Creating Space, For Yourself

 I don't think that the work that you do to improve yourself ever really ends.  Nor should it.  It is important to reevaluate, reassess and dig a little deeper.

I am in a place in my life now where I am the happiest I have ever been.  I have worked on myself a lot over the years, especially for the last two years and it really shows.  I have reached a freedom, a peace and a clarity of mind that I never knew that I could achieve.

When you sort out the big things. the smaller things that were not noticeable before, appear.  Old behaviours or reactions that worked well at one time in your life, but are not needed now.  Some of them are so unconscious that you don't even realise.

I feel so lucky that I am at a stage now where I can see these behaviours and can work towards changing them.  For example, I have mentioned in a previous post that I unconsciously wait for someone's reaction, before allowing my own, which affects and changes how I react.  Now I know that I do this, and more importantly, why I no longer need to act this way; I can change it.

One of the things that I have realised is that I have always made myself small.  My needs and wants have always been put second, last or not even at all.  Other people have always mattered more.  I have never put myself first.  Said what I wanted.  What I needed.    

I think that that is why that I have always enjoyed and offered to organise.  Because then I can slip in some of my wants and needs.  But in general, I have always put others before myself.

This stems from a lifelong need to be wanted.  To be loved.  I have burned for years, keeping others warm.

But now, I no longer need to.  Recognising this to be true was a step that I reached recently.  I am loved.  I am wanted.  I deserve to be bigger.  To branch out.  To say what I want.  Ask for what I want.  I can allow myself that now.

I realise now that I matter too.  I have always mattered.  And I deserve to exist in a space in this world.  

The road ahead of me is exciting.  Because I am making choices now for myself, not just acquiescing to others.  Not just assuming that my needs are automatically smaller or inconsequential.  

This is my time now and anything is possible.

Shall I tell you a secret? One day, I want to write a book.  For now, I am practicing with short stories.  Because, why not.  

Tuesdays with Morrie - My Thoughts

I recently read “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom.  It was a beautiful book which made me think about and reassess my life.  That is the sign of a good book.

It started me thinking about what we have in our lives, what we need and what we want.  Which are of those are necessary to our happiness and wellbeing; and which are not. 

It also made me think about the people in my life, those I love, those I like, those I don’t like.  The reasons for this.  About what relationships I want to cultivate and grow.  Those I need to give up on or forget.  Those I need to work on.

It made me think about what I have, that is actually important and means everything to me.

I have love.  That is the first and foremost.  Nothing will ever rival the moment that I first felt truly loved.  To be able to spend the rest of my life with the person that loves me most is a gift that cannot be measured. 

Love cannot be taken for granted.  It needs work, care, consideration and give and take.  Working on my love is something that is a lifelong goal and one I need to remember.  Not to take love for granted.

I have a home.  A real home that is mine.  A safe haven.   That is something that I always wanted, and now have.

There was a line in the book that really made me think. 

You have to be ready to die, in order to be ready to live.

What does that mean?  For me that means no regrets, no things I put off till “insert date”, no chances I should have taken but didn’t.  To have lived my life as best as I can, be as good a person as I can, be as happy and bring as much happiness as I can.  So, when that time comes, hopefully decades from now, I am at peace.

Morrie talked about not worrying about getting old.  That aging means learning, and the older you are, the more you know.   That is a good thing.  The more you have experienced, the more you have lived and enjoyed.

One thing that you could tell about Morrie was that he truly lived.  He experienced everything and let himself feel it all.  He let himself fully enjoy life and completely immersed himself into whatever he chose.  He listened.  He danced.  He cried, when he needed to.  He allowed himself all emotions and did not worry about what others thought of it.

He talked about it being important to recognize when a feeling such fear came upon him.  He gave himself an amount of time to experience that fear, let himself fully feel it, immerse himself in it; and then put it aside.  By doing this it enabled him to detach from the fear having let it have its time. 

This is such an important lesson to learn and one that many of us, myself included, do not allow ourselves.   Pain, fear, anxiety, worry; these are all emotions that I have run away from in the past.  Or experienced some of and then thrown into a box in my head and buried.  But buried things in your head can find their way out.  It isn’t healthy.

Tuesdays with Morrie taught me that I need to say yes more.  Say yes instantaneously.  Before doubt or worry or planning sets in.  Maybes rarely happen.  We have one life to live and it is our duty to live them to the fullest.

I can still feel the glow that I had after reading this book.  I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Fifteen Years of Blogging!

I don't make New Year's resolutions.  I find that doing so just means that I end up actively ignoring them.  But what I did promise myself last year is that this year, I would focus more on doing what I love and brings me joy.  For me, that is writing.

