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At the end of her interview, Hayley lets us know about her inability to pick a song to listen to, the beauty of women and just how many challenges she has overcome in her life so far.

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Hayley’s pronouns are “she/her”.

What is your biggest fear? How do you prevent this from taking over?

It’s the little silly things. I don’t like frogs. They scare the shit out of me. I was traumatised by a frog. I remember when I was younger that there was a frog in the garden which jumped up my shorts. That traumatised me. Preventing it? I don’t even like to go near tadpoles or frog spawn. The only time I’ll go near a pond is at the zoo in that weird amphibian zone. I don’t like to get close but maybe I’ll have a look.

What is something you really want to do/start that you aren’t doing? Why aren’t you doing it? What can you put into place to achieve it?

I’ve always said I want to do hill walking. Like climbing mountains. Why haven’t I done it? COVID. Everyone uses that as an excuse because I could have done it a long time ago. I’m really bad at map reading. I know I have the ability to do it but I’d like someone to do it with me. I need to get going and practice building up to walking long distances. I need to do it and embrace it.

What type of outlook on life do you have? Are you naturally positive? Where do you think that comes from?

I’d like to say I’m quite a positive person but everyone has dips in their emotions. Maybe is it my upbringing? I’m a people pleaser and I like an easy life. Just get on and do it. I don’t like to make things challenging. Why would do something hard if there is an easy option? Why would you walk a mountain if there’s a flat route?

What book/album/film/artist has changed your life? What did you take from it?

I loved Harry Potter but that’s not real. I read the books then watched the films. I guess everybody wants to be a wizard secretly! Harry, Hermione and Ron – you want to be part of that group. Everybody loves Harry! Actually, I read Tina Turner’s book and loved it. It was really good learning about her background. Her abuse from Ike was awful to hear about. She’s a black woman who grew up in Nashville where she was discriminated against constantly and she had this drive to get her name big anyway. And now look at her! She had cancer and so much else happened. She survived and fought then got into Buddhism and that was her focus. I thought after reading it that maybe meditation is a good thing.

What song should we listen to whilst reading about you?

Everyone knows I’m a big fan of Dolly. But also Tina Turner “Proud Mary”. People would be disappointed if I didn’t choose Dolly though. [Ed: “This isn’t for other people though.”] Is it something from a musical? Dolly had this rags to riches story though. And I secretly love country music. But Miley Cyrus as well!  Can you not pick it for me?

Name five beautiful things in life. Tell me why you think they are beautiful.

Dogs. When you’re out and about, you look at them and they make you happy. Some of them are really beautiful. You can watch them running around, enjoying life and it puts a smile on your face.
Family.
Friends, obviously. 
Scenery. I love holidays and seeing new places.
Girls. You know when you see a really beautiful girl? That’s amazing. Maybe I say that from envy.

If you could sum up your life so far in one word, what would it be and why?

What came into my mind straight away is “challenging”.
That’s because I faced different challenges in so many different areas of my life. I had to make my dinner otherwise I went hungry. I had to wash my clothes otherwise I didn’t have any. Joining the army was challenging. Coming out of the army was a challenge. I had to adjust to civilian life afterwards. Going into work with children was challenging at the start but here I am 6 years later.

What do you think the meaning of your life is?

I’m approaching 30 and getting older so having children is still a decision to be made in my head. For some people, they really want to be a parent. But the meaning of my life? I don’t actually know. 

After talking through all of this, what have you learnt about yourself or your life? What do you feel the need to reflect on?

I found these questions difficult because it makes you think about yourself and how you are. It is like interview questions: your positives and negatives. It’s made me think about why I do things and why I think a certain way. I know I’m a moody bitch and a bit selfish but this has shown me I’m not made of stone. There are emotions in there which get triggered by certain things. But I don’t like to face those triggers because I get upset and I don’t want to come across as an emotional person. 

My reflection of Hayley’s interview will go live tomorrow.

You can see more of what Hayley has been up to on her Instagram.

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In this middle eight of Hayley’s interview, she touches on what love means to her, the importance of teamwork in her job and how seeing her grandfather ill inspired her to look after more people.

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Hayley’s pronouns are “she/her”.

What does a regular day in Hayley’s mind look like?

It depends what mood I’m in. I guess I’m positive and my mind feels… colourful? Is that the right word to use? I’m a people pleaser really.

What part do relationships and love play in your daily life?

