Tag, I'm it!

For the first time ever I’ve been tagged to write a post. It’s on High Vibes, which I believe to be on the subject of what you do to keep yourself positive. Thanks for the tag, lovely Taexelia, Queen of the Foxes.

One apparently has to share five tricks for staying positive. I’ve decided to tell five little stories about times when I needed a bit of positivity and what I/others did to get my/their mojo back.

1. The Story of the Evil German Bastard who Broke My Heart When I Was Nineteen.

I was obsessed with a German exchange student 8 years older than me at University. For three years we went back and forth to Scotland and Germany. I was deliriously obsessed with him. The female members of my family loved him, the males didn’t. That should have been a warning. He was so good looking and charming that I couldn’t believe that he would even look twice at me. My dad, who is a normally personable chap, would sit and glare at him whenever I took him home. My mum and sister would look at him with awe.

After two years he dumped me for a nurse whom let’s face it he’d been shagging all along. I was borderline suicidal. I had fantasies of little blonde bilingual babies. But for a year after dumping me, he would still visit. He would invariably sleep with me, raising false hope. Then one night after doing this he felt all guilty about cheating on his girlfriend. He was actually in tears. The utter cheek of him! Something in me snapped. I took his bag, jacket and shoes and flung them out into Great Western Road (Glasgow’s main drag) and told him to leave. I actually flung him out the door in a T-shirt and boxers in February. My flatmates practically gave me a Mexican Wave. Two years later I met Meeester and I thought, “Thank God.”

Item One: Get rid of bad people from your life who stop the good ones coming along.


2. The Story of Leaving My So Called Fabulous Production Job

This is worthy of a longer post. So see this as a kind of trailer. When you work for a company for 8 years and have (along with your colleagues) turned a little production department that made crappy videos for colleges into a major player in the commercial production world, heading up Global Live Broadcasts for Blue Chip Companies, you’d think a payrise to bring your salary up to a measly £25,000 wouldn’t be out of order. Apparently it was. I left.

Item 2: If anyone takes the piss, then leave.


3. Surprise Story!

At the end of last year I was very ill. I won’t go into details. For my birthday I wanted nothing, but a surprise. On my birthday Meeester set me a challenge. He gave me a canvas, paints and brushes and told me I had 30 days to sell my work on Ebay for ANY money. Here it is:

I got £73 for it and I gave the proceeds to the Cats Protection League. As a reward Meeester let me choose the jewellery of my choice in Thailand but the real reward was the painting. Doing that painting and seeing all my friends and family (and some unknown bidders!) bidding for it, made me well again. And I’ve been painting ever since.

Item3: Surprise someone. Life’s too short on surprises.


4. The Travel Bug

I’ve always been a traveller. Sounds like the start to a ropey folk song, doesn’t it? Travel is the best thing ever. I’ve turned my husband and kids into travellers too. That’s why I call us the Flying Martinis.

I would love to write a travelogue and was delighted that so many of my friends and family enjoyed reading my daily emails from Finland and then when I started blogging, my Sri Lanka and Thailand Travelogues. See some of them here and here (or look in the April archives)

By the time I’m 40 I am going to get a travelogue published. I am, I can. No question.

Item 4: Have an ambition and realise it.


5. Music is Soul Food

What a flipping hippy thing to say. But it’s true. Tonight I am going to watch the wonderful Meeester and some of my most favourite people in the world play their 6 new songs live in front of a small audience in a dodgy little dive called The Moorings before they take them to various festivals in the summer. The band, the Lorelei, are in their second wave. To cut a long story short they made a very emotional and difficult decision to part with their original lead singer and songwriter about 10 years ago even though they were quite successful.

It’s not been easy. They’ve had to find a new singer (Meeester), turn their hands to writing without the powerful but often destructive presence of lead singer No1, and have been scrutinised by all the fans of the band from back when. All that and the old leader singer turns up at their first gig and stares them all out. Toooo difficult.

Despite all that they have been booked up for festivals, easily pack out Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree every time they play and are gaining new fans every day.

Tonight they go back on with all new songs, a lot happier and creative than they have ever been and I’m so proud of them all. One more thing, if any of them are reading this, gonna sell some flipping records now so that we can all live La Vida Loca?

Item Five: Have faith in yourself and prove your critics wrong.


So there we are. Now it's my turn to tag five others:

KayessJayKay
EvvyB
American Scot
Joseph
Surviving Motherhood

Mumu

Anyone else who wants tagged let me know and I'll add you to the list. Simply click here for the rules.

You're It!