Epilogue

What up? So. I am back. Whether this remains an epilogue or becomes the start of a return remains to be seen. I felt like I had some things to say so wanted to come back and say them. This may end up being something of a mammoth post as a result. I also feel more than a little rusty and this may not be my best-written post ever. However, please forgive my always idiosyncratically clunky use of the English language and rest assured that my need to be slightly too honest has not gone away. Pity my mother who always has to listen to this stuff in person. I do make her laugh more often than not so I hope I do the same for you.

First off: I have finished my course. You are probably slightly resentful that I did not bring you along as I said I might. However, I did write in excess of 80,000 words for assessment purposes and a large amount of this was a chronicle of our day-to-day activities. This number does not include the notebooks that I have filled with my scrawls. By the time I'd made a note of everything that we did in a day and then re-written it to hand it in later there was nothing I wanted to do less than talk about it more. Here is a selection of highlights, however, for your perusal:

• There was no Naked Day. Praise Jeebus. However, we did do these things called Object Exercises and, as a result, I have seen all of my classmates in their underwear at least once and have stripped down myself. One guy even got his kit off completely but I had been pre-warned and sat somewhere where I knew my view would be obscured. Taking my clothes off was far less of a biggie than I thought it would be and my abiding memory of the exercises is boredom. We watched each other doing the blessed things for HOURS. Putting make-up on, curling hair, endlessly. I thought Bla was going to win "Most Tedious" for her exercise where she got ready for a plane to New York and we watched her do her hair and make-up for 40 minutes, bleeding the session into our lunch break. Eventually, Ingy took first place with her Sleeping Partner exercise. I have a page of notes dedicated to a frustrated conversation between three of us sitting next to each other fuming because it was taking over an hour. She took four minutes to open a single sweet packet. I know because I kept glancing at the clock in disbelief. The finale of the exercise was her changing and, given that she is a particularly pneumatic young woman, it felt like our tutor was making sure that definitely happened. She has never lived that down.
•  
• The most unbelievable person on the planet teaches at GSA. His name is Ian Ricketts. There is no real way to explain him. I never felt more special or beautiful at GSA than in his classes. In our first movement class with him he exhorted us to walk tall, saying, "be magnificent. Anything less would be untruthful." The highlight of my year was his woodland walk.
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• I learned that I have a lot more to learn. Particularly in terms of how to use my voice. Several of the things I worried about when I started have been an issue that I've had to work on. I started crying in one class because I didn't understand how to use my tongue to make a proper 's' sound. I am still working on it. I've had to work hard to improve my posture and my neck tension is something that I have to force myself to stretch out every day. I often forget.
•  
• I already miss the structure like you wouldn't believe. I loved the first two terms where I knew where I had to be and I could eat whatever I wanted as any weight I gained would be melted off because I was working so hard. I was on two or three extracurricular dance classes plus full days of moving, stretching, working. I was also trying to keep my running up in between. In term two I was an actual machine; I've never been so fit in my life. I have slacked off since...
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• My housemates were not great. Two of them were also performing arts students and so I got on with them quite well as people. As housemates, however, they were all pretty dreadful. Crap at recycling, terrible at clearing up after themselves, reluctant to clean. If you are not already aware, at one point in the year there were faeces on the bathroom carpet. However, I am still glad I didn't live in halls. My room was a quiet haven that had many of my things in and my evening ritual was one of the things that kept me sane.
•  
• My coursemates were delightful. There were some that I got on better than with others, which is always the way. The fact that the majority of them were significantly younger was sometimes an issue, mainly because of my energy levels. Many of them were shocked that I am my age but given that many of them were straight from Uni, I felt it was more that they didn't know very many people of my age socially. They have an idea of what a woman in their thirties is like and I didn't fit in to that. The main thing I noticed was how bad so many of them are at just having a normal conversation. They have the attention span of gnats and forget to ask questions. I got told off a lot towards the end of the year for not offering up information about myself because they thought I was being modest or whatever. I refrained from telling them that they either didn't listen or hadn't asked.
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• I got to see what it's like to be onstage at the National. I got to play Hedda Gabler for an assessment, just one scene but still one of the most satisfying things I've ever been able to do. I got a distinction overall and for my written work stayed pretty damn consistent with one piece of work getting a mark of 90%. My best mark for acting was 87%, which was for my public production; I think part of the reason I did so well is because I am an amusing onstage drunk.

