Honey, Love the One You're With.

 

When I left Canada 12 years ago,  I projected chaotic events in my personal life upon the landscape and began feeling as if it was Canada who’d fallen madly out of love with me, had chewed me up and spat me out here in the North of Ireland. 

It was a season scant with choice over my own standing in the world, hemmed in by babies and uncomfortable under the new title of single mother. But I seized what choice I had left; the choice of perspective, to recall to memory or try to forget. So I swept away all of Canada, wide and expanse as it is, I severed almost all contact,  each CBC show discontinued to me, all fondness of the landscape snuffed out, Canada was dead to me and I was not visiting her grave.

I turned my focus macro and local. The day I got the keys to my new home I hung a picture on the wall that displayed the words ‘Love Your Town’.  This was the mission I assigned myself. As the song goes, If you can’t be with the one you love,  honey, love the one (town) your (stuck) with. Largely, I’ve succeeded. 

There’s been turbulence, tantruming toddlers have grown into budding teens,  jobs have changed, relationships have came & went and each time, when dust settles I find m
yself along with that dust - settled.  A settler in new uncharted path, setting up place names, and mapping each step for the next person. Handmade bunting hangs in our apple tree, displaying the letters S-T-E-E-N  C-A-S-T-L-E.  This is my queendom, where I am contented, still and calm, where Canada chewed me up and spat me out, growing new things, forgetting the old. 

But 12 years on, I arrived at the right emotional distance to consider a return.  I planned carefully, tentatively tiptoeing my way around the idea of revisiting the scene, approaching the idea like my cat taps the remote each evening, just checking it isn’t a snake. 

 When the plane flew over northern New Brunswick, all came back. Rolling forests spilling on for hundreds of miles, endless lakes and rivers for swimming, and the people, good god the people, salt of the earth, fresh faced and genuine, their voices sounding like a chorus of old friends singing me home.  I thought I might go full exposure therapy; revisit all the old haunts and meet their ghosts. But I followed my own lead and nestled into the friendliest of sanctuary instead, breathing deep, reclaiming somewhat, but also providing introductions for the me I am now to the Canada that always was.

Upon return to my castle, I’m reconciling that I now have two homes,  like taking on two lovers, I’m preoccupied and restless.  But with diary open and flight scanner bookmarked,  I know now I need not subdivide my heart nor make a spotless mind. Forgetting was simpler, but remembering is richer. Walking through the park tonight, I’m still loving the one I’m with,  announcing my place in the family of things, belonging wherever I tread.

Decade

Today marks ten years since life dramatically changed course and I became a lone parent. 

I remember Shane coming home late from work. I remember listening to Bat for Lashes when he nonchalantly asked did I really see us together ten years from now. A question I thought never needed asking, a question I’d answered four years before when I blubbered my way through vows, solemn and starry eyed. 

But here began his amendment. I couldn’t breathe, except I did breathe, deep belly breaths, oxygen enough for self and the four month baby kicking my ribs from within. The planned pregnancy, in large part by him. 

Through streams of hot and confused tears I said “If you don’t see us together then, what are we doing now!?”

He replied “that‘s a good question” and that night he slept on the sofa. I remember scrambling over to that sofa in the middle of the night and waking him, panicked, asking what was going on, how was this happening, I can’t, I couldn’t. But my questioning woke our one year old. As I heard her stir from the next room, I fell to the floor and screamed “my wee girl”. Broken for how the unfolding of this conversation was to impact her life. 

Dramatic. I eye roll and think now, a decade on, with the events piled on top of each other so high that this first sequence seems small, maybe inevitable. 

But it didn’t then. I was thrust into a life not of my own making. A life so different than I’d planned. And in truth it has continued in that stream. Would I have chosen to live in this town, to spend 6 years working in admin, to continually reach points in relationships where my first priority as parent goes at loggerheads with the life a partner wants? Nope, the optimistic 20 year old who wanted to travel and study and have a career, still aggravates me from within, unsettling the gratitude I feel, and want to feel, for the life, town, job, home, family I have at hand. 

