Old Friends: Missing in Action

Sometimes it's hard not to be the grumpy single girl, and my scribblings of the past couple of years testify to that but here its is again.


I'm always delighted for my chums when they find someone new, fall in love, have kids, but it can be difficult to lose them as priorities shift. There's been a spate of folk recently who've found new love, and somewhere in the whirlwinds of their romances they neglect the people who stood by them when they were the ones reaching for the hot water bottle rather than their lover.

I'm happy enough living on my own, and having my freedom -being able to play the fiddle at 2am naked if I fancy it, or wearing bizarre combinations of cosiness as winter begins to bite, eating nothing but baked potatoes every evening for a week and indulging hours in the bath without caring about how much hot water is used.

But, as they're hanging the nursery curtains and sitting down at a table in the new restaurant, you look round for the folk who were once there to share the vestiges of the week and debate the book you've just read. You realise the numbers are dwindling and wonder what you will do do with your weekend.

I smile as I think of the proud father and friend whose man is on bended knee, and wonder if they stop to remember to keep space in their lives for the ones who helped them get there. And, who'll still be there if life doesn't turn into the dream they'd hoped for.

In the meantime, those of us left behind must huddle closer together and keep reaching out for the new.

What will the weekend bring? I don't know but, at least it may still be an adventure.

Reluctant Freedom

I moved back to my home city four and half years ago to help care for and support my parents. This wasn't the selfless act it perhaps seems, I was simply exhausted and time poor from travelling back and forwards between two cities too often. My organisation had an office here, and a transfer was possible without impacting my job.

Since I came home, my entire routine has been defined by hospital visiting or caring. With one parent still needing support, those circumstances are still partly true. But, with one now gone, the load has lifted significantly.

Suddenly, I have time. I am not bound by visiting hours. My mother is well and able enough for my sister and I both to be away at the same time without having to coordinate our every move.

I miss Dad, but I'm also finding a freedom. Freedom to chose how I spend my time. I'm also finding that I'm not very good at just stopping. Until a month ago, a duty-less evening or a day of nothing was a rare treat. And one spent just catching up with the basics and resting. Now, I have time.

I have to redefine my existence here. I have to find a routine and life of my own. I'm taking small steps towards just 'hanging out' and have aimless days or evenings. These things still are tinged by a nagging sense that I should be doing something, be somewhere else. There is a lingering guilt. A sadness that I'm enjoying some space only because my Dad has gone.

I'm still grieving, but beginning to allow myself to be a little excited about anticipating a future that belongs to me.

The biggest thing I need to do is learn to relax, and learn that I no longer need to plan every movement.

_______________________________________________________________
PS there are words emerging in my head about the impact these last years have had on my relationships and friendships. I'm writing this to remind myself that it's a post I need to write.

Back to the Grind Stone

My decision is made. I'm going to be an employee again. I'm excited and nervous. The project is high profile and demanding, but very tangible and with a charity whose work I admire and respect. The bit of me that left my last job with my self confidence worn into the ground has been whispering in my ear. But I know these are just thoughts and they will pass.


I'm very proud of everything I've achieved over the past 14 months of self employment. I've proven I can make it work. I also know that it's a world that I will return to. It's been fantastic to lead a different kind of life for a while and is what I will strive for in the future.

However, as a single-ish girl with no-one else to help pay the mortgage, and who's still carrying student debt amongst other things, it's also made me realise how much I'd like to be free of the shackles of those bills, mortgage aside.

So, probably for the first time in my life I've made a decision about my career based on money, as well as opportunity. I want to clear the decks and be financially freer. I want to build a more stable platform for myself and my future. After all, no-one's going to do it for me.

I will return to a life more free and flexible. But for now, security feels important.

I feel very proud and privileged to be in a position where I've worked hard enough that I've had a choice to make, and for the support of those who've helped me get there.

I am going to concentrate my energies on making my life secure enough that I can make more choices without fear. Money can't buy happiness, but for now it can help me buy a future I want.

Dear Jim

Tonight I found out someone I once knew died this week. Suicide I think, from the vague messages filtering through.


It's a weird one. I didn't know him for a long time. He was the best friend of an old friend of mine. We had a fling of sorts about four years ago. He worked abroad, and when in the UK lived in elsewhere but we spent some interesting and fun times together.

We connected in a way we all sometimes, but rarely, preciously, do with folk. A bright spark of recognition, soulfulness and humour.

I haven't seen him for a long time. We enquired after each other via the mutual friends, but our paths rarely crossed.

He was a wonderful man with tattoo of Calvin and Hobbs on his bottom that was acquired in a drunken dare in Hong Kong. He was a photographer, amongst other things. Silly and passionate with an inherent sadness at his core.

I was with him when he got the call to tell him his mum had cancer. I watched him receive the news I had heard for myself only a couple of years earlier. I watched him deflate. That kick in the guts of life turning in an instant, of child becoming parent. I watched him cry, and begin to run through the scenarios. I held him, and told him the truth.

I am sad for him. But, he is free. I am more sad for my friend who has lost his best man. Tonight I have cried for them both.

