control

Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like life is a constant struggle.

Especially now. Now that I can't eat, smoke or drink anything nice anymore.

Fuck being 30. Fuck having to be so controlled and grown up and boring.

Yes, we are all struggling with the same shit at the same time, but sometimes I feel pretty alone in my own struggles.

Struggles can be big and small, but all add up to one thing: where the fuck is the fun anymore?

Let's take Saturday as a random example of all the aforementioned struggles coming to the fore in one big epi-centre of cluster fuckery.

I am on a lifelong 'diet' plan
Which means, in order to eat a hamburger out with friends on Saturday night, I had to eat salad for a whole day beforehand. In pennance.

When it actually came to sitting down and eating the fuck out of the burger, it wasn't that great. I'd built it up in my head to this amazeballs heroin-infused piece of wankworthy meat betwixt a bun - I couldn't even finish the fucking thing.

My stomach has shrunk.

So struggle at top of mind: my new relationship with food. I stare at food. I read about food. I remember the good times we had. The tempestuous love affair I had with bangers; the way I made love to my food. A wonton, passionate affair that made me rotund.

Gah.

Now we have a civil, platonic relationship based on need and need alone. I eat to survive and be healthy. I fantastise about it, but yet, we only have a fleeting glance at each other. And that glance comprises a salad without the Caesar dressing.

I'm not only eating healthily to be thin. I'm eating healthily to be cancer-free. To look after my body.

I have a cat and mouse food struggle in my head pretty much all the time.
This weekend was the worst.

Smoking

Remember that old chestnut? The reason I'm on a diet to START with is because I quit smoking.
So my new relationship with food can actually be blamed - largely - on smoking.

I have been a non-smoker for 3 months. And the thought of ballooning like I have before is not an option.

So this complex fixation with food starts with not smoking. Instead of fixating on nicotine, I've shifted to fixate on food. It seems healthier and easier.

It's all a bit complex isn't it.

Drunk holes
Dude. It's been a while since I went to a proper drunk hole. Why? Refer to the above. When you drink, you want to eat and smoke. Oh and I'm 30 - I can't hold my drink anymore.
We went to a birthday party in a rowdy drunk hole in Putney on Saturday.

To be fair, I was super excited. It's been a while. I saved my points for a few cosmopolitans, dressed up and did my hair.

For about 5.3 seconds, I was excited to be in a heaving, loud establishment.
Where skirts are short and drinks are tall.

Then someone spilt a drink on me. Then someone spilt my cosmo down the back of the Brit. Then someone shouted at me for trying to get past them. Then someone farted.

Dude.

Crowd farting is rank.

Then everyone got really lairy, and were pushing past, groping us, and falling on us.

Dude. We stood at the bar for 8 hours just to get served again.

I can pay someone to queue for me now. And I bloody well should be doing that.

so that was a struggle. Sure, we got drunk and it was ok, but this is not my idea of a great time.

A great time is having a table, a padded chair, champagne being chilled on ice, good music, and not being jostled.

Christ. I am old.

Domestic struggles and sundry

The rest can be rolled up into one. The house needs cleaning. Where do I get the time?

My guinea pig has lice. Fuck. Needs to go to the vet. Where do I get the time?

I need to see Eastern Europe before my Schengen runs out. Where do I get the time?

I should be doing more in London. Seeing more people. Seeing more things. Where do I get the time?

All my friends are having babies, I lean between mild panic and wanting to ditch my career and backpack around the world for the rest of my life.

Do I want children? Yes. No. Maybe. Yes! No. What if I say no and regret it later?

Ah fuck. my pile has flared up again.

And yet..
I'm incredibly lucky to even HAVE these choices. While I am still relatively young.