Learning

It's been a long year.

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I mean... it's been a very short year, too! 2017 has flown by in a whirl of working, reading, scribbling and sleeping. I feel like last Christmas (all the celebrity deaths - including the heartbreaking passing of my beloved Carrie Fisher) feels like five minutes ago.

Important events, this year, have been like a fleet of no.25 TfL buses at an Oxford Circus bus stop at 5am: non-existent for what feels like eternity, then flooding in all at once when you've almost abandoned all hope!

It's not easy to do what everybody tells you to do and "just focus on the positive!" It's easier said than done to shut out the voices that tell you "you've achieved nothing this year" or "you're wasting time... tick... tick... hear that? That's the time you're wasting."

The voices are still there. I have to acknowledge them. But I also acknowledge everything I've achieved in the last few months. The strides I've made personally and professionally may not be that objectively huge, but - c'mon! - I can't do jack about the length of my legs.

I may feel like I haven't lived up to the amazing, multi-tasking, pro-active, uber-creative Char that 2016 Char dreamed 2017 Char would be. Fair. But I've survived this year. And more, much more than this - I LEARNED THINGS. Things that might even make 2018 (dare I say it...) a more successful year of Char-ing.

Now, I'm nine kinds of crap at making and keeping New Years Resolutions. It's too much pressure. I know this from many years of resolution-making failure. If I make a resolution to eat less salt and sugar I panic and wolf a huge bar of Dairy Milk and three family bags of Doritos (one in each of the sacred flavours: The cheesy, the hot and the holy cool original. *crosses self*) If I make a resolution to go to the gym more, procrastination and self-loathing kick in and it more often than not turns into a Mexican standoff between brain and body where nobody goes to the gym.

So instead, this year I have decided that the pressure is off. In order to be maximum gentle-on-my-brain whilst still generally improving as a human, I have distilled the series of learnings from this last year into three lessons. I have decided to share these lessons with you, dear reader, so I hope you can appreciate them, learn from my mistakes, or at least have a good giggle:

So here we go.

THREE LESSONS FOR CHAR:

LESSON 1: DON'T PANIC.

You panic a lot. You panic that you're not achieving enough. You panic about people liking you a lot, too. I mean, you're a human, not to mention an actor and a woman, so to some extent that's never really going to go away. But that old saying "Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter" rings true.

You are better-thought-of than you think you are (I think.) Sometimes you feel so low and lonely you forget. But people who like you do show it; they do you crazy favours and get you amazing gifts, that you would never have expected in a million years. People fricken' love you. Don't panic.

Also, coming clean about things, thinking people would turn on you, and instead receiving a huge volume of kind, supportive, empathetic and honest responses. Bloody brilliant. Make sure you hold on to that over the next year. Reread those messages. Call those people. Go grab a coffee with them when you feel super isolated. I know January and February are the worst months ever but seriously: Don't panic.

Performing in Macbeth with some great new friends, and spending time with my family.

LESSON 2: TAKE CARE.

You go for a run on a sunny morning. You do a face mask. You make a salad. With leaves, and everything.

Then. You get cocky. You drink a bottle of wine, which knocks you out of action for a good couple of days. You go to the gym for two hours and then you can't walk the next morning. You don't know what's wrong with you, and that's frustrating, but you aren't going to make it better by overdoing it. Take better care of yourself.

That also means taking care of your lil' brain. So stop beating yourself up when you DO overdo it - being angry at yourself isn't going to make anything better either.

Also. VERY IMPORTANT: reheat rice sufficiently. Otherwise you may wind up collapsing in Oxford Circus station and vomiting all the way as you're stretchered to A&E.

You had severe, acute gastroenteritis. To which you responded "ACUTE?! There is nothing cute about this."

Or you would have done. If you'd have been able to stop puking for more than two seconds. You were even ill on your birthday. In Tenerife. It was mis. I suppose, though, there are worse places to be ill.

It's no joke. Nuke it.

LESSONS!!!!!

LESSON 3: THINK LESS, DO MORE.

Being an actor is kind of sucky, especially when you're pretty much starting from zero because NOBODY KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.

Sitting around getting down about this fact (as is your wont) will not change it. Getting off your butt and emailing people, using slow periods to keep learning monologues and reading about your craft, getting yourself into the audition room so you can prove yourself - these are the things that will make changes in your life.

But you can end up in a thought spiral that paralyses you for days on end - you will feel SO much better if you just DO THE THING.

And, again, DON'T PANIC!!! If things don't happen right away, that's because the universe is working on it. You had a super slow career-year compared to last year, and felt yourself slipping into a un-creative stupor - until you started rehearsals with the ELSC towards the end of the year, and everything felt like it was falling into place. Hold onto that feeling.

This lesson can also be applied to life things. All your best memories of this year - and most of your life, actually - come from travelling. Unfortunately, you have to live within your means, so you can't go crazy, but you've got a few awesome trips planned in the next year. Some of these have been hanging out on your "To-go" list for a long, long time, so it's about time you took a tip from the tick and JUST DO IT!

A few memories from my adventures in 2017 - here's to the next one!

(I am aware that this last lesson in particular has a lot of capitalisation. Some would say surplus to requirements... Hopefully that means I'll remember some of it?!)

I'm seeing in 2018 by myself this year; housemates are all out, my usual friends who host parties all seem to have other (more off-puttingly expensive-sounding) plans, and I'm not feeling my best after these more-than-slightly traumatic few weeks following GastroGate. So a nice chill toast to myself, watching the fireworks on tv, is just what the doctor ordered.

I have many wishes for next year. Wishes for peace, love, prosperity and understanding - both within myself and for our poor little species. And for the sake of all that is holy let's get rid of Trump.

But, really, even if it's another slow-short year where I feel like nothing really changes, I'm now at the stage where, instead of fear at the unpredictability of the turning years, I just feel a low buzz of excitement. A small joy, the amber glow of an ember, as I wait for the next plot twist that the universe is currently rubbing it's proverbial hands together planning to come to fruition. Every New Years that comes around, I find myself just a little more buzzed for the future.

So, I guess, if peace is the end goal, I may not be where I want to be yet, but I've definitely kicked off the starting line. And if every year is a little more peaceful in here (*taps brain*) that's enough.

And I owe that smidgen of peace to a lot of work, some little changes, and a few really amazing people - friends I have known for years, and some I have known only for a few months. Kindness is invaluable.

So, on this New Years Eve, principally, I am feeling thankful.

And peaceful. Happy New Year to you all, and may your 2018 be, above all, peaceful.

All my love,

Char

xxx

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