We shall not overcome.

Ok, so it's about time i did/said wrote this.

Sit-skiing.
I've done a bit.
First season.
Started in September at the Chillfactore or chilf (in joke).
I was doing pretty well there in a tessier, on a mono and was actually having runs without falling over!

Then i came to Canada for my gap year, hoping to learn how to ski and spend lots of time skiing. I've not had a solid season. I've had a season of bursts and shoots and that's kind of taken it's toll i guess.

I've also had a season of a lot of different sit-skis...i referred to myself as a "ski ho"by March...having skied in a Tessier, prasch, revolution and now finally a hoc!
I've also skied in quite a few different places...so therefore i've also had a lot of different instructors.
Which is fine. Really it is, i'm at a stage in my life where i'm very teachable (never ever mouldable) but i listen and take on board and in every single school report below the "Laura needs to concentrate more and stop talking" there has always been "Laura is a pleasure to teach"...:D

But sit skiing is different. It's not History, there's no dates to learn. It's not politics, there's no core notes. It's not lit, there's no essays. It's sit skiing. You are you, on a mountain in a piece of a equipment and your body and your brain and an instructor and extra person to pick you up when you fall. And it's not about thinking, it's about feeling...something i have trained myself to not do when i'm in a "learning" environment...even though "feelings" are what have driven me to learn and do the things i've done. It's these last few weeks i've realised i'm so glad i decided to do what i'm doing and "get out" and...well feel and then do what's right. I think you can train yourself not to feel.

There is a point to this. Bare with me. (Yes, i still write how i talk.)

So you get different instructors just like you get different teachers and they all have their own way of teaching, own way of understanding and so you have your own way of learning from them. For someone who does what she wants...i'm constantly thinking about others. And constantly forgetting about myself...and when i do think about myself it can often be pretty negative...i stop that and think about other stuff!
Well with sit skiing...you don't do that. You don't even think about yourself...and that's what was happening. I'd stopped thinking about others and then began to think negatively about myself and how my spine just will never be bloody well straight. How can i ski? Skiing is all about being perfectly balanced and straight and well...um...ye, that's me sitting up straight. (Shows how much work i used to do at college...look at the revision going on...getting people to take pictures of my spine whilst...revising politics...)

And when i get down on myself. I get down on myself. I become extremely frustrated over tiny things and constantly try to change something and "overcome" parts of me. And fail, because you can't overcome how your body "is" yes, you can i suppose go and have an operation...(that sort of goes wrong and paralyses you.) and make things as good and as "normal" as they can be but there are some parts of you that you can never change. And my wonky-ness is one of them.

So this anger and frustration at myself due to having to constantly explain about my spine to different people and trying different things to compensate turned into anxiety...as i was having terrible crashes and was constantly tense from it all. And by the end of February i had back tracked onto a bi-ski, on tether, with no confidence or self belief in my ability whatsoever.

But i carried on because...well, it's what i do. In any challenge in life...i don't give up!

So after many ups and downs i decided to go up to Whistler...i've skied at Whistler before and made great progress there and now i have my own beautiful sit ski...i might as well try and get used to it and a place where i'm pretty comfortable. The best thing about Whistler is the skiing is chilled out...my instructors spend all the time we have going up the gondola or magic carpet or chairlift making sure my head is calm and body is calm so i can ski. And i could see, and my instructors could see how crazy my anxiety is. How loud and noisy and all over the place my brain is (Though some people would call this intelligence) and how it's affecting my skiing and how i was constantly, and i mean constantly getting angry at my spine and trying to somehow make it straight when i turned and then...fall over...

And then it just sort of hit me. Like a painful high side that makes your shoulder pop out...self embracing Miss May? Where's all that stuff gone? All those words about accepting and embracing who you are within the everyday normal concrete and boring laminated floor boarded world we live in. Why don't i just actually now start to practically and physically embrace it when i ski because...i know how to ski. I just need to find my own way. I have my own way, we all have our own way just mine is totally the opposite way to how it should be...but that's ok.

So i did. i thought about bits of my body i know and how they work and feel and what i do...so to go with my ski when i turn right i have to tilt my head a little, when i turn left none at all...and i could ski! I still fall over, i still lose my balance and i still hit the snow with my outrigger but...i've definitely found my own way by not trying to "overcome" anything just by accepting that this is my way and if it looks odd then...get over it, because i have.

