Because we can

Hello, mid January, with your crop of 'positive' online articles, based on the same as always tired platitudes, that are designed to prop people up in their mid-January slump. Articles along the lines of - this year, the time will be right for you to make that decision you have been putting off, just be patient as good things come to those who wait, don't worry you failed in your New Year's resolutions, everything happens for a reason.

It's just that... (personal opinions ahead).


There is no right time or right place to do anything, there's no such thing as a right person. With our unique human ability to post-rationalise *all* of our choices, I say just go with your gut feeling and if it feels right - go for it. No choice is right or wrong (obviously, unless one option lands you in jail or in a moral conundrum...) and waiting will literally kill you. If you wait for years and years and years... which brings us swiftly to:


The only things that come to those who wait are the things that nobody else wanted. Nothing makes you feel more alive than a change in your life that you have created. So, unless you want to stand still, knee deep in debris and watch every opportunity float by and be grabbed by someone else and then die in a puddle of self pity from sheer boredom - chase what you want when you notice it. Don't let it (him? her?) escape. Just mind hefty penalties for stalking these days.


And nothing happens for a reason. Things just bloody happen, because they do. And with our other unique human ability to create patterns out of chaos of random occurrences - it's fine. If you make sure you're surrounded by people that make you feel good to be you - the things that will happen will make you feel good too. And if anything negative happens - bah. There was no reason for it, so it doesn't matter, right?


So let's make this year a year of spending more time with real friends, chasing these opportunities down when they flash past and not waiting for a mythical 'right time'.  A fun year. 


Who's with me?

Things you don't know you should know about Midlothian countryside...

...until you have lived in Midlothian countryside:

Edinburgh housing is currently ridiculously expensive, so all your neighbours are commuters or retired. So, you are living in a suburb, not a 'conservation village'. You spent a month looking for a stone cottage which is 10 miles from Edinburgh and you are still in suburbia...

Slugs.

Wait, there's one farmer left in the 'village' who mostly makes a living out of renting holiday cottages. To people from Edinburgh. Long term.

Seriously, slugs rule.

All your neighbours have multiple children and dogs and want to converse about said children and dogs. Awkward silence often ensues, due to no reference points with a childless cat person.

Slugs in the sink.

There's no shop in the village but there are pilates classes and toddler groups in the village hall. Priorities etc.

Slug sex parties in the kitchen at 4am.

Drivers casually parking across your BIG WIDE DRIVEWAY filled with RED GRAVEL, who look seriously offended when you almost drive in the back of them trying to turn off the road and into YOUR OWN DRIVEWAY. Apparently kicking their cars is also frowned upon.

Suicidal slugs in the washing machine.

You receive very apologetic phone calls from delivery drivers asking for directions, which they will hopelessly misunderstand, so you end up standing on the main road and waving at white vans quite regularly. So far, no serial killers stopped for me.

Confused slugs on the ceiling.

American tourists trying to convince you that your cottage is a restaurant they booked a meal in and trying to walk past you and into your house.

Baby slugs.

There is no proper wildlife anywhere, all the foxes moved to Edinburgh, all the seagulls moved to the nearest rubbish heap, all the hedgehogs learned to stay away from humans and slugs ate everything else. You can look at sheep.

All in all I think I'm approaching the limit of my slug and being a suburbanite resistance...