coffee off the clock is a weekly column full of musings on life since i left my 9-5, and building a life around writing. join me for a coffee every week and follow my journey!

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i’ve spent long enough staring at the blank page before me. i tell myself there’s nothing to write. or rather, nothing worth writing. bee sits atop the laptop screen, testing his voice in high pitched squeaks.

we’ve just returned from friday’s brunch. we decided to go to mr. cooper’s in the clyde shopping centre in clydebank. it’s the epitome of a true hidden gem. hazelnut latte and of course, pistachio pancakes. the same as always. also wearing the same jeans, just a different top. and there’s something quite poetic about that. it seems to encapsulate where this column is going. i have yet to risk trying anything else lol.

yap score was a 6/10 today. caffeinated but not hydrated. can’t have a good yap score with one & not the other. but the coffee was sooo delicious and i loved the mug. in fact, everything about mr cooper’s decor was just screaming little cosy med café, except you’re in clydebank. some would say that’s the best of both worlds – depends who you ask.

anyway, i’m at my little black desk, my head is in my hands. how deep do i go? and do i tell the truth? am i brave enough to admit the tidal waves of the week? that writing about the tension of opposites is not as simple as rubbing two sticks together to get fire. i had forgotten that friction burns.

i’m spinning thoughts round in my head: i didn’t anticipate the weeks of this column where thoughts are easier to write than feelings. that’s what my poetry was for. at least i could wrap the feelings up in some abstract metaphor. but now i have to write things as they are, not as i would like them to be.

i didn’t anticipate the frustration of outgrowing the old outfit, feeling like i’m bursting at the seams but still having to be content with where i am. i mean, i did think it last week, and i wrote it. but i hadn’t yet felt it. it was like i could grasp the concept of something before i opened the door to what it really meant. last week, i was the observer. this week, i’m the observed.

so let me begin by saying the truth: this week has been like standing with a rope in either hand, unable to allow the weight of each world to pull you either way. there’s a strain in that. and i envied atlas. he only had to carry the weight of one world, not two. and the pain made itself apparent. i’m rejecting the world i’m currently in.

a dream had warned me about this. i was walking along a dark street when i could see the wallpaper of a woman’s house through the window. i mocked it to a shadowy figure beside me. i said it was ‘tacky’. it was bright, colourful and patterned with images of sloths. a hooded figure appeared out of a doorway and put a knife to my face: don’t you dare mock her. i startled awake. it felt like a warning.

the next morning me and majd got onto the topic about the number 7 and its importance in christianity. the 7 commandments and 7 stations of the cross, amongst others. but later that night, while reading man and his symbols, my dream image began to click into place. jung talks about symbols of the collective unconscious (essentially like a giant collective library of symbols our unconscious has access to when we’re sleeping to convey a message from the psyche).

as i replayed the dream in my head, i couldn’t escape the image of the sloth. i thought of what the animal represents: slowness, leisure, perhaps even laziness. that’s when it came into focus. sloth was one of the 7 deadly sins. i immediately knew what i was being warned against. and it wasn’t about becoming sloth-like. it was about me mocking and mistaking these last 2 years for something they’re not.

i was being warned against demonising and mocking the version of myself i’d become for introspection. the years where nothing seemed to be happening externally, but so much was happening internally. and the colours of her wallpaper, inside a house, told me that i’d be dismissing the accumulation of abundance and vibrancy of my inner world if i were to do so. and it’s true. over these last few years, my inner world has never felt so alive and pulsating.

the thing is, i knew this ‘sloth’ state all too well. just before i got my corporate job, i was overweight, anxious and never left the house. then, when i lost weight and ventured into the city, i mocked who i was before. i’d degrade that version of myself relentlessly. that’s when arrogance took my ego by storm. but without her, i wouldn’t have been where i was. there’s just as much danger in believing yourself superior to others as believing yourself superior to other versions of yourself. that’s the truth that hit me hard this week.

i was doing the dishes with disdain. i was bored by the scenes of my woodland walks, the same ones i’d wander through with awe. i was feeling the annoyance of monotony. the tasks that once gave me routine and peace were now becoming inconvenient; stifling almost. i preached it last week: you mustn’t swing to extremes. hold. but i had missed the point: every pendulum swings until it finds its balance. every fire requires the pain of friction. so i allowed it. i let the feelings in. and they didn’t have very kind things to say, but i have to admire their honesty.

ailsa, when was the last time you dreamed? to allow your vision to get a little ahead of yourself? it was over a year ago and i hadn’t dared to do very much of it since. i remember when it ceased. i’d stepped into my new life as a writer with the eyes of a lovergirl, full of optimism and hope. it felt like the antithesis of the corporate world – a place where no ego could dominate, no barriers could divide. but i learned quickly that it wasn’t true. that people who write are, after all, still people.

many disappointments later; many dangerous seductions and false promises; knocks on doors that wouldn’t open, i think the dreamer part of me went to sleep and the survival part came awake. i had to discern.

i had to ask: what people were using me and why? why was my immediate response to every opportunity ‘yes’? i asked no questions – i was just eager to be valued. but it went beyond enthusiasm to ‘you’re lending yourself out for easy exploitation in this industry’.

there were so many hard lessons to learn and none of it was anybody’s fault. it was just a necessary phase of learning to do the weeding in your own garden. to recognise that my value is intrinsic, non-negotiable and certainly not conditional within an industry. and this gave me the ability to recognise red flags a lot quicker.

i began to say ‘no’ to more things, to disengage with disrespect and slowly build a solid ‘inner law’. i even wrote this inner law down in a book – the things that are not up for negotiation when it comes to my personal life and my writing life.

then, i created the writing workshops with erskine arts and i had to learn to embody a new role. that was exciting and terrifying all at once. but it’s been 6 months now, and a few people have asked me ‘so, you do your workshop classes on a monday…but what else do you do?’

and i think a few months ago, if i was asked that, i would be pretty defensive. because i was already undergoing a big stretch, i couldn’t imagine broadening that world then. but now, that question lands in a different way. it almost feels like an invitation directly from the world that it’s time to expand again. and i guess the only question that remains is what next? what do i believe is possible for me without insisting on a fixed outcome?

if last week was the beginning of the ‘pregnancy with possibility’ as i had described, then this week is the pain that comes with that. you don’t really notice the voids in your life until you slow down. but you have to sit with them long enough to ask them what they want. and mine just wants to know who else am i?

I’ve been searching for something, taken out of my soul. Something I’d never lose, something somebody stole. This week’s song is the river of dreams by billy joel. This song came on my recommended this week and it sounded strangely familiar from my childhood.

until next week reader, may all your questions be answered and coffees be served in cute mugs that make you want to impulsively book a holiday.

– ailsa x