Resolutions/Revolutions

Those of you who know me will know that my fondest wish is to be completely average. Where others seek to escape the anonymity of mediocrity, I crave it - I want to be just like everyone else. Basically, I just want to be normal. And what do normal people do in the early days of January? They set themselves long lists of completely unattainable goals that they can beat themselves up about for not completing later in the year, of course! I'd hate to miss out on a trend, despite being at least a day late, so as ever, I am making a desperate leap for a long-passed bandwagon as it disappears into the sunset.

'Revolution is the only solution' - Michael Mansfield

1.) Go back to therapy

In retrospect, it was probably overly-optimistic to think a six week course of CBT would solve all of my deep-seated and numerous psychological problems, but hey, never let it be said that depressed people can't also be optimists - hope, however unfortunately, springs eternal. However, I'm not sure how well the CBT has actually worked, partially because I always left my homework til the last minute at school and I don't know why as an adult I thought I'd be any different, partially because my circumstances have changed greatly since then and I don't feel my problems are the same anymore and partially because CBT is aimed squarely at anxiety, not depression, and I don't know why it's touted as cure-all. I was just (un)lucky that much of my depression, at the time, at least, was triggered by crippling social anxiety, so theoretically I still benefited, but I don't know. Interestingly, at the time, the recurring problem was that I felt unable to communicate with my colleagues, I hated that when I left no one knew I was going and I'm fairly certain most of them won't yet have noticed by absence, and I finished last May. So I think my therapist would be really pleased with how well I get on with my colleagues now, but I can't track any of it back to CBT, because I'm a lazy bitch and I never did the confidence building exercises, so I have to question whether it's a victory for CBT or just the fact that I'm sitting with my peers, who are closer to me in age and more equal in position (at Hotcourses I was an editorial intern and I was sat first with IT and then with sales, owing to space issues) and that my colleagues just happen to be people I was more naturally inclined to get on with. ANYWAY, CBT ramble aside, easily the most beneficial thing for me for those six weeks was having someone to talk to, and when I had my initial assessment, it was recommended that I follow up the CBT with talking therapy, because, in the words of that particular therapist, 'you haven't stopped talking for an hour and a half, and the session was only supposed to be an hour long.'  Given that most days now I'm about five minutes away from ending up the subject of a newspaper article that ends with the words "before turning the gun on herself", to talking therapy this year I go.

End note on CBT: I'm really not anti CBT (I'm also going to really make an effort to start doing the exercises and keeping the thought diaries and everything again while I wait for an appointment for longer-term therapy), but I think what annoys me about it is that so much of it is based on challenging your assumptions, based in it's OWN assumption that you're being paranoid. When I was having it, for example, I was convinced that a certain man in my life (anyone who knows who I'm talking about will get that I have no idea exactly how to refer to whatever that fucked up situation was, so forgive the vagaries ) didn't care about me anymore and was going to leave me, and we did six weeks of exercises about challenging my conclusions, and saying "well maybe he's just busy and that's why he doesn't call so much anymore" and what eventually happened? He announced that he didn't care about me anymore and I haven't seen him since. A lesson learned - sometimes they really are all out to get you.

2.) Eat less crap/more not-crap things

It's possibly contradictory of me to go on a health kick when I often say I don't particularly want to live a long life (cut away to futuristic video news clip of 130-year-old Victoria patiently explaining that the key to a long life is hating every single second of it, because if there's one thing the universe loves, it's fucking with me) but that doesn't mean I want to make myself susceptible to cancer and heart disease, or the fatty deposits that are already strangling my liver, according to dodgy magazine article I did that ended with the conclusion that I'd be dead within the month. This thing is going down at a time and in a manner of my choosing. And sometimes I feel guilty about the amount of rubbish I feed myself with, and not to bang on about my debilitating mental illness, they do say eating too much junk food can exacerbate feelings of depression, and whether that's true or not, it probably doesn't actively help at least, plus you do experience a feeling of accomplishment when you successfully eat a salad. And I do like some healthy foods (mixed leaves and hummus and asparagus at least), I'm just unimaginative, plus it's really hard to eat healthily and gain weight, which is another of my goals. I made a gorgeous salad the other day, rocket, baby spinach and watercress with mozzarella, croutons and French dressing, and the whole thing came to about 350 calories, and I ought to be aiming closer to the the 800-per-meal mark. I hear rumours of fat vegans - how does this work? How many pine nuts do you have to eat?!?!

