When Caitlin Moran suggests I read something on twitter I jump to attention and do as she says:

“@caitlinmoran: I’ve said it before but @EvaWiseman really has found a new trick to writing columns:

Read Guardian article here“

Well I tripped over to read what Eva had to say and was very pleasantly surprised. When all the Sunday supplements are busy spilling out their highlights and lowlights of the year ~  Olympics, floods, tax avoiders, Olympics ~ Eva chose her personal highlights.  A welcome change amongst a sea of similarity.  Like John/Edward with Edward/John of  Jedward I decided to copy. Here be my personal highlights of the year that was  Two thousand and 12.

BEST LESSON LEARNT:

 I learnt a lot in 2012.

Well at least I think I did. I hope I did.

I might be wrong  and forever have the mentality of my arrogant, over confident 18 year old self but here’s hoping not, for all our sakes. No, I believe there were lessons mixed up with the everyday goings on of getting up, going to work and attempting to make it to Hollywood in between. As is always the case I wasn’t aware that they were lessons in the at the time but now, looking back, I can say that they were indeed a double period at the end of a Friday type lesson.  Never wanted but necessary to pass your GCSE’s.  I learnt that parking a car in the lines provided is harder than My Husband makes it look.  I learnt that I do not want children in this life BUT if I had to I would only want one and he is already born to my best friend. I learnt that a cup of coffee in chilli makes a world of  difference, swimming is the only exercise that changes my body shape, I haven’t got a clue how to work my camera properly and I have no will power when it comes to putting my iphone down.

However, the biggest lesson that I learnt is that you have to be in it to win it.  Of course I knew this before. I am aware that I wasn’t going to be up for an Olympic medal due to being more a lover of sleep than of donning a pair of trainers but I don’t ever really think I thought it applied to me.  When it came to comedy and writing and performing I always thought I’d getting spotted somewhere like those lucky few girls who get picked out of the crowd at The Clothes Live and go on to become Erin O’connor. Tall and noticed.  I used to think that someone would one day call me in for a meeting and say ‘Write whatever you want and we’ll make it and you can be in it’. 2012 taught me that couldn’t be further from the truth and unless I get out of bed and push myself every day that I’m not daydreaming of a life with Ryan Gosling and a pool in my back garden then I ain’t going no where.

You want to write? Then write. Write anything. Start with a list, a letter, a reply to something and move onto a chapter, a sketch, a play.  Thinking about writing isn’t writing and simply leaves you daydreaming in a bed with great sheets {quote} but not much else. I’m on it. Promise.

FUNNIEST MOMENT:

I sat on my friend, Rib’s, bedroom floor surrounded by all her clothes, shoes and bags laughing so much I felt physically sick.

I was in the middle of training for the Reading half marathon and, as part of my training, ran in the sleet and harsh winds of February home from Covent Garden to Clapham. To say it was painful is an understatement. As I ran past the massive Buddha in Battersea park the rain felt like icicles being thrown in my face. I tightened the strings around my cagoule hood so that the smallest amount of face was on show.  My run was more of a lollop as I pushed pointlessly against the wind that ground me pretty much to a holt.  When I eventually made it home an hour and half later I had 40 minutes before I had to be at Rib’s to help her sort out her wardrobe. I was getting paid to do it and it’d been postponed so many times I couldn’t cancel.

I had a bath, ate some chilli, tried to warm up and set to work sorting out someone else’s life.  As I sat on the floor I asked her why she still had clothes from the 90′s {Karen Millen} and quite a lot of sports wear. {Primark} I’d known her a year and never known her to ‘sport’. Every crop top/ancient t-shirt/baggy pair of  leggings I pulled out of an overstuffed drawer received the same reply ‘It’s for sports’. The giggles started due my weak state and her lies about how much exercise she really does. When my giggles started her guffaws came as a reply.  My howling then erupted followed by her dirty, massive highly addictive laughter.  Every muscle in my body ached from the hour and a half run I’d just finished but for some reason I couldn’t stop laughing at the word ‘sports’  I lay face down on her pile of charity shop clothes for 10 minutes laughing from weakness, as a response to someone else laughing in my face and with tears streaming down my cheeks.  Granted, describing me and a friend laughing together isn’t going to do it for you, the reader, but believe me it was funny.

