RUN, COME SAVE ME

When you're not very good at a lot of things, you soon learn how to play to your strengths. For example - I know I am good at cooking, eating, writing and (occasionally) running a website for my venerable employer. The list of things I am not good at however are as long as my arm. For example, I am woefully disorganised - so much so in fact that I have to write everything down, otherwise my sieve like brain will forget all about it until I wake up in a cold sweat at 1am remembering if I remembered to email that Very Important Person about that Very Important Thing. (As a guide, I usually haven't. This tends to result in chaos will ensuing, and my boss sending send me yet another email politely advising me to buy a bloody diary). I am also terrible at Maths, atrocious at sewing, and let's not mention my chronic lack of direction which once led to me walking into the Bridgewater Canal. Fully clothed. As you do.

The problem is that I dislike being crap at things. I have one of these terrible competitive natures which flares up whenever I discover yet another thing which I am incapable of mastering. This is also coupled with a rather childish form of petulence, which leads to me throwing my toys out of the pram when I inevitably discover that I'm not good at something right away. What do you mean this is a craft which takes years to develop? What do you mean I have to devote time and effort to master it? Don't you know I'm busy? Can't I just...you know...be good at it now?

So, it came as a bit of a surprise when I discovered an activity I enjoy that I'm not good at. That is taking me weeks - if not months - to master, and also has the added bonus of making me look like a right tit whilst I'm doing it to boot. Running.

I love running. I've not been doing it for very long (only since May), and I can't run for any huge distances, but there's something about it which allows all the clicks and cogs and self deprecating voices in my head to shut up for half an hour or so. When I'm running on that treadmill, I don't think about anything else, apart from that moment. It feels as though my entire body becomes something else entirely - not a person with thoughts and fears and feelings, but just some lump of energy that needs to keep itself moving forward. Being on a treadmill, it's not even like I have a goal to run towards either. I just clear my head. Focus on the moment. Become simple.

I'd hate for anyone I know to see me running. I have to admit, I'm not even that big of a fan of my almost-husband seeing me red faced, stripped bare and savage. But if that's the price I have to pay for it, then I'll do so gladly with interest. After all, it's the best cure for a bout of self loathing I've discovered since red wine.

I doubt I'll be running any marathons soon. I'd only embarass myself, and hold everyone up with a million and one toilet breaks. And, some days, I have to really drag up the energy to walk down Renshaw Street to my gym and remember once again why I put myself through this torture. But in that moment, when my legs are moving beneath me, and I can't think or feel anything past keeping myself moving for a few more minutes....when there is that moment of perfect silence in this terrifyingly noisy head of mine, it's worth the pain. It's worth the sweating. It's worth everything.

WORDS AND PICTURES

I don't write for myself anymore. I don't when (or indeed why) I stopped, but over the past year or so I've found my capacity to put my feelings into words slowly slipping away from me. Perhaps this is what happens when you make a living out of the only thing you can successfully market - you increasingly look at this skill through the eyes of a capitalist. After all, time = money. And why should I be throwing my words away for free when I could be convincing someone to pay me for them?

But oh, I do so miss writing for fun. For no one else apart from me and the odd person daft enough to stumble by my Livejournal. I miss the thrilling rush of blood when I manage to put all the jumbled thoughts and emotions I carry around in my head on a daily basis onto a blank screen. I have a horrible habit of reading through old entries on my blog after a few drinks and thinking 'Christ, I used to be such a good writer. What happened?' Well, of course, life happened. That's the thing. Whereas I previously had the time at my disposal to write down all of my deepest darkest thoughts and present them to a specially selected audience to suck up, it was because I was chronically unhappy and unsure of myself. Now however I am happy. I adore my life - and finally feel able to say this confidently, knowing that it won't all come crashing down around my ears if I admit it to myself. I wake up each morning ready to suck up all the challenges and trials that life throws at me with a vigour I would never have envisaged myself being capable of five years ago. I'm engaged to a man I adore, I have a job (or indeed two) which pays me well and keeps me on my toes. I experience the joys of friends, love, life, laughter and success on a daily basis. Why complain when I have the world at my feet?

Yet. It feels that I spend so much time living, I have no time left for myself. How very self indulgent, eh? After all, I've yet to write that epic novel I've been carrying around in my head. Although, to be honest, the only person I really have to blame for this state of affairs is myself.

It's strange. Every day I sit on Twitter and throw 140 character pithy vignettes into the wind and towards complete strangers whom I've never met. Yet when I sit down and try to write something personal, I clam up. My fingers go numb. My brain goes blank. It all floats away into nothingness.

I read something a few months back about a bloke who had decided to erase his presence off all of the social networks he frequented on a daily basis and start again. He was one of those bigheaded internet impressarios who'd managed to make a lot of money and a good career out of doing nothing much. But one day, he woke up and decided to sever all ties - delete the blog and the Facebook and Twitter accounts - in a desire for permanence. He didn't want his life to disappear if someone accidentally snipped a cable. I liked the idea of that.

Of course, I'll never go that far. My internet addiction is too ingrained for me to ever take such a drastic step. But I think it's time to get rid of some of my distractions. It's time for me to start choosing my words carefully. It's time to write.