I remember,  mid way into this decade, reading the prophecy personally : “truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." I’m sure the apostle was not writing about the sudden, involuntary, life of lone parenthood, but it resonated with such a life nonetheless. Freedom of choice has become an internal concern, of thought and feeling. I am the captain of that ship, sometimes. 

The loss of him, that became grief three and a half years later, multiplies each year as the kids grow, the ‘content’ of all that is them expanding and impacting the universe with each of their thoughts, words and deeds.  I give little concern to the notion of an afterlife but occasionally it floors me that I may never witness his joy in our little people nor his reassurance that my parenting is enough.  No reassurance is possible and yet I proceed in doubt and hope. 

When he asked if I saw us together ten years from then the question seemed ludicrous, I could not have fathomed another way. I imagined myself half a person without him. 

But here I am exactly ten years later, having grown the other half of myself, my opinionated, insubordinate, blundering ‘daemon’ self, so full of my own will that it’s sometimes embarrassing. I can stare myself down and wish so much of her away. But I’m stuck with her,  she was with me that night listening to Bat for Lashes and, like it or not, with me for the next ten years. Self partnering is a pretentious term for a very real thing. I am my only guarantee, till death parts us. I should really pay her a compliment every now and then. 

Happy 10th Anniversary. You're doing alright. 

Reclaiming the Conversation on Single Parents

I'm over at the Women's Resource and Development Agency talking about my latest passion project 'Tod' , please go have a read! xx

Real Motherhood has a Mental Health

Maternal Mental Health Week has came to a close and I’ve found it so refreshing to read peoples stories via #realmotherhood . Today my relentless timehop feed boldly reminded me that I might share a snippet of my own story. 

Just one year ago I took this photo,

I was on extended sick leave with stress (read: barely keeping it together), every day was a major struggle.  These two little notebooks went everywhere with me and both were independently inspired by two heroes of the motherhood. 

The Next 60 Seconds – was by super-micro to-do list book, inspired by the uncontainable Caitlan Moran who once wrote an open letter titled “To the Girls I Meet at Book Signings”.  I still can’t read it without brining on tears – but I strongly recommend you give it a go.  The letter signs off:

You will never, ever have to deal with more than the next 60 seconds.
Do the calm, right thing that needs to be done in that minute. The work, or the breathing, or the smile. You can do that, for just one minute. And if you can do a minute, you can do the next.
Pretend you are your own baby. You would never cut that baby, or starve it, or overfeed it until it cried in pain, or tell it it was worthless. Sometimes, girls have to be mothers to themselves

Reading Moran’s sage advice I realised I could manage some sort of control in a turbulent time. So I created a Next 60 Seconds book, in fact I had two of them to ensure I’d always have one at hand. They contain very important lists like 

drink water (✓) 
do dishes (✓) 
text hollie (✓)  
Listen to Kate Tempest (✓)

When the thought of going on was far too much, I zoomed in on that very moment, made a tiny plan and implemented it. And just like that, minute by minute, I did go on. 

The second notebook ‘Contributions’ was borrowed from Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant’s book ‘Option B: Facing adversity, building resistance and finding joy.’ – Grant became Sandberg’s therapist in the early days of her grieving her husband and father of her young children.   In the book Sandberg describes how Grant encouraged her to write down three things she did well every day for 6 months:

"Adam [Grant] and his colleague Jane Dutton found that counting our blessings doesn't boost our confidence or our effort, but counting our contributions can. Adam and Jane believe this is because gratitude is passive: it makes us feel thankful for what we receive. Contributions are active: they build our confidence by reminding us that we can make a difference."

I didn’t do this for very long, but there were definitely some days when I found it helpful to force myself to find something, no matter how small, to be proud of myself for.  One particular day It just says “Stayed in work despite SO MUCH TEARS and got some proper stuff done”.

These techniques, along with a mood tracker, an incredible family, a handful of faithful friends (note: it only takes a handful) and an understanding employer – got me through a very difficult time. 

