Why is it that when one is most bored or confined to a certain area for hours on end, that the smallest little things inspire one? The other day, I was sitting at my weekend call centre job pondering my existence and receiving one call every four hours. I have even taken to reading tabloids, evil and sensationalist cow's dung, but I read them nevertheless when at the call centre because my brain is too lazy to concentrate on much else.
So I was "reading" a magazine with the usual Katie Price/Jordan-with-no-clothes-on photo splashed on the front cover. After wading through the cellulite zoom-in, Brangelina's marital problems, Posh Spice's anorexia (I often wonder what the news values are, it is the same rubbish every week), I came upon the star signs. Now, these are my absolute favourite! I can read all of them and relate them, at least in part, to my own sorry life. This time though, Capricorn's weekly jargon really made me think. It went on about arriving on this planet as a sweet, tiny baby having no opinions about what you were supposed to be doing. No one had great expectations of you except hope that you'd sleep through the night. "You were happy just to live in a spirit of relaxed open-mindedness. That was then. This is now," it said. Now you've got a whole list of the things you like and dislike, a reputation to live up to, responsibilities to keep. "Some of it you can't escape." Those were the words that really hit me. Hectic. And so true.
There are some things in life you simply cannot escape. It's how you deal with them that makes life happy or unbearable, memorable or completely average. So, I sit in London earning minimum wage, working seven days a week just to pay the bills (my responsibilities to honour) and contemplating the real reasons why I am here.
At first, perhaps, it was an attempt to escape the expectations of friends, family and lecturers; to rediscover my spirit of "relaxed open-mindedness". I realise now that I will never be a cute, tiny or totally relaxed human being ever again. What I can be is open-minded and make as much of the multi-cultured society, excitement, bright lights, theatre, music, people (from Camden Town Market to Oxford University scholars) as possible to make this a truly sensational journey.
Perhaps all I really need to do is let my hair down...completely, break the rules and forget what people think. Let go...and live the London dream everyone talks about.
No comments:
Post a Comment