It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Like, anything. Whether that’s on here (as if that’s even a surprise anymore) or for Last Word, where I’m still clinging on despite not having done anything there for about four months.
Been a bit of an odd one, so far, 2022. In many ways, it’s just been an extension of the absolute shitshow that 2021 was. In others, it feels like I have actually made progress on the things that made it such a shitshow in the first place, although actually producing something to prove that is apparently a difficult task.
Truthfully, I feel drained a lot of the time, which is why when I do get a sudden surge of productivity I try my best to scrawl my thoughts down on here before it evaporates and I end up reverting back to mindlessly swiping through Tik-Tok.
But I used to be better than that. I used to be able to write all day, every day. Very few breaks. Not eating my first meal or taking my first drink well into the afternoon because I was so focused. Admittedly, that’s not great either – you should eat and you should drink before 3pm so please do that – BUT the point I’m making is that I COULD do it, whereas now it feels like a mini-achievement to have had some breakfast and dragged myself to the gym by that time.
It would be easy to blame all of that on Covid. Not that I had it, because evidence would suggest that having gone through three pandemics with nobody in my house contracting it, I am immortal. But to blame the pandemics themselves? Yeah, a little. When it manages to stop the thing you write about most (football, if you haven’t kept up), it’s a bit of a struggle to be arsed about tapping away at the keyboard for six hours a day.
But I can’t pin it all on that – and I don’t. I blame my old job.
I never wanted to say what it was while I was actually working there, but I ‘revealed’ (big exclusive for the seven people that read this) that I had been working at Tesco as a picker for over a year.
Before I started there in January 2021, I had managed to keep my motivation with writing up throughout Covid. It had had its dips, but that’s normal. But the longer 2021 went on, the more I could feel myself slipping away with it.
As it would turn out, no matter whether you’re still getting 7-8 hours of sleep, waking up at 4.30am to go and work a pretty physical (it’s not exactly heavy lifting but you’re on your feet a lot) job that you absolutely despise doesn’t really go hand-in-hand with then coming home to write for three or four hours. And the more you try to keep it up, the less you want to do it.
Obviously, Tesco was my main job at the time, and by the time it came to having to make a choice, I also had my journalism training with the NCTJ to throw into the mix. Unfortunately, proper-job money and training towards no longer having to drag my ass to Tesco beat the thing that I really wanted to do, which was to carry on the (sorry, I’m going to boast) ‘pretty good’ work I had been doing managing Last Word.
And so life at Tesco continued. On paper, it’s a very easy job. You do what the little machine tells you to do. For eight hours a day. That’s standard. But when you’re in a small-ish shop with not a lot of customers, and colleagues that you barely talk to, you feel isolated. And for me, complete isolation like that is bad, because then it means I’m left alone with my head, and that means I can think about absolutely EVERYTHING.
Particularly when I’m tired from having to haul myself to that hell-hole every day, ‘EVERYTHING’ can consist of some pretty crap shit. Thinking back to the old job I actually enjoyed; worrying whether I’ll ever get another job like that; whether I’ll ever get out of Tesco at all; thinking about all the stupid things I’ve ever said; the things I had the opportunity to say to people but never did; all of the embarrassing moments from school; all of the things that DO NOT MATTER, but while you’re stuck in the cycle, your brain will convince you are the most important things at that moment.
And that’s what it was like – for the whole 16 months I worked there. Thinking like that, constantly, is draining. I never thought about it before, but I find it baffling how much of your energy in a day can be consumed by your brain just functioning. It left me with no energy to do anything else. All just for a job. A job I never wanted to do in the first place and knew that I wouldn’t be staying in forever (however much my brain tried to convince me otherwise).
I’ve been out of that place for a month and a half now. I have another job which, while on paper should be much more boring, I find I’m enjoying way more because I’m not bound by the dismal hours and dreary environment of before. I’m more attentive, my sleep is better, I can see my mates more (shoutout to them for finally getting a WhatsApp group together, too).
But the buzz for writing still hasn’t come back, fully. Yes, I’ve sat here for 20 minutes and smashed my face into the keyboard to produce whatever nonsense this is. But writing about football – the thing that I used to be able to do for hours on end – I want it to be like that again. Like 2019, where it was my job, my hobby and the only thing I wanted to do.
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