Me and Tarm

The funny thing about wallowing in self-doubt is that sometimes you stumble into achievement without meaning to. It's a very pleasant experience, undoubtedly because you didn't see it coming.

It doesn't have to be a big thing. I think that's the key - see previous blog  -, it just has to be something you want to be different. All manner of change, up-grading and gaining experience is just part of life I suppose, but it's not often we sit down and think about how good the transition can feel. It's funny because we're proficient in focussing on how rubbish it so often is. So the good things? It might be losing a few pounds or a clear out of the underwear drawer. Or it could be a bigger; a new job, moving away, having kids. For me it was buying my first car.

My learning to drive has been both lengthy and truncated. For almost ten years I'd dabbled, taking the odd lesson but then uni or work or procrastination or moving away got in the road. I should probably mention that my brother is a driving instructor and so the process should have been much quicker for me; it was certainly cheaper. Anyway I finally got round to it sitting the test in December and after two attempts, the first with some experimental gear-changing, I am now a fully-licenced UK driving person.

Now there's passing the test and then there's having your own car. I hadn't really considered the implications of the latter until a very good friend of mine happened to be selling his much-loved nine-year-old Fiesta. I hummed and hawed amid grown-up advice from parents, 'It's not just buying a car. They're expensive to run!'. Anwyay, I went for it and not even a week later I now cannot imagine having said no. It makes me wonder why having your own car feels so good.

I think we spend our lives trying to escape. From being a child to moving out. From our monotonous and stuffling jobs to our excruciating bosses. From flats to houses and having a boyfriend or girlfriend to having a husband or wife and kids. The reason I write is because I think for so many, buying a car is that first experience of truly escaping. For that reason it's a lovely thing to dwell on and really enjoy.

The Story of the Elephant and the Jan Plan

Apparently we think in stories. I'm not sure about that though, my writing would be far better structured if it were so. Still, these words drift around the back of my mind and make themselves known whenever fingertips make it to keyboard.

Unfortunately this isn't a story.

I'm currently attempting to structure the January Plan. 'The Jan Plan'. Rhyme makes it quirky and fun. It's not though, really. When is anyone's Jan Plan fun? It is, in fact, a list of frightening tasks you have no idea how to implement nevermind execute and really only pay heed to out of guilt brought on by the debauchery of the eight-hundredth Ferrero Rocher forced down your throat mere days beforehand. Like many Jan Planners I've made a list. Three actually. '2012 plan', 'Writing' and 'Publishing'. I'm torn between the latter two. Must learn what publishing actually is (as per item one on the list). Must write more. Must update LinkedIn page, e-mail publishers. Must find inspiration. Must then translate to witty, sexy blog.

Night one went badly. Looked at my CV (needed major updating), looked at jobs (didn't understand half the 'candidate requirements'). It's rare I want a drink because I feel worked-up and overwhelmed but this was one such occasion.

At university I had a lecturer who told me not to eat the whole elephant at once. Eating any part of an elephant is an awful idea never mind being encouraged to take advice from a woman who had obviously not only eaten the elephant but professed to know the best method to employ in order to consume him (or her). Still, I chose to consider her words metaphorical. At the time I was whingeing that I couldn't manage my workload. She told me to focus on the wee things. Managable things. So now I'm deciding which bit of the elephant to eat first.

Not long after this mini-meltdown with the CV and the subsequent two glasses of rioja, I picked up a new book. One I'd been meaning to read for a while now and happened to be a £2 Fopp bargain fortuitously-placed on a stack by the shop door on my way home from yet another festive shift from Hell in my waitressing day job. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has turned out to be one of those books that hooked me from the tenth or twelfth sentence and is now responsible for my new blog picture which, with some luck, will propel me calmly into this year as I look for a job as a grown-up.

I think this sentiment could be useful for someone like me who gorges on elephants.