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I did some thinking whilst I was at work the other day. I reinvent myself a lot, in my head, it’s a very internal process. I don’t change my fashion style or the type of books I read or things that people would outwardly notice a lot, I feel like those are set in stone, but I find myself changing, I suppose, my online presence for lack of a better term. I’ve changed my Instagram handle an ungodly amount of times and I’ve decided to change the URL of this site. I don’t know why. I enjoy it though. It’s like that feeling you get after ending a toxic friendship or a breakup and you get to reinvent yourself, start fresh, and become a new version of yourself. I wonder what captivates me to do that so often online.
I used to feel bad about it. I used to worry my friends would think I was being extra or I was annoying because I could never make up my mind, but actually, this isn’t about trying to find one thing and settling with it forever, this is a new phase and I’m probably going to change my mind again and I feel like that’s okay.
Sometimes it’s good to settle, sometimes it’s boring.
I feel good about this change.
Anyway, the weather has been really nice, it’s so sunny and warm, it’s my favourite time of year but my excitement is tainted with a tinge of guilt and worry. It’s only the beginning of June as I write this and temperatures are already reaching upwards of 30 degrees. It’s pretty obvious what’s going on so I feel bad about being excited that the sun is shining extra bright and has landed very confidently on my carpet or on the laundry I have hanging in my bedroom - but that means the environment isn’t doing too well.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed a walk with C in the meadows in the moments between the heat and an inevitable thunderstorm. Lots of bugs. Not a fan.
I also forgot I had hay fever and had to take an antihistamine to calm the tickle in my throat. It’s a shame that my body reacts negatively to the sunshine and growing flowers. I used to react so much worse to the sun when my eczema was really bad and that made me so depressed. A Caribbean girl who couldn’t enjoy the sunshine? Nothing worse. So today and all the days that I am able to move my body freely without restricting and debilitating eczema, I am truly grateful.
Recently I’ve been feeling the same emotion lately—content.
It’s a comforting feeling, not overwhelming not disappointing, a sort of just right. Call me Goldilocks. Every now and then I’ll get the feeling like: Wow, I’m so pleased with what my life looks like right now. And I love it because I remember being sixteen and depressed and struggling to imagine a good life for myself—living away from home, working a full-time job I like, decorating my kitchen with fresh flowers, arranging my neutral-toned clothes on a rail in my bedroom, making funny faces to my boyfriend across the room because he’s as odd as I am, seeing my friends and reminiscing about things that happened nearly over 10 years ago because I’ve known them for that long and that means these are my friends for life.
So much to be grateful for. I just never thought I’d end up in this place.
I hope you have something to be grateful for and it comes to you in waves every so often, especially when you need it most.
a sunset from my new london flat.