In the midst of all of this, I was still a mum doing mum things.  When the kids enquired as to the reason for my tears, I always replied “I just have a headache”.  I’ll never forget the night, after being taken to a church event with their auntie, they came running in, so enthusiastic and told me they’d written down a prayer for me and my headaches.  I bit my lip and looked sheepishly over little shoulders to their auntie who gave a sympathetic smile, knowing full well that ‘headache’ was code word for ‘mummy might be losing her mind – but you don’t need to know that’.  

Motherhood, having little people to care and be responsible for, didn’t make my mental health any better, but it did keep me alive. It kept me around for long enough to learn from other mums like Sandberg and Moran – who helped me by sharing their own reality. 

So this is my late submission to the Maternal Mental Heath Week theme of #realmotherhood, take care of yourselves, you are never beyond help and to borrow heavily from Moran’s open letter:  Sometimes Mums have to be Mums to themselves.

Othermothers

Today, In the library, whilst supervising the kids and their homework, I attempted to squeeze in a bit of my own personal study. I was reading (*trying to read) an academic book regarding the place of Single Mothers in society and throughout history. Scanning through the pages I came across one paragraph that demanded my full attention, it read: 

One has only to look at Native American and African American communities to find alternatives [to the nuclear model of family]. Patricia Hill Collins describes the practise of “othermothers” [as] “women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities,”

This called for some red pen action, the passage continued.. 

Shared child-raising practices contribute to a people’s self-reliance, says Collins: “Black Women’s relationships with children and other vulnerable community members is not intended to dominate or control. Rather it’s purpose is to bring people along, to – in the words of late nineteenth century Black feminists – ‘uplift the race’ – so that vulnerable members of the community will be able to attain the self-reliance and independence essential for resistance.

Jane Juffer, Single Mother -  the Emergence of the Domestic Intellectual.  

Just as I read this and scribbled in the margins the word: “Amazing!”, I got a text from the one most fittingly my (or more precisely, the kids..) “othermother”- the one who has uplifted me and mine and has given me the strength for self-reliance, it takes a skilled practitioner of kindness to nurture and support someone in a way that doesn’t make them feel dependent – but instead stronger and more free, free to be a force of resistance instead of a subject of vulnerability.

The text she sent at this opportune moment was a screenshot from the photoshoot we did this weekend (in the freezing fricking cold I’d like to add, she is both wonderful – and cruel). The brief I gave for the shoot was “I want it moody but not in any way vulnerable.” – None could have captured it so brilliantly than the person who has contributed so much, over many years, to making me feel as strong as I do. 

So here’s a big giant fist bump to the othermothers of the world – most specifically My Rachums*.

*for relentlessly beautiful photos - follow Rachel on Instagram here. 

Self Love

“If you don’t love yourself who else is going to?”

I’d returned from Canada for a fortnight visit, my baby girl was 6 months old and I was anxious about meeting an old friend. Not just because she has forever been the creative babe to which I could never compare but also because I wanted to share some things with her. 

we were back just to visit because we’d decided to stick it out in Canada, the three of us, keeping at it, the Canadian dream, the good life. But in truth it had been far from the good life, not long had we bought our dream fixer upper home when the first infidelity began. And there in the midst of home renovations, all rubble and dust, we tried to figure it out, he pleaded, I ranted, raged and then collapsed wearily into forgiving. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do and who would I be without him anyway? After all I’d been his loyal puppy since aged 19. 

The renovations continued in the house as they did in the marriage. No longer was he on a pedestal. People used to call us “the love birds”, a stranger on the tube once asked for photos of us, we were a ‘force to be reckoned with’ - but that was then. And now, now the reckoning had been done, Now there was distance and disappointment.  My belief in grace, forgiveness and trust were being tested to the max and I know now how misinformed I was on such things. I see with hindsight how unhealthy it was to bend myself into trusting when it had not been earned. How I prized forgiveness over my own emotional safety.  