And then my lovely favourite bearded boy with a guitar from the south west of England released a single...and it had a b-side song. I'd heard it before, live at the gig i went to in november. He introduced it saying how it was about not being really very good at sport at school and doing things your own way. I was never any good at sport at school but i'm good at my own type of sport in my imaginary school and i most definitely do have my own way of living.

So i guess this song appeared at the right time in the right place and honestly...since my week in Whistler i feel so much happier with myself and who i am as a person. I'm less self conscious, i'm less worried about what people think, and i really love how my mind has calmed down. It's still mad and bright and all over the place but i'm ok and i know what to do when it's going into overdrive.

See...there's this irritating worldly obsession with perfection and things being a certain way and if something is done a different way...then it's wrong. Well my entire life is "adaptive." Everything i do, i do it differently in order to just get stuff done. It's like within the spinal cord injured world...there's lots of us. Some people are obsessed with "walking again" because that is "right" that is how we should be. We should be upright and walk and not use wheels. Some aren't bothered and some...well I'd hate to walk again. It'd freak me out because i'd be so high up and i'd walk funny because of my wonkiness and you know what...i quite enjoy looking at how far i have come in adapting in order to live the way i do. So there's some things we can never have. And some things we can, but we just need to get them in our own way.



So my sit-ski season.
it's been all i've wanted it to be, to be honest.
I don't want to be a racer...i'm an explorer/nosy person/adventurer...and i like the feeling of skiing...it's like riding a bike.
But i've really found how strong i actually am internally and how tough i am externally and on myself.
But now i know...i've got to really physically embrace my physical self, not just think happy thoughts so i can do it all mentally because that can just cause crazy confusion!

So my first season has had crazy ups and downs but lots of laughs and good times and people and millions and trillions of moments i wouldn't even be able to fit into a blog post because they're pricelss and mine and i'll cherish them forever.  So listen to that song...it'll forever remind me of my first season and how being you in every aspect is ok, or just how it is! And if that's not ok then... just go home!

i just like this picture of my dog in my chair...so thought i'd share!

Oh...and i kind of forgot to mention how i lost my ski on the Lion's gate bridge...but we don't need to go into that. ;)

Adam Hills: The last leg of the year

Right. Adam Hill’s last leg of the year is on tonight. I was at the recording and he made an embarrassingly funny joke about my hair on camera…half hoping they’ve edited it out…half hoping i will be on channel 4 dying, having josh stick up for me!

Either way, please watch it. Simply because the last leg, Adam, Alex and Josh have done so much this year to allow the world to realise that well…it is ok! It’s ok to giggle at stuff that’s a bit different, it’s ok to laugh at the team gb rugby guy who’s face landed in his opponent’s lap. It’s ok to have silly stories. It’s ok to punch someone in a wheelchair if they’re a knob. It’s ok to be an Olympian, Paralympian, hairdresser, teacher, dentist, instructor, waiter, petrol station attendant…basically it’s ok to be you. No, it’s great and amazing to be you. And also, this show made me feel that it’s more than ok to be proud to be British. We showed the world that we don’t half know how to put on a show, hold about 5 national parties and get together through a difficult, depressing economic time through smiles, laughter, flag waving and rain, lot’s of it. So…who can say they’re not a superhuman for being true and the best of themselves they can be? Thank you 2012, you allowed us all to do ourselves proud!
If you’re reading this give yourself a pat on the back for ANYTHING you have achieved. It could be something everyone knows about, something no one but you knows about about, it could be anything…!

Much love...and yes, now nanna's gone i can get to work on laura May's last leg of the year. :)

<3 

Be a superhuman.

It’s amazing to see “people overcoming so many barriers!”
-Spectator of the Paralympic marathon, interviewed by BBC news.

I was really struggling to find a way of starting this, but I just found it!

I don’t have hard evidence, stats or figures. But I do experience life every day as a paraplegic. As a human being, I am constantly observing and feeling my own and the world’s perception of myself.

So what?

Well something’s changed.

If that woman was asked 11 days ago what she was most looking forward to seeing during the Paralympics, I have a very strong feeling she would have said something along

the lines of;
“It’ll be amazing to see so many people overcome their disability!”

See the difference?
That’s what the Paralympics have

done.

I’m one of those “disabled people” who is always out and about living, as I want to. My wonky spine and lack of leg movement are a part of me and sometimes they create barriers. And that’s the thing, it’s the barriers I overcome, not my disability; I embrace that.

