On the Cusp

Well, here we are then...on the cusp of a New Year, a new decade....a whole new period of magical changes and exciting happenings. It's a big day and I can feel the air vibrating with anticipation this morning. It's a strange time for me, with the changes that have taken place in my life over the last few months but it means that for the first time in years I am fully in control of my own choices and plans.....well, me and the flow of destiny anyway. Infact, one of my main aims this coming year is to give myself more fully to the energy of the universe and to trust in the magic that is all around me. Yes, I can control my inner conditions, I can control my mind and my feelings but I have to accept more freely that I cannot always control the outer conditions and that which goes on around me. I have to simply be me....as I read in a quotation somewhere....'Be yourself...everyone else is taken'.

I'm so determined that 2010 will be a creative year for me, in many ways. I am already planning my writing goals and I am looking forward to plugging away at them. I am hoping to promote myself more too, in all aspects of my work and I am also trying to find ways to be more positive. I am all too easily led into feeling negative, feeling down and like a victim......it's a trait that runs through my family! No more! It doesn't do me any good, it certainly doesn't do those around me any good and it attracts nothing but negative responses from the rest of my life....that's no good to me and I'm going to do my utmost to turn it around. If I start posting negative blogs then PLEASE, someone, slap me! (Metaphorically of course!)

So there, we go.....this will, no doubt be my last blog of 2009.....wishing you all love and light....and a happy, healthy and magical 2010.

On the seventh day of limbo my true love gave to me....

They're odd, aren't they? These few days between Christmas and the New Year? I don't quite know what to think about or what to do with myself, it's frought with contradictions and opposites! I mean, for example, it's the BIG sales in the shops, Boxing Day sales are the big thing these days of course and after a trip to the Trafford Centre yesterday the people were out in their hundreds (thousands?!) to pick up the savings on offer and hit each other about the calves with bulging bags.....but, is it just me, or is the day after Christmas the last day you feel you can go shopping? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to - but Christmas itself is such a strain on the old purse strings there is no way in the world I could go on a spending spree on Boxing Day! Maybe after the next payday, if I'm lucky....though after being paid early for Christmas that seems a very long way away at the moment!

And then there's the more emotional, spiritual limbo.........it's a fantastic time to look forward to the New Year of course and consider what changes you may like to make to life.... Again, this year, for the (enter x here)th time, my resolutions include losing weight. To be fair, I'm not doing badly but I have further to go..(enter shameless plug for my blog on http://www.weightwatchers.co.uk/). But, do I start now, or do I wait for the 1st Jan 2010 and play a silent fanfare to myself before filling up the fruit bowl? I mean, I'm still surrounded by non weight loss food....still at least half a Christmas cake to finish, the mince pies are only half eaten and the Christmas pudding we couldn't face on the day is still still in the wrapper.... so do I somehow get rid of all this and start the diet properly again now? Or do I eat all the fatty stuff and give myself more work to do in the New Year? Decisions, decisions eh?

As for my writing....well, I'm determined to crack on in 2010, it's been too long. I have short stories written that I have done nothing with and my novel has been sitting at a little under 9000 words now for over a year. No more. I'm going to re read it in the next day or so and hope some inspiration hits me as I do. This is my first novel and so it's like starting a drive to Africa, without a map. I'm hoping there will be some signposts along the way! Needless to say, if anyone has a spare hour and would like to read it so far then please let me know. I am going through a stage of wondering whether it's any good and worth carrying on with! Insecure? Me? Never! lol

The Mind of Solstice

What is it about this time of year that feels so magical and promising? The festive season never fails to touch me in this way. I may struggle with the whole buying, wrapping and exchanging gifts bit (although I've never been THIS far behind before!) but the Winter solstice always leads me to parts of my soul and my mind that other times of year don't. Maybe it's the promise of the New Year just around the corner. A time for rethinking, for planning and for promising. A time when it's fine to reassess what you have and want you want from your life and a time for working out how you can take those first steps to get there. It's a time filled with faith and with hope for the future.

For me this it particularly evident this year but looking back 12 months I find just as inspiring. I would never, not in a million years, have expected to be in the situation I find myself today. And that just goes to show me that, yes it's great to look ahead and think of goals I want to achieve, but it's also a time to wonder at the journey that is life. We can never know where we may be taken next. We never can plan for the hills and valleys, for the people and forks we encounter along our path. So, as much as I am enjoying looking forward to 2010 I am also wondering in amazement at the things I cannot know. I have a few places I would like to stop by and visit in the next 12 months, I have people I would love to share the journey with, but I must never be blinded by these alone. For in doing that, I will miss so much.

