Meet Jacqueline Hyde

I've never counted properly before, but I've probably lost about half a dozen jobs/boyfriends during the grip of PMS.  I very nearly said "particularly bad PMS" but then I don't think I've ever had "particularly good PMS" to warrant the existence of an opposite.

I do remember once, a guy at work scowling up at me from his desk saying "Are you on drugs or something, because your mood swings are unbelievable?" and I was so gobsmacked that I couldn't even answer.  I wasn't.  On drugs I mean.

I'm guessing he was referring to my Premenstrual episodes - with which always came the biggest downers of my entire life.  Every month.  And back in the 80's it wasn't as trendy to go around sharing chronic PMT stories - we were only just getting to grips with having a female prime Minister and tottering about in stilettoes and tight pencil skirts and being all affronted at being leered over by our colleagues - men, mostly.

But I don't think I ever equated the little red ring on the calendar with how appallingly bad everything I thought, said and did became.  Ever.  It must've been a kind of denial or I was just shocked that... once again I was grouchy, bad-tempered, irritable, touchy, weepy, at time suicidal, and always, always misunderstood.  As far as I was concerned, Mum and Dad were right and they really HAD raised a spiteful, selfish bitch of a daughter who wanted everything her own way and was ungrateful and bad tempered about everything. "We just DON'T understand you!" they'd rage.   Of course, by the time my period had come and gone (surprise!), they were still bearing the PMS-grudge of how abysmal my behaviour leading up to it had been and I was still in The Cooler.  And, a fortnight later, after they'd (almost) forgiven me, the whole PMS-cycle returned and, sadly,  this pattern was never broken. It's just a shame it was never discussed.  I'm sure everyone would've been a whole lot happier if they'd known the only reason I was acting like shit was because that's how I felt.

Sometimes I'd just shut myself away.  I couldn't explain how I felt, so I didn't even try.  This was easier when I'd moved away from my parents.  Attempting to explain to my mother why I wasn't going into work, whilst  all my motor functions were operating normally would've been like trying to explain to Jedward that they have no talent, X or otherwise.  As far as she was concerned, if I breathed, I worked.  Like it or not.  Hormones were some new-fangled fashion that would never catch on; seeking professional help or even support for the raging torments I endured just wasn't an option. And therapy was for the idle, rich and famous.

I have stormed out of two jobs that I recall.  "Flounced" is probably a more apt description.  (I watched too much 'Dallas' and 'Knots Landing' and clearly thought that Joan Collins was the way to go). And never went back. I certainly changed jobs with alarming regularity (I wish I'd kept a 'red ring' for those times too - for scientific purposes) when I had convinced myself that I just couldn't cope with it anymore.  And the more my colleagues saw of my 'moods' the greater the desire to flee and find somewhere new - where nobody knew me and would judge me by my seemingly unstable personality.

Because that's what I assumed it was.  I was just a Bad Person.  I was hell to live with, hell to work with and so erratic that  nobody in their right mind would ever want to be with me for too long.  So I kind of decided to save them the bother and the embarrassment of working how to to tell me I was crap;  I got out before they got rid. I'm sure I lost a couple of decent jobs/blokes with this perverted course of action.  But I didn't know what else to do.

Secretly, even though the pains were severe and I sometimes couldn't even focus straight for the first day, I actually welcomed my period.  Because I felt 'normal' then.  I was doing what every other woman on the globe did -  I was going through a cycle which meant I was behaving like a regular human being and I didn't have to try and disguise or explain why I was looking , acting and feeling the way I was because I didn't understand it myself.  This, I understood.

Someone gave me a picture once of some pigs in their sty, and it said  "Don't try to understand me - just love me" and although half of me resented the heck out of this because to (paranoid, cynical, probably premenstrual) me it screamed I was "difficult" - the other half made me feel like perhaps I deserved to be taken just the way I am - any day of the month. 