I will write to our friend tomorrow.

A year and a thank you

I've been neglecting my blog a bit due to wishing to escape my computer as quickly as possible at the end of some very long days. But today I can't let pass without marking it.


It is a year today since I left work. I walked out of the office, not wanting fuss or bother, sad and nervous about the future.

I'd taken a huge step. I could have fought it, but instead put my hand up and said 'I'll go'. I negotiated hard over my redundancy, buying myself some time and a little security in an uncertain world.

I think there have been two things that have surprised me, and made me happier than I'd expected of this past year. Firstly, I hadn't quite realised how determined I could be, how stubborn in the face of all I worked towards crumbling around me. I decided to be brave, fight, take some risks. I'm still not quite earning as much as I was, but doing well enough and life's pace is more manageable, flexible and pleasant.

The other is finding one of the best friends I think I've ever had, right under my nose.

My friend Tash (Violet Sands) was made redundant shortly before me, and shortly before me she'd also crumpled. I've known her more than five or six years through volunteering with young people. We'd always got on, but things changed very quickly once we started talking redundancy, the future, hopes, dreams, work, counselling, new worlds.

Without her, I'm not sure I would have come as far as I have. And, I know it goes both ways.

We're two single thirty-something freelancers in the not for profit world (she's an artist as well, clever girl). Although she lives about an hour away, she is probably more present in my life than anyone else.

We speak almost every day, a morning phone call instead of the chat over the kettle with a colleague. We listen to each others ups and downs, proof read work, share ideas, refer clients, eat Chinese, check the other hasn't hit the 'snooze' button once too often, laugh, cry. Cry some more! Then laugh about it....

She is one of only three 'real' people who has ever read my blog. So, Tash, thank you for everything.

To friendship, lives lived differently and the future.

Letting go of the old list

When I was in my teens, choosing subjects at school, I began to imagine what my life would be. How on earth was I to know whether I wanted to be a doctor, a hairdresser or a plumber when I knew very little of the world beyond my little all girls school?


But there we go. We are expected to be able to predict what will make us happy in the future and set ourselves a course through life. It's a bit like sticking a pin in a map.

Somewhere along the way a plan emerged that looked something like this....

Leave school

Go to University

Work for a while, and achieve some things

Get married at 30

Kids at 35

I achieved the first two, but dropped out of an architecture degree at 20 and had to start another course. Not going to uni was not considered to be an option, and my mother enrolled me in my second degree course.

The third is a work in progress, and I have done well so far. My own business, a professional qualification, work that makes a difference, much satisfaction – all in a career I didn't even know existed ten years ago. I started out in the art world, lost my job in a company takeover and changed tack completely but it's worked out well.

And the last two? Who knows if those things will ever happen for me?

The nice thing about reaching the upper age limit on my list is that it can now be discarded. It's never been a rigid thing but has somehow lurked in the back of my mind over the years. Until recently, I had never considered what I was going to do past 35 or if I didn't have kids. I still don't know.

What I do know is that I can just get on with living my life without conforming to any agenda that was expected of me, I've been nagged about it often and it has made me feel like a failure on occasion. My mother and society have the ability to make a girl feel rotten about her status in the world. I know I can ignore it, but if someone asks you often enough about your lack of husband or passes opinion frequently, some of the doubts will sink in.

I will move onwards, upwards with a world of the unknown in front of me.

PS Although I made to art college, albeit on the compromise of a 'sensible career' path, all I ever really wanted do was paint and make things. Perhaps one day I will upholster furniture and give up my laptop.

'To Do' List

Today is my 35th birthday. I am tired and am writing to remember things I want to remember and write about;

1. Being 35 and letting go of the old list
2. McCaffrey's lovely 'Honest Scrap' - I will do something with this. It is not forgotten.
3. My birthday
4. Figuring out how to let go, and possibly say goodbye

Cabin Fever

The low winter sun and snow are driving my urge for fresh clean air, to stretch my legs and find some space. I feel rather like a polar bear in the zoo this week. Sadly, the dodgy roads mean going anywhere far is out of the question, and no one else seems to be game for embracing the cold. Taking myself off on my own is not a safe option, particularly as I tend to be a fair weather walker and driving is bad.


When everything is so tantalisingly beautiful I just want to be out there somewhere.

It strengthens my conviction that this city won't be my home forever. I make the most of being here, enjoying the music, food, people, life that is on offer but it all feels very temporary. I dream instead of a different existence. I would like to be in a more rural setting and have easier access to the outdoors. Although I'm a city girl, born and bred, I have spent periods of time living and working in very rural areas. I don't have in my head some idyllic view of life in the country, I know it's not all strawberry jam and lovely neighbours. But, given the choice between the benefits and pitfalls of city vs rural/small town, I would love the opportunity to be elsewhere. In the meantime, I will do my best to escape when I can and enjoy what is offer under my feet.

Bring on the lifeboats

Yesterday I did something brave and wise.

I emailed my counsellor.

