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?

Snowdon - We did it!

Becky getting cozy with the crisps!

The weather in Chorley was dire on Friday. I was receiving numerous texts and tweets off people half wishing me luck, half hoping the weather would improve. It didn't.
We packed everything in the car and it was way too full...there wasn't enough room for any erm..."extra refreshments" and Becky was being smothered by two multipacks of crisps and a wheel!

My many wheels then travelled to Snowdon in three parts. My "everyday" chair was in my car, the front wheel of my Mountain chair went in Sandra's car from St Helens and the two main wheels and body went in Matthew's car. For some reason the grey, pessimistic clouds decided to combine with my car rage as we found ourselves stuck in traffic between Widness, Runcorn and over the Welsh border...

It's a good job the inside of my car wasn't being recorded...

After an entire set of Jessie J's "Domino" had been played to try and perk our spirits up and cool my road rage, we finally got moving and had a very "British" moment in Wales, cheering and listening to Andy Murray get through to the Men's final at Wimbledon. Grinning, driving past a "Milk bar" and "Snowdonia Antiques" I said, we'll never forget this guys!
From then on, I knew things would get better.

We weren't the last to get there, allowed my team to finally meet each other, set up a soggy camp and cooked fajitas!

You know you're somewhere with Back Up when you get woken up at 6am by Bazza shouting "MORNING!! GET UP!" to the entire camp site.

I failed to find the accessible showers, so straight away I was feeling very conscious of my fringe...the fact that I was being filmed by Matt O'Donoghue for ITV's Granada reports made me slightly anxious! But now the footage is out and half my extended family, friends and their pets tried contacting me via facebook, twitter and my phone while I was hiding with Becky in Frankie and Benny's, I've realised that we really did do pretty well going up...

ITV Granada Reports report of our Snowdon Assent!

Notice i used the word "assent."
Matt was really tired and took the train down which I think for filming purposes he must now regret it as coming down was fantastic!

For some strange reason my team
decided to test the strength of our
ropes by skipping, while i was
stranded with no front wheels at my
car!

I was most anxious about the dissent as I've always been able to and good at climbing up things...but not so confident or good at getting down again. Also, coming down would mean having to balance and keep myself from falling out over the handle bars...a fear I've always had, like most kids, since I learnt to ride a bike...but with no working stomach muscles, it would be even more challenging!

It was.
I fell out twice near the top but i wasn't scared...more excited and determined to get better at this technique that bizarrely felt like mountain biking.
And I got better.
And I got more confident.
A lot more confident!
The team work just flowed and I know from every day rolling that the key to landing down a kirb, or in this case boulder, is to get down equally. I also got very daring and used to the idea of "driving into the problem" with my rather large front wheel going for all the rocks while my two big wheels either side rolled passed them.
We picked up a lot of speed and I estimate we came down in around 2 hours!
I loved it.
I honestly feel that our greatest achievement was not just reaching the top, but the entire climb both  up and down; adapting, encouraging and laughing all the way with all our little individual goals we reached, some we may not have even realised yet, is what we truly achieved.
PLUS, WE RAISED OVER £2,200 FOR BACK UP, WITH ALL 9 TEAMS RAISING AN ESTIMATED £30K!
This sort of thing is fun to me, so I don't like to write any soppy crap.
That's why I'm proud of my team mates, most especially those who really broke out of their comfort zone and did this because, well you can't say no to me!
 A celebratory drink at the pub and onto the hog roast and beers. Had a laugh with friends old and new and went to bed happy and content knowing that we did it, after  alot of hard work raising money and planning, we did Snowdon!

 

 My amazing team! (friends first though!)

Finally though...who exactly is this onlooker trying to get on TV?

(ignore my face!)

Debating Matters competition: Just a tiny bit of what I learnt this weekend

I always end with a bang.
But I don’t necessarily set off the right firework.

I’m on the train coming back from London, slowly rolling/train-tracking through Northampton. There’s two kids eying up Jenny’s ipad, Andy is engrossed by The Sims and I, for the first time since (without too much exaggeration) this time last year, have technically “nothing to do”.
So I’ve decided to write, free from the distraction of the social media, as there’s no free wi-fi.

I’ve spent my weekend in London at the Wellcome Trust, taking part in The institute of Ideas’ “Debating Matters” competition.
I’ve certainly discovered a lot about myself.

(Other than the fact that anger, free bars and Laura May should not mix!)