But I’m just one girl who floats around making people smile and think differently. Yes, the world is my stage but not everybody wants or has tickets to see me.
The Paralympics on the other hand, is a massive stage. And thanks to the last 10 days, now everyone wants a ticket and everyone’s got one!

Ellie Simmonds is now known as a fish in our house. Mum and I have also renamed wheelchair track racing as “caravan racing!” Because when them things go over, they go over! I’m obsessed with wheelchairs and how they work as it is. The technology and in depth analysis and arguing about “them bloody blades!” has been immense.
The Paralympics have sparked thoughts, questions and conversations.

Thankfully, as a ready-response to what our brains and mouths have been doing over these games, a new platform in the form of Adam Hills’ last leg has been there for us.

Watching that show has not only caused me to have yet another public crush on yet another comedian (that smile!), but it’s also allowed all of us to have a laugh, question and just feel the true spirit of the Paralympics and what it’s like to live with a disability.

It’s not bad at all. In fact, it’s great! It’s just living.
You don’t have to pretend, you don’t have to hide. You just have to get out there and be you. You might want to be the next Weir-wolf or you might not. But from watching the Paralympics you most definitely can see that you can:
Embrace who you are.
Overcome the obstacles in front of you.
And most importantly, be whoever you want to be.

Sometimes you have to be the one to take the first step.
The Paralympics wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for one man going against what everyone told him.

Don’t be scared, be absolutely terrified.

Be a superhuman.

Go go go go gerrrrrrd it!

Straight from the heart: Break downs, jobs and directions...

Last night I just broke down in tears. I keep saying I want to go into media, it's not necessarily journalism but I thought I'd take a look at the qualification I've been recommended to go for if I want to...I cried...I couldn't do it, not right now. Everything just overwhelmed me. I want to travel. I'm most happy when I'm wandering around the world discovering places and learning things from that. I'm most unhappy, inside worrying about what I'm going to do to make some money to keep my funds up. That's the truth.
After probably over an hour crying my eyes out over this keyboard Mum came in and found me crying and I just completely opened up, even though I'm open anyway, I'm usually open on a complete high which usually makes Mum quiet and thoughtful looking. She doesn't like to give me praise because so many people give it me and she keeps me grounded but last night it was needed. I was totally at rock bottom.
The problem is, I always get told "you're amazing, so inspirational, you'll go far!" Ok...helpful, go far doing what?
For a while now I've had the words "media" in my brain...actually, it's been there a long time and I know that it is something I want to go into. But I've always been a bit wobbly when It comes to journalism...
For a long time after my injury, as I've probably mentioned, I tried to replace a lot of the things I used to do and things I thought I no longer could do with stuff like writing and academia. For a while that worked but it's got to the point where "writing" has turned into a chore rather than a passion or outlet, like it used to be. Now I'm discovering I can do all the things I loved doing as a kid only in a different more grown up way.
But still...it's there "media"...I looked up the diploma I've been recommended to look at in order to become a journalist. I burst out crying.
I just did, as soon as I read all of the writing involved. I know I'm writing now! But all of the exams...
The truth is. I do love the media. I love investigating, I love and I'm fascinated by the power it has. But I love the talking to people, the presenting over the writing of articles...I think maybe it's presenting I'll go into? I'm not sure. But I don't think it'll be right now. The media training and hopefully possible work I'll be doing with the media thanks to Back Up, during the paralympics will give me the chance to experience different aspects of it. But right now...last night, I knew exactly what made me feel happy doing...

