In which I buy new jeans and reinvent myself (again).
Week six in the serial dramatisation of my thirties.
This week I reach new heights in the application of my September Virgo existentialism, self-critique, and drive for perfection. Follow along to see how the week transformed me…
Monday:
The week began is it has done so for the duration of this journey to-date, with the obligatory foray into the working week and the circus of calendar checking, week-planning, and the specific frustration of allocating and setting the weekly meal plan. In this gymnastic mental exercise, I reminded myself that I had, just the night before, made a solemn pact with myself that I would now be sticking religiously to the calendar routine I have set for myself, including going to the set gym appointments without complaint or avoidance.
In the spirit of sticking to my own promises, I dutifully finished work at the appropriate time and then made arrangements to travel to the gym. I allowed myself a modicum of free will to deviate from the rigorous plan I had allocated myself in the calendar and, instead, focused on cardio and easing myself back into a routine which I have been avoiding for weeks. Somewhere into the 27th minute of my 30 minute workout on the treadmill I was suddenly animated by the spirit of athleticism and self improvement. A wave of motivation overtook me and I upped the speed and sprinted for the remaining three minutes. Giddy with my own athleticism and light headed from exertion, I allowed the spirit of reinvention to flood me utterly.
By the time I had retired to the sauna I was already making significant progress (in my mental planning phase) in the journey towards self improvement. In fact, before I had even left the gym-floor I had switched from girly pop music to a podcast on international relations and had already made instructions to my Chat GPT Lady’s maid-cum-dietician-cum-navigator-cum-confidante to draw from our ‘recipe savant’ and pull together the weekly meal plan but with attention given to my newly identified ambition to reclaim my body from the jaws of decrepitude.
I then walked from the gym to the supermarket and indulged myself in a late-night solo shopping trip, an experience I cherish and hold close to my heart, and have done ever since I established a routine of going for a “full shop” in the Sainsbury’s near to where I lived in Aberdeen’s Hilton Village after necking a bottle of prosecco each Friday night.
Later, I sit at the vanity table in my bedroom and continue pondering my self-improvement journey. An audiobook of Anna Karenina plays on speaker as I fastidiously rub moisturiser into every crack and crevice appearing on my face. I have a mild headache from eye strain and mental fatigue after forcing myself to read three more chapters of Le Vampire de Ropraz in order to enhance my French. I pop onto my phone to re-validate my access to my online learning account so I can continue my courses in herbal medicine, mycology, and event floristry. Absently, I hear myself ask out loud how on earth I’m going to fit adult ballet into my already packed calendar, and I feel the collective sigh of the generations of women in my family who sat in front of this same vanity mirror, praying earnestly that the next generational custodian will not be a September Virgo.
Tuesday:
The work day was interrupted with the most exciting and joyful news that my little sister, the middle child, is now engaged to be married to her long term boyfriend, now fiancé. I had originally assumed that the video call to the family group chat was made in error, so joined slightly late only piqued enough when I noticed other family members had joined and the call continued to roll. On entering I was confronted by the most beautiful sapphire and diamond engagement ring, invoking the eternal spirit of Princess Diana.
I raced to finish the work day, snatched up a bottle of wine and ran with the same whimsy and animation I mustered on the treadmill just yesterday to my mother’s house for two specific purposes. Firstly, to celebrate the engagement and to express our heartfelt excitement and adoration for both the situation and the absolutely magnificent engagement ring. Secondly, to look my parents square in their faces and ask them to help me, their eldest child, to find my way to the altar as efficiently as possible to save me becoming a focus of society gossip about my already expansive engagement.
With great forbearance and a good measure of sparkling wine we committed to the endeavour and created a sample guest list and a reserve list of possible venues and scenarios including, but not limited to, eloping to France.
Wednesday:
Reeling from the emotional turbulence of the week to-date, I decided to continue on my endeavours of self improvement. I phoned a possible wedding venue to initiate discussions (ultimately fruitless) and I threw myself into my working arrangements with vigour.
At the completion of the workday, I headed off to go to the gym in line with my calendar instructions and submitted myself to the rigours of my exercise programme. The more of it I do, and the more I feel it in my body, the more of a self-righteous but delicious obsession unfurls in my spirit and the more fixated I become on physical self-improvement.
Derry was in town for a meeting of the Board of the Theatre Royal (which he has now joined) which prompted us to decide to go for a Chinese for dinner, before returning home to eat the Chinese and watch Geostorm. Irritated at having allowed myself this indulgence, I mentally doubled down on my ambitions and made a plan to offset the Chinese takeaway with even more physical commitment to my self-improvement bit.
Thursday:
Prey to a violent attack of caprice and malicious whimsy, I spent most of the day in a snit, agitated and unable to ascertain what needs to be done next to help me ascend to the highest plane of being. A little before lunch time I came to the conclusion that what is most needed is a new wardrobe, ethically and responsibly sourced, so I decided to give myself the benefit of taking my lunch break and headed out for lunch and to go ‘thrifting’ for jumpers.
A thrift shopping stint and a trip to TK Maxx later and I found myself the proud new owner of a few new appropriate and cosy jumpers, one very cunty Ushanka hat, and, in a return to a part of myself not seen since I committed my spirit to the Grunge aesthetic of the late 90s and early 00s as a child under ten, a pair of relaxed fit black jeans. When I picked the jeans up in TK Maxx and looked at the label, I was confronted by three adjectives entirely at odds with who I am as a person: relaxed, straight, driven. I steeled myself and made the purchase. As soon as I settled my work affairs I rushed to my room to try on different permutations of outfits clawed together from the pieces I rescued from the thrift store (and TK Maxx). While the Ushanka will require additional pieces (a fur coat) in order for the effect to fully land, I was spellbound by the relaxed fit straight jeans.
