Today I'm giving zero fucks about... starting again
*Click "display images" at the top to see a picture of ME!
**PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT** Zero F*cks will now be doing the rounds fortnightly, not weekly. This is because I am now employed on a full-time basis and I would really rather not get fired for blatantly typing away furiously on my creative writing at my desk. Twice last year was more than enough.
Today I'm giving zero fucks about starting again
This isn't the first newsletter I've written this week. I started another and scrapped it (the title of which I shall withhold, in case I decide to get it out of the bin at a point of low inspiration).
When I realised I didn't like the newsletter I had started enough to finish it and send it out, I despairingly said to my friend Kezia, who was sat next to me, "oh for fuck's sake, I don't like it, I have to start again and now I don't know what to write about" *throws toys out of pram*. Being the wise thing she is, Kezia, firstly, didn't pick up the toys and, secondly, said as calm as you like "why don't you write about that - about starting again". She's a god damn genius (and will be grinning as she reads this).
Don't worry, I'm not going to start churning out the cliches like I'm Dua Lipa churning out the hits. You'll hear no #NewYearNewYou from me - I happen to love myself very much as I am and if I did wake up and was a new me one day I'd probably cry with confusion "hey, what did you do with Jacs?! I was rather fond of her". Instead I would like to focus on one of my types of "starting again"; that is, reinvention.
Ok, so I get it. Reinvention is a lot sexier than starting your newsletter again on a Friday afternoon, or than when in textiles class you'd have to completely unpick something you did because "IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CROSS-STITCH" or realising that your entire tax return is a load of shite because you did 2018-19 instead of 2017-18 (solidarity to all the freelancers out there who are dragging themselves through this, quite frankly ridiculous, ritual we must perform every year - ritual because I feel like I'm doing some stupid dance to the sound of the government's drum beat. Dance fuckers!). And yes, I did spend twenty minutes completing my tax return for the upcoming tax year, only realising when I got to February 2019 and it didn't exist yet.
Reinvention can have many guises - and one of those, yes, is sort of sexy. I'm not talking Madonna reinvention - the sort that leaves us wistfully lusting after the days of cone bras and flaming crucifixes while singing about virgins. The sort I'm talking about is having the balls, the bravery and the vision to take yourself as you are and remould some bits. You are still you but with a few shiny bits. Sexy reinvention, to me, is an entrepreneur pivoting hard and coming up with a new business idea, a transformed professional identity. Then there's reinvention that must always start with a woman getting a lot of her hair cut off. Normally following a horrendous break-up, it's often a bid to regain control, make yourself feel sexier, and to signal a new you. And watch yourself strut down the road with that new haircut - I should know, I did it this year. See below.
Left: last sighting of the bun. Right: evidence of one of the best decisions of my life
I suppose my haircut does symbolise reinvention and starting again, though the two were not contingent on one another. I would say there's nothing exhilarating, alluring or impressive about mine - actually the haircut is all three things (I'm really feeling myself with it), but the circumstances surrounding it aren't. This year my reinvention came around the same time as my haircut but most other years it has accompanied no such thing. No littering the hairdresser floor with my hair, but a whole lot of change. It's sort of a whirlwind - and often more for the people I'm close to in my life than myself.
I'll always remember what my friend Karlia says to me every time I recover from a period of mental ill-health: "god Jacs, you always come back guns blazing, your success makes us look like underachievers". To be fair, things I have achieved in the period immediately after recovering from depression over the past six years:
appeared on the news on TV
appeared on the news on TV again (after a bottle of wine and MET JON SNOW)
helped lead a feminist campaign and was written about in most national print newspapers
launched a feminist literary magazine in 9 weeks, which then became my business
stood as a candidate for the GLA for the Women's Equality Party
spoke in front of thousands on stage at Wembley Stadium with Princess bloody Eugene
I suppose I can see what she means. But I see myself as having an unfair advantage when it comes to achieving things that, though I don't think are markers of success per se, make people think "that Jacs, she's getting some cool shit done". If you've ever been depressed for any length of time, the distance you've climbed from being lower than at the bottom of a deep, dark pit is so monumental that the feeling of exhilaration and energy it brings is probably akin to if you were to be micro-dosing MDMA on the reg. It's like sleeping for a thousand years and having never-ending stores of energy. Everything is exciting, everything is cool, everything is interesting, everything seems possible. There is no room for negativity because really nothing is as shit as sitting on a sofa every day and watching day time TV that you can't bloody stand (apart from Holly Willoughby - I'll watch her for as long as is possible and it's a shame that This Morning is only on for 2 hours and Eamon and Ruth take over on a Friday). And, really, it's easy when there is very little choice. I've lost jobs and careers, lost my home and my flat and lost friends. The only way is up, baby.