3.) Start making an effort to gain weight again

It isn't a huge mystery why I'm so thin - I have a fairly small appetite, and where other people comfort eat I've always comfort starved, and I haven't cracked a smile since 1997. That's not all of it of course, I quite patently have something wrong with me (unspecified connective tissue disorder aside), whether it be an insanely fast metabolism or something more nefarious, as one enthusiastic young doctor once opined, fantasising his name in the medical journals, telling me whatever it was we could name it after me ('Bad news Sir: I'm afraid you've got Victoria Williams' - sounds about right). So I'm not entirely certain calorie counting and just, as so many sarcastic people have told me, 'eating more' will work, but I can't be sure, because I've never properly applied myself to trying, bar a period earlier this year in the summer when I was doing quite well at sticking to my target calorie count, though I gained a grand total of one pound all the time I was doing it. So I pledge to count my calories and aim for the request 3000 a day. Worst come to worst, I actually really like the weight gain milkshakes I have.

EDIT: There's been another 'thigh gap' controversy, and now I'm tempted to renege on this. Even if I stand with my knees squished together I still have a thigh gap (and a bikini bridge, a bodily feature apparently so ridiculous it was made up as a satirical comment on the pressure on women to look a certain way and I was like 'Umm, hellloooo! Sorry...'). Fuck you, skinny shamers. I'm tempted to diet down to a size zero (pretty easy for me to achieve to be honest) just to piss more people off.

4.) Stop fancying twats

Here's a fact about me - I have terrible luck with men. The ones I like never ever like me back, and neither do the ones I don't like - 'I really fancy that really tall, anorexic-looking girl with the weird short hair and the fat lips. Yeah - that one standing awkwardly in the corner by herself wearing the feminist t-shirt' - said no man ever. Plus, I only ever seem to be attracted to men that make my friends roll their eyes and groan. The word 'hipster' has been mentioned. More than once. I swear, it's a disease.  This has sometimes led to ill-advised flings with a fat singer in a bad indie band, a hairdresser who didn't want anyone to know we were dating and a man with a tattoo on his penis. Mostly it just leads to hopeless crushes and unrequited love. I don't know if you've ever fancied anyone who was aware of, and yet still deeply unmoved by your existence, but it doesn't feel great. It fucking sucks. And when it's someone who you're fairly certain is actually a terrible human being as well it just makes it worse - you get an oppressive sense of self-loathing to accompany the gnawing self-doubt. And so I've got myself into a situation where I have a crush on a terribly fashionable guy who has all the personality of a washing up brush and is openly hostile towards me. And is already taken, because of course he is. So now every day it's this internal battle of wits where one half of my brain is going 'hnnnuuuuuuaaaaaaah' and licking it's lips and the other is shouting 'WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!' Well, no more. I can't guarantee I'm going to start fancying nice guys; to be honest, I hardly ever end up fancying anybody, I usually run at an average of one doomed obsession every 6-12 months. But since the end result is the same (soul-crushing loneliness), I don't suppose it matters. What I can do is at least stop lusting after men who've clearly assembled both their wardrobe and their personality from a collection of lifestyle tips in Vice magazine. I'm not sure how, exactly, but I'm working on it. Maybe my future therapist will have some ideas (My old therapist thinks I push nice men away because subconsciously I think I don't deserve to be treated well, but I maintain it's because they're largely bad in bed).

