Mighty oaks from little acorns grow…

I need to wake up from this long sleep…I feel like I’m hibernating!

I know it’s the right time of year for hibernation…but I’m not a grizzly bear, well not that bad, yet…
It’s time to take myself in hand and try to get out of this funk. I need to realise that instead of waiting for the clouds to clear I need to get up and blow them away myself!
I need to start small and do it, instead of staring at the big picture and procrastinating. As we all know ‘Mighty oaks from little acorns grow’.
Start small…

My plan will be to do one thing each day in addition to the basics that have to be done. Just one thing, it might be to do a scrapbook page, or update albums, or I could edit my writing…and regain the courage to print out my book again to send away…maybe commit to a list of agents or publishers, I might paint a wall, or sort a drawer, or shelf, or clear the table so we can eat or work on it again! I could swim, or take Roxy to the beach…both things I’ve neglected lately. I might even brave the cold and get back out in the garden again, or write a poem…maybe I’ll paint or sign up for an art course.

That’s just for starters…now I just have to do it.
One foot in front of the other, little by little and maybe, just maybe, I’ll recover my inspiration and motivation…

Sinking…

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‘one of the more notable facts about our coastline is that it is sinking at great speed…true of this land for at least a thousand years. In contrast, the opposite coast in Wales is rising, which suggests that all of England is slowly tipping into the sea. Once the eastern coast sinks low enough and the western rises high enough, the entire country will slip gently under water in a flurry of bubbles and formal protests fom the House of Lords. I greatly look forward to this gentle slipping into oblivion and believe it will do our nation no end of good.’

I love this quote from Meg Rosoff’s book ‘What I Was’ for two reasons…first I love the pathos and the skill of writing, and second because I often feel like that…
The idea of gently slipping into oblivion in a flurry of bubbles and not much more is so inviting!

Sometimes we need to take time out and relieve the stresses we are under. My notion of slipping underwater is not as pessimistic as it sounds…not usually anyway…I’m not talking about drowning, but I love escaping by swimming and that moment when you launch through the water and surge underwater is wonderful. Nothing else exits for that moment, just you, submerged, and I love it!

Do what you need to, but escape, even if just for a few mere moments…

I find ecstasy in living; the mere sense of living is joy enough. (Emily Dickinson)

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I’ve often wondered what brings real happiness… after all a couple just won £56million on the National Lottery, would that bring me happiness? Erm…probably! Yet I don’t have a fraction of that and I’m happy.

There’s no doubt that a million or two would contribute to my happiness, but money won’t be my ultimate path to happiness!

‘All you need is Love’… maybe, but not necessarily that recently celebrated Valentine love…it does help to have a soul mate and a friend, but the love I’m talking about is the love you have for yourself.

‘ To love oneself is the beginning

of a lifelong romance’

(Oscar Wilde)

I turned from a quiet and shy schoolgirl, into a teenager caught within a cage of responsibility, desperately trying to assert and rebel, to a young woman finding love and needing acceptance, but I had no idea who I was… I had become a wife and a mother, but who was I?

Are we ever truly happy with who we are? Seven years ago I extricated myself from a breakdown and set about discovering myself…

Back in 1989 I wrote: ‘I want to be everything everyone wants me to be, but I’m not sure I know how, I don’t even know how to be me…’ then in 2004 I began to exorcise my demons: ‘I wanted to be everything everyone wanted me to be, but I didn’t know how to be me, so I tore off my mask and ripped out my heart, and left my soul bare to bleed. I clenched my fists tight and screamed out loud, now I’m learning how to be me…’ It took another four or five years before I could close that chapter: ‘My heart is now open and clear to see, and I don’t feel the need to please. People can take me for what they want me to be, but I only need to be me. My heart can soar in a world of its own, and no one can stop me at all. For over the years there’s a lesson I’ve learned, and I know exactly how to be me.’

So what makes you happy? I think it’s knowing who you are and making the best of yourself and finding joy in what is around you…allow yourself the freedom of being who you are meant to be.

To me, that’s recognising your greatness within.

‘To be a star you must follow your own light,

follow your own path,

and never fear the darkness

for that is when the stars shine their brightest.’

(anon)

Happiness for me is…family, a walk in the snow with a loopy dog, throwing snowballs, laughing and being together…it is writing and losing myself in the story within my head…creating scrapbook pages full of memories…painting and drawing…knowing who I am in the great scheme of things…and sharing that love with those around me… and yes, I found myself. ♥