So I told my Mum a story that I've never told anyone before.
It's one of those memories that's always stuck in my head.
I would have been about 10. I was playing on the park as usual, on my bike...and there was this girl (who i still sort of know) in a wheelchair that went to my old school who used to come on the park with her sister and watch us climb and ride bikes. I used to go over and talk to her. This particular day I remember riding over to the river where she was sat and her telling me how she loved looking at the trees and hearing the river through them. I can remember thinking "I wish I could make her feel what we all feel" as in the feeling of adventure and freedom. i didn't really know or understand how I could...but it was was there...whatever it was.
And it's stuck with me through all the stuff I've done over the years. There was a point, a very long point where I thought I'd never be adventurous or travel or do the things I dreamed of and realised I loved when I was little. Like our meandering around Scotland in the summer of 2003.
So this summer at when I group led my first ever Back Up course at Exmoor, helping the under 13s with spinal cord injury jump into kayaks, encouraging them to abseil and get up that climbing wall and all sorts...I realised I could still do it. My odd feeling last year weren't just weird dreams, they were and are actual real ambitions. Right now I am most happiest outdoors, helping people particularly with disabilities do stuff they never thought they'd be able to.
So that's what I want to spend my near future doing.
Yes, It might be a bit different and a bit daring for a girl in a wheelchair herself to do it.
But I've come to realise that you can't live life following someone else's path. You've got to form your own and have the guts and drive to jump out of the box. I'm doing it in a tiny way anyway by not going to university like most people who get AAB at A level. But university...I can't think of anything worse for me. It'd be a cover up, like a lot of things throughout these past 7 years have been, some without me even realising.
So I found out today that the chill factore only half away from my house do adaptive skiing...I've been contacting adaptive ski resorts in Canada and America for volunteer positions in the office so I can spend my spare time learning to ski (as it's something i've never been able to fit in with school) I was getting  a little anxious about that fact that I have no experience and I'd be a total clutz at something, somewhere I want to volunteer at...whereas now, i can hopefully spend the time and less than a quarter of the money I'd spend on a miserable year at university on learning to ski before I actually go out to a resort and even If i am at first volunteering in the office, i could train to be an instructor a lot quicker.
So thanks to the break down of last night. Things are looking up and I know my Mum's behind me in all of  this, she knows it's me. It always has been. Just, I know people get confused sometimes with the way my parents act as they never give me praise, but it's because everyone else does and they don't want to put me on a pedastool or push me in a direction that i may find is wrong for me.
She says I've got guts.
I have.
And that I've got to go for it.
Travel. Be outdoors. Meet people. Help people.
I'll bring it back and in some way I know it'll work.

Straight from the heart...Sometimes, it just gets you!

I was innocently not wearing my glasses…didn’t see the gates of Holy Cross were shut and there were a load of 12/13/14 year old type kids hanging around. I had my earphones in and they’re at that arsey age where it’s all “lol there’s a girl in a wheelchair” (Yep, this is coming from lil’ miss “i don’t have a chip on my shoulder”, but honestly the early teenage years were a nightmare it’s just because everyone’s embarrassed about themselves and each other so a wheelchair makes it even more embarrassing!) Anyway…so I looked like a tit anyway, looking at a gate and then turning around the way I’d come and I saw them staring and sniggering. I swallowed my “whatever it is” and carried on then all of a sudden this little twat on a bike came whizzing behind me screeching trying to made me jump. Because I had my earphones in, at first I didn’t think he’d meant to do it purposely to make me jump, but he turned around laughing thinking he had done. He came riding back straight at me, I was out of breath to have a go, I was pissed off and if I’d have said anything it wouldn’t have got anywhere. So I just gave him a dirty look that he was surprised at. Why? He was about 12 and I could knock him off his bike, punch his lights out and make him cry with the things I could say to him. I don’t get it sometimes. I went to Albany, and I can remember at first, well my first memory of entering the school hall was just like that scene of Harry Potter, but everyone was whispering “It’s that girl, the girl in a wheelchair.” Thing was, when I started High school, no one knew me. No one knew me there before my accident and no one had known me after. I was a completely new, different person both to them and myself and I spent about 2 years struggling and trying to figure how I could ever even attempt to be me. Well, I got there eventually and people accepted me for my mad, loud, annoying personality and wheelchair that they all forgot about once I could accept it. That’s what confuses me in these instances, I still get insecure around people, especially young teenagers who clearly are innocent and just don’t know how to react to someone who’s not attempting to be within the borders of one extreme to the other that teenagers live in. They’d only not react in this way, if people like me were classed as “normal” but no one’s normal…you just have to be you. And that’s one thing that is so hard about being a young teenager, you struggle to “be you” because you don’t necessarily know who “you” are and you’re not sure how everyone else will react…
So that’s why they reacted to me?
I’m not sure I accept the whole able v. disabled thing.
My friends know that.
I think society has passed that stage, and people (which probably is a majority of people) who still see disabled people like me as misfortunate/funny/weird/pathetic only think that due to lack of openness, honesty and education.
So how can I stop this “sniggering?” Well I can’t do it single handedly, and I’m not going to start a march down the bypass…the only way “we” or “you” or whoever, able bodied or wonky with wheels can actually make people aware and think is by going out into the world and being you. Now, i know it’s bloody hard at times. There’s so many obstacles for everyone and there’s things that need improving. As a person with a spinal cord injury, in order to be independent I need the tools, I need the chair, the ramps, the accessible “low down” things…But I can only get it by going out into the world and asking for it and being me, not by hiding away, sitting in doors and shouting about it. I know how sometimes, that’s all you want to do, but it doesn’t work for anyone. I can vividly remember being about 10 (before I was injured) on my bike, leaning on the handlbars and staring into space, feeling alone and lost watching my Mum and Dad doing the garden and my Mum said to me “Don’t sit around, no one will help you and you won’t help yourself sitting in a corner”. Now, I’m not trying to sound like a Tory, and to prove it I’m gonna write hear and shout in a metaphorical way about how people need the financial support and what is happening to DLA is disgusting and without it, people like me won’t be able to live the independent lives we lead because it’s a tool. Sadly, money is a tool that we all need to buy bricks and build a life with. But we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, without just getting out there and being ourselves, whoever we are, wherever we’re from.
One day, that annoying little arse on a bike will see me again, might even be tomorrow, but no, one day he’ll see me and might just see me as another human being exercising…If I decided not to push that route again, because of it his prejudice and insecurity has won.
So…I know where I’ll be tomorrow night!