Well there’s Tom, of course. 5 and a half years we’ve been together. We all know what I was like when I was younger! With previous boyfriends, I always said I was in love but I wasn’t committed and I don’t think it was love. They say when you find the “one” you just know and this is it. I’ve never met anyone like him. I think he is a very genuine, caring person and always puts people first. He’s very thoughtful and sometimes I look at him and think “I want to be more like you”. I know I’m a bit of a selfish person, I know I am, but he isn’t and I want to be a bit more like that.

What aspect of friendship do you value most?

It’s all about banter, isn’t it? If you can have a joke with people and know they won’t take it offensively, that’s great. And I love it when you don’t see someone for months but you pick back up where you left off like nothing is different.

What do you do to make a positive impact on those/the world around you?

Again, I go back to being selfish. I don’t think I do anything. Oh no! Does that make me a bad person? I give money to charity but who doesn’t do that? When my friends ask for sponsorship, I always give my money to that.

What do you do to stay motivated?

Oh my goodness me! I am probably the worst person for this. People are going to read about me like “who the fuck is this?!”. At work, I just get on with it. I feel like if I don’t do something, nobody will do it. I don’t want it to get to the evening and someone asks about the end of day jobs and they are unfinished. I want to be there to help with them. It’s teamwork. We should all help out.

What was the deciding factor to pursue nursing?

Having my granddad live at home with us. He wasn’t that ill but it was that caring side that I had towards him. Saying that, he looked after me! But he had his problems. He was in and out of hospital. It’s strange how you pick a career and go for it.

How does your profession link to your personal life? How do you think it affects your sense of accomplishment day to day?

For me, working where I am now in children’s day surgery, I come home and don’t dwell on it because it’s not stressful. When I worked in A&E or the adolescent unit, I would bring a lot of that home because it was busy and challenging. I would have to wind down after it all. Now I come home, already calm, and have a nice evening. It’s nice when you get thank yous from parents and children when they’ve really appreciated your help. I am a caring person, I always put people first.

What is your “end goal” in terms of a professional target/life?

I always think I like to treat people how you would want to be treated. I want them to go away thinking I was nice to them today. There’s nothing worse than having bad comments about you. I want to go to work, do what I do and come home. I like what I’m doing in my role. I like my job! I’ve got to the point where I’ve left it too late in life to progress or push forward and do something else. I have become settled. I don’t want to step up and do the next thing. Why do I have to?

Hayley’s final 8 questions will feature on Saturday.

You can see more of what Hayley has been up to on her Instagram.

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In these final 8 questions, Alice opens up about her feelings towards death, her hopes for the future and the power of the colour red. She also takes time to reflect on the music that has shaped her and discusses her forks in the road that led her to where she is now.

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Alice’s pronouns are “she/her”.

What is your biggest fear? How do you prevent that from taking over?

I don’t know if it would be dying. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily loneliness either because I think “would it be death or would it be other people dying and then it’s just me left?”. Once you’re dead, you’re just worried about being worm food. It wouldn’t be failure. I’m saying what it wouldn’t be! It would be to be left with nothing. And that’s not to do with material possessions. I enjoy my own company but I am a sharer. This is hard!

What is something you really want to do that you’re not doing? Why aren’t you doing it? What can you put into place to achieve it?

I’m not selling myself. Everybody in the world is encouraged to have separate lives. You have your personal life, you have your professional life, you have your friend through hobbies and they are all separate. I have been thinking a lot about this recently: I am one person and I am someone on the precipice of changing careers. What’s interesting to me is that I am not just Alice Thomas, the design graduate. I am Alice Thomas, the creative in so many other ways. I have a podcast, I have a YouTube channel, I create linocut prints. To sell myself as just one of those facets is to sell myself short. A lot of people say to be successful you have to have that one thing that you talk about and do but I am not two dimensional. I am a dodecahedron! Something physical to answer your question is a website. For such a long time I have been stewing with “am I going to have three separate websites to talk about what I want to talk about on the internet? To sell myself as a designer; to talk candidly about my life; to review things; to talk about my podcast; to sell my prints”. I am one person. You are with me or you’re not. It’s exhausting to pretend you are one facet all of the time. I am 100% Alice. 

What type of outlook on life do you have? Where do you think that comes from?

