Footloose Fridays - IV

I've never really wanted to relive my life: transport myself to my childhood/adolescence/teenage/college life with a sigh, saying life was much simpler then.

I've evolved several times over in my life: physically, emotionally and spiritually - and each phase has its own particular memories, good and bad, humourous and absolutely cringe-worthy. I wouldn't want to trade what I am now for what I was, neither would I want to wish away what I was because that's part of the ever-shifting puzzle called identity.

But there are times, and oh yes there are, especially when you've just read someone whose words act like a time-travel portal, when you wish, you could chuck it all away, for a few moments of footloose, flirtatious fun.

What does a time-trip mean to you? Is it a song, maybe a season, food, or an occasion? Is it someone else's present that sends you spiralling into nostalgia? Your turn to spill the secrets!

As for me, I did the jig in the bathroom to this, giving gravity a pudgy miss. Enjoy, loud, really loud, please.


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For the original Footloose Fridays, go here.

The crosses that we bear

It's been so long since I wrote here: and it seems even longer considering how much my earlier posts seem so much different to who I am these days.

How often I have thought of all of you in these past few weeks: tossing over in the night, everytime Nino said anything funny, everytime I made a memory that made life worthwhile, with all its precipices.

I'm an honest wordsmith - my words are my confession-box, and they are perfectionists when it comes to exorcising demons, those that dwell within each one of us, that push us and despair us in equal measure. It is this - this cross of truth that I will have to share if I write about it, but can't because it is not fair - that has prevented me from writing here in this space that I share with you.

All is not well: but perhaps you know it, women tend to have a sixth connection with the not-so-happy things in life. I can't show you my sorrows here: not so much because I sometimes suffer from my mother's inherited don't-wash-your-linen-in-public values, but because it is not fair, not to the one who will inevitably be crucified on this cross.

I have tried - even gone so far as to starting to write a post about other things - before giving up. I'm not a small talk woman (something that has made me hugely unpopular at the school gate mums' club!) and I can't escape this sadness that pervades my body and my soul, my words and my secretly-shed-in-the-office-bathroom tears.

Thank you for checking on me time and again, for investing time and affection, for reaching out to check if things were okay. I'm empty and battered right now - and even the deep recesses of my being are empty and bereft of things to say to you, although I want to, so badly.

And unexpectedly or perhaps as the cliches predicted, Nino continues to make me marvel at my own resilience, my survival instinct that kicks in everytime, albeit with a timing that's slightly off. He is testament to my faith that life will find me once again.

I hope I have tided over my reluctance to come here: and I hope I will now come here more often: to talk to you, to hear you and to be healed by what you have to say. Much love my dear friends, much, much love. You, every single one of you, is my thoughts. Big hug to all the babies.