Diving into my late twenties....

Reader, it is my birthday next week. I am about to slip into the second half of my twenties. My friends assure me that you are only in your late twenties when you hit 28, but even so, it's a little bit of a shock given I'm almost certain I was only 14 yesterday (see picture below).

                                                   
The thing is, when you're younger, each birthday passing is another landmark moment. The first time you can legally vote, have sex, smoke, drink, enter an over 21's club. Then suddenly, your 'landmark' birthdays don't mean 'hey, you can do this now!' but rather 'oooh, should you REALLY be doing that still?'

My lovely curly housemate wrote this blog entry about things we are too old for which is very funny and interesting and you should most definitely go and read. And it got me thinking about some things that I shouldn't still do at the ripe old age of twentyfivebutalmosttwentysix (see picture below) but still do. So here is my list of...   

Things I shouldn't do at my age but that I still do anyway

(yeah, I realise that is a remarkably long title, but oh blooming well!)

1. Leave my make up on when I go to sleep sometimes

Yeah yeah. I know. It's horribly bad for my skin and probably the cause of the couple of spots on the tip of my nose. My skin is screaming at me when I do this, like a kettle. Or an angry monkey. Or something of that ilk. But when you're sharing a bed with someone (particularly someone of the  

opposite sex) is it not much better for them to see you looking all smudgy and Brigitte Bardot like rather than a bit shiny and vaguely hag-like of a morning? I know some will say to me 'but Ash, when you take your make up off you will look all fresh and vibrant of the morning and less like Ke$ha!' To which I laugh at them. A lot. Because without make up, I do not look fresh. I look like a 12 year old with bags under her eyes. Sometimes I also leave my make up on just because I can't be bothered. Which means spending a lot of money on anti-aging stuff seems silly, but I don't do it often enough to really bugger up by face. I hope. (When I need a face lift, feel free to throw this back at me though)

      2. Wear tights with skull and crossbones on

I'm a pirate till DEATH mo fos. Deal with it. Or walk the plank

      3. Eat chocolate frosting right from the tin

I'm at an age where losing weight is a lot harder. Yet ignoring the calories on the tin and just digging in with a large spoon is one of the greatest delights ever. It's just wonderfully indulgent and naughty and messy and makes me very happy. Same goes for Nutella (which I can't stand on toast but love straight out of the jar)

       4. Drink more than I should

As my dear friend Jon said in a recent vlog on what boys find unattractive, my drink limit is one drink. But I think my limit is a whole bar of drinks. So I end up doing really stupid, juvenile things. Like stroking Tom Hiddleston then running away before he turns around, or kissing very young men, or falling over, or talking far too much for my own good and having to hide under my bed for a long time. You'd think that at my age, after so very many ridiculous drunken nights, I would finally have got the hint. But no. I still forget that I am a complete lightweight occasionally and try and keep up with rugby players and very large men. And it never ends well for me! Last time I was so hung over I was in bed till 5pm the next day! So I have decided to stick to a 3 drink rule from now on. Apart from on my birthday. Obviously. 

     5. Watch sitcoms instead of the news

When will I be grown up enough to want to watch the news please? I still have no desire to and end up watching repeats of New Girl or How I Met Your Mother or Episodes instead...I do have quite a good idea of what's going on in the world, but that is more down to watching the Vice channel on YouTube really...

    6. Watch cartoons

Adventure Time is one of the greatest things ever. And I love it with all my heart. I think part of me wants to be Marceline The Vampire Queen really. 

    7. Go to my mum when I need to cry

Sometimes, I need to cry. But I am a grown up lady with a grown up life, so I just don't have the time. So I fabricate an excuse to go to my mum's house and inevitably she can tell there is something wrong because she has terrifying powers of deduction (or can see my bottom lip quivering). All she needs to say is 'Are you ok?' or 'What's wrong?' and it's like a tap has been turned on and suddenly I can cry and cry and get all of the rubbish out of my emotional pipes. And being an awesome mother, she gives me a hug, plonks me in front of the telly, and makes me laugh. At 25 years old, you'd think I would have found a way to work through my emotions by myself, but she is still the greatest sadness-unclogger I've ever found.

     8. Eating and Drinking stuff aimed at kids

On a date a little while ago, I had a slush puppy. A red and blue mixed one. It tasted like it had been flavoured with acid, but it was AWESOME. I occasionally buy chicken nuggets and I currently have cookies in my freezer. When the rest of the table is ordering something really nutritiously balanced, like chicken salad, I am ordering cheesy pasta with chips. When I see cupcakes, my eyes get all big and sparkly like in a Japanese cartoon. And giant gummy worms are one of my most favourite things. 