I think I’m a glass half full type of gal. I think I’m a yes person. I feel like my outlook is positive. I’ve been dealt some pretty good cards in my life but I also am not afraid of hard work either. I have been taught the importance of being proactive and persevering in whatever it is you wish to do. That’s not to say there aren’t negative moments. There are times of sadness and despair but life is nuanced and complex. I still have hope and I have hope for my fellow man too.

What book/album/film has changed your life? What did you take from that?

Only one? How dare you! Do you not remember earlier when I said my mind was busy all the time and now I have to pick one?! The thing that has come to mind is “Folie A Deux” by Fall Out Boy. But there is also Donnie Darko. I would say Fall Out Boy.
Why I feel like I connected with Fall Out Boy’s music on the level that I am is that the lyrics were always smart and it was never face value. It was introspective whilst exuding confidence. Je ne c’est quoi! It was emotive and provocative: it was intelligent and personable. For me, “Folie A Deux” is Fall Out Boy’s best record because it just encapsulated who they were.

What song should we listen to whilst reading this about you?

“Over Yet” by Hayley Williams. It’s featured on her first solo record which came out last year. It’s a break up album but “Over Yet” is a song about perseverance. It’s about self love and inspiration and moving forward. It describes resistance as something positive to help you move forward and give you friction to rub up against. It’s a song of hope and I am hopeful for the future. 

Name five beautiful things in life. Tell me why you think they are beautiful. 

Building relationships of any kind can be very beautiful: putting time, effort and love into a relationship with another person is profoundly beautiful. The way we communicate is unique and when you get to fully explore that with someone or a number of people, it can have a profound effect on your life.
A sense of accomplishment: I don’t meaning being a CEO. It could be something as simple as climbing a hill or seeing through a task. Feeling accomplished even in the small things, even in the mundane, is definitely something that makes you appreciate life. In the first lockdown, I completed “Bop It” which I didn’t know you could do! It sounds silly but sometimes succeeding at something as silly as “Bop It” can bring so much joy and overwhelming positivity to your life.
Nature is beautiful. I think we have been blessed with a wonderful planet which is so diverse in its landscape but also the people in it. Endeavouring to explore as much of it as you can, along with the viewpoints of other people, can only be a positive thing. I am at my happiest when I am travelling and experiencing it with other people, building memories. I love discovering the new. The world and nature is so beautiful and it’s there to be explored.
Photobooths. I love photobooths. I fucking love a photobooth! I actually love them. Everybody has a pocket computer with two cameras and the consideration of taking a photo of a moment in time is lost because you are taking 1000 photos of the same thing. Somewhere like a photobooth – you have four shots. I find that I have never regretted getting in a photobooth. They are really underrated. I look forward to a day where I can get back in a photobooth and take some silly snaps.
The colour red. Not only is it my favourite colour, but it is attributed to the deepest of human emotion. Love, anger, fury, passion. But also embarrassment. Intimacy. I find the colour red is so bright and demands to be seen. You don’t ignore red! It also comes up so much naturally. It’s not like a fluorescent pink that’s man made. It’s everywhere.

If you could sum up your life so far in one word, what would it be and why?

Atypical.
I had a phrase – “off the beaten path” – which isn’t strictly true. Atypical sounds accurate to me because, whilst I fit a mould of certain tropes of a white woman growing up in Britain, I think it’s not necessarily a traditional trajectory that I have found myself on and that’s deliberate. That’s a choice. I think several times in my life I have looked and seen almost a fork in the road and I had to make some decisions of where my life is heading and whether that is what I want. I feel like I have often, I don’t want to say “gone against the grain” because I really have lived an arguably comfortable life. I really haven’t wanted for a lot. I have been very fortunate in several facets of my life but I feel like everybody comes up against the forks in the road and I have always chosen the one that my gut has told me to do. It might not have been logical or the typical falling in line but I find I have always gone with what my innards are telling me. There’s a lot to be said for my gut feeling. I don’t quite know where it’s led me just yet but it’s got me so far and we’ll have to wait and see. I wonder what the next 27 years will lead to. 

What do you think the meaning of your life is?

To communicate. That is building connections between other people. 

After talking through everything, what have you learnt about yourself and your life? What do you feel the need to reflect on?

It’s very coherent, surprisingly coherent! Irrespective of the tributaries of my life, there are common themes that run throughout. I’m on the right track baby, I was born this way. 

My reflection on Alice’s interview will go live tomorrow.

You can find more of Alice on her YouTube channel, Twitter and Instagram. She is also contactable through her website here.

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