Writing is something that I have always loved.  It is my passion.  My writing has taken many different paths and led me on many different journeys over the years.  Writing and sharing my posts out into the world has helped me grow as a person, given me confidence and also given me an outlet for my thoughts and feelings.

Over the years my blog has been many things.  A diary, a plus size fashion blog, a commercial posts blog and now, a place where I share my thoughts on whatever subject or current interest comes to mind.  I also have a continuing series of short stories, which I was surprised to find that I actually enjoy!

It is easy for life to take hold and for you to put passions aside.  I realised that last year I only wrote five posts for the entirety of the year.  I knew that that had to change.

Last year was a big year of chance for me.  Moving house and all that entails as well as working on myself as a person.  As a result of the personal work I have done on myself, I started this year with a happiness that I never known.  With that happiness, my desire for writing returned.

I have been so many different people during the lifetime of this blog and I think it shows.  What started as a diary of sorts to try and understand myself, changed into plus size blogging.  This gave me more and more confidence, where I had none before.  Sharing my journey into confidence, sharing photographs of myself and pushing myself out into the world, trying new things was a wonderful experience.

When I started plus size blogging, I wrote an email to the person who had inspired me.  A few years later, I received one of my own.  I cannot tell you how happy that made me and how it made me realise just how far I had come.

By this point I was working with clothing brands and I decided to branch out to writing commercial posts as well, which was a nice little sideline for a while. 

For personal reasons I decided to stop plus size blogging and commercial writing and for a few years after that, I lost my way a little with writing, with less posts every year than I ever had before.

I have been on a personal journey these past 5/6 years.  Some of this is documented on the blog, some not.  But I have taken more steps to find my own peace these last few years than ever before; and the result is the woman who writes this today.  Happy.  Fulfilled.  No longer plagued by demons of the past.

Now, I love my life, my partner, my job.  I sat down at my desk at work today and realising that I was smiling.  That is quite an accomplishment for a Monday morning!

So where will this blog go now?  What do the next fifteen years hold?  More of the same I hope.  More opinion and thoughts pieces, more short stories.  The world is open to me now, to take my journey wherever I wish.

I hope that you come along with me for the ride.

What Fictional Character Would You Invite For Dinner

 

Call me crazy, but Hannibal Lecter.  On the strict prior agreement that I would not be on the menu!

Thomas Harris’ character Hannibal Lecter is wonderfully complex and frankly, is someone who has always fascinated me.   He is a psychopath, undoubtedly.  Dangerous, absolutely.  But he is also one of the most interesting characters I have ever read.

Are psychopaths born or are they made from experiences that they had?  I think that the honest answer is probably both.  In Hannibal’s case, he was forced to watch his sister’s murder and then eat some of her body.  You could say that Hannibal’s lack of empathy stems from this very point.  He saw the worst thing in the world and never had feeling again. 

But there is more to Hannibal that the things he went through as a child.  He is extremely intelligent.  He is charming and can easily convince people to do his will.  He is fully aware of what he is and he enjoys it.  He luxuriates in who and what he is. 

He accepts into his world only what he wants, what gives him pleasure, even if that is human flesh.  He sees all other humans as either something to play with, or as food.  They are beneath him. 

But he has standards in who he chooses to eat.  Clarice interested him and he decides that the world is better with her in it.  He is more than likely in love with her, but that is buried deep.  He is capable of love but does not allow himself to feel it.  I think that may be the only safety net that he has.  Instead, he believes that he keeps her alive because she is a toy that he chooses to pick up and play with now and again.

What I find interesting is that Hannibal is not just a cannibal.  He also murders for pleasure.  He killed Benjamin Raspail because his playing displeased him.  But he had his fun by serving his organs to the Board of Philharmonic Orchestra.  Almost like serving up a gift to them, not only enhancing (as he would say) their meal but also by improving their orchestra.

Hannibal enjoys killing.  I have to wonder that if he had not given into these urges, the flamboyant killings, whether he would ever have been caught.   It is his need for admiration and showing off that gave him away in the end. 

He has to be noticed.  He expects to be noticed.  For all his lack of empathy, he has a need to be seen.  You will see me.  Look at me and wonder.   Almost childlike in that regard.

You can see why people flocked towards him.  Are intrigued by him.   Like I am myself.  He was created by both nature and nurture.  We will never know if he would have became what he did if his sister had not been killed in such a way.  But his tendencies for cruelty, sadism and his enjoyment of that, had to in some way been born with him.

I suspect that if you asked Hannibal Lecter whether he regretted his crimes, he would say no.  Because to him, he is above the law.  I believe that Hannibal would think of himself as no less than a god.   A god who did not need to explain himself, nor would he.  A god who made his own rules.  Lived above and beyond the rules and laws that us mere mortals follow.

