No More Excuses!

It has been a few weeks since i wrote anything. Simple reason being i am hiding.

I am hiding from myself.

I have always been afraid that i will be a failure as a writer, and this fear stems from the fact that a writer is all i have ever wanted to be. From an early age i always enjoyed reading, and when i started high school this developed further into a love of writing, bringing my own creations to life on the page in a world so much brighter than our own. But as i have grown, i have been plagued with insecurity, with fear, with frustration. All at myself.

And for fear of copying what Josie over at Sleep is for the Week wrote recently, it is insecurity that my writing just isn't good enough, not interesting enough, not eloquent enough...

I'm afraid that i am a typical woman - i want things and i want them now! I am intelligent enough to know that what i want to achieve with my writing will take a lot of hard work and a lot of time, but at heart i am a dreamer, and live in a dreamers world. And its got to stop!

For fear of being a failure as a writer i have stopped myself from writing, thus in itself making me a failure.

Why should i care if people don't like what i write? I'm never going to please everyone and it is unrealistic of me to think i will.
Why should i assume people don't like what i write if they don't comment? Maybe they're just busy!
Why should i worry if people don't like what i write if it has been therapeutic for me? It is my blog after all.

No more excuses.

The writing starts here!

This was written for Josie's writing workshop #17 over at Sleep is for the Weak and i chose prompt 3 - "What excuses are you hiding behind at the moment?"

Reaching Out

Its that time again! Sleep is for the Weak has once more posted a weekly writing workshop and here is my effort! I chose prompt 5.

I'm not afriad anymore. Well, i am. I am absolutely petrified. But i cannot go on the way i have been.

For those who read my blog you will know 2 things: a, its very depressing to read haha, and b, im making an awful lot of changes right now.

You see, I was abused as a child. I have tried to deal with it previously, but i never seemed ready. Or i was too scared. I have seen three counsellors in the past, and i just couldnt connect to any of them. I felt like i was being judged every time. I didn't feel comfortable.

And for me thats a huge thing - needing to feel comfortable, to feel safe. It was a family member who abused me. Both my parents knew what he was like and still let him into our home. I have a lot of anger inside me, anger i am too afraid to show.

It has took me 16 years to get to where i am now. Still a mess, but stumbling along through life, trying to keep my head above water. I dont want to be me anymore. I dont want to wake up in the morning with tears in my eyes and a knot of anxiety in my stomach. I want to be the happy girl i used to be as a child, the confident little madam who was afraid of nothing, energetic, outgoing...

I don't want to be afraid anymore.

It's time for me to reach out.

Kelly HQ

Hurrah to Josie and the Writing Workshop! As always, the link can be found here:

http://sleepisfortheweak.org.uk/2010/01/28/writing-workshop-what-if/

I have chosen prompt 3 "What have the voices in your head been saying lately?". However, i haven't exactly stuck to the prompt...

The voice in my head isn't a voice - it is a person. It is a Mini-Me. She has a huge room where she sits all day in a big comfy high backed leather chair, pressing buttons as and when necessary on her over sized control panel, peering out the large windows that are my eyes to see what is going on. She leads a quiet life, pouring over books that i only assume are written accounts of my memories as she seems to keep them in big, over stuffed cabinets at the back of her room. Perhaps that's why my memory is so bad - she needs to do some spring cleaning!

I am quite a simple individual. My Mini-Me only needs a few buttons to press to keep me going and in check - namely "Chocolate", "Hugs," "Tea" and a fairly recent addition, "Ben". Once these emergency buttons have been pressed there is a constant alarm that rings in my head and until these needs have been fulfilled, the alarm resonates throughout my head and i cannot function properly.

Whenever my Mini-Me has an opinion on something, she will lean over to her desk and press the intercom. Recent things my Mini-Me has said:

"Get out of bed you lazy cow!"
"I can't believe you did that!"
"Hahaha you're a moron."
"They're just going to laugh at you."
"Can you not hear the Chocolate alarm!?"
"Do you think the Queen ever gets out of bed and thinks, 'I just cant be arsed today?'"
"Don't forget to call the council!"
"Oooo shiny!"

On the whole, my Mini-Me tends to keep out of my way. She is there for emergencys only, though she does share her opinions quite frequently on various subjects. I think its because she gets bored. Sometimes, she likes to sing, though she doesn't know many words... variations of "la la la la" can be quite tedious!

