The last year of my life...

I have been away from writing for a long while, I am hoping that this will serve as an explanation for my absence, as well as a catalyst for my return...

The last year has not been an easy one for me, nor has it been altogether good. I was never the most prolific writer but before the last twelve months I was never away from writing for longer than a few weeks, and never so completely absent as in the last year. My initial reasons for taking a break from short story writing were positive ones. I felt as though I was in a rut, both personally and creatively, I had made up my mind that 2012 was going to be a good year for me, a year when something in my life changed for the better. So I started a new blog, and I also came up with an idea for a full length novel. I didn't want to let my other writing influence those things so I decided to take a break. That was my first mistake, I had no idea what was going to happen in my life that year and how long I would end up being away.

 

So, I started my new blog, and was working on the idea for a novel. In my personal life I was trying to experience new things and focus more on my relationships. I was also planning to return to education in 2012. Work was not going brilliantly and I wanted more out of my life. I was optimistic, and I truly thought if I stuck at it things would change for me. Then a work colleague got pregnant, and I decided to postpone returning to education for a year while she was on maternity leave, so that I could pick up her extra hours and save up some money. That was my second mistake.

By far the best thing to happen to me in 2012 was in September, I decided on a whim that I needed to do some travelling. So I went to Paris, on my own. It was an amazing trip and possibly the best thing I have ever done. I think of it as the saving grace of the last twelve months, certainly without it 2012 would have been one of the worst years of my life.

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I had an awesome time in Paris, and seriously debated not coming home for a time while there. I obviously did return home however, and a few days after getting home I turned 26. My birthday was a good one, I was on a high from my trip to Paris, and surrounded by my friends and family I had an amazing time. But underneath I was feeling restless...
I wanted, or rather I needed, a change, and the year was growing older without me achieving anything I had hoped for at the beginning of 2012.

Then, towards the end of October tragedy struck my family. My older sister Melanie passed away very suddenly, I'm not going to go into specifics about this, there's mush more to that story. Suffice to say that I was devastated, I still am, and it took me a long time to come to terms with my loss. I had a myriad of emotions running through me after Mel's death. Not least of all anger, anger at the pointlessness of it all. She was only 35, and what had her life amounted to? No kids, no family apart from me, there were only seven people at her funeral. I couldn't believe that a whole life could be over so quickly with nothing to show for it and no one to care. It made me all the more desperate to change my circumstances, for something, anything to happen in my life.

I was applying for new jobs left right and centre but not getting anywhere. I had stopped writing too. I had given up on my blog and stopped working on my novel. It seems crazy to me in retrospect. Giving up the one thing that might have helped me through the emotions I was dealing with. My relationship suffered too, my partner CJ was amazing throughout the whole ordeal. I however was not, I've struggled with abandonment issues in the past, and after my sister died they resurfaced. I became terrified of losing anyone else and I clung to CJ a little too hard. I felt like I was losing my family, my identity, and I became obsessed with starting a new one as soon as possible. I even came close to issuing CJ with an ultimatum, either he agreed to marry me, or I would leave. All because I was afraid of losing him.

Then in April CJ lost his mum, aside from it being awful and bringing back a lot of bad memories, it put things into perspective for me. It's different now, eventually things started to calm down- I started to calm down! I'm still dealing with a lot, we both are, but CJ and I are stronger than ever.
I still hate my job, but I have applied to return to college this September, and this is me trying to get back on the writing horse. I'm not going to continue with my blog, the premise was flawed to begin with, but I am going to continue writing my book.

Hopefully once life get's back to normal, all those other things will take care of themselves. In the meantime I'm going to continue enjoying my life and the people I love.