life – It’s Joel, actually.

Love is.

January 16, 2021January 16, 2021Posted in UncategorizedTagged comedy, fear, fight or flight, instinct, kindness, life, lockdown, love, mental health, parenthood, romance, selflessness, teenagers1 Comment

Love is complex. It’s everywhere. Like the constant stream of brightly coloured 24 hour news. It’s Hugh Grant stuttering through the same film role, countless times over. It’s if or how you wear yourself clambering to a crowded bar on payday Friday. It’s hours of agony staring at the two blue ticks screaming silently at you waiting to see an italic typing… It’s the feeling in your legs when you see it. It’s constant reassurance that you’ll never leave. Or it’s asking them to promise they never will. It’s the hoards of gifts seamlessly towering like a competitive game of Jenga. And it’s asserting every piece of your puzzle directly on top of theirs because Coldplay told you it might just fit. And only they understand.

Or it’s not.

Maybe it’s us. Maybe we are the complexities, complicating one of life’s simplicities with our own experiences and narratives. To reject fear, and choose love – a popular refrain; many believe that these are two of human beings’ primal instincts and that we cannot feel the two at the same time. Without a degree of psychological training I don’t feel comfortable pronouncing this as universal. However, I do sense a change in my soul.

I used to live in the top paragraph. Like waves of vast emotion crashing against my metaphoric coastline. I remember an evening dinner riddled in the fear of not loving enough and needing even more. Tears at the table, and I mean remembering the scales back then, it wasn’t Mum’s cooking! I remember planting a foot through the floorboards, accompanying a likely cry of ‘you don’t understand’ or something similarly adolescent.

I’ve complicated friendships, relationships, and the mirror all in how I understood love to be. A negotiation as opposed to a commitment, a job description rather than a feeling subscription. Maybe that last line’s a tad too much of an application of my GCSE learnt linguistic devices.

As a songwriter, many of my mentors have always talked about the importance of being able to strip back to basics. Melody and lyrics. The foundations. Building your rhythms, instrumental hooks and the perfect mix is how you build the house. It quite often sounds better with the full band, but the song remains the same whatever its production. What if that’s what love is? A foundational decision to trust that the choice to be in it and receive it remains the same even at its most bare. Melody and lyrics.

An all encompassing love isn’t how many times you text, or how they reply. It isn’t how much net profit was received at Christmas. And it isn’t stepping into it wondering when or if, or even how it might end someday. It’s just turning up everyday remembering ‘I do’, and knowing you are. A reflection. A choice. A receiving. Right until the end. It’s fragile, and it can be very painful but neither are reasons to be afraid. A wise woman once said “today’s the day you worried about yesterday, and all is well.” A perfect love casts out all fear.

To dare to love is to dare to lose. But when life throws us losses, I’d rather have them winning.

Love is simple. It’s the step father offering to fill up the car so you can care for the man who’s name you share from birth. It’s the toddler, pressed up against your face in the bathroom as you caress the porcelain perch proclaiming; “Got these sweeties right here. 3 for you. Me have 1”. It’s the ex-wife preparing an emergency food parcel for the temporary cat resident you’ve taken in at short notice. It’s the swathes of local folk scrolling their emoji’s to find the praying hands on the church prayer page. They don’t know you, but they’ll do it anyway. And it’s the coach who measures your waistline weekly, swapping helping you hold your dumbbell press for a personal best for teary tissues. These things. This week. Love without measure. Look out for it, it’s everywhere.

Dry your eyes, mate.

January 10, 2021January 10, 2021Posted in RecoveryTagged comedy, comic, goal setting, heart break, itsokaynottobeokay, life, lockdown, mental health, planning, teenagers, the streets2 Comments

Picture the scene. A hefty 15 year old boy, lay aloft (it is aloft) a Thuka (knowing the age group sleeping in their beds, they could’ve chosen their name more carefully) cabin bed sobbing into an already fairly snottily covered pillow one Thursday morning in 2004. My mum, because she’s still a saint, gallops up the stairs to tend to her inconsolable eldest son.

“To break from protocol, we’re going to play that beautiful song again, straight away” Jo Wiley told the abundance of (I’m hypothesising) brickies, cabbies, students, ‘keyworkers’ and the like falling apart by their newly purchased DAB radios. “It’s The Streets, mum, it’s like he knows my life”.

