Wheee! It's Friday!!!

It's warming up again after a cold snap. The legs of my dog disappearing around the corner as he went off to explore the latest smell gave me a jolt of joy this morning, when I saw it out my window. Almost sharp. The joy jolts come fast some days. They come despite any tears I may or may not be crying. It is a mystery. I am becoming myself.

I have been pondering how far I have come over the last year. When I look back to this time last year there were great big bags of hanging on by my teeth. These days, even though life is unbelievably painful at times, conversely it is unbelievably beautiful, I feel like I have consolidated so much in myself. Hard work. I don't feel capable of doing masses of hard physical work even though I want to. But I will never stop doing internal hard work until the day I day. The pay rate is very low but the dividends very high. This past year has been a lot about boundary setting for me - within and without. It is a lovely feeling, having boundaries. It is a lovely feeling having pieces of paper with rather badly executed paint dabblings on them. The two are linked.

My writer's group is putting together an anthology. After much to-ing and fro-ing by myself, my story is in there, with some adjustments. I could just swim in the feeling of being an interloper if I wanted to, but I am so tired of those spaces. I feel like an interloper because I haven't written any fiction for over a year, and indeed am starting to redefine myself to myself as more a poet than a fiction writer ~ at least at this stage of my life. Maybe this time next year the block will have broken but I am done with trying to fight through it. It ain't gonna budge that way. But defining myself as a poet (feel like an interloper there, too, but you know) is probably why one of my poems has managed to find its way into the anthology also. Funny. From thinking that I wasn't going to put anything in there at all, and the struggle that went on about that, now I have two things in there. While the left hand is doing one thing, the right hand is doing another.

We hold ourselves back so much, and blame everybody else for it. Yes, often other people are the beginnings of why we are holding ourselves back. They have taught us to do so. And entering into the murky spaces of learning to undo those knots is just about the most uncomfortable feeling I have ever experienced. But what happens when the you inside you is yelling for expression? Then you have an equal race of sorts. The dynamics of others holding you back, the dynamics of yourself urging you forward. I have great faith in listening to my own inner whatever-it-is. It has held me in good stead for a lot of years. It is very wise. Now I see the outward expression of that listening on pieces of paper badly executed, floating around my house.

We had to write our bios for the anthology, which I just pantently hated doing. I wanted to have, "Sue S hates writing these bio things" but that got howled down. Instead I have decided on "Sue S is enjoying messing with clay and paint, and the joy of playing badly." Which actually feels like a positive thing to me, considering my inner perfectionist has not let me play at all for a long time because it couldn't stand me not producing anything perfect. But maybe that doesn't come across in a one sentence bio. I don't know. Whatever I write will feel pretentious, I'm sure. Sometimes I wonder if it is going to take longer to perfect the bio than it did to perfect the story but I am just amazed that I have a story in an anthology at all. And feeling like an interloper is just one of those nobby stupid little things that I say to myself because I am scared shitless about having a story in an anthology and I am scared to be creative because I am scared of how goddamn powerful I am.

My art therapist said to me the other week something about how maybe writing fiction was just too energetic for me, and that I am choosing to do creative things which better fit my stamina levels. Well, like, duh. At least, duh for me now that I have consciously turned my mind to it but did I create that linkage before she said it? No, not really. Which is funny because it's so bloody obvious. But I am never surprised anymore at how patently obvious things can appear not obvious at all to us until we are ready to see them. It's like having little presents to unwrap along the way, if you're willing to accept the humblefyingness of knowing how little you truly do see. Which of course is part of the game, because when you put that little coat on, you get to see whole swathes of shitloads of good stuff, mereckons.

This life is just a bit of a spin-out, methinks. And yes it is painful but even that is bearable. At least, now. I am just celebrating reaching new levels of healing, and of openness to myself, and of allowing myself to be myself, and of setting boundaries, and of meeting new people, and of doing scary things but doing them anyway, and of not doing other scary things because I realise that I don't really want to do them, and of sitting still when I feel both ways about certain things, and of throwing my desires out into the wind and leaving them there, and of growing deeper and further into my own self, and of knowing that I don't want to be anybody else except me. And of knowing that other people may not be feeling the same way, but revelling in the knowing that this does not negate my own happiness any more than my sadness and despair negates anybody else's happiness. And wow. That feels so good. I don't need to hide my happiness and joy under a bushel, because as far as it is in your own power to effect your own happiness and joy, I have done the work I need to do by going into the dark places. And this is a paragraph that is far too big. And it may appear to be blowing my own trumpet. But that is only by the warped standards of this world, and I don't really give a fuck what that has to say about anything much at all, really.

Anyway, that is the end of this post. I just wanted to blather about the sunshine.

Pic: micky mb