 God, I am probably missing loads but that seems like a fairly comprehensive skimming list. Maybe I'll think of some more things and top it up as I go along.

I was dumped in the Easter holidays. I had spent weeks collecting notes and scribblings for my Hedda Gabler essay and had just started writing when he did it. It took me several days to get back on track. That still irritates me more than it perhaps should. The whole thing irritates me perhaps more than it should. I don't know whether irritates is the right word. I think because there is so much that feels unresolved for me, I am struggling to get over it. I got cross with him for being thoughtless and he ended it. So was it my fault for bringing attention to his failings?

When I was the dumper I wanted to leave it all behind, partly out of guilt and partly because I was already one foot out of it. As the dumpee, I was still wholeheartedly in it and have not coped well with it being over. To be honest, it was the nicest relationship I've had. The most content and the one where I could look to the future and think, "yes. I will happily continue to do this for some time." I wanted to jump headfirst into a future with Thomas. One that involved camping and long walks and The West Wing and pancakes for breakfast and long discussions about things I didn't really understand. I am really, really sad about it still. I wish we could be friends now but I am starting to, slowly, get the hint that this isn't do-able. I can no longer expect him to text me back quickly if ever. I can't expect him to care that I am sad or hurt. It's been a while now and I should be over it.

I have tried. I signed back into internet dating while drunk and was immediately popular because drunk me is apparently better at writing profiles than sober me. Only one guy was of interest and we eventually went on a date (I did go on a date with one other guy and chatted to others but I could barely muster enthusiasm for any of them). He talked for hours about cycling. By an amusing twist of fate, it was on Thomas's birthday and I decided that they would get on far better with each other. The chap I was on a date with didn't even bother to ascertain my feelings on cycling or he might have found out that I can't even ride a bike. It seems unbelievable to me that you can have a conversation with someone on a date and not realise that you're the only one talking. I left feeling extremely down and deleted my profile.

How long I last off the websites is dependent on how lonely I feel. I am in a strange place at the moment where I haven't met anyone I fancy for ages. But now I am out in the world as an actor (more on this later, fingers crossed), I am more likely to meet people than in an office. It's just that the real world involves a lot more to-ing and fro-ing. You have to establish if people are single, straight, interested in a relationship, interested in you. The comforting thing about the websites is that you are all there for the same thing, in theory.

I wish my epilogue had more of a happy ending. Maybe I am just not going to ever be in a long-lasting relationship. Or maybe this is the sequel and I should just keep you posted. 

I'm Not Dead Yet.

I was told by Kathryn (who else?) that if I was thinking of letting this blog quietly end, I should notify my loyal readers. However, I am not sure that I want to do that quite yet. I’m quite fond of my little corner of the internet and am not convinced that I want to leave it behind forever.

The reason I was even considering it is because I find it increasingly hard to know what to write. I feel like all of the things that I used to worry about are all things that I’ve sort of dealt with. It’s weird; I’m kind of older and wiser and, as a result, less convinced of my own inherent interestingness (totally a word) to others. Romantic comedies always end when the heroine achieves some sort of resolution. They are rarely just about her finding romantic resolution; she often has to get out of her crappy job and solve all the other relationships in her life. That’s why they’re often derided because it is implied that the woman is unable to sort herself out without the help of a man. Which is unfortunate really. My opinion is that these things just happen together sometimes. I know that when I was feeling fairly flyaway and uncontrolled, I found those books reassuring and hoped it would happen to me. Funnily enough, it has. Not in a way that would have provided the same sort of catharsis as a book or a film plot, and I certainly got up to fewer hijinks and barely fell over at all. My boyfriend is not the reason it all happened or the reason why I’ve made the big changes but if I hadn’t made changes, I doubt I would have asked him out.

So if I feel that, to a certain extent, I have reached the end of the story, should I end the blog? I am certainly feeling all resolutiony. I’m packing up things at work and getting rid of my worldly possessions to charity shops, eBay and my Mum’s loft. I’ve finally moved out of the overweight bit of the BMI scale and into “healthy.” I appreciate that the BMI is flawed but I am still happy about it. I have quit all Coca Cola products and now work out almost every day. I am finally going off to do the thing that I’ve always wanted to do.

