Where was I?

A lot has happened since I last blogged in earnest. A ridiculous amount, in fact. Much of it, I don't want to write about on a public forum (so I won't - if you want details you'll have to take me away somewhere nice for a long weekend. By the sea would be lovely.).

Which makes me wonder what I will write about. I never worried about that before, when blogging was a regular hobby, I'd write about whatever popped into my head. (Look back on old posts, and that will be obvious...) Now I'm feeling that what I say needs to be weighty and important. That I should have some great wisdom to impart. So, step one on new blogging journey: write often and any old tosh will do. Some snippets may come with a side of gravitas, but the writing is the thing. Make it so, number one. 

I am at a crossroads. Sort of. I'm looking for something, but I don't know what it is. It might not even be lost. I might find it via some kind of creative outlet, hence the writing. I'm also taking art lessons (have you seen my pear...?*), and am about to start learning to play the piano. All of these things might be distractions, but they might also just be "this is what I do now". 

Feel free to join me on this journey of self- discovery (yuck!). Or, I hope you like at least some of the stuff I write. 

*This is my pear - I'm dead proud of it...

Resurrect the blog

Resurrect the blog.

That's what I'm thinking. 

All the thoughts in my head, falling over each other, there are so many.

Need to be said, written, published, articulated.

So many thoughts.

Ideas.

Wishes. 

Dreams.

Aspirations.

I'm looking for a creative outlet.

A platform.

A voice.

Connections.

Reassurances. 

Validation.

Fulfilment.

This feels like a new chapter.

Or is it just a new paragraph?

Perhaps it's a new book.

What about the old? 

What about closure?

Moving on.

Moving forward.

Moving up.

Letting go.

Not letting go.

Making peace.

Comments to make.

Stories to tell.

Wisdom to impart.

Healing to do.

Demons to confront.

Grief.

Anger.

Fear.

Resurrect the blog.

That's what I'm thinking.

Bye, Dad.

The end. A beginning. Bye, Dad.

I knew a time when the world was young, when every day was a new beginning and every morning was filled with a radiance and a freshness. As if overnight the fields and the trees had been laundered and sprinkled with a sparkling of dew to await the rising of the sun which would burst the tiny droplets and release their fragrances into the morning air. There was wonder and curiosity, and quite often a catching of the breath. A sense that something was about to happen. There was no sense of time, for time was a thing belonging to a later world, a grown up world. Today was today, there had been no yesterday and tomorrow was a million years away. Today was the day the world began.

I Wrote Him A Letter

All the time people asked I'd say,
"He's the same", and I'd smile, like it's fine.
But I'd think,
"Don't ask. Stop asking. Stop asking."

Now people don't ask.
And I think,
"Why aren't you asking? Why don't you ask?"

All the times I thought,
"I just wish things were normal. Why can't things be normal?"

Now this is normal.
And I think,
"This isn't the normal I was looking for."

I wrote him a letter that he won't read.
It's just for him.
It will go unread. But not unsaid.

Glimpses

I keep getting glimpses of my Dad.

• The raised eyebrows that say "Hello".
• The "Ooh!" when I hold his warm hand with my cold just-arrived-from-outside one.
• The smile that Parkinson's Disease took away, but somehow a blood clot in his brain has given us back.
• The fidgeting and trying-to-get-comfortable that have become so familiar, courtesy of Parkinson's. Thanks to that blood clot, it's now halved: his left half.
• Sharing a laugh. There's no way of knowing if he gets the joke, or if he's laughing because we're laughing. It doesn't matter: we find the same things funny, so he'd be laughing anyway.
• The moments when he clearly finds the whole thing ridiculous. His chuckle or his sigh when he gives up trying to tell us whatever he's trying to tell us.

They are just glimpses. Like when you catch sight for just a moment of someone familiar in a crowd. Their posture; their profile; their gait. Whatever it is that makes you know it's them.

This blood clot - this stroke - has taken so much of him. But we still have glimpses, and glimpses are enough for it to be him.

This is my Dad.

A Glimpse of the Future in the Past

Seven years ago (minus a day) I posted this:

Fortunately the teeth and hook were not as prophetic as the hair and the beard!

Blogger's Block

I have been trying to write a post.  Honest.

I decided to describe the course of events that prompted me to change my life and that precipitated my weight loss.  I wanted to explain how I went from being the person I was then to the person I am now.

I have been trying, but I can't do it.  I've written a lot, and deleted a lot.  I've spent the last two years thinking and analysing, and frankly I'm bored with it.  It's time to just get on with enjoying my new perspective on life.  So I'm putting it to one side for now.  One day I'll explain it all, but for now I'm looking forward, not back.

Back to Blog

Well, here I am again.  And it's about time (about 3 and a half years, to be precise-ish).  Despite the name of my blog, quite a lot has happened, so I'll give you a quick summary.

I was this...

Now I'm more this (but not every day)...

I did have a little boy...

He went and grew up...

Other stuff has happened too, but I don't want to exhaust all my post fodder in one fell swoop.

My main reason for starting up the blog again was a need to write about the changes that have happened to me over the past couple of years, quite self-indulgently, as a form of therapy and closure so I can move on - the italics signifying words I am very uncomfortable writing, and you're doubtless reading with some dread.  But, really, who'd want to read that?  Then I started reading some of my old posts, and I remembered the pleasure I used to get from writing them.  So I might slip into a bit of self-indulgence from time to time (after all, it is all about me), but I will endeavour to get back to the random, everyday blogging that worked so well for me way back when.  Don't hold your breath for my posts, though: it's no coincidence that they started to peter out once I was no longer a salaried employee - now I'm self-employed, I actually have to work for a living (but not every day)!