Then comes the sun in All Good Things

I’ve just reread my last entry. It turns out I wrote it just before everything started turning around for the better.

It started with a potential job offer to move to the US and work for a very prestigious company. It came out of the blue, from a colleague of mine from 12 years ago on a whole different continent, and although I turned it down, having to make the decision in about 48 hours about whether to uproot my entire life and move to Washington DC helped kickstart my life again in London. I had to evaluate what it is I truly want and that process is what began the turnaround.

I’m now a writer. Of fiction. Published (online) with thousands of readers. I’ve made people cry with my writing. I’ve given them life-changing, cathartic experiences.

Nothing is better than that. Oh my God. I can’t begin to explain what the past couple of months have been like, how I feel like I’m finally fulfilling my destiny, what I was put on this earth to do. This is what makes being alive worthwhile.

Yes, it’s not huge yet. But considering the last time I let anyone read any fiction I wrote was over 20 years ago, this has been enormous. And I love it. I LOVE it more than I’ve ever loved anything.

I spent many years writing just for myself, after early sharing experiences ended up with me being sent to therapy because of the content of what I wrote, which is why I abruptly stopped sharing it, and then as life took over I mostly stopped writing at all. My husband once told me he believed people either live life or write about it. I was incensed at the time, but I have to agree that living life took precedent for the last decade or so because I used to write because I wanted answers to questions about what it would be like to do something, to experience something, and in recent times I’ve been able to just go and do it to find out instead of writing a book about it.

But now. But now. Oh, now I can do both.

Writing for other people is magical. It’s terrifying as hell, but when you get messages from them about how your writing affected their lives....wow. Just wow.

Of course, there’s haters out there too, but I’m getting good at practising not letting them get to me.

I’m also travelling again, for the first time in nine months. I was in Bangkok last week, now I’m in Singapore. I’m heading back to London next weekend, then in August I’m off to New Zealand for two months. It feels good not to feel nauseous at the thought of getting on an aeroplane. I promised myself last September that I wouldn’t get on another one until my body felt okay about it, and it was a hard promise to keep but I did it, and when I got on that Thai Airways flight two weeks ago I felt relaxed and peaceful and even enjoyed the flight. Living in hotels again has been fun instead of claustrophobic, and even work has been okay.

I would say that right now I am in the best place psychologically and emotionally that I have been probably since I was about 11 years old. It’s been a rough slog getting here during the last three and a half very traumatic and stressful years, but I’ve kept fighting and I’ve come through it.

(Always Keep Fighting)
(Love you for that, Jared)