And this of course laid me bare and vulnerable to further indiscretion. Which in time was revealed. And so it goes 

1.  He begged and pleaded

2.  I ranted and raged

3.  I wearily collapsed into forgiving..

...Because that’s what we do and who would i be without him? (Though I’d a growing concern regarding the person I was becoming with him, depleted, let down, chipped away) 

But this time I was guarded, hard and distrustful. Which in time he’d resent me for.

The renovations progressed, Interior walls were moved, floors laid, new doors fitted and then to everyone’s surprise - the strip turned blue. 

Maybe it could all be a blank slate? 

Sitting on the picnic blanket in Belfast’s botanic gardens with the only friend here that I’d trusted with it all, I told her the journey in hushed, teary tones, whilst Molly giggled and cooed. 

“I may not know what it’s like to have your husband cheat on you Alli. But I know what it’s like to have your lover betray you...it changes you, you realise: if you don’t love yourself - who else is going to?”

This was truly the first time I had heard self love articulated. It was radically different from the fluffy ‘self esteem’ speak i’d heard so many times before, which depended on being built up by others. What my friend was talking about was resilient, tough, self love - the ultimate offensive weapon to a world full of people that will chew you up and spit you out. 

Those words have always stuck with me. And I’m glad I didn’t know then how many times I would need to be reminded of them. You could argue it’s more than a little pessimistic, “who’s gonna love me?”, But isn’t that the question we are always asking ourselves? And isn’t the easiest answer the only one which we can control? I will love me. I will show up for me and it will be a radical resistance to all the things that go on externally that threaten to chip, recede and demolish. 

I used to think self love was selfish. But we are talking about two very different things here. Distinctly different, not opposite things on the same spectrum. 

It’s taken me years to really put in place this kind of self love - but I recently LOVED watching spike lees Netfix series ‘she’s gotta have it’ Nola darling exemplifies this resistance Best 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d7E3F0Vt2rE

Happy valentines xx

In Praise of Being Basic

One of my unspoken resolutions for 2018 was to come to terms with chronic FOMO. To learn to be content with sitting still, staying put, missing out. Little did I know I’d spend all of January very ill, including ten days in hospital and continue my sick leave from work into February upon doctors orders. 

Lately I can only seem to do one thing a day, if I’m meeting someone for coffee? That’s me done for the day. If I’m on my feet too long or speaking too animatedly I get out of breath. I haven’t yet driven beyond a five mile radius of my home (and yet still managed a collision due to black ice 🙄). 

My fear of missing out is not entirely dissolved but along with my body, it is somewhat weakened. When I’m scrolling through social media and I see all the coolest kids at a gig I want to be at - I only momentarily feel resentful and then I pull the blankets up round my face and go back to sleep. I recently heard someone talk about ‘post flu enlightenment’ - when you’re coming out of feeling crap and you appreciate everything so much more. I’m there. 

Here’s a photo of me being basic in my own home, I’d just unstacked the dishwasher. I’m not in a club, or with my girl gang, or on a date, there’s no cocktail in my hand or eyeliner on my eyes - but I’m ok with that.

How to Start all Over Again - The Interlude.

When I wrote this post back in June I named it ‘part one’ because it seemed like I was in a growth spurt and I was learning lots about life and thus yoda-Alli had much wisdom to impart. 

However, One of the harsh realities of life is that progress does not often follow a steady upward curve but instead a jagged line of peaks and troughs and sometimes what seems like an endless mediocre stretch of time where the gradient is not there at all. 

In truth I do have part two of ‘How to Start all Over Again (Again)’ written, at least most of it. But the way of progress lately has been more a steady slog and that makes for a lot less exciting writing...and reading. 

So, I thought an Interlude should be indulged and acknowledged, especially considering it is that strange period of time in-between  Christmas and New Years, a time of binging on Netflix, eating yourself into a diabetic coma and of course melancholic reflection. 💀

How’s your year been? Mine has  been one of my most difficult years to date (and that’s saying something).  That’s not to say it hasn’t been a good one, there have been rekindled friendships, wild nights out and many comforting solo cinema trips. But it’s also been a year of extended stress leave, a break up and learning to live with the disapproval of others. But I’m still standing! In fact I’m standing on my own two feet more than I ever have, the independence is both empowering and  lonely. 

