Sound so mystical, yet so meticulously empiric.
Do stuff. Move. Communicate.
In time, there’s a breakneck rush to the brain of pluses and yaaaays. Smiles implode from every angle.
Negatives are smaller. Problems diminish. Insecurities melt.
But if this is such a simple formula, why oh why can’t I follow it, word for word over and over? Why am I struggling each day with the very fact I have to Be? Why am I still playing hide and seek with my self?
I just cant figure out what’s going on here.
I’m following my instinct and somehow that’s working on some supernatural level that I just cannot figure. I’m getting up everyday and living…I’d go as far to say living well. I’m making the right noises and doing the appropriate actions. But I honestly dont know how. I’m waiting for myself to break but I’m miraculously keeping on going.
I dont know how I’m surviving because I’m single and not freaking out.
I just feel more secure when I have that special somebody. I often ask myself: is it security or just a nice thick blanket between me and myself? When I’m in a relationship I just dont have the chance to really get to know me coz I’m subsumed in chasing, retaining and the all time bummer ‘making it work’.
Commitment to ‘Him’ blocks knowing self-to really getting into my own flesh, blood, arteries, abscesses and oases.
Now, I’m romantically unhinged, there’s no excuse: no one to blame, no distraction to kidnap me from doing what I know I need to.
I do feel sad. I feel loneliness knocking and her beloved sister Depression beckoning me. Motivation is hard to summon and smiles tougher to paint on.
I am utterly petrified of single hood. But somehow, I know that if I sit in this, bathe and immerse myself in it and just keep on acknowledging the grating, silent turmoil ….something Good Will come.
I went to ‘Ask Italian’ the other day and fell head over heels with the cheesy garlic doughballs.
Me, my daughter and her trampoline squad devoured these divine culinary delights and kept on asking for more.
So I tried this and it’s definitely not going to help my New Years diet that’s lasted all of 5 minutes!
Defrost half baked baguettes in the oven. Meanwhile, combine shredded sun dried tomato, olives, Scillian garlic, grated mozzarella.
Take the baguettes out of the oven and break them into pieces and add them to the garlic mix and lashings of olive oil plus lurpack if you’re feeling particularly naughty! Ensure all the bread has good coverage of oil.
Bake for 7 mins, grill for 2, add some dollops of soft cheese and you will be far far away on a sunset beach drenched in aromas of The Rustic.
I’m proud.We made our first dinner for friends.
Reframing trauma is starting to work.
I created some christmasy ingredients with a twist -dishes.Turkey breast in a tomato, spinach and Chorizo sauce. Chocolate cheesecake with sweet cranberry sauce.
He made Thai soup and delicious sides. We danced around each other, sharing our cooking space elegantly. A symbiosis of kindness meets kindness.
What a team we’re becoming! Our guests loved being waited on and it was a total pleasure.
The Prosecco flowed and the laughter reigned. Long may this continue…
Was so great to be in the presence of a dear friend today.
We need connection so very badly. All of us. No matter how much we may love our solitary sojourns, other voices keep us tied into a wider community.
I need the affirmation she gives me. It feeds me and strengthens me.
She’s always believed that I have been abused and that Faith in my Word is more valuable than Gold.
She’s always believed that I’m a good mother and again this contradicts my ex and the ICOC church that denigrates women to pre feudal times.
She’s always been adamant that I am capable of looking after myself.
Beautiful sentiments that keep me living and breathing.
Let the good times roll.
So lovely to be in loving company. Feeling warm, fuzzy and happily hazy. So nice to be a little girl again, attended to and loved.
Re writing my skewed childhood in my 40s.
Why not?
Thank God I’m going out tonight. Hoping to find some positive energy to turn that down pression toward light and sun.
Winter is seeming to drain the life blood out of me.
This week feels like its put alot of us on the back foot
Days are hard and night seems to be the most inviting. Itching for unconsciousness to take me far away.
Ofsted under the brand spanking new framework put the whole school on heightened alert and tension.
Failing hot water drove me and the kids to biting one liners, filling up kettles and buckets with boiling water, incessant moaning and endless calls to the Council.
Proving I should retain child benefit that my ex is trying to take from me, find witnesses for an oncoming court case and fight for benefits that are my Right: enveloped me in mounds of hard, unsympathetic, blank, crackling, white paper – the canvass for hard evidence, I Must Find.
This is too hard.
It’s All on me.
4 hours of driving each day in a derelict car that needs daily top ups of water and oil filled me with exhausted numbness.
Couldn’t even write a blog. Couldn’t enunciate the sadness fog.
Can’t even find it in me to care if the Conservatives get in again, or look forward .. .
I am with my dear friend.
Have you ever felt like the broken you can only reveal itself in front of very special people?
I don’t even reveal this self to me.
Somehow, the honesty and realness of this connection means the painful stuff just oozes out.
I find myself behaving in strange ways that I don’t recognise…from the strong,independent, black, conscious, single mother I have been told I am.
I find myself filled with fear, a little girl, a baby sucking my thumb, I’m scared of being used, I’m scared to voice my feelings, I’m trembling to say ‘no, I don’t want this’.
Somehow, connecting with this traumatised child inside me is healing me, piece by piece.
Hearing her, holding her, accepting her is eschewing a new serenity.
Thank you Nikolas.
I love to celebrate craft, pursuit of excellence, Quality with a capital Q in whatever field.
Well we all know how much our hair means to us. All of it or none of it. Hair plagues the image-conscious- confidence.
My hairdresser has taken me through many life – hair styles. She knew me when I was living the lie- of Happy Families and ‘holier than though’ church.
She saw me try and assert Me in a coercive church and relationship.
She witnessed me go through many breakdowns…she witnessed me leave my family and crawl back in a suicidal state.
She watched me get help from Mental health workers, domestic abuse support, Judges, Social workers, nearly end up in a refuge, sofa surf and be finally housed for domestic abuse by the council.
Then she saw me start to listen to my intuition, my soul, my Politics, my Purpose in a cocoon of new and old loving friends and equilibrium.
Check her out. She does hair of all races, all styles. Dawnette, North London, UK
Mobile 079-563-30484
I had the best night last night.
Just what I needed after a terrifying session at court and drowning in yet more admin around future court cases, benefits,police requests and the like.
Hanging with great people who were foot loose,fancy free and forty plus!!!
Just like me…
I must say…as a recent divorcee with children to care for, life is taking off,taking shape, taking me….
I love it.
I love picking and choosing, musing, ignoring whatever I want with no one to answer to. No muse, mentor, oppressive authority figure.
Just me and my conscience.
It’s invigorating and enlightening to learn how capable I am, with none of those voices of the past telling me how incapable I am.
It’s the best high to see my children slowly coming to life as I am too: resurrected from the religious prison we were dying in.
And it’s super special to bond with other single parents living, loving and hurtling toward our 50s.
The conversation richocheted from cows methane, to fatherly roles,to mixed race politicking, to work stress to mental health to …laughter reigned.
All over Malaysian delectable and wine. Cheers to the first of many.
Blessed bonding.
allandnothingsokoya 