Open Spaces

It’s true that I have neglected this blog lately. It’s not that I haven’t been writing, for there’s been quite a bit of that going on, but the type of writing I have been working on is different and not really what belongs in the content of these pages. It has taken me the whole month of January to put pen to paper here though. 

A very long month.

Many talk of the January blues, the long slump after the festive indulgences that usually accompany the end of the previous year. This year I have definitely found myself struggling to get out of the hole I have found myself in. I began sliding into it weeks prior to the New Year and there have been days when pulling up the duvet to block out the daylight has felt like the best option.

Though I refrained from making resolutions at the start of the year, for fear of failing with them at the first hurdle, I did use that period of reflection time to give myself a metaphorical kick up the butt. Much of my writing last year, particularly in my books, looked to the positive strategies I had employed and moving forward in developing such a mindset. Yet I knew that I was slumping and wallowing again. The old tune of “Mud, mud, glorious mud,” comes to mind but I needed to get out of that mud pool because it didn’t feel glorious at all.

I have read a lot about menopause, how depression and anxiety are frequently inextricably linked to it yet often not recognised as such. In my reading I have also discovered that this change in a woman’s life, this transition stage involves learning to accept the changes to become at peace with the new or reinvented version of the woman you were. I felt it was time to try to embrace this acceptance concept and for me, that has meant asking for help and pushing myself to step out of my comfort zone in a few ways. 

Without giving myself time and space to overthink and procrastinate I did three proactive things at the start of this month. I took three steps to pull myself out of that hole.

It is quite apt to be writing this today - on the 31st January- as the first step was that I signed up to Red January. In doing so I made a commitment to be active every day of January and as well as it being a fundraising venture for the Mind charity, it was a personal agreement to get outside, be in nature, feel the air and the weather - good or bad - as all of that would benefit me and my wellbeing.

The second step was booking a GP appointment to force myself into discussing what has been going on. No longer choosing the route of struggling alone, feeling that I should be able to do it all without support. Instead, though I was close to cancelling the appointment the day before, I allowed myself to tell the GP that everything wasn’t actually fine. The feeling of relief in having done so is good, as is the fact that we are working on a plan to move forward.

The last of my three steps was to sign up to a creative writing course which I began mid-January and which has stimulated some of the different writing that I mentioned at the start of this piece. The night before the course started I questioned my decision, the morning of the course I asked myself why I was struggling to walk through the door and as my husband dropped me off I resisted the urge to take flight and hide in a coffee shop. But I went into the course, met new people, learnt new things and am starting to write in a new way.

I am not out of that hole yet but I have had a few glimpses of the open space above and around me. I have had a few days when that space is at my fingertips and days when it fades away as I slide again. When I start to doubt my abilities in any way, it is all too easy for the sky to start falling in and to feel incapable of completing the simplest tasks. It has taken me several days to find the words to write this piece and I took two weeks to reply and complete a form that was needed for a commitment later in the year but I did manage to do both eventually.

That’s the trick of it all isn’t it? Never mind what the struggle was in getting there, allow yourself to feel good about the fact that you arrived. For now I am taking one step at a time, ticking off items on my ‘to do’ list and writing down one positive thing each week to add to my jar of 2020. Give me a few more months and the promise of a little summer sunshine and I’ll be up and soaring in that sky. I’m sure I will, won’t I?

The Ties That Bind

What holds us back from moving forward at those crossroad points of our lives? These past two years I have found myself thinking, some might say overthinking, and writing about choices we make in life and the directions that we take. Often the image replays in my head of a lone girl stood in a clearing in the woods with two or three possible pathways opening up infront of her. Such imagery serves to illustrate the dilemmas we face as we make particular choices in our lives but then again, such choices are rarely presented to us in such a clear cut manner.

It’s not like life gives us a series of signposted options where each path is marked to lead to a particular destination. Mostly I have stumbled around and only part-way along the path discovered my new surroundings and begun to guess where I might be headed.

There are obvious key moments in life where I have stood at the metaphorical crossroads and made a conscious decision to follow one particular path. At the end of school, choosing to study for a degree, saying yes to a marriage proposal, committing to having a family and most recently, walking away from my teaching career- all of these were definite pathway choices. Other aspects of my life feel more akin to being in stumbling mode, trying my best to stay upright as I keep moving forward.

Mostly we keep our momentum moving forward until we hit an obstacle blocking our way, don’t we? Sometimes we have the courage and reserves of resilience to keep pushing on until we break through the obstacle to continue on beyond it. Sometimes the obstacle stops us in our tracks and forces us to look around and notice details previously unseen. These are the reflective moments when we maybe appreciate what we already have and perhaps take some time to re-evaluate who we are and where we are going. I have probably spent most of this year doing that, if truth be told.

I am writing this as the last few days of the year play out their tune, whilst waiting for the fresh melody of a new year to begin. It’s that time when resolutions are discussed, set and more often than not, broken and discarded as quickly as they were established. That’s my backdrop to my thoughts tonight. Like many others, I am wondering what may be ahead for me and what choices I might be able to make in the next twelve months. For unlike the lone girl in the woods, free to skip off along any path that takes her fancy, I feel inhibited. Invisible yet very tangible ties bind me and can make any progress feel impossible at times. I find myself asking what is it that binds me? Confidence issues, circumstance, indecision - all are playing a part. None of us can really go skipping off into the woods without a second thought though, can we?