Time and the shit that sticks to it.

Time and the shit that sticks to it.

When I was little, first day of primary school the teacher; Mrs Angus made us all stand in a line and said “Right, if you want to be a teacher when you grow up, stand over to this side. If you want to be an artist when you grow up, stand over there.”
I didn’t know.
So I stood in the middle.
Grow up?
Is that what I’d come here to do?
I didn’t know. I didn’t get it.
I still don’t.
 I’m still stood in the middle.

It’s like, from the very day we’re born, we get told we’re doing this weird “growing up,” “growing old,” “dying” thing, making ourselves obsessed with our own and everyone else’s age, maturity or lack of it. We spend our childhoods wanting to be older, our teenage years trying to be, our adult years...well, that can vary. And we constantly pick ourselves apart from other humans because they’re “too old” or “look about 12!” or don’t fit into the 4 year threshold that makes befriending someone acceptable.
Why?
Why should a stupid number that gets pinned to our chest and changes every year, define who we are?
It’s not permanent! It’s not a tattoo; it doesn’t need removing with a laser!
Ok, it’s something we can’t change and we can’t run away from, but it’s not who we are.

It’s not that thought, it’s not that idea, it’s not that dream or burning desire within your heart and mind that you will carry with you for your own eternity, or the one you decide not too.
But that’s the thing.
It’s not you.
It’s just a tiny part of the universe attaching itself to you, giving you the means to cling on to this wonky bit of time you find yourself falling into.
It just proves how little you and everyone else who’s alive right now really is. These little moments we hold onto and represent mean nothing, and yet because of this they mean all the more.
It not how much time you appear to beg, steal or borrow. That doesn’t matter. It’s how you choose to spend, indulge into and share something that you just can’t control.
So don’t care how old you, or anyone else is. It doesn’t mean anything.
What matters are the messed up, mixed up desires that turn into ideas that turn into words and actions that make you, your life and anyone who appears in it, true.
Age?
It’s nothing to do with “growing up”, what even is “that” anyway?
Na, It’s just an indication of what you’ve got and the time you have.
But it’s not the shit that sticks to it.
That’s up to you.

So what are you going to do with it?

So this is it. Sort of...(end of A levels rant)

I completed my final A level exam yesterday. Government and Politics...To be honest I'd say it was a bit of  a "wobbly Thursday"...Out of all the exams I've done this summer, it didn't feel like it was my best. But still, they're done now and I can live with the thought that the final words I ever wrote in my last ever A level exam were "Guantanamo Bay."

I got rid of English Literature last month, by resitting my As exam for the SECOND time! Despite beginning this blog with the aspiration to study English at Oxford...this year, I soon realised I was lucky to get rejected from so many places. I loved studying "pastoral genres" but after that...all the coursework and frankly "airy-fairy" essay structure, I discovered my true love (as a subject/passion) is history; political history to be precise. So these final weeks, studying just history and politics have been great!
Why did i choose to apply to study English then?

1. I felt obliged to...(yep, don't do that anymore. It's my life, no one else's)
2. I didn't feel as confident to assert my opinion as i do now.
   
   The truth.

