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Made it

You know when people tell you to see what difference a year makes? But you struggle to do that because even though in hindsight a year goes by really quickly, in reality it’s a long time where all manner of things happen? It’s so annoying when those people are right.

At the start of this year, I was on my arse. I’d just come off the back of a shitty end to 2021, had just tanked an exam I had hyped myself for and was predicted an A in, and was going through the motions in a dead-end job that I despised.

I won’t make light of proper mental health issues and say ‘I had this’ and ‘I had that’, but I was low. I was on the floor. I couldn’t see how this year that was only a few days old was going to be any better than the last two stinkers that had gone by.

Eight days into it, I spent a really good day with a mate at the football. Accrington away. Had it not been for the freezing cold and the turgid 1-1 draw, it would’ve definitely been in contention for my favourite away day, given the fun journey, the food and the fact it was the first away game I’d done since Covid. After that, I started feeling better. For a bit, at least.

Then my head was up to its old tricks and produced what I’ve now named (after deliberating in literally the last few seconds) the Great April Wobble. I wrote about it then, I won’t subject it to you again now. But it was bad. Crying alone in the loft bad.

Then it got better again. Then it got worse again. Then it got better again. That seemed to be the rough pattern for about four or so months after that. Had I not been so open about it with one friend in particular, it may have again been a case of ‘then it got worse. Then worse. Then worse’.

I’ve never been that open with anyone. And we helped each other through our own rough patches. Whether it was at the pub or in the sauna at the gym, it was like therapy (and way better than actual therapy, at that).

I spent the summer doing a different job. I didn’t despise it like the last one, though at two days a week and crap money it was hardly anything to be excited about. But I think if I didn’t have that extra time to myself and had instead carried on mindlessly pushing trollies around Tesco, I’d have accepted that as my fate. Instead, I had time to finish what I was doing – getting back into journalism – and apply for jobs.

As summer ended, I kept getting the feeling that it was only a matter of time. I was getting exam results back that I had never thought possible. I was getting job interviews (not actually leading to anything but before then interviews were like gold dust). I felt ready to tackle the real world.

But, as the pattern goes, it ebbed again. The job rejections were piling up. I crashed my car and had to use the money I had saved for a holiday to sort that out. On that holiday I then had my wallet stolen.

All trivial things that can happen in life. But when they’re thrown at you in the space of a few weeks, it feels like life has got it in for you.

But then comes the bit at the end. The bit I was told to wait for at the start of the year. In the space of about four days, I went from applying to a job to finding out I’m moving away from the only town I’ve ever lived in at the start of next year.

Journalism is the only job I’ve ever wanted to do. I’d argue it’s the only thing I’m half-good at, even though I still have to deep breathe before phone calls and convince myself of the existence of certain words.

To be back doing that is a great feeling. To be going back to Accrington (as well as other places in East Lancs), the place where 2022 took its first good turn, is weird. Funny how the world works.

2022 has been strange. It’s been better than the two years before it combined. But it’s also had moments lower than anything I experienced then. I’ve made new friends, strengthened friendships with people I’d known for years, moved on from others.

I’ve gone from working at Tesco, to making chemistry kits in warehouse, to being a journalist again. I’ve gone from crying in the loft and dropping my AirPods in a bucket of piss (did I ever mention that on here?) to getting NCTJ Gold and having five of my closest friends fly out to Lisbon for my birthday.

I’m not on top of the world. I’ve learnt it’s better not to be, otherwise it’s too big of a fall. But I’ve gone from being on the floor at the start of the year to sitting comfortably at the end of it. I’m happy with that.

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The job that drained me

Back when it was fun and I did fun things to have fun.

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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It’s been a while…

I started off the last thing I wrote on here by saying ‘sorry for the two month hiatus’. Little did I know then that actually I’d sack it off again almost instantly and once again forget I had my own corner of the internet in which to vent my many frustrations.

How you all been? That’s a bit of a weird question, because I’m assuming by this point most of the people that read this are either somewhere in my house or the friends I have on my private Instagram – and I’ve seen most of you in the last few weeks, let alone the few months I haven’t been on here. But it’s nice to ask, no?

I think the main reason I haven’t put anything up is because, really, I haven’t had anything important to say (when do I ever?). That might beg the question as to why I even started a blog then, if I deem most of what I say to be complete fodder. It’s a fair point, but every now and then it’s nice to remember that it’s here and I can come online and tap away paragraphs and paragraphs rather than cramming it into an Instagram caption.

What you been up to then, Nat?

Dossing about, mostly. Until September that is. Everything got real again in September. But we’ll get there.

But between May and then, I’ve mostly just been working, doing my bit for the local community of a town I don’t even live in, constantly waiting to be told we’re done for the day and that I can go home ready to do it all again tomorrow.

There was some fun in between. Good nights at the pub, a five-a-side team where I lasted one game before breaking my wrist (I class that as fun because it happened on the day Euro 2020 started, so I actually had an excuse to not leave my room and absorb every match, rather than feeling guilty about it (to extend on Euro 2020 slightly, it was fucking class wasn’t it? I nearly wrote something on here about it but couldn’t bring myself to relive the final, although thinking back now it was just quality to even be there)). And at the end of all that too, my brother got married, which was just the most perfect day.

September, though – hoo boy. Finally, after a long bit of back and forth with work, I got the all clear that I could go part time, which had always been the plan so that I could act on the 🤌 good news 🤌 I got back in January, which was the subject of one of my first posts on here.

Then on the 14th, I got on a train, which was as exciting as it always is, and went into London to start my NCTJ diploma once again – four years on from the last time. I’m only a few sessions in, but it’s going well. The tutors remember me from before, which is, well, nice; the new sport tutor seems delighted with what I’ve done so far, which is also, well, nice, and a bit of a new feeling too; and it’s just generally going well.

