Yay! It’s been less than a year since my last blog post.

And I just realised after writing this post that the reason there hasn’t been anything since last August, is that I didn’t publish my last blog.

So, this is the blog that should have been published earlier this year…

February 13, 2024

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.” Ambrose Redmoon

How many times can you sit down to write something and quit before you start?

Apparently, that number is infinite.

Many years ago I came across a YouTube video about a man called Paul Smith. Paul was born with Cerebral Palsy and his parents were told he would never have much of a life. His movements are greatly impeded by the condition and it would be easy to feel pity for him. But Paul discovered what he could do.

This interview with Paul really changed my perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svzPm8lT36o

I’ve been plagued with conditions over the years that have impacted my ability to do what I love, and I’ve often struggled to keep going in the face of pain, frustration and limited mobility. But watching Paul’s video interview and hearing him speak about his views on life spoke to the depths of my soul. When people say to Paul, ‘I couldn’t do that!’ he always replies, ‘Well, what can you do?’

It made me think about all the things I can do, and while I might have some limitations around how long I can do it, there are many things I can do. I realised that I would often use my limitations as an excuse to not try. If I don’t try I can’t fail, right? It’s an old cop-out and one I’ve been aware of for decades, and sometimes it’s hard to not feel ashamed. But I know why I do it and I’m working through those things, so I try to be gentle on myself while still pushing forward and through the fear.

Writing has always been my first love, my greatest passion, and my deepest fear. It exposes me in ways that terrify me, and it opens me up to being vulnerable and hurt. For as long as I can remember I have committed my hopes and dreams, my fears, anger, hate, and everything I want and need to say to the page in some vague attempt to purge myself of who knows what. Rarely do I ever share those thoughts with others. But I don’t write to just clear my head. Journalling, or morning pages, or whatever you want to call the practice is a wonderful process and I highly recommend it for everyone, but it’s not the sort of writing I need. Once I have offloaded all the extraneous thoughts and processed the anxieties, the deadlines, the frustrations and to-do lists, then I start to write. Or not, as has been the case of late.

The closer I get to discovering what I really want to write about, the harder it becomes to actually write. The closer I get to discovering what I really want to write, the more I realise how vulnerable, real, and honest I need to be to write it.

It’s not that I plan to tell my life story in any great detail, but I am highly aware of how much of my history comes out when I write, fiction or not. Writing stories exposes us in so many ways and I have spent my whole life running, burying, closing in, withdrawing and trying desperately to remain hidden from those who would harm me. But I’ve also spent a lifetime running to, opening up, embracing, and reaching out in an attempt to understand, heal, and move forward. I have lived with the dual knowledge that I am worthy and worthless, capable and incompetent, powerful and fragile, and so many other opposites that it really amazes me some days that I’ve managed to keep going. I gave a talk once that was titled, ‘My Life is an Oxymoron’, and it still makes me smile to remember it. Despite all the hard, there has been so much joy and every day I discover something new. Sometimes what I discover is more of the hard, sometimes it is more of the joy, and sometimes it’s hard to tell what it is as the lines can blur.

Today, I discovered that I’m tired, and I’m a little unsure about whether I can push myself to keep writing. I’ve been away from the computer for the past 94 days. I quit smoking back in November and discovered that smoking and writing were intrinsically linked and for a time, I needed to stop writing to deal with that. I’ve gradually come back to doing morning pages and that has been a much-needed process, but today is the first time I’ve turned on the computer and tried to write.

This is where the post finished. It was really hard dealing with the way smoking had become so intrinsically linked to my writing. For a time, I started to wonder if I’d ever write again. But here I am…

And this brings us to the current post where I started to expand on why I thought I’d been away for just under a year.

I should be grateful, and for the most part I am. The things that keep me away from blogging are usually wonderful.

My wife and I live on ten acres of beautiful bushland and pasture that takes a lot of work to care for, but it’s so worth it.

With five adult children, and five grandchildren spread across the country, I spend a lot of time visiting them and trying to be a great Nannie. I love them all so much and time flies by so quickly that I really want to make the most of the time we have.