There would of course have to be rules.  Many people would have to know he was invited.  He would not be the one cooking.  But I think it would be a chance to meet someone who is utterly unique.  One can only hope that there would not be many Hannibal Lecters in the world.  But it sure would be interesting to meet him.  With I knowing who he truly is and he knowing that I knew.  I think he would enjoy it.  A chance to once again, show off.

Who would you invite for dinner?  You don’t have to go to a weird angle as I did!

When Familiarity Breeds Complacency

 They say familiarity breeds contempt.  I say that it breeds complacency.

We are in an age now where job security is not a sure thing.  Where people change jobs every two years, chasing a higher wage, different benefits.  But what about those who stay in the same job for years?

You may be in a relationship for a decade or two, but are you happy?  Or is it just what you know and it is easier?  Are you making yourself unhappy because you are too scared of being alone?

In relation to behaviour, you may have grown up a certain way and you act in accordance with that, but does that not mean that you can change?  Questioning the way you have always acted can be intimidating.   It is has worked for you so far, why change?  But what if the change will make your life better?  Make you better.

The new can be exciting but also terrifying.  It is an unknown quantity threatening to enter into your space.  A space that you know well.  That is safe.  It is what you know.

I have experience with some of these.

I was with my previous employer for twenty-five years.  I had grown up there; it was safe and familiar.  I had a fantastic boss.  But.  The work had changed and was hurting my soul.  The business had moved to somewhere inconvenient.  The money was not what I wanted and was not likely to change.  My partner questioned frequently why I stayed.  My answer was always; it is home.  But the truth was, it wasn't anymore.

Then one day I was approached by someone from my current employer, suggesting a move.  Something in the stars that day made me think.  Made me question what I really wanted to do and what I wanted to achieve. 

My job then was a safe cocoon, but was I still happy?  I decided to make the leap of faith, knowing it was right and that I could do this.  I was ready.  Although there were many tears (from me) when I left, it was absolutely the right choice.  I do not regret it for a second and have been so happy in my new employ.

The second experience is how I act.  How you act and react is often formed early on.  Behaviours are learned that are not always healthy.  Now that I have reached a time in my life where everything is good, those behaviours need to change.

I apologise too often.  I put myself down too often.  I wait to see someone’s reaction before I allow myself my own.  I am scared of rejection and can be like a puppy begging for affection.  All of these things are learned behaviour, but I know are not what I was meant to be.  Who I was meant to be.

Hard wired reactions are hard to change.  But the answer is slowly.  Step by step.   Day by day.

I pause a lot now before I speak.  Before I rush out an unneeded apology.  Before I put myself down.  I have noticed since doing this that I even used to put myself down first, before mentioning something good that had happened to me or something I had achieved.

A prime example of this was this weekend.  I was at a spa with friends and I was talking about a post that I had written with my friend, while we were getting a facial.  She said that I was a writer and I was good at it.  I immediately tried to diminish.   Saying no, I am just a blogger.  I write part time.  Just bits and pieces.  It was an immediate reaction that I could not take back.

But I am a writer.  Yes, I do write part time, but it is my passion, my love.   It is my vehicle for words that may not come out of my mouth, but are in my head.  My words flow freely through my fingers when I write.  It is a natural.  It is freeing.  It is mine. 

If someone likes my writing, then that is wonderful.  But it is not why I write.  I write because I want to.  Because I need to.   It is in me.

Now, when someone asks me what I think, I try not to predict their reaction before I answer.  I also try not to give them the answer or reaction that I think will please them the most.  I am more honest. 

These are all things that I am still learning, still trying to do.  It is hard to rewire learned behaviour, but it is possible.

I don’t know about you, but I have been at so many stages in my life, and I am a very different person to the girl I once was.   Every step, every change, you do not notice while it is happening; but then you look at yourself one day and you are not the same person.

Courage.  Courage is key.  It is about giving yourself a chance.  A chance for more, a chance to be a better version of yourself, a chance to expand your life.  A chance to be happier.

I welcome new things into my life now.  Changing the immediate no, to a maybe, to a yes, to a hell yes.  When you open yourself up to new things, the possibilities and rewards are endless.

Budgeting Tips for 2026

 I have talked about money saving tips before on this blog here.

Today I wanted to talk about the basic budgeting techniques that I carry out every day in order to make the most of my money and make it work for me.  I have one budget for my personal money and another for the joint account for my partner and myself.

I have a monthly budget for every month for the next year.  Sounds excessive?  Probably, but it works for me.

