I {heart} Me.

This time last year I didn’t know what a blog was - well, I had a vague idea but had never looked at one in the flesh, so to speak, and would never have imagined that through writing one I would allow myself to share myself. This blog has given me permission to be creative - publishing poems, prose and photographs - and recently it’s the photography that has been ringing my bell the most.
This is the secret I have learned in recent years:: to be happy we must find the thing that makes us excited; we must nurture a rich interior life, one filled with images/music/words/scents/yarns/fabrics/paints/beads/glue/films/recipes - whatever it is that make our mouth water, that honors the creative spark we all carry inside.
Relationships are very important of course, but before we can commune with another (before I can commune with another) we must be able to commune with ourselves and be able to sit in that quiet space, all alone, and listen to what it is we need on a soul-level.
This last year has been a gift I was given - the chance to really be on my own, meet that woman inside myself and look her square in the eye in silence. I know one day I will consider myself lucky that I’ve had this time - I think I’m starting to already… despite the complicated ‘stuff’ that I deal with in my everyday world, this feeling of gratitude, of okay-ness, is starting to permeate every thought and feeling I have. Perhaps this is the invincibility of grief coming back - knowing I’ve survived I can take on the world! - but I don’t mind its return.

No matter what the world throws at me, no matter how many disappointments and let-downs I face, I have found my inner core of self-awareness - I am my own best friend - and that means I will be okay.