Reconnecting

Do you have a song that makes you cry as soon as you hear it? I have a few.

One is our first dance song. Thomas told me what it was years ago, way before we got married. Don't you love that he picked it too? He loves music and gosh I love him. Anything by George Michael or Prince totally gets me too right now as well.

But today's song was a song that makes me happy, not sad. I was listening to it a second ago but now I've swapped to Glenn Miller Moonlight Serenade which reminds me of my Grandad and today I can say that makes me happy too.

Maybe not tomorrow but right now, I'm embracing that I can listen to it. Its beautiful. My Grandad had good taste.

Today's song was Penguin Cafe Orchestra... And as I'm sat at work, my eyes prickle. Tears fall. I used to feel a bit ridiculous when that happened. But after the last 6 months and all the reactive tears, I think people probably just think i have allergies from all the occasional sniffles. Luckily I don't think they realise the sniffles are usually accompanied by silent tears. At least I really hope they don't realise.

Anyway Perpetuum Mobile (by Penguin Cafe Orchestra) comes on the radio. And it reminds me of how happiness feels. We listened to it planning our wedding, it takes me to the beach with sand between my toes, its the sound of holding Thomas's hand and seeing my brand new nephews little face and the way his mouth moves when hes sleeping (is this a baby thing? Either way its adorbs). It reminds me of how I imagine it feels to finally own your own puppy ha. The way it dances in my ears makes me want to dance with my whole body. Its just amazing to listen to and to respond to.

One of the most bizarre lessons Ive learnt so far in my 8 months of having the word happy for my year, especially whilst 6 of those months have been grieving, is that you can be so very happy whilst being so very sad.

For the longest time I was so sad and caught up in negativity that I thought emotions were a scale from happy to sad. Excited to scared. 1 to 10. Perhaps thats because its how we explain our emotions to each other in the most basic way. How happy are you from 1 to 10 right now? Ten being the best score of course.

The older I get the more I realise again and again that its not how I feel about my thoughts thats the problem, but how I think about my feelings. Did I ever post the post I wrote about that? I feel like perhaps not... that fact alone also reminds me that perhaps I won't find wisdom in my old age but in my past, in the things I've already written but never been brave enough to share. In the connections I made then but never had the conviction or trust to believe in at the time. The universe has a way of reminding you the lessons you have to learn though lovely people... the universe can lead a horse to water, but obviously it can't always make it drink either... and its the universe!

Anyway, the point I actually came here to make - 500 words in ha - is that I'm ready to reconnect with you guys - I'm ready to take photos (I've actually got 5 films waiting to be scanned right now, and gosh its the best feeling knowing I took some photos after nearly 6 months of not... tears are falling again because I'm honestly so happy to be back in this place again, grief is a shocking experience, it really is....) and more importantly, I'm ready to give them to you. 

I've listened to two and a half podcasts by Yoga Girl today and in one she talked about vulnerability and giving and receiving (Eadaoin I hope you still read my blog love, you should check this podcast out for sure). Currently Rachel and I have opposite problems... she feels she gives to much - whilst I know that for the past 6 months I've effectively shut down and stopped giving - I just haven't had anything apart from sadness and sorrow to give. Do you remember how in 2015 my word was 'give'? Isn't it funny how the feeling I have the most today, right now... is to give. Give my words, give my experience, give it my all. And to give without worrying about receiving... just to want to give, because its been so long since I really could completely. Again... my wisdom is in my past, I'm sure of it.

Another wonderful lesson I've learnt about happiness this year, is that happiness is right now, considered just another standard - something else to aspire too... 'if you have this, you'll be happy. if you wear this, if you look like this, if you whatever, whenever... you'll be happy.' I must say that I read this idea on the amazing Imogen's Instagram page (its a disabled womans body positivity page, so perhaps don't click if you're at work... theres some skin on show), its not something I came up with - but once I read it, it totally clicked. Happiness is mostly a concept

Oh as I'm writing this, While my Guitar Gently Weeps sung by Regina Spektor just came on my Spotify... this song makes me cry too. Have you seen Kubo and the Two Strings? We watched it not too long after Grandad died and it broke me into pieces, again, its amazing and beautiful. And this song.. just sums it all up perfectly. If you've been blogging for a while, I'm sure that you'll be amused that after 8 years I finally like a Regina Spektor song too haha. 