The biggest things to factor in are the things that you don’t think about at first glance.  For example, some months of the year have five weeks in them.  There are four this year.  So what does that mean?  An extra weekly food shop at a minimum.  A five week month will typically require an extra £150 to my budget when you look at all the extras.

What I do to counter this is at the beginning of the year I look at the number of months with the extra week and work out the extra money needed.  So this year, an extra £600.00 was needed.  This equates to £50.00 per month.  Every month as part of the budget, I transfer £50.00 to our savings account, using when needed on the “extra months”.

Another thing to look at are subscriptions services like Amazon.  We have regular subscriptions set up for things like coffee, pet food etc which are all set to different frequencies.  Some can be every six weeks, every three months, etc.  So at the start of the year I check the dates (Amazon helpfully projects the dates for you) and I incorporate these figures into the appropriate month.

When it comes to food, make sure that you have the store clubcard.  With mine, I pay an £8.00 per month subscription, but this saves me 10% of two of my shopping bills.  On average, after taking the subscription payment into account, I usually save at least £20.00.  Over the year, that is a saving of £240.00.   Every little helps!

Other things to think about are things like home and car insurance.   It is usually cheaper to pay annually for these things, so I set aside an amount every month (based on the previous year’s figure with an increase of 10%) to go into a specific savings account to pay for them when the time arises.  This accrues interest and means that when the time comes, the money is ready and waiting to be paid.

I tend to use a cashback site when arranging the yearly insurance too, which can gain you around £100 if you shop around.  I use the cashback sites for many things, but the big earners are home insurance, car insurance and pet insurance.

I also incorporate a “slush” section into my monthly budget.  There are the inevitable things in the month that come up that you need (or want) to buy and having some extra money available helps.  I account an amount of money every month and anything we don’t spend is moved into a savings account.

Forward planning for the year ahead means that I am never surprised by the extra food shop in the month, or when the bulk orders from Amazon come out of the account.  It is there, ready.

This type of planning absolutely takes time and I am much more vigilant than I need to be.  I update the budget when bills come out, food is bought etc every few days so I always know where we are at any given point.

Here is an example of the accounts I use for our joint account in order to keep everything running perfectly.

 Current Account                      All bills are paid from here

Insurance Savings                    Money is transferred here by standing order each month

Regular Savings                       Any money left over from the “slush” money goes in here together with     the monthly “five week payment”.

 These are just a few of the ways that planning out your budget for a year can save you money.  I would estimate that doing everything the way that I do saves/earns me £400-500 a year.

What top tips do you have for your budget?

Creative Corner 5 - Wishes from a Genie

Story Prompt

You are given three wishes by a genie, but the twist is, you don't get to chose what you receive. The genie does.

Do you remember the day that the earth decided to stop hiding the magic in the world?  No one ever discovered the reason why.  It was as if Mother Earth had just decided that there was too much pain in the world and decided to give us the magic that we knew, or hoped, was under the surface.  Just outside of our vision.  But no longer.

What became interesting was what was folklores were true, what creatures were real and what we had in fact made up in our heads.  Fairies?  Real.  Trolls?  Real.  Dinosaurs?  A hoax, apparently perpetrated by pixies (also real) to mess with the human race.

Dragons were real, but had in fact become extinct.  The Loch Ness Monster, was real but also now extinct.  I was sad about that one.

Crime rates went down, though this was a technicality because it turned out that a lot of unsolved murders were actually committed by vampires and the occasional werewolf and no one was quite sure yet as to whether those beings could be charged with a crime.  You certainly couldn’t put them in prison.  They would eat the population.  

The Yeti and Big foot were real, but decided to stay in the shadows.  They were still not interested in interacting with humans.

Magic was real, although who was magical and who wasn’t was still not obvious.  A bit like Harry Potter with us being the muggles.  Magical people prefer to keep to themselves and have their own government.  Although it is called Nydrian.  Not the Ministry of Magic.

What brings me to my post today though is my experience with a magical being.  Not a witch, wizard or warlock, but an actual genie.  They are exceedingly rare so rumours still fly around as to their existence.  But yes, I met one.   Here is my story.

What you need to know about genies is that yes, they do grant three wishes, of a kind.  The difference however is that they choose for you.  They are a pure spirit and can see what it is that you actually need.  So what did the genie choose for me?  Three opportunities to speak to my soul, the essence of my being, at times of my choosing.

At the time I was disappointed.   Winning the lottery for example would have been nice.  But after much thought on the matter, and indeed after having my three wishes, I discovered that what I had been given was actually priceless.  I received inner peace.

Have you ever found actual true inner peace?  I did not think it was possible to be honest, or even if I thought about it, it was never something that I believed that I could ever attain.

