anxiety, breathing, skin + bones.

I have been trying to think of an opening (or an anything) for this blog post because, like usual, I have NO PLAN. I just know I need to find some way to articulate this almost inarticulate state. Perhaps I shall start with writing a poem;

Monsters are not always hairy
With sharp teeth and aching limbs but sometimes 
Invisible 
Almost exciting, comforting 
(For the most part)
And you tell yourself that your monster is just fine. 
(How are you?)
I'm fine, thank you. 
But it's a lie because invisible or not,
Cosy or not, 
A monster is still a monster and it's finding a way to e a t 
You. 

My life has been a whirlwind. This is probably incredibly cliche but it is incredibly apt. Everything has happened, collapsed on my fragile brain, flattered my mere skin and bones. And they have been incredible, great things but crushing all the same.

And now I shall try and articulate these things (with a little help from analogies).

1. As most of you know, writing is my thing. It fuels me, excites me, helps me to process, escape and just live. I've never known if my thing has been good enough. Say, for example, you bake a salted caramel rainbow sprinkles jam sponge cake and give it to a group of people whom you know ADORE salted caramel rainbow sprinkles jam sponge cakes.  Obviously, they will say "ah that was so delicious." And then you get braver, riskier, and give the cake to the GBBO judges. You have no idea whether Mary or Paul have even tried a salted caramel rainbow sprinkles jam sponge cake, let alone liked one.

So they taste it... and they don't just like it, they LOVE it and they want  m o r e .

(Substitute the cake with 5 pieces of writing and you have the incredibly EXCITING thing that happened to me last week, after sending my creative writing off to my dream university).

Naturally, you freak out when Mary Berry and Paul like your unique cake. They are industry experts and you think "shit, maybe I'm actually good." And that's when you start re-thinking everything. You want to bake profusely, publish a recipe book, feed the whole world your cakes but you can't because your kitchen is too small and you've run out of ingredients.

2. On November 24th, I turned 18. The night before my 18th birthday I couldn't sleep. My heart was proliferating, I felt sweaty, my mind was shaking with ideas and worries and monsters. Even breathing proved tiring. I had just received all 5 of my uni offers and, oh my, was it overwhelming.
Because it turned out the other universities really liked salted caramel rainbow sprinkles jam sponge cake too.

((For those you that don't know, in England you choose 5 universities to apply too. If you get accepted you then just choose TWO universities. One as your firm choice (eg the university with the grade requirements that match your predicted grades) and one as your insurance (eg the university that has lower grade requirements than your predicted grades). If you get the grades for your firm choice on results day, you go there. If you don't, you go to your insurance.

BUT if a university really liked your application, they may offer you an unconditional offer if you put them as your firm choice. AKA you could get 3 E's and we would still let you on the course. Somehow, and I really don't know how, I got 4 unconditional offers which now means I must choose which one I go to and put as my firm choice. 

O V E R W H E L M I N G ))

*Disclaimer/ to iron out any misunderstanding* Obviously, I am thrilled with my offers. Ecstatic. But it still feels like an uncomfortable knot that I must try and unravel. Maybe no one else will understand? Maybe some one will? That's okay. This is just me trying to unpick my monsters (that maybe aren't even monsters at all?)

3. The feeling that I should have done more. I'm an adult now. Yesterday evening I abandoned all homework/revision and began frantically designing the cover for a poetry book!? Seriously. I just felt this impulsive need to self publish my poetry IMMEDIATELY like Rupi Kuar did with 'Milk + Honey'.

4. ANXIETY. I had my first panic attack two weeks ago. And it was definitely not fun. Since then I have been on and off ill, missing lessons and spending days in bed feeling like shit. I worry about the feeling, about missing out on life, missing lessons and this in turn makes me feel more ill. My heart trembles and dances angrily in my chest until I cannot focus on anything but the possible impending doom of heart failure.

It just all feels too much. A perverse pressure, an excitement that is manifesting itself in this horrible, persistent nausea. And I'm scared of this monster.

I guess I don't know quite how to dominate it yet.. But when I do, I shall definitely share.

Thank you for reading this mess,
-J

of nothing + everything.

I felt compelled to write a blog post. About what exactly... is the question I'm asking myself, right now, as I type this with pyjama bottoms, a messy ponytail and coursework waiting to be written.

Words are very strange and very fascinating. Somehow, what I'm thinking in my messy-messy brain can translate on to paper (or in this case, a computer screen). And then sometimes, somehow, words aren't enough and everything is just very blank and heavy and nothing.

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago when everything felt very jumbled and I was angry, sad, stupefied and very very tired:

I’m a myriad of thoughts, emotions, expressions, laughter, tears and stillness. How can you even begin to unpick what I’m feeling?

And I guess that 'you' could be nothing and everything all at once. Am I making sense? Maybe. It doesn't really matter... sometimes words are meant to be just that- words. 

(I've been studying Hamlet and it appears his soliloquy's are affecting more than I realised- oops). 

Everything is always romanticised. All the emotions. It's all a bit messy- like a jigsaw puzzle being forced together and we're told 'that's just life'. 

And sometimes I want to be completely in-eloquent and sum up everything (and nothing) with 'bleh.' 

So, yes, I feel as though I am at a war with words and feelings and all the little unspoken emotions threaded in between... 

Until next time,

-J

P.S. 201 followers on bloglovin'. Hell yeah! 

self + faces.