There is a pressure at this time of resolution making to be better, to reinvent yourself and become a new model, as if the current one has become outdated and defunct in some way. We’ll all have days when we feel defunct or deficient in many ways but is the concept of reinvention, striving for that yet unobtainable you, is that really a healthy option? I recently read somewhere that we  shouldn’t be looking for the ‘new you’ but instead be accepting of the ‘you that you are.’ This may prove to be my biggest challenge for the year ahead.

I started this piece with an idea that I would write about what might be holding me back from seeking work next year. As has often been the case, the process of writing down my thoughts served to clear the pathway for me to take a few more steps ahead. Those steps just might not be going in the way I had first thought. If I stand still for too much longer, I am afraid that the creeping ivy of self doubt will entwine my feet to leave me forever rooted to the spot so I feel a growing sense of urgency to move soon, in one direction or another. For now though, I’ll pause to raise a glass this New Year’s Eve and make a toast to unknown destinations. Cheers everyone!

All Change, Please...

I have been subject to many changes over the last few years and sat here today thinking about the whole concept of change, it is interesting to think of the way that we feel about change and the ways that we choose to describe it. For example - the winds of change - that’s a phrase that has a sense of foreboding which I suppose many of us have when we know that change is coming.

How about these descriptions? Making a complete ‘seed change,’ or that’s a ‘sea change.’ Perhaps like me, you were unaware that both those terms exist. The former meaning a dramatic change to think of things in a new and different way, taking a completely new perspective - referencing how crop rotation would change the look and content of a field. The latter meaning a gradual change over time and originates from Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest’ and has a much more poetic feel, linked to the loss of a father at sea:

“Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange.”

The implication being that nothing is lost forever but instead does change and shift into something new but still with its own beauty and merit. I have learnt something new today in exploring both phrases and yes, we are all still capable of learning and actually the process of doing so is a change within itself. By learning something new we adapt the knowledge we already had.

Anyway to return to thoughts about the changes I mentioned. There is the old saying that I am sure you all know:

“All good things must come to an end”

H. H. Riley 1857

The problem with this is the presumption that the change that befalls that good thing, in itself makes the result bad. Actually it can just be different, and eventually, different can be as good, or even better than before.

When we make a significant change in our lives part of our resentment to the change is perhaps a grieving for what we are giving up. We sometimes have changes imposed upon us by circumstances out of our control and this can be a distressing experience for all concerned. For rarely does a change happen to an individual in isolation. We are all connected to a whole network of people and something that impacts upon one strand of that network can travel far and wide to the rest, like a vibration in one part of a spider’s web, emanating outwards to reach all corners that the web touches.

I have learnt that it is the indecision that causes the most distress. Whilst we are considering making changes we have all the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’ to consider and the unknowns are there to intimidate us. Actually though, in reality, the unknowns can still be laid out before us but once we have made up our minds to move towards them, taken our decisions, then we free ourselves up to face the changes ahead of us more calmly and with a resolve to succeed.

When I kept toying with the idea of leaving teaching I was at my crisis point, when my stress levels were their highest. Once I had decided to make the move, there was almost a calm that descended, a relief that the decision had been made. At each stage I have faced in my writing, since taking this career break decision, I have had peaks of anxiety when I have stood at those metaphorical crossing points. The fork in the road where the fairy tale character decides which path to follow, not knowing which one would lead to treasure and which had a wolf or dragon waiting at the end. Often in life, we take the wrong fork. We find obstacles in our way but we keep on going and by taking steps to get around them we are often stronger in the end.

Change is a fact of life and at my time of life, there are many - both physical and emotional, with a few events or circumstances thrown in for good measure. This year has helped me to develop a resilience to face changes, to understand their context and to get stronger and more capable of embracing them. Am I going through ‘the change?’ Oh yes, undoubtedly, but it doesn’t have to define me. The more I research and discover, the more I write, the more empowered I feel to cope with what lies ahead. None of us knows what will happen next but more and more of the same stuff is boring isn’t it? So take a deep breath and ‘all change, please.’

Too shy, shy...

This week I am doing something a little different with my blog as I am starting with words that are not my own. Words that struck a chord and prompted me to explore the subject further. I was sent this, from a follower of my blog: 

“I was thinking have you done a blog about shyness? I was thinking about how I was quite a shy person which I know it might be hard to believe now. What is being shy? Is it misinterpreted? Is it a lack of confidence in yourself or just who you are? I know deep down when thrown into some situations that shy girl reappears but more and more I find the voice to speak up or is that confidence? Can becoming more confident make you overcome being shy?”

This got me thinking about all the children that I have taught over the years that one might label as ‘shy.’ Often they were girls and knowing what I know now about certain special needs, for some there may have been something deeper underlying their behaviour, their perceived lack of confidence. Putting that to one side though, there are always some people in a group who are the shy ones, the ones choosing to be at the edges of the conversation, first to sit at the back of a room in an attempt not to be noticed. Are they anxious about doing so or just happier not to be in the spotlight.

