It’s highly likely that no one visits this website any more. I’m not surprised and I’m not discouraged either. Blogs are only successful if the owner posts and I haven’t done much of that over recent months.

Some months ago, I clearly announced to the world that I had decided to stop writing…forever. Some caring (online) friends supported my actions, but advised me that forever is a long time and should I ever feel the need to write again then I should allow it to happen. I appreciated the words and acknowledged that I wouldn’t want it to be any other way.

At the time, I needed to walk away. I needed to free myself of guilt and/or blame. And, more importantly, I needed to allow myself the time to heal in body and mind. Now, looking back, I believe I was close to a nervous breakdown…caused by grief over one son and fear for the other. The grief will always be nearby, it is a normal emotion in life and I know I will learn to live with it (I can already feel the improvement within myself). The fear, on the other hand, was not normal and it was eating me alive. It is the fear that I had to deal with and I think I finally have.

Today, I make another announcement to the world. I feel like writing again!

This time, I’m going to be nice to myself. I will write what I want, when I want. There will be no pressure or guilt. I will use this blog as a personal diary – keeping tabs on my writing progress, but I will not veer into my personal life anymore. I will not give excuses or reasons when I don’t write. I will not feel obliged to post unless I truly have something to say. In fact, I will even go as far as to say that I intend to “clean up” this website. I have downloaded a free computer diary which I am currently copying old (more personal) posts into before I delete them. And, yes, I think I’ll change the template again. The colouring is drab and I really would prefer something happy and cheery.

Who am I? I’m a woman, a mother, a lover, a daughter, a sister, an aunt…and I’m a writer. This website is about the writer in me. It has been, and will probably continue to be, a hard road I’ve chosen, but I feel ready to follow it once again.

We come to love not by finding a perfect person,
but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

–Anonymous–

This morning, I wrote the following and posted it to an email writing group I belong to:

I’ve found myself in situations where I just want to give it all away before, but every time that happened it was spurred on by depression, anger or some other upset in my life. Always in the back of my mind, I knew that “next week I’ll be back to normal”. This time is different. I don’t feel anything other than rested and content. I enjoyed my break over the Christmas and New Year period. I’m back at work now. Yet when I think about writing it brings up feelings of stress and distaste. Writing has become a chore and that is not a good thing.

I mentioned this on this website a few days ago, but it’s the first time I’ve acknowledged my feelings in the group. Anyway, my last paragraph in the post was as follows:

The anthology is the only thing holding me at the moment. I will not give up on that and I intend to see that project through to completion. Who knows, it might be that project that draws me back, but…I might find myself walking away from writing forever at the end of it. It’s not a possibility that I can or will rule out.

I used to love writing. I used to want to write at any spare moment I had. In fact, I used to make time when I didn’t really have it. I used to steal time because writing was what I wanted to do more than anything else. I loved loosing myself in wonderful worlds with great people and intriguing plots. The limits of what happened in those stories were only restricted by my imagination and I had a vivid imagination.

That started to change when I found the internet.

I learned a lot from the internet, and I made some great friends. My confidence grew, but I also began to lose the enthusiasm I previously had. Writing became a business. For those who want publication, there are rules to follow and I don’t care what anyone says about that. If you think there are no rules, then you’re kidding yourself. Anyway, with rules come restrictions and I guess my love of writing was dampened because of that. Sure, I could throw rules to the wind and write whatever I wanted, and some people would do that, but I’m a rule abiding citizen. I know the rules exist and that fact alone would have affected my writing.

However, I know it’s not the rules that have gotten to me. I believe I have just lost the desire to write. I’ve outgrown it. I’ve gone past it. It no longer interests me. What can I say? Hobbies come and go, but this was not a hobby for me. I felt passionate about writing and I was serious in my approach to it. Unfortunately, the passion has evaporated.

The last couple of years, well nineteen months, have been tough. Yet I’ve survived everything that has happened and I am sitting here today planning a future. I think that’s a good sign.

I am looking at the future and wondering what I want to do with my time. Sometimes I feel pressured to be someone I’m not. Sometimes I feel stressed because I want to be something I can’t reach. Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Am I happy with the way things are? No. Can I change it? Yes.

I’m learning to put me first. It’s sounds easy and selfish, but it is neither of these things. We cannot control anything or anyone else. We can’t control how people think or act. We can’t control what people do or say. But we can control these aspects within ourselves. We can say “No!” to accepting other people’s rubbish and we can push the anger, hurt and/or whatever else we might feel away.

That’s what I’m learning to do.

At the end of October 2006, I started reading Odd One Out by Monica McInerney. At the time, I only read the first three chapters and then November arrived and with it NaNoWriMo. Following quickly on its heels was family issues and then Christmas. In that time I didn’t read anything (book related).

I guess I should write something about Christmas Day. The three days leading up to Christmas fell nowhere near short of hectic. Gary and I cleaned and scrubbed everything inside and outside the house. We cleaned high, low and in between. We cleaned on, under and behind. Everything was washed in some way. We’ve never ever done spring cleaning like this before. In fact, we worked so hard and so long that I lost weight with all the exercise! Perfect timing really, because Christmas time is when we usually put the weight on.

Anyway, at midday on Christmas Day the family started to arrive. I had it all planned out in my head (I can’t help planning; it’s what I do best). I had warned Gary that if I said something needed to be done and he thought I was going about it all wrong, he should just humour me and do it anyway. And that’s exactly what he did. There were only 13 of us and the afternoon went quite well. No one, except Gary, saw my stress levels. Not that I felt stressed all day. It was only at that crucial time when all the food needed to be ready at the same time. At appropriate times, Gary walked up to me and calmly mumbled in my ear, “Settle down, you’re doing a marvellous job.” That is all I needed to calm down and carry on being a hostess, which is something I have never felt comfortable with.

At the end of the day everyone left with a pile of presents, a full belly and smiling faces. I certainly couldn’t ask for more than that. And we were left with a heap of food, because I had miscalculated, but hey it’s better to have too much than not enough. At least we won’t starve anytime soon.

On Boxing Day I woke up early and decided to sit in bed and read. I grabbed Odd One Out and reread chapter 3 (because, after eight weeks, I couldn’t really remember what was happening or anything much about the characters).

I read on and off during the day and that night I finished the entire book. That’s quite an achievement for me. Coincidently the theme of the story was parallel with my life, except for different reasons. I guess this meant I connected with the storyline and the characters. Hence I really enjoyed what I read.

Odd One Out is about a woman who is not in control of her own life. Born into a creative family, she was the only one who was non-creative and this made her feel inferior. Yet, she had qualities that her family didn’t have. With her brother’s help, she was pushed into the unknown and out of her comfort zone. She learned to deal with situations that she would never normally put herself in. She learned to stand up for herself and take her life into her own hands.

From reading this story, I learned that our future is not set in stone and we can change roads without abandoning who we really are. People may not always approve, but they will get used to the idea in the end. Mostly, I learned that we must do things because we want to do them and not because other people expect it of us or because we expect it of ourselves.

In 2008, I intend to take control of my life again. What are your intentions for the coming year?