Busy few days

What a busy few days I have ahead and I'm already feeling very tired! Oh deary dear! lol Today I have had a trip over to see someone who is very special to me and it's been too long since my last visit. It was well worth the 3 hour drive home in the pouring rain and I will be wishing for more special time together before too long.......

Tomorrow I head down to Cambridge to spend time with another very special friend....., Jo. We went to school together and were very close but, as so often happens, we lost touch when we went to different universities. We found each other again through facebook a few months ago and have spoken on the phone since, as well as exhanging emails and texts (that first phone call was over 3 hours long!) Anyway, tomorrow I get the train down to stay with her and her partner as tomorrow is her birthday. It will be just fabulous to see her again and we are heading into London to a Ginger gig, one of her favourite artists. I'm sure it will be a really special night and I can't wait :) On Friday we will drive all the way back home, I hope this forecast snow doesn't cause us too many problems.

Saturday I'm off galavanting again as it is my work Xmas do. I'm really looking forward to this one too :) I mean you can't go wrong with a free Pizza Express meal really can you? Add to that the fact that I'm lucky in that I love the people I work with to bits and it should be a good night! On Sunday I will drive back home again....and probably collapse in a heap. Or I would, but I'm guessing my son will want to play as Mummy won't have been around much the last few days!

Of course, Harry finishes school for Christmas on Friday too, I don't. I'm working right the way up to Christmas Eve, which I don't mind, although I have a LOT of Christmas shopping still left to do. In fact, if I'm honest, I haven't started really. oooops. Oh well. Can't be helped and there's nothing I can do until some money arrives in the bank so that's that!! I'm quite looking forward to a last minute dash this year if the truth be told. Thankfully I don't have that many people to by for :)

Where's my Christmas feeling gone then???

Don't you just hate it when you start to blog but have no idea where you are going? You don't really feel you have anything to say but want to say it anyway. Well, that's me today. Things seem rather surreal in life at the moment and I'm trying my best to embrace that, but it is unsettling me a little.

Today Harry is having his Christmas party at school, no doubt with another visit from Sion Corn..he'll have a wonderful time, I'm sure! It's going to be a busy week one way and another and I'm really hoping the weather isn't going to put a spanner in the works! I have lots of visiting to do and lots of travelling too.......somehow though I can't get excited about any of it. I don't know why, I wish I could. I think I've got into a rut of assuming something will go wrong....depressing eh? I wish I could just snap out of it. Wednesday is a particularly important day for me, if that goes to plan then I think everything else will fall into place...if that goes wrong then it's going to be hard to hold the rest together in all honesty.... please keep your fingers crossed for me if you can.

I still haven't managed to write a single word on my novel and I haven't written any more poetry either. As I say, things are just weird today.......just plan weird and not very Christmassy... I'm no fun am I?!?!

Last Minute? Me?

As you know, it's not like me to leave something to the last minute.....much! Thursday was my local writing group Christmas meeting...I wasn't sure whether or not I would make it and so hadn't written anything to take with me. At 6:15pm I decided I would be able to make it....but I hadn't anything to take with me......by 6:20pm I was lying on the bed, pen and paper in hand.....by 6:40 I had managed to write something that at least reduced me to tears...would have to do. So, into the shower, dressed and out by 6:55pm. What an evening and I'm so glad I went. It was so lovely to see the other groups members, I haven't made a single meeting since September due to clashing events on my calendar, I must make sure I can make the rest! And I think the poem went down well enough, although obviously it needs some work doing to it. I was just glad I had actually written something. That's a big step for me at the moment as I haven't been writing at all for months, I mean to but just don't seem able to sit down and do it. I'm hoping this poem will be a turning point for me.

Talking of leaving things to the last minute, to say I am getting slightly stressed about Christmas is a total understatment! Normally by this point I have everything done, not wrapped admittedly, that's always a Christmas Eve job, but I have everything ready to go. Not this year. I have three presents bought and that is it. Completely. Nothing else at all. Oh dear. But that's not the half of it. Due to current circumstances I also have no money to do anything about it. Until three days before Christmas Day! It's going to be one HUGE last minute rush this year. Maybe it'll be fun eh? Here's hoping. I may just go grey thinking about it.