My husband has completed the ‘Myers Briggs’ questionnaire as a work exercise which analyses where a person falls upon the introvert - extrovert scale and looks at how each functions best. In an ideal business environment a workforce requires a balance of people for each type brings its own qualities. I think it is good to remind ourselves that silence doesn’t mean that a person has nothing to say. A shy person may have the best ideas in the room and it is how they are enabled to share them that is important.
In my book, I look at my own confidence and how I have had significant dips in that and how I’m trying to keep on rebuilding it. I use the quote about age, paraphrased eloquently by David Bowie: 

“ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”

It’s certainly true that age and experience of life both bring a certain level of increased confidence. I look back to attending training courses and speaking in front of parents as a young teacher and how nervous I would get and where I chose to sit to hide. Since then I became the one who would scribe the ideas and feedback during group tasks and stand out front to lead curriculum evenings or staff meetings with a learnt confidence. Yet, as the ‘guest blogger’ noted, certain situations can still trigger the former shyness experienced as a child. I suppose it is more likely to be the times that we move out of our comfort zone.

For me, the age-related confidence boost has had the flip-side brought into focus by peri-menopause. Each time that gives you a slap to dent your confidence it can become harder to stand up the next time and there are times that you have to dig deep to stick at it and not run for the hills. The more I have researched for my writing, the more I am aware of just how many previously confident and capable women are out in the workplace, doubting their abilities and working hard not to be those little shy girls.

In a few weeks’ time, due to a post shared on my Linkedin Profile, I have been invited by a London-based media company to talk to their 'women in the workplace' group about the process of writing my book and how that and this blog emerged as positives from the place I found myself in, losing confidence in my abilities but finding an outlet in writing about my thoughts and feelings. The easiest response to such an invitation would have been to politely decline and then regret doing so as a missed opportunity. So instead, I have accepted and am pushing myself to talk about all that has been the focus of my writing this last year, to step out of my comfort zone and to be part of a dialogue with other women, hopefully all finding support by doing so. It is great to see that companies are slowly getting on board with finding ways to support women and as a cause close to my heart, it is important that I step up to offer my ideas within such a context. When that morning arrives, I will be channelling thoughts of the times that I have successfully led presentations, meetings and difficult discussions to tell myself that I can do this so that I can leave the shy girl at home that day.

Shyness, confidence, anxiety - I am not sure where the definitions and the lines between each are drawn. I am not sure that really matters either. Sometimes the loudest person in the room can also be the most insecure too. Human nature is a complex beast and I think we all hide the personality traits that we aren’t comfortable with. How many times do we scan a room and make snap judgements about the people within it? How many times do we overthink our own participation within a work or social situation? Perhaps we should cut ourselves some slack and allow our inner child a space once in a while without the need for apology.

This picture was taken back in the 1980s: confident or shy? You decide...

 

And Relax...

I feel my inner mermaid stirring. Sat upon a sandy, Cornish beach in June, I am afforded a precious view of the sun glistening upon the sea. I could attempt to paint an image for you with some well-chosen words as my brushes but it is one of life’s moments that cannot be replicated well second-hand. Suffice to say, the sights and sounds all add to the calm that slowly emanates from deep within.

I guess it must be there all the time, waiting to disperse throughout my being like a soluble aspirin, fizzing its bubbles of tranquility to achieve a state of calm or perhaps the more popular word now is zen.Yet, in my everyday world, the one of daily routine, I don’t allow the fizz to take hold. The first signs of a bubble of calm and there’s a queue of reasons waiting to pop into my mind, to tick off the list of chores, to kick start the cycle of overthinking, doubting my abilities and denting my self-confidence. With all that going on, even in the quietest of environments it is going to be difficult to switch off and start the calming process. In actual fact, I started writing this piece two days ago and could not get past the opening paragraph. Despite having my perfect writing environment- a sea view balcony and a glass of wine- the words would not flow and my mind could not settle. I asked myself why? Why, when on a holiday that I have looked forward to for months, in a place I have dreamed of returning to for a few years, could I not allow myself to switch off and truly relax? I don’t have the psychological qualifications necessary to answer that or to unpick all that is going on in my overthinking head and through my writing.

Today though, I am back on that beach, with my senses stimulated by all that a beach day encompasses and I am writing again. The sun is heating my arm as I write, the sound of the sea forms a backdrop to my thoughts and all around I can see blue. Blue sky, blue waves, just blue. The colour of calm and tranquility I think and certainly evocative of mermaids. I close my eyes and let the image of a mermaid lagoon develop and permeate the corners of my mind. I try to place myself within it, with long, flowing hair and a glittery fish tail. It seems that imagination and being at one with nature is a powerful combination. I can feel that my heart rate has slowed and deep breaths take me further into this current state of tranquillity. If only I could bottle this and keep it on a shelf to take out and use for emergencies. I could keep it in the bathroom medicine cabinet alongside the painkillers and alka seltzer.