I am terrified but really happy/excited/anxious/practical/prepared/flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants depending on which moment of the day it happens to be. In some ways: Totally prepared. In other ways: Really not sure what I’m preparing for. Is “Naked Day” merely a terrifying rumour? Will I like anyone I’m living with? Will I ever finish any of the books on my reading list given that I have not even finished the one that I’ve started? To what extent will they rip into my breathing (very likely, I’m a mouth breather), my voice (I have a soft “s”, which is a corrected lisp from when I was a child), my posture (my head juts forward and as a result means I have a tense neck, which may strangle vocal cords) and movement (very, very poor flexibility and balance)? All of those things that I’ve tried to work on but really struggled with will suddenly be held under a microscope.  Maybe they’ll teach me how to work on them properly, which is what I hope will happen, or maybe they’ll shake their heads sadly and tell me I will never make it.

Happily, I have received a number of bits of information to help me prepare for the first week. I am almost registered, I have an IT account, a student number and somewhere to live. It is not in halls. I thought that living in halls would be the absolute worst idea in the world. They would all drive me mad and think I was weird and just no. On so many levels. I can’t really plan for anything else and will just have to take it as it comes. As a control freak who pretends very hard to be cool, I am struggling with this but it really is all I can do. It is an adventure and a new chapter, and I hope that I have time (my schedule will be punishing) to update my blog and, in essence, bring you chaps along with me.

Living Like A Monk

We've just had an austerity chat in the office. I'm still very much a learner in the austerity stakes. While the money pressures of living alone have curbed my ability to spend money on things I don't need, I do still have a tendency to splash out. I still shop in Waitrose, for example. I know I should stop but I can't quite bring myself to. I bloody love Waitrose. I also had to buy some clothes at the beginning of March in order to wear something colourful for my dazzling television debut. Apart from that, though, I've done alright. I've definitely turned the volume down on the bit of my brain that expects Things as a matter of course. I struggle a bit with social spending but life is about to change significantly...

From my previous hints, you may be aware that I have been gearing up for Significant Changes to take place in life and that. As of now, I know they're actually going to happen so I don't mind letting you in on my news. About a year ago, my Mum surprised me in the middle of a phone conversation by offering to send me to drama school. I stopped talking coherently for about ten minutes and just made noises to reassure her that I was still on the other end of the phone. It took me about three months to decide whether I was going to do it and a further six months to actually fill in and send five forms off for MA Acting courses. It should have been six but one of them got lost in the post and I was feeling the pinch and delayed sending off the £35 audition fee until the point where it was no longer an issue. Anyway, I've had four auditions so far, I've received one reserve offer from Glasgow, two full offers from Birmingham and Guildford, I'm waiting to receive a response to my audition a week ago back from Central and trying to decide whether I need to go to East 15 at all. Whatever I choose to do, I am set for next year.

Now, this is both terrifying and exhilarating. I expected that it would take me a couple of attempts to actually get a place. I was not expecting anywhere near this level of success and I am fair giddy about the Guildford offer as I loved it when I went there. What it tells me is that I offer something that people are interested in working with and that is so exciting. The main reason I want to go is to get some more training, work with people who love it all as much as I do and not have to spend every day staring, pointlessly, at a computer screen. But...

I don't know if it is going to work out. I don't know if I can cope with being an actor. That's the smaller voice in my head. The big clamouring, shouting voice is saying "you're never going to save up enough money to live on, you know". I've got a year now that will probably cost me £6000/£7000 just on living costs. And that will be on a strict budget. I spend more than that in half the time now. And then the smaller voice pipes up again saying that I'm going to be as poor as a church mouse, possibly for the rest of my working life if I choose to go down this road. The next few months will see the start of austerity times as I am moving back in with my Mum, hopefully will get a second job and will spend all the rest of my time flogging things on eBay and exercising. It's going to require a lot of discipline and frugality.

The thing is, what's the use of all the stuff? It is nice being able to buy things, it really is. But I don't have any dependants and I don't have to lead an extravagant lifestyle to spend time with lovely people. The truth is that I have started to realise that there is more to life than security. It is the fear that plagued me throughout my twenties and stopped me from doing anything more exciting with my life. If it gets too much, that'd be the point at which I say "well, I've tried it, I've proved something to myself and I've got some enviable educational administration skills to fall back on". But right now, in full possession of my own life and a determination to actually do something worthwhile with it, I will be jetting off into the sunset.