5.) Write more

Fairly obvious. Writing is the only thing is the world I could give a fuck about (and pugs. Writing and pugs) and I barely do any. I have ideas for blog posts for literally years at a time (I've a draft from 2011 on here I keep meaning to finish) and I keep thinking up ideas for Buzzfeed posts only to see them published by other people weeks or months later because I didn't get off my arse and turn fantasy into reality. Fucking fear of failure. Plus, I've had a really good idea for a novel for three years now and it's starting to get ludicrous that I've only written the opening paragraph and I'm having second thoughts about that now, to be honest. I'm not setting myself a posts per day/week/month target, because that's setting yourself up for a fall, but more, I promise. And if I haven't got a full chapter of the book finished by April you have my full permission to tie me to a chair and force me to listen to The Enemy until I promise to try harder.

6.) More Germans

A deliberately broad goal. I love all things German and I refuse to feel ashamed because Germans are just better. FACT. I will fill my life with that which makes me happy. I will pick up learning German again, because I used to be good, damn it. I will go to Bierschenke on the weekends and watch Bundeslige games and eat currywurst and drink vodka sherbert shots and whomsoever judges me will earn only my eternal wrath.

7.) Shun people who don't like the Manics

Because who needs that kind of negativity in their life?

8.) Stab more people in the face 

This one is getting its own follow-up post.

9.) Develop powers of telekinesis

Not actually even joking, this has been my goal ever since I read Carrie as a teenager. VENGEANCE SHALL BE MINE (no list of resolutions would be complete without at least one thing that was totally unachievable, no?).

10.) Become a happy, positive person

(OK, two things that are totally unachievable)

What I've Learned From Romcoms

Single women, Hollywood has some important advice for you...

• Do you have a male best friend? He is definitely your soul mate.
• No male best friend? Do you have a male colleague or slightly creepy neighbour you are similarly sexually disinterested in? Soulmate.
• Passed a man on the street recently? Soulmate.
• If he stalks you it's because he likes you. You should totes marry him.
• If you stalk him, he will almost certainly find it endearing.
• Love across the class divide, always, always works.
• In fact, the more totally unsuited you are in every way, the more likely you will live happily ever after.
• If you chase a man through an airport to declare a hitherto unmentioned passion, he will drop his plans to move abroad for his dream job to be with you, and you will not be arrested on terrorism charges. 
• The object of your affections not being single is no barrier to love, as he will, in absolutely all circumstances leave her for you.
• Him publicly dumping his girlfriend/fiancee for you is the grandest romantic statement a man can make. The more humiliated she is, the more he loves you - awww sweet!
• Interrupting someone's wedding to declare undying love to the groom is totally not a completely dickish thing to do.
• After your wedding crashing, you will obviously live happily ever after, and his family will welcome you with open arms rather than thinking you are totally insane and should probably be locked up.
• Almost all of life's problems are both caused and solved by sleeping with Hugh Grant.

The 25 Awkward Stages Of Having A Workplace Crush

1.) When you spy them from across the office for the very first time

2.) You attempt, subtly, to find out their name and what they actually do there



3.) You start making an obscene amount of effort with your appearance every morning, even though you already have to get up at 6am to get to work on time



4.) You try (and fail) to catch their attention from across the room



5.) But confronted with the possibility of having to actually interact with them, you panic



6.) So you resort to Googling them instead



7.) And arrange a conference with your friends to discuss everything you've discovered



8.) Then one day you bump into them in the corridor and they smile...



9.) You find their contributions to team meetings endlessly fascinating



10.) When they're out of the office, work becomes infinitely less interesting



11.) Then when they're back you have to try to conceal how pleased you are to see them




12.) You prepare for their potential appearance at a work night out like this



13.) And decide to finally make your move...



14.) But success! They begin to acknowledge you in the office!



15.) When they reveal details about their life, you have to pretend that you haven't already read it on their Facebook page



16.) You may start to read too much into their actions



17.) When you see a member of the opposite (or same, according to preference) sex talking to them in the staff kitchen



18.) This person now becomes your sworn rival, whom you will never include in the tea round again



19.) You begin to worry you might not be as subtle in your attentions as you'd hoped



20.) Then one day they casually mention that they're seeing someone



21.) And you have to hide your disappointment



22.) Now seeing them in the office makes you feel like this



23.) You get irrationally angry at the unfairness of it all



24.) And decide to give up on love forever



25.) But wait! Who's that new guy/girl...?

