I be tha uncovered:

F rom this post, this blog should be considered under construction. Much like my life right now. Not that anyone is reading yet, but the last year of my life I moved away from any kind of metropolis to Tinytown, Co. Bumfuck in Northern Ireland; a place I got the fuck out of and ran from at top speed as soon as I left school. In order to do what I want to do - which was return to New York, after the 4 months I spent there last summer - I had to come back, work, save - the most disciplined thing I have ever done. But in a matter of days now, that will have come to an end.

Perhaps something of an introduction is in order, just in case anyone is popping by this blog any time soon. The title of the blog, 'werunnaked' is a past tense version of an anagram of my full name. I how that's cryptic enough to keep the stalkers off my back. I studied in Dublin for 4 years, and when I say studied, I mean school of life - not that I didn't go to college, but that was hardly the ultimate in where I got my education. In fact, it was pretty much the end of passion for me.

Going to New York last summer for four months wasn't the revolution that people expect it might have been. I blew off steam, but ultimately I found it calming - The City that Goes to Bed at a Reasonable Hour. That's what I call it. However, when a graduate visa raised its head, and returning became a viable option, that idea mixed with a steadfast refusal to return to Dublin, sent me home to save. To save for the year away. I've always wanted, see, to travel or lie somewhere alone - or I have in the last few years anyway. When I moved to Belfast at 18 or Dublin a year later, I was utterly alone and I thrived off it. I've made a home in Dublin, but something in me still has a need for fear and newness. A brief meeting with a college councilor (trying to get an extension, obviously) once lead me waxing lyrical about what it is to be a Libra and why I want to travel alone. He replied to me, or rather, cut me off, saying:

"Perhaps you want to travel alone so you can see how those weights balance without any outside influence - to see how you weigh up."

DING DING DING. Give that man a coconut.

What I didn't realise when I came back to Tinytown was that forcing myself through some dreadfully lonesome times, and forcing myself to reconnect with the stuff that made me run in the first place, went a long long way to achieving the goal I hoped I would achieve in New York. Not to say that I don;t still want to go. If anything I want to move into the next phase of my life WITH what I have learned - and I will just try and be thankful that I shaved a year off learning it, without even meaning to.

I'm still not 100% sure if I'll be approved for the visa, due to the quality of my passport - but when this came to light I wasn't pissed off. I wasn't fucking livid that I had 'wasted' a year, as I felt I was doing throughout the solitude of what has just passed. I came to see that I have two options in front of me: Going to NY and plundering the fuck out of it, or getting out of here to elsewhere, and plundering the fuck out of that instead. Right now I feel what is most important is that wherever I end up, I have myself to rely on. And that whatever I do, it is something challenging that will continue to shake my spirit out of hibernation and get me the fuck out of the restaurant industry by the age of 28. Yeah, that's my new scary age.

A few things have happened in the last few days - a clear vision of an artistic project, a cal from a friend who breezes in and out of my life, the possibility of not getting what I've worked so hard for (the visa, that is). These things are colliding and awakening in me a creative kind of thought process that has felt all too distant for all too long. It's the thought process that is allowing me to look in front of me and see two clear paths - and a decision that is out of my hands. And what is so great about this? I don't mind which path I take, so long as I have myself to walk me down it. And I feel a lot more like I can do that now.

As for this blog, well, I hope this is me really starting to use it. I'm not going to delete the (awful) posts that are already here, but this should certainly be viewed as a cut off point. From here I hope I'll be able to lighten it up a little and use it for as the go to for the foundations of my video project. So, if I do have any followers eventually, look out for shit here. Slates.