I think its maybe that we all party way too hard, that we are all extremists and we want to throw ourselves at everything so hard its impossible to sustain any of it. I speak to my friends who are all hopeless romantics in their way and we talk of how we long for pajama parties and girl time, how we long to dance, how we long for long walks and dinner parties and  I think of how every conversation is filled with longing of what we are not doing… Is it finance? I know trying to sustain any sort of lifestyle financially in this crazy city is pretty impossible. I know we are all living with too much month at the end of our money and surviving is what we are trying to do - dreaming of taxi budgets and weekly blow dries. But if we are all longing for something else, for another time - thats not very now, is it?

I know my parents always say we want everything now… in their day, your first house you lived with orange boxes for months and did one room at a time. Not us lot, we want it to look like a magazine within a week! Speaking of which is it magazines, is it the consumerism we all live in that makes us have this huge dissatisfaction?? Or closer maybe just longing for something else.

I was talking to my friend the other day about the longing and saying I long to not long for anything, for the voices to stop… To just be somewhere and be in it 100%. To enjoy every moment - surely thats the healthiest state we can be? To savor every mouthful of life, love, food, to remember it with a smile… I was reading an interview with Emma Thompson the other day, in which she was describing eating a boiled egg with a crisp as the solider! She wrote about how she was 7 and she was sitting on a wall with her sister and she had a boiled egg and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, she said they were the kind of crisps you could see through not like the horrible thick ones we get now! She said she dunked the crisp into the runny yolk and she remembers every mouthful. I was telling a good friend the story and he told me he had one of his favourite mouthfuls of food recently when he went away with his fiance.

I tried to remember the last time I had a bit of food and savored it? Not worried about whether or not I should be eating it and what I am going to have to eat or nto eat tomorrow to make up for it. I couldn’t think of one!

So when people say we are the now generation, how do we make that in the positive sense? Meaning that we live for now, rather than we want everything now?

I guess here is another week ahead of us and lets hope its the one we have all longed for!!!!!!

I have been wondering a lot lately how I allow Anne of Green Gables and Studio 54 to co-exist. The only way I know how to live is in extremity, full detox or full retox and very little in between, other than the odd Tuesday and Wednesday! I love living in extremity, I love the fact that when I am in something I am fully committed, but I am not sure that works as a sustainable lifestyle choice. Well actually I am sure it doesn’t.

So for a number of months now, I have been fighting with the fact that I have to say goodbye to the party girl and go straight again and by straight I mean t total. The problem I have is that I do love to party, but then I don’t like myself after I do it - I give myself a barrage of self abuse and tell myself I am failure which you would think would be enough to make me stop..?? Ah the short term existence of the party regret brain!

I think my guilt about partying must come from my mother as its certainly her disapproving look, matched with a disapproving voice that I hear… I have said it before and I will say it again Catholic guilt has nothing on a Jewish mother!!

A few chats with friends has suggested to me that I don’t need to give up one of my personalities and they can co exist, the thing that has to leave is the self abuse about the party… that seems the wrong way round for me somehow. Also I know how to stop drinking, I have no idea how to stop beating myself up.

So of course the ultimate answer - balance. But how on earth as a single 30 year old, living in London surrounded by fun people find such a thing. What is this balance people speak of, surely its simple recovery time that they are talking about…??

I think I am happier when I am sober, I know my mother likes me more, I think I am a better person and a better friend, business is better, I have more energy, I do more and have a fuller life - now what part of that isnt the most appealing offer for life you have ever had?? But forsaking classic nights with your best mates going on journeys you will never forget and creating stories that keep you smiling forever… Surely now its not as clean cut..??

I wonder if we are the first generation to suffer this lack of balance quite so severely or is this an age old problem? I got asked yesterday by my god mother whats recreational about drugs? Why do my generation think we have chemicals which are known for a fact to be addictive, under control, be the chemical alcohol or anything else stronger…

Is balance something you find when you settle down? and what is settling down anyway? Maybe they should think of a more appealing pitch for it if we expect anyone in their early 30s to ever strive for it over the party life.. As usual I dont have the answers but the battle is definitely one I can sense isnt going away any time soon…

I have been on the most incredible journey of my life, the last four months have been the finale of the last 5 years and I can honestly say I am finally home. I lost myself in searching so hard to find myself and now I finally see the girl I have been searching for for so long.

It is the little things that make you realise your home, the smiles that you can literally feel, the ability to say no and not worry about the consequences, the disappearance of the paranoia, the end of the long standing relationship of responsibility for everyone, the ability to prioritize without guilt, the ability to love without condition and the spring in your step that you remember from skipping, when you held your dads hand as a little girl. It is literally amazing, the feeling you have longed for suddenly arriving.

The weekend just gone I spent in constant surprise with constant grinning… as for that matter did the people I spent my weekend with. Kevin who I hadn’t seen for months came for lunch and then the Nicky girl arrived all very unexpectedly, it was goodbye detox and hello vodka! There was a party at Smithy, Tewy and Boardys house and before we knew it thats where we were jumping around. I chatted a lot to people I didn’t know, that knew me through friends stories - isn’t that the best introduction we can ask for? Someone telling us they have heard so much about us and how important we are to someone we think so much of, a little gift perfectly wrapped. It was an incredibly party and as Tewy quite rightly said - if Carlsberg did parties they would have nothing on Berwickstock!!!! So Nics, Kevin and I headed home and Eds came to join us - it was our kind of night, musicals, The Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, mixed in with Old School R&B, House, Techno and then the odd Disco number to boot. We talked, we danced, we laughed and my friends told me they recognised me. Three of the people closest to me in the world told me I had become what they had wanted for me and I, I am still reeling from that, because I know what they mean.

I have missed my friends so much, but I know they have understood the journey that I had to go on and I know that they are ready, waiting and proud. I have a number of people yet to see and yet to say hello to and god how I have missed them, I literally long to see Sarah again, to laugh with her, to see all her expressions I have missed, I can’t wait to see Rachel who is now pregnant and having another baby boy, Rene who I have missed too much for words, Emma I am on my way…. I wont go on as no one needs to read a list of the people, but you get my meaning.

I cant tell you what changed, what clicked, what the secret was that made the journey complete - or at least this chapter of it. All I can tell you is I am home and it feels great.

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So what now?? Who knows, all I know is its Goodbye from me and Goodbye from him.

So here are my final parting words.

If you haven’t tried you haven’t lived.

I love you and I genuinely always will.

Goodbye xxx

When did I get to an age when the decisions I make, have consequences? Surely, when this happened, the odds of a happy ending were increased, as surely life doesn’t leave you odds that could mean you loose everything, on one roll of the dice. If you quit everything and start again, you will ask yourself, if you are anything like me, before you do, will it make you happy? The answer will of course be, I think so. I need the answer, when I am packing up my whole life, to be slightly more solid. Is this in fact why so many of us, don’t change our lives, even though we think it will make us happier, because nothing is for certain?  (more…)

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Goodbye: Used to express an acknowledgment of parting.

Do we really acknowledge the parting though? Do we ever truly say Goodbye? And do we have to say Goodbye, before we can say Hello? Is that in fact the point of Goodbye, is it an enabler to Hello? (more…)