I have a great casual job, that is super flexible and allows me to do what I love best, collecting stories at a grassroots level to inform funding and programs that are actually needed.

I volunteer weekly at a few different craft groups which allows me to give back while indulging my own creativity, and occasionally I get together with an awesome tribe of like-minded friends for dinner and various celebrations.

But there’s a dark side to my absence too. I’ve lived with the impacts of trauma my whole life, and while I’ve done a lot of work to heal, it has been a time-consuming process. Sometimes the things we don’t deal with catch up with us.

In my late 20’s, my health started to deteriorate rapidly. Now, 35 years later, I’ve finally been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. It sucks, big time. But I’m trying hard to see the diagnosis for the blessing it can be. At least we can start treating it properly and it has really pushed me to make some big decisions about how I choose to live my life. I’m terrified I’ll lose my vision completely, the fatigue is awful and has recently gotten worse, and my system is shutting down and not working properly. Everything is just too bloody hard! But I also know I’m really slack at doing good self-care, I put everyone else’s needs first, and I avoid dealing with my emotions as much as possible. It’s just a pity that it takes a big kick up the bum before we make the changes we should have made much earlier.

But I didn’t come here to moan about my poor health. I come here because, for some bizarre reason, my brain thinks that writing on this blog helps keep me accountable to myself. It’s hilarious really because I know very few people read this, and I’ve reached an age where I don’t really mind, which is obvious from how often I blog. Yet every now and then, someone drops in and leaves a comment that lets me know they’re here, and maybe one day I’ll write something that touches somebody else’s heart, and that is important to me.

So, I keep writing…

Not as often as I would like, but enough to keep me engaged. I’ve been working on the storyline and song lyrics for a musical, and filling in gaps in my autobiography (only intended for myself and the kids). I’ve been playing with writing prompts and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve also been trying to expand my reading material to include genres that I don’t usually explore.

A friend recently invited me to be a Beta reader for her latest novel and I gladly accepted. OMG! I had no idea how much work goes into this! In the end, I ran out of time and energy and I think I handed her a pretty poor assessment. Pays to do your research before taking on a new job. My saving grace was picking up a couple of errors, but I’m sure someone else would have noticed them. One thing it did teach me was there’s a big difference between reading a book for pleasure and reading it to answer questions and make assessments on the book and its contents. The other thing it reminded me of is that I’m far better at proofreading than I am at being a beta reader. We live and learn.

The musical came out of the blue. I participated in NANOWRIMO again in November last year. I started off with no idea what I was going to write and by the end of the month, I’d written the outline for a play about intergenerational trauma, a play that I quickly realised wanted to be a musical. Song lyrics started to flow, character development flourished, settings fell into place and everything was coming together well. I took a break over the Christmas period and when I came back to it in February I was completely demoralised. It was so morbid and depressing! But I haven’t given up. What I realised was that the parts that flowed easily were the parts that I really needed to write. The hurt and angst that flows through the script is integral, but it took time and distance to see that there is also joy in the story; it’s just a little harder to find. My challenge now is to go back and look at the story through different lenses.

One of the ways I’ve been doing this has been to talk to older family members, cousins mostly. I’ve been hearing stories that have shifted the way I view events and people and given me alternative lenses to try on. It’s been an experience that I am very grateful for and has almost convinced me to consider talking to one of the key players. But I’m not quite there yet.

I’m acutely aware that in its current state, this is my story, and it’s deeply personal. Whether it will ever evolve into a universal story that works for the stage is beyond me to answer right now. Maybe it will only ever be the story I need to write for myself and if that is the case, that’s wonderful. The main thing is that I am writing and every day I wake up wanting to write more. My heart is full, I’m doing what I love, and slowly the shattered pieces are finding their place.

People used to approach Paul Smith and his art and say things like, ‘That is amazing. I could never do that.’ Paul would always reply with, ‘What can you do?’

This! This is what I can do.