So,  for the days when I'm displaying the following, I have a nice, harmless alternative:

Weepy = emotional

Angry = determined

Paranoid = sensitive

Tactless  = refreshingly honest

Depressed = introspective

And now I believe  it's all just part of my 'natural charm'! 

Letting Go

It’s been a difficult thing to come to terms with and part of the reason I haven’t blogged about it before now is that I couldn’t find the words to properly describe the feelings it’s evoked.

Of course, some of you already know that I’m talking about the Girl having left home. Gone. From here. After 12 years of having to put up with me, she’s gone to live with her Dad.

And as we’ve spent most of her life as just ‘us girls’ together, means that the splitting up of our double-act has been even harder for me . In fact I’d probably have handled giving up a limb or an organ far better.

So to say that there’s now a gap is a bit of an understatement.

But today I finally found the feeling that I thought some of you could maybe identify with. Apologies to any guys reading this – the feelings won’t be quite so evocative.

Remember how, for nine months you kept this little miracle safe and warm and fed (and lord only knows how – it’s a real, proper miracle if you actually stop and think about it… a living human being, breathing in fluid, kept alive by food that’s transported through a tube that your own body grew inside you - between you and the unborn child you’re … well… incubating; growing; giving life to)? Remember how you couldn’t stop stroking the expanding mass of skin before you and wondering how much more strain your belly button could take before it shot off and blinded the nearest person?

Remember how clever it made you feel that you were actually a part of this great big reproductive orb in the universe and that because of you, there’d be another body on the planet forging a path into the future and taking bits of you with them for another generation?

Remember how you couldn’t quite believe you could get away with ‘eating for two’ and it didn’t matter how much you did or didn’t eat, your belly just kept on growing in a totally expected (pun intended) way?

Remember how you never thought you’d get used to feeling the little kicks and the squirmy movements and the worry that you were housing an Extra Terrestrial entity inside your body because you’d seen too many re-runs of ‘Aliens’ and specifically the part where John Hurt’s belly flies wide with teeth and the nasty creature comes sliming onto the screen and devours everybody?
(Okay, that last bit might just have been me, but you get the idea).

And remember how you used to watch an elbow or a heel poke through your skin when you were in the bath; or your belly would pop with little hiccups and all you had to do was stroke it and it’d calm down and relax in the warmth with you? And how you’d sometimes sing to it and talk to it and tell it about everything it was going to see and do, and feel when it finally arrived on planet Here?

Remember how you thought you’d always be the size of a Hippo, in fact you were used to it and quite liked it, until the time your ‘due date’ had come and gone by 10 days, and then how desperately you just wanted it ‘Out, Out, Out! – NOW!’?

And remember how you knew you’d never, ever forget that pulsating little cord of purple and white which was still attached to you both when they put this writhing little body on your chest, which had kept your baby Girl alive all that time, before it was cut? The incredible feeling of being One?

And … O.M.G. It was a girl. Remember how you’d only got one name and that was Harry?

And then, remember those flabby, vacant, endless folds of skin that sat unhappily, deflated like a hot air balloon all around your middle, which for some reason made you want the little bundle of pink skin that was now lying in a Perspex cot beside you, back ‘In, In, Inside me – please?!’

Because I don’t know about you, but I felt lost. Empty. Slightly adrift, scared and cold. Like the best part of me I’d ever had was gone now. And even though I could see her and feel her and touch her, and I knew this was just the start - a new beginning, I already missed the always being together bit.

I missed... I miss... the Us.

Healing Thyself

So, great news about the Ozone layer, yeah?

getting better now - officially!

Oh, and I also heard today that some Scientist guy who told everyone about the icecaps melting, was lying - ha! Yeah - good one - lol-ling my socks off over here, Boffin man! And, quite rightly, he's been lawfully charged with something or other.  I forget the details.  Anyway, in my head he looked like Emmet (Doc-from-Back-to-the-Future) Brown but that's besides the point. But what a silly man.  Did he really having nothing better to do or was he just after his fifteen minutes of fame?