I am all out at sea at the moment, and beginning to sink. It seems my life is becoming about other people again and not about me, and it weighs heavily. I lose track of what I want and need, defering instead to pleasing others, keeping the peace and surviving what needs to be done. I get lost in it all.

I need to regain perspective and myself, putting me before others so I can live well and healthily.

I've been shutting people out and behaving in ways that don't sit well out of fear, old lessons taught badly, and not knowing what else to do. I need to take a step back, regain, rebuild.

I saw him today. In this environment there's no room for bullshit or excuses, I have to face myself head on and it's not easy. It's easier than going back to where I was a year ago.

I've stopped the crumbling in its tracks. I've decided to act and take control before I sink. It's a strong and difficult decision take to make. At least I know I have the choice and can recognise the signs when the clouds come.

It's about people this time. Not specifically things they have done, but things I haven't done it seems. And integrity - his word. I sort of knew this, but it takes someone else saying to make it real and unavoidable. I could have ignored my guts and kept hiding. I've chosen to escape instead. I have to put myself back in that room and brave what comes.

I will learn one day to live with an active connection between the emotional and intellectual rather than burying how I feel. Bring on the roller coaster.

It scares me, but I am proud of swallowing my pride and asking for help.

I also feel a little like a failure.

Walk beside me

Some of you will be wondering how I've fared holidaying with an ex. I had wondered too.

Despite all the ups and downs of an adventure that didn't work out as planned, thanks to mechanics, it's been great in many ways.

I feel rather like I've rediscovered a friend. I've remembered why I liked him in the first instance.

We have been in each other's company almost 24/7 for ten days. Depsite some frustrations at our situation spilling over in minor moments, there are very few people whose company I could so easily share without having needed more space by now.

We have had conversations and not others, and ticked along with a little understanding and patience, with moments of much good humour. In his company, I can relax. I am me, and he is he. I hope.

Our silences are comfortable and safe.

I had worried that we may fight, or be frustrated by history. Instead, I have learned to cede control and trust him (I have also learned that I am bad at crossing roads in foreign countries!).

It is uncertain if people can ever fundamentally change too much of who they are (and with this in mind I wondered if demons of my past would reappear), but I am sure that we can use what tools we have differently. Maybe my hard work over the past year or so has bourne fruit after all and I have learned a little a least.

Once I had him on a pedastel. Now I hold him in regard, and as an equal.

Finding freedom

I haven’t felt much like writing much these past few weeks. Maybe working full time again has just occupied enough of brain instead. After a weekend in Cumbria, and now typing from the west highlands I’m in reflective place again. So here we go…

It’s been a strange few weeks. An encounter with ex, that should never have happened, but weirdly I’m ok about it. Perhaps we have proven that he and I will never have what we both wanted from one another and can never go back.

However, a had a significant moment of revelation about the effect counselling has had on my life. Not only my ability to let the ex thing go, but in in translating feelings that would have once overwhelmed me. I was at a music festival watching a band amongst a crowd of folk. I turned round to realise my companion had disappeared without a word. Another, had gone for wander so I didn’t where she was either. I had a sudden rush of panic of being alone in this crowd. Ever since being mugged last year, crowds have freaked me out a little. I think they perhaps highlight my vulnerability and always need to know where my escape route is. I looked all over the marquee and couldn’t find either person. I had to get out I had to know where they were. I was scared - of what I don’t know - but there it was. I eventually found them. In previous times I would have confused this feeling of fear with being angry with my companion with having abandoned me. Instead, I was able to calmly explain to my friend, when asked, what was wrong. Had he simply let me know where he was going, and when he’d be back, I would have been fine. He wasn’t to know that I’d end feeling he way I did. I told him what had happened, and why the situation made feel like it did. For the rest of the weekend, he simply told me if he was going somewhere and when he’d be back and it was fine. A year ago I would have been angry with him. Perhaps not telling him, and telling myself that I was being silly, or perhaps been grumpy and let him know I was annoyed. The beauty of being able to simply express and understand my feelings is a new gift. Hard won, but wonderful, and let a situation pass so much more quickly. I finally feel like I’m free of my anger and confusion and fear of my irrational behaviour I have now have a language for it.

A different kind of working

I love that all spaces are now my office, and that there seems to be a whole world of people with their laptops and mobiles, drinking coffee and working in nice places. Today the an arts centre cafe, tomorrow a local cafe 'co working' with other freelance/job seeking friends, tomorrow who knows. Home maybe. I wonder what these folk are up to. What brings them here, to this place, alone, what's going on in their heads?

A whole new life!

Well, lists temporarily suspended as I've spent the past week ironing out the details of an unexpected redundancy situation. I know it was always a possibility, but didn't anticipate it in reality. The job and organisation I've loved for four years and I are parting company. I t thought I would be sad, worried, panicked...in fact I'm elated! I can't quite explain it. I have the excitement of a whole new world at my feet, enough to keep me going for the next six months while I explore all the options available.

After a difficult year, suddenly I am free. I am being graceful, integrity intact, walking away with head held high and and no idea what's coming next....I am excited!