This coming week is going to be a busy one too, not ideal when people are starting to talk of possible heavy snow. Can I please make it known now, oh powers that be, I don't want snow this week! It can't happen, it'll scupper mi plans good and proper! Please, nice mild weather.....at least until next Saturday!

The Nativity

It's been a busy old day today. Work was quite a giggle. I suppose I am very lucky with my job really. There aren't so many opportunities to get paid for talking and having a laugh and I certainly do most days! It used to be even more fun when I had even more stations on my shift but this is always how it works, swings and roundabouts.....I'm still very happy with my stations :)

This evening was Harry's Christmas concert in school He didn't have a big part this year but I enjoyed every single minute. There is something spine tingling about a school nativity. From the moment they filed out to 'Away In A Manger' on the piano I was filling up. They all sang their little hearts out. Just adorable.

There's not much else to report I don't think. I'm preparing mentally for the funeral I have to attend on Friday, I'm sure it will go fine but it is preying on my mind a little. I also have a meal out to look forward to on Friday evening and a get together on Thursday too if I make it. It's all busy busy busy up to Christmas.

The situation on the whole is OK though tonight. I had lovely uplifting conversation yesterday that really cheered me up and helped me to look through the darkness that can sometimes devour me and see a glimpse of light shining on me through the gloom. I am lucky to be able to see and feel that light and I am forever grateful to those who help me to find it and also move towards it.

What Can I Say?

I can't tell you how good it feels to be logging onto my old blog and typing again...it's like coming back to an old friend after too long away. It feels comfortable and relaxing....mmmmm

Today has been an up and down kind of day to be honest. I struggled first thing this morning to find any positive worth getting up for....that wasn't helped by the fact that Harry, little darling that he is, woke me up in the middle of a dream. Don't you hate it when that happens? If you get back to sleep again quickly enough sometimes you can catch up where you left off, but that wasn't possible this morning and I can't even remember what the dream was about now. It's left me feeling slightly off balance all day.

As I wrote yesterday, it's kind of difficult to work out what I can and can't write here. I don't like that feeling but it's one I need to think about. Thing is, a lot has changed and in order to share the things going on in my head here, which is what I feel a blog is about, it is neccessary to at least explain the outer conditions. Without them the inner ones won't make much sense at all. There are more complications than you can throw a stick at and if you'd told me I'd be in this mess 6 months ago I would never have believed you. But here I am. If there's one thing I have learnt over the last few months it is that NOTHING is black and white.....and there is more than one shade of grey too.

I suppose it is enough to give the outlines without the detail, I know the people who read my blog will not judge or criticise me, they know me well enough for that....it is the people I don't know that I need to think of...and when I say that, I don't mean to say that I am worried what other people think, but that in the public realm there is always the possibilty that someone will stumble upon this writing who knows some of the people to whom I refer. But I will only say that I type from the heart and, I suppose, if anyone does happen upon this blog who knows me I would hope they would respect and listen to what I say.

Short version I suppose is that in July I left home. I needed to follow my heart and it was no longer at home. I stayed away for around 10 weeks when I came back as I needed to see my son more frequently. I missed him a lot. So now I am back, but with my own space. Though times are not easy and sometimes can be awkward, the house is big enough to share and we are all getting along OK, for the most part anyway. The rings are off, the statuses (statii?!) on facebook are deleted...you get the idea. So that is where I find myself. It's a very odd situation and I am not really sure where I go from here or what I do. I'm taking time to be myself and taking each day and opportunity at a time. That feels good. I no longer feel trapped or hindered, other than by finances but I think we all feel that. So, in many many ways I am in a much better place. I have hopes and dreams for my future but many of these plans are out of my hands and so I can only wish that they may come to fruition when the time is right. Patience is not my strong point and I am certainly being tested on that at the moment. I hope it is a lesson I can pass.

And so today has been a day of feeling the frustration of the situation and some days I can breathe in the light and positivity, others I feel the depths of darkness and impatience. Today has been the latter although I have been striving for light and love. I think on the whole I have done fairly well. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I hope this blog makes sense, I am aware of having rambled around whilst probably saying very little.........

I know, I know.....I'm a stranger....it's been so long since I updated my blog - but there are reasons I promise you. Much has changed in my life, more than I ever thought could to be honest and, as much as my heart wants to write about it all, as there are other people involved and the web is a public domain I will need to be careful with how I word everything....

Having said that I miss my blog and the friends I have in blogland so I will be updating regularly again from now on. Right, off to catch up with what everyone has been up to :)

J x