Round about a year ago I experienced a series of losses each of which would have been incredibly sad on their own, culminating in a "straw that broke the camel's back" thing which tipped me into a period of anxiety and sleeplessness which qualifies as one of the darkest periods of my life.
I won't be dwelling on that or rediscribing what happened, already heard too many times by my endlessly patient and kind friends.
I just want to share that today, I may finally be in sight of the moment I've been striving to reach in the months which have passed since then; a place I've reached in the past, so I know I can, but which has sometimes seemed far far away in the fog of anger, indignation and disappointment; the moment when I remember that I find anger boring.
It's not that I've only been thinking about the "bad" stuff and losing myself in it. This year, I completed my first novel and am not far away from sending it off into the world to seek its fortune; I was a key player (with fantastic colleagues) in organising a Literary Festival which was acclaimed a tremendous success; I managed to have some fun too.
I also kept perspective, remained fully aware that there are plenty of folk in this world dealing with much tougher stuff and I managed to keep noticing the brightness in life.
Anger and righteous indignation are polluting though, sending nasty dark clouds across the landscape of my life. I have so wanted them gone but they have sometimes come unbidden, pushed along by sneaky winds of resentment.
So, today, driving to work, having uttered those words in a conversation with one of my precious mentors yesterday, I realised that yes, yes, I really do find anger boring. That feeling of being stuck, of wanting to bitch and moan and generally not make people's day.
How much better it is to smile and laugh and see the funny side, and think of all the good and positive people and things around me.....and I'm itching to write the first lines of the next novel, my young heroine has been waiting so long for me to share the first part of her story!