I can’t remember exactly what part of my life Mike Skinner had been privy to at the time. It couldn’t be the 93% attendance record at school because that was deemed by the schools as ‘for my eyes only’, and it couldn’t be the fact my WWF wall tidy was fraying quicker than The Rock could smell;

I must not have received the text reply I was holding out for as I probably bravely penned to an unsuspecting recipient:

“Nobody sed it wz easy, It’s such a shame for us to part, Nobody sed it wz easy, No1 eva sed it it wud b this hard, I’m goin bk 2 the start.”

Tb. Luv u x x x

NME wrote at the time that Dry Your Eyes was “a hairs on the back of your neck song for jilted lovers”. “Rarely before had Skinner sounded so poignant and vulnerable, and, well, normal” Tony Naylor so concisely put. I returned to this song so many times over the fifteen years of relational turmoil that followed.

The fact I can’t remember if this rejection was from C or H, or maybe even the fact I thought it could’ve been a yes from J but she was still with R, but then I enticed her with a shared train journey to see Muse meaning it turned out not to be a rejection either way J meant that it wasn’t all that bad. But in those 9:02 minutes I felt like he knew whatever ever it was that I was going through. Side note: he must’ve had my number as the preceding single ‘Fit but You Know It’ seemed to contain musings that only the snowman with its secret pocket had been stored with.

The take home, tissues were needed on more than one occasion.

This week there was a change to Monday’s television schedule. Boris once again requested that we’d stay home and limit our interaction with the outside world. The very same day, I had earlier responded to a Facebook post asking me to rate how I was feeling by way of a coloured heart. I responded with a red heart – ‘I was doing great’. A mere twelve hours later, in one single moment my life had turned round.

Okay, that is a slight exaggeration but the new year, new me-moon certainly felt more like same shit, different day. Skinner writes that ‘the world feels like it’s caved in, proper sorry frown’. I didn’t sleep on Monday night. Restless. Anxious. Somewhat overwhelmed. I felt the weight of the family’s finances collapsed upon my chest. All plans of being creative, of rediscovering my artistry felt like they had to be shelved. And, the 2 stone weight loss that had been achieved before Christmas seemed like the dying embers of an open fire. Or perhaps a better metaphor would be simply asking the question: what’s the opposite to a tyre puncture?

Lying wide eyed as my partner and son slept, I didn’t know how we were going to cope with the mental, productive, financial and emotional complexities of another full lockdown. In that moment, that red heart emoji was certainly bleeding its colour.

There’s a meme being passed around the internet – there always is – that says “thank you for my seven day trial but I’d like to cancel my subscription to 2021”. So much of day to day life is transient, I’ve learned anyway. ‘It was best of times and it’s the worst of times.’ I always I like to turn to The Office in times of writing and there’s a moment where David Brent describes life as just a series of peaks and troughs. “You don’t know whether you’re in a trough until you’re climbing out, or on a peak until you’re coming down”.

I’m writing this at the end of the first week of lockdown 3 probably somewhere between okay and great. On Tuesday I reached out to my coach to ask for help in processing these ever fluctuating feelings, trying to work out how to support my family, run the business that pays our bills but still find time to strike a creative match, once daily. We walked and talked (holding a two metre stick between us at all times), it always feels so good to talk. In a mere hour of passing time I had felt the feelings, acknowledged how they were affecting me and put in place a strategy to restart.

BIR style Chicken Tikka Masala

New year, new me? I’m pretty sure this is actually the wettest dry January since records began. Instead, I invite you to embrace a ‘new year, same me’. You don’t have to change everything, it’s about being just a little more ready for not knowing what’s round the corner. Reach out, get mind fit. Set some little goals. Achieve them. (We’ve already a restaurant style curry from scratch this weekend!) There’ll be a forever of Mike Skinner moments, but it’s only a 4:32 minute song. There’s always a follow up single (Blinded by the Lights, if you’re asking).

Always feel the feelings. Even the tough ones. Even when they flip your life upside down. It’s so easy in times of stress to feel helpless, however I am so grateful to the years of process that reminds me to ‘dry my eyes mate, there’s plenty more fish in the sea’. That’s a metaphor, not always an excuse to join Tinder.