Nothing scares me, and I mean that. But certain things that should scare me, anger me and I’ve experienced that this weekend.
 

No one has intended to make me feel this way but what I saw, experienced and realised, did.
Left leaning in my political values and activism, yet real, I have often shrugged my shoulders to comments and opinions, though acknowledging that they’re true, about how there is a section of elite people totally in their own bubble of knowledge that are privileged and born into wealth. These people are perceived to be “naturally better” than me.

I know that everyone I know will say “ye, but we know and you know they aren’t.”
But they think they are.
 

And without openly stating it, those “that matter” in wider society think it too.
To be honest, I should delete that final paragraph...It’s not that they even “think” they are, it’s as though it’s naturally built into them to talk, act, dress and laugh a certain way that immediately alienates a lot of people.
And it’s naturally built into “us” to call them snobs and only associate ourselves with them “to get places” and in turn alienate ourselves from them. This weekend, I’ve really had to challenge them literally, in debate.
And I failed to do so.
 

My passion was there and so was my knowledge. But they way in which I conveyed it and the level as to which I thought the debate was going to take place, wasn’t. The people I was against, along with judges think and act on a totally different level to me. They always have done.

Nothing I’m saying here is ground breaking, I knew this all along, but I only ever really felt it for the first time, properly yesterday.

I acknowledge I’m the most intellectual person in the world, but I don’t necessarily think that’s because I don’t have the ability to be. I think it’s because I’ve grown up in a house where my family have talked, worked and concentrated on real life and didn’t discuss deep, high level intellectual philosophy at the tea table. Instead, they’ve taught me how to argue and reason about the world around me. I’m not calling my parents thick either, what my Mum can’t do with her creative imagination is no one’s business and her talent has been wasted through these exact words on the very day she left school;
“I suppose you better get a job then.”
 

My Dad too, he’s an engineer by trade. Though he’s rubbish at fixing wheelchairs, he can create, build and has had a successful career managing something...(He doesn’t do that now, and when I was a kid I just had the line, “My Dad is a bit of  a boss at Leyland Trucks in the Stores Department”.)

My parents are real and they’ve brought me up to “be real” and a bit clever too. I’ve never been forced to think or do anything. My passion and interest in politics emerged through being intrigued at the age of 3 by the men sat on green benches on the tele, and Mum, Dad and Nanna having to stand in a funny booth that day the man with big glasses lost his job...

Everything else I love, do and want to be is because of me and my parents encouraging me to be me.
Maybe some of the people I experienced at the weekend’s parents’ had the same idea and view but there’s something fundamentally different about them that makes them think and act on a different level. It’s very impressive and scary to witness and these people are the people who have power. Their ideas and ability to argue them are fundamentally important and matter in this world and have made us all who we are...but.

And here’s the but.

I feel a bit like the “middle-woman” I can see and feel the edges of both “types” of mind.
I love people, all people; rich, poor, young, old, clever, dumb and I can see and now feel the separation.
I also don’t belong to “either-type”.
 

I understand and feel the need to work and control mundane, everyday situations and how they matter to us all and make us, “us”. I can also understand and acknowledge the challenging and fundamentally high level discussions about philosophy, history and science that matter to us all and make us, “us”.
But the top seems to forget, though tries to convince itself that it means something to the I dunno, “lower realm”, while the lower seem to know and accept that “them posh lot just don’t get reality.”

Well I’m sat here in the middle, screaming!
Because neither “lot” are prepared to challenge or work with each other and then the barrier, the social class barrier of snobbery and wealth builds up.

The way I am and the way I learn is through applying everything to reality and I now know, from this weekend that I need to find a way of getting my own brain, which I think is capable, of tapping into this high level of intellectual discussion. This is so that I can challenge and work against or with people who think on this level and use it to improve the “real world”, a skill that people who are born into this “high world” might not have.

Take this as a bitter rant because I lost a debate if you will.
But if you’re willing to engage and think like I am, I think you’ll see that though the institute of ideas may not like it, this weekend I was thrown into the deep end of a world I have now twice failed to attempt to become a part of. Though, now I know why. It’s not their fault, it’s not my fault; it’s the way of the world and it’s just given me another tool in my box that will enable me to change it, even if it’s only in a tiny way.

