I quit.

I'm done.
That's it.
It's over.
The end.
I quit.

How many times in our lives do we say these phrases?

We can attribute the above words to the really small mundane things in life, but also to the bigger picture.

After a hearty meal we announce we are finished, we cannot possibly cram in another bite. At the end of a workout when we are literally dripping with sweat and we can't put our bodies through any more pain so we yearn for the end to rest our aching muscles. When we call time on that relationship, because we can't have the same argument again. When finally we make the decision to give up on our dreams, because we can't bear the agony of reaching for them anymore.

Depending on the context, these phrases can mean different things. Therefore why does quitting always have a negative connotation?

We assume that when we have given up on something it means that we haven't had the strength to see it through to completion. We are only human and we can only endure so much. Of course our stamina is relative and dependant upon the lives we lead. Each one of us has our own set of goals and ideals we hope to achieve and live by. I just wonder, when is not reaching these goals ever universally acceptable?

We are taught from a young age to be competitive and to strive for our best; in education during our school years through academic achievement. In person through loving our neighbour and promoting the best in each other, and in life through reaching our own personal ambitions that we set for ourselves.

When we achieve something, we expect to endure hardship or difficulty on the road to that achievement. Otherwise the prize isn't worth having. We are led to believe we must always challenge ourselves to reach our full potential. But what if the challenge ultimately breaks us instead of making us? What if the race to the finish line kills our team spirit and makes us forget why we even started running? We watch others with their medals and our own glory is so far from grasp that just the thought of warming up for practice every day is exhausting. We feel ridiculous like we are being
sneered at for even taking part. We are unfulfilled and miserable, but we get out of bed every day and
soldier on because that's what we've signed up for. That's what we've told everyone we are doing so we have to keep doing it. But life isn't one long violin lesson that we started at 7 years old and our
parents are still paying for. We are adults now, we control what we pay for, financially and emotionally!

So the immediate answer is simple.
If it doesn't make you happy, change it.
Find a new race to run.
Start a new relationship.
Take up a new hobby.
Create a new dream.

The problem is by doing this we have to admit defeat and consciously accept our failure. We have to announce to the world and ourselves that we are in fact, giving up.

We tried our hardest, but we were beaten.

We couldn't reach end.
We didn't make it.
We failed.

Then after all our blood, sweat and tears has gone into the one thing we always believed in that we still couldn't make work, we have to start
 all
over
again.

Creating the new dream isn't even the hardest part.
The biggest challenge is having the strength to give up and admit defeat without blame or judgement.

We have to forgive ourselves for failing.
We have to let ourselves off the hook.
Then we can look back and say we achieved something.

Why I never liked Marmalade...

Do not worry I am not going to use this blog post to dissect the reasons for my distaste of certain toast toppings. It's more my realisation that while avoiding dark chocolate and never understanding the fashionable fascination of a gin and tonic, I have still managed to create a certain bitterness in my life.

Now this bitterness may not be one I can feel on my tastebuds but it certainly leaves a lingering aftertaste.

I am a struggling or 'resting' actress, living and working in the catastrophically expensive London Town. Two years out of my masters at Drama School, although I was fortunate to have the funds, the year cost me my entire inheritance and I have only one paid acting job on my CV to date. With my thirties on the not too distant horizon , I am living in a mouldy room in North London because it's cheap and barely making my rent with every bitty, freelance job I can find and possibly hold down for a few months. Knowing that there was once a time I had enough money for a down payment on a flat or a year travelling the world does create a certain sting. Yet these things were never a priority for me.

I made a choice. That choice I decided when I was a child, all I ever wanted to do was perform and all I ever wanted to be was a performer. I couldn't or wouldn't choose anything else. Now I'm no longer a child and again I have a choice:

Do I continue to attempt to make a living from performing? Knowing that for probably 10 or 11 months out of the year that will be me teaching children, selling popcorn or programmes and making just enough money to scrape by. Therefore not creating any sort of future or building a career of any kind, but safe in the belief that I'm following my dreams and that I'm not a quitter.

Or, do I decide that I need to stop treading water and actually get a real job that can give me stability, security and safety? Knowing that 'quitting' as I put it, giving up, changing my mind and picking something new is the most frightening thing in the world to do , when all you have wanted since the age of 5 is to be onstage.

The ultimate cliche is that acting is a hard business, it's the first thing that comes out of every strangers mouth when you say Its the career you have chosen. Yes we all know its hard, and there's a lot of rejection and it can take a really long time to make it etc, but we are supposed to believe in ourselves enough to put up with all of that negativity.

