Twenty-five
Today I’ve woken up feeling unregulated as hell. Since coming back from Cambridge, I’ve slept like shit. The nightmares I’ve had these past few nights have been especially visceral and disturbing. It feels insulting to wake more tired than one felt before sleeping!
A week ago, I somehow managed to evade the ghastly jet lag that so often haunts me after travel. When I returned from Cali last Oct, it took a solid month before my sleep settled back to normality. So it’s safe to assume I was expecting the worst coming back from Sydney, with an even larger time difference!
As I’m sure you can imagine, it came as a great surprise to me when I fell asleep at 7pm on the dot, my first night home. My internal body clock returned to London time with such patriotic dedication, attesting to how much I missed my dear city and the wonderful things that surround me here.
My first week back was painted as if from a fairytale book. The sun shone every day of the week, it was warm enough for spaghetti-strap dresses, bare legs and heels with no socks! I spent time in Cambridge, sunning myself like a cat on the grass by the punting boats, hearing a replay of facts from these boat tours, that ranged from interesting snippets of history to recycled opinions and half-truths.
Cambridge is a place I’ve found to be full of whimsy, something I most appreciate. One of my favourite things to note is the sculptural motif of a “Yale” used to decorate just about every building within the campus. The Yale is a mythical, goat-adjacent creature from European folklore! They are embellished everywhere, a heraldic emblem of one of the university’s benefactors, Lady Beaufort. I had wondered what all the glorious “goats” represented, until I happened to hear one of the (few) factually competent punters mention them in passing.
I am, of course, a London girl at heart, and being abroad —halfway around the world, no less— certainly instilled a real longing for homecoming. However, I began to feel at home in Cambridge after just a couple of days spent stumbling with glee in my heels over cobblestones and curbs, brushing off grass impressions left on the back of my thighs and provocatively draping myself about the place like a French girl in a painting.
Yesterday, despite being back in London the sun was still shining, and I had a magic time visiting the Tracey Emin exhibition with one of my closest friends. The exhibition was brutal and confessional— just how I like my art. I’ve always loved Tracey Emin, having had a few of her illustrations tattooed on me all the way back six years ago; they were actually some of my first tattoos.
And yet, I hadn’t quite realised how intense the exhibition would be— I now see I had only known a watered-down version of her story. The reality of what she went through was so cutting. I do recommend you go see it for yourself, it’s on at the Tate modern until August.
And of course, towards the end of the exhibition was what is, to me, her most famous work: My Bed, in all its disgusting glory. Her bed, surrounded by a sea of litter; old Marlboro Gold packets, tampon applicators, used condoms, fag butts, and scraps. Such a sea of personal, feminine misery. I’m a really big fan of shrines. Most particularly the ones that pop up on European roadsides when someone is hit by a car. Little miniature churches, build like a bird box, to house often cigarettes, flowers, money and photos…
Her bed is certainly an altar to herself, and her suffering. I like to think our bedrooms are our own personal shrines. In some respects, the messier the better. Though in practice, no one wants to wade through a sea of used, unsanitary items before getting into bed. And yet, it takes on such a strange beauty when presented under a spotlight.
We then sat on the private members roof terrace, my friend; a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. A true portrait of deliciousness. Moments like those, I lament the fact that I do not smoke anymore, or enjoy the taste of wine.
I swallowed half an ambien last night, though as stated, I’ve been sleeping terribly. Today I woke up feeling so burnt out that my attempts of salvaging my plans for the day were laughable at best. I was supposed to visit the new Banksy sculpture that’s popped up on Pall Mall, then hop and skip my way to Tiffany’s on Bond Street to drop off my beloved diamond ring to be mended (I lost a diamond!!) I moped in bed all morning, feeling paralysed and hungry until about 2:30pm, when the knock of the Deliveroo driver bringing me six gourmet vegan doughnuts finally roused me. I ate two: one filled with rhubarb jam, smothered in green matcha icing, and then a classic cinnamon swirl. Before swallowing a dex with a sip of water.
I haven’t taken dex in at least a couple of months. The last time I took my prescription speed, I completely spazzed out midway through reorganising my room. My thoughts ran away with the fairies, as they so often do, and I became deliriously paranoid! Nothing a couple of Klonopins couldn’t quell by morning, but all the same, it wasn’t a great experience. That’s the trouble with stimulants, when I take them it’s like playing a game of Russian roulette with my body chemistry. When they work, they really work, and I question why I don’t take them every day as I’m prescribed to do. But whenever I have a bad experience, I’m seriously turned off.
I can feel their familiar tingles now.
I woke up with a stomach ache; I do hope the doughnuts and speed don’t make it worse. I think completely unsarcasgically.
If you want to know what the inside of my head sounds like at the moment, it’s Wet Leg’s album Moisturiser. It came out around this time last year, and though I consumed it all through summer ’25, it’s back in my regular rotation on Spotify. Every song has lyrics so particularly specific to memories I am creating in real time, that I can’t help but crave listening to them. Their songs are sticky like honey, textured with sweet sleaze and deadpan humour. Also for no tangible reason, the lead singer girl reminds me of Dasha from Redscare. Perhaps it’s the resting bitch face?
It is miserably, much colder today. I’m looking out my bedroom window now, and the sky is colourless, milky grey, like my elderly dog’s eye’s. Very uninspiring. For the first time in weeks, I am cold. My arms resting on top of my duvet as I write, periodically prickling with goosebumps!
After giving notice, and being reassured that I could take holiday and keep my job, I lost my job. In the most confusing, situationship-like way imaginable, over WhatsApp. Not very professional. None of my coworkers were told I wouldn’t be coming back either; I know this because one texted to ask if I’d be working, and another said they hadn’t heard the news! I suppose I was simply replaced, phased out.
I don’t really mind, because rather serendipitously I have other priorities right now, so work doesn’t feel like the right place to focus my energy anyway. But still, considering how beloved that job was to me —and for all the anxiety it caused— it was also a wonderful distraction and a giver of purpose at a time when I felt a little sad and lost. I suppose now I have a new purpose to prioritise. In that sense, I can almost see losing my job as a gift. It’s just a shame to feel so disposable when I know I was a real asset to their team. This is very much a “their loss” situation though.
Some of my last days in Australia were spent celebrating my 25th birthday. Jesus— “a quarter of a century!” I’ve been reminded ever since. Last year, turning 24 felt like an assault on my youth. I was deeply resistant to “getting older”, to the point of refusing to acknowledge it. This year, though, turning 25 felt entirely different. I think I’ve come to terms with a lot about myself and my life. Where once I felt insecurity, even inadequacy at times, I now feel a genuine sense of pride and privilege.
I am incredibly privileged, though my health has often been the source of my deepest insecurities and unhappiness, it feels ungrateful not to recognise the abundance of love, security and beauty I do have. For one, I have the ability to build the most meaningful relationships with family, friends and partners. These relationships matter to me more than anything else. Truly, as much as I love my diamonds and spending someone’s monthly food shop on a vintage Barbie doll from 1962, I am not materialistic— not really. Perhaps on the outside I may appear to be. The way I dress garners attention, and it’s not cheap to look this good! But, the reason I love buying beautiful objects, such as handbags and shoes, is because I see them as individual moments of art and beauty. I splash cash out of devotion and appreciation for such things, it’s all very emotional for me. I don’t buy things just because; everything is imbued with meaning. Inanimate objects have personalities of their own that I pick up on.
Not to sound utterly pretentious and ridiculous(!!)
Do share thoughts in the comments, it always makes my day lol