Another beginning ...

When you get right out into the country it gets really hard to see. We’re so used to city glow painting our horizons amber. But if you walk far enough in the right direction you can slip into an altogether deeper darker specimen of night.

This was one of those times. I knew I was holding my hand up in front of my face but there was no visual evidence to corroborate this story. I was alone, singular in a way that one can only attain when you’re not even sure you have a body anymore. I was 18 and newly single and I’d left home for the first time. I thumbed the play button on my brand new portable CD player and music erupted in the space between my ears. A new album, Stunt by the Barenaked Ladies. I remember following that country road as the world began to coalesce around me, as hedges and verges leapt out from the darkness stenciled in twilight.

You get to know yourself better as you get older and you forget there was a time when you and yourself were virtually strangers. Who were you going to be? What were you going to believe in? I remember being surprised when opinions sprung fully realised from my lips, stunned by the vehemence of my thoughts on the matter. I was in flux in that country lane, as ephemeral and shifting as my silver-lined surroundings.

I’ve been writing this blog for almost three years now. I write down what I can remember about what it’s like to be me. I write because I might forget it and because writing feels good when I’ve written (though rarely when I’m writing). I write because I want to get better and so from now on, every day, I’ll put aside half an hour and I’ll just write and see what I have to say for myself.

And tonight my time is up.