Finding HopeGrateful 2018
Posted on December 24, 2018
Last year, I posted on Christmas Eve about the things I was grateful for (here) and I really liked it as a practice. Since we don’t have Thanksgiving in the UK, there’s no holiday directly related to being thankful and I think it’s important to make time to think and feel these things. And I always feel overwhelmed by how lucky I am at Christmas so this seems like a good time to do it, to do this post.
My family – I am endlessly grateful to my family. They have loved and supported me through some really difficult times this year and even though that’s what family should do, I’m so, so grateful to them for doing that. I don’t take them for granted. A particular shout out to my Mum for going above and beyond. She’s my hero.
My friends – I am also endlessly grateful to my friends. I haven’t seen as much of them as I would’ve liked this year but I’ve been doing my best to stay in touch. They mean so much to me and I hope they know that. Again, a particular shout out to Richard because he has been incredible this year, supporting me as a friend and a writing partner. I’m more grateful than I can say.
My therapist – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am so grateful for my therapist. My depression has been brutal this year and there were more than a few moments where I had no idea how I was going to survive (I say that like it’s over and I’m not sure whether it’s over or not). I absolutely wouldn’t have made it through that without her.
Song Suffragettes – If you don’t know what Song Suffragettes is, prepare to have your musical life changed. It’s an organisation in Nashville that focuses on boosting the up and coming female songwriting talent and they have weekly shows showcasing these awesome women. I was lucky enough to join them on my last trip to Nashville and it was definitely the best day of my year (and one of the best in my life). Everyone involved is so lovely and they are doing such important work. Check them out on Twitter here.
Claire Wineland – I’ve written about Claire quite a bit (here, here, here, and here if you’re interested) but she’s been on my mind a lot. I miss her – her presence in my life – more than I know what to do with but I am so grateful to have had her at all. That doesn’t make me okay with what happened (not at all) but I am grateful. She was an incredible human being and she’s still helping people even though she’s no longer here.
Flowers – This is a simple one but having beautiful, colourful flowers around improves my mood and improves my day. In a year that’s felt very dark and colourless, having flowers in the house has made a noticeable difference to my day-to-day life.
My bullet journal – Having somewhere to organise my thoughts and my life has been so helpful. Up until now I’ve never had a system that really worked for me so this is a big deal. I’ve written more about it here.
Lauren Kaech – I discovered Lauren on YouTube earlier this year and I have found her videos and her attitude really inspiring. I talked about her in my post about social media favourites and she makes videos about her experience of living with an eating disorder. And while that’s not an experience I can directly relate to, there are aspects that I can. She talks about facing the things that scare you, the realities of happiness, and a whole host of recovery related topics that apply to anxiety and depression as well as eating disorders. I’m so grateful to have had this in my life this year and at my very worst (in the very worst of my depression), looking forward to her videos got me through the day and kept me going.
Swimming – I’ve written a whole post about this (here) but I wanted to include it here because I’m so, so grateful for it. Almost every morning, I get up and go to the pool and do something that makes sense. Even if the rest of the day doesn’t, that does. I’m also really proud of myself for keeping this up for six months, especially given how bad my depression has been.
Taylor Swift – Miss Swift was on my grateful list last year and the reasons are all still relevant. But this year, I got to see her live (twice!) and that experience was so much fun in the middle of a really dark place. I felt all that weight lift for a couple of hours and that is a big deal. I’m also really grateful to her for voicing her political opinions (breaking her career long silence on the subject) and encouraging young people to vote. In the twenty four hours after she made her Instagram post on the subject, 65,000 people registered to vote, which is just incredible. It made me really proud to be a fan. I don’t think I can say more than, as always, I am grateful for Taylor Swift.
So there you have it. I could write more – there are so many things to be grateful for – but I’ll stop there. I’m wishing you all a safe, happy, and healthy Christmas and I’ll see you in the next post.
Quotes That Helped Me
Posted on November 24, 2018
Knowing me and my affinity for words, it should come as no great surprise that the quotes of other people have always played a big part in my life. I’ve collected them, filled notebooks and blogs, written them on my body… Sometimes you can’t put exactly what you’re feeling – or the encouragement you need to hear – into words but fortunately, those words are often already out there. So I thought I’d post some of the quotes that have helped me in the hope that they might help you too.
When I started pulling these together, I realised just how many I’ve collected in the past few years alone. I have more than five thousand saved on a Tumblr blog, for example. So this may become a series. These quotes are ones that have encouraged me and motivated and there is a distinct memory attached to each one, a time in my life where I saw it and it spurred me on in a way nothing else had been able to. So these ones are pretty special.
