The U-Turn

I'm a little hyper tonight. It's taken two episodes of The L-Word to calm me down. Given things at the moment, that isn't perhaps the most obvious TV choice for calming down to. However, last night I watched Kes in an attempt to cheer myself up. Who watches Ken Loach films to cheer themselves up? Weirdly though, despite the squashed hawk and the coal-mines (or in fact, because of them), it worked.

     
I'm blabbering. I think it's because over these last few weeks, and particularly over these last days, my life seems to have done an unusual u-turn. Subsequently, the whole shape looks different.

     
The most recent of these is the unconditional offer I received from Kingston University to do an MA in writing. Suddenly, I have a direction and something to work for, as I hoped - and a structure to hold it all together.

     
In addition to that is the decision I've made to write a book, and finally, absolute clarity over what that book must be about. These two things alone have turned life a very different colour the last couple of days, and the wheel of myself is, yet again, turning.

     
These last weeks have been as hard as a fist to the stomach; I've lost half a stone in tears alone. I've been as confused as a dancing bear under bright lights. I'm sad and I'm lonely, the empty spaces stretching out where once someone filled them with love and with tenderness.

     
But, as is often the way in life, little chinks of light appear, unwittingly from the corners of the room. A spray of lilies breaks out into bloom without me noticing. Somewhere, a blackbird is always singing. What I mean to say is: the unexpectedly brilliant has occurred.

     
And so I catch small smiles turning up my mouth, and a new feeling in my chest, very different from the one that's been nestling there for a while.