I.

There's a lot of self in this world, both online and not. Self esteem. Self belief. Self confidence. Yet as our self____  makes us smile,  it tears others down. Whilst their self____ radiates, we doubt ours. It's a vicious cycle and I hate it. I.

Have you ever looked a girl and thought, wow she's beautiful without automatically thinking, wow I'm not. Or wow, she's prettier then me. Hotter than me. Better than me... until you've reduced yourself to a lesser being. I know I have. We are such a critical race and criticise we shall. Everything. Our eyebrow shape, the size of our eyes, lips, skin, hair, teeth. Everything that ticks the box of 'human'. Scrolling through tumblr, I will see picture upon picture of beautiful girls. 'Beautiful'.

And yet they all look different. Beauty is so broad; why the hell can't you fit in to it too? And when I look at these girls I don't feel self belief or self confidence or self esteem. I feel self doubt. The same way every single person behind the camera would feel self doubt at seeing another 'beautiful' face. It's so sad that we can't appreciate beauty without criticising our own. That we can't say you're beautiful without thinking of our self.

I want to challenge us to compliment; to love other beauty and self love our own. Let's bring everyone up (including ourselves). Faces appreciating faces. That- that's beautiful.

As always, replies are welcome.
-J

just chat.

I wanted to change some things on this website. Like everyone, I've grown up- grown out of the same blogging identity I've carried around since I was thirteen. I'm inspired, uninspired, inspired, uninspired yet I am certain that I want this blog to grow with me.

I'm almost eighteen.

Things are changing in my life, constantly changing. I never have a stable mindset and am always, constantly, frantically looking to the next movement -  the next change. This blog has slowly, somehow slipped in to commercialism. If it's done right, I'm not against it. But so often it isn't and I'm scared that Painting The Ocean maybe moving in to isn't and that's a change I'm not okay with.

Working with brands is exciting. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it. BUT (because there's always a but isn't there?) I refuse to let that jeopardise the realism I've worked so hard to achieve on this blog. I refuse to become just another lifestyle blogger portraying something that isn't really a lifestyle at all.

Balance.

It's all about finding a balance. Balancing school work and a social life, balancing blogging and instagram, balancing writing and reading, balancing sleeping and staying awake. There are always going to be inequities- and that's okay- but for now, at least, I want to write. About everything. About nothing. About the in between that isn't  poeticised.  I love communication, strangers, expression and creativity...

So, yes, there is going to be a change. In myself, more than anything. Freedom. And it already feels so damn good.

-J

i just wanna be a rock star.

This a little something I wrote the other day on a long and pondering train journey inspired by the song "Rockstar" by A Great Big World. As always, interpret as you wish.

There's a lot of talk about 'life is what you make of it'. That you should quit your stifling city job and go and live, immerse yourself in this elusive freedom, sell all your clothes and wear bare-feet as you skim the pavement. Because that's living, isn't it? That's adventure. 

What you aren't told is that working to feed a family, eating an entirely boring meal of oven chips and chicken nuggets is living too. I struggle a lot with adventure and the unknown and how all I want is to run across a field with my skirt hitched way above my knees. Unfortunately, this isn't practical. It's not realistic, it's a fantasy thrown at us by social media. That's living, they say. 

But what I can't? What if I'm working in a job that I don't love, just tolerate. What I like my overpriced handbag and my overcrowded streets and crooked smiles from watery friendships? What if I'm stuck with deadlines, car horns and aeroplanes in the sky?

-J

feelings #2

It has been longer than a year since I last posted something titled 'feelings'. Another is long overdue. My last post was written at the beginning of my GCSE year. Reading that back I feel an overwhelming sense of achievement, accomplishment.

And yet now, with another set of exams looming over me,I feel demotivated. Relaxed even. Ideas about the future are toying with me, grappling with me, consuming my everyday. And they're not frightening, they're exciting. I'm excited. University, social media, writing, new friends, holidays, festivals, travel... so many experiences I've got to look forward to that it is becoming increasingly harder to  remain in the present. To ground myself. 

I have never been stationary. I  always look toward the next thing, searching for the next adventure. I am never complacent. And that can also hinder my progress. There's a book on my shelf- I call it my 'ideas book'- in which I plan and dream up developments on social media. Some days I wake up determined to 'make it' as a YouTuber. My tripod is ready, the camera recording and then I just f r e e z e. Slow down. Blink. Other days I wake up with a hunger for money- a greed for adventuring and the cost that it demands. 

I want so much. I keep wanting, I keep dreaming of more and more. 

It's obsessive. Success. And I'm so tired.

Living is running in to the ocean with your best friend, they say. Living is jumping out of a helicopter in a suit, YouTube will tell you. Living is performing in front of thousands of fans every evening, the media will scream. How can we not want more? 

Steps. Thoughts. Breathing. There are steps I need to take to reach university, to afford festivals and aeroplane tickets. These steps may seem tiresome, tedious even, but they are fundamental. Exceptionally so. There are thoughts I remind myself when I feel I'm losing reality- when I'm off in a dream scape and suddenly I'm the next big 'thing' with money and a fan base and a big house and movie premier's. There are breaths in between. Little things like laughing with my best friends; taking a walk; smiling at the old lady next to me on the bus; pushing myself at school/ work; dancing through the night. 

Because that's life isn't it? Living.

Thank you again for reading. 

-J