Oreos & Gin

Happy New Year to you & yours. My word for 2017 was BRAVE. I used that word to push myself away from letting my fears control how I lived. 2017 my year of brave helped me achieve: Going to the Photography Show on my own... I learnt so much and I decided to turn pro.  I signed up for my big fat crazy goal of running a half marathon.... I hadn’t quite conquered 10Ks then....I have now!  I ran the RunDisney 10K in Paris I launched my Etsy Shop I applied & got a job where I get to be at the coal face of empowering women from all backgrounds  I started my feature writing course I faced some rather huge personal obstacles - including a laparoscopy which I wanted but was terrified about I came off my antidepressants , and have been working hard at managing my illness.  You know the phrase, “Fake it till you make it”? Sometimes I didn’t feel brave at all. Sometimes I was so crushed by the fear & the “what ifs” that I honestly didn’t know if I would reach all m

I’ve been a plethora of emotions this past weekend.... yesterday was particularly ridiculous. One minute I was pottering, doing my thing next I was cross, sad, happy. My heart knows. Even when my brain hasn’t clicked yet. The 10th of December,2005 will always be significant to me. That’s the date I came face to face with grief.  My cousin, Owanari died that day. Before then when people I loved died, like my grandma in 1999, for example I was sad. But for some reason maybe a combination of our close relationship & my age at the time , I was a walking wound when Owanari died . I couldn’t sleep for months, and my eyes would just start leaking without me knowing. Every time the story came on the news, it would lead me to obsessively research the incident . I wanted to know everything about what happened. This year, I just want to share some memories I have of her. My earliest is one Christmas, I was staying with them that year whilst my mum did her Masters. Santa brought me a d

Odd. Sometimes you just feel odd. Odd like you know something isn’t quite right.  Sometimes you just feel odd. Like today, someone or something forgot to add all the ingredients that make you feel like you. Odd. You can’t quite put your finger on why you feel the way you do.  You only know that you do. Odd like a puzzle that doesn’t quite fit. Or a piece of fruit that isn’t quite ready yet but you munch anyway. You go through the motions hoping that at some point in the day things click and you are back to feeling like you again. Odd but in a rather satisfying manner. I’ll let you into a secret, today I’m fed up of flashbacks. Every time I return to a place of my childhood, memories & traumas of the past attached to that place decide its their time to shine once more. Back & forth I go and the emotional whiplash is draining. Trying to function when your insides are anything but is soul destroying. So I sit through the monotony of Surburbia. Today my friends, Cat