All The Things I Love....

I've just registered for an invite to participate in www.pinterest.com - a website that feeds off Facebook and Twitter that allows you to create a pinboard of all the things you love. And it made me think....

With all the hardships I've gone through over the past 12-18 months and all the things I've been able to rise and shine above, I guess it's a cathartic process, a much needed process just to define the things that I love.

First and foremost, are my boys.

They are great friends who have a love/hate relationship (as all siblings do), especially now that they are confined to a shared bedroom and no space for themselves. I'm am truly blessed with their compassion and love, their silliness and fun, but most of all, that they are there for me.

I love to write... there is no doubt. It feeds my soul, it makes me feel I have a voice, it inspires me to try new things and embrace the world. It's an outlet for my happiness, my sorrow, my confusion, my humour and my understanding of the world. 

I do love my family... but that too has its moments of love/hate. I do find that I am constricted to their expectations, their values and desires, and what I want from my family they aren't prepared to give. No doubt, over the last couple of weeks, they have been more than supportive, the way I wished and hoped they would have been while I was going through the torturous demise of my marriage ending. But the rules change when you lose your sense of power over your own life and give it back to them, just for the interim. Even though I need them the most I've ever needed them right now, I still also value my freedom.

I love a man who can't give me everything I need from him. He's the only person who literally lifts my spirits each time I communicate with him, he's the only person who actually accepts me for me and doesn't try to change me or have other expectations for me. He nurtures me, guides me, teaches me and makes me feel loved, if only in the time we interact. 

I love to travel... it's what makes me feel human, makes me feel at my happiest. It makes me look outside of my world into the homes and hearts of others and appreciate the smaller things in life that make such a difference to others. At the moment, as I've been denied from authorities to travel to one of the countries that I feel most inspired in, it really has crushed my soul. However, I am looking into new ways of being able to fulfil my dream.

I love provincial style homes - homes with antiques, with distressed furniture, homes that look lived in, not a display home for cleanliness. Homes where you can flop on a couch, put your feet up on the coffee table, smell the aroma of home baked goods, a wide verandah to sit on and enjoy a wine with friends or indulge in a book and enjoy a different view of the cottage gardens, the hills beyond or the ocean nearby from inside. I love the rambling look of a home, a roasting fireplace for winter, and a lush meandering garden in summer. 

I love the water... if it's a bath, a swim in the sea, snorkelling in tropical waters, a soothing pond or even a cool drink of H2O. Water is peaceful, enlightening, cooling, calming... 

I love to read - it's an escape into other people's lives, the world that we live in and an observation into the choices we make.

I love music - another escape that defines our emotions, it pinpoints our memories from when you first heard a song and it's something that allows you to connect with another through romantically, emotionally and physically.

I love my friends... I have a handful of friends who have entered my life over the last couple of years who I would be lost without. I have friends from my high school days who are always there in the background and I cherish so deeply. These are the people who understand me most, give me grief when I'm not thinking straight, but are always there for a chat, a hug, a laugh or a shoulder to cry on when I need them. 

But most of all... I love me. I have to. No one will love me as much as I do. I need to understand it more. Make choices about what's most important to me, what's going to be beneficial to me, what's going to make me better as a person and as a writer and understand my boundaries more. I know I need to release the pressure I put myself under and I know I am my worst enemy. But we all are... I blame myself too much for the situations I put myself in and forget that they are life lessons that need to be experienced for me to grow. 

Over the last couple of weeks, I've put a lot of heart and soul into thinking about what is most important to me... and I am going to do my very best to make it happen. If I don't, I know there will be regret. And I can't live a day in my life where I regret not doing something that wants to blossom inside me.

For all my loyal readers, make a list of all the things in your life that you love and make you complete. It makes you feel real again...

The Realisation Part Three

When I returned, I was happy to see everyone. I felt renewed and eager to get back into the day to day activities, but with a new invigoration to step it up a notch and start looking out for me a bit more. Even though I'd accepted that I needed to start doing things for myself, divorce didn't even enter my mind. I just knew I needed to do a few more things for myself to make me happy, as I was the one who was in charge of my own happiness.

I started looking into ways that I could accelerate my writing skills into another genre, I wrote a children's book manuscript, I researched the publishing industry to see how it worked and how to get noticed; I started to talk to illustrators regarding my children's book ideas and researched what genres were selling. I started reading more, escaping into my own little world to understand more about life, more about the things that were important to me. I wanted to share these things with my husband, but his interest and level of expertise wasn't there to give me anything but patronising praise. He had no idea what I was talking about and he was too in tune with his own creative world to step for a minute into mine. It was disheartening because I wanted him to share the same excitement for it as me, but he just didn't have the level of comprehension or passion that I had to talk to him about it.

I started my Masters in Writing on-line and discovered a whole new world of like-minded people who had the passion and intensity for writing as I did. At last, I could argue points that were important to me, feeling like my opinion was important and I could have an intellectual conversation about writing and publishing. At last, I was being heard. It was liberating and exhilarating, it was something that I really felt was in tune with my heart.

It was obvious though, our passions were living in completely separate corners and the way we worked on those passions were worlds apart. We just didn't care to admit it at the time. He wanted to do things his way and wouldn't allow me to give him suggestions on how he could improve his turnover, so I just kept going with my own thing, keeping the bills paid and my heart content in my writing. I was feeling good about myself again... I had a new hat to wear - 'budding author', and I liked it.