   9. Shy away from talking about the serious stuff

I can do it with other people. If they have a problem, I am there to help, with tissues and tea and concern and lots of great advice and patience. When it comes to me, I hate having to talk about the serious things. Talking about money makes me want to hide, as does having to have actual grown up relationship conversations. Whenever I think I'm in trouble, I delay talking to that person for as long as possible (even if I haven't actually done anything wrong and am in the right!). I can't stand confrontation, I despise talking on the phone because I know I won't be able to pull silly faces and distract people. I have gotten a lot better at the whole 'serious conversations' thing, but when it comes to stuff that is very personal in a negative way, I behave like a child and hide wherever I can. Which is weird, because professionally I'm great at discussing the hard stuff-in fact, people tend to be a bit shocked if they see me in work mode compared to personal mode because I'm not afraid to say the things that need to be said, and can be quite brusque! Whereas in 'real life' I'll be found hiding beneath my hair...

   10. Being scared of the dark

I used to be so scared of the dark that I would go to sleep every night with the light on. Then I was in a relationship for 4 and a half years, and having someone in bed with me meant that I could turn off the lights and feel totally safe. This may have been due to my night terrors and the fact that he was very good at dealing with them, but I got used to sleeping with the light off and it got to the point that I couldn't sleep with any light in the room. Now I've been out of a relationship for about eight months, and the fear has come back a bit. But now the problem is that I can't sleep with any lights on. But I'm also a bit irrationally scared of the shadows in my room. The solution I've found to this is to turn off the light, then bring the duvet above my head. Because obviously monsters and ghosts can't get through duvets.

Despite all of this, I am actually quite looking forward to turning twenty six. I'm at a great place in my life. I get to do the career of my dreams, I live with one of my besties, I have a lovely relationship with my parents and I've met some amazing, wonderful people in the last year or so. My twenty fifth year has been dramatic, painful, ever changing and scary as well as exciting, beautiful, funny and breathtaking. It's been the most intense year of my life so far. And if I can deal with that I can deal with anything. So year number twenty six? Come at me bro. (So long as I can have a slush puppy on hand as well)

Tarrah Reader!

Ash

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Asking for it...

Reader, writing that last entry was like inviting fate to laugh at me. 'No nights out!' I wrote, thinking of my sofa and the tv shows I've been watching lately. 'My life is so dull and not like a dramatic 20 something life at all!'

Reader, last night was insane.

Fate decided to chuck me one of those nights that features in Girls, I met Lady Luxe and her amazing 7 ft male model friend, then we went for dinner (but since I'd been picking at things all day I just sat with them while they ate) and we drank out of jam jars (so Shoreditch darling). Then it was on to a private members club in Soho, where we had a ridiculous number of cocktails-and every time I finished one, someone would order another to replace it. Every time I went to the loo, I'd get offered a line of coke (which I never know how to politely refuse. I always sound like I'm turning down an offer of tea 'Oh, no thank you, I'm grand! But cheers anyway!') and in classic Ash form, I ended up acting like a total prat. After a large amount of alchohol, I got chatting to a really pretty lady in the bathroom and was sure we'd met. I kept saying 'Were you at this audition or that?' and even asked if she went to my old uni. In the mean time, her and her friend kept laughing. It was only this morning that I realised it was Angela Griffin, hugely famous Brit actor and presenter. I slightly wanted to cut my own tongue out for telling her she must 'just have one of those faces'.

Eejit.

Then great excitement occurred when Tom Hiddleston was spotted! My new friend Ruby and I decided to go on a Loki hunt (to no avail), but an hour later, I passed him deep in conversation. Realising that I was too tipsy to actually make a good impression by speaking up, I stroked his arm and ran away. I am ridiculous. I stroked and ran. Please someone kill me.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, but there was a kiss in a rooftop garden, dancing with my ex boss like we were old men at a wedding to tunes of the early 2000's, chats with celebs about my hair (a bloke from Eastenders called it 'A firey dream'), someone telling me they wanted to write a book about me and a taxi home at 4am.

I'm still not entirely sure what happened, it all feels like a mad haze. Occasionally, my hangover clears and I remember saying some really stupid, far too brutally honest things and have to hide under a pillow again (apparently drunk Ash has no grasp of social etiquette). Two nights of drinking have destroyed me, so from tomorrow onwards it's all about running, Bikram yoga and veggie soup.

For a while at least...

Ash
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The three stages of breaking up...

So Reader, last night was a bit unexpected. I'd just got back to my lovely cosy Bag End when I had a call from Lady Luxe, who had just had the unpleasant experience of seeing her twatbag of an ex boyfriend and moving her stuff out of his house. Then another call came in from Little Socks who had just broken up with her partner. Within a couple of hours I had two newly single girls on my couch, a bottle of vodka and every kind of chocolate under the sun in front of us, and a combination of laughter and tears occurring every couple of minutes.

Frankly it was a bit overwhelming. But also quite interesting. Between us we had three different stages of going through a break up and each of us had a very different break up story and emotions connected to them.