Oh, she's pressing the "Tea" button... better go sort that out!

The Real Life Mrs Weasley

My best friends mother is a star. As Drew aptly put it last night – she is the real life version of Mrs Weasley. If you’re hungry, she will feed you. If there is something you want, she will have it, and if she doesn’t she would get it for you...

So imagine my surprise when I turned up to collect the ‘couple’ of items I was told she had for me…

The contents of Jeans kitchen, is now in mine. I swear, the amount of stuff she gave me, I must have everything she owns for surely there wasn’t anything left over! There was a bin, a washing up bowl, a brand new iron, towels, glasses, cutlery, a fruit bowl, mugs, coffee and tea jars, a tray, lamp shades, a small round table to sit your drink on, a toilet brush, a toilet roll, a bar of soap (special soap because my skin is ‘funny’ haha bless her)… There were so many things she gave me I don’t actually know what there was for the bin is still full of items wrapped in newspaper I have yet to unpack. But the most surprising item? A plant. A random thing to offer I thought. Do you need this? How about that? Or this? Do you want a plant?

Um… sure?

So there were four of us to carry all these items to my flat from my friends house which is about a five minute walk. But not to Mrs Weasley… Apparently it’s a mile away! “Oh lordy you’ll never manage it!” God I love her haha =)

My brother could manage to lift the bin full of items with one hand but Mrs Weasley still insisted on taking some items out and dishing them out in bags to make them easier to carry. She loaded us all up with items, asking if I was coming for dinner tomorrow, then ushered us out the door.

If you could only have seen the sight of us… My friend had two bulging carrier bags full of breakables, my brothers girlfriend more breakables, my brother wrestling with the bin in one arm and brandishing the little table as a weapon in the other… and me? Under one arm I had a washing up bowl, and under the other, my new plant. Together, we looked like we had just pillaged the local village and left with everything except the electronics.

Off we toddled up to my flat, off loaded all the stuff, and laughed. I think I actually need a bigger kitchen I have so many items for it! It was a lovely evening though, and it’s made me realise just how wonderful people can be, and how generous people can be.

Thank you Mrs Weasley! Now every time I step into my kitchen I will think of my friend, and his wonderful family, and how lucky I am to have stayed friends with him for so long and how I hope to stay friends with him for many years to come.

Drew, you shall now be known as Ronald.

I have named my plant Ginny.

An Undecided Tiny Acorn

Hurray the Writing Workshop has returned!

I looked at this weeks writing prompts and I honestly couldn’t decided which to do. So can I cheat and do a short contribution for all five? Yes? Goodie!

Hmm ok, what do I seem unable to learn or remember? Quite a few things! I am not best known for my memory skills! And now I’m trying to think really hard of an example of my poor memory and guess what…? Yep, I can’t remember any! =/

So moving on to number 2. What do I miss most? Well that one is easy – Ben. I miss Ben more than anything. I miss him so much I physically ache when I’m not with him. Corny that may sound, but it is so true. The distance between us is a curse. Long distance relationships suck – FACT!

Number 3 – What steps have you taken this year so far to make a dream reality? Well lots of things. As you may already know I am currently doing lots of things to try and make myself a happier person – the occupational therapy, the group therapy, getting my own place, tenancy support when I finally move in… ok, so maybe being a happy, more positive person isn’t necessarily a dream, but it is something I have longed for for such a long time. I just hope I’m not taking on too much at once – the last thing I need right now is to be overwhelmed by everything!

There is also Judiths Room! Since I was 12 it has been a dream of mine to write, so I am making a conscious effort to, well, make an effort! I hope I can find the support and feedback I need here to help me rebuild my confidence and improve my writing ability.

Making some really nice friends too would also be a bonus! =)

4 – What is outside your window? There are two ways at looking at this. One could describe the overgrown tree blocking the majority of my view, the well kept gardens of my neighbours, the randomly scattered toys of my dog in my own garden…

Or I could look further.

What is outside my window? I would say opportunity. Life. The future. Life is for living, to live you need to experience the world and everything out there, for who knows what you are missing, sitting in your warm house, leaning back on your comfy chair and staring out the window?

Last but not least, number 5 – Blog about your very own tiny acorn and the resulting mighty oak!

