On courage, muchness, and a whimsical wishlist of future moments

I love reading my notebook. It’s a mishmash of quotes and writing prompts, scribbled notes, words I like (what are yours? I like whimsical, poignant, iridescent, balmy, sun-soaked, whisper, rustle and rush), work stuff and more. When I’m travelling, my favourite thing is to snuggle into the fresh sheets of my bed (I love a hotel bed) at the end of the day and write about all the sights and smells, experiences, colours and people - I note it all down while it’s fresh in my mind - it’s lovely to look back on. And then there are some less lovely bits: notes from meetings with my solicitor, disjointed bits of devastating conversations (why did I write them down?). My notebook is so important to me - it’s my brain dump, my journal, my collection of thoughts, and so much more. Recently it’s full of hopes and dreams… doodled scenarios: a whimsical wishlist of future moments, if you will (see? such a good word!).

On being muchier

Such a cliché, I know, but I wrote recently about feeling much more me - ‘much more… muchier’, in the words of Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter (as an Alice nerd, I have to break it to you that Carroll never wrote those words). I’ve been reflecting a lot about this, and I feel like it’s still happening: every week, every day, I’m a little bit more me. Friends have noticed it (hell, even strangers on the internet have noticed it), but it’s been so gradual, it took me a long time to realise. Inevitably in any relationship, one person tends to bend more to fit the other. I’m not about to dissect my broken marriage - I’m all about looking forward now - but let’s just say somewhere along the line, I lost myself. Lockdown was many things, but it gave me the opportunity to focus on me - to think about the things I really love, and work out quite a lot of the things that I really don’t. And the first thing I did - and it was the best therapy - was to pick up that notebook.

How I’m more me is still eluding me. I guess I’m more confident, I definitely laugh more. I dress differently, think differently, feel differently. I feel more open, more honest and almost more childlike: filled with love and appreciation and warmth for the people I care about, but also I care less about what people think. I even feel - weirdly - like I can properly embrace my oddness. I’ve had this conversation with my friend Erica before: somehow, in the wrong relationship, your sense of self - especially if you feel a bit of a sense of ‘otherness’ (and don’t most people? Even if it’s secretly) - can get squashed. But no, here I am eight months on, delightfully happy dating someone who loves the rain as much as me… who also has favourite words (and they’re crackers too), will discuss the merits of different cheese, embrace my love of ugly shoes and spend hours imagining a complete refurbishment of a house we’ve seen on the internet…

Plus, of course, we’re ever evolving aren’t we? I don’t recognise me-from-five-years-ago, hell, I definitely don’t recognise the me from early 2020, and while I don’t like her (or her crap choices) that much, I’m realistic enough to know that the early days of a break up are tough and stressful and imperfect and messy. It’s done. It’s over. I’m doing the big stridey walk down the other side of the mountain now.

‘Have courage and be kind’

A while ago, lovely Sasha from Frank and Feel was talking about having a word for every year. I think my word of 2020 should be ‘courage’. This made me smile because I’m literally the scarediest scaredy cat you’ll ever meet, but in all the stress and tears and heartbreak and worry, somehow I found courage (wow, the clichés are coming thick and fast today). What doesn’t break you makes you stronger, and it became apparent that actually I wasn’t going to curl up in a corner and fizzle into nothing, Wicked Witch of the West style (‘I’m melting, melting!’), and even better, I was going to come out the other side happier, stronger, healthier and more confident than I’ve ever been. I found the courage to remove toxic people from my life, to question things that weren’t right, and to let go of things that I thought were important to me, but actually weren’t at all.

I like the idea of courage, because I see it not necessarily about bravery in the knights of old, brave and bold type way, (‘your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries’) but about perseverance - about facing things and situations that scare you, because you have to. It’s about battling self doubt, making tough decisions and trusting that things will be alright in the end.

And now, more than ever, with my bright, happy future at my fingertips, I’m having courage again. I’m daring to put myself first - to dream about what I really want - to see it in my mind’s eye. And I’m surprising myself too, because what I want - what I really care about - is not at all what it once was. The whimsical wishlist of future moments doesn’t feature this chunk of bricks and mortar that I always thought was SO important, but is now the thing I want to walk away from the most. No, it’s sandy toes and lapping waves, icy rosés with a view. There are piles of books ready for devouring, shared drinks at pub tables, scribbled recipes splodged with drops of sauce - spoonfuls offered for approval. It’s raucous family dinners, beers in the sunshine… There’s maybe a cottage, a crackling fire, a Christmas tree… tea in bed, clean sheets, curtains billowing in an early morning breeze, dozing dogs, soft kisses, a hand reaching for yours, and secret smiles caught just at the right moment… Whether any of it becomes reality, well, we’ll just have to wait and see, but I can highly recommend having courage. When I was at my lowest, my Mum said ‘this too shall pass’ and it did. She’s a clever one, that one.