A friend messaged me to say that she hoped I was managing to properly relax on my holiday.  It’s been six months now that I have not been at work, others may have assumed that the need for such relaxation was unnecessary and that surely I got to do it all the time now anyway. It hasn’t felt that way at all because even though I may not go out to work, I still have things to do, a routine still forms. I guess everyone’s everyday can consume them at times and we all need a break from our ‘routine’, whatever that routine might look like. I certainly felt the need for it.

One of my earliest blogs attempted to describe my struggles with self-doubt and feeling easily overwhelmed as being ‘confined by my cage of confidence.’ I know that I have made great strides forward from that point but the last couple of weeks I have found myself to be overthinking a lot. Wary of allowing that cage to start constructing itself again, I have truly needed this holiday and the space and time to stop the cogs whirring around. Being drawn into overthinking can feel like falling down a hole and I’ve been struggling to find myself some footholds. Whilst I recognise that this is happening and I know all the strategies I should use to stay positive, a few inches falling down can feel like I have spiralled many feet.

Perhaps it is because I have been wrapped up in projects that have now met their deadlines that I now find myself a little like driftwood cast upon a shifting tide, to maintain the sea metaphors. Certainly the first months of this year I became absorbed in writing my book, then whilst attempting to make all the right decisions in regard to editing and publishing it, I was simultaneously writing and editing a script. Now I feel a little in limbo and in need of a new focus and direction. I draw myself back to my surroundings and find that the tide has gone out to reveal a beautiful rock pool, the size of my metaphorical mermaid lagoon. Though I don’t have a mermaid outfit to wear, this cool pool, out of reach of the frantic everyday draws me close. My daughter joins me and we tiptoe in, ignoring the initial reactions to the cold until we get to the point where we are brave enough to dip our shoulders in.

From that point on, I have hit the zone – I am relaxing. Together, my daughter and I swim around, laugh and float in the pool. At that moment, I embraced the holiday, I valued the luxury of being able to spend time with family and I gave myself permission to take a break and to wait to see what happens when the writer’s block disappears. My daughter wants us to build our own lagoon in our back garden when we return home. I must admit to seeing the attraction but then again, I have always found a draw to water, something about the sea that touches me and allows me to find an inner calm. When things get tough again, as I am sure they will, when the spiraling starts, I need to tell myself to think of this moment. One simple moment of calm when I could be whoever I want to be.

Chasing my Thoughts

Ideas for these blog posts come to me at the most random times. This morning, as I lay in bed going through a particularly long mental checklist of all to be done, the tasks ahead swirl around and merge into words to write instead. In my mind it looks a little like that point when you have thrown all your ingredients into the bowl and have begun to stir them together and they slowly change from separate entities into a silky cake batter, ready to be poured into the tin and baked. Has that got you craving a home baked cake now? I’ll have to add baking to today’s list of tasks.
This last week or two I have been in some dark places, probably for several reasons, but mainly because I felt unequal to the task that lay before me - that of publishing my book. If I had thought about the process of completing a book at the start of this year, I would have focused on the difficulties of writing it. The thought of sitting with a blank page and waiting for some inexplicable magic to happen so that the void becomes full of imagery and meaning - that was my main concern. Now though, I have found that the process of what to do with a completed manuscript is far more complex than I could ever have imagined.
Talking to my son about it during a rare moment where we sat together in the garden with a coffee, I described myself as chasing my thoughts. Right now I can see a run of stepping stones leading from an open lawn, through a rose-trimmed archway into an unknown corner of the garden. There’s a promise of a hidden delight in the corner but brambles and overgrown branches provide to make the journey treacherous. My thoughts have rushed ahead of me, trying to reach their destination but I am left taking cautious steps and sometimes this week, rendered helpless and unable to move at all.
I have discovered that there are three stages to creating a book - writing, editing and publish. Although that sounds like I’m stating the obvious, I had never really contemplated how much effort each of those takes. I won’t bore you with the details and complexities of it all here, suffice to say that each has been a challenge, a sharp learning curve and emotionally draining. Perhaps the inside cover of the finished product should read “this book has caused laughter, tears and many sleepless nights.”
Finding myself struggling with the final hurdles this week, my finger hovered over the delete button on the keyboard. In that fleeting moment I thought that deleting the file, denying all knowledge of the book’s existence would bring me some sort of peace. It would take away the pressure to make decisions. That is the real struggle identified right there - the ability to make decisions. Is the menopause to blame for where I currently find myself with this? Have I just fallen into this state of indecisiveness, driven by overthinking and a lack of confidence, as a measure of my age or the cumulative effect of stress over the last few years?
I usually find it best not to ask such questions for I’m never going to find a definitive answer. Faced with many important questions to answer and decisions to make, I felt alone.
In the last couple of years I have felt my grip on capability slide. I used to take multitasking in my stride, lead meetings with expertise and walk on stage confidently. Now I procrastinate. I overthink. I doubt. I ask myself where the woman that I used to be has gone. These are the sort of thoughts that chase around my head and when at their worst cause me to spiral.
There used to be a helter-skelter ride back on my childhood holidays on the Isle of Wight. I can recall climbing up the twisting staircase with my mat in hand that I then tentatively placed down at the top of the slide. As I perched upon the mat and held its handles on either side, I would take a sharp intake of breath before committing to the twirling ride back down to the bottom. I felt stuck this week, it was like that moment at the top of the slide. I could commit and twirl down ready to run back up again or perhaps this time, I might shoot right off the slide and plummet spectacularly down.
I found a quote at this point, just when I needed it to move forward -
“Keep going, you did not come this far, just to come this far.”
I gave myself permission to admit that it was okay to feel overwhelmed and out of my depth. I asked for help. I persevered. My husband asked me what it was that I was afraid of and then helped me to look at one step at a time. Sometimes you have to stop thinking and start doing. I’m going to wear my red outfit today, not just my sassy red shoes. Today I am determined to finalise the publishing of my book. That deserves a red outfit and lipstick, look out everyone I’m putting my thoughts aside today and tackling my list. Let’s do this!

