10 Things I Said WTF to in May / #24
Taurus season! (also, this ended up being a loooong one)
Welcome to 10 Things I Said WTF to, my end of month round-up newsletter of 10 things I’ve said WTF to over the past four weeks. Ranging from good to bad, to absolute nonsense °˖✧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚✧
Sue Me
Earlier this month, Audrey Hobert (known to TikTok as BFF of Gracie Abrams, who also helped co-write her latest album) released her first single ‘Sue Me’. I feel like no matter your music taste you cannot deny this is simply just an extremely fun and catchy pop song, with a perfectly silly music video - directed and edited by Audrey herself. I’ve been listening to it constantly since the day it was released and haven’t got sick of it yet, I feel it’s my song of the summer. There’s something incredibly refreshing and empowering about seeing a new female artist immediately not take themselves too seriously!!
This Asparagus Dish
I saw this absolutely insane butter (?) dish in Snoopers Paradise in Brighton on my birthday and audibly gasped, this is something I’d save to my interior Pinterest board for sure. Seriously wondering why I didn’t buy her because looking back now, £25 seems like an absolute steal.
Adjusting To Living “Alone”
By the time this is published, my fiancé will have just returned home (earlier than planned - thank god) from 4.5 weeks away for work. We’ve often spent 2-3 weeks apart at a time before but this was our longest stint yet. I’ve never been someone who’s felt comfortable home alone, for as long as I can remember I’ve honestly been absolutely terrified of it. Even when I was 16/17 and my mum would come back around midnight after being out with friends, I couldn’t close my eyes until I heard the door unlock, I even felt sick at university when my flatmates were all out at once. I’ve just always had this anxious and eerie feeling in the pit of my stomach, constantly worrying that the worst would happen. Although, I do think my feelings are slightly justified after my student house was broken into while I was asleep upstairs…which was truly traumatic (and made my OCD worse than ever, but that’s another story). However, after me and my fiancé started dating I knew that because of his job, being alone for extended periods of time would be something I’d just have to get used to.
Our old flat was on the basement level in a busy-ish area and our bedroom window was street facing, all of which made me feel incredibly unsafe and I’d be full of dread in the lead up to him going away. When he did, I’d toss and turn for hours and usually end up passing out from pure exhaustion, then wake up multiple times in the night. Meaning I would walk to work like a zombie each morning. Every noise or footstep outside would make me jump and the dark freaked me out, so I constantly had our giant smiley lamp on the lowest setting. We recently moved into our new house back in January, and my fiancé was due to be away pretty consistently from then until now. I wondered if being in a new place would make me feel any differently about being alone, or if the sheer amount of nights I would spend alone, could somehow just force my brain to adapt.
Now that these few months are over I can truly say that it does get better, and unfortunately exposure therapy really is the best method for overcoming any kind of fear. If you’re someone who feels similarly and also gets spooked when solo in the house, I’d really recommend putting in any sort of safety precautions that will make you feel more at ease. Alongside the fear of being home alone, something I also needed to adjust to was just “living alone” in general. I’ve always lived with friends or a partner and really do enjoy the background noise of having someone else in the house, it’s comforting. I’ve also lived with my fiancé for our whole relationship (friends to housemates to partners!) so the silence that comes with an empty house is something I’m not familiar with. He’s also the chef of our household and does all the tasks I hate - taking the bins out etc - so I really needed to put on my big girl pants and just get on with it.
People have often asked me how to cope with having a partner who goes away so much, and I’ve never really known what to say because I didn’t have a very good answer. But now I feel like I have a better grasp on it. You almost have to have two “modes” - with them and without them. You can’t spend your time moping around and being sad that they’re gone because you’re just wasting time that could be spent enjoying yourself. Granted, you’re going to have a few evenings where you wish you were together on the sofa with your favourite takeaway and the thought makes you feel sad, which is totally allowed. However, you just have to somehow use it to your advantage. Once you’re in your ‘without them’ mode, you can embrace all the things you might not usually do when they’re home. Watch tv shows and films that maybe aren’t their favourite, cook your favourite food while playing ‘Sue Me’ on repeat in the kitchen and try force yourself to be more social than usual!! When you manage to find enjoyment in being alone, the time will fly by and before you know it they’ll be back. Anyway, sorry that this turned into a newsletter of it’s own, but I just feel proud of how far I’ve come!