We go see shows and look at all the other actors with success and know we can do what they do, but so can 50 other people.  We create our own work and discover that someone else has already created practically the same thing. We go to open calls and see a Walking Dead queue of people who look exactly like we do and we wonder what makes us the exception. The industry is saturated and there is endless choice, so evidently most of us will miss out and after a while that begins to hurt.

I think I have finally discovered where my hurt comes from. They say you should only do what makes you happy. Performing makes me happy but living this limbo existence waiting around to perform really doesn't.

Actors go through these ups and downs very frequently some more than others, I have had these conversations with myself too many times to count and every time no matter the cons I couldn't justify giving up on my dream.

Is my bitterness now a justification for that? However baffling it may seem, is following my dream actually making me unhappy?

Maybe happiness and following your dream are not mutually exclusive.
Maybe I need to find a new dream.

I cannot say what the answers are right now but I hope I discover them soon.
Otherwise I should just take free marmalade on toast to my next audition, because no matter how
good an actress I am, there's no way the panel will miss the bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

Tinder: Yes or No?

I still find myself very confused and frustrated with online dating. I discussed the problems of this in a previous post in April last year:  Internet dating or Internet failing (http://obsessedkim-butterflymind.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/internet-dating-or-internet-failing.html)

More recently I find I am a particularly unsatisfied consumer when it comes to one specific app: Tinder.

Its description in the App Store, is very broad and general 'Tinder is the fun way to connect with new and interesting people around you' therefore not labelling itself as a dating app per se. The last line reads 'it's a new way to express yourself and share with friends' Again very non-committal but,  I don't remember choosing my 'friends' based on how they look.

For anyone who hasn't seen the delights that Tinder has to offer, you are given pictures of people in your area and swipe left for no and right for yes. If you both like each other then you are matched and can chat on the app. I believe this puts Tinder in the same bracket as dating websites like Plenty Of Fish and Okcupid as they also offer this feature, are free to join and you can message people as much as you like.

Other dating websites like Match.com and Eharmony, require payment to join and promote a more lengthily matching system; whereby the potential for finding long lasting relationships is believed to be greater, as the participants have put a financial investment into their dating life.

All dating websites have different stigmas and reputations. Some say Tinder is the heterosexual version of Grinder - a homosexual dating app especially designed to match people in their immediate location for sexual encounters. Therefore if this belief is true, Tinder would not be the best option for those wanting a relationship.

In my personal experience I have not found Tinder to provide a successful platform to strike up conversations of length. I find the layout of a website with messages promotes more conversation  than a chat stream which is more likely to provide one word responses. Therefore I think subconsciously I have never had the faith in Tinder to preserve long enough to actually meet someone. Yet, friends of mine have not had any trouble with Tinder and have managed to fill whole weekends meeting different guys for actual dates.

I wonder if there is something I am doing wrong. It is pretty binary out there in the Tinder dating world. After the usual, 'Where are you from?' 'What do you do?' questions are out the way, the next is usually, 'What are you here for?' 'Do you want some fun?'  Now I'm not suggesting that all men on tinder are only looking for sex, however from my experience it seems the general view of men in their mid twenties, is that they do not time for a girlfriend,or cannot be bothered with the actual dating game. Are we now so spoilt by the immediacy of internet dating that we are too lazy to even go on a date with a potential match?

One thing I do like about tinder is that it provides a way to be brutal and not apologise for it. If someone only wants sex they will say so and you can decline or accept their offer and there's no hard feelings. I have always preferred this 'rip off the plaster' approach when it comes to dating and Tinder is no exception.  Why waste time? There's plenty more fish in the sea, and they are all a swipe away... If they can be bothered to swim to you!

Becoming Jane

After just finishing 'Becoming Jane' the 2007 biographical film about the life of the great Jane Austen, I have suddenly had the inspiration to write. This coupled with the beginning of a new year and the heavily championed idea to make resolutions, I find myself upon my once neglected blog.

I have always enjoyed writing, mainly in a diary using the creation of my thoughts on paper as a form of therapy. After starting this blog during university, I ventured into a more formal writing style and covered various different topics, that either troubled or interested me. This inspiration however didn't last, and I found that even though I wanted to continue blogging I couldn't quite find my voice.

After writing a diary avidly from the age of 15 to 23, with the years since only containing perhaps a entry every few months; I have always known that a decent chuck of my life has been in a way heavily documented. It's contents mainly a stream of consciousness and therefore a very accurate portrayal of myself, just on paper. At times quite depressing and at others truly hilarious! In discussions amongst friends, family and the occasional stranger, I have frequently expressed my desire to turn these diaries into some form of novel.

