Whilst indeed, I’m still grappling with clambering up Wainwrights and hobbling back down with my precious soil in tow, I’m also thinking a lot about how this will all come together for my final show. This body of work means a great deal to me, and surprisingly not because it’s for the final show of my MA, rather I finally feel I have found a direction and purpose. It’s a culmination of all the things I wanted to say, but couldn’t, all the things I tried to express, but couldn’t. It’s all of the things.

It’s a literal representation of the gruelling journeys I have endured and the challenges and many obstacles faced. What is even more interesting is, I realised the final film piece I did for my undergraduate Utopia module was trying to say the very same thing, yet through the medium of poetry and visual representation of film, where I used scenes of a treachurous sea, along with dance and finally the summiting of a mountain, where everything suddeny came into colour. This led to further research around melancholy and hope and an everlong quest for change. We campaign for women’s liberation, we champion that Black Lives Matter, we fight for equality among disabled people, yet it’s all quiet on the classism front..I’m turning 42 this year – the meaning of life and everything in it – yet I still haven’t achieved what I ought to have, quite frankly, because I grew up on a council estate and don’t come from money. I figured it would therefore take me twice as long, if not longer, to get where I’d like to. It’s what I call, living the half life.

I have everything in place to begin my PGCE in September. Offer from the university, student finance (finally) in place, and I’m all researched out. Do I really want to be a teacher? No, not really. I mean I love teaching and I would love for that to be a part of my life’s work, but I also need a stable income and a bloody pension. What I’d really REALLY like, is to have the money to have a studio space, continue raising awareness of social divisions and seek to close the class divide. I’d like to not worry about my electric bill, or choose between buying a book and a loaf of bread. I’d like to teach creative classes out in nature that open people’s minds to a journey away from the rat race; to be self sufficient and a studio and classroom filled with plants..

I also have to be mindful that I have ADHD 😦 and often my mind can get a bit carried away with big ideas. It’s the austism that keeps me somewhat grounded in a strange sort of way. She craves stability, order and planning. He craves much more.

So, we’ll settle for the half life. And somehow, we’ll make it together.