I need them

I found myself thinking about some pretty special people this afternoon... I need my family, I need the people I love close to me. Not like most people do though, I look at my background picture of my family at Christmas... My three best friends, three people I know I can always count on to be there for me and support me and to always push me and shove me when I need. I think this is different to most people, as I said, because there's this strong feeling of love and longing for them as I sit here on the other side of the world away from them. I look up to my parents with wide eyes of amazement and awe, the most incredible role models a child and young adult could ask for, they moved to the other side of the world at an age not much older than I am now to live a better life for themselves and for their children. I know things change when you have children so I suppose I can't quite compare yet and I also can't compare the need to move away in comparison to theirs, 1990s Bulgaria is a very different place to modern day England, even to 1990s England, I'm sure! However, I can't imagine what would ever drive me so much as to move across the world away from my family. 

I believe in many ways that I may have found the person I want to share my life with and we've always said that we will follow each other anywhere... That's incredible and magical and warms my heart, but my family won't follow us and that changes things. I need my crazy and intense and incredible brother to keep me on my toes and remind me that it's more than ok to let loose and be insane on occasion. I need his insanity for my own sanity! My dad, I need his constant belief in me, his always well worded and powerful advice along with his cuddly nature... Someone I often refer to as a BFG! And my mum... God I need my mum, someone (along with all others) I've only recently found myself able to open up to... So much so that I find myself uncomfortable being around her if I know there is something I want to tell her! She's always one of first to know my newly found secrets and newly found emotions! I wish I had been able to open up to her earlier but hey it's how it goes, I'll make up for lost time in the course of the future! She's amazing, she's strong and beautiful and always shows me that it's ok to cry and show my true emotions to those who care... She's a huge role model to me as I now enter "womanhood". 

So I guess with all this thinking and writing Im just saying I love my family and I couldn't bare my life without them in it. I will never live somewhere that allows me to see them only once or twice a year. No way. Even if life brings new love, something I am in the midst of experiencing, an exhilarating and heart racing feeling... The love of an incredible family is irreplaceable. 

The complicated case of equality...

Today is a day to leave me thinking of my extreme luck in the way I have been brought up, in the place I have been brought up and my potential for a great future ahead of me. 

The news this morning covered briefly the recent rise from roughly 10% of the top companies' head boards being made up of women in 2011, to roughly 25% in 2015. Some claim this is a somewhat small victory - however when put into perspective I feel this cannot be seen as anything but incredible. Watching the BBC's documentaries on the "worst countries in the world to be a woman", I see that the level of equality we have in this country is pretty remarkable. Although I do not feel this is an excuse to stop aiming for better levels in the future it is important that we do not forget about how far we have come already. Honduras is amongst the highest in statistics for the murder of women - so much so that they have created a term, femicide. Women are brought into hospitals and morgues day after day when cruelly and unfairly abused, beaten and occasionally murdered by men; a couple of these stories and statistics particularly strained my frown line and honestly made me tense with disgust and anger. One woman was told by her husband that he does not want her anymore and that he has had enough of her, upon  responding and suggesting she leave if he is not happy, he pulled out a machete and began to hack at her legs leaving her with nothing beneath the shin on either leg and unable to take another step in her life. This husband will most likely have less than 2 years in prison and only be charged with grievous bodily harm. 

A 15 year old girl, raped, now sits in the maternity ward waiting to have a check up. In Honduras it is not only illegal to have an abortion or take any form of contraceptive pill but it has also been criminalised, meaning if a girl or woman who was raped decided to have an abortion or "pop a pill" she could face prison for up to 6 years. The disgusting irony here is that, statistically, 95-97% of men get off unpunished for assaults towards women... So the man here who raped the girl and put her in this position will get off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist whereas the girl left with no choice other than prison or a constant reminder as to what was done to her. The girl here hopes to have a boy as they "lead less difficult lives than the girls". What a thing to consider... My child, if a girl, will most likely be abused and assaulted as she grows older but be completely reliant on men. Although, if the child is born  a boy, the mother could potentially watch him grow into another predator of vulnerable women. 