The first time I spoke to my soul I was wary.  I was going to find out who I actually was.  I had been through a lot in my life and wasn’t sure I would like what I found.  So I started with “Hello.  Who am I?”

My soul, unnamed and female, told me to close my eyes and she took me back to the absolute baseline of myself.  The core of who I am.  For that time period, every moment of pain, every sadness, every bad moment of my life was lifted off my shoulders and set aside.  It was all still there.  But temporarily moved to the side.  So I could truly see, me, stripped bare.  I felt lighter, so much lighter. And so young. 

There is something wonderful, and quite relieving about realizing that you are the person that you thought you were.  The feeling that had plagued my life of not being good enough was frankly ridiculous.  It was such a pure feeling; and it has stayed with me since.

Even when it was over and all the pain that had been removed was put back, I knew, absolutely, that I was not only still a whole person, but that I was enough and that made so much difference.  That is when I began to realise what I had been given.

I chose not to take my second opportunity to speak with my soul for about six months.  I was settling into myself, the new feelings of confidence and I knew, somehow, that the actual work would begin with my second meeting.

I was right.  The second time was hard.  The hardest thing I have ever experienced.  There was anger in my body.  Rage. Indescribable fury.  There was something in me that needed to come out.  Immediately.  I won’t tell you the details, some things do have to remain private, but the words that erupted from my mouth had festered in me for decades. 

It was painful, but so very needed.

Anger isn't healthy. Pain isn't healthy. Burying them as deep as I had damages your soul. 

The fall out from that took me some time to heal from.  To accept.  To understand what that meant and how my life would be different as a result.   For a time the sadness that I have carried for so long was much worse, but I began to understand that the knowledge of it was no longer festering inside me.  I was free of it.

I waited a year for my final encounter with my soul.  I needed to heal.  

I did not know what to expect.  I was nervous.  Scared.  But what happened that day was the most beautiful, perfect time of my life.  I found my inner peace.

This time, my soul said hello back and although there was no corporeal being for me to see, it felt that she was pleased to see me.  She was welcoming me I realised.  She told me that I was free.  She invited me to step into what I guess you could describe as a mansion in my mind.  Some people call them memory palaces.

I realized that there were no more skeletons hiding there.  No locked boxes with chains wrapped round them, never to be touched.  No dangerous paths that I did not dare traverse.  I was finally free of all of it. 

It is hard to describe, but I felt that I was finally moving into myself.  There was so much of me to explore.  No dark corners.  I was there to be filled, to be explored.  The more I moved around in this place, the more sunlight streamed in.

There was scar tissue there. Previous pain. But healed. It no longer needed attention or notice.

I knew at that point with absolutely certainty that the future was mine now.  To do with what I wished.  That nothing could hold me back. All those dark places inside me were now filled with light and were ready to be filled again with whatever I wanted. With happiness.

I can truly say that I had never felt as happy.  Ever.  I experienced real, beautiful joy.

Knowing that nothing can hold you back now is powerful. I can truly see now what I have in this world. So much to be grateful for.  I can look back at my journey and feel proud that I made it out. In one piece. Whole.

The world is now is open to me.  I can truly enjoy my life. 

So if you happen to come across a genie, let them choose. They truly do know best. 

I'm off now to chat with the fairies, who really do live at the bottom of your garden. Turns out, they can make a mean mojito. 

The Internet - Why Our Lives Are Now Smaller

Do you remember a time before the internet?  I am old enough to.  I remember being taught how to use it the very first time.  The trainer asked us to search “how to cook a chicken”.  I did not know then how the internet would quickly form a major part of my life, my routine.  I did not realise how it would change my life, for the better and for the worse.

Anything that I could possibly want to buy is available online.   Books, music, clothes, the food I eat.

In some ways, the internet saves us a lot of time.  You don’t need to go into a clothing store anymore.  You can choose multiple options of whatever you want and get a courier to return what you don’t want.  You want to clean your sink drain, Amazon is here for you.  You can’t be bothered to cook tonight, Just Eat will sort you out. You forget an ingredient for the meal you are cooking tonight, Deliveroo has your back.   You want to go somewhere, you open Google Maps.

The internet has made it so you could reasonably never leave your home if you didn’t want to.  Especially if you work from home.

You can be permanently entertained, forever.  Netflix, Prime, Disney Plus, Youtube.  You will never run out of things to watch.  Adverts can be a thing of the past, if you pay for the privilege.  You can connect to people from all over the world, without ever leaving your sofa.

The internet even provides some with a job now.  You can use it to purchase things and then review them.  You can game and have people watch you play.  You can spout your opinions online and have people listen to you.

