Swans

"If something is hard to do, it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson.


Last spring, when I crawled back to the UK on my heartbroken hands and knees, I crawled straight into breakfast with my old boss.

Of all the things I got from working in PR, I count myself luckiest for two of them: Helen, my no-bullshit and frequently cross with me kindred spirit, and CJ, my old Account Director. I adored her with a passion: adored her even more because she seemed to be quite fond of me too, which made no sense whatsoever because I was not a particularly great Senior Account Executive. And yet: as prone as I was to screwing up - losing cuttings, crying in the toilets because I'd failed to get a story into The Daily Mail, getting stroppy with clients because they were quite obviously total imbeciles - CJ never lost her temper with me: fiercely defended me when I was told off by other Directors repeatedly and listened to all of my ideas, even when they were terrible (dogs in capes, for instance). She was and is a goddess of a woman - strong, feisty, clever, funny, scary and warm - and I found it difficult to believe that she could ever have been anything like me, but she claimed that she was: that it had taken her a good few decades to transform herself from a pissed off, tempestuous Account Executive with no shoes on and knots in her hair and pink round her eyes into the heart of the agency (which she still is).

'But you're so.... calm,' I said to her one day at the age of 25, as I necked another bottle of white wine to numb the pain of yet another disastrous, clingy (them, not me) relationship. 'So strong and together. So wise.'
CJ laughed. 'I wasn't always. And you know what? I'm still not. I'm like the swan. Floating calmly along the surface of the water with the current, but underneath sometimes my little legs are still going fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.'

So when I went home last March - thin, tired, heartbroken and in pieces - it was CJ I went to: got up early in the morning so I could get into the centre of London and have breakfast with her before she went to save the world of PR. And as I played with my croissant and distributed it, uneaten, around the plate, CJ took one hard look at me and told me to never speak to The Boy again, because he was and would always be poison.

'You know,' she said, 'I do understand. I understand what it's like to fall in love with bad people. Like you, I spent my entire twenties being thrown around and stomped all over: always in the middle of some kind of romantic drama. I was always the mistress, the rebound, the fling, the whipping boy: I was the girl boys called at 2am and never before, and the girl who they took out their past relationships on, and the girl who walked in on them with somebody else. I was always trying so damn hard, just like you. I was always trying to change them, and holding on for the day they would treat me well, or hoping for the day they would love me properly, and forgiving all of the days they hurt me in between. Forgiving infidelity, forgiving nastiness, forgiving just plain disinterest. Hating myself a little bit more every time.'
'I'm so tired,' I admitted. 'I can't keep doing it. I actually can't keep doing it.'
'Of course you can't. And you know what stage you're at now? You're at the stage I hit at the end of my 20s too. The stage where you think: you know what? Fuck it. Fuck it. I'm not trying anymore. I cannot be bothered.'
I pushed my croissant around the plate a little bit more. I was so exhausted that only a third of her words were sinking in: the rest were bouncing around the room.
'And then what happens?'
'Nothing.'
'Nothing?'
'Nothing. Nothing happens for a bit, and you rest from all the effort you've spent up. And then something happens.'
'What happens?'
'You realise the most important thing in the world.'
I looked at her in surprise. Was she going to tell me the most important thing in the world, just like that? Just thrown over a destroyed croissant? 'And what is that?'
'That good things are easy.'
I frowned. 'That doesn't sound very British,' I told her. 'Aren't we supposed to value difficulty? You know, sticking things out to the bitter end and all that?'
'Yes, and it's bullshit. If something is right, Holly, it's easy. I spent my 20s trying so hard, and it was only when I hit my 30s and gave up trying that I met my husband and realised I didn't have to do a damn thing. I didn't have to be somebody else, I didn't have to forgive him daily for being horrible to me, I didn't have to sit by my phone and wonder where he was. I didn't have to make him love me. He just did, and it was easy. Because let me tell you something: life is hard enough. It's going to throw its own crap in the way. Love shouldn't have to be one of them.'

It all seemed very wise, of course, but I was too tired to really understand: too exhausted to do anything with it. But I tucked the nugget away, like a little squirrel with a nut, and now that I'm awake and rested again I've been turning it over and over, and nibbling on it to see how it tastes.

And she's right. As always, CJ is perfectly right. And she's not just right about love: she's right about everything.

Everything I have ever had in my life that has been good and right for me has been easy. And the minute something becomes hard, it almost always means: it's not right for me anymore. My best friendships turn up on their own, naturally, and require no repeated effort (no effort beyond being a friend, which is easy when you are one). My best jobs fell into my lap, and barely required being applied for. The best items of clothes I have ever bought I bought without a second thought - picked up because I loved them, and kept them long after laboriously chosen items had been thrown away - and the best hairstyles I've ever had have required almost zero maintenance. The people I love the most make my life easier, and not harder, and spending time with them is never, ever an effort of anything other than geography. Life decisions that seem natural have been my best moves, and everything - everything that seems tough, or difficult, or uncertain - has been a mistake. Because that is exactly why they were difficult in the first place: it was nature's way of trying to tell me that.

And nowhere, I realised this morning, does it apply more than writing. The best writing I have ever done has been easy: fluid, natural, quick and almost embarrassingly effortless (as if it's been written already, and I'm just copying it out). The best ideas turn up on their own, and the best chapters take almost no time to write at all. When I'm stuck, it usually means: the idea I'm working on is crap, and I just don't know it yet. When I don't know what is happening next, it usually means: I'm trying too hard. When the writing doesn't work, it usually means: I've tried too hard. And - as with boys - I've spent many, many years feeling that I should be trying harder with my writing. Struggling with it because it seemed like the honourable thing to do: the dignified thing to do. Rather than accepting that easiness is a good thing, and nothing to be ashamed of. Because it's nature's way of saying something is perfect for you, and that you're doing it right.

If ever one sentence can change a life, that one is mine. I've always tried so hard, under some kind of impression that it was a good thing: to fight, and to hold on, and to struggle. But it's not. Constantly clawing against difficulty is nothing to be proud of, and it doesn't make you stronger, or more impressive. It doesn't make you better. Far more admirable is searching for a way, at all costs, to make life easy again, and to walk away if that's what it takes to get there.

Most of the good things in life are effortless, because it's how life shows you that they're right for you in the first place. The best thing any of us can really do is glide on the current, as smoothly as we can, and save our energy for when we have no choice: for the times when life throws crap in our paths, and our little legs really have to go fuck fuck fuck underneath the water.

And the rest of the time? The trick, I've finally realised, is to stay as serene and as calm as we can on top of it.