Well...before and after my rejections I soon grew out of those insecurities! I began to hate the false atmosphere of English and that entire department and allowed my love to grow in to a confidence within the intense atmosphere that my own and other people's opinions can create in history! I was no longer scared of not being able to "stand up to the boys" or assert my own opinion...as at the end of term my entire history class voted for me to be named "motor-mouth". That won't come as a surprise to anyone who's ever known me in any situation, particularly history, but this year I found myself not talking complete rubbish because I was nervous...I actually found myself making strong, coherent points that actually made sense!
I'm revealing  a lot about myself here. Though, I suppose by expressing the fact that though I'm confident and daring to try new things and break the mould, on the inside I'm usually extremely nervous and unsure of myself, I'm proving that it's something I'm aware of and I have overcome.
THAT'S WHAT LED ME TO APPLY TO STUDY ENGLISH.
My own uncertainty and ability to appear strong in a classroom where you're not supposed to hold a strong opinion, you're just supposed to "look at things from a different perspective".
Well this year I've learned to look at myself from a different perspective, a real perspective, not marked by anyone else. I started questionin my chosen path last summer, I could take you all to the exact spot and moment. Wearing my "pretty bow-ey dress", next to a pool table, diet irn bru in one hand, the best week of my life behind me and future lifelong friends surrounding me.
My thoughts were,
"English? University straight away? Oxford? all the sitting, thinking, no fun...I've seen so much of the world and myself this week that I can't go back. This was me. This is me."
I did go back.
I had to, and inevitably just like everyone else at Winstanley College, I jumped onto the university bandwagon and made myself into a prospective English Student, all the while knowing deep down that something wasn't right...
I found myself crying and listening to "Who you are" every night in the car coming home...but I told myself I was doing that because, well because I was trying to become who I was.
I wasn't though.
December 16th: Rejected from Warwick
December 23rd: Rejected from Oxford...
...something wasn't right. I didn't want to study English, not at Nottingham, or Queen Mary or Oxford Brookes...i didn't want to study it anywhere...

I needed to take a year out. That was the logical move, that's what everyone else does. They go traveling, they see the world and themselves...I could do that.
Oh wait.
Wheelchair...
I mean, I always said I'd do it...but afterwards, you know, not so soon.
Then I remembered myself, again.
Sat next to that pool table, unable to speak for the lump in my throat, thinking "Is jumping into this English world or words and lardy-dah reviews really me?"
I was a mess this Christmas.
Not because I'd got rejected from Oxford, but because I had nowhere to go.
I didn't know I was going to do, and there was no one to help me...
Just a few teachers telling me I'd get over Oxford...
But Oxford wasn't the problem! It was something else.

It got to the day before New Year's Eve. And if things couldn't get any worse, i'd figured out David Tennant was getting married...talk about reality smacking you in the face.
I logged onto facebook to see if anyone else had written a comment to make me feel better and my mate who's never online was online...I needed a laugh. It worked and his positivity and fact that he was one of the people who made me re-realise me in the summer led me to think..."I can do this."
And so from that misty day of thinking my entire world was over thanks to a stinking university rejection letter, scrabbling at times, i've found myself forming a path, my own one to the real me and what I want to do.
In all honesty I'm still at the beginning, scratching my way out...but that's the point of this. It's always been easy for me to reflect and tell "my story" of how I came such a long way...but I've never really been able to, or wanted to record the times when I am struggling, when I don't know where I'm going and where I'm clinging on to the last remnants of hope, knowing that i've got to keep going...

I'm doing that now.
I've to accept the difficulty of figuring my own way out and not running and hiding for another 3 years because I'm scared of reality.
No, I've got to do this
So i will.

So anyone who reads this, and I doubt anyone will have bothered to get to this point, this isn't an account of some "inspirational girl's" achievements  of being a success.
This is the reality of dreaming, believing and following your heart, with extra hardships and physical obstacles thrown in.

Ending this long ramble in a sub-ironic way...I'll quote a book I studied in English Literature this year, a book about the coming of age; "Oranges are not the only fruit" by Jeanette Winterson. I suppose I was seduced by literature too. The dreams of Fitzgerald's Gatsby, the nostalgic memories of my childhood through pastoral poetry, the strength of Tess Durbeyfield...
I've certainly to some extent, come of age this year...it's not clear. I don't know how or why but I've discovered my strengths, weaknesses and overcome some of them. I've also learned not to be emotionally obliged to people who mean the best but don't always necessarily know it, not for you at least.