How you feeling about it all?

Well, as I said, everything, in general, is just ‘nice’ at the moment. I’m tired, but that’s to be expected when you’re traipsing into London three days a week, getting up at 4:30am for work another three days of the week, and trying to see your friends on your new weekend days of Wednesday and Thursday.

I’ve definitely felt worse this year. Definitely. But, some of you might have seen (the Instagram lot – it’s always you, you’re always referred to as ‘some of you’) the rather pointless, beggy think I posted the other night (I do it a lot, sorry. It’s a flaw) referring to a ‘switch’.

The way I’ve been feeling at the moment is like there’s a switch in my head. As quick as a light switch. When it’s off, everything is fine – I’m content, I’m sitting on a train, I’m thinking about positive feedback from tutors and daydreaming of the first sip of Lowenbrau later that night. But once something (and I would LOVE to know what) manages to flick that switch – boom, anxiety.

Often I don’t even know what about. It can be as simple as scrolling through social media and making comparisons, or watching TV shows and drawing up completely unrealistic parallels between myself and characters, or feeling like I’m in places or situations where I don’t belong. It’s weird. It’s not nice. I don’t like ‘the switch’. When it’s on, it gets me down, sometimes for an hour before I manage to do something to snap out, or sometimes for a day or two.

This isn’t like a big plead for vital information. It’s really not as deep as I’ve made out (Ha! Again, so why would you write a big post about it, you big silly…), but if anyone does have any tips or anything they can offer on how to keep ‘the switch’ off for longer, like hot glue it down, leave them in the comments or let me know some other way (it’s 2021, I’m sure you can figure out another way).

Time to Go

So, yes. I’m fine, basically. It’s been a while, nothing really happened until September and then suddenly everything happened all at once. I’m tired, but life has a little less monotony about it now, which is always a good thing.

Fuck knows when the next post will be. This could be the kick-start to actually use it more regularly (with NCTJ now underway I may actually have some things worth talking about), or it’ll be another four months before I grace the internet with my presence once again.

I hope you’re all doing good, as always. Drink water.

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I’m still here

Someone said to me yesterday ‘are you going to write another blog soon?’ and my instant thought was ‘how do you remember I had a blog? Even I’d pretty much forgotten’.

I suppose it’s nice that at least someone remembers I once detailed a month’s worth of running and complained about my bedroom wall to you. Only thing is that I should probably be remembering that too rather than just others.

Anyway, I’m here now (aren’t you lucky!) basically just to say that I am still around and the only reason I haven’t posted anything is because I’ve had very little (I think, anyway) to post about.

I’d like to say that I’ve been busy but the truth is I took a month off from my managing duties at LWOF because my brain went a bit funny and April was probably the deadest month I’ve had at work since I started there.

I think the slight feeling of burnout at the start of last month came at the end of my running. It had gotten to the point where it was the last thing I wanted to do each day and I just wasn’t enjoying it, which is not the point you want to be at.

Now, though, thankfully, I can go back to the gym and I’ve been enjoying that so far, and have actually noticed differences in three weeks that I didn’t in three months of dragging my feet around the same three running routes I had.

Being able to go out again has been a blessing too. Pubs were definitely a big miss of mine over lockdown and being able to see my mates again has made life infinitely less shit than it was.

I do have some more ideas about what I want to put on here in the future. A lot of it is just about waiting for the right time, though. In the meantime, I’m still here, just ticking along, waiting for the next big change to happen.

An impromptu update after over two months of silence on here but it’s nice to get something up (for me, anyway – probably less so for you). I’ll see you again in another two months when I’ll have most likely forgotten again that I paid money to do this and should probably make the most of it.

Take care. Go see your mates. Go to the pub.

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Gotta Keep Going

While I won’t make any strict apologies for my general silence on here in the last two weeks (mainly because I’m sure most of you that read this know me anyway and probably couldn’t care less), it has been a little while since the last one so, erm, sorry, I guess?

I’ll tell you the main reason. There is NOTHING going on in my life at the moment, because literally the only things I’m allowed to do are go to work and go for a run. While I’m thankful to have a job, it’s arguably the most mind-numbing thing I’ve ever done and I don’t really want to re-live the days I’ve had by having to write about them too. And, my insistence that this is not a running blog (which it isn’t, okay? This isn’t a running blog, and it never will be. Alright?) may have actually backfired on me because it’s probably the most interesting thing I can do at the moment.

Seeing as I haven’t posted on here for two weeks, I could probably tell you that I’ve started a 12-week half marathon training programme and have just completed the first week, which is good I guess. Three runs so far but from tomorrow until the end it goes up to four per week. Once the gym comes back (God I miss that) I’ll have to maybe re-think the schedule a bit because I need to go to the gym at least three times a week to make it worth the fee. For now, though, it’s just a lot of running and trying to focus more on my relatively poor diet. That’s quite easy on the days I don’t work as there’s an easy 10-hour-ish block where I eat very little but tend not to starve too much. The days at home are a bit harder, though…

There’s plenty of other rubbish I could put on here but I, like pretty much everyone else, just seem to have no motivation at the moment. I’m tired nearly all of the time and the thought of sitting down to write, for the most part, is just draining at the moment. But, as the title suggests, I’ve just got to keep going. Things will get better. Hopefully by September at the very earliest I’ll be getting my career back on track with the NCTJ course. Until then it’s just about getting through.

Not really a lot to this. Just checking in to say I’m still alive and haven’t completely forgotten about the idea of having a blog after only a month. But understand, life is very boring at the moment, and I’m sure you don’t want to make it even worse by reading about boring things.

Until it gets more exciting, look after yourselves, check in on your mates and keep on going.