Product review: Barry M, Cor Balmy!

Friends, I've finally found it.  After 15 years of searching for The One, I've found the perfect tinted lip balm.  Enter Barry M's Cor Balmy!

Some background - I have a love/hate relationship with my lips.  I have a big mouth in literally all meanings of the expression, and while I often think my naturally plump pout is the best of my ramshackle collection of facial features, I'm aware that because of their size, wearing lipstick is an easy way to look overdone.  I still wear lipstick for nights out - though I'm jealous of women who can do the more common smoky eyes and bare lips combo, sadly, I've long since realised that there's no point attempting to emphasis my small, shapeless, asymmetric eyes - but the sage words of wisdom spoken to me by a stranger when I was still only 15, or 16, "Your mouth makes you look like a prostitute", ring heavily in my ears when it comes to daytime.  And so, I hit upon the idea of tinted lip balm as the perfect way of playing up my best feature without anyone asking me how much I charge for blow jobs.  Fast forward several years and I'd been through about half a dozen brands (I've never found tinted lip balm to be a particularly popular product, and don't often see it in shops) without finding one I liked.  I don't know about anyone else, but I've never found a tinted lip balm before that actually had a visible colour - until now.

I'm a big Barry M fan, but not a regular purchaser of their products; while they're usually referred to as a budget brand, a lot of their products hover around the £10 mark, which is a bit steep in my opinion when truly budget brands such as Miss Sporty or NYC Colour will have something similar for nearer to £3.  However, killing time in Boots on Friday, my eye was caught by Barry M's brand new range of tinted lip balms, Cor Balmy!, and at a surprising £3.79, I decided to give it a go.  I'm SO glad I did.  There five are shades, a very pale pink, a bright pink, two reds and a deep plum, and I plumped for the bright pink, called Rosie Lea, as that's my go-to lipstick colour for most occasions,

First things first, Cor Balmy! smells gorgeous, sweet and sherbety, like all the best Pick 'n' Mix counters of your childhood put together.  Sometimes I open it up just to sniff it, even if I'm not planning on applying any,  Plus, the 'moisturising core' (the centre of the stick is the white, moisturising part, the colour around the outside) really is deeply moisturising and soothing, something many tinted lip balms fail at monumentally, often being greasy or thin.  Bit the best thing about Cor Balmy! is that you get exactly what I was looking for for this Summer, a pop of sheer, shiny colour that's very visible without looking obvious or overdone.  Rosie Lea doesn't come out quite as bright as it looks in the tube, but it's still a true fuchsia shade, so much so that so that I'm definitely going to invest in the darker red shade (bright red doesn't really suit me) for a hassle free glam look, and the dark plum one will finally allow me to experiment with a colour I've always liked, but felt was 'too much' for me.  I'm seriously considering investing in the pale pink one too, even though it's not a colour I'd usually wear (light colours make large lips look bigger), because I think the sheerness of the shade could be key to achieving the no lipstick look of my dreams.  Probably the only thing holding me back from buying up all five colours in one go is that owning the entire collection could be considered excessive/obsessive.

I was going to illustrate this with a picture of my suitably shiny, tinted lips, but as it turns out, my so-called best feature is not at all photogenic and I'm actually just plain hideous, plus I wasn't getting a good representation of the colour, so I've forgone the "here's a little something I prepared earlier" demo photo in favour of this classy shot of all the shades arranged in a glass for some unspecified reason; hopefully it's just as good.

Product review: Magnifibres

Let me tell you a secret that probably wasn't a secret to anybody who has had the misfortune to see my face in real life - I don't spend a lot on make up.  I love make up, and enjoy wearing it, when I'm going out, sometimes for work, but not just to pop to Tesco (I live in Essex, they don't deserve my full effort).  I think I've got a good balance.  But much as I enjoy make up, I'm usually strictly a budget - mid range kind of gal.  I'll go to Miss Sporty and Collection 2000 first, and stretch to Rimmel or very occasionally Barry M if the circumstances warrant it (I appreciate this is undermined slightly by my reviewing a BB cream recently that cost the same as two days return to travel to London, but I swear, it's a rarity).  Oh, and my Urban Decay Naked pallet, which was expensive in initial outlay, but not usage, as I wear it pretty much every day and night that I wear make up.