While already attempting to make it as an actress, in one extremely difficult and subjective field; I have always left the idea of this other and similarly impossible creative desire, as something I will perhaps do 'one day'.

I'm not sure if my recent surge of inspiration will last long enough to attempt writing anything of substance, however if it reignites my blog with something fresh and a bit more continuous then I feel that can only be positive.

I have always loved period dramas, and after learning about Jane Austen I now want more than anything to live in a period drama myself. She was a young women forever determined to live by her pen and achieve female equality in literary terms. I believe that she certainly achieved this. Yet, she also desired a true experience of love, which she managed to find but only for a short while. The rolling credits unveiled that Jane herself never married. I am unsure what my feelings are towards this truth. She was able to achieve to one dream but not complete the other, but at least she dreamt.

Therefore, what I have learned Jane Austen is that:

One cannot assume to achieve everything they set out to, but one can certainly hope to.

Tired of exhaustion

I can't help feeling exhausted. With everything.

Rather a dramatic word for lacking in sleep I know but although I am tired, I use the word in a different way. I feel worn and battered most of the time in myself and in the effort of daily life. This begins as a frustration, usually with my career choice and love life or lack there of, and departs leaving behind a great heaviness.

It's the insistence of stitching the frayed seam of a favourite dress, that should have been thrown out years ago, before you leave the house only for the strap to break a few hours later. A minor mishap but exhausting just the same. A waste of seconds however small.

This feeling isn't quite as constant and depressing as it sounds it can be quite dulled at times too. Yet it is clever. It tricks you by pretending it's disappeared, hiding behind laughter and teasing you with little hopes of the future.

Inevitably the future remains an unknown entity. When the hopes fail to materialise into something tangible, the exhaustion returns this time in an ache, that always resides in your muscles which feel heavy and overused. Something that is always strange when you haven't particularly overworked them with unusual exercise.

You feel ancient when only at the quarter of your century. Frustrated with this exhaustion, mentally slapping yourself in the face knowing how good you actually do have it and while you are bemoaning the demise of an insignificant H&M dress, the children working in the sweatshop that made it are struggling to stay alive each day.

You notice the sun setting and it's beautiful and you wonder why you feel so full of effort.
Conversation is a hurdle and even the plans you have dared to look forward to become a struggle in their execution. Cancellations are met with relief,  because your gut instinct told you the original event would only have been arduous.

Surely the response to this exhaustion would be to just give up trying. Ignore any attempt to engineer, plan, create or fix. Allow the universe to decide what happens next and avoid any desire to manage it.

Why does that notion seem impossible? Probably because in the frustration of exhaustion there is still a small desire buried in the muscle ache. A minute fragment of hope that all the effort, sweat and tears that have past escaped, will one day amount to something that will be effortless.

A peaceful slumber that can envelop the exhaustion and reward it with a good nights rest. I guess that's why true dreams occur when we are asleep. No effort is required for them.

Internet dating or Internet failing?

It's 2014 and gone are the days of courting and romantic letter writing. Now whatsapping, social media stalking and snapchat are the introduction to any potential love interest. If you haven't liked their photo on Facebook, tweeted them or found them on a dating website then it seems you cannot expect true love!

I myself have been trying out a few dating websites over the past few years as have many people I know. In fact internet dating popularity spans various ages and experiences; divorcees looking for new love, youngsters looking for fun or even women searching for 'the one' they are all there.

The days of meeting somebody on a night out are old hat, they are usually fuelled by alcohol and the relationship rarely leads to anything more serious as the promised text of the next day almost never arrives. What about meeting someone through a friend or at work? That can happen but now our lives are so rushed and crammed full, that trying to squeeze in another person takes time and effort and sometimes more change to your daily routine than you expected.

For some reason internet dating seems more appealing, it's less committal, you check your page at the end of the night and reply to a few messages. There's an instant ego boost - somebody out there finds me attractive - whether you like them or not is irrelevant you can now go to bed slightly more fulfilled than you were when you woke up. A pattern is now formed and that repeats but you don't seem to notice.

You may go on a few dates from these websites, but in my experience you rarely get to date number 2. Each app's own feature where you can scroll left or right over each face is addictive and creates brand new boxes that each prospect needs to tick. You become paranoid that you are fussy when you don't find somebody attractive, as you insist that you want compatibility and chemistry, but then beat yourself up when a guy who seemed interested suddenly stops replying.

It's instant gratification at its best. Instant communication; instant ego boost, instant flirtation, instant feeling and therefore instant disappointment and instant heartache. Everything is at the swipe of your keypad and the click of your camera. More often than not you are invested in a person before even actually meeting them!

