I have spent my time since school calling myself a student, keeping menial entry-level jobs to 'support myself through Uni'.  enrolling every other semester in subjects of which I would inevitably drop out. Whilst other people not attending University were seeking office jobs, I continued to strive for a life I wasn't ready to lead. Study requires a level of self-determination and discipline I was not willing to give, I just didn't realise this at the time.

The last five years haven't been entirely wasted, but this is one hurdle that has haunted me throughout. I am content with where I am, and yet I crave for that life I had expected to have by this time, for the milestones I had expected to have reached. I had assumed that by this time I'd be donning the cap and gown, not attending orientation week alongside others the age of my baby sister. It is hard at these times not to feel a pang of regret. These years have seen me both the incapacitated victim and the heroic conquerer of my own anxiety. These are my stories, these are my achievements. They are just so very different to the achievements I thought I'd have. I had hurdles that I could never have expected and would never have wished upon myself. I failed to achieve all that I planned, and I've succeeded in areas I hadn't prepared for. Life is like that. Life is unpredictable.

I often find that I think of myself in the past as another person entirely. We may share many of the same memories, but our lives and our motivations are different. The past is another country and she who inhabits it lacks the wisdom that I have garnered by the benefit of her experiences there. I know her well, but she can only dream of me. The future Georgia I will never meet knows me better than she knows herself. The three of us are sisters, estranged by time but intrinsically linked through memories and blood and the words we leave behind as a trail of evidence.

There are times where I become angry with my younger self. Frustrated that her selfish, hedonistic lifestyle did not bestow upon me the life I had expected for this time of my life. I think about those semesters of University that went by marked only with a new set of Withdraw Fails on the academic transcript we share. I lament how her actions then have to affect me so greatly now; she feels like an estranged little sister and yet her actions directly influence the very composition of my days. Her decisions were made with priorities that are not always aligned with my own.

It is harrowing and humbling that one must learn to make decisions for two versions of oneself. I choose to start University next year because I do not wish to feel this anguish at my (now present, then past) self in the future. It feels as though I've had to learn some hard truths that I had always thought were innate. The division between the present and the future are not so distinct. The Georgia of the future is vulnerable to the present, so I must protect her with the decisions that I make. She is older and wiser than me, but her wisdom is defined by my experiences.

August break updates.

I'm still taking daily photos, but I haven't

back to school

I'm not going back to school until March, but since everyone on the other side of the world seems to be preparing to return to college, I thought I'd enjoy some imaginary back to school shopping.



Clockwise from left:

Midori brass pencil case // anything is better in brass.

Muji 0.38 gel ink pen // These are by far my favourite pens. I always have one on me and refuse to use anything else.

O-Check Design metal scissors // I just think these are cute!

Moleskine extra large cahiers // need I say more? These are the perfect notebook in the perfect size.

Leif pastel mini planter // a cute way to bring life to your desk

Bon Look black J'adore glasses // because glasses make you smarter and all that jazz.

Moleskine week-to-view 2013/2014 diary // I love these diaries, the extra lined notebook page

I've got the message already!

As if I haven't already been given enough wake-up calls urging me to start pushing myself harder, I have been sent yet another great kick in the pants to get a move on. In an interview for a second entry-level hospitality position, I was told that an employer pays a seventeen-year-old something like 35% less to do the same work as a twenty-two-year-old like myself. How can I compete? And why am I still in a position where I need to?

It dawned on me for the seven hundredth time that this is not how or where I saw myself five years out of high school.

I have spent my time since school calling myself a student, keeping menial entry-level jobs to 'support myself through Uni'.  enrolling every other semester in subjects of which I would invariably drop out.

Now this is not to say that I am not happy with where I am. I love my life, but things might be a whole lot easier if I were finishing my first undergraduate degree at twenty-two, not starting it.

