I know the question that’s been on all of your minds since February… ‘Where the hell has my weekly dose of The CocoRose gone?’ And I’m sorry that you have all had to go through such a traumatic experience, a loss, a grieving process but not to worry – I’m back (ish).

Now, this may sound like an invigorating come back to the blogging world after my short blogging career however, it’s not. I positively feel like I have lost the knack for this and lost all confidence in my writing. I feel like I’m either gonna offend someone or just write the most mundane boring shit ever – neither of which I want to do. I wrote a longggggggggg blog post in august but didn’t publish it because I just hated it, no matter what I tweaked or tried to improve (which isn’t even my style – normally I just write shit and post it and hope that my ramblings make sense.) Maybe one day I’ll post it cos I reckon I had some relatable points in there but it feels a bit riskyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy as it opens a massive discussion on the education system and I’m not sure if, at the moment, I am in a place where I won’t get flustered and paranoid/ can be arsed with that, so maybe not.

So, where have I been? Throughout Feb/March I went through a highly depressive stage which was crap. It was my 21st birthday, and I thought I should be enjoying myself and felt so much pressure to not be low that I ended up lower than I normally am. It’s just meant to be such a big life event (btw why is this?)  that it all got too much and I totally tapped out of the whole ‘coping’ thing.  My mum organised a fabulous party and I can’t thank her enough for the effort she put in to make it special for me, and because of her it was as special as it could be considering where I was mentally. Then my degree started taking over my life and I didn’t do anything but uni work, or worry about uni work. And then we move into summer and I got lost. I had loads of amazing opportunities performing at festivals and holidays with my boyfriend and one of my best friends but there was always the time looming where all of that was over and for the first time in my life I didn’t have school to go back to when September came around. I still am lost, but I’ve found my way back to here so surely that’s good for something?!

The lost limbo is what I’m gonna call where I’m at at the moment. I’ve graduated (which is insane – I swear I’m not even old enough to start uni let alone be finished with it?) and I don’t know what’s next. I’m working in a pub which is great because 1) MONEY (lol i mean hardly loads of money but enough to enjoy eyyyyy am I right? am I right? *hay bale*) and 2) self worth; there is a reason to put some make up on and get dressed  (ok, I know I shouldn’t depend on make up for confidence etc but I do and whatever – btw how amazing does Alicia Keys look without make up? If I looked like that then I wouldn’t wear make up… hehe… and the award for monumentally missing the point goes to… yours truly). ANYWAY I’m currently trying to sort out some voluntary work at a school with teenagers who have complex needs, and also with adults who have dementia – both using music as a medium to improve wellbeing. I’m also in the final stages of working on my CV with a fabulous recruitment specialist and will start applying for jobs. That sounds vague because it is – applying for which jobs is an answer I do not know yet. So yeah, that’s basically where I’m at. How boring for you to read about. Sorry. Ok it’s official, I’ve lost the knack.

You know when you just feel lame? It doesn’t matter what you do or say you’re just like… you’re a loser. That’s how I feel. For example, I’m having my room painted (fun fact of the day. Guess what colour it is! …. white. Just literally plain white… sorry, boring) and so last night I had to get my clothes out of my room for this morning because all the walls would be wet and if I so much as stuck a toe in that room disaster would strike. So, I got out my comfy baseball jersey and my black jeans. Some would say chav (hmm if we’re being pc, a problematic term), some would say cool (as in trendy, not temperature.. haha sorry I’m being a dick), some would say wannabe (yooooo I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want… ). This is something I have worn multiple times in the past because I’m not VB and I don’t throw away clothes after one wear. But I put it on today and looked in the mirror and thought ‘holy fuck, who do I think I am?’ I was literally so embarrassed to even think that that would look good on me and not like some mum trying to be down with the kids. So I quickly got changed and applied my green colour corrector to disguise the embarrassment shown in my face by my tomato tinge.

Now, something we need to recognise here is not that the outfit suddenly looked different to how it ever had, but that my view on myself has changed. SHOCK HORROR and gasps from the audience. To be honest with you, I don’t really know what to say about this other than it’s annoying and shit. Yes, I feel more insecure about who I am at the moment because I don’t know where this whole graduate thing will take me, which probably (definitely) effects how I feel about my appearance and being comfortable enough in my own skin to wear what I want. Veering off subject briefly but imagine if your own skin wasn’t actually comfortable?! Like you know when you’ve been in the sun for ages and your face feels all tight and annoying… imagine if your whole body felt like that?! How shit would that be?! Like, if you put your arm up your armpit would split from front to back like a tight vagine giving birth. Too much?  Back to the matter at hand… my whole lost limbo lifestyle is having an effect on everything. The way I dress, how I feel in my body, even how I write my blog posts (okay so that’s not everything my life consists of but you get the point). I promise you as I’m writing this I’m thinking ‘Chloe this  is so bad you can’t embarrass yourself by publishing it – it doesn’t even make sense’ but then I’m thinking ‘well if I don’t publish this I’ll never get back into it so you gotta do it some time and just take the embarrassment of this post being crap’. This inner war is intense.