The immediate feature of everything the internet has to offer is actually the cause of more stress and upset than help in the dating game. Before mobile phones you made a date and stuck to it and didn't really speak in between. Now there are days of texting involved and hours of waiting as you see that they last read your text 4 hours before! Facebook says they are online and they are ignoring you, they tweeted an hour ago but didn't reply to yours, its brain ache!

Drew Barrymore's line from the film He's just not that into you makes this exact point,

"I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, and so I called him at home, and he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting."

Now 5 years on instead of learning from this, the problem is even worse. A new website Hetexted.com is a relationship advice platform where women can upload pictures of text conversations they had with men and seek advice on why they haven't responded or what their text actually means. The value of a single text is now likened to that of an actual date it requires so much analysing afterwards! Internet dating is fashionable and social media is the norm and both become so easy and accessible you forget what your main focus was at the start of it all - to find someone who wants a relationship and hopefully fall in love.

In our attempt to search for this we have made it more complex and ultimately more stressful. It's easy to say don't look for it and it will find you, but unfortunately that is not the case anymore. Everyone is looking for it and it seems what they are finding is instant and exciting but not altogether that incredible or everlasting.

Wow?! ('The Dream' - a year on)

‘Wow?!’ Is the response I gave when realising that the last time I wrote a blog post was practically to the day an entire year ago! I followed this with 'How is that possible?' and yes this was an outspoken disbelief even though there was nobody in the room to hear me!

In my defence over the last year I have been extremely busy completing a Musical Theatre MA at Drama School, which was one of three goals of 'The Dream', an earlier post from February last year dedicated to three things I had dreamed of achieving in my career.

'I have tried to get into Drama School on three separate occasions and failed. Although there are many different routes to success as an actor, I can finally say that whether it is necessary or not, I want it. I want it, I need it and I believe that I deserve it.' (The Dream,2012)

A couple months after writing that post I auditioned for Drama school for the fourth time and this time I got in. I then embarked on a rollercoaster of a year, which tested my entire being emotionally and physically. The course completely took over my life and while I learnt a great deal, it left little time for genuine reflection, or for writing anything other than what the course required.

I find it very strange looking back at the above quote now. Whether I deserved to get into Drama School remains to be seen. Yes it was something I convinced myself that I needed and something that I believed I wanted. The reality however was not dreamlike at all but a struggle. I was lucky enough to make some amazing friends that I hope I will never lose, while learning lots about my craft. Yet the course created a doubt in my mind that questioned all of the dreams I had ever had since the age of five.

My MA project focussed on 'Fear and the actor' a notion which plagued my entire time on the course. Funnily enough during writing, I revisited my blog and found many posts which talked about fear. It became evident that although I thought that fear was a brand new challenge, it was one I had been facing for a while.

So, fearful but determined to attempt to fulfil my other dreams having completed my MA, I got an agent and now await the opportunity to audition. While working front of house and teaching in order to pay my rent, I look back at the remaining two goals from 'The Dream' and wonder how I am going to achieve them or if I even want to anymore:

a)To be a full time professional actress, performer and singer in theatre, TV & film etc.
b)To go to an accredited drama school.
c)To have a lead role in a musical in the West End.

Getting into Drama School took time, money and confidence. Something the other two dreams also require. A year on; I still have time - I am now a twenty-five year old masters graduate, yet I cannot help thinking that I still don’t have my foot in the door of any career path yet. Money - That all went on the course, hence why I am now spending my time watching others perform each night to earn a wage rather than peforming myself. Confidence - Unfortunately I am now not rich in this either. The course ironically sent me back leaps in this department. It has left me wondering if I even have what is required to be successful in this industry, which in turn has diluted my passion and enthusiasm to succeed in it.

With the universal knowledge that the major requirement to succeed in this business is Luck, my rational brain takes over and I am left trying to think of other dreams I might have that could provide more security or a better future:

d) Use my love of writing and turn my dairies from my teenage years into a book
e) To work as an assistant to a professional Casting Director/Agent (something I can hopefully achieve later in life after performing professionally)

There’s no reason why I cannot start reaching towards these dreams and still keep the previous ones alive, but unfortunately I believe that these new goals would be just as difficult to complete as the old ones.

I am once again stuck in a limbo land where I have so many possibilities and questions, that I cannot focus enough to get started on one. By working every night my part-time job slowly becomes a lifestyle, made worse by the fact that I am a much happier, confident person now that I am no longer at drama school! I am left wondering why I am not pro-actively seeking my dreams anymore.

Is that fact that I am comfortably living in a reality where I am not performing a sign that my old dreams are over, or am I now just too fearful to dream at all?