My book cover photo - 'Finding My Way' (now available via Amazon as a paperback or on Kindle.) 

Clearing the Clutter

Snippets of conversation catch my ear from my vantage point, my prime position sat in a corner of a coffee shop. A cosy corner with my familiar latte order in my hand - a pause from the daily routine. Bliss? Perhaps, but it allows the cogs to turn in my head and I imagine a cutting room floor with a projectionist loading the various spools of film to be played through. The various scenes that your brain keeps stored away most of the time and usually starts the trailers for in a spliced together dream sequence as your subconscious surfaces during the night. I have quite a few spools of film to examine right now. A couple relating to my parental responsibilities for whatever age your children are, you always want to know that they’re safe and happy and there are days when you find yourself questioning what else you can do to support those wishes. There’s the latest release, the spool where I have become the protagonist- settling into the new life pattern of a writer - the one where I can become anyone and do anything that my imagination allows. That is an exciting prospect right now and is currently not holding all the doubts that I had attached to it as this year began.

Then there is a spool that is harder to watch for I don’t know how to support the leading man, my husband, who is the focus of it. He continues to put on a brave face and works hard at his job, rather aptly for this analogy, within a fast paced marketing environment in a film company. At home, he continues to support us all, within the family unit and beyond with the responsibilities he feels towards his parents and siblings. He talked about something I had written down recently, a memory from when our children were small. He lamented that he had forgotten the recalled anecdote and asked himself why that was. In a rather touching moment he said to me “What would we do without you writing down all these memories? Why had I forgotten that?” I told him that he did have that memory within him but he just couldn’t find it because there was a lot of clutter in the way right now.

I have been given the luxury of time to let the movies in my head play out, to capture a moment in time and try to pin it down to a page within my writing. Time and space to clear away my own clutter and it is an opportunity not given to many. From the snippets of conversation I overhear from my corner, my people-watching corner, it is a luxury that I am valuing more and more. All around me, the words and phrases of disjointed conversations move in and out of my consciousness as I write and provide snapshot insights into people’s lives. An ill-health diagnosis, a plan for a party, options for a teenager’s exam choices, a business decision as an email is sent. We all have scenes to play out - comic, tragic and all the shades in between. The trick is not to get caught up in the pile on the cutting room floor- not to get overwhelmed by it all.

I have spent a lot of time recently thinking back to where I found myself a year ago. Back when our house renovation was impacting heavily on family life. We had to sort different sleeping arrangements, contain a boisterous puppy every time a different builder came in to work on the next phase of our loft extension, juggle our finances to meet the spiraling expenses of the venture and de-clutter a lot of belongings that we had managed to accumulate over the years. Dragging down boxes full of stuff from yesteryear is quite an emotional process- baby mementos, children’s toys, battered old suitcases. I even found a dusty vanity case full of my old dance costumes from my childhood weekly lessons and regular performances. A ballet leotard, silver strappy tap shoes, a tiny gingham dance skirt- enough to create a whole other film spool entitled ‘a dancer’s life.’ When all this was happening at home, work was also very difficult for me. Thinking of it now, my job had changed significantly within a short space of time and I was in the midst of tenaciously navigating a sharp learning curve. Previous pieces have documented the health issues that were also impacting upon this picture- there was indeed a lot going on. 

It has been beneficial to look back to just take a moment to take stock and to reassure ourselves that we overcame a lot. If we can meet these challenges, and many others that have come our way in the past, then I am sure we can continue to meet any future ones coming our way. I have had a great deal of support over this last year, particularly with enabling me to be finally accepting who I am and what I am currently doing. That support has meant that I am in a much better place now, one where I can now begin to help my husband to clear the clutter. After all, a good spring clean always makes you feel better and ready to face the year ahead.

Playing at Being a Grown-Up

I feel conflicted, I feel torn, not knowing where my focus of energy should be. I see a pebble on the beach that’s just out of reach, it’s glinting in the sunlight as the waves lap over it. Proving too elusive to grasp, staying tantalisingly just out of reach, this pebble is symbolic of my desire to write. To write for a purpose beyond the familiarity of my comfort zone: my blogging, script writing and the odd poem when the mood takes me.

I don’t know how to answer when people ask me what I am doing. Officially I suppose the answer is taking a career break, though currently it feels that this may have no end as thoughts of returning to the rat race of a work environment trigger an inner panic, a rising unease whenever I attempt to confront the idea, so it would seem that I am not yet in the right place to move forward with this. 

