Newsletter

Should You Move Abroad?

| Sophie

I think you can count a ¨move¨ as something you do with the intention of staying for a while, setting up a base, working, making connections and building a home there.

You can move with the intention of coming back to the place you left, or perhaps moving on to something else. You can move with a job and a living lined up, or you can get there with no idea what you´re doing and live on scraps until someone will hire you. You can move for something, a loved one, an adventure, a job, a fantasy, which might work out and you´ll live happily ever after, or it might not.

I´ve moved countries 11 times in my life. And I´m 26. The first time I moved was Kuwait to Bahrain when I was 1 years old, and the last time I moved was Manchester to Seville almost 2 years ago when I was 24.

Advantages

Whatever happens, you´ll gain valuable experience that will help you and whatever kind of life you choose to pursue afterwards.

Depending on what you´re bringing and what you´re willing to sacrifice, you don´t have to spend much money doing it.

You don´t have to commit to anything. Being open to whatever life may throw at you and being kind to yourself, you could find that it doesn´t work out and you return home sooner than planned, and that´s okay.

It´ll challenge you, you´ll be scared and excited. Sometimes overwhelmed and sometimes underwhelmed. You´ll feel deeply worried and occasionally euphoric. You will feel. You will experience.

You will have to deal with problems you´ve never even heard of. It will open your mind and your heart. It will give you new perspectives and new ideas. It will change the way you see the world, for the better.

And it may just become the start of your happy ever after.

Disadvantages

There are a lot of sacrifices. You sacrifice stability and connection, above all. You have to make the decision that you´re new adventure is more important than the things you´ve been working for your whole life.

You lose touch with people you care about. Your friends are busy with new friends. You talk to your family less and less. Before you know it, a year has flown by and you haven´t been able to book a flight home.

You open yourself up to risks and dangers you have no idea how to prepare for or deal with when they happen. For it´s not IF they happen, it´s WHEN.

Paperwork. Man oh man moving country, unless it´s with a company that will sort all that out for you, is bureaucracy. Google mapping your way to embassies, queueing for hours to exchange your licence, bringing every document you´ve ever owned along to the appointment to register yourself because the website was rubbish and didn´t tell you anything you actually needed to know.

You won´t have home commodities. Most of the things you loved about your home won´t follow you to your destination. The foods you loved, the conveniences you´re used to, the way you can safely predict and understand the behaviour of people around you because you know the culture in which they belong.

You may loose more than you gain.

So, where does that leave you? Do you move abroad?

Well, when reading the second list, did the disadvantages section excite you or scare you? We have to know 2 things before making that decision. What do we truly value, and what are we capable of?

Do you value new or old? Do you value adventure or stability? Do you value safety or risk?

Are you capable of withstanding multiple visa appointments, a potential trip to a foreign hospital, being away from the people you love?

I read the disadvantages list and I thought, bring it on. It´s all part of the experience and I´m excited to overcome these hurdles.

If you read it and think, ooh no I´m not sure about that, I don´t think I´d like it very much.

Well then you have your answer.

Is anyone thinking about moving abroad soon? What are your plans?

Why I don´t drink

| Sophie

More and more these days I meet people who have made the conscious decision to stop drinking alcohol. Although not common, it´s not unusual to hear that someone is off the booze.

It would be easy to assume that people give up alcohol in order to lead healthier lives as we´ve all seen what a hangover looks like and it´s not exactly pretty.

Science is constantly changing its mind about the health effects of alcohol and it´s hard to know who to trust. It´s well-known that alcohol in large quantities can cause a plethora of diseases and long-term health conditions and have immediate effects in the form of a hangover, the colloquial word that makes alcohol poisoning seem less dangerous.

However, some studies argue that a glass of red wine a day is good for you and that whisky can help with a cold. That a little bit of alcohol can relieve stress and help you relax.

Nevertheless, most studies categorically state that the risks outweigh the benefits for all amounts of alcohol. Also, 70 years ago we were receiving scientific studies promoting cigarettes for their health benefits and who paid for those studies? Cigarette companies. So, I would be careful about believing anything that says alcohol can be good for you.

But let´s be real. Only very few of us are giving up alcohol for the physical health benefits.