These girls and women wake up every day unsure of what they face - will they be raped today? Shot today? They have no way of speaking out for their rights, no place they can consider safe. I have no intention to belittle the progress we are making on gender equality in the work place, in fact I feel it is inexcusable to degrade any progress made in this country when there are still so many women who do not even have a say over their own body, women who do not believe they should ever expect their lives to get any better. 

My question to myself being, what can be done and how fast? 

Blue skies and some time alone...

Life, it seems, has a way of leading us down a tortuous path - we rise from our falls, we become strong from our weaknesses... Although I feel perhaps slightly pretentious speaking in such a way at the age of 19, I feel that over the past few years I have somewhat stumbled through a treacherous trail. 

I was miserable and telling myself I was managing... Without considering asking for help I wobbled on... Then it got worse and it seems I got lost on my path, I did anything to distract me from my disasters - ironically normally in the form of creating another disaster. I spiralled down that metaphorical staircase that we all speak of at one point or another, I turned and toppled down and down... This time last year I was ready to give up. I asked myself, what's the point? 

A year on, I can proudly say I didn't give up... I saw the point, I looked around me and saw the point; I have a family so supportive and loving. A family I feel I took advantage of most of the time and didn't appreciate the love in their hearts in the times I needed most.

I began to study hard, I found a passion, set firmly alight by an inspiring and motivational teacher - one whom I'm sure I won't forget through my many years of studying and learning to come. I found happiness, support and comfort once again in my parents - knowing there is always I place I can run to, no matter what I'm running from. I found pride and inspiration in my older brother - if you knew his past you'd understand why I'm the awe-struck little sister. I found what I believe to be the love of my life - although he appeared in a debatably unconventional manner - he's my cliché Prince Charming... he's kind, caring, respectful, handsome and everything I believe any girl or woman would ever dream of finding in the person they want to spend the rest of their life with. 

As I lay here in an apartment which has provided me with some of the richest and most beautiful memories of my childhood and look out the window to the blue sky, I find myself thinking... Many incredibly beautiful things have come from the downfalls of my past, I just had to look hard enough and believe that without them I would not be who I am today. 

Bewitched in Liverpool

Every month or so I make the journey to visit my brother in Liverpool. It is normally an eventful few days… this time most definitely deserved the same description.

I glance around to discover a horror scene to only be expected once a year; for one evening, this terror becomes acceptable. I see two 22 year olds in school-boy shorts, Royal Mail t-shirts and faces painted in the design of the after-life; pale skin, sullen eyes and gaunt expressions. I see two striped t-shirts, four white gloves and clinically white faces with black lips and eyes, both artistically trapped in a glass box – arguably this box should have been that of the artist’s desperate attempts to escape… in this case however, it was a box of drunken excitement and ironically childish behaviour.

Before me I see a reflection holding contoured cheeks and collar bones, black lips and menacing eyes - above which I see a witch’s hat bringing me back to youthful days of trick or treating and sweets by the bucketful. Stepping out the door we are met with more of the same alarming variety – we see zombies and mummies consisting of a body wrapped in A LOT of toilet paper, we see girls with more make-up than clothing shivering in the bitter Liverpudlian winds, but most of all we see fake blood dripping from every other skull, mouth and neck.

The chocolate and sugar-coated sweets may have been swapped for a few rum and cokes or vodka-redbulls, and the trick or treating may have become a night of dancing and partying - but the basics are still there - fancy dress, close friends and a night full of enjoyable, if slightly questionable, antics. 

Typically, Halloween was a hectic sugar-rush from eating too much chocolate, followed by the inevitable crash and bed by 8.30. Fast forward ten years and some 11,000 miles and bedtime has now stretched to 4am. Halloween was another opportunity for me to copy my big brother – my role model, my best friend. Always wanting to dress up as he did, wanting to go trick or treating with his friends rather than my own; clearly in this case the costume is all that has changed; any opportunity to spend time with my brother is treasured and inevitably becomes a cherished memory. Unfortunately, due to the new nature of our Halloween celebrations and the alcoholic replacement of chocolates and sweets, the memories have become somewhat hazy in parts – but the memory of a good time stays intact without fail.

