This took a turn...

I’ve been doing a lot of going round in circles lately. Dabbling in the sludgy grey puddles of the infamous ‘coulda woulda shoulda’. And at the end of the road...I found nothing but a cul-de-sac.

Let’s talk about retrospect, and how everything seems better in it. When we look back on experiences, people, situations, they’re built up up to be superior than they actually are.

It’s far too easy and even more dangerous but completely inevitable to romanticise something which actually carried a modest amount of flaws.

We want what we can’t have, and what we can’t have is so much more attractive than what is easy to gain. #LaChasse #FuckLaChasse

Maybe I shouldn’t use the inclusive ‘we’ (I’m sure most of you reading this are far more sane than I) but I am almost certain that I’m not the only one guilty of this. Yearning after the past, even if it wasn’t that great to begin with, subconsciously knowing this to be true but we lust over it anyway, it’s nothing but self-torture. Be it a dress we lost, a university that we didn’t get into, a boy/girl with whom it didn’t work out. IT. WILL. BE. FINE…

…PROBABLY…!

Satisfaction then becomes impossible. 

Before moving to Paris, my life was a series of a lot of unanswered questions, personal and not, so I was counting on to moving away to my favourite city as an answer to my problems, an escapist attitude to what I was leaving behind. Luckily, I did get the internship I wanted here, and my first choice university, and it seemed like everything was falling into place. 

So why did I/do I still feel so lost/vulnerable? I had it in my mind, that by coming here, everything would melt into place, seamlessly. But that’s not real life, that’s only the limited vision I had before actually experiencing moving away. The “crisis” so to speak, stems from the fact that on a superficial note I have nothing to aim for at the moment and I am in a strange sort of ‘gap’, of having everything I want but still feeling…

I can’t explain it.

I don’t have to explain it.

Maybe it is because we have stopped being human beings, and have evolved into human ‘doings’. No one ever just ‘exists’. What does that even mean, to just, and only ‘exist’? I don’t think its possible. 

(Dear Diary…)I remember, I moved here on January 1^st, having packed until 4am that same morning which my Eurostar was scheduled to leave at 1pm, (putaaaaain). There I was at St Pancras international with two huge suitcases (I did not need to pack 6 coats but I won’t admit it and I’ll wear them all anyway just for my own pride and dignity), I was nervous, slightly scared, immensely excited. A couple of hours later I was at Gare du Nord, it was freezing, it seems as though I had forgotten how to speak French, and my uber went to the wrong street. I wanted to cry. #firstworldproblems but also it's all #relative. 

I underestimated just how much of a leap I had just taken. All I had dreamt of for so long was living out my fantasy life in Paris, working in fashion, drinking gin and tonics on pavement cafes with a cigarette just for decoration, and my fur coat. That’s a great photograph to take, I’m sure of it. Then I realised I am not one of Degas’ muses, I will actually have to live a real life here, and I didn’t at all think about that. 

I am having a magical time here, there are moments of complete heart eyes, watching a sunset on the Seine being one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, or having a fresh orange juice and coffee on a sunny morning and watching the beautiful people of Paris take over the cobble stone streets, or meeting complete strangers and making friends or just conversation, reading in Abbesses from the top of the Sacre Coeur with a view of the whole city moulding into a digital age Amélie Poulain. 

It is a city that would make falling in love so very easy.

Instagram is a great way to convince oneself and others that they are living the life of their fantasies. Something a friend of mine said the other day made me think of this, she said ‘if you don’t want to double text, just delete the conversation and start a fresh’. Basically saying that what you can’t see doesn’t exist. This made me think of how when we post photos of us having a great time, no one really knows what went into that, how much is being concealed. 

I was talking to a friend who spent Christmas in New York and their Instagram made them look like they were having the time of their life, but actually they said the trip wasn’t at all that fun, they felt ill and were having relationship problems, but of course they couldn’t publish that online, and why would they. The idea of “Christmas in New York” already sounds dreamy, but they are just words and ideas we are idealising from the connotations they foresee.  If you think about it, you’re creating an identity, and you are free to create the image of the person you want to be, not necessarily the person you are.