But my unfair advantage aside, what have I learnt from my ability to reinvent myself? From literary entrepreneur to political candidate to woman in tech to writer to campaigner. I've learnt many things. Briefly: that running out of steam is real, that feeling like you don't know what the fuck you're doing is even realer, that people will think you're a bit nuts and some people will question your staying power when you thought they'd have your back, and that overwhelm can creep up on you silently and dangerously.
But my biggest lesson is this: it's never too late to start again.
I met a girl at an event once and I'm going to share the name of the event with you because it's fucking hilarious. I met a girl at a Lesbians Who Tech event once. She was called Phoebe. She told me that she had been working as a lawyer in a big City law firm, but found it soulless and unsatisfying. So that year she'd signed up to an online coding course and taught herself coding. She then applied for software developer roles. She is now a computer programmer.
I adored that story. The control it demonstrated. The self-determination. The freedom to pick where you'd like to be and choose the path you want to go down to get there. When I look at Phoebe's example, I feel all sorts of tingles about life. I see expanded horizons. I view the world through a different, more exciting lens. I pay attention more because who knows where and when inspiration and opportunities might spring forth. Everything could be the stimulus that takes your mind in a certain direction and catapults you into your best and most life-changing idea yet.
Phoebe wasn't especially young, nor was she especially old. But she was at a point in life, with a very credible career path laid out before her in law, where I'm sure people would have thought that starting over like that was inadvisable. Or to put it another way - fucking stupid. But I know for a fact that Phoebe adores her work now. It's changed her life. Most people wouldn't even consider doing what she did because of the age old belief that we should "have our shit together" from the earliest of ages. Since even sixth form I've found myself and my peers saying sentences structured like so: "I don't even know what I'm going to [insert activity] when I [insert time period when you feel you should know by] yet". E.g. "I don't even know what I want to do when I leave uni yet", aged 18. "I don't even know if I want to have kids in the next five years - or even at all", aged 25. "I don't even know what colour scheme I want at my wedding yet", aged 26 and single. We feel like there's only one bus to catch that can take us to where we're supposed to get to (which, I'd like to say as I've said in other ZFs: who even knows where the fuck that is) and if we don't jump on at 18, there's no other bus stops. Life simply isn't a hale and ride.
When I lost my business immediately after seven months of horrible depression, I thought my career prospects had shrivelled up and died along with any CV continuity, any chance of employer references (my co-founder and I stopped talking) and my confidence. When I left my corporate job after two and a half years, aged 26, to join On Purpose, a leadership programme for future leaders of the social enterprise space, I worried that decisions like that set your life direction in stone. I wondered if I'd made a terrible mistake. But the fact is that though our lives are a continuum, they by no means need to be uniform. And in fact, every time I've started again - emerged from a deep, dark hole and said "hey look, it's the new me - same same, but different" - I've found more joy and sense of achievement than ever before. It is not a zero sum game - by starting over, we do not lose all that has come before. We don't wipe the slate clean. We merely grow. And when is it ever too late to grow? I hope life is one continual growth journey.
And so to my latest "reinvention". I was depressed and out of work for ten months in 2017 and 2018. At times I could barely leave the house - and so I didn't. But this time, when I "came back" I guess there was a little bit of reinvention going on - but no where near as much as previous years. Yes, there was the haircut. But other than that, this time has felt like a soft slipping back into life, much like sliding under the covers at night. Admittedly, there has been months of waking up every day and thinking "fucking hell yes, I'm well, life is amazing and I'm so excited for the day" which has lent itself to starting three blog series on Medium, launching a newsletter, starting an instagram account on depression, signing up two my first two triathlons and teaching myself to swim properly. But, believe it or not, this iteration of Jacs is starting again by taking a step back. She's getting the basics of life right this time. She's tuning into herself and noticing when things don't feel right and investing in her relationships with friends and family. Basically, she's doing shit that makes her feel good and grounded and mentally healthy.
And I think that might just be my sexiest reinvention yet.