I have made a decision to write, though telling anyone that I am being a writer seems wrong. What is it that prevents me from doing so? I’m certainly not in a position to be earning money from my writing and so is that the crux of it? Do I see the term writer as only appropriate for a commercially viable option? Having spent years nurturing my children into the belief that the creative process is what’s important and not the outcome - why is it that I cannot accept this for myself?

Perhaps the career path I had was so driven by targets that I feel at sea to be ungoverned by these, to be adrift in a world where I may or may not write and may or may not achieve a written product, is as unnerving as it is liberating. My husband heard me telling my son that I feel there’s an expectation that I will write something and I suppose by that, I mean I will write some sort of book. His response was that I don’t have to write anything, I don’t have to do anything, I need to focus on recovering. A statement that was simultaneously endearing and a little shocking, for it jolted a realisation of his perception of my current position. He is right though. I am recovering the segments of my self-esteem, my confidence, my belief in my own abilities and attempting to fit them back into a whole picture- it’s just that right now, I don’t know what the image will be.

These past few weeks have been a process of adjustment, not only in what I am doing and how I am organising my days, but also in what I am feeling and how I manage my expectations and those of people around me. When I am asked “So, how is it being a lady of leisure?” or “What are you doing then?” or “How is it not working then, it must be good?” - how should I respond? I am very grateful that we are able to make adjustments financially to enable me to keep on this route for now. I am grateful that I had this option when to remain in work, in my circumstances, would have led to some very dark places. I am grateful that I have options but as yet, I don’t feel I have answers.

The process of writing is in itself taking a lens to magnify the minutiae- it’s all in the description, the ability to capture a place, an object, a person, with some aptly chosen phrases. So within that, it is no doubt natural that the writer becomes the over-thinker. An observer of life in order to tell a story through the ink on the page, is by nature surely going to notice a feeling and may be more prone to catastrophising over it. I discovered that word this week, when chatting with a friend. I love it as a word, not as a quality, for it encapsulates the struggles of a mind that can leap from 0 to 60 in a blink of an eye, spiralling around all of the possible outcomes that a situation may have. It seems that she and I both share an ability of late to catastrophise.

It can be added to the long list of things that we share then. This friend and I go back to High School days and we have compared notes on life’s milestones ever since: university days, jobs, boyfriends, weddings - being bridesmaids for each other, our babies who are now either grown up or fast heading that way. Along the way though, we have also shared the small stuff, for it is those details that keep the whole thing going, this ‘adult’ thing. When chatting this week, we spoke of our lives with reference to the details and the wider lens view and both agreed that since school we have been waiting for the day when we actually feel like we’ve become adults and that we know what we’re doing, that we have some control. Having both now hit 50, we had to concede that perhaps that day never comes and all the adults that we looked up to as children were also playing the game that we now participate in. The game where you project an image of calm and knowing exactly what to do next, when actually you have no real clue.

So I should return to that pebble on the beach, the elusive one, with its glinting promise and tactile allure. It is perhaps my very adult and grown-up approach that is holding me back from reaching it? I should think of what I would have done to get to such a pebble back in my childhood days and throw caution to the wind, jump over a few waves and grab it. And once I have my pebble, examine it daily and treasure it forever.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I drove behind a hearse today, after dropping my daughter at work. Just one vehicle amongst the traffic, a simple coffin with no floral adornment - most probably empty as there was no reverential slow speed being observed by the driver as it left the roundabout by the crematorium. That’s a place I’ve been to with increasing regularity, sadly. As you get to a certain age it becomes more likely that you meet friends and extended family at funerals rather then weddings and of course, there is a certain spot in the gardens where we visit to think of my Dad. There, with a clipped lawn and often a blue sky, a small numbered plaque marks his resting place - the officialdom of a final act. I prefer to think of Dad at other times, in other places, from the corners of your mind where the sepia-coloured memories glow like discarded embers from a comforting fire. If you try really hard, you can sometimes push enough embers together to spark a brightness from the past, almost to the point that you have to catch yourself and remember that he is no longer here.

So to return to following the hearse, on a January morning with a sky full of the blues and greys that start a wintery day. I was jolted by the image from my thoughts of my day ahead, the mundane mental list: cleaning, shopping, dog walking, trying to sort clutter to build myself a writing nest. Jolted instead into thinking about what it all means. That’s a very big question when you’ve only just surfaced from the security of your bedroom covers. Particularly today. Today had been one of those days when I had contemplated driving my daughter to work whilst still wearing my pyjamas- something I have never done and something I can assure you would not look like the glamorous yummy Mummies portrayed in a certain car advert! No, today, I had thrown on sloppy clothes, given my face a cursory look in the mirror and thought “that shit will have to do - I can fix it later.”

Looking at the hearse before me, I was struck by how small the coffin appears and how, as may well be the case for some, the stark, bare box seems such an insignificance. Dad’s funeral was so well attended that there was literally standing room only but I’ve seen others with a handful of mourners and there must be some endings where no-one sheds a tear and it’s all a matter of paperwork. Is a person’s mark upon the earth measured by the size of the final crowd that they draw?