The internet has given me much.  The platform I write to you on now.  Twitter, I refuse to use X, that helped me to find some like minded people and opened up my voice.

But with the good, comes the bad.

We are losing social skills.  We are losing human interactions.  We are losing our time to things that do not matter and do not affect our lives.  We lose hours doom scrolling, playing games, always searching for the next dopamine hit.  The next really interesting thing that is surely just a scroll away.

I remember my old morning routine.  I got up in the morning, had a shower, made a fresh coffee, put my makeup on and sat down on the sofa, munching on a slice of toast before I was out of the door.  Quick, easy.  Up and out of the house within 45 minutes.

Now, I sit on the sofa and check to see what is going on in the world before I start my day.  I check Facebook, Twitter, a news website.  What I guess I would consider “the necessary”.  The absolute basics.  Then I “quickly” check Reddit and suddenly thirty more minutes have disappeared, reading stories about other people’s lives.  Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.  So it begins.

I drag myself out of the house and catch the bus.  Instead of just quietly sitting there, maybe reading my book if I have remembered it; it is more doom scrolling, maybe playing a game on an app or for a longer journey, watching an episode of one of my shows on Netflix.  I must be entertained.

Sitting quietly, or chatting with someone is a thing of the past.  We can no longer just sit.  We check our emails, check the socials. Shop.  All while the people next to us do the same thing.  Interacting with our phones instead of each other.  We converse with the people in our phones instead of the person right in front of us.

Children’s birthday parties used to be full of games and playing and pin the tail on the donkey.  Listening to music together and dancing.  Now each child sits there, immersed in their own world on their phones.  Your “cool” status rides on how many likes you have, how many followers you have.

I remember having problems in school when I was a child.  Bullying was involved.  But back then, I could go home.  To my safe haven.  Those children were not there.  I was with my family.  There was an escape from it.

Now, there is no escape.  Those same children are now online, talking about you.  Posting about you.  The bullying actually becomes worse because people says things online that they would never to your face.  They can start a rumour about you that spreads in minutes, true or not.  There is no escape.

You can also not just be “you” anymore.  You have to have a label.  As many labels as possible.  The more you can put on your social media profiles, the better.  You are not tidy, you have OCD.  You are not a moody teenager.  You have depression, bipolar, anxiety disorder.  You have an argument with your parents.  Oh, you must have PTSD.  You are struggling with your growing body and hormones.  Maybe you aren’t a girl after all.  Maybe you are a boy.  Maybe you are both. 

Decide.  DECIDE!  Tell the world.  Tell the internet.  And once you decide, you are not allowed to go back.  You cannot change your mind.  Who you are.  Thoughts that you tweeted ten years ago which do not represent you anymore are enough to hang you.  You are not allowed to change.  The internet lasts forever.

The internet can also be used as a weapon in a different form.   That cheeky snap that you send your partner can end up being shared to everyone you know.  That video you made together, can end up on Pornhub.

Men and women have been pitted against each other like never before.  All men are this, all women are that.  How do you know?  Well I saw a video on Youtube.  I read a thread on Reddit.  Not actual interaction.

People tell you, as I have told you above, that our world has increased and been made easier by the internet.

But in fact, when you look, when you really look, our world has gotten so much smaller.  Our lives have become more insular.  We shout at the world telling them to listen to us, read our stories, watch us; but the people next to us no longer exist.

We can never go back.  Our lives are too intertwined. But there are changes we can make.    These are the promises I make to myself:

·       -  When I am with someone, my phone is away.

·       - When I am on the bus, I will read a book, not a Reddit story.

·       - When I want to go somewhere, I will take recommendations from word of mouth, not a Yelp reviewer.

·       -  I will start writing more again.  It gives me peace and enjoyment.  The numbers of who reads and who   doesn’t no longer concerns me.

·       -  If I cannot find something to watch, I will read, I will talk.  I will no longer doom scroll for an hour to     find something.

There is a hard one.  Reddit.  Of all the doom scrolling, this is the one for me.  There is no purpose to Reddit.  You read about other people’s lives and not your own.  You comment on those lives with your opinion, which is right for some but not for others.  You are barely even allowed to have an opinion on Reddit these days as it is, so why am I still there?

I no longer want to engage in things that do not bring anything into my life.   Do not add to my life and in fact, take time away from actually living my life.  I can use the internet for the good it still holds to.  I can educate myself, I can learn about new things.  There is so much out there I do not know and that information is at my fingertips.  But instead, I scroll.

This is the promise we need to make to ourselves. 

Stop. Scrolling. 

It is ok not to be entertained

Recovery from a Hysterectomy - 10 weeks in

 This is a follow up to my initial post on how I have been recovering from a hysterectomy.