If you've read this through, thank you - thank you for still connecting with me, after all these years and after a couple of months of not even being here. I'm not really sure if I've made the point that I meant to but its good to be here and its good to write again and I'm excited to share some new photos very soon. 

p.s. I've scheduled this so I don't not post it and I didn't spell check... cos rereading sometimes encourages that save button instead of publish, so please forgive any glaring errors!

Blog goals for this year

I promised my friend Dianne a honest post after reading her great post on selling things online (go read it!) However, this isn't the first time I've written this post, I made a start on it last week and it was a pretty good post, I think a lot of you would have related and I was pleased with the result... mostly.  I say mostly because even though it summed up a lot of what I was thinking, it still felt disjointed, strung together. Saying the right things but in the wrong order. Or maybe the not quite right things in the not quite wrong order.

And even though a lot of what I wrote was honest... It was mostly just a sum of all the things I've said before. I've been doing this - blogging - for a while now. You start to repeat yourself. "Blogging is weird" "Blogging is awesome"... "Blogging is ultimately what you make it". All things I've said before and all things I'm sure you've heard too. In fact if you've been blogging for a while like me, then you've seen alienated bloggers before, you've seen people writing about the 'good ole days' and the demise of blogging. Heck I even wrote a free book covering topics no one talks about in blogging to try and help people out two years ago.

The truth is that what I think about blogging is still the same as its always been, everything in my book still applies now and thats why I'm still here after nearly 7 years. And I know not everyone feels as enthusiastically as I do and that's ok, that is what makes the blogging world so great - the differences and the choice of blogs you can read. The opportunity to find your people is there.

But I didn't post my post last week. Something about it didn't feel right. And I've been mulling it over as to why and last night I figured it out.

What I think about the blogosphere is still the same. But how I feel about my blog, about what I want to say and how I want to say it - that has changed. And not for the worse. I still want to be here. But I don't want to be saying the same thing over and over again. Not any more. I want to say something fresh. I want to be excited to be here. I want to make this space more my own than its ever been before. 

For the last ten days I've taken at least two film photos a day. I've never done that before. And ten days isn't a long time I know, but everything feels different somehow (and potentially more expensive haha, so many rolls of film to develop this year already) I don't want to say the nearly right things in the nearly right order and be pleased jsut because it provokes a response (even if it was a pretty good post) Instead, I want to inspire and encourage, create and share. I want real and genuine. And I'm not going to get that from you if I don't put it out there to start with.

I want this year to be different somehow - I don't know how or what that means for me or if anyone else will see the differences in this space. And I used to be scared of that, scared of not knowing, scared of people not liking me,  scared of being too 'this' or too 'that'. But I'm not so scared now. In fact Im oddly excited to see where this path takes me. Because I already know I've done the hardest work in getting myself to this point... Now I just have to keep moving on and see where I go.

So what does feel right for my blog this year?

Writing more. I've been journalling and meditating every day as well this year and the cluttering thoughts are still there (its only been ten days no ones expecting miracles lol) but the meaningful thoughts, the ones that feel right. They seem to be getting through more now and they want to come out more too. This post just flowed... No editing, no making it work, no trying to figure out which order something 'should' be in. Just the right words this time and amazingly in the right order. And that feels so good.

Keep it simple. No ebooks this year - just good old fashioned blog posts. I don't have time for anything else for one but also, I just want to share my photos and write some things occasionally. And that is ok.  Other people are pushing, selling, promoting etc and I still think that is great - blogging has so much potential to do amazing things that just weren't around 7 years ago when I started but right now that's not for me. And thats totally ok.

Show up. I've been putting in half the effort for a while - mainly because I kept thinking I needed to be doing more somehow rather than just doing things. And I'm not pleased with that. This year I shall show up.

Enjoy it. Blogging shouldn't be a chore. (Unless its your job, then its work and woo, you're getting paid to blog.) But this is my free time and like I said in my goals post for the year, I want to be spending time this year on things I enjoy doing.

So there we go, that was much longer than I expected but shorter than last weeks post amazingly.  I'm excited to see where the year takes us - both in terms of my blog and the blogging world as a whole :)