Another potential reason that more and more people are choosing to ditch alcohol is the rise in knowledge and acceptance of mental health disorders which has given people the tools and awareness to be able to understand if their alcohol consumption has crossed the line into addiction. Additionally, there´s much more help available to those who seek it. Also, people are more aware that drinking can worsen other mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Lastly, and I think this specifically applies to me, is that certain cultures promote a toxic drinking culture. I didn´t learn how to sip wine at dinner, I learnt to down vodka before seeing my friends. I didn´t experiment with alcohol to see what I liked and didn´t like, I bought the cheapest bottle that would get me the drunkest and swallowed big gulpfuls with my nose pinched. I never learnt how to drink in moderation.

I used alcohol as an anti-anxiety tablet. I used alcohol to cauterise my wounds. I used alcohol to change my personality. And although alcohol did all these things, they were the calm before the storm that would inevitably hit. I felt relaxed for a while before wave after wave of anxiety and depression hit. I temporarily forgot about what was bothering me until it was all I could think about. I was friendlier, funnier, until I started shouting.

I´ve ended up in hospital twice, I´ve blacked out more times than I can count, I´ve been taken advantage of, I´ve been lost, I´ve worried my family sick, I´ve made decisions I regret, I´ve been extremely ill, I´ve suffered for days and days, I´ve missed work and school, I´ve been robbed, I´ve been threatened, I´ve thrown my own shoes in a rage, I´ve walked through clubs with mascara smeared across my face, I´ve shouted at people that I love, I kicked someone once, I´ve slept on roads, I´ve cried and cried and cried.

And then I woke up the next day in such a state of physical and emotional agony that I had to pause my life. Sometimes for days.

I exchanged my nights for my days and I begun to realise that I wasn´t actually gaining anything.

The frequency I drank changed throughout my life. I started drinking heavily at 14 which increased until it reached its crescendo when I was around 19. My record was 13 days in a row, binge drinking litres and litres of wine a night. It started decreasing again and by the age of 22 I was drinking heavily maybe one night a week.

When I was 23 I decided that enough was enough. The reasons I had been using alcohol before were less relevant to me now. I was taking actual anti-depressants which genuinely made me feel better. I was a lot better with dealing with my emotional wounds in a mindful and nurturing way. And I was a lot more comfortable with my personality and had learnt how to surround myself with people that like me for who I am.

Yet I still hadn´t learnt how to drink in moderation. Every time I drank would be to black out and the hangovers were just getting worse. I reached a point where alcohol only had a couple of points left in its pro column, where the cons were getting ridiculously long.

So, I decided to stop. Just like that. The decision had been getting more defined in my mind for a few years and the day after my sisters birthday I woke up and thought, no more alcohol.

It´s been 18 months now and I don´t see myself starting to drink again anytime soon. I´m not an addict, I don´t think so anyway, so the option to go back to alcohol is always open for me if I want to. But my life is a lot better for not drinking. I don´t get hangovers, I wake up with a clear head every day, I don´t lose whole nights from my memory, make bad decisions or put myself in dangerous situations, I write more, I create more, I choose activities that I really enjoy and I have time for them, I have more money to spend on other things, I don´t throw up, I´m much more in tune with myself, my friends are 100% real, I get enough sleep, I deal with my emotions in a healthier way, I trust myself more, I feel less shame, I understand myself better, I feel better.

I don´t think it´s right for everyone. I know that for a lot of people, alcohol is a part of their healthy and balanced lives, and that´s great. I know it can bring real joy to people and even be an art form, a creative outlet, a hobby, and hold real value.

But stopping drinking was right for me and continues to be right for me and I´m happy with that.

What is your relationship with alcohol?

Has anyone stopped drinking recently or is thinking of stopping? What are your reasons??

Can anyone be an artist?

| Sophie

A few years ago, I would have said, absolutely not. You need skill, practice, training. You need to have been born an artist. You need to be tortured, abstract, a little weird. You need to have a fire inside that burns so bright for your art that material possessions mean nothing to you. You need to be able to see that weird squiggle on a canvas at your local art museum and peer at it for hours in wonder and admiration.

Then I met my Fine Arts graduate girlfriend, professional tattoo artist and genuine sells-her-art-for-money artist.

And it confirmed all my suspicions.

When trying to educate me about the world of art she showed me her books of Henry Matisse and Joan Miró. She gazed at the pages, talking about the impact these artists had had on her work at university and asked me which painting was my favourite.

