Predicaments of a Fashion Lover: My Dear Friend Reality...

There would be no forgetting, no doubt and a strong sense of self-awareness. Just the realisation in your back pocket, tucked in the corner between your spare change and a lip balm, always with you as you move around each day.

It’s a struggle to know life isn’t like that. It’s hard to accept we forget the things we learn, even if at the time the moment seems so profound and life changing.

Accepting cold hard facts has never been a talent of mine. I’m sure dear reader, you will be similar. No one likes to be slapped in the face with reality; of knowing we’re doing something wrong when we have been quite content to putter along doing what we’d previously been doing before it all came crashing down.

As a child, I hated taking direction. I mean, I was the leader for crying out loud, didn’t Mum and Dad see that? I knew what I was doing thank you VERY much.

I was a star, a shining beacon of light, the Einstein of everything, the… Oh wait. Crap. Yeah, I did that wrong. Yeah. It shouldn’t look like that. Dad was right… DAMMNIT.

I digress. I get things wrong. I’m very sure you too will get things wrong, but that’s alright. We can’t be perfect at everything (although it is frustrating proclaiming loudly to anyone who hears about a subject only to be cut down with one comment. Yes I’m looking at you Quinn, you sassy thing) so life must go on. We realise once more. We raise our hands in elation once we understand the Reason behind a Moment, and shake our fists to the sky after we repeat our mistakes. We curse at our foolishness and roll out of bed the next day; teeth bared at what the world could throw at us next.

But, it is aggravating when the cold water of truth is poured suddenly over your head. It happens at the most random and ill-fitting moments that I hardly understand what my brain is doing the rest of the time, when I have the time to address these thoughts and grieve of my failures in peace. Instead I’m rushing to Uni, rushing to work, attempting to listen in tutorials or to friend’s conversations. And there is my little friend Reality tugging at the neck of my tshirt, demanding attention for the next Realisation I haven’t quite come to accept while I’m trying to do all of these things.

‘Wait your turn’, I will tell it sternly. ‘I’m quite busy right now, can’t you see that?’ To which it will screech ‘NO NO, YOU MUST LISTEN NOW’.

Frankly, my friend Reality sounds a lot like me as a child.

I’ve come round to accept that writing is my best outlet. I am my most content immersed in words, learning new ones from articles written with such power which I attempt to replicate into my own work. It sounds quite funny for this to be such a defining realisation for a writer, isn’t it? That writing is the best outlet? The irony. Yet, I must confess writing can be incredibly painful when it is intertwined with cold, hard facts of reality splashing down by the bucket load on top of my head. I cower from my laptop, latch onto childhood books and watch mindless TV. My fingers itch to write and Reality frowns at me, slapping my cheek and tugging my ear in an attempt for me to listen. But I don’t want to face it. I don’t wish to face things I have been cowering from, darting between corridors and hiding behind letterboxes. I don’t want to be proven wrong when Reality finally wins and gives me a swift and brutal talking to.

Because once I face dear Reality, I have to make some changes. And frankly, I don’t have the time these changes demand.

I want to make the changes when I have long free hours ahead of me. I want to spread each issue down and admire it in detail, become lost in possibilities of solutions before finally whittling down to the right one. Take it apart piece by piece like one would to a lover, slowly but confidently until it’s calm once more. I don’t want to rush these changes; I don’t want to frantically tick them off a list in a day, paper and pen clutched to my chest as I race around attempting to right every wrong haphazardly. I want to get it right. I want time to breath and look Reality in the eye as I ask mockingly ‘what’s the worst you’ve got? Is that it?’

But I don’t get such luxury. I have things to do after all, and every day feels like a new challenge I can’t complete to my best abilities when I have things to address. They hang like a cloud over me, insistent and whiny over the lack of attention they demand, inflated with their self-assured importance in my life. Reality tugs at me each day, muttering angrily at my lack of dedication to my own life. Because that’s what it is. I feel like I’m letting myself down when I don’t do things I know I must do, while doing things I actually HAVE to do. There’s no escaping my friend Reality, but there’s no breaks in my day-to-day Real Life. I must march on, head high and palms clasped in acceptance for what’s to come.

I’m sure by now you’re thinking to suggest ‘why not a holiday? That’s a break you can have in real life.’ It is, holidays are famed for how much they can de-stress your mind, but for me a week break in a Spanish resort is not something I crave. If I’m to take a break, I want it to be done selfishly. I want to travel to countries I’ve dreamed of and forget my responsibilities for a while. The foolish dreamer of me conjures up plans to escape suddenly in the dead of night, an expensive plane ticket for San Francisco bought and a month I can immerse myself into a new life of free living. Reality scowls at this, because I cannot just up and leave. I have a family, a job and a degree I have to finish. I have internships I have to apply for, an apartment to look for and paperwork I have to finish. The dreamer must wait, for her time hasn’t yet come. It’s Reality who owns me as of now, even if I may fight them.

I’m not fighting anymore. I’m making peace with little Reality, or as much peace as I possibly can at this moment while Reality tucks itself into the crook of my neck, snuggling against my warm jumper. We’re becoming one again after such a time fighting one and other. The dreamer of me is understandably sad we are not running away like we did last winter, hands clasped together as we leap into the unknown with winter stinging our cheeks and reckless teenage freedom spreading around my body. It isn’t time. We can’t run away anymore.

So I finish November on a sober but peaceful note.

My latest realisation you ask? The big changes in life don’t have to mean a drastic new appearance or a new country to roam. Sometimes, the big changes mean accepting the things we have been neglecting and letting Reality say what it’s desperately wanted to say. It’s time to be a grown up and make peace with the recent months.