“Do it or don’t do it – you will regret both.” – Søren Kierkegaard
“The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.” – Juliette Lewis
“The poison leaves bit by bit, not all at one. Be patient. You are healing.” – Yasmin Mogahed
“Recovery does not mean losing what makes being you special. Recovery means losing what makes being you painful.” – Unknown
“Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.” – Charlotte Eriksson
“Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it heal. And let it go.” – Nikita Gill
“How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?” – Richard Siken
“Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling, but start. Start and don’t stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just… start.” – Ijeoma Umebinyuo
“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” – E. E. Cummings
“I closed the box and put it in a closet. There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.” – Joan Didion
“What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.” – Haruki Murakami
“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.” – Junot Díaz
“There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart.” – Albert Camus
“Thinking is my fighting.” – Virginia Woolf
“Every time we attend a therapy session, take our prescribed medication, get out of bed, shower, eat a healthy meal, spend time with other people, exercise, or ask for help, we are fighting. Each step in recovery is an act of defiance toward our mental illness leading us to hope.” – Michelle Stepp
“I must endure, and endure, and still endure.” – Tennessee Williams
“You are not going nowhere just because you haven’t arrived at your final destination.” – Taylor Swift
“What did you do today?
Existed quietly within myself.
What will you do tomorrow.
Exist with some degree of force.” – Trista Mateer
“Hang on. It gets easier, and then it gets okay, and then it feels like freedom.” – Taylor Swift
“You are not what happened to you. You are what you chose to become after what happened to you.” – Selena Gomez
“Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.” – Stephanie Bennett-Henry
“I rise from my worst disasters, I turn, I change.” – Virginia Woolf
“My life has changed, and I’m changing with it.” – Sophie Kinsella
“You know who’s going to give you everything? Yourself.” – Diane Von Furstenberg
“Be as fearless as the women whose stories you have applauded.” – Hillary Clinton
“I can’t abandon
the person I used to be
so I carry her.” – Unknown
“Today, just like yesterday, I woke up, picked up my pen and notebook and kept on writing.” – Laura Jane Grace
“I’ve had the wind knocked out of me, but never the hurricane.” – Jeffrey McDaniel
I’m always adding to my collection so if you guys have any quotes that have inspired you, please let me know. We could probably all do with a little more inspiration in our lives.
Nashville Playlist
Posted on April 14, 2018
So, as you guys know, I’ve been in Nashville and I just got back on Thursday. I’m working on a post all about the trip – partly because I just really want to write about it and partly because I think there is some stuff in there that could be useful to others – but that’s taking a while so, in the mean time, here is a little list of songs that I listened to while I was away, one for each day. Since I was there for the Tin Pan South songwriting festival, many of these songs haven’t been released yet or were performed by the original writers rather than the person that usually performs them. So, for the songwriters out there, I hope this will be interesting. Also bear in mind that, especially while the festival was going on, I was hearing between twenty and fifty songs a night so a lot of thinking went into these choices…
SUNDAY – ‘Love Is A Wild Thing’ by Kacey Musgraves (Written by Kacey Musgraves, Ian Fitchuk, and Daniel Tashian)
I hadn’t had a chance to listen to Kacey’s new album until I got on the plane and I just fell in love with it. She’d performed this one at Country2Country and I was so excited to hear it again. It did not disappoint and it’s one of my favourites of the album.
Even if you lose it, it will find you
There’s no way to stop it so don’t try to
Running like a river, trying to find the ocean
Flowers in the concrete
Climbing over fences, blooming in the shadows
Places that you can’t see
Coming through the melody when the night bird sings
Love is a wild thing
MONDAY – ‘Give It All Back’ by Jordyn Shellhart
I first heard Jordyn at a Song Suffragettes show (an organisation aimed at showcasing new female songwriters in country music) and I instantly fell in love with this song, with it’s energy, with it’s golden hope. You know when you’re listening to a song and it feels like your lungs are expanding, your head tilts up, and your whole body gets lighter? Yeah, I had that with this song. And then I was lucky enough to hear it in a Tin Pan South round later in the week.
If we got all we ever wanted
But it cost us all we ever had
Pinkie swear, baby, let’s shake on it
If it comes to that,
We’ll give it all back
TUESDAY – ‘Fight Like A Girl’ by Kalie Shorr (Written by Kalie Shorr, Lena Stone, and Hailey Steele)
This song has been out for a few years now but hearing it live is just another thing altogether and, of course, Kalie performed it when I saw her play at Song Suffragettes. I sort of forget how much I love it and then it just smacks me in the face and leaves me breathless. It’s such an anthem and I particularly love the lines about her Mum because I feel exactly the same way.
I’m little but I’m loud
Just wanna make my mama proud
And you can tell without a doubt that I’m her daughter
She raised me to believe
That I can be anything
So when you push me, I’ll just push back harder
WEDNESDAY – ‘Rainbow’ by Kacey Musgraves (Written by Kacey Musgraves, Natalie Hemby, and Shane McAnally)
I freaking love this song and have loved it since Kacey started performing it way back when. I was really disappointed when it wasn’t on her second album and absolutely ecstatic when it was on her third. And then Natalie Hemby performed it at Tin Pan South and I loved it even more, especially when she talked about the writing of it: it’s about how hard it is to recover from a traumatic experience or period in your life and how, even once you’ve come through it, it can be hard to recognise that. I really relate to that.
