Roads and paths and potential...

Reader, today was such a beautiful day. The sun shone and in North London, everyone looked brighter and prettier. Even the football yobs looked cuter and less gruff. Meanwhile, I could not settle. Which seems to be a metaphor for my life at the moment. As an actor, life is never going to be simple and straightforward and easy. I know that. At the moment I am struggling a bit with it though. The thing is, I'm in my mid twenties and all my friends are starting to settle down. I am fully booked with weddings this year and I have a lot of new babies to meet. Mortgages are being bought, people are earning enough to go on nice holidays and invest in pensions. While all that is going on, I am facing the possibility of having to move back in with my parents in August, trying to decide if a short term move to New York would make sense for my life at the end of this year/beginning of next, waiting to see 3 films I've shot this year and waiting to hear back about the feature film that is potentially a career changer, that I've been promised a main part in but don't have a contract for.

Life feels like it's very wispy at the moment. Which doesn't make me want to give up being an actor, even though it's a bit scary. It makes me wish I wanted to do something else. But I don't. I have to be an actor. I can't even contemplate doing anything else (believe me, I've tried). It's difficult to think of my life being so transient when I'm older, which is why I'm trying to come up with more ways to keep money coming in (like writing and vlogging-hopefully things which will keep me acting for longer if I can work out a way to monetise them). The thing is, I think I could handle being skint and flighty forever-if it wasn't for the fact that I want children. If you're a regular reader, you'll know that I had a health scare a couple of years ago that led to me being forced to work out quite fast if I wanted kids or not and the positive that came out of an unpleasant situation was that it helped me realise how I needed to be a mother. But you can't be a mother if you can't support the child.

Saying that, some things give me hope. My mum told me recently about how she sat in her car once when I was very little as the radio told her that interest rates on mortgages had gone up and just cried because she was convinced they were going to lose our house. Then she thought about it and realised that she could always move (with me-aged 6, my father and my baby brother aged 1) into the top bedroom of her parents home. She was in her mid thirties at that point and it really reassured me. Yes, I have chosen a career that will take me up and down and all around the hedges, but if my mother (the strongest woman I know, who now runs an incredibly successful business and lives in an insanely beautiful house with my dad) in her mid thirties was married, had a 'proper' job and was not in the middle of an economic depression and STILL dealt the prospect of moving back in with her parents (with two kids and a husband no less), then maybe I shouldn't give myself so much of a hard time about the idea of moving back in with mine for a couple of months. Especially when doing so could mean moving to New York for a while (and thus fulfilling one of my big dreams).

The thing is, if I could afford holidays, a house and knew EXACTLY where my life was going while working in a 9-5 job that I wasn't really passionate about, I truly believe I would end up killing myself or shaving my head in roughly a week. Life as an actor may be really difficult sometimes and I may be so poor that I have to accept food parcels from my parents on occasions, but the pay-off, getting to feel completely fulfilled every time I go on stage or see one of my films on the big screen or tv or hear my voice at an awards ceremony or on the radio, is worth it. The moments when I'm sitting in a recording booth or playing out a scene make every time I've worried about my bank balance, cried over a boy, felt fat or been lost out on jobs suddenly not matter. Because I know what I'm doing. And I feel incredible. I feel high, like I've taken the worlds best drug or spun round in a circle for an hour. I can't even explain it. I'm addicted. It's better than sex or chocolate or winning monopoly. It's even better than finishing the Evening Standard crossword by myself in less than four stops on the tube.

Which is why, even though I'm scared about the future, I can't kick the habit just yet. Because it feels much, much too good. Acting is like having an incredible affair with James Bond. He's not always in the country but when he is-DEAR GOD.

Get it Reader?
Ash
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Expectation vs. reality...

Reader, the tv show Girls is one of my most favourite things. Everyone hates on it, but I can't help but adore it. Ditto my love of New Girl and The Big Bang Theory (How I Met Your Mother goes without saying). The thing is, I feel these shows are giving me unrealistic expectations of being in your mid twenties...

E vs R: DATING

Expectation

Every week, you get asked out by a new, highly attractive bloke. Even though you're not on any dating sites and you're only averagely hot. You have lots of really crazy sex in the apartments where you both live alone (because no one ever seems to have room mates that happen to be in on date nights), by the third date you magically know each other well enough to see each other in yer skimpies and if he hasn't proposed after 7 months there is something obviously, deeply wrong. Kissing always just sort of happens, even without any booze and there's always an amazing soundtrack. The dude knows innately what would make you happy and spends all his time and money doing that (did anyone see the most recent episode of New Girl? Seriously, what bartender could afford all that?!)