With the new year approaching and all the ‘new you’ rhetoric being bandied about, I sought my particular Hogmanay wisdom in the latest production of Little Women:

Nothing is ever perfect 

But it can be just right. 

This year I aspire more for contentment than improvement. Happy New Year xxw

Path Ends Here

A sign at the end of the road, a warning, turn back! Uncharted territory lies ahead, rough terrain, brambles and stinging nettles, wild dogs and bogeymen. A wiser soul might take heed.  But there, beyond the perimeter, is my domain.

I am adventurer born out of necessity, an exile turned pioneer. If ‘Reluctant carver of new paths’ - is not etched on my tombstone I’ll come back to haunt all you mothereffers, because surely in this modern day,  a consistent Instagram bio is by default the assumed epitaph.👻 

I digress. 

Here, in photographic form, is laughable truth - a metaphor. 

Can you see it? beyond the boundary, onward still past fringe and margin, and even further, through the wild terrain  - look on - from the overgrown and untamed it emerges...bethel, sanctuary. 

They say she can only be found by narrow path. They say “don’t stray, you will only find one thing from your wandering - you will only find yourself (dang, really? Let’s go)....No wait I hadn’t finished , you will only find yourself lost.” 

Yet here, in the wilderness, the bell tolls,

For whom? For me - the wanderer.

And should it really be of any surprise that here I find sacred space? for even if I make my bed in the depths - He is there. Even in that bed. Even there. 

Ophelia was the Rebel Girl

I put my best self on. I primp and starve and plank. I laugh but not too much. I’m smart and savy,  independent and aloof. And still, the movies lie, they don’t fall for you the way they say so. The pursuit is short lived. The attention span brief. My appetite is merely wet whilst theirs seems satisfied or perhaps refined to a taste that is impossible to pin down but definitely not: me. 

I heard someone say once that tinder has ruined men. Perhaps.  It might soften the blow to boil the issue down to one particular cause, but the culprit is legion. The culprits are the message makers bombarding us everyday with a multitude of choices, reducing us to bafoons unable to rest content. And I participate and perpetuate the charade with my “I woke up just like this” facade. The synthetic connections of glance and wink. The peacock dance of it all. I am weary, I have repetitive strain from the left swipe. And burn out from the matched flirt. I am perplexed by the chase and soured by the sweet nothings. 

I feel It may be time to hang up my relationship hat  whilst the children are small. It is too much upheaval to hope and feel and fall and then pick up all the little pieces afterwards. Pieces that are not just mine but theirs too. For they too wonder what it would be like, hope and pang and get attached. A constant absence is better than a perpetual loss, I think. 

And yet I observe the world and know it true that the game does not grow more fair as women age. The words from Zoe Moss in 1970 goad us still today:

Listen to me! Think what it is like to have most of your life ahead and be told you are obsolete! Think what it is like to feel attraction, desire, affection towards others, to want to tell them about yourself, to feel that assumption on which self-respect is based, that you are worth something, and that if you like someone, surely he will be pleased to know that. To be, in other words, still a living woman, and to be told that every day that you are not a woman but a tired object that should disappear. That you are not a person but a joke. Well, I am a bitter joke. I am bitter and frustrated and wasted, but don’t you pretend for a minute as you look at me, forty-three, fat, and looking exactly my age, that I am not as alive as you are and that I do not suffer from the category into which you are forcing me.

As these words resonate, I know the only fit response is to live as If the categories do not exist. To rebel against them, straining against every chain. I do try. I try to live self differentiated from what I feel is expected and presumed of me. 

But then again I don’t.  

Glow

There's a brilliance that comes with singleness. Blink and you'll miss it. Especially when you're looking in the mirror. 