I am now ten weeks in and this has been my experience.

The first four weeks of my recovery were much easier than I expected.  Sleepiness, some insomnia, a little pain now and again but on the while, it was plain sailing.  The following two weeks were much the same.

Then, six weeks post surgery (presumably once all the swelling had started to decrease) I started to get pain in my right thigh.  This increased to the point where I was hobbling and barely able to walk.  Prior to this I had been getting up every hour, walking around the house, was back to cooking lunches and dinners every day.  I made sure to go up and down the stairs every day to get a bit of exercise, as the weather outside was not the best.

After suffering with quite significant pain in my thigh for a week, I ended up after taking advice going to urgent care.  What had happened was something which can be a result of the surgery.  I had robotic surgery and was in a diagonal position for three hours.  This trapped a nerve in my thigh.

It was a relief to know at least what was wrong and that the pain would go away.

I had the pain for about another ten days, and was given Codeine and Naproxen for the pain.  Which I have to say amused me because although I needed it, the hospital only gave me three painkillers to take home with me after my hysterectomy.  Three!  Thankfully simple paracetamol worked for me for any pain I had in that regard.

I ended up taking two extra days off work as a result of the trapped nerve and had to be careful for my first week back at work, where typically I work on the top floor, only accessed by stairs.

I share this with you today not to scare you.  Getting a trapped nerve can happen, but it is not a usual thing or something you should worry about expecting to happen.

I am now ten weeks post surgery and I have no pain at all.  My scars are healing wonderfully and I am again back to wondering whether they did take out anything at all, given that my healing journey (leg aside) has been so easy!

I am happy that I had the surgery.  No more pain.  No more periods.  I am back to normal, working and everything is just as it should be.

Recovery from A Hysterectomy - My Journey So Far

On the 30th December I had a hysterectomy.  This is something, after trying many other avenues without success, that was needed.  I met with a Consultant last June and after reviewing my scan which revealed large fibroids that had once again returned, he advised that I should have a hysterectomy, leaving my ovaries so that I could go through menopause naturally.

My answer was obvious.  No more pain, no more periods (woo hoo!).  At my age although the possibility of getting pregnant was still a factor and was possible, I have never wanted children; so taking away that possibility was also something I wanted.  Plus getting rid of the damn Mirena coil was an added bonus.  I had already vowed never, ever to go through the pain of having one in again.

It is now coming up to four weeks since my surgery and I am pleased that I made the right choice.  I have heard many different experiences about recovery post surgery, from what happens when you wake up, to potential pain, problems and mobility after.  So I thought that I would share my experience with you so far.

I had a robotic hysterectomy.  I do urge you to google the machine that they use.  It is amazing!  If you have ever seen RoboCop, the scene where they bring the machine into the board meeting and it ends up killing someone; it looks a little like that.  It is very cool.   Alas I did not get to see in person as I was already under anaesthetic before they wheeled me into surgery.

The next morning after my surgery (finished around 7.30 the last before), I expected to be quite a bit of pain.  For me, the pain wasn't bad at all.  In fact I was more concerned about the catheter that they were due to take out.  I don't know why, but that freaked me out more than anything else.

Before they will discharge you, you have to be able to get up and move around, have the catheter out and have peed at least three times so that they know everything is working there as it should.  I just wanted to go home.  I had not slept well the night before.  The nurses (who were wonderful) checked on me around every 45 minutes during the night so sleep didn't go too well.  So I drank and drank until the required bathroom element was completed and I could go home.

Upon discharge they gave me a sick note for six weeks, which they told me was the minimum (I promptly lost this as soon as I got home and had to get another from my GP).  They also give you seven injections, well six as they did the first in the hospital for me, which you need to inject into your stomach every day.  

No one likes injections, but after the initial "I cannot not this" and then deciding that having my boyfriend in control of the injection rather than me would be worse (yes I am a control freak), I got the first one out of the way.  By injection 4 I was an old hat at it and it barely hurt at all.  

The first thing that I will tell you, which I think is a universal thing, is that you are going to be tired.  Not just right after the surgery and in the days after, but for a long time.  I am still tired, although I am not doing much of anything other than watching box sets and reading books.

Alongside the tiredness, for the first couple of weeks I was also experiencing insomnia.  Sometimes I was wide away until 3-4 am.  This is dissipating now.  But the tiredness persists.  My boyfriend tells me that I am sleeping less during the day now though, so that is some improvement.

One thing that I was worried about was the scarring.  I knew that there would be five incision sites and I had visions of looking like Frankenstein's monster.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  There are five different sites, some with a couple of incisions next to each other.  The size of them surprised me, barely half an inch, if that.  Four weeks on, I have started to use bio oil and am happy to report that they will be barely noticeable.  

