About Nude Not Naked

I can’t write. Maybe I can write but I fear what my last paragraph will tell me. Many things are happening around me, all at one go and I am trying hard to hang in there. Things are catching up in the business, so I have been very busy with work. In my personal time, things are also changing and moving.

I think people call this growing up.

Growing up is a strange business. You see, grown ups always think that they are right and just at about 15, you do really believe that you are always right, hence the deduction that you are all grown up at 15. Then at perhaps 20 you realise that you are not so right about growing up at 15. When you spread your wings and see beyond your parent’s house gate, you think you are grown up. Guess what? You are still wrong.

You think that you are a smart ass kid, all streetwise and tough in university. You have your car to cart the girls around and you have your private room to shag your latest bunny. Obviously you think that you are grown up then. But you still aren’t.

Are you all grown up when you receive your first pay cheque? Nope. Are you grown up when you moved into your very own house? I don’t think so. This growing up business is quite elusive, I think. You always think that you are grown up when you reach a certain stage in your life but the reality is, you haven’t grown up as much as you thought you did.

You might think that I am all grown up. I vouch for this fact too, if not for the fact that I am discovering that I am not quite done with the growing up process yet. And I am beginning to realise that perhaps I will never be fully grown up. The definition of growing up changes as I mature and I can’t seem to grasp the concept for more than three nano seconds.

I have been the hopeless one – the one who never grows up. But even as hopeless as I was, I realised that there comes a time when I have to slow down and think a little more than just enjoying a drinking night with the boys on the weekend. Each decade brings about different stages of life and I think I can’t escape the great big “3” that is staring at me right in the eyes.

I think more about home life these days. I can’t wear the 4-inch heel around town the way I used to. My calves romantically ache for the comfortable pair of Aldo flats. I prefer staying in on weekends, spending evenings having private meals with friends and having quieter nights. It is embarrassing when some pimply teenager asks for my phone number. Or name. I am beginning to feel my age. Don't give me the "oh age is nothing but a number" bullshit. That's the crap you console yourself with on the day you discover your nipple rings are making friends with your belly button stud.

Oh the great shame if I don’t know how to carry myself at 31. No more dancing on bar tops. No more drinking vodka like an athelete consuming water after a 40km marathon. Bear some skin but in a more dignified manner. Tuck in my fleshy tits into the bikini and dress a little more responsibly. No more causing accidents to young blooded drivers in, around and about the city. That torch should be passed on to the younger ones.

I am not ready for a baby but I am thinking about it. Let me tell you a little secret. I secretly bought a pregnancy and conception book from MPH a month ago and I read through some of the pages. Whoever said pregnant women look great is a liar. Pregnant women look awful with their inch long nipples.

But it hasn’t deterred me from reading more and finding out the options for myself. I might not want a child now but I am exploring the prospect. Oh good Lord, no one comes to About Nude Not Naked to read about pregnancy fats and stinky babies. ANNN is about having fun, celebrating singlehood while longing pathetically for her hairy English (he's Scottish to be precise) boyfriend, Alex and entertaining perhaps 3 other boys on the side (just for fun).

Yeah right.

I think I have reached a critical time in my life. The point where you stand at the edge of a great emotional waterfall and you can choose either to continue standing on the edge and let everything pass you by or to take a bold step and fall. And if I take the fall, will I drown in the waters below? If I hold my breathe long enough, will I float back up or will the tides sweep me away?

I don’t know the answer and that’s why I have refused to think for the past two weeks. Which honestly, explains why I have not written since returning from Wroclaw.



*
“Hey, why are you back so early?” my head of staff asked me when I turned up for work on Monday. “Usually you will be in London until August or September…”

“I need to work,” I gave a short reply.

“Why are you home?” my parents asked me almost daily and each day my reply is the same. “There are lots to do at work.”

Some times they decide to poke a little deeper. It is as if they have deliberately pecked at my emotional wound, gnawing it deeper and wider, exposing my weakness for all to see. It feels as if they are biting for the juicy bits, hoping that it will make it into this weekend’s gossip sessions at a Starbucks near you. How much more vulnerable can one be?