Setting things straight. (14/06/12-16/06/12)

2 year of my life
A level - the paper version

 Thursday (final exam!)
On arriving home from the little celebration Emma and I had at McDonalds, (despite the fact that she still has a sociology exam to do, oh and a general studies resit...that i got 100/100 on...who does that?) I decided that this was it. My fondness and love of history and politics was displayed through the array of notes blu-tacked (that I hoped wouldn't, but has peeled away at some paint).

 I took down all of my Politics, and Modern British History of 1951-64 but I've kept 1964-2007 next to my bed...

British Politics: 1964-2007 - The Laura May version

I quite enjoy waking up to affirm my own opinions with facts, and remember stuff that i need to remember in order to win arguments at the tea table.

Friday:
I had to be up bright, and ready for the breezy day. I had an appointment at the hospital with the dermatologist. Like most people, I've suffered from acne since about the age of ten, probably parallel to developing scoliosis. They got really bad this last academic year, (most probably due to stress surrounding college/life) and I gave in and went to the Doctor. I got referred to the dermatologist in December, he put me on tablets and two sets of cream. My acne has cleared up a treat and now I've been discharged and need to just use the cream!

My now "zit-free" face!
Well...almost, there's still the odd "lurker!"

Triumphantly returning home. I found my "to-do" list and completed it. These past few weeks I have done so well to isolate myself away from the outside world. I'm easily distracted, not because I want to be, but because I don't see "distractions" as "distractions"...more than often, they are actual things that need to be done. Though, this year for a few weeks at least, I had to remind myself that in the context of A levels, they  were very much "distractions."

So I filled in my questionnaire for the media training I'm going to have with Back Up on the 18th July. I answered outstanding emails from the few people who actually email me, I responded to the tasks I'd promised to do for Hannah as a member of the youth advisory group; reading some excellent cartoon scripts to help educate young people on how to deal with the everyday social issues that arise when you obtain a spinal cord injury. If I'd have been shown or had access to something like that at the age of 11, It would have dramatically changed my way of thinking!

Slight detour round a mountain...

Becky attempting to lasso me up Latrigg, while Richard uses
his map as
a loin cloth.

I also counted the rest of the offline sponsorship money we've collected in the past few weeks that will go towards my Snowdon Push (7th July). This again, is in aid of the charity Back Up. Our aim is to raise £2200 and we're currently at £1,294.45...so we're getting there. We've got a quiz night a week on Monday, a few more sponsors from family members and other people's work places. About a month ago now, Emma Reed and I (the loudest people in college) did a sponsored silence for the entire day. I can honestly say that it was one of the most difficult challenges I've ever attempted! We raised about £140 though...I'd much rather climb a mountain any day.
(Snowdon to me = fun)
The weirdest place I've been sponsored though is on top of a tiny mountain; Latrigg near Keswick in the Lake District. I've done that about 4 times, and my friends aren't very experienced in the outdoors so I though it'd be a good day out and might help them realise physically and mentally that they're going to be climbing a mountain in July! As usual, I got spotted. People came over telling me it was "amazing" what i was doing. I wasn't doing anything, they were pushing me! But still...i explained why "I" was doing what "I" was doing and I got a £5 note and a load of coins shoved in my hand!
£12 going in!

Back to Friday...

Completing my "to-do" list apart from "set-up" blog, I sighed in happiness at the corner of my room that's home to my guitars..
My reward. I could finally, selfishly, innocently and without shame pick up my acoustic and play Emmy the Great, Frank Turner and Green Day until midnight without thinking "Shit...revision!!"
So that's what I did, Oh and I wrote that rather long blog post that was very much needed to set the sails.

Saturday:

Ignore the sun, this was a few weeks ago.
(You know, when it was actually sunny?)

The positivity doesn't feel as fresh, the rain and wind are still here and my friends still have exams.
I woke up and got up quite late too, my routine out the way, didn't really get going till 11:30am. I once again embarked upon completing yet another to-do list, emailing links for Snowdon for people that needed me to do so. I also wrote quite a (if i say so myself) professional letter of gratitude to a Rotary Club that gave a substantial donation to our Snowdon fund oh, and there was the free wheel issue...

I snapped my footrest the other week. (Apparently the strongest part of a wheelchair. My wheelchair is also titanium!) So (in a panic a few weeks ago) from college, got in my car, went to da vinci and showed them...
One guy said it would cost me.
Another guy said it wouldn't.
I misunderstood, it did.
They just didn't charge me for the repair that they did.
Embarrassing phone call was made ending with me saying, "Sorry, was only making sure!"
And there was me, going to give them hell.


You're never quite as strong as you sound.

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