And I remember the incomparably sublime Stephen Fry telling his audience on QI once that the human body also goes through a kind of regenerative metamorphosis during a 10 -year cycle.  But, no, (husband, specifically - not that he EVER listens to anything either myself OR Stephen ever says - EVER) that doesn't mean that just because you've recently turned 40 you get a whole new body of cells to abuse, neglect and wear out - this regenerative process is ongoing.  But I DO like the idea that the liver I put through very alcoholic paces during my twenties is now a mere spring chicken again - and cheerfully having to endure nothing stronger than PG Tips as exercise.

These snippets of very important information also made me remember the time that, shortly after we were married, the Hubs made me throw away all the tablets I was taking because he was convinced they were making me ill.  At the time I had Trochanteric Bursitis, which was incredibly painful and so I was taking muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatories, painkillers and supplementing these with a couple of Glucosamine (yes, yes with Chondroitin... which also this week was revealed to have proven of no real benefit whatsoever despite advertising to the contrary).  So basically if you'd shaken me back then, I'd have done the decent thing and rattled.

Nobody wants to be newly-wed to a medicine cabinet, do they?

And he was (he loves this bit!) right.    He has a very annoying habit of being mostly right most of the time.  Apart from the 'new body at 40' delusion of course.
Within about 3 days of not taking any of these tablets, my headaches had lessened, the pain from my 'condition' hadn't improved - but also hadn't worsened - and the great thing was that I wasn't so listless and constipated (TMI?).  So this convinced me that all these drugs were doing was confusing my poor body into not knowing what to do with them and where to put them and how to absorb the majority of them.  My body already had enough of what it needed, because that's how it was made originally, anything else was just going to hinder it's capability to repair.  After all, I would never assume to start a scar off by putting a line of Superglue along the cut... I know my body will sort that one out in it's own time without any help from me.

Obviously I'm not saying that if I broke my arm I'd just leave it to heal itself - which it would, of course, it'd just turn out wonky and nobody would like that.  Or  if I was Diabetic that I'd just let nature take it's course and hurl me into a fatal coma, oh no, I'm ALL for topping up where there's a definite imbalance.  I've just come to believe that the body has a remarkable way of knowing when, where and what it needs in order to function properly. So if it says 'you're sleepy - rest' - then do it.  If it says 'you need chocolate', then, by all means, the Vicar of Dibley head-in-fountain technique has to be adopted.  If your body says 'scream' then who are you to refuse it's release?
And if it says 'lie in bed all day reading and having cups of tea brought to you', then where's the harm in that?

OMG It's Got To Be Perfect, I'm 40!

I feel very privileged to tell you that two of my loveliest writer friends have new books coming/out right now!


The funny, talented and super-storyteller, Claire Allan has her fourth book "It's got to be Perfect" out on the 28th - that's next Tuesday to me and you... and not only that, but she's also guest-appearing on the other site I write for, Strictly Writing on that day.   So make a note of it in your diary, set your mobile to vibrate or something and come on over, there'll be fresh muffins and all sorts (in a 'virtual' kinda way, obvs).

And whilst you're waiting for the release of Claire's latest bound-to-be-bestselling-book, why not head out right NOW and get a copy of my gorgeous Witchy friend, Deborah Durbin's latest book, "Oh My God, I'm 40!".  You're either heading that way, know someone who is, or fancy being all ironic towards your twenty-something friends, right?  Either way, this book is a MUST HAVE for any woman approaching the summer of her years.  And what a fab way to fill somebody's stocking this Christmas, eh?

Personally I don't see the big deal in turning 40.  But then women my age ALWAYS say things like that, which just goes to show how old they really are...
Of course having a *29 year old boyfriend at the time, helped me overcome all kinds of obstacles with the turning 40 malarkay. Ah, happy days!

*He turned 30 a few weeks after, which sounds a lot more respectable, don't you think?! (also he was the one with the pipe, slippers and hair cascading from his ears/nose, so there's not always so much glamour associated with the Younger Man, I can assure you!)