This is perhaps the most difficult for me to write, but I would say that my own tiny acorn was in fact me. The recent changes I am making are all an aid to help me grow into that mighty oak I know I can be, that happy, care free, confident, vivacious girl that I used to be. I guess I’m going full circle – I used to be that mighty oak, but the elements of life got in the way and I faded, lost my way, and a tiny acorn, I fell from the highest branches into the soft ground below, buried by dead leaves and greenery, hiding me from the light and denying me the chance to grow. But as all seeds do, I’m fighting back toward the light, tentatively reaching out with newborn arms, determined to find my way back toward the stars.

Mmm...

Its Wednesday again and I have once more participated in Josies’ Writing Workshop. This week I chose prompt 1 as I remembered a poem that I wrote a while back that perfectly fit the topic of “what is your addiction?”.

The Writing Workshop can be found here:

http://sleepisfortheweak.org.uk/2009/12/07/writing-workshop-8-addictions-and-epiphanies/

My entry can be found below!

Mmm…

I dream of the wonders of the sugary delight
Resist I might but I cannot fight
Giving in to temptation I over indulge
Enjoying every crumb, ignoring my bulge

Lots of sugar to feed my addiction
“You’ll only ruin your complexion!”
But with Dairy Milk and Jelly Tots
Who cares if I get lots of spots?

Embracing my desire for that sugar rush
“Don’t eat that! You eat too much!”
“Keep eating this way you’ll get really fat!”
Ah, shut up, hand me that chocolate!

Like Britney Spears I sing ‘Gimmie more!’
Yearning for treats that I adore
For who cares about E-Numbers, I don’t count the calorie
My world is complete with just chocolate and me!

Realisation

I attempted another of Josie's prompts down at the Writing Workshop this week. I chose option 3, "write about a dream you've had recently".

The original post can be found here:

http://sleepisfortheweak.org.uk/2009/11/30/writing-workshop-7-claims-to-fame-and-guilty-pleasures/

My dream...

Me and Ben were trying to get pregnant. We had been trying for months with no success. We had gone to the hospital for IVF and it was the day of our results, to see if the pregnancy had taken. I clutched my tummy tightly, as though i already knew there was a new life growing inside me. We walked into the doctors office, i was holding on to Bens hand so tightly... The doctor was smiling, waving a sheet of paper in his hand. Test results had come back - I was pregnant!

We spent the next few weeks doing the things every new parent does... thinking of names, looking at baby clothes, and it was such a wonderful time in my life. And then it happened. I woke up in the middle of the night, a horrible pain in my tummy. I could feel the blood between my legs and even before i got the the bathroom i knew... i had lost the baby. I was devastated.

I woke up crying. It had been a while since a dream had affected me so deeply. I guess this dream was a little too close to home.

With me suffering from PCOS, the chances of me getting pregnant are less than normal due to my infrequent monthlies. And with this condition the risk of miscarriage is also increased. When i was about 17 or 18, i had decided i wanted 5 children - 3 boys, 2 girls. I had even picked their names. Then when i was diagnosed with PCOS at 18 and discovered that my chances to become pregnant were slim, i decided i didn't want children, that i hated children and that they were all spawn of the devil. A very extreme defensive mechanism me thinks! But it lasted me till now, i had convinced myself that i didn't want children, that i couldnt go through the heartache of trying and failing to become pregnant, or suffer through the agony of saving for IVF and it not working. It was easier to walk away from something i so desperately wanted.

This dream made me realise i have been kidding myself. My desire for children is still there, still deep inside me. I still want a big family, still want to see lots of happy faces round the Christmas tree each year...

But what if i can't become pregnant when the time comes? What if i miss-carry? What if i am never able to have children?

I have been a failiure in many things in my twenty six years, i do not want to fail at being a woman.

Josie's writing workshop

A blog recently recommended to me by my closest friend does a weekly writing workshop, so this week i figured i would take up the challenge.

The initial post can be found here:

http://sleepisfortheweak.org.uk/2009/11/16/writing-prompts-5-were-back-in-business-baby/

And my offering, can be found here! I opted for option 5, "write about a deep, dark fear" and here is what i ended up with. The conclusion quite suprised me. I thought my deepest fear was something else, but alas not...

Fear

I am covered in scars
Each one has a meaning
Scars that refuse to heal
I am emotionally bleeding
My heart is a jigsaw
Many peices, broken
Stuck together, fragile
Due to actions left unspoken
I need the glue to fix me
I cannot break again
I will not be the fool
I will not take the pain
I beg you not to hurt me
I beg you to hold me dear
For loosing you would finish me
And that's my biggest fear