Fan-Girling
Dolly Alderton and I have a dysfunctional relationship. Well, she doesn't know who the hell I am (though we have emailed and DM'ed) so it's probably more accurate to say that I have a pretty fucked up relationship with this journalist I've never met. Still, it's a fairly intimate relationship, purely by virtue of the fact that I feel like I "found her" before others (probably untrue). I signed up to Dolly Mail, her newsletter, early. I felt a personal affinity with her when she wrote her piece about growing up in the north west London suburbs of Stanmore, being a girl who grew up in the north London suburbs myself. Then, when the newsletter got binned because she had launched a podcast - The High Low - I was sure I was one of the first to proper fan-girl it. I later learnt that she had for many months run a podcast with her High Low co-host, Pandora Sykes, and I hadn't known about it at all. I was basically the worst fan ever. Perhaps that's when the Dolly love started to dwindle a little. Plus, I wasn't sure if my love for her matched her super-fans because, well, The High Low was starting to get on my nerves. I feel guilty enough about my middle class white privilege as it is so could do without my listening material reinforcing that. But there is no getting away from the fact that The High Low is two extremely middle class, white hosts, who went to private schools and with more than a little Chelsea inflection to their voices, discussing all things popular culture within their very tiny frame of reference. Which basically comprises The Guardian, thought pieces by Will Self and Love Island (and not in irony).
So Dolly and I went on a break. I stopped listening to The High Low. I wasn't even very excited to read her Sunday Times Style magazine weekly column when she landed that gig. I was, of course, extremely happy for her and proud of her; when you've had a bond like Dolly and I, that doesn't just disappear. But when her book - Everything I Know About Love - came out, I didn't even rush to buy it. In fact, I didn't buy it at all for a long time. When I saw it going for half price in Waterstones the other week and I found myself taking it over to the cashier, I did feel a little ripple of glee though. It was like coming back to an old lover and not telling anyone. Move on, they'd say. But I couldn't.
I can't remember the last time I read anything with as much fervour as I am doing Dolly's memoir, written aged 30. I've laughed, I've (almost) cried (I'm not a laugh out loud-er or crier at books). But, mostly, I've been surprised. Relating to my opening piece, I always thought that Dolly had her shit together; she jumped on the life bus at the correct place and has remained on it ever since: first stop Times column, next stop award-winning podcast, final destination Caitlin Moran-esque fame and respect. Except, my dear Dolly was a really pretty fucked up youth, turns out. Not in the way that she came from terrible, or even humble, beginnings - far from it. But in that she sort of ran from one dramatic catastrophe to another, dulling the undesirable symptoms with booze and sex with men she barely knew. She could open up more freely to a guy she had a fling with in New York than her best friends of years. She was, as we all are, a broken and imperfect human being but in a visceral, palpable way that most of us choose not to indulge in cos it's terrifying.
In short, I love this book and I highly recommend it.
Ear-Worming
It's just Miley. And her lilting, husky, country tones.
Nothing Breaks Like A Heart (feat. Mark Ronson)
FYI - it's supposed to be "feat. Miley Cyrus" but I'm sick of men getting all the credit (even if he did write it).
Scribbling
I didn't write anything in the past two weeks and I can't quite believe it. Turns out having a job consumes all one's time. And, yes, I realise I sound ridiculous stating the obvious but when you've been unemployed for months and your creative output has been through the roof, you start to believe that that is just the way of things. It is not. You've just got a lot of time on your hands.
The good news is that I'm writing this on the plane to Tel Aviv where I have promised myself that I will RELAX, READ & WRITE; the 3 Rs (phonetically speaking).
Tweeting
Click to view with sound (it's a must).
The Ladder (you know, the one that us women like to extend to other women because we want to see them climb)
A bit of promo for an upcoming event. I am a member of the Hub Dot team. Hub Dot hosts events where humans connect on a deeper level. It's not about your job, but about your story, and people connect beyond labels and superficial markers and on an authentic and real level instead. The night revolves around stories as attendees are encouraged to ask "what's your story?" (rather than "what do you do?") and storytellers take to the stage throughout the evening to share their one minute stories on anything they'd like. But they leave the stage having left a small part of themselves with the audience.
7th Feb sees Hub Dot's "Making the world a better place" 6th Anniversary take over Anthropologie, King's Road (dahling). What's more you get a 15% discount off everything in store which makes their stuff an almost reasonable price because it's all so bloody expensive in the first place. Tickets are £19. I'll be there helping on the night with my Mum and about three friends in tow. If you're going to come along, let me know and I'll be sure to make some good introductions.
Get your tickets here.
QOTD (like OOTD but more quote-y)
Mary Oliver, poet, died last week. Let this mean what you want it to mean, but to me it is about recovery.
That's What She Said
This exchange followed "MATE IT'S A BANGER!!!" and an appreciation of my use of the word "nebulous" last ZFs 😊 And I'd like to say I use "babe(s)" ironically but I just don't anymore.
Like what you've just read? Pass this on to a woman or man who gives so few fucks that they couldn't even give a fuck that this is now only coming out fortnightly; they barely bother to open them anyway.