However, there's one area of cosmetics in which few holds are barred for me, and that's mascara.  You see, I've always hated my eyelashes.  They're white, they're thin, and they point downwards - no natural curl for this gal.  Clearly when God, or Morrissey, as he is properly known, was handing out luscious lashes, I absent from the queue.  I've been offered many opinions over the years as to why I'm still single, and being that I have fabulous hair and unimpeachable taste in music, I've come to the conclusion that it must be my faulty eyelashes which are to blame.  I usually have about three different mascaras on the go, because whenever a new ones comes out, making all sorts of wild promises about length and volume and curl, I fall for it.  Every.  Single.  Time.  Call me an optimist.  I probably still don't go crazy with how much I'm willing to pay for a single mascara, but I splash out occasionally.  I spent £30 on a Guerlain mascara years ago in Berlin; hated it.  Max Factor disappointed, as did Urban Decay.  I have a sample size Smashbox mascara I got in a free gift which is only OK.  Which brings me to my latest extravagant miracle purchase - Magnifibres.  

Magnifibres promises to add volume, plus up to 5mm in length.  The product is described as "brush on false lashes" and one thing I'll grant them is it's certainly unique.  Once you slide open the extravagant cardboard cylinder, inside is what looks like an ordinary tube of mascara, but unscrew the cap and it reveals a fairly slender mascara wand, covered in what looks like spider webs.  These are the titular fibres.  This is how it works: you apply one coat of mascara, then immediately apply the Magnifibres (your lashes need to still be tacky), as you would regular mascara, then wait for 30-60 seconds for the fibres to bind and apply a second coat of mascara, to cover them up.  The fantasy result?  Supposedly, longer, thicker lashes, without resorting to falsies.  The reality?  Well, judge for yourselves.  If my technological skills stand up to the challenge, then below top you'll see a photo of my largely unimpressive left eye, dressed up in two coats of Rimmel's Scandaleyes mascara (with a brief intervention from some eyelash curlers), and below bottom, my right eye (see what I did there), with two coats of the same mascara and the Magnifibres applied in between, also with a touch from the curlers.

The difference, as you can see, is....infinitesimal.  The Magnifibres packaging says you can apply just to the tips pf your eyelashes for a more natural look with added length, or all over for volume and up to 5mm increase in length.  I used Magnifibres all over, and if you look hard, you'll see the lashes on my right eye do appear to be very, very slightly thicker near the base, but that's it.  No extra length or curl, and I do not look like I am wearing false eyelashes.  The biggest difference between my left eye and my right is that my right is now quite weepy and sore, because every time I've used this stuff, the fibres have fallen into my eye and irritated it.

Magnifibres costs £22 (although who pays full price for make up anymore?  I got mine for £13 from eBay), and for the difference it makes it's not worth it.  If it cost £5 I'd tell you to save your money.  To be honest, it's so fiddly to apply, and adds so much time to the already time consuming process of doing your eye make up, that if it cost 99p I still wouldn't think it was worth the hassle.  My quest for lashes worthy of love, sadly, continues.

I don't normally do beauty product reviews...

...Partially because I'm not good at reviews in general (a quite accomplished journalist once told me that my reviews read more like sketches, but I still don't really understand what sketches are in the journalistic sense, and they're usually about politics...) and partially because I know nothing about make up or beauty, not naturally being a possessor of it.  Everything I know about how to apply make up I copied from what make up artists do to me at shows, and even then it continually looks half arsed (though in fairness, 99% of my make up is applied on moving trains, so maybe I could do better).  I wore heels for a day a week and half ago and my feet still hurt.  If someone actually invented Homer Simpson's make up gun I would totally use it.   Basically, I am a shambolic, fraud of woman.  Anyway, as ever, I digress.