IN THE RED CORNER WE HAVE SELF DOUBT VERSUS OPPONENT IN THE BLUE CORNER, SELF WORTH. So what do we do about this inner war? Heaven (does heaven exist?) only knows (totes had the beginning of John Legend’s ‘heaven’ in my head then). I’m gonna focus on the example of my personal experience with my body – the whole ‘I literally look disgusting’ vs ‘stop being ridiculous, you look great!’ I suppose there is value in the stuff like telling ourselves we are worth while, and what we see in magazines isn’t real life so pay no attention to it, and anyway our looks don’t define who we are – and I believe we should do this but only to an extent. I understand this sounds like I am poo-pooing (lol great term) the idea that someone should feel confident within themselves no matter what and this is not my aim at all. When someone doesn’t do this thing of hating themselves then I truly admire them and any advice they have on achieving this level of self belief is gold dust to me because I’m finding it HARD. The thing I struggle with is that we are functioning (or in my case attempting to function) in a society, or a mindset, that makes us truly believe that we are not good enough in how we look, so why would we believe ourselves when we tell ourselves ‘we are beautiful’ etc?  I know that I shouldn’t generalise and every situation is different, but I think it is important to not invalidate someone’s, or our own, insecurities by saying ‘oh don’t be silly you look amazing.’ I know this is meant as a supportive compliment but in my experience it has a negative effect because it sends messages to the sub conscious that you are stupid for letting the ideas that you are confronted with every day infiltrate your mind, which only lowers self esteem. Instead we shouldn’t feel ashamed to admit that we don’t like the way we look, no matter what we look like to others, because then we can begin to support each other without being accused of being ‘one of those girls’ who supports or gives into the pressure of the ‘bikini body’ idea, and in turn everyone’s insecurities are validated and can then be addressed. (NB: I’m speaking from a female point of view because that’s what I experience but just wanna raise the flag that this is important for everyone despite gender or sex, who experience the pressure of looking ‘right’).  I personally find it hard to not let it overtake my brain and imagine all the tweaks I would make for a perfect ‘bikini body’ (problematic term alert) as I look in the mirror. For me it’s that my bum merges into my thighs and I have cellulite and everything is just a bit too.. hmm what’s the word… fat. Now, before onslaught ensues, I’m not proud to admit that but I’m also not ashamed. It’s human to not manage to have a barrier against all the body bullshit we are fed by photoshop, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to overcome it. I look at other women, some smaller than me, some bigger than me, some a completely different shape, some similar to my shape, and think oh hot damn I wish I could look like that and sometimes am strong enough to have the reality check of ‘Chloe, maybe that’s what you look like to people who don’t only see your insecurities, and chances are they have the same thoughts as you… ever think about that, punk?’ to which I answer ‘yes because I’m thinking about it now, punk.’ (I talk to myself, lame).  Personally, I want to get fit and look after my body by exercising (hello endorphins) and consciously trying to eat fresh foods that don’t make my insides clog up with yellow play dough which is no bad thing. However, I wish to do this with a focus on health, not an instagram pic screen shotted and put as a screensaver for motivation with a tally of how many pounds I loose this week. I know this can be responded to as ‘Chloe you’re just getting caught up in the new fitness craze and you’ll start living off protein shakes’ but like anything, there is a range that sits within the balance of a healthy medium, enabling your body to function in the best way possible, which I believe is the optimum place to be.  It takes a long time and many different possible techniques to truly put these self-loathing thoughts to bed – and I reckon I’m almost half way there on a good day (other days I’m in 12th position before even leaving the start line).

So to conclude, I’m really sorry if this has been the most boring, typical, try hard read of your life and if scientists ever develop a way to time travel, I promise to give you back the five minutes you have spent reading it (would that even be time travel? i dunno). If you’re in the same boat as me and are feeling a bit lost after uni and have ended up hating yourself for it, or maybe you’ve changed jobs or something that’s made you feel part of the lost limbo lunacy then I just want you to know that I feel ya, you are not alone, I am here with you, thought we’re far apart, you’re always in my heart (if you haven’t yet realised these are MJ lyrics then I love that you think I’m spiritual enough to say things like that and get away with it, thank you).

Please comment to let me know what you think I should blog about next because my brain is like the most boring grey you can imagine at the moment… like school jumper grey and I need some inspo. There, I said it.

Peace and penguins

 

xo

 

ps I’ve missed you guys

 

pps sorry this blog was crap