But sometimes, if it catches you in the right mood, in the right kind of light, You can see the luminous brilliance alight upon you. And you realise that you have freedom and fluidity and you can grow in any direction you please because you don't have to take into account the impact on your partner. 

Relationships can be fulfilling, but they can also divide you up. Your problems aren't always halved, sometimes they're doubled. That's the stuff a thoroughly unattached, truly single person does not have to deal with. 

So if you find yourself single and not quite comfortable with the idea of exploring the alternatives to that, I implore you: INDULGE yourself. Claim your city as your territory, put serious devotion into lasting friendships, go on mate dates with total strangers, drink your wine, sing Sheryl Crow songs at 2am, Buy that damn dress, gladly receive those compliments but entertain them no further. Because you've got that brilliance and for now that's enough.

How To Start All Over Again, Again... Part 1

It can happen in a multitude of ways. It could have been of your own making, it could have been done to you, or it could be a deadly combination of both.  Perhaps it was an event that’s left you stunned. Or maybe it quietly seeped in without your realising till now. Now you know though, it’s obvious. Life is remarkably different and you didn’t plan it this way. 

In the long hours of frustration where you try and figure out “how” and “why” and “what the actual fuck” you’ll periodically find yourself sighing, shutting your eyes slowly and surrendering aloud “It is what it is”. Your identity was once so bound up in what you had, but now you feel much more defined by what you’ve lost. You’re forever changed, you’re the walking wounded, there’s a limp to your step, you’re a cat with a big ol’ chunk taken out of her ear. You visibly tell a story of the shit that has went down. 

There is an uncomfortable stillness now and a ringing in your ear. There are gaping voids that used to be full to brim. When you wake in the morning, there are no messages waiting to be read.  Your weekend plans are nil and the streets are full of ghosts from your former life. Your resources are depleted and you feel vulnerable. 

Though the circumstances will be unique and that can leave you feeling so very isolated, the sobering reality is - you aren’t the first. 

Yes, you don’t know it yet but by feeling like you don’t belong in your own life you’ll find belonging among the least likely of sorts - those who’ve lost their jobs, their faith, their hope, their loved ones, their standing in a community, their lovers, their friends, those who have lost respect for themselves, or others. The loss makes you feel like a loser and losers don’t feel like they have much to bring to the table. But you’re welcome at this table 

Welcome to the club that you never wanted to be part of. You recognise some of the members, maybe you used to throw them sympathetic glances as your sped by in the fast lane, maybe their limping slowed you down and frustrated you, maybe you found them altogether unsightly and turned your gaze away. Well, you’re one of them now. At first you’ll be ashamed. But then you’ll start to feel a sense of belonging among the Comrades in Loss.  Eventually you’ll feel proud of your membership. You’ll learn that all the greatest people walk with a limp and when they speak, you’ll hear the hard earned authority in their voice, a voice that has a warmth of humility that can only be gained through the humiliation of life going unexpectedly off piste. 

But all that wisdom and solidarity is yet to come. For now you have to let the dust settle.  It’s hard to see when the air is thick from the aftermath.  Like a wave hitting you, you’re scrambling under the surface needing a fresh supply of air but not knowing which way is up.  It’s disorientating, I know. 

For those of you that needed the repetition of ‘Again’ in the title: you didn’t think you’d find yourself here again, at least not so soon.  For you, this isn’t just 'Plan B', you’ve worked your way further into the alphabet by now.  Maybe you thought you’d already had your portion of lessons learned? Maybe you’re confused because you’ve already stepped into the great unknown and built a life from rubble.  Maybe you spent years quietly growing in confidence, learning to own your story and even grew to be proud of your battle scars.  But we all know what pride comes before. And so here you are... again.  