I'm not the person I was even a year ago. I wrote a post ages ago about my need to hide aspects of my personality away as though I was ensuring some sort of air of mystique in order to keep up the pretence that I am more interesting than I actually am. You know what, maybe I am interesting; no need to pretend. I have awards and trophies and I get offers from drama schools. And, in a moment of glorious closure, we revisited the short play for which I had received the "four... after a pint" comment from an audience member regarding my looks. This time we were performing as part of the All England Theatre Festival for which we receive adjudication. The adjudicator started discussing my performance and said "I don't know, she said she was a nine..." Imagine my heart plummeting as I waited for the end of the sentence "to me she was more like a ten". I nearly cried.

Introducing...

Hey world, it's been some time. I am slack. The reasons for this are twofold:

1) I have less to complain about
2) I am waiting for something which I am scared to talk about on the basis that if I do, it will not happen.

However, I would still like to touch base and say hello. Therefore, you will get an update based on the fact that I am actually happy, although I am fairly sure that I am far more entertaining when soul-gazing in a complain-y sort of way. And a fudge of not-quite news and abstract hints. Sound good? Excellent.

So, the happiness thing. What's that about, eh? Well, I'm going out with someone I really like. Really, really like. It didn't start off particularly hopefully: When he'd first come to live down South because of his sister, my friend Robin, I had found him somewhat odd. He seemed extremely serious and sensible, as well as bizarrely competitive. Then time passed and I got to know him a little better and he started to relax and stopped being quite so serious and uptight and I realised that messing with him was fun. I found that it was possible to distract him from being quite so sensible by sending him into a mild paddy. I didn't really think for a moment that I was flirting. I mean, he’s younger than me and I've done the younger man thing and, really, it would never work and even though I might find him a little bit attractive with his face and his height and his lovely old-fashioned nature and WHO IS THAT GIRL? Oh, it's fine, it's not his girlfriend, not that I would care anyway because obviously I didn't fancy him at all because it would never work and what was I even thinking, well, not about anything like that, don't be daft, that never even entered my mind… I was in denial, I freely admit it. It was never really that serious and even if I did entertain the notion, I had crushes on several people during that time. I mean; see a great number of my previous posts.

The next thing that happened was that I tried to sort my brain out. I was tired of obsessing about people I couldn't have and doing the same thing over and over, living the same mistakes which just led to me still being alone. And the brain-sorting exercise helped, despite me thinking that my brain was possibly beyond help. I tried to be more open to life and tried to stop obsessing. This new mindset coincided with a play that I was in with an extremely nice, tall, young man and Kathryn, friend and mentalist. During the run up to the play, I had mentioned to Kathryn that I found said young man somewhat attractive. She then proceeded to make sure that we talked to each other and used an upcoming event to ensure that I had a reason to email and get his number. Despite all this, it wasn't until the morning after the last night party when he, and his delightful brother, made bacon sandwiches for two hungover women at his mansion after a night of chatting, crying and glass-breaking that I realised how sad I'd be at not seeing him every evening. I finally admitted it to myself; I really liked him.

Quick note: He doesn't actually own a mansion. This is a private joke that I just re-read and realised it sounded like I was won over by his riches and large house. I'm not that shallow, honest. Although with my track record, the fact that he has a job is a big win.

Then I asked him out. I make it sound like this was an easy thing to do. To be honest, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. It took a while and there were a couple of occasions when I nearly gave up before I’d even begun, wailing "He couldn't be less interested if he tried" at Kathryn when she asked for updates. But eventually I got up the nerve to ask him for a coffee (I don't drink coffee but it’s the only beverage that doesn’t sound ridiculous when you ask someone out) and he said yes. We didn't stop talking for three hours at which point the previously mentioned delightful brother phoned to find out where on earth he was and he had to go. There was then a hilarious interlude where I realised I’d lost my purse the night before but that’s unrelated. When I’m drunk I am both idiotic and incredibly lucky.

 It is always a bit risky writing something (especially several paragraphs' worth) about anything like this as there is no guarantee that it will last. My relationship history is a pretty good indication of the impermanence of romantic entanglements.

And yet. Given that I write endlessly about the bad and sad stuff on here, it seemed only fair that I report on some of the good stuff too. It may be silly of me but I felt like you might like to hear it.