Trepi-citement!

Pic from the vey vey funny "Savage Chicken" people

When I wrote my first book (listen to me - first book FFS! - which you can read the opening chapter of up there on one of those tab thingies, btw - called "LABRATS") I needed a word which didn't exist, which meant a  mixture of Amazed and Disappointed - which is how my main character (actually a very badly disguised Real Me) made her father (an equally poorly disguised if you ever had the delight to meet my Dad...) look. So, "Amazappointed" was born.
And I'm delighted that this word is still one which a couple of fellow writers remember from those halcyon days - before they were even published authors.  They know who they are and they rock; I love it when I've written something that stays in someone's mind.  It makes me feel like I've done something a bit special.
Which is what it's all about really.


So... the made-up word for today is Trepicitement... which, as you can probably work out is a healthy mix of trepidation and excitement.  Because today is the day that the book known as 'DOUBLE HISTORY' landed in the in-box of the Agent who's been showing a keen interest in it since March.  I've been editing and redrafting and cutting and pasting and learning how to kill "darlings" (a masochistic but impressive feat) and last night I finally, finally decided That Was It.  Enough now.  If I picked and poked any more, there'd be holes and dropped stitches and all manner of other analogies cropping up and making mincemeat of the whole thing.  I didn't want to lose the plot altogether, now did I?
And so I did what my Dad always told me to do.  I slept on it.  Not literally you understand, otherwise I'd have woken up with  "2GB" impressed across my cheek and that would never do.  There's no amount of L'Oreal that's going to fill a crevice that big, no matter how much I think I'm Worth It.

Anyway.  So it's there.  In her in-box.  And there's also a follow-up e-mail sent about 5 minutes later after I'd checked the 'sent items' in my own box and realised (pant-wettingly and much-sweatingly) that in the subject line I'd typed "DOIBLE HISTORY" and not "Double" - which is an actual word - not a made up one, and certainly not the title of my book, FFS!  (thanks to lovely author lady Keren David ("When I was Joe") who suggested I should own up to this madness in case I was spammed for illiteracy).

So, lucky for me, I got two responses.  One saying thanks she'd be in touch when she's read it - and no worries about the typo.

Oh, did I mention that this nice Agent person also sent me an e-mail last week telling me she'd "love to read anything you've written".  That's me!  That's *love*.  That's anything I've written!  WHOOOOOOOP!

And breathe.

Simon Says (so does/do Roger and Val)

Have you been watching "Val and Roger Have Just Got In"?  We have.  There they are.  Dawn French and Alfred Molina playing the world-weary eponymous couple, and playing them beautifully and poignantly and in 'real-time'.  It's just so brilliantly written.  and it's all about Us.  Me and The Hubs.  Or You and Yours.  It's a Little bit of Everyone.  Especially the first episode where they have to find a receipt for a broken hoover in amongst the debris of about ten years' worth of other bits of paper that they never got round to 'filing'.  We all mean well, don't we - and Val and Roger do.  And having them in our homes once a week for the past 6 weeks has been a satisfying if not sometimes painfully voyeuristic pleasure.

And Simon Amstell (the bitingly wry presenter of "Never Mind the Buzzcocks") has had us round his "Grandma's House" for the past few weeks too.  Utterly, utterly buttock-clenchingly perfect family humour at it's boldest, brightest and cleverest.  I can't get enough.  In fact after we've watched it 'proper' on the TV I have to watch it again on catch-up to really get  my teeth into the sharp retorts and one-liners, and I've even been known to take notes for future reference. No, seriously.
Comparable (which is difficult) to a 21st Century Hancock's Half Hour, "Grandma's House" has made me gasp at the blunt observations, snort tea out of my nostrils at the familiar-but-caricatured family members and given me renewed hope in the dire desert of British Sitcom misery.
All I need now is a second, superb series of "Miranda" and the onslaught of Christmas can blinkin' well do it's worst!

Hocus Pocus, diddely doo...