All the old motivational platitudes fall on deaf ears because really, sometimes what doesn’t kill you...accumulates. But here is one aphorism that is important for you to hear:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” - Heraclitus

You are not the same, this is not the same.  Yes old wounds may be opening and that is producing an all too familiar pain. What you thought was fresh, green, hope has not gone forth and prospered. And you’re back to the dust again. But you’ve acquired muscle memory - and you didn’t have that the first time around. It is precisely because you’ve been through this before that means your approach and perspective can be better, your recovery process honed. I’m trying hard not to say the phrase “fail better”, but dammit it’s true, you’ve learnt to fail better. The muscle memory engages and you know that right now is not a time to react, “this is the time to be slow, lie low to the wall, until the bitter weather passes.” (John O'Donohue)

This is your desert time, but it won't last forty years because you've read Oh the Places You’ll Go too many times. You, my friend are resilient and despite how you feel in this terrible moment, you'll eventually find the courage to build things again. But first reflect, recoup, take stock...

Upon the DVD Release of La La Land.

When I went to see La La Land back in October I seemed to take an unconscious vow of silence on the film. With hindsight, I can see that this was because I was living through the decline of a relationship that had started beautifully and yet I knew, deep down, was headed (Spoiler alert) in the very same direction as the denouement of the film

Before I went to see it with friends I promised the boyfriend in question “If it’s good I’ll watch it again with you”. Well it was good, but I was silent about that. There was no way I was going to watch it with him for I knew he’d feel it too. The impending end for us had become the ever present elephant in the room and viewing La La Land together would have been like said elephant consuming the ‘Eat Me’ cake from Alice in Wonderland. No cinema screen could have contained it nor could any relationship have further ignored it. The reality was that someday we both knew we’d be strangers in a bar giving each other a gentle nod of acknowledgement to what had passed and what was not to be.

I knew it fair well and yet I wouldn't let my thoughts linger on it for a second. For another 5 months or so I continued to stomp my feet in defiance of what was inevitable because *stomps feet* this time I wanted that dream sequence ending.

Amidst the plastic, Hollywood ascetic and cheesy tunes – there was something commendably real about La La Land. So real that I can’t say I received it enjoyably. It cut too deep, resonated too much. Now the salt on the wound is that it’s released for consumption in your very own home and I am indeed living the outcome of the film. La La Lump in the throat.

Loved Real.

“You know what I’m going to do this year? I’m going to open a credit union account for my face lift – It just makes good sense.”

I shuffle in the chair, make interested ‘uh huh’ sounds and inwardly debate the merit of waging into beauty-parlour-small-talk with my opinion. I try my best to bite my tongue, but I just can’t. What becomes of us if we all just leave these attitudes unchallenged? So I take a deep breath 

“Hmm It’s fun to make the most of what we have, but we are all getting older, isn’t it just better to learn to accept this somehow? – won’t that ultimately make us happier and better people?"

“I hear what you’re saying, but what about Victoria Beckham?”

“I’m not sure what you mean?”

“She isn’t aging. Some people defy aging.” 

Admitting defeat on such specificities I offer my last tuppence worth,

“I guess it’s all fine and well, just as long as you’re giving as much attention to what’s on the inside as what’s on the outside” (preaches to self) 

I am met with stunned silence. Then I hear her whisper-repeat my comment to herself…..more silence. 

“…what’s on the inside, I’ve never heard that before.  I like that. I’m going to remember that”

And now I’m stunned. Stunned and grateful that I move in circles where face-lift-fund comments (and the like) do not go unchallenged.  

It’s all so seductive – you can make yourself a brand new person, again and again.  All you have to do is shop, exercise, groom, tan, bleach, pluck and…. vajazzle (latter worth mentioning on grounds of it’s existence being my case and point. Also, because vajazzle is a funny word)

I pay for my (totally unnecessary and overpriced) treatment and meet eyes with myself in the mirror -  Am I better now? Do I cut it? Can I compete? These are the questions I ashamedly ask myself far too often, I’m no different than face-lift-fund lady really, but I guess at least I know that there are other voices to listen to and there are other faces to look at than Victoria Beckhams (nothing personal on good old posh, I bet she’s a great girl). 