FIRST STAGE

You've only just broken up. You can't stop crying, everything in the world reminds you of what you've lost ('There's some cheese. Barry liked cheese. Oh god, we'll never share cheese ever again!') and you feel like you've been punched. A lot. Your face has swollen up so much that your eyes are no longer visible and you can't quite catch your breath. Thinking even a week into the future seems nigh on bloody impossible. You can't bring yourself to eat, you smoke a million cigarettes and drink anything you can get your hands on. Listening to music or watching anything but gory horror films just isn't going to happen. You'll be having a perfectly normal conversation and then you'll just start hiccuping and sobbing.

SECOND STAGE

Fuck them. The utter wankers. How dare they do this to you?! You're going to meet other people. Better people. You'll be this amazing single person who goes and has really intense flings with french supermodels who smoke exotic sounding cigarettes and paint in trendy Shoreditch attics. It's been a month or two and you don't miss them at all. You rock at being single! (apart from the fact that you do really miss them and you struggle not to call them when you're drunk or down and you can't listen to certain Bruno Mars songs without having an epic nervy b). You're vaguely hyper ALL THE TIME. You're trying your best to forget them but they keep turning up in your dreams in really odd situations.

THIRD STAGE

Well done! You did it! It's been ages and ages since Stage One and you're quite relieved all that messy crying has stopped (apart from when you're really drunk and it's a) Christmas b) Valentines Day or c) you've just had your 10th engagement notification on facebook in a month). You feel properly single now and are rediscovering the joys of being independent. Learning new skills, not having to text anyone when you're staying out late, meeting new people and embracing being a career person. It still hurts occasionally, but it's more like an occasional heartburn rather than the full on repetitive head kicking it was in Stage One and you can deal with it a lot better.You have plans for next year and you are actually now quite impressed with how strong you can be.

The awesome thing about last night's single girl mash up was that we all came out with it having had a good cry (very cathartic!), lots of laughter (ditto) and some seriously cool plans for the future. We were able to see the awesome points about each other that we sometimes can't see in ourselves and boosted each others confidence. We saw the strength and resilience in one another and all of our different perspectives helped build each other up.

The thing is, there is life after a break up. In Stage One you can't quite see it, but with every day that passes it gets a bit easier-so with that in mind (and what with knowing a lot of very dear friends that are going through some particularly crappy break ups at the moment), don't let the doom and gloom swallow you up-being single is just being given the opportunity to meet the next great love of your life. And a chance to work out who you are. And eat the contents of your fridge. Well. Obviously.

And it's about to be the new year. And what's a new year if not a fresh start and a clean slate?

Whether you're in a relationship or single Reader, may you find peace within yourself and may any fractured hearts be plastered up and kissed better very soon!

Ash
x

Clubbing (of the non baby seal variety)

Reader, I realise this is my second entry of the day, but I just realised something rather vital. On Thursday, I am going clubbing. To a club. With young people. I am in my mid twenties, have I not reached an age where I can just go and meet interesting people at cocktail bars and awards do's yet?

It's not that I have always hated clubbing. Actually, when I was in my second year of college, I suddenly got a bit trendy and started going to The Roxy every week and hanging out with bands in the NME top ten (no, you wouldn't know them, no one knew them even then). I knew all the words to all the songs, I was at that brilliant time in my life where I weighed so little that I could legitimately be classed as a 'skinny' girl and my hair was down to my bum. You could smoke inside and everyone was just enough older than you for it to be thrilling. When I then went to uni, I became the social sec, and most nights a week could be found in a cheesy club or bar on campus, dancing like a loon and challenging strange rugby players to drink offs. And then I went to Drama School and didn't really drink for 2 years. Because waking up with a hangover when you have a 12 hour day ahead of you and an hour journey each way doesn't really make for a happy student. Plus, because the course was so full on, I didn't have much time to work, so couldn't afford the door charge. Since then, I tend to prefer pubs, bars and people's houses for my down time. Or a nice night in on my sofa (shut up I know I'm boring, but I work 7 days a week quite often so I start to miss my cosy sofa and living room. I like being around all my crappy second hand stuff!).

However, I half jokingly entered this contest and ended up winning a night out in a club with lots of friends and heavily discounted drinks. I am an actor. Turning down discounted drinks is against my religion. Plus, the only member of a reality TV show that I like (and, let's face it, have a bit of a crush on) is going to be there, and since I was a runner up in the competition, I might actually get to meet him. Yes, I am ashamed of myself.

I have no idea what to wear. Unlike my 17 year old self, I no longer go around in mini-kilts and fishnets (although those seem to be back in fashion now) and I am assuming my usual 'going out' look of a full on fifties dress and killer heels is out. I am too old for fashion and skin tight material! I need structure these days! Also, I'm certain I won't know any of the songs. And will they have my favourite cocktail, a good old Amaretto Sour (hold the egg white)? And I'll need to leave by 12 because there's not a cat's chance in hell I'll be getting the night bus.

If you don't hear from me within the week, Reader, I'll have been shunned for doing a granddad dance to the hip band playing.

Tarrah!
Ash
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