ve been abroad twice and both times were awful and very short. I’m just not cut out for it.
Read More
Time
The time stolen from them is now invested in me. It is my responsibility; no longer just mine to waste as I please; I must do something with it, use it for us. There is a real, working part inside me that does not belong to me. It has lived in someone else. It is rented, borrowed, robbed, a gift that was never intended to be mine.
Read More
Love in The Time of Covid
If I can get through this completely alone, with no distractions for the first time in my life, I can get through absolutely anything completely alone. And I will come out of this a better, stronger person. With a huge arse.
Read More
