Adventure 9: Learning to play pool!

johntomsett.com

Hello guys - so sorry, about the lack of posting last week, I had the unfortunate combination of being ill and having to work a lot, so this commitment kind of fell behind! But I did technically do a new thing this week so I hope you are all proud.

This week, I was one of those people. I went on a 'learn how to play pool' date - like Serena and Dan in Gossip Girl. Ahahahaha LOL except I don't look like Blake Lively......

www.pinterest.com

I also would love to be that girl who pretends to be awful so the boy will teach her and then turns around and is actually already amazing. But I'm not, I'm actually just awful!

As a date idea though, it's pretty cute, and I had a lot of fun. Pool is apparently all about angles, and hitting the balls at the right angles (no immature sniggers at the back please), and I was never a natural at maths so it's not my strong point... I kept positioning myself in the right position (seriously why are there so many innuendos involved in playing pool?) to hit the ball right, but not the cue, so everything kept being slightly wrong. So I wasn't necessarily awful, I just wasn't the best. 

The rules are simple enough to understand, just after watching my boy and his friends play pool, I can't imagine ever being good enough! Even by the end of the night it was taking me about 5 minutes to take the time to decide my position and what angle to attempt (and miss) to hit the ball, while they've done all the work and potted it in about 20 seconds. Some of them might have been flukes but they're flipping stylish flukes, while I'm that person clomping along in shoes way too big for me.

However, even if you don't get any better at the actual playing of pool, the boy will probably have a great time watching you bend over the pool table, and you can take great advantage of this. Silver lining, always a silver lining.

Something a bit different: The art of being confused

Picture credit: Pinterest

So I'm trying something a bit different this week, as I've really been struggling to do something new and exciting every week (I'm sure you haven't been able to tell with the direction my posts have been taking) and I don't want to keep slacking off until I end up not writing any posts at all.
So, I'm still going to challenge myself to do something new, just maybe only once or twice a month, but I still want to really dedicate myself to this blog, so I'm going to expand out with my posts, and just take it as it comes. I don't think it will ever fit into a specific genre, but when does anything really fit completely into a label? Good metaphor for life there guys - don't let anyone box you into a category. This is going to be a little bit of everything now.

So, without further ado, here is my first post of 'something different' - about being confused.

I'm beginning to realise that the age of 22 should be the year of complete and utter confusion. I'm not even quite at that age yet, I'm flailing in between the 'being a bit tired of being 21 now' and 'no 22 is such a dead end of an age,' but I'm already struggling with the confused part. 
Earlier this year I was so excited for this year, I kind of thought that any confusion would be out of my life, just gone, because I knew where I was going. Not what I wanted to do, true, but I knew I would have my boy and our life together, and I had no confusion about that.

However, it obviously turned out that he did, and the backlash of this has plunged me deep in the confusion pool, and I haven't always been the most gracious about it. But maybe this is okay. Maybe it's where I'm meant to be. Taylor Swift even writes the lines "we're happy, free, confused and lonely, at the same time," and "in the best way," about feeling 22, and that whole song for me is about embracing that exact feeling. Embracing everything you could be doing, and everything you could be feeling. 
For me, that's part of the problem, there is just so much that I could be doing, so many choices, decisions and options. I've never been the best at making decisions. That's a bit of an understatement actually. When I thought my decision was mapped out for me I fell into that comforting feeling, I jumped at the chance that I wouldn't have to make that big of a decision again, who wouldn't?

But now is a chance for me to think for myself again. Flail willingly and stupidly and repeatedly into this confusion. 22 is the age of trying every single option until you find the right one for you. Living in 5 different cities, working every different job there is, dating a different guy each month, and not for a moment ever feeling guilty for not knowing what you want. 

A lot of 22 year olds, myself included, will have just left full time education. University was a taste of adult life and freedom, sure, but it was like those taster science lessons at school where they would show you all the things you could blow up on your desk, or burn to a crisp with a Bunsen Burner, while when you actually got started you would just be copying out lists of food groups and safety rules. Sort of like taxes. Education, even if you hate to admit it, is like a parent. Comforting, secure and maybe a bit smothering, but always there to hold your hand. Now it's just shoved you out on a tightrope with a yelled "Good luck!" that you can't quite hear for the wind trying to dash you to the ground. 

So this is me saying that I'm going to do everything I possibly can to stay on that tightrope, and I'm going to have massive doubts, and regrets, and I'm going to make the wrong choices, and I'm going to do things wrong, but that's okay. I am here in this world to be confused, at least for right now.

I'm going to end with a quote from Shanelle Kaul: (she writes another 9 reasons about how great being 22 is here) 

"22 is basically the only age you can use as leverage. Meaning that because it's the exact age between life-as-you-know-it and what will later be known as 'real life' (that's scientifically proven, of course), people expect you to make some mistakes. Mistakes like overcooking a pot-roast or dating someone who may not be right for you. And that's okay, because heck, you're just 22."