With so many messages thrown at me, It’s hard to hear the signal amongst all the noise.  I’ve heard it said that my value shouldn’t decrease because of someone’s inability to see my worth.  But isn’t that all dependent on how I attribute worth?   If beauty = worth and "Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them." (or, beauty is in the eye of the beholder), then what if no eye beholds and no mind contemplates me? What then is my worth?

We all misplace our worth in some way. I want to hold fast to what I know to be true of my worth.  I believe that I am not loved because I am valuable.  I am valuable because I am loved (cough cough, that was a God bit). So I need not boast in my own efforts, nor must I toil and “try try try” to earn what is freely given. Keeping perspective of this when dating, that is a work in progress because dating exists in a cruel, savage world of first impressions, where image is king. And alas it is The Year of Dating. Survival demands I must learn that dating is something I do, not something that defines. 

To borrow from the Skin Horse in the Velveteen Rabbit (and to manipulate the metaphor somewhat to meet my own needs here) I want to be so real that I don’t mind being hurt, because I know that I am loved though I be shabby and loose in the joints. Imagine how absurd it would be for the Skin Horse to go and get the toy equivalent of a face-lift (all pimpled out like a Bratz doll?) considering the love that has been lavished upon him. He need not earn it.  It’s there. 

I am not my job, I am not who I date, I am not the dirty dishes piling up in the sink, I am not how fabulous my hair looked yesterday, I am not the fine lines forming around my eyes, I am not the mysterious feathers that have somehow exploded all over my car, seriously. 

(It's ok to be psyched or bummed about these things (especially the feathers). But I'm learning that a disproportionate response to them is telling of a misplaced sense of worth.)

I am loved, really loved and loved real. 

The Year of Dating - the Struggle is Real .

So dating,

Hello world,

here I am.  

I’ve taken to wondering if this is something I actually have to put out there, because I seem to fluctuate between two extremes:

•  Who the hell would want me?!

and

•  Alright, I know I’m a mess and I’m ginger and all, but I’m kind of cute and I really, really love kissing. 

So I wonder if the best way to figure out which thesis rings most true is to put it out there:

DATING, I’M UP FOR IT.

Back in August I declared (to myself) that this academic year was going to be it: The Year of Dating. Not online dating though, I’m not talking about those kind of dates that you instantly want out of and then cringe/cry all the way home from in the car.  I’m talking about handsome men, chemistry, a wee drink and kissing…always the kissing.

It’s now November and 5 dates, two guys, a few random kisses in bars with total strangers (don’t judge), a whole new wardrobe and (here’s the rub) a lot of tears, later – I’m seriously considering cutting The Year of Dating drastically short. 

It is fun, the adrenaline is pumping, the flirting is swell, the kissing is BEAUT, but the rejection is so very, very frightening and sadly, the rejection, is also real.  In truth, the most harmless of fun has actually been with the strangers because there is no opportunity for rejection if I run away before they’ve even caught my name.

But the guys who know my name, the guys who have already been run through my worthy-meter, they seem so promising, they chase me, they want me, they wine me, they dine me and then – they disappear. And I find myself back to my original conundrum:

• Who the hell would want me? I clearly do something very wrong a few dates in, yet I can’t seem put my finger on what it may be specifically.  So it must be everything, everything is wrong with me, who the hell would want me.

And

•  Alright, I’m not looking for love* and marriage here, and let me once and for all dispel the assumption you all may jump to, I’ve been parenting on my own for 6 years, I’m well used to that and I gave up the search for a father figure long, long ago. All I want is some fun – matched with basic respect. Yes, that's right, some level of actual CARE. Is this really too much to ask for? Didn’t you notice I’m kind of cute and LOVE kissing?!

The jury is out, the decision has not yet been made, the love of kissing and prospect of more of it probably delays my conclusion somewhat. The fear of judgment and the possibility of future cringe worthy remorse at this stage of life will limit this post to harmless sharing between friends.  So the world will have to wait for my grand announcement, my coming out, my debutant ball – Year of Dating – I announce you with a whisper. 

 Be gentle with me for I am being so very brave.

* This may be a lie, I might quite like the love bit (goes and hides in a corner and hugs knees).