Mr Poppy

November 25, 2020Posted in RecoveryTagged body image, Christmas, fear, kindness, life, mental health, nativity, teenagersLeave a comment

As lots of you know, Christmas 🎄 is such an important time to me. So much so that for the last ten years or so I’ve been called Mr Poppy anywhere I’ve been where people have seen ‘Nativity!’ Secretly, I’ve always really struggled with it as he’s a character who has a bit of a portly figure, and is actually quite childlike to the point of immaturity. Over the years I’ve found it a knock to my self esteem as someone that has publicly had his slip ups, in weight fluctuation, in my personal life experiences, in love and in the general wanting to appease other people’s expectations.

The journey of the last decade has seen the highest of highs and the depths of lows. However, as December rolls around, I have always emphasised the festive season. I’ve never really understood why other than to say that it was a constant fixture to pause whatever is ‘real life’ and either live in limbo or, sometimes, fantasy. Truth is, for much of my (post) Poppy life, I think I’ve lived in hope for (my perceived) better life. I’ve not wanted to struggle with my weight, or not handle adult relationships, or act immaturely.

This is very convoluted imagery, but I have reflected on this as someone that feels like they’ve come through the ‘other side’ mentally. I’ve always heard the Mr Poppy thing negatively…I think mostly because it’s often been from students saying “you look just like him”. I do. A bit. (I also get “you look like Joel Dommett” and you won’t be surprised to find out I’m pro this comparison 😂😂) However, his character is as much full of innocence, hope and wonder. Amazing things!

I spent so long worrying about how I’m perceived by others that I would miss the Mr Poppy innocence of life and being myself. This year I made a promise to my partner that I would change that and seek what is truly in my heart. There is always a way through, whatever you see and however you feel.

I’m going to share a Christmas song next week that I’ve written for anyone heading into this season with some fear for how the next few weeks may feel. It’s written as a grieving widow, but it’s happy sad and I’d love to share the widow’s hope for life without, with you.

Be kind to yourself, always x

This Modern Love

March 22, 2020Posted in UncategorizedTagged blended family, childhood, grief, heart break, kindness, life, mental health, Mother’s Day, mum, parenthood, step mumLeave a comment

Families come in all different shapes and sizes. For some children there is only one whom they call mum. For others there may be a village of mothers. These women are ALL amazing and I am so grateful for all that they do for our little boy.

Although life’s story can be written in many different ways, when there is love, there is no boundary.

Cara,thank you for sharing our boy with, and in turn giving new purpose to Melissa 🙏🏻💕 You both provide him so much joy, laughter, wisdom, stability, routine and care. With you, he is safer than he could ever imagine, and loved beyond measure. Although I’m sure we may be in the minority in the way we do family after separation, thank you both of you for standing with me and showing the world that love wins, even after endings. Elias stands to be one heck of a man with this team behind him 🚀

To my mum, thank you for helping find my sparkle again. For holding me in the pain. For reminding me of my name, when I’d forgotten who I was. For providing me a bed when I needed to rest. For standing by me, even in my mistakes. You are one of my heroes and I’m a better parent for being your son. As I have written above, it takes a village to raise a child, and we couldn’t do it anywhere near as well as we are doing without you too 💕 we love you x

Caroline.

March 7, 2020Posted in RecoveryTagged blended family, childhood, fear, fight or flight, grief, heart break, itsokaynottobeokay, life, love, mental health, parenthood, romance, step mum, suicideLeave a comment

Dear Internet,

Well, first and foremost thank you so much internet for all of your kind engagement and birthday likes, messages, GIF’s and party hats. This week has certainly be a waterfall of news from our tiny corner of the web! I do feel a little bit older than I did this time last week. I’ve noticed that I’ve made the switch from Radio 1 to Radio 2 permanently. Probably a long time coming. The morning aches – oh they ache! I’ve also discovered I’m really not as internet savvy as I once was. I do not know how to call Siri up on my new phone, nor sync calendars across providers. I made a big faux pas last week and it’s led me here.

I’ve been thinking a lot, recently, about second chances.