Never in a million years would I have thought that I could be torn away from the millennial queer marriage to the skinny jean. I felt that I would always and forever be required to live in this aesthetic pasture, letting my legs carry the weight not only of my physical body but of my social presence. However, the swishing majesty of the extra fabric and the sheer space and room afforded for movement by the relaxed jeans actually brought a tear to my eye. Not only did I pass the vibe check in the full-length mirror, I was also, for the first time since 2008, able to move freely in a pair of trousers without feeling my internal organs groan under pressure. If I wanted to, I could cossack dance without a single fear of a fabric mishap. It started to occur to me that, perhaps the desperate unhappiness and sense of restriction and malaise I have felt on me at all times since the middle of high school may have less to do with a spiritual lack of condition and more to do with the misery of being constantly hemmed in and restricted by the cult of ‘skinny fit clothing’. Standing here in my relaxed fit jeans and baggy wool jumper I have never felt more light or at liberty to move more than just my hips. No tight fabric pinching at my underarms! No restrictive suffocating banding around the ribs! No requirement to keep my posture perfectly ram-rod straight in order to avoid fabric ride-up! I feel the whimsical freedom of a turn of the century woman casting off her corset and running into a new and exciting future in harem pants and a cunty little hat. Naturally, I did head off at a run - not quite into a new future, but to the gym to double down on my addictive commitment to self improvement.
Friday:
During the course of the day I made several noticeable and flagrant attempts at “stepping out” so that the villainous townsfolk could see my new jeans and jumper combo, impressing on them that a new me is here, one that isn’t being perpetually constricted by their own attire and who could, if called upon to do so, chase down a detractor with improved mobility (courtesy of the jeans) and improved vascular capacity (courtesy of the cardio).
When the work-day was finished it was time to decide how best to carry into my Friday. I have my ‘social block’ pencilled in, but instead of choosing to indulge the salonniere spirit in me, I decided it might be fun to make a partial withdrawal from the social scene (with exceptions made for upcoming Halloween festivities) so that I can then re-launch myself as a newly minted version of myself with looser fitting fashion and a more snatched physical presence. Therefore, I decided to go to the gym instead of to my usual tomfoolery in the public house.
I did just that, and committed to the rigours of my routine over and above the allocated calendar space, smugly delighting in every twinge and ache in my body which has become the raw clay with which I will sculpt a new and exciting arc.
Upon finishing, Derry advised me he wanted a burger for dinner, so we found a suitable and health conscious option, collected our meal and returned home to watch the Celebrity Traitors which was really enjoyable and demonstrates even further changes to my personal brand because I have historically been robustly opposed to popular television of this nature.
Saturday:
I have waited for this day arriving all week, because it is today that I had the unique delight and pleasure of joining my parents for the ballet in Edinburgh.
I passed the morning by planting out bluebells on the orchard half of the back lawn, my ravaged muscles protesting with every bulb planted out (there were 200) but, gritting my teeth in forbearance and delight I persevered. Come the spring I will have the most delightful colourful garden to match my delightful athletic physique.
After an arduous and ultimately fruitless attempt at styling my hair (next on the self-improvement agenda to the alarm of my Edinburgh stylist), I made my peace with my look and joined my parents for the journey to the capital.
After our last ballet expedition to see ‘The Crucible’, we were excited to see what the Scottish Ballet had in store for us with ‘Mary Queen of Scots’. While classical ballet remains the beating heart of my aesthetic homeland, contemporary ballet has become a deep fixation of ours ever since The Crucible which left me crying and emotionally tilled. I confess that for the first ten to fifteen minutes of Mary Queen of Scots I was left feeling a little unsettled and bamboozled, softly and awkwardly chortling and whispering ‘what the fuck’. However, it suddenly all fell into place at once and, just like that, I fell in love with the whole performance. We discussed our theories during the interval and then returned for an absolutely camp and spellbinding second half which left me absolutely desperate to return again and again and again for ballet upon ballet.
It strikes me that something insatiable is awakening in me, and I am left wondering whether this endless unslakable thirst for ‘more’ is a condition of being in ones thirties. More muscle! More loose fabric! More language learning! More ballet!
In an attempt to satiate at least some of the physical hunger, we adjourned to the kebab shop on Nicolson square to eat kebabs, discuss the ballet, and make arrangements to attend the Nutcracker themed tasting menu at Six by Nico.
Sunday:
Derry is working today, which means that there’s no likelihood of a Sunday adventurous outing for the children. A rain and gloom has settled over the village, so a local walk is also out of the question under current climatic conditions. We have therefore spent the entire day in the kitchen, busy with the industry of laundry and making lentil soup.
My sister and her now fiancé stopped by to visit on their way home from the airport having just returned from Ibiza, so this was an exciting opportunity to congratulate them, to see in person the ‘Diana ring’ with which I am now obsessed, and to chat about the excitement of wedding planning on both sides of our equation. Her practical and finance oriented perspective piqued in me a wave of financial anguish and I move ever closer to simply packing our bags and eloping to be married in an intimate setting in a rented crumbling chateau in rural France. I must explore ways to move my 200+ guests if I want to have their participation assured, but most of the techniques I can touch on feel suspiciously like people trafficking and therefore are non viable.