(If you don’t like your life, then change it)

In the last three weeks, things in my life seem to have gone into hyperdrive.

Every single week, sometimes every day, things have been changing. New, exciting things have come flooding in, mainly thanks to a few truly spectacular individuals.

I keep wanting to pinch myself, because I’m certain that one morning I’ll wake up, it’ll be raining outside, and I’m actually still at university. Or, I’ve got to shovel myself into an office and sit there, in a business suit (not that I’ve EVER owned one of those, even at the height of my corporate sell-out era) pretending that I’m happy with life.

At the beginning of the year, I felt like I had nothing tangible. I had the vital things, my family, friends, my health, but I’ve always been too ambitious to just be fine with not doing what I really want to do in life. The main issue seemed to be not actually knowing what that was – I was still reeling from the realisation that I didn’t want to be an actor, and had only the broadest idea of what I could see myself doing. Readers, I’m ashamed to say that this only extended as far as doing a ‘cool’ job. I’d spent much too long reading Bret Easton Ellis.

Then along came a ‘cool’ job, and actually, it didn’t make everything better. It certainly wasn’t worse, but it wasn’t quite right. The ‘lostness’ was compounded, but with the benefit of having not only some really solid experience, but making some of the most incredible friends. For this alone, I’m grateful. But I was luckier than that – this job showed me, definitively, that I can’t sit in an office for hour upon hour, desperately trying to organise myself. Cliched but true – all I wanted was a job that ‘meant something’, and dear Lord, surely that’s only a few crocheted, animal crusader steps away from ‘wanting to make a difference’…

Anyway, a good solid holiday in the form of Latitude Festival, and a few lucky breaks later, I find myself here. Where’s here? Well, I’m worried about jinxing it. But in the last month or so, I’ve done things I never thought I’d do. I’ve walked in a fashion show, I’ve modelled a ballgown while perched on a Lloyd Loom chair in the middle of Tunbridge Wells, I found the confidence to share my attempts at music with the general public,  I’m about to become an ambassador for an incredible charity, and tomorrow I begin covering London Fashion Week.

There’s honour in sticking with things, but don’t be a martyr.

I didn’t like my life, so I changed it.