Going on to the pain.  Everyone is different, some get a lot, some get prolonged pain, some experience medium levels, some experience none.  In general, my pain levels have been small.  I have had a couple of days recently where the pain has increased, but to do with every knitting together I think.  I was given three days of pain medication, one a day I think, but on the whole, a couple of paracetamol or Ibuprofen have held me comfortably.  Some days I have none at all.

Before the operation and since having it I have been using the Hysterectomy section on Reddit.  This has been massively helpful as many women have written about and answered questions that I wanted to know.  If you have a hysterectomy, I highly recommend going on there.

One thing that I have learned is that it is important to listen to the "don't dos".   Sex is obviously off the menu for a while.  But the important parts are: don't lift anything heavy.  Don't do too much, of anything.  Don't drive.

Not doing anything is a challenge.  But it is necessary.  Doing the smallest thing can tire you out.  Start small.  Very small.

Because I have an office job I was given six weeks off work.  If you have a more manual job they will sign you off for longer.  Take the time.  All of it.  If, like me with smaller pain levels, you get the urge to go back to work early, don't.  If you can't make yourself dinner without having to lie down after, you definately cannot manage to work for eight hours.

That is my journey so far.  I will let you know how I go on when I get back to work in mid February.  But I am healing well and am trying to enjoy this period away from work.  This is the longest period I have had from work since I left school and no doubt will not have again until I retire. 

So far, so good!

2025 - The Biggest Year of My Life

 2025 was a big one.  The biggest of my life.

My boyfriend and I started 2025 in a flurry of activity.  We had bought a house and were in the process of moving boxes from November 2024 until we finally moved in, in mid January 2025.  This was a big move for me.

I had moved in with my boyfriend two years prior, but his home did not feel like my home.  Anyone who has moved in with someone who previously lived with a long term partner can understand that.  Although I liked the house, it was not truly my home and I knew that I would never be at home there.

My boyfriend had restored that house from the ground up and had a lot of emotion tired to that house, but he knew that I would never be comfortable.  Finding a home perfect for both of us though was less of a challenge than I thought.  The right one appeared and by January, we were in. 

Although there is work to be done and changes to be made, I truly love this house.  It feels like home.  My home.  Our home.  This is the first house of my life that has truly felt like mine.  

So that was the first big change of the year.  The second was my job.  I had been thinking about a change of jobs for a few months, but having been at that job for 25+ years, even thinking about moving was a big thing.  I had truly grown up with that firm, having started there when I turned 18.  Some people still there when I left had seen me grow from a child to a woman and I had a relationship with my boss that I know will never be replicated.  

But the work had changed.  The firm had changed.  I was working and had been for some time in historical abuse and that was taking its toll.  Adding that to a change in ownership and a change in location and all the signs were telling me that it was time to go.

I was lucky enough to be headhunted in March by another firm.  Different department, different work, more pay and the people all seemed to be nice.  So, I made the decision and jumped ship.

My last day with the firm was emotional.  I shed tears when I walked out of the door for the last time but could only hope that I had made the right decision.

Starting at my new job was like starting my career over again.  Although the basis of what I did was the same, the work was completely new and I knew nothing about it.  I was starting to learn again, whilst being in a busy office and from the ground up.  But I found the challenge exhilarating and after the first couple of months of "Can I do this?" the answer was yes, yes I can.

I have been incredibly lucky to move to this new firm where I feel at home.  Where all the staff are fantastic, I made made a close friend in one of my colleagues and the money is better.  My old boss has checked on me a couple of times (I suspect to see if I wanted to come back) and I have bumped into him once.  I had a fantastic working relationship with him and that is something that I will never have again.  The rest of my old work colleagues have been disappointing.  I have not heard from any of them (yes I reached out).  But hey ho.  My life has moved on.

Finally, and most importantly, I have finally found my inner peace.  I have struggled for most of my adult life, but this was the year where I found the tools to put to rest my ghosts.  I reached the point where I could finally exhale.   I had the moment of knowing, right then and there, that everything is now ok.  I am ok.  It was wonderful.  More than wonderful.

Healing can be a long process and the journey can be full of dead ends, side paths and doubling back.  But since that day, I have felt a calm, a peace and happiness like I have never known.  I am now who I was always meant to be.  Unrestrained and unencumbered by pain.  

I have my boyfriend who I adore, a home I love, a job I enjoy, great friends and I have found my peace.  There are no more locked boxes hidden away, no dark corners in the attic of my mind.  There is light there now; and peace and happiness.

I am thankful.