I don't usually do beauty product reviews, but then I'm never normally impressed by beauty products, because they keep not making me look anything like Kate Moss, as is often unfairly suggested by the advertising.  But a good product deserves a shout out, so a shout it it's going to get.  I'm talking about Benefit's Big Easy liquid to powder multi-balancing complexion perfector.  The box says "Bigger than BB", but a BB cream is this product's closest living relative; it's more than a BB cream and less than a foundation.  Let me explain.

I've not historically been impressed by BB creams (though all three I've owned have been under the £5 mark and the last less than £3.50 I think.  I am not one to spend a lot on make up, I ALWAYS get the cheapest thing I can find, but I think maybe with BB creams the expensive ones really are better). They've always been too dark for me, as they tend not to come in the same range of shades as foundation, and offer little to no coverage.  The last one was by Miss Sporty, and it was just awful.  I bought it because my regular foundation (Rimmel Match Perfection in Porcelain) is £7, and although that's average for a good foundation, I was really trying to scrimp.  Anyway, it lasted just under two months, which is a shockingly short amount of time, but thank heavens, as I was bored ploughing on with it.  The consistency was barely thicker than water (if you opened the tube upright, it would flood out over your lap), it had weird bright red streaks in it, and there was basically no coverage, although it was dark enough to leave tidelines if you didn't blend really well.  The only good thing I have to say for it was it was very moisturising - I didn't usually use any serum or moisturiser before applying it, as I didn't need to.

So although I have more foundation now, I decided I wanted something lighter and more natural for summer, and had originally hit the Benefit counter in search of You Rebel tinted moisturiser - I've never tried it, but I know friends wear it, and that it has SPF, which is necessary in a summer skin product.  But when I tried a smidge, I wasn't that impressed, as it was, as usual, far too dark for my pale skin.  The sales lady was immediately on at me to try their BB cream, which is why I hate staffed make up counters.  I have to talk to people - urgh - and they'll make me buy stuff. I relented, and tried a bit, and it was much paler, and because I hate to disappoint people by not buying things when they've tried so hard to sell me them, I reluctantly allowed her to ring it up for me, despite it costing an eye-watering (and just about everything else-watering) £27.50.

But I wore it for the first time today and I have to say - this is some good shit.  It's exactly what I wanted; a light, even coverage, that just made my skin look naturally "nice" for lack of a better word, without covering up my freckles (I'm not fussed on whether my freckles show or not, just an indicator of how deep the coverage is).  It did appear to, as it claimed, "self adjust" to match my skin tone.

But what I was impressed by was the liquid to powder finish.  I was wary when the sales lady told me that it was a matte finish, as even though I wear powder to combat shine, I also have areas of dry skin, particularly on my nose, and matte is no good for that, and I just generally find matte products quite dull and dry.  Now, I didn't moisturise before applying the Big Easy, as instructed on the box, and that was a mistake - it felt quite dry going on and absorbed almost instantly, meaning I ended up using more than I'd like, and it's only a small tube, and it cost me the price of a weekly zones 1-2 travelcard.  BUT, it does exactly what it says on tin, it dries to a velvety, powder like finish.  I *could* have applied a little powder to my forehead, but only if I wanted a really, really done up look, for a natural look, this really did the job of eliminating shine, without being at all thick, claggy or overbearing.  It dried out the skin on my nose (despite claiming to be "moisture balancing" whatever that exactly means), but this is common for me, and I think if I'd moisturised first you'd barely have noticed.  And it didn't leave my skin looking dull, it looked bright and refreshed.  Plus, it does last - I'd had it on a good six or seven hours before I notice signs of it fading. Oh best thing - it's SPF 35, so perfect for protecting skin from sun damage in summer.