Some of you have probably heard me allude to this previously, but if you haven't, then all I can say is this:
"I Did Me a Spell and Got Me A Man"  - and not just any old (not even 'old' as a matter of fact) 'man' because, reader, I married him!

I had 8 years (interspersed with the occasional 'relationship', of course, I'm only human - no, seriously, I am) of being a born-again-singleton, following my husband's disappearance with his secretary.  I know - this is art imitating life or the other way round, I'm never sure , but I'm certain it's God's way of passing me more material for future fictional use.

[aside - to God]: "No, it's fine.  No, honestly it is, I can see the funny side of it now - no, no, you're okay, it didn't kill me.  Yup, I can use it somewhere.  In fact I already did.  No, it was rejected.  No, that's fine too - seriously - yes, neverending material, it's all good.  Mmm. Thanks.]

And during this time, one of my friends gave me a cute little book called "There's a Little Witch in Every Woman" which I used as a wine glass coaster for about seven of those barren years.

Coincidentally, the author of this cutesy little book, the lovely and clever Deborah Durbin, has since become a very dear friend since we met on a writers website a year or so back.  And she's pretty hot with anything Magickal.

I remember actually doing this.  I was sitting at the little round table at one end of my kitchen/diner in the little house the Girl and I had moved into 7 years previously and I was probably only flicking through the book because I'd just lifted the wine glass from it.  Initially I was contemplating the 'fortune' and 'success' spells but then I was drawn to this one.

The 'spell' (if I remember correctly) told me to get an action figure.  Great. In a house with 2 girls and 2 cats, the closest I'd get to any kind of 'doll' would be an old Barbie - and as much as I loved Transvestites, I didn't especially dream of growing old with one.  

And then you had to dress him in the style of clothes you'd like Dream Man to wear.  Double bloody great.  There was no way I was driving over to Toys R Us, buying a Ken and then finding a selection of groovy outfits for him.  I might have been alone without any whiff of finding a decent bloke, but I wasn't THAT desperate.  And even if I was, I'd just sunk half a bottle of wine.  It'd have to wait until tomorrow.

So I simply drew the outline of a male figure on a sheet of A4.

In the 'spell' you had to lie him down on the sheet - my way  just required more visualisation.  And then you had to draw arrows from his body ( at this juncture, I'm just glad I hadn't got a real action figure, because last time I saw a naked Ken, he was sorely lacking in some 'areas') to indicate personal preferences like eye colour, hair colour, height, etc... all the basics required for your regular Dream Fella.

And then add characteristics.My Prince Charming would be kind, smiley, compassionate, clever, funny, tolerant, hard-working, love his mother, play an instrument, love cooking, etc...   And I made sure my list included 'lovely smile'.  A big,  generous smile.  Because if someone has the kind of smile that can melt the hardest of hearts, then my heart is theirs, no questions asked.

And on the reverse of this paper you had to write down what you didn't want.  The type of things you wouldn't tolerate.  So I included stuff like:
* 'won't have an affair and run off with another woman',
* 'won't get blind drunk before he goes to work  and then be found in a milk van by the side of the road at 7.30am',
* 'won't call me a miserable, sour-faced bitch when I have PMT'
* 'won't fear the dentist so much that I can't make him laugh because that would involve opening his mouth to reveal incredibly spikey, gappy teeth in what is otherwise a quite nice face after half a bottle of Pinot' and, of course, the clincher,

* 'won't insist that wayward, unsightly hair growing from ear holes and nostrils is in any way funny and funky and that wearing slippers and sucking an unlit pipe when there's guests coming round is in any way "Retro".

Kind of thing.

For the final part of the spell you were to sprinkle some Rosemary over the figure's head but I just couldn't be arsed.

I remember staring at this drawing for ages and then having a bloody good laugh at myself for believing such a man (ever) existed, and that 'spell's in whatever shape they took really worked.  So I chucked it, downed the rest of the wine and threw myself into a mad dance round the kitchen to the strains of "I will Survive" or similar. No, I actually DID do that. In fact I did that a lot.  I even had the neighbours round once to ask me to keep it down - the height of Sad, being asked to keep the noise down when you're home alone... still... like I said, material...