Since that first beverage, we have spent a lot of time together. A fair amount of that was due to the panto that we were both in at the end of the year. Let me tell you that being a lady in the early stages of getting together with someone and trying to be attractive while simultaneously having to be a male panto villian With A Beard is very, very confusing. It isn't something that I can imagine popping up very often in life but, rest assured: Confusing.

I feel like all the things I found odd about him before are all things that I admire about him now. He stops to help people when there's an accident (I didn't find this odd. This is amazing. Although there was one story from a social evening at Kathryn's when there'd been a car fire on the green outside her house and he just happened to have a fluorescent jacket and went and cordoned it off. Now, I don't know about you but there are very few people that I've ever met who carry a fluorescent jacket). He is fearless about talking to people. He loves science and maths and tries to explain these things to me. Sometimes he tells wonderful and beautiful stories and sometimes, through no fault of his, I glaze over. He calls it my TCP:IP face from when he tried to explain the internet. He is so clever and so good and sensible about things I'm daft about. It feels like a good thing and, even though it's early days, asking Thomas out for a coffee feels like one of my better decisions.

As to the other thing, the fudgey, not-quite-news thing. It is cracking on a-pace. Life is starting to happen to me and although I fear change (I'm uniformly waking at two or three in the morning in a mild panic), I am welcoming it in. I don't feel even slightly in control of my own life at the moment but I am making things happen. And as my extremely long blog post will attest to, that can occasionally be an extremely good thing.

Alice and the Universe: Part 2

Dear Universe


It is possible that you have redeemed yourself entirely. We'll see how it goes but, for the minute, we appear to be quits.

Good work.

Love
Alice

A Certain Sort of Contentment

I write this feeling particularly bleary-eyed and slightly sorry for myself. I've been suffering under an annoying cold this week. Not ill enough to stay at home, not well enough to really enjoy anything. I've spent far too much time on the sofa trying to learn new chords. For anyone who's interested, my favourite new chord on the ukulele is C6:

And yet I have not managed to learn any lines. I'll get on that at some point.

In some ways, I am feeling content yet conflicted. I had some amazing advice from a friend and actually acted upon it. Which is so unlike me; I prefer to complain about stuff than do anything constructive. I'd got to the point, though, where I was bringing a certain issue up more and more frequently and had realised how bad it was for me that I was clinging onto it so tightly. I couldn't work out whether it was just an excuse or an actual problem so I took steps to find out. Things have worked out exactly as I would have hoped, which has been an ideal combination of timing and good fortune and I finally feel like there's some sort of (apologies now for the horrible yet appropriate word usage on the other side of this bracket) closure.

So, yeah, closure. It is, completely genuinely, great. However, the downside for me is when do I know whether I'm fixed? Am I okay now? Has the closure fairy worked her magic (totally a thing)? In the last few years, I have run away from anything where I'd be expected to actually have a grown-up, real relationship. I went to the wedding of a friend last year and saw not just how happy they were but how well they knew each other and how much they were each other's partner. I left there knowing exactly what I wanted, ended the mildly dysfunctional relationship I was in, and have been single now for a year and a half.

I am at a point where I feel like less of a hopeless prospect. I don't feel quite so much like that sign is there above my head saying "she's an absolute nightmare of a girlfriend, run away!" The downside, though, is that I am at the point where I have gone far too long without regular sex. Therefore, even though I am emotionally in a position to make decent choices, it is entirely possible that the idea of actual physical contact might make my mind up for me. If I find someone attractive and they seem fairly keen on me, then I might just go for it and realise, several months down the line, that I've jumped in far too quick and basically had an extremely long fling, further delaying the possibility of an actual functional relationship.

At the same time, though, I could end up turning down something great because I am so worried about making a mistake. Seriously, how do I know? If I like someone, does that necessarily mean that I'm wrong?Sometimes I think it'd be nice to believe in something, like a god or fate or whatever, because then you also tend to believe that things will just happen in a convenient pre-ordained type way. But, yeah, that really isn't me. 

I don't know what the future holds but that's okay. I don't know what being sorted is like or whether I am fixed but that's okay too. I just know that, cold aside, I feel better. I feel hopeful.

