My get-up-and-go got up and watched Netflix.

/ Satine11 / Leave a comment

“We get older and we forget. People, they stop doing the things that they love.”

This is a quote from the movie Sex Tape, which I watched last night. Granted, the character was talking about blow. In a movie called Sex Tape. So I won’t be too hasty in using it as a basis for my life philosophy.

But, as horrifying as it is to admit, that one line struck a chord with me. It’s something I think about often. When did we stop doing the things we love?

Seriously, hear me out – think back to when you were fifteen. Think back to when you were ten. What did you do in your free time, when there were more restrictions preventing you from wasting it? I read. I wrote. I danced and sang poorly in musicals. But I loved it.

Let’s focus on that 2nd one – writing. I used to write constantly – journals, short stories, poems. Now look at this blog.Yesterday I renewed the domain name for the 3rd year in a row. I have written three posts. Total. The most expensive blogs posts anyone has ever written.

The tragedy of the quarter life crisis is that you spend half your time thinking about how you need things to change and the other half is split between working in a job you convince yourself you love and Orange is the New Black. You’re so exhausted from work you have no energy left for the things you used to love. TRAGEDY.

So, dear followers (if there are any of you left? Severe abandonment issues notwithstanding), I am asking you to hold me accountable. Read my blog. Share it. In return I promise to do what I love and WRITE – one blog post a week, for the next year. This commitment makes me nervous (I changed year to six months to three months, then called myself some bad names and put it back to a year). But I have a lot of thoughts. And hopefully a couple people willing to listen. And discuss.

On an unrelated note, if anyone has any movie recommendations – I am clearly scrapping the barrel.

Did I not mention the 18-month hiatus? Writers’ strike.

/ Satine11 / Leave a comment

Oh, hello world. Nice to see you again.

I will admit, when logging back into my blog for the first time in “oh, awhile I guess … but like. I’ve been busy. House is on Netflix now.”, motivated by the energy, spirit(s) and the peer pressure of the New Year, not to mention turning Twenty-Fucking-Five (and by “not to mention”, I mean “I intend to write 18 posts on this subject alone”), I did not realize that it would be exactly 18 months, down to the day, since I had written my very first post. A first post that, in all honesty, I’ve very much enjoyed reading again now. I think I captured, for once in my life, quite succinctly how I was feeling. When you have as many feelings as I do (so. many.), expressing them in a way that others understand becomes quite a challenge. So was proud of the post in that respect.

What I disliked about the post? I’m not sure how much things have changed since then. Litmus test: “I hate London.” The first line of my first post. Do I still hate London? Well. I’d say London and I tolerate each other. London is that colleague you have who is nice enough, I guess, but you have little to nothing in common with. You can politely discuss your weekends when you have the misfortune of requiring coffee at the same time, but beyond that, you’re quite happy to let each other co-exist without giving each other must thought.

That’s the nonchalant way of putting it. The truth is, I think I’ve made myself numb to London. Perhaps as a defense mechanism, perhaps as a survival tactic. But the point is, when you’re a naturally emotional and full-of-feels individual, being numb is a very unnatural state. And strangely, it becomes more depressing than being well, depressed.

So. Here I am, 18 months later, still drinking the same shit red wine and still wanting the same thing, really – to be excited and energized by my environment. Just coming at it from a slightly different state. But more on that later.

LT x

London for Introverts

/ Satine11 / Leave a comment

I don’t think you’d be hard-pressed to find people willing to admit that London presents a number of paradoxes.

It’s huge, yet suffocating. Close-knit, but lonely. 8 million people, but impossible to meet anyone. The tourism advertisement just writes itself…

The last one is the one I want to focus on in particular. It’s something that’s really struck me – especially coming from Canada, the land of unlocked doors and apologies.

A few weeks ago, I spent the afternoon in Hyde Park with a group of Canadians, some friends, some strangers. It made me laugh when I ended up making plans to hang out the next day with one of the girls I had just met. INSTAFRIENDS. But that’s how we do – if you like someone, why wouldn’t you be friends with them? Why deal with the year-long acquaintance zone (equivalent of the “we’re just seeing each other” stage perhaps) the Brits seem so comfortable with. To confirm I wasn’t extrapolating too far, I asked a few English friends and they admitted that no, they certainly would not spend solo time with someone they had just met the day before.

But I digress – all that to say London can be really lonely and challenging for introverts, who may find it difficult to connect with people in ideal situations.

Or is it?

I had THE most wonderful day yesterday. I went to Greenwich, perused the market, drank some Horchata, met some market vendors, bought some treasures,enjoyed a Byron milkshake and Nando’s wrap in the sun – all by my lonesome. But it was AMAZING. And that’s when I thought – maybe London is a city for introverts after all. People who can wander by themselves and just take it all in. Notice and experience things in a different way because they use the silences for good. People who can enjoy.

And enjoy I did.

LT x

Confession.

/ Satine11 / 2 Comments

I hate London.

That’s right, I said it!

I want to love it though – and that’s what this blog is about. A young Canadian girl and self-professed London skeptic discovering all the things the Big Smoke has to offer – and hoping to find home along the way.

I moved here in September, fresh off a Master’s degree and the happiest year of my life (lez be real – London didn’t stand a chance), to start a job. I knew from the start London wasn’t my cup of English Breakfast Tea – it’s big, it’s busy and it’s lonely, and I quickly found myself depressed.

Of course, things get worse before they get better. With January came heartache and the end of my long distance relationship, with a man with whom I shared a love that can only be described as desperate.

Here I was, in a city I hated, having to let go of the future I had already imagined and claimed as my own. It wasn’t pretty. You know that glazed look your friends get in their eyes when you bring up something for the zillionth time? Like, say, a breakup? I know that look well. We are very well acquainted.

Many bottles of wine and evenings of Adele on repeat later, I realised I needed to do something. Emphasis on DO – I needed to get out, keep busy and enjoy myself [insert cliché here], whether I wanted to or not. Not only was this vital for me to move on, but also to embrace my new surroundings, despite our rocky start.

So London, here is my olive branch. A skeptic I may be, but one that is open to conversion. Your move.

LT x