Stepping Out of The Darkness

It’s been a funny few weeks. I admit after several more knock backs I lost myself for a time in the darkness, that old black dog grumbling at me from the shadows, yet I am walking back into the light again.

I think my stubborn defiant streak has pulled me through and a bit of Disney music (my usual last resort to the blues…It’s hard to be grumpy when you have Hakuna Matata and the Bare Necessities on in the background).

I have also braved stepping out and joining a writing group to pull myself out of the shadows and have found it great for my writing confidence, especially when it was coupled with wonderful words from a former tutor who told me I was wasted as a nurse (when I had just qualified) after I gave her one of my poems in the hope it would bring her some comfort at a difficult time (apparently it did, so I was glad for that).

My writing has always been there through the darkness, like a beacon, guiding me back towards the light, it seems to be as natural as breathing to me and yet I always seem to shy away from sharing it, from putting that pen to paper, from handing it to a prospective publisher, yet the fire of it continues to burn within.

This is something I have learnt from the few creative writing evenings I have been to. At first I was afraid to go, the usual fear that I’d get there and have nothing to write, that I would sit there mute, a blank page looking at me and my hands reaching for another cup of tea just to keep busy whilst everyone else scribbled away and yet something made me go. Perhaps it was Bob quietly urging me on, maybe it was my own desire to try, to face yet another fear of mine and finally accomplish something.

I need not have worried, the exercises we have done so far, the words just seem to pour from me like a river, like the hand that is writing them is not my own, that I am in a way telling someone else’s story. It is like I have awoken, like Bob has gone “Yes finally” and like some annoying child on a long journey now refuses to shut up. I enjoy these bursts of creativity, it almost feels like freedom, like the real me has been liberated even for a short period of time and I find myself thirsting for them.

There are many paths to choose from and it is difficult to know which one is the right one for me and I still have the worries that my chosen career path will hinder and stifle all this new found sense of me, but I will fight for it with every fibre of my being and clutch these precious moments to me whilst I still can.

As it’s been awhile since I posted anything I thought I would share with you my answer to an exercise we did. We had 5-10 mins to come up with anything that reminded us of a feeling, I initially was thinking of happiness but what came out of my pen was something deeper and completely different…

The Last Journey

She sat for awhile in quiet contemplation, not really sure what to do or where to go next. All she really knew was this would be the final time she came here with him. She remembered the last time they had sat on this weather worn bench, hands intertwined, him with a sense of finality, as if resigned to his diagnosis; her in some vain attempt to cling to him, to the life they had built together, to the man she had fallen in love with all those years ago. 

His hair had long since disappeared, his brown eyes once filled with a mischievous sparkle had just looked tired and the fragile hand she clutched to her was now thinner than her own. She had felt almost afraid to hold him so tightly in case he would break, yet it was her that was breaking, deep within her chest, she felt so… broken.

She had wanted to scream at the injustice of it all and now as she scattered the last specks of dust which was all that remained of the man she had worshiped into the sky and over the ocean far below, a solitary tear slipped from her eye, trickling down her face as she turned away to a life she no longer felt held any joy and a one way ticket home.