A year later this guy walked off the A4 sheet and into my life.  I didn't realise he was my 'Ken' then but it didn't take me long to work it out.

I got some nice 'extra's too: the incredibly sexy tattoo on a very hard muscled arm and the heart-fluttering carpenter's toolbelt... Phew! Either somebody Up There must really *heart* me - or else there's a bigger Witch in this Woman than anyone's given me prior credit for!

p.s. is it too late to add on the reverse of my wish *mustn't snore  so much and get quite so angry with the nice people at Vodafone?*

p.p.s. all the *'s actually refer to separate blokes - all these "qualities" in one man, I have yet to find.  Eeeew... can you imagine?!

Instruction MANuals

"Plug and Play" is a phrase I like.  It implies minimal effort.  It positively oozes simplicity and this is something I like.  Simple, effortless stuff.  Like lying in bed reading on a Sunday morning.  No instructions required.

So this week, after three hours trawling through the reviews on Web-Cams on the Amazon website, I gave a sigh of relief when I finally found one that had 39 five stars and only 4 or 5 less.  The comments were pretty heartening too.  Everyone said they liked it, it did what it said it would and apart from a couple of eejits who didn't realise they had to take a lens cap off for it to 'see' anything, it was perfect.  (actually I'd also have been one of those eejits, had I not already read this... lens caps are tricksy little buggers, aren't they? )

And the price was right.  anything over £15 to me is expensive - even for clothes.  No, seriously.  I get sweats (more of those in another post) and I have to endure a full-blown argument with myself over the merits and drawbacks of such a purchase until I either end up getting it and never using/wearing it because I didn't quite justify the decision properly in my head, or else taking it back because I didn't feel I 'deserved it' in the first place.  Acts of rashness, for me, are few and far between. I'm surprised I'm not a Catholic.

So, the Web Cam.  I almost floated when I got it, because it also arrived in the same box as 'Tell Me Lies', the Jennifer Crusie book I decided I deserved (as it was 0.01p probably, I can't remember, but I like those prices and I don't mind giving the Post Office/Amazon packers £2.75 for 'handling' it for me.  A delivered book is worth it's weight in stamps as far as I'm concerned.  In fact if I were on a desert island, my one item of luxury would be a letterbox.  Or loo rolls;  I'm undecided).

And it reminded me of that cutesy little film trailer before the first Toy Story Movie, you know the one the dancing Pixar lamp?  So it was love at first sight.  And I assumed Plug and Play would also be much the same.
Not so.
Three hours later and after sticking it's (two - one for image, one for audio) leads into every available orifice visible on my pc tower, I grudgingly gave up and The Girl and I spent most of this time miming, laughing noiselessly, typing (vintage Skyping, no doubt) and lip-reading after I'd worked out that all I was going to get was vision.
Until the Hubs came back from a job and found me pulling out hair and slumped in heap of snarlingness over the keyboard yesterday morning, after another two hours of  Plug and (no)Play.  20 minutes later, he'd worked it out.  Because he'd followed online instructions.
Pardon me?
So I've now amended the useless little piece of paper that merely says 'plug and play' to something similar to those washing machine instructions in that picture up there.
And he's already reminded me how clever he was.
He's going to be insufferable this week.
But then I did *wish* for a man who was good with his hands AND his head.

More of this soon, promise, Michele!