It was absolutely not my intention to post anything to my social media platforms about getting engaged a week ago. I wanted Mel to enjoy breaking the news, the likes, hearts, any comments. I wanted it to be her internet evening. All had gone to plan; she had tagged me in the picture and shared the news – whoever found out was going to find out and we were going to watch a film. Innocently, I changed our status to ‘engaged’ and before I knew it, it had posted that JOEL IS ENGAGED TO MELISSA. I’m so thankful to all of you who have gotten in touch over the last week – it just wasn’t quite meant to be so public.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about second chances. About how a year ago, on March 6th, I never would have even began to dream of being in a place with someone where I could even consider getting engaged. Life has (it’ll be a shock if you missed it) been somewhat chaotic over the last few years. I never intended to be a soap story. For that, I’m truly sorry. I’m sorry for the tearful conversations if you passed me sat at the beach. I’m sorry if you felt awkward because you didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry for my painful posts that led you to ask my nearest if I was okay. I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t been okay for a very long time. My heart was broken. Mixed up, messed up and very unsure.

I wasn’t always a very good husband. I’d go as far as saying that I was actually a very bad one at points. I was so scared of it failing that I failed it before acknowledging its need for some plasters. My whole entire life leading up to getting married and the years that followed, I just wanted to fit in. Like many of us, I was looking for love, to be loved and seen lovingly. I’d grown up in a Sunday morning environment where lots of people had gotten married young and I was scared of not fitting the mould. Marriages are equally two people, but for my part, I let my wife down by not holding the relationship up when it needed it most. For that I am so sorry.

I’m not here, writing with regret, but with thankfulness, for the patience, for the experience and for the healing that failing marriage led me to. There are no sides, there is no battle, just four adults bringing up the most beautiful little boy, with joy.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about second chances. About how a month ago a lady with so much life left to live chose to take her own away because a second chance felt so unattainable. To Caroline, I never watched your shows but I have been moved more than ever by your story. It’s so quick to pass off a quick comment or opinion and think nothing of it. Someone once told me they thought of me as ‘dangerous’ whilst in a church setting and I was still dealing with that quick fire comment in counselling years later.

Last July, I met Melissa, a quietly happy young woman. We swiped right. We sat on the beach. We talked. We laughed. And in the weeks that passed, we cried as we shared our stories in greater detail than ever before. To quote Mel directly, she once felt she was “done and cooked – off the table”. She didn’t feel that she would get a second chance on a together life, with a partner. To have children, and to plan their weddings. I knew, call it God, fate, life’s novel, that I was going to marry her within an hour of meeting her, but I knew that I wanted her to remember it was okay to dream the dreams she had often boxed away. This girl had imagined being married by 30, and to be planning for a child but instead the birthdays would pass by.

In the past 8 months she has taught me how to have fun again. She has step-mothered Elias as if her own. She has hosted events for friends she hadn’t even met yet. She has held me as any last remaining scabs fall off from pains past. And now she has been able to begin to dream her forever dreams again.

There’s a good chance you don’t know Mel but for every loud, public speaking figure, there is often a Mel quietly helping write the speech. If you don’t know her, please pop into her cafe and meet her. She is how I imagine what God/life intended by love. The kindest soul you could ever meet.

I am sure there are people we know who are somewhat shocked at speed of our recent engagement but before passing any quick fire comment, I implore you to think wholly about what might be going on in the complete picture of anyone’s lives. I can’t stop thinking about what kind of messages Caroline Flack was receiving in her most private of moments. About how many people had opinions on her life trajectory. In the weeks past, we’ve chosen in our little unit to try not to vocalise comment or opinion, instead just to vocalise love.

At times, im aware that I could’ve portrayed something I completely didn’t intend to. I haven’t meant it to be ‘all about me’. These posts. My using social media to document my mental health journey. My experiences in the music industry. Actually far from it. I play music because I want people to have a good time and hope I can help. I’ve started stand up comedy because I hope that others can share joy in some of my embarrassing mishaps. I think I perhaps got lost along the way and forgot that happiness wasn’t fitting an ideal, or to a timeline, but that it could be found in learning to love who I was, where I was and how I was.

I’ve been thinking a lot, recently, about second chances. About how I sit here, free from depression, free from brokenness and free from the chains of my own past beliefs. About how for Mel it was her dream to be married at 30. 9 months ago, that dream lived in her dreams. She turns 29 in April (Sorry if maths isn’t your thing – see appendix 1) – looks like there’s a lot of planning to do! We all deserve a second go at whatever you call life.

Thank you for standing with us both, with all four of us parents in fact, and Elias too. Thank you for your concern or your not sures. At times I needed them. It’s okay to not be okay but it’s REALLY okay when you feel more than okay again, too.

“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”

❤️

Ps. I fully realise the irony of a mega post talking about not wanting to draw attention to a mega post 😘😘