I'm not sure how long it will last, and thus how good value it will work out to be - the sales lady told me it lasts for ages as you only need to use a little bit, but it is really not a large tube - but if you want a light product for summer that still has some coverage, and particularly if you have shiny skin or just prefer a matte finish that is still natural looking, I guarantee you will like this.  It comes in six shades; I have 01 Fair, and the darkest is I think "Deep Beige" which is a sort of caramel colour I think, so sadly we're not really catering for women of colour here, yet, but hopefully they will expand.  The colours are quite flexible in that they adapt to your skin tone.  I've included a picture of a model wearing the darkest shade below, for reference.

So that is my not particularly well written, rambling, but hopefully still informative Big Easy product review/appreciation.  For a beauty blog written by someone who actually has a clue what they're talking about, check out my friend Jill Robinson's blog here: http://confessionsofadressaddict.wordpress.com/

The dangers of conflating contentment and happiness

There's definitely something about the sun coming out that puts people in a good mood.  I actually think that if our winter's were a bit shorter, we'd probably actually be less cynical and bitter as a nation (let's pray that never happens, because cynical and bitter are the two key strengths of my writing and I don't want to be left without an audience).  However, I'm here to darken the mood with a heartfelt plea to "happy" people - please stop it, you're making me miserable.

One of the few criticisms of social media that I do find to be valid  is that the tendency of many people to only comment on the positive - and not the negative - things in their life can have the unintended effect of making other people feel like they're missing out because they're not having such a good time, all the time.  Personally, I think everyone should be more like me and provide the internet with a relentless stream of misery to even things out, but I digress.

While the above serves as a good introduction, that's not exactly what I want to talk (moan) about.  You see, people have a terrible tendency to conflate contentment and happiness, and I never realised until today.  I also never realised how dangerous that is.

You see, while I'm not one to get depressed by the state of my life because other people are posting photos of them smiling in nightclubs (sidenote: I originally wrote "smiling AT nightclubs", which gives me an idea for a Tumblr) - after reading the article about how people deliberately project a highly manipulated image of themselves and how much fun they're having online, the scales really fell from my eyes - but some things do bother me.  What bothers me, you ask?  Semantics and proper use of the English language, that's what.  (Again, I'm getting, very slowly, to why this is actually relevant to mental health and is not just me being a pendant, although there's probably a degree of that in there).

So today, a lot of both my Twitter and Facebook timelines have been taken up by people talking about how their lives are perfect and they're "so happy".  I don't know why, let's, as before surmised, blame the sun.  Now I don't begrudge these people their good fortune (lols, I begrudge like a BITCH), but I question if it's happiness they really feel.  Don't they mean contentment?  If you're talking about how great your life is, how much you love your partner, or your job, or your house, that's contentment, not happiness.  That is general, long term satisfaction with your situation.  Happiness is a short term, fleeting emotion.  Why is the distinction important?

Because I never have, and almost certainly never will, feel the way these people do.  I've never had a proper, happy relationship, I've never had a stable job, I've never had an ideal home life.  And for a long, long time, I thought that that meant I'd never been happy.  That I was complete freak, so crippled by depression I was unable to feel basic human emotions.  And then today, I realised - of course I've been fucking happy.  Because happiness is fleeting, and made up of moments, not months, or years.  I was happy the moment I walked out Berlin Tegal airport, following the path to the train station that would take me to the city centre to start my new (and is it turned out, short lived) life in Germany.  I was happy the moment I first walked out into Tokyo.  I was happy the moment I found out I was getting paid to go to Australia.  Apparently I'm only happy when I leave the country - could be onto something here....Ok, no, British examples.  I was happy the moment Morrissey shook my hand in Victoria Hall in Halifax (I didn't dare wash it for days) and I felt, for a second, like someone who mattered.  I was happy the moment I got offered my current job.  I was happy the moment I realised in Brixton Academy that my not exactly lost, but lets say diminished love for the Manics had come back with full force I was struck in the face by awe at how fucking awesome they are.

So yes, I've been happy, and no, I hate to disappointment you, but you are not happy because you're engaged to the man or woman of your dreams, or because you've got a nice house or because you're job is going really well.  You are content.  Enjoy that feeling.  But don't call it "happiness", and make people who don't have those things think that they are broken.