Wishing on a Star

This year, just before Christmas, with nothing wrapped and some things still unmade, I did something I'd never normally do at such a time: I bought myself a present. It seems a little selfish when it's a season dedicated to thinking of others, but there are some moments which call out to be marked and this was one of them.

Around this time last year, as we left 2013 behind and stepped cautiously into a fresh annum, I posted Neil Gaiman's New Year Wish. It was perfect, and summed up many of my hopes for my friends and family. I knew my year was going to be tumultuous to say the least, but adored this little wish and dared to claim its sentiments for myself, and for you.

                                                            

The post was from his blog, here. 

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

He added:

"I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think

there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind."

And: 

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't

good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever." 

As I have already detailed in previous posts, one of Gaiman's books had  become particularly important to me during difficult times that year, so it seemed very fitting that I welcome the next with words of his instead of any other. Of course, I then forgot about them almost immediately as living took over from dreaming and was quite unrelenting in its dominance. 

That's not to say that 2014 was, for me, a bad one, just that it required an awful lot more determination than usual to think of it as good. It has been a year of extremes, and all that brings with it. Each moment of pain was matched with laughter, and for everything that came to an end something new began to grow and change. I had to learn to accept help and embrace the vulnerability that had made itself so unavoidable and left me unmasked and unsure.

And yet, in doing so I rediscovered my strength, and reconnected with who I am and  how I became what I think of as my self. I spent much of this year not feeling - or indeed looking - much like myself at all because of side affects from the medical treatment, but in many ways am more connected with my body than I have ever been before. As the fresh scars heal and I feel myself begin to re-emerge from the pudgier, pastier form in which I felt trapped for so long, I am much more aware of how I feel and how I move. I appreciate the battles - some won, others lost - which it has held fast throughout, and have a much deeper understanding of the ones yet to come. We are no longer enemies, my broken body and I. We are allies, brothers (or sisters) in arms, in a war that has ravaged us both.

As I wished you all a happy and healthy new year, I knew not to hope for the same things myself. Disappointment is not easily conquered, and I did not anticipate having the necessary time or energy to sulk properly. 

Then, one perfectly ordinary day, I spotted this on Facebook. The website Neverwear had collaborated with artist David Mack to produce a series of prints, bringing Neil's New Year's Wish to life. Re-reading and remembering it for the first time in nearly twelve months brought to my attention a quite magical and unexpected thing.

Despite all the twists and turns and darker days I, too, had managed all of the things on the lists of hopes and dreams I had for you. Many of them were only accomplished with the help of the people around me, and others I'd had to find it in myself to create or pursue.

At that moment, as the warm thrill of the realisation fluttered in my head and my heart, I cemented the final wish. I had, indeed, surprised myself.             

Several of the people dearest to me in the world already know their coming year will be a complicated one, and aren't sure how to greet so much uncertainty, or how they will begin to untangle it without unravelling themselves. Much as I would like to, I can't shield then from the tumult that awaits, but I can pledge to face it with them, and I do, so very faithfully. 

For you, as for them, I hope that 2015 brings each and every one of you the love and support I have been so fortunate to surround myself with when I needed it most. 

And I hope that you, too, manage to surprise yourself, by being kinder, stronger, happier, and braver than you believe you can be. Let's do it together.

0-800-Reluctant-Samaritan

I've neglected this blog for far too long, and there's no excuse for it really. Since I last plagued you with the contents of my slowly-scrambling brain, my father has married, and I managed not to make a fool of myself as a bridesmaid. Two more books have been printed, and the months since have flown past in a haze.

Before I have reconciled myself the the loss of the last Autumnal warmth, Christmas approaches. It looms less than a week away and I still have yet to do much shopping or write any cards. I'm going to buy a "Happy New Year" stamp and post them as soon as I get around to it. Everyone who lives further than the end of my street will not receive glad tidings until after the main event. Maybe I'll tell them I'm actually sending mine nearly a full year early, instead of being a few days late? Or I might say I've moved to Australia and write "hope this gets to you on time!" inside each card, so that people think I did my utmost to traverse the dense outback with the letters strapped to me, being dragged half the way to the post office by a semi-retired Skippy The Bush Kangaroo. Anything but the lackadaisical truth.

As I have spent the last few months lazily hibernating from the cold, little of consequence has happened in my world. The majority of my energy has gone into battling a chest infection that has seen my lungs look like I am spawning a new generation of Slimers for a Ghostbusters remake. I have continued to write, though not a great deal of it has been of anything resembling commercial quality.

Because I flatter myself that I am one of those onerously pretentious 'creative types' I always keep a notepad beside my bed, to try and jot down any poetry or design ideas I stumble upon in that woozy, otherworldly space between sleeping and waking. The spot where dreams meet reality is often a rich source of nonsense for me, but unfortunately it is seldom constructive. The latest page reads "eat breakfast" because if I have to be up early I will remember to do my makeup, but will forget to eat. Vanity over sustenance. I'm like that laboratory rat which pushes the pleasure button instead of the food one until it starves.

(Okay, at this juncture I googled "mouse makeup" looking for a cartoonish image to post here to break up the monotony of my rambling. Instead I found this photoshopped picture of a computer mouse that doubles as a cosmetic compact. And I want one.)



Occasionally, I will wake up with seemingly-coherent yet utterly-pointless notations scribbled and then signed, as if my egocentric subconscious thinks the notebooks will be discovered some time in the future, and wishes to ensure that my astonishing insights are correctly accredited. I encountered such self-inflicted ridiculousness a few nights ago, when – after washing biro off of my hands and wondering where it had come from – I remembered to check my notepad and found this scrawled there:

When you own a cat, you will – at some point – find yourself sitting on the toilet with the cat watching you from the cistern, promising to buy her a covered litter-tray for the bathroom if she will grant you some privacy in return."

It's things like that which make me glad that Big Brother is ending before I ever got desperate enough to appear on it. I'd get out of the house only to be locked up in somewhere more secure, that was monitored by more cameras...