We have a complex that our online profiles must be the very best version of ourselves: it’s a vicious competition, survival of the fittest. *cough TINDER* the brutal, online selective breeding process based on looks, (mainly) (possibly universities/schools if you’re an elitist snob). 

Another example of how instagram is ruining our authenticity: I know someone who was supposed to travel to X but then changed their mind last minute, however still posted a photo pretending they were in X, for the world to think they were. I leave judgement up to you, but I want to know what makes being in X cooler than not? Of course, for the sake of make believe, and everything with which Hollywood and her side chick, the Media, feeds (manipulates) us with, we are conditioned to believe that our lives have to look remarkable to the rest of the world. It forms an intrigue, and we are all somewhat intrigued by intrigue. Frankly, it frightens me how much we care about our online reputation, (even though I have succumbed to the devils of social media). That’s why I wanted to make this blog, and why I called it ‘uncensored rhapsodies’, a thesaurus aided, posh version of ‘basically no bullshit’.

I am a culprit of idealizing my life on social media. Most of us are.  I would never lie, but my Instagram is no doubt a fabrication. It is a lot of who I am on a surface level of course and I try to be as authentic as possible and as much myself as possible, but it’s still a premeditated version of my life. Much like fashion, social media is exciting, fast, always changing. It does keep you awake but suffocates you at the same time.

It is so hard… or even impossible, to look at something, objectively, without jumping to conclusions. Something always relates or makes us think of something else, we create stories in our heads from assumptions that we make. For example, a red rose is immediately linked to love or the romantic. As is a yellow rose to friendship. Who created these identities from something which is merely a flower? Maybe I’m over analyzing Instagram, arguably a trivial platform; but I have definitely scrolled through my feed, seen a photo of someone somewhere looking insanely cool by superficial conventions, with no idea of how much effort or editing or retaking this photo took to achieve its ready-to-be published finality. I think if something is too posed it loses its edge and authenticity and the ‘je ne sais quoi’ we are all obsessed by. Subtle nuances are so attractive. 

The point I’m trying to make is how social medias are just ego boosters, (arguably) healthy alternatives to anti depressants, showing the world that one is apparently enjoying their life. It’s an addiction. A competition. Social media is like heroin, once you’re hooked, it’s almost impossible to quit.

The other day I was sat in a pavement café in Montmartre, with a café noir and my laptop, writing. I dressed for the occasion, even though I was alone. I wore bright red lipstick for myself, and to be deliberately seen by myself. There is a luxury to being alone. Everything is what you make it. Right? There is a glamour to the solitary. Having said this, and while I self admittedly felt cool by standards of cool, I felt really homesick that day, and I romanticised my sadness by playing it off as a lonely glamour, a self-reflection. I would have rather have made something of my state, transformed how I felt into something, made the most of it in some sense. 

It is all about perspective, choose to see things the way you want to.

Right now, I’m basing my decisions and choices, small or large, on what I want, need, and desire without the underlying notion of what anyone else wants, or what would impress them. Its liberating. Do we all yearn for companionship? It is part of the human condition? Or is being alone a declaration of the ultimate freedom and power?

I am being forced to become more aware of the way I think, and react. It’s quite cool to understand yourself, (and realise that you’re even more complicated than you originally thought). I’m not trying to be a twat on my clichéd gap year saying I’m rediscovering myself in Paris, but maybe, despite however generic, I actually am and I just happen to be in Paris? It happened to Romy Schneider, so why can’t it happen to me? It is so easy, almost too easy to base your decisions (consciously or not), on other people and what they would prefer, and this makes you lose a piece of yourself.

Respect yourself enough to realise you should stop trying to change your appearance to someone elses or society’s liking, if they don’t accept you for who you are… they know where to go. 

Don’t doubt yourself. I’ve realised theres no point. 

Maybe I’ll post something light hearted soon, or maybe I’m too good for that. 

Not sure, we’ll see.

A tout ;) x