Ten years ago I came to Brighton to celebrate my seventeenth with two friends from school I no longer know. On Friday I turned twenty seven here with a few friends I haven’t known that long but love dearly. I hate my birthday. It always ends in tears! Woe is me! I promise I won’t try and have a party next year.
I started this blog after turning twenty six last November. Throughout the year I allowed myself to learn what this was about by writing it. I ended up (mostly) expressing lessons I’ve learned each month. At first it felt silly (though I think all art feels silly if you think about it too much) but now it feels cathartic. People have told me they like it. Actually, it still feels silly. Who am I, really? A small town girl… writing stories and philosophy in her bedroom. It’s so silly! I really don’t know anything. I wonder if Plato felt like this. Ha ha ha.
I finished my first novel last week. It felt silly, too. 40,000 existential words sure did make me existential. What is the point of anything!? Beats me.* I wanted to finish it before my birthday and I did and I am now entering twenty seven without an anchor. I had no idea how much this project means to me, how much purpose it has given me. Flora said she thinks I have some literary form of post-natal depression. The thing that was just mine for two years is now being read by friends, soon to be read by agents and eventually publishing houses. It’s open to interpretation and criticism! No! Make it stop!!!! I’ve spent the last few days wandering around town like a somnambulist trying to find things to do. I’ve never been very good at doing nothing.
I enjoyed exploring the themes of the book: liminality, growing old, grief and existentialism. I found it extremely nurturing to bring these familiar sensations so close to me to try and accurately describe them using the image/metaphor of my dear, stinky Jean Larkin. I miss her dearly. I hope she will be kept alive by future readers. I may even return to her in future work.
It was poignant to finish it during the week of the year that I always become very struck by old grief. I wrote a poem yesterday, it read:
When grief was an arrow it Flew through the sky and Caused no more destruction Than a spear through my heart. Flesh healed around it and Now there is an arrow In my chest and my heartbeat Ripples through my body, Changed. The clock of my heart spells his name In morse code, calling out to Him in the language of flesh.
The clock in my body remembers. It reminds me of him before I think of him.
Ever since 2019 I have been haunted by the events of the past. I am willing to suggest I think that they are wrong in saying time heals all wounds. Time does not heal all wounds. I have always struggled with the concept that I turn a year older just as my old friend ended his life. I am confronted by the growth, the future, the change while the memory of his face at 19 appears younger and younger the older I get. The rage I feel at the events that followed has not lessened. I started reading The Body Keeps the Score today in hope I will come to understand why time does not heal all wounds. I would like to be wrong about this.
As I wrote in a previous blog, this is not a morally weighted thing. It is not a bad thing that time doesn’t heal all wounds. It is not a bad thing to be disabled by your body or your mind. It is just a thing. I was about to say an unlucky thing but recently I have realised you have to be really lucky not to have something that thematically or chronically challenges you. We’ve all got our shit. Life is a messy and complicated situation. I don’t mind that I experience this every November. The grief I feel parallels the love I felt. I wouldn’t experience this without knowing him. As Jeanette Winterson puts it so simply, “Love is worth it.” I agree.
I wrote a short story about this. It’s based on the poem I shared above. I will be publishing fiction this year for paid subscribers. I have a feeling it will take a while to find people willing to pay to read my work and I’m okay with that. If you’re reading this and can afford to spare £2 a month, please consider supporting me. If you know someone else who might be interested in reading and supporting, please share. If you know someone super rich who wants to take me under their wing and invest in me, do tell them I am super dedicated to my craft and won’t stop until I am a full time fiction writer. I can’t promise fame and glory but I can promise a really delicious beef stew to discuss literature over. Spread the word.
Here’s to growing up ! Cheers !
*I would like to note that experiencing futility is, indeed, a symptom of C-PTSD. I am sure the dust will settle and I will ground myself and rejoin the world in all its meaningfulness. Thus are the cycles of life. I do not like to pretend away my feelings. Maybe next month I’ll dedicate my blog to writing about the small beauties! We’ll see! Til then…
Can’t wait to read your novel!
This poem is beautiful 🥹