Suspicious Minds

I have a naturally suspicious mind.  (Can I blame that on my upbringing?).
Point in case, when I was no more than seven, I was entered for our school's American Equivalent of the Spelling Bee Contest - yes, I was pretty hot with the letters even then - and actually recognised for it too!  Anyway, and this could very possibly be the biggest, stupidest, most regretful thing I've ever done in my ridiculous life.  Not be entered for it - that was a bit of an accolade to be honest, and, sadly, one which wasn't ever repeated again EVER.  Anywhere.
There were no more than six of us - perhaps one for each class in our year, I don't remember the finer details,  only the humiliation and deep, deep personal shame at being so stupidly suspicious that it prevented me from spelling the simple word "match" properly.
"How do you spell the word "match?"" I was asked.  Easy, I thought.  Easy peasy. "As in 'Football Match'" it was added.
Aha, I thought!  This is a trick - it's not the obvious M.A.T.C.H - I bet there's a football equivalent that sounds the same but is spelt without the letter "t".  So convinced was I that there must be another spelling for the *other* word "match" that I confidently spelled out "M.A.C.H".  And I can still feel the sweaty chill of shame creeping up my spine towards my face even today. Mach - FFS!
Perhaps this is why I always had such a total aversion to Football.  And have only ever gone to one live mach in my entire life (during which I was constantly being told to shut up  - which I didn't 'get' because what's there to listen to anyway? Come on!).
And this was the last time my parents ever came to 'watch' me in anything I ever did at schoool, too.  Not that I blamed them (see?).

"I Believe I Can Fly...okay then, meow really loudly"

My lovely (separated-at-birth) writer-sister Fionnuala blogged about self belief/confidence today here and she couldn't have posted at a more appropriate time.

I my teens I had a book of Quotes.  The most heavily-thumbed section of which was self-belief/worth/confidence/ goal-achieving; that kinda thing.  And it didn't matter how many times I repeated whatever quote I liked best that day/week, it really didn't seem to have any major influence on how my life was going at the time.  And now I know why.
Because the words were just that.
Words.  On a piece of paper.  Whereas what was most important was how much I believed in these words inside.  And how hard I really wanted these things to happen.  And how much confidence I had in myself that these things could really come to fruition.
Which I clearly never did.
I was always too distracted by others achieving their personal goals and marvelling at the way they seemed to have managed success so effortlessly (it appeared to me, the bystander) that I lost sight of what it was that I really wanted.  And in the end I convinced myself that it didn't matter, it was nice that fortune favoured others and I was probably just destined to be part of the audience in this great performance called Life.  Even if that's all I had, it was still probably quite important.  But it's never felt quite enough.


And even though I vehemently oppose the whole "I blame my parents" adage, I am completely convinced that had I been brought up surrounded with a lot more (for "more", read "any") encouragement and support and just unconditional love of wanting the best for me, as a child and growing adult, then I certainly wouldn't still be beating my head against my literary blocked wall and wondering when it's all going to happen. (oh, I didn't say 'If'  I wonder if that means anything?).

But now I need to locate, pin down and trust in this elusive 'self-confidence' thing.  I was never shown where it was kept before.  And on the rare occasions I do think I 'found' it, I was told to 'stop being such a selfish show-off' or berated for 'having ideas above my station' or even (seriously) that I wasn't allowed to have an opinion whilst I still lived under my parents' roof.  And, no, I'm not blaming them. Anymore, anyway.
No, I have come to accept that that was the way they thought parenting should go.  After all, they must have learnt by example, so if I want to 'blame' anyone, then I could just keep going back and back through generations of them and still never stop. A pointless exercise and one which sounds too exhausting to begin.

That's why God invented  Support Groups, Friends, Counsellors (fee-earning Friends) Networks and the Internet.
Just for me.
I know He didn't really.  I thought I'd just write that to see how much more important it made me feel.  Which it didn't at all.  It made me feel a bit blasphemous to be honest.  Which is another childhood throwback.
Oh, and which is also why I get a lovely, encouraging Note From the Universe every (week) day, telling me how great I am, how much fun I'm going to have and how my dreams, if I want them hard enough, WILL come true.  And for the time it takes me to read it, I really DO start believing it.  Until I realise that a hundred million other people are also receiving the same mail.
But  if we went around believing in ourselves then we'd all be happier, wouldn't we, and everyone would be nicer to and love one another more, and really, isn't that what IT's all about?