I don't necessarily believe in God or demons...but I believe in something saving us and reminding us of who we are. That moment, last summer sat next to the pool table and the day before New Years Eve, before I spoke to my friend, and stormed out of the house, sitting next to a tree and field shouting at my legs to kick and run and feel...there was something in my head and in my heart crying out. It had been shouting for seven years, well now I was ready to listen;

"If I keep you, what will happen?”
"You’ll have a difficult, different time.”
"Is it worth it?”
"That’s up to you.”

 I've chosen to keep it. It was as though I'd tried to suppress "it" through "being clever". I'm still clever, and I think ever since I've let that part of me reappear and evolve into an 18 year old, instead of the 11 year old angry kid standing on a tree branch wanting to break free and demand her right of a childhood back, I've been even more clever, and had the guts to be!

So this, this is me choosing to have a difficult, different time.
This is me choosing to be clever.
This is me choosing to be me, the real me.

“She must find a boat and sail in it. No guarantee of shore. Only a conviction that what she wanted could exist, if she dared to find it.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

Back Up's youth advisory group: Our first event was a success!

Despite the first half of my Easter holidays allowing my head to form a fruitful relationship with a brick wall, the second half settled a quick, clean divorce with this situation.
I found myself driving down to London on Wednesday, the day after watching Steps at the MEN (amazing night!!) to organise and hold a "youth event" a Stanmore spinal unit. I ran this along with Sophie as part of our youth advisory group that we are pioneering for the amazing charity, Back Up. The event was a great success (so we were told, even better? :). It was all for under 18s with a spinal cord injury, their parents and their siblings. There were 4 young people with sci and with all their families it came to about 20 people. It basically turned into a family fun day, we had additional wheelchairs so everyone could have a go at the activities and it was interesting to see how certain siblings were experts…(I think some wheelchair stealing has been going on!)
I went to all the parents and asked for permission to film and take photographs for Back Up and for my extended project. They were all lovely and ok with it but you could tell they were nervous and unsure about their own and their child’s future, let alone the 3 hour event! I later found out that majority of participants were still in hospital with one only having been home for a week...

We started with a presentation about who we are (Jessie J reference ;), what Back Up has done, what Back Up does in general and what the Youth advisory group are aiming to do! As I was speaking I looked at parents and kids faces...I never thought a persons attitude and outlook on life could be physically displayed upon a person's face, until then! (And I've spoke in front of audiences many times, for many years...)
 One parent who I remember being particularly nervous at the beginning was literally bouncing at the end and came over congratulating us, wishing us luck in our A levels as well as saying how she now knew her son would have a good life. I assured her that he would. That was the moment I realised "We'd done good!!!" and a lot of thoughts and a personal realisation of achievement came into my head...

I’d almost forgotten that feeling of thinking you had no future or worth on this planet. That exact feeling of not knowing where you would go or what you would do once you finally got “released”. The feeling of knowing that any expectations your friends, school, Mum, Dad and family had of you had completely fallen out into the enternal universe that is nowhere and it was your job to build them back up and do something...but you couldn't do anything because you had nowhere to go. Feeling trapped. Feeling alone. You feel alone. You feel like no one will ever understand what you're going through and all those that ever say they listen to you, don't really, they just want to feel like they've given a helping hand and done their bit for the day...I want to make sure that I never become that person. If I ever inspire, help or make someone realise they can achieve and be themsleves, I want them to know that I'm not a "do gooder", I'm just a believer. I believe in humanity and the power people have. I believe in myself. I believe in you.

 I’ve experienced that feeling recently, in all honesty. That feeling of being alone with no one quite understanding you, and everyone undermining and assuming that you'll give in sooner or later. Well...I haven't done...and I still don't intend too!  I’m doing what I'm doing and trying to get where I'm going because I want to and i'm be true to the person I am. That all comes from the ten year old girl up a tree, showing the boys who's boss while gobbing off to the headteacher...combined with the 11 year old girl who spend a year in hospital with babies and adults...I've felt the real world for all its harshness..now I'm tasting it. I couldn't cope with another 3 years of a bubble where people are just "talking"...so I'm doing and I'm inpsiring and making people realise they can be who they want to be no matter what life throws at them. I didn't have that help when I was 11, sat in a hospital, waiting for Doctor Who to start with Green Day on my personal CD player...but those families did...and for three hours at least, they got to taste, remember and re-realise how wonderful, though challenging, their lives and future will be.