There are times where I am really frustrated with selfish hedonist that was younger me. I lament how her actions have to affect me now; she feels like an estranged little sister and yet her actions directly influence the composition of my days. My reality. Her decisions were made with priorities that are not always aligned with my own.

treat yo'self [day nine]

taste

Because you deserve a friand after being woken by your drunk boyfriend at four in the morning. I normally go for citrus flavours, but everyone working at the cafe insisted I tried the chocolate. I was not disappointed.

waiting for a train to take me to a shift I don't actually have [day eight]

a selfie

reading Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
watching True Blood, without shame
listening to this playlist

ps. I'll have to owe you a skyline for yesterday because my camera ran out of battery.

keeping up [days five & six]

closeup

For yesterday's close up prompt, I have simply taken a photo of what I see most in the mornings: fresh, hot coffee pouring out of the group head. Is there anything better on a cold winters morning?

I missed yesterday's post because I spent the best part of it in bed. I'm not entirely sure what was wrong with me, but my legs were too weak to support my body and I cried for two hours begging Tom to make it better. On Saturday night I was in the middle of a sentence, holding a glass of wine and feeling perfectly fine and then suddenly I collapsed. I don't know if the two are related, but I'll probably get my doctor to take some blood tests to see if everything's fine. Tom thinks I simply need to eat more vegetables. 

Today was a perfect winters day: 16 degrees and pouring with rain. The sky is grey and the world is tinted with the faintest hue of blue. For today's diagonal theme, I would love to have taken a picture of the heavy rain that has been falling diagonally all morning, but I have neither the skill nor the equipment to do it justice. Instead, the lines I see every day when I travel to work.

lazy morning [day four]

love

a blissful lazy Sunday morning spent with my love. 

yellow [day three]

Life and death. [Day two]

Circles

I'm struggling to disassociate Charlie from the limp, lifeless body he left behind in my lap. I want to to file that memory away in a different place from the memories I keep of his life. I want the Charlie in my memory to always be that beautiful dog sleeping at the end of my bed, following me around the house, running to greet me at the door. I want to remember him as the odd mix of wise old man and perpetual puppy that he was since he could fit in my hand and would steal my socks to keep in a pile in the backyard.

But this last memory is still so fresh.

Watching the vet inject that bright green fluid into his veins and feeling his breath quicken and then ... stop. Blinking away my tears because he deserved for his last moments to be seen and known, not lost in the blur of hot salty tears and grief.

Mum told me that she could never have another pet. She couldn't handle the pain of saying goodbye. That goodbye felt like poison surging through every part of my body, but I know that this brief period in which the pain is strongest is nothing to the years of joy and love he brought to my life. I haven't lived in the same house as him for over eighteen months; I feel guilty for the moments I almost forget that he is gone. But I don't see him in this house. I see him at the end of my old double bed, not the queen I share with Tom. I see him trying to sneak out of the front gate at my Mum's house, not under our Magnolia tree. And I feel the warmth of his body as I hold him for the very last time. As I say goodbye.

Blogging Every Day in August

When I fall out of the habit of blogging on a regular basis, which I have obviously done, I seem to also fall into a pattern of writing and rewriting the same posts over and over but never hitting the Publish button. I have a number of things I'd like to write about, but my attempts have aways frustrated me and led me to edit my own voice out of my writing. 

I've decided to blog every weekday of August. They wont necessarily be long posts, but I will write every day and I will have no choice but to hit Publish. Perhaps one day I will look back on my words and cringe, but at least I'll have something to look back over. 

The August Break [day one]

Breakfast

Black coffee & pesto on sourdough. The world wakes in dew and frost. I sit by the window and watch the garden. Every other day this week I've eaten before the sun has risen; this is a rare treat. 

At the very last minute, I've decided to participate in the August Break. The idea is that you have a simple photo prompt and you can decide to write or not. If you're organised enough to have an editorial schedule it would be a nice break from the pressure of blogging.

But not only do I fail to keep to any semblance of an editorial schedule, I've also failed to hit the Publish button on a number of posts I've got sitting in my drafts folder in the last month or so. I've lost the habit and I think I've also lost a bit of confidence. I keep editing and editing (something I never usually do a great deal) but I never put these posts up because eventually I've edited my own voice out of my writing.

So rather than treating this like a break, I'm going to take this month of prompts to get back into the habit of blogging. I miss it. I'll write a little or a lot, but each day I will have a post up on the blog and hopefully I will remember what it is that makes this process so cathartic and rewarding.