Word Vomit, Encouragement & Another Midi Dress.

“You’ve gone MIA again!”, a WhatsApp message from Emmy flashed up on my phone at about 15:04 pm on Tuesday. I yawned, rubbed the remnants of that morning’s mascara across my face, pulled my feet into the warmth of my bed covers and finally messaged her back. It was my usual “Sorrrrrrrrrrrry” “I’ve been soooooo busy!” plus a few love heart emojis sprinkled in for dramatic effect). I have indeed been very busy, so busy that my eyes are burning with warning that I should probably put down this cup of coffee and go to sleep soon. The thing about job hunting is that it is something that feels never-ending. All of your conversations come back to ways you could improve your CV or portfolio of professional work. Friends and family alike (with the best of intentions) mention the top times to apply and even suggest manually dropping off your applications to practices (To show that you’re ‘really serious’). And after hordes of well-meaning advice and pushes to do this, that and the other, it became exhausting and I didn’t want to talk about it, or even think about it so I submerged myself under a cloud of annoyance at the world and frustration at not doing a normal project for sixth year. Eventually, it got worse and worse and now that we’ve almost come to December, I have a confession to make, I stopped. I threw in the towel.

You see, after some choice words from family and friends in regards to how I was coping with life post-university (i wasn’t coping at all despite trying to be ok), I decided to cut my losses as it were, and throw myself into anything that would a.) keep me productive and b.) do some good in the world. So in between helping friends launch projects, giving a talk to teenagers on staying hopeful in life, serving at my church, forcing myself out of the house to meet new people and doing volunteer work for a charity, I’ve been chugging along like a little steam train. It has been a blur of Oyster card tapping, coffee slurping, note jotting and handshaking these past few weeks and I’m still not really sure where I should be or what I should be doing, but I feel a little more at peace with my brief break from applications. I recently got back to applying after re-reading my thesis and looking through my reports and feeling proud of the work I produced and marvelling at the graphics that I managed to put together on photoshop with such little sleep under my belt. So I haven’t thrown in the towel altogether, I realised I’ve studied for way too many years only to trip at the final hurdle, and instead of quitting the race, I suppose I’ve just been taking a little time off to heal before stretching my legs and running again.
Everyone keeps telling me to just keep at blogging, but I’ve always written on this blog as an aside to architecture, so I don’t have much to write about at the moment except well… that I’m still hanging in there applying for jobs and keeping on, keeping on. I’ll stop talking about the job situation now because I will combust if I see the words ‘application’ or ‘job’ again in this post! There are worse things in the world after all! I’ve been trying to refocus on gratitude and servitude during this period of waiting and figuring things out and it has drastically altered how I’m dealing with things.

Apparently, our minds are hard-wired to focus on the things that aren’t going the way we’d like them to as opposed to the good things that are happening all around. My task for myself and for you this week is to write out a list of all the incredible things you’ve achieved so far this year, they could be anything from finally purchasing your dream home, to getting out of bed on days when you really want to hide from the world. Read through the list with a warm drink or an alcoholic beverage if you prefer (I’m going to crack out the mulled wine..), and really take in each achievement, savour each word you’ve written and digest with it the thought that you’ve made it through your best and your worst days and you’re still here to tell the tale, with many more seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years to fill with more achievements. This is just the tip of the iceberg for what the world holds for you.
Just. Hold. On….. 

What I Wore…

DRESS – sugarhill boutique | BAG – maxwell scott | TRAINERS – gola | LIPSTICK – mac ‘ruby woo’
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