"Right"

My Mum has this thing that she does. She's never been particularly good at just sitting down and doing nothing. I have probably mentioned before (I could verify this by checking through all my blogs but man, for someone who doesn't blog very much, there are an awful lot to look through when you just want to find mention of a single anecdote) about the reason why I don't do ironing except on very special occasions, primarily like when I don't want to look like a complete bag lady. More often than not I am content with bag lady-ness and will forego the ironing because it is like death. Anyway, the main reason for feeling like this is that the only way I could justify watching the entire programming on Channel 4 on Sundays when I was a teenager (to whit: Dawson's Creek, Hollyoaks Omnibus and As If) was by doing the ironing for the entire family. I was aware that for the majority of my friends they were able to just sit and watch this essential viewing, none of which I can tolerate for more than five minutes now, but for me, I had to justify it. It's like when I wanted to listen to the Radio 1 chart in the afternoons; I had to make the roast dinner at the same time. It was never really a big deal and everyone was similarly busy: Mum and Dad would be doing schoolwork (as teachers. In case there was any confusion. I just read that and it looked weird) and Zoe would generally be doing something productive somewhere. I assume she was. Wait, what was Zoe doing? Thinking about it, this may well have been a routine that started after she'd left for Uni in which case she would have been in her pyjamas and legitimately being lazy but it would have been in a different city, in which case, fair play to her. She was always better at playing the system than me. I still tease her for the fact that she managed to avoid washing up after the roasts on a Sunday by having suspiciously long toilet trips. She is a stealth rebeller, that girl.

Where was I? Oh yes, ironing. No. That was merely an example. Wait, yes; my mother's inability to be lazy. She's got far more relaxed since retiring but she's still not particularly good at just sitting. If there's something on her mind, we'll sit down and have a chat or a cup of tea and once that's done, she will say the word "right". There is no way of conveying this successfully on the page but she says it with such resolution that, despite how cosy you may be, how much you are enjoying the current chat, you will find yourself on your feet. There is a power to the way my mother says "right". To be honest, it should always have a capital "R". It looks wrong otherwise.

Recently, I have had a definite sense of that particular "Right" popping up in my own head. There are certain things that I've been clinging on to that just aren't very good for me. There are plans that I am actually forging ahead with (more on these when there's something definite to tell you. I mean, the number of times I've talked about namby-pamby not-quite plans that haven't happened. It's annoying for me to read back on them and you must all despair of me) and things that I have been encouraged to do in an attempt to let go of certain things that have been holding me back.

Number one at the moment is to try and think less about Mr P. I've been completely obsessed and it's just pointless. He's happy with his life and I need to accept that and not be sitting around waiting for something to change in that respect. Until I'm cool with just being his friend, I need to stop talking to him because every conversation makes me feel sad and wistful, which is old ground for me and I need to stop doing it to myself.

Not Mr P is also not going to happen. We've got a mutual friend who I think is going to drive me mad as she is more desperate for it to work than either of us. He's being foisted on me, although I'm sure it's even worse the other way 'round, and all I'm doing is noticing how much I do not fancy him. He's alright as a person but, wow, am I not interested. Not that she hears me. We had a conversation recently about a job opening and she was telling me for about an hour how brilliant she thought I'd be at that job and how I should go for it, despite me trying to communicate how much I didn't want to do it and how it would actually be a pay downgrade for me. Listening is not one of her skills, is my point.

The most worrying thing is that I'm actually finding it quite difficult to sit and do nothing. For this reason I am actually getting to a level of, I don't want to call it competence, that would most certainly be overstating it, um, imagine the barest modicum of musical ability and that's me on the ukulele. Contextually, though, I would like to remind you that I played the violin for six years as a child without reaching Grade 1. The fact that I have managed to master a few chords and sing along with them WITHOUT LESSONS is, for me, an enormous achievement. I do have to rename the instrument itself though. It was originally my Blue-kulele but I have recently reached the conclusion that it's black. I'm sure it was blue...

I did spend last weekend almost entirely in my lounge in front of the TV but, being short of money, had decided to make a couple of birthday presents so spent Saturday stitching felt triangles to a cord for bunting and spent Sunday trying to work out how to make a costume for a small child without measuring anything or using patterns (this is quite tricky). I was knackered by Sunday night and have spent the small amount of time I've had to myself this week really unable to relax. I just keep feeling like there's something I should be doing.

I might be turning into my Mum a little bit.