Reality

You never get asked out (apart from by people you really don't want to go out with) so you end up asking people out yourself. You fret about leg hair, cellulite and matching underwear, constantly question if you're ready for a committed relationship and spend a lot of time swearing at a wall with a panicked look in your eyes. Everyone is married or engaged apart from you. You are literally THE ONLY single 25 year old left on the shelf. And you are going to be a bridesmaid twice this year. Fuck. Kissing is horribly awkward for the first few times. And you always end up being the one to instigate. Your dates are either just like being out with your mates but with a snog at the end or you don't realise you're on one till months later when you go 'ohhh, THAT's what that was'. Out of the blue, your friends start trying to set you up with 'nice guy's who work in IT'. Occasionally you lie in bed and gaze at the ceiling thinking 'Carrie bloody Bradshaw never had to work this hard'.

E vs R: Work

Expectation

You work in one of those jobs that probably won't lead to anything. Waitress, bartender, librarian, writer or something in an office that never really gets explained. Everyone is dressed in perfectly fitting gear that naturally suits them down to a T, your boss is a total ass but in a really funny way-or the parent figure that you seriously need in your life. There are at least 3 hotties to leer at, and somehow you work enough hours to afford a great life and few enough to have an insanely brilliant social life.

Reality

They haven't realised you have no idea what you're doing yet. Or that your suit is from Primark. You have to fight the urge to wail when you see how much of your paycheck goes to tax (how do you forget every month?) and there's a part of you that is seriously annoyed that work is not like school, where you had 6 weeks off over the summer. You are the youngest person there, and everyone seems to think this is what you'll be doing forever. They have no idea that you are also a rock goddess who will become a millionaire from making crafts on etsy and eventually marrying Rupert Grint.

E vs R: Social life

Expectation:

Drugs! Drugs at a rave in a warehouse! Where you know people! And you and all your friends are wearing really awesome clothes! And you end up dancing on a roof with a gorgeous stranger! Or you're spending a night at home and it's amazing because you NEVER spend time at home over the weekend unless you're hosting a bijou dinner party. You and your really good looking, funny friends are chilling out and eating take out from boxes and laughing constantly and by the end of the night you'll have got off with the one you've had chemistry with for ages. He will then become (almost instantly) your long term boyfriend. Or you head to the beach, in the vintagely cool beat up car one of you owns somehow, despite being a paperboy. You all strip off and run in screaming. When you emerge, you still look really hawt and drink beer from the bottle by a bonfire.

Reality

You're home. Again. You could have gone out but you didn't. Mainly because none of your friends are free on a weekend because they're all frickin' engaged or married. You eschew dinner for a family sized pack of crisps and low fat Philly cheese. Occasionally you text the boy you sort of like. Or you go out! Big Night out! Wooo! To Wetherspoons...

E vs R: Living Situation

Expectation

You live in a loft appartment in a warehouse in a totally cool hipster area. Cause those are where the cheap places are. You either own it, or rent it with ease. You have wooden floors, a leather sofa and bare brick walls with neon strip lights and it looks totally fucking cool. Everything is open plan. Your bedroom is huge and really kooky, with an actual en suite and bay windows. Everyone is constantly shagging, because if you have housemates, they're really hot and you have total chemistry with them.

Reality

Holy crap, when did rent get so expensive? You live in a tiny flat with crap decorations. You've made an attempt at style, but all the Ikea furniture in the world couldn't make this crap look good. Over half your paycheck goes on this place, but it's still the cheapest place on the market. Your freezer contains some reduced ready meals and vodka. Your fridge has some ever so slightly gone off hummus and 3 kinds of milk. Your flat is where romance went to die-no one has sex there. It is not a place for sex. It is a place for watching tv under a heated blanket and making fart jokes whilst eating chips with gravy. And how the hell does it get this messy this often?!

E vs R: Looks

Expectation

Your hair is SO shiny, and you have no wrinkles. And you're really thin despite living off your diet of take out from boxes and ice cream off a spoon. Because you're in your mid twenties. And no one ages or gets fat in their mid twenties. Your clothes are quirky and colourful and all fit and damn you have good skin. Are those your real eyelashes....?

Reality

You have never been this fat. Your ability to diet and exercise has just vanished. Along with the Boursin in the fridge. Your hair is being really bloody weird but you can't afford to fix it, so you half heartedly trim it with the kitchen scissors and occasionally put olive oil in it (which, rather leaving it looking like Zooey Deschanel hair, leaves it greasy and hanging round your face). Nothing fits, and you don't own an iron or a tumble drier so all your clothes are faded and wrinkly. Your underwear drawer is HOT though. No one ever gets that far, because your other clothes look like they've been kept in a big ball under your bed, but you know that underneath your clothes really gorgeous undies exist. Somewhere. In the lard. 

And that, my gorgeous Readers, is that!

Ash 

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