To avoid sliding down this somewhat gloomy spiral with such thoughts, the jolt I had as I drove my usual route back home was more connected to the beginning I have made. That inner voice that we all have (I presume we all have it) began its own monologue reinforcing my decision to resign my post, to embark upon my writing, to persevere with this somewhat haphazard situation that I have created for myself. They say that you only regret the things that you didn’t do. That, and other such clichés came to mind and then, out of nowhere and with no predetermined mission to do so today, this blog piece begins to form in my head. I park on the drive, grab my laptop and head back to bed where the writing sanctuary of our newly constructed loft space allows me to think. High up, metaphorically and literally, I am away from the mundane. Looking out of the two Velux windows to one side, I see the treetops and the clouds rolling by, whilst the large window to the other side of the bed affords a vista across the rooftops to the town beyond. Though not the picturesque seascape I yearn for, as a frustrated novelist with idealistic intentions, the mere space extending on to the distant horizon and the time to sit here looking at it, is a calming opportunity and conducive to creative thoughts.

Thoughts have been my friends and my enemies lately. They are the necessary mechanism for my creativity to flourish and I have yet to allow myself to fully immerse myself in them, for to find enough distraction free time for that process still seems an elusive commodity- but it is early days. Those same early days have allowed thoughts in that start to sow the seeds of anxiety and self-doubt. When given any chance to do so they grow into emotional and sometimes irrational seedlings that need cutting down before they take root. There have been a few days when they have done their best to do so. I can picture them as I write, within a tray in a gardener’s potting shed with their labels neatly scribed upon them “this is a farce,” and “what are you actually doing” being the main plant names. So far though, I am managing them, as my cousin, who is a horticulturist, once advised - the best thing is to do a little of something in the garden every day. So I’m tending my mind garden! 

When all is said and done, we are in control of the marks we make upon a page and those which remain as a legacy for others to reference in the future. If you can no longer control part of your life, make changes to it - walk away, try again, switch it up a bit, whatever is necessary to start making things work. You can’t do it on your own, so look around for help - I have been surprised and struck by the number of people willing to offer their support and it manifests itself in so many different ways. Sometimes it needs to be actions that make a difference to your day. Sometimes words need to be said, and I don’t always want to hear them, but those that matter, know when I need to hear them.

Today is a good day, from starting as a day that felt anything but a good day. Inspiration for writing comes from the strangest places - I cannot explain it and will not begin to try. I will carry on with my mundane, my mindful moments and my inner monologue - for on days like this, I think she’s got something worth listening to!

As Yet Untitled

Standing outside of the herd, being separate from the crowd, having the courage to stop drifting along with the general tide, whatever you want to call it - doing something different brings with it danger and uncertainty.

Recent blogs have detailed the journey I have been on these past few months to arrive here, an ex-teacher looking to regain some sanity and self-esteem by being different. No longer following the daily work drudge but instead having no particular rules and having space and time to write, to be creative, to do something new.
Many well-wishers have supported this decision and backed it up with positive messages about being brave enough to follow my dreams, not knowing where I will go or what I can achieve until I take the first step – until I take that leap of faith. Well I’m committed to it now. Whilst my immediate family and close friends see the necessity of the decision and indeed, have spurred me on so that I feel supported and am being encouraged to face what lies ahead as an opportunity to be grabbed, I have entered the New Year wondering how much of a rose-tinted facade I am building for myself. Am I just kidding myself with all this talk of writing and creativity? Have I not just dressed up an inability to cope in the restraints of the job I had, in a romanticised scene where I am acting as the protagonist – a writer whose character has just been given the space she has craved all these years to blossom? Should I be pursuing such a pretence or just knuckle down and find myself a real job, like everyone else does? That’s a lot of questions.

Having just watched a wildlife documentary I was struck at how easy it is for the predators of life to pick off the weakest, those struggling to keep up at the fringes of the pack. I am all too aware that I have my own inner predators waiting in the corners of my mind. Doubt, comfort-eater, self-criticism and many more that could so easily manifest themselves. In order to survive these I know I need to be somewhat proactive. In years gone by, I have easily sunk into a routine of watching junk TV, eating junk food and following a junk sort of lifestyle when I felt low, or preoccupied by negative thoughts. Having done so well with my weight loss and trying so hard to make the most of myself, the ‘fabulous at fifty’ initiative, I really cannot afford to let it all slip as the year unfolds, even though I feel myself moving to the fringes of the societal pack at the moment.

Next week I would have been starting the Spring Term, if I had not resigned, something which has been my life’s pattern for as long as I can remember. I went from being at school myself, to training to teach at university, to teaching my first class - all governed by the academic calendar. Instead, I don’t know exactly what I will be doing. Aware of how I might be feeling, both my husband and a good friend have made arrangements so that I am doing something special on two days of that week and I have had many more friends make it clear that they are around if I need them too. I feel very lucky that I have such people in my life who are looking out for me. Now is the time to look out for myself too.