It was on a par with the first time I saw Stavros Flatley.

BEST DISCOVERY:

Maria jeans by J Brand.

I know. Incredibly shallow, vacuous and unimportant when my list also consisted of Spain, Emeli Sande, Nora Ephron and the fact that I can change a tyre on a jeep.  I am a woman {just in case that needed clearing up} and I have the ass, hips and thighs of a WO-man.  My life was going great, really great until approximately 1999 – 2000 when Mariah Carey turned up with the top of her jeans cut off. Well, my long body and short legs ~ at the time ~ didn’t quite know what had hit it and for the next 12 years I tried to pour my woman ass/hips into low rise jeans because that’s all anyone was giving me.  The pain my lower back felt due to my stomach being unsupported and my ass spilling out all over the place made me resort to a weightlifting style big belt which was handy because it was the early noughties and they, along with the All Saints, were all the rage.

Skip forward to September 2012 and I go to try on a pair of high waisted skinny black J Brand jeans.  I felt like weeping with the relief my back knew it was going to get. Finally my ass, my large, peachy, 80′s style ass and my child bearing hips are fully clothed, encased and safe within a pair of trousers.  I do the button up on my waist and know that I have come home and jeans will once again be my friend.

BEST SILVER LINING: 

Hurricane Sandy hit New York when my parents and I were visiting my sister who was performing on Broadway.  The city started to shut down on the Sunday, the subway closed {transport system not the sandwich place}, shops put up signs saying ‘Due to the incoming Hurricane we will be closed until further notice’.  All my Dad wanted to do was eat at The Red Lobster that night. As we were told our flight was cancelled for the following Tuesday morning {the day Sandy was supposed to hit} we thought it was an exciting adventure, an extra couple of days to spend in this incredible city.  Come Tuesday when everything was closed, we had another week to go and were washing knickers and socks in the sink things didn’t look so great.  Watching the news was too much, finding restaurants open was proving difficult and my Mother doesn’t walk very well.  She suffers from Parkinsons and busy, bustling, people packed New York city was possibly the worst place to take her. She holds a walking stick in her right hand and my Father’s hand in her left.  She trips forward, dragging the right side of her body and doing everything she can to not fall flat on her face.

Through the immense devastation the hurricane left in it’s wake, Sandy turned out to have a silver lining after all. The streets were empty giving my shaky Mother space and time to get from A to B.  I no longer needed to become a human shield from people bumping into her. I took a step to the side and watched what she was doing.  She was surviving. Tripping along to catch up with everyone else, thinking she was holding them back. Trying to match my Father’s step.  I worked out what she was doing wrong and for the next 5 days I became her personal trainer. ‘Tuck your bottom under’ I barked at her, ’Hold your core up and strong, push your shoulders back’. For some reason stairs were good for her.  These could be done with ease and every other step she took on a flat level I told her she needed to think was up a staircase. The stick was left in the hotel and like a toddler taking it’s first steps we cheered my Mother on as she took her first, unaided steps, for years, around one of the busiest cities in the world.  As the city came to a stand still my Mother kept on moving.

BEST DECISION MADE:

I moved house.

I lived in the same flat for 5 years and decided {through a ridiculous rise in rent} that a change was needed. A big change. I started packing up my beautiful room at 11.30pm the night before my friend was coming to pick me up the next day.  I binned, I bagged and I reminised  about all that had occurred in those 5 year long years and hopped down the road to a new pad.  It’s strange and different and I remembered that I don’t like change but change is a part of moving on and 2013  is all about moving on and moving up.

Happy New Year y’all.