I can honestly say the subsequent morning reflected something of a post-apocalyptic, zombie attack movie scene. Rising from the “almost dead”, we stumbled down the stairs and were welcomed with the disturbing sight of popcorn all over the floor. Even this did not prepare us for the horror of face-paint sponges leaving their marks on the carpet and on the sofas like the blood splatters of a brutal murder, nor the lingering but distinct smell of alcohol and garlic bread, used to fend off the vampires. Half dead cups of tea - the ultimate elixir to revive us after a night of terrifying, bewitching madness – lay strewn around like the unnerving remains of bodies at a bomb site. 

The day slowly…but surely, passes and evening creeps up on us before we have time to recollect our thoughts. Nightmares of the previous night and the sheer volume of alcohol consumed haunt us, I think to myself that surely such skeletal fragility currently embodied in the friends around me could not be topped...could not be worse. Oh, but was I wrong. This weekend, unlike Halloween, was far from over.

Winter is coming

It's strange as winter arrives and summer departs, what feelings are refreshed. I find myself being re-familiarised with the sound of raindrops ticking the seconds away as I fall asleep. The rush of chills that ripple through me as my feet brave the bottom of the bed. The night sky creeping up on us before the day is out; before the day is done. With winter comes day after day of grey clouds, never ending rain holding the power to drain you of your smile and of your motivation. The gale force makeovers and numb noses. The weather fights you and bites you, brings you down. Your lips are chapped and your skin is dry and that beloved tan is but a memory.

Winter can make you feel cold inside and out – stripping you of the smile the sun sets in summer - however, it's the ironic warmth it brings which makes it just about bearable. 

Winter brings the toasty smell of central heating; it brings blankets and jumpers, duvet days and crackling fires. In swoop the soups, the stews and the marshmallow-topped hot chocolates; the teas, the roasts and the mulled wine. The safety of your duvet, shielding you from the cold air which settled in your room overnight - you daren't expose a limb. The necessity to get on with the day drawing you out of bed; finding yourself grabbing desperately for multiple pairs of socks and the fluffy robe which hangs on the back of your door like a cloak of cuddles waiting to wrap itself around you. 

The early morning sun fighting to warm the air, reflecting off the frosted fields - sparkling and glistening in the sun, the frost adds a touch of magic to the cold mornings... A touch of beauty. All around, the trees feel the forceful features of winter; leaves hanging on by a thread to the dwindling branches. The temperature continues to drop, week after week, day after day – I begin to find myself dreaming of the mornings where I will awake to snow-capped cars and a vision of white – pure, untouched snow making even the greyest of days, simply, beautiful.

Observing those who observe @ The Tate Modern, London.

Arms crossed, hands pocketed, feet at a standstill; eyes roaming. Such closed off body language juxtaposes the suggestion of exploration in their eyes, in their minds. I spend moments considering their thoughts - where this piece of art before me takes them. What mental journey of escape and wonder, of distance and turmoil do they find themselves on. Or is it emptiness - do they feel and envision nothing... are they simply looking? Perhaps this art has not awakened or nudged a settled thought - their minds undisturbed.

I chuckle at a thought - observing those who observe, is, observing the mind's observations.

Notting Hill Carnival

Paint on the floor, cans bottles food.. On the floor. So many people, every movement is a struggle, wrestling your way through drunken youthful inhabitants of London enjoying the vibes. Every metre is a fresh scent of weed, drifting through your nose and in turn tickling your senses like a blow of relaxation.
Looking around at a sea of colours, feeling like I'm floating... Drowning in the madness.
Every character is a new entity, curled moustaches, burgers the size of children's faces, colours and patterns you thought you'd never see together... No rules = more fun.

Security? Police? Bullshit. I have seen more joints in the past few hours than I have in my past few years.

Floral headdress , red Indian feathers... The crazier the better. That item of clothing you never dared to wear... Now is your moment, grab a drink and shake your fucking tail feathers.