‘Cause the sky has finally opened, the rain and wind stopped blowin’
But you’re stuck out in the same old storm again
Hold tight to your umbrella, oh darlin’, I’m just tryin’ to tell you
That there’s always been a rainbow hangin’ over your head
THURSDAY – ‘Doin’ Fine’ by Lauren Alaina (Written by Lauren Alaina, Emily Shackelton, and Busbee)
This was a hard pick (honorary mention to ‘Between Me and a Bar’ by Alyssa Micaela because it’s freaking awesome and was a very, very close second to this song) but I connected to this song so strongly that it had to be this one. Emily Shackelton performed it during a Tin Pan South round and I fell in love with it straight away. This is my kind of anthem: not rainbows or confetti or fairy tales, but the moment when you realise you just might be okay after a really long struggle.
I’m doing fine enough to know that everyone’s a little broken
Fine enough to learn that hearts are best when they’re wide open
I still got fear inside of me
I’m not okay but I’m gonna be
Alright
For the first time in a long time I’m doing fine
I’m doing fine
FRIDAY – ‘History’ by Abby Anderson
Again, this one was a really, really difficult choice. Shout out to Ingrid Andress because all of her songs were amazing, especially ‘Ladylike.’ But, like the last one, I related to this song so powerfully that I had to talk about it here. As far as I can tell, she only wrote it recently so I’m not sure if it’s available anywhere yet or even if it will be. I really hope it will. It’s the song I’ve been trying to write my whole life.
It may be something that nobody sees
Something that we carry that will always be
If our paths don’t cross and we never speak
And the world moves on, believe you’ll be
A part of me, part of me
‘Cause we have history, history
SATURDAY – ‘First Last Name’ by Madison Kozak
I’ll stop saying this now but this was another one that I really struggled to narrow down. I was absolutely sure that I would choose a Nikita Karmen song because I was absolutely blown away by her in the first round (seriously, go and check her out) but then I heard this song and I couldn’t not write about it. Songs about fathers speak to me on a very specific level and this one just made me cry because it made me think about what our relationship might’ve been like. It’s a beautiful song.
He’s the son of a salesman
Short glass old fashioned
‘How’s your car been running, baby?
Call your mama when you get home safely.’
My hall of fame
He’s never missed a game
My first last name
SUNDAY – ‘Delicate’ by Taylor Swift (Written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback)
I listened to this song a lot on Sunday because I was performing at the Song Suffragettes round the next night and at the end of each show, the girls perform a surprise cover to finish. I was out of my mind excited to play that show so I listened to it on repeat to make sure I really knew it. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Taylor Swift. It wasn’t one of my favourites on the new album but the experience of learning it and performing it in that setting has made me absolutely love it.
Third floor on the west side, me and you
Handsome, you’re a mansion with a view
Do the girls back home touch you like I do?
Long night with you hands up in my hair
Echoes of your footsteps on the stairs
Stay here, honey, I don’t wanna share
MONDAY – ‘Brand New Heart’ by Lucy Scholl
I first heard this song last year when I saw Lucy perform at a Song Suffragettes round and I instantly fell in love with it. The chorus just spoke to me so clearly. I think it’s much better than the ‘I’m grateful you broke my heart because it made me a better person’ songs because, while it acknowledges the other person’s part, it’s about how she made that new heart, that new person. She hadn’t planned to play it at the round we were both performing in but I asked and she very kindly obliged.
Never thought I’d be so proud of these scars
Showin’ ‘em off like they’re a work of art
I took all the pieces that you broke apart
And I made a brand, brand new heart
TUESDAY – ‘Let Me Be’ by Savannah Keyes
Savannah played this song during the Song Suffragettes round and it’s been on my mind ever since. She talked about how she’d been out with friends and how they’d seen a shirt in a shop window, which had the words ‘eat less’ emblazoned on it. That example of how much pressure is put on girls inspired this song, which I just loved, as did my Mum. It was very powerful.
Let me be daring
Let me be kind and caring
A dreamer with a flower in her hair and
Let me be young and free
Let me be sweeter
Let me be an innocence keeper
A follow-my-heart believer
Let me be seventeen
Let me be
WEDNESDAY – ‘Oh What A World’ by Kacey Musgraves (Written by Kacey Musgraves, Ian Fitchuk, and Daniel Tashian)
And in a strange full circle of sorts, I ended up listening to Kacey Musgraves on the flight home. After the ten days I’d just had, ‘Oh What A World’ feels like a pretty appropriate closing track.
Oh, what a world, I don’t wanna leave
All kinds of magic all around us, it’s hard to believe
Thank God it’s not too good to be true
Oh, what a world, and then there is you
Finding Hope 