There are many mindfulness sites extolling the virtues of positive words and deeds. I read one quote exploring how much difference one positive thought can make, how trying to start each day with one can make an impact upon the rest of it. Like the Spike Milligan poem describing the infectious nature of a smile, treating yourself kindly and actively focusing on the positive must have a ripple effect. It is an outcome that you have to actively pursue though, like training an inner voice to remark upon the positive from the everyday.

So I have started my year by writing each day, writing whatever pops into my head. I am sure a lot of it will be of no consequence to anyone, but the mere act of writing it is a process I am finding cathartic and positive, so I guess it does not matter what I am writing. For now, the pages of my writing diary form their own exclusive audience and that is enough.

Change is frightening, but nothing new happens without change. Some things will be worse, some will be better. I may find it hard to come to terms with some things, most probably things that I have not yet even considered. For now, I must not allow myself to worry about what this might include. Face forward and keep going, nobody knows what awaits them around the next turning so in that, I am not alone. This chapter of my life has no predetermined direction, no name to describe it and no designated end point. In a year’s time, I may have some answers or some shape to this chapter, all of that remains to be seen. Until then, the chapter remains untitled and is perhaps as all good writers find, the last part of the writing jigsaw to fall into place. When researching the writing process, it is apparent that a good title is an organic process that emerges from the writing – as the words fall onto the page, not – as in many Literacy lessons in classrooms, - an imposed label on which to write a formulaic response. So here I am, Mollie the blogger with an article: As Yet Untitled.

New Year, New Chapter.

‘Twixtmas’ as I believe these few days between Christmas and New Year celebrations are called, is a strange part of the year. A mixture of exhaustion from all the preparations leading up to Christmas and a sort of self-loathing for giving into the indulgences of the holiday lead to me becoming a blob-like creature, incapable of rational thought, surrounded by mountains of chocolate and left over mince pies and turkey. Just to get off the sofa takes a concerted effort as it is during this time that I find my energy levels as well as my mood, can be low. All the anticipation of one day of the year, all the stress about how well the hosting of the day and managing relatives and expectations, all of that has to tip the mental balance into a downward trajectory doesn’t it?

So, this week, I have found myself keeping my mind busy, by writing, and my body active by walking the dog. Both positive actions to take to support my emotional state. I’m sure that each year I sink into the ‘Twixtmas’ slump but this year, I suppose I really don’t know what lies ahead for me in the new year. Having made the decision to leave work, I now feel that I am facing a difficult and significant time. Very much like a pedestrian stood at the kerb edge of a busy road, trying to find the right moment to commit to crossing to the other side, where promise and enticement lay to draw me forward through the dangerous traffic in order to get there. Sometimes, to get to the destination that you want, the hardest part seems to be taking the first steps.

I have started a sort of writing scrapbook – a collection of inspiring quotes within the pages of a notebook given to me by a friend. Alongside these, I plan to write my thoughts, my experiences, anything pertinent to me at the time. It feels like a positive way to empty my head of writing clutter and to note my observations of the world around me. Much like an artist keeps a sketch book. On my first blank page, my musings have started thus:

“My life is, as this book, currently open upon a blank page...”

At this point, the blank page of the year ahead seems simultaneously exciting and intimidating and I am grateful to all those who messaged me words of encouragement or suggestions of possible job opportunities for the future, having read my last blog ‘Overwhelmed and Out of Time.’

When you’re faced with the unknown, the little seeds of doubt that I am sure everyone has, can easily begin to sprout and begin to take hold of the dark corners of your mind. Given the chance, they could all too easily germinate and flourish like persistent weeds do among the beauty of a flower bed. This I must avoid. Whilst all around you can feel busy and is visually sparkling and welcoming, there have been times this last week when I have felt as though I am in some sort of movie theatre - an onlooker watching the scenes unfold around me, without any real participation on my part in the proceedings.

Perhaps it is because the demands of the traditions of a family Christmas, whatever that might look like for individual readers of this blog, create a familiar game, somewhat like us all following the rules of a predetermined chess game as we move across the board of play from the start to the end of the festivities. Even as I write this down, it feels like I am being the proverbial Scrooge character, bringing a message of ‘bah humbug’ to the season of goodwill. That is not my intention in my observations. It is more that there are always layers to social gatherings and not everyone is on the same page at the same time. Looking ahead to this new year, to be welcomed in at midnight in a couple of days’ time, I do feel that my path forward may be a rocky one. I may well stumble along the way but at least I recognise that.

Among the gifts I received for Christmas and to mark the leaving of my teaching post, were several items related to me setting myself up as a writer. I am not sure why this is so daunting right now, perhaps because it holds none of the 9 to 5 rules of a regular job and thus it feels strange to not be conforming to routines. It is not that I am seeing writing as a job either, for with that claim comes a necessity to have some financial gain from it. However, to immerse myself in writing, an ideal that I have always held in my mind as a dream, a sort of “if I ever win the lottery I would...” statement, to immerse myself I do need to treat it like a job and commit to the process.

So, as I say, I am sitting here with my blank page before me and it is up to me to decide how the writing falls upon it and what the story will be as the ink dries. One quote sent to me by friends reads: “Write your own story” That has to be my inspiration for my new year and my new chapter. Let’s see how the plot unfolds from here.