I thought about lying, just choosing a random painting, smiling and saying, this one´s amazing! But I didn´t. I looked at her and shook my head. None. Sorry. I just don´t get it.

Fast forward a year and my mum sent me a book for my birthday. The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse. By Charlie Mackesy. I fell in love with this book, with his art. It tells the story of 4 little creatures who wonder through the wilderness and become friends. It´s a reflection on life and friendship and love. It´s a collection of art with a commentary and with a direction.

I decided that I wanted my book of poetry to be similar. I wanted to illustrate them, to have a book full of colours and art to accompany my lines and stanzas.

I visited my nearest bookstore and started pulling out other books of this genre. Not necessarily poetry, although some were, but illustrated, adult books.

Expensive books, books that I couldn´t download on my black and white kindle.

I spent months following all the artists on Instagram, choosing which book I would eventually splash out on and settled on a book that spoke to me very personally. Habitar Mi Cuerpo. Or in English something like… Inhabit my body. Although I think the word Habitar in spanish connotes warmth and life more than the English word, inhabit, does. It is a reflection on the path the author took in loving her body. Another illustrator that I love is Maria Hesse. Her book, Pleasure, will be my next purchase.

Inspired by these artists that, finally, I felt a connection with and truly enjoyed their work, I decided to try and make my own artwork to go with my poems.

I started sketching in a random notebook and realised that even though I have absolutely no ability to make my hand draw what my inner eye sees, I was actually quite creative and was thinking of some interesting ideas.

I borrowed my girlfriends graphic design tablet and started turning these awful sketches into actual colours and shapes and found that what I´d created was not actually half bad. In fact, I quite liked them and I felt they represented the messages and stories I tell in each poem.

So does that make me an artist? I suppose it does, in a way. The beauty of art is that it´s subjective so if only one person enjoys it, well then it´s valid. And if I can do it, anyone can do it.

So the answer is, yes, anyone can be an artist. All you need is the means and the desire.

But can anyone be a vocationally and materially successful artist? Well, that´s another question which doesn´t need an essay because the answer is unequivocally no.

If you´d like to recieve book, podcast, audiobook, and more recommendations and keep updated with my work, please sign up to my email newsletter which I´ll be sending out every Friday afternoon by clicking on the following link:

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Newsletter Layout

| Sophie
Shower thoughts

So this section will be based on whatever subject I´ve spent a lot of time thinking about recently, generally inspired by whatever media I´m consuming.

The normal journey of these thoughts start as I run them by Raquel, expecting the gasp of wonder that confirms my suspicions that I am, in fact, revolutionary and original. The story crescendos as I wait, impatiently, for her to look up from her phone, my wisdom hanging in the air, waiting to be admired. I often have to prompt her again, explaining exactly why what I just said was so insightful and clever. 

She looks up, a smile playing at her lips and love in her eyes, and I´m waiting for her to passionately agree, lauching into an intense debate about how I came to this interesting conclusion.

She asks me to repeat the question and am I hungry because she´s hungry and should we just make pasta like always?

I think about telling my friends about it then remember playfully that I don´t actually have any friends. 

No, of course I have friends, and all three of them really love my wierd text messages. 

As you can imagine this journey doesn´t have a satisfying ending.

But it will now!

With this email newsletter I get to spam all your inboxes and thus liberate the words burning inside my head, whilst accomplishing my ultimate goal of promoting the stuff I´m currently working on.   

This brings me on to the next part of my email. I decided to include this part as it is something I personally find very useful for myself, and hopefully provides a service to the reciever of these emails  It serves to broaden our online communities, fill our social media feeds with beautiful people, our ears with interesting content and eyes with wonderful words. I will be recommending podcasts, books, and people to follow and invite you to reply to this email with your own recommendations which I can then stick in the next email!    

Media Recommendations

Nothing to report in this first email, but I am compiling a list of amazing stuff and will be sharing it soon!    

And the finale and the reason we´re all here…    

Stuff I´m working on  

So this will include updates on my memoir and my poetry primarily. And also on the Etsy shop I have, any designs I do for my poems, what I´m planning in the future… that sort of thing!     

And we have reached the end. Thanks for staying with me for so long! I will probably be using a lot of the content of this email in the next one after I´ve decided what I like and don´t like, and have promoted it a bit more and have a few more people signed up!

Sign up here —> http://eepurl.com/hwwC5H