With great power comes great responsibility. Do you remember that quote in Spiderman that Uncle Ben says to Spiderman? I don’t know why but it has always stuck with me. We live in a time where the every day person has tremendous opportunity to wield incredible power and no more is this true than for…
A love note to myself {and I encourage you to do the same}
Below is a love letter to myself. It is Day 12 of the #reverb14 and this was the task for today. I found it incredibly difficult to write. It felt narcissistic and wrong. And yet, by doing so I was able to acknowledge the value of myself as a person. As a person with depression…
Ritual + Routine
God I love the holidays. I sometimes hear other mothers lament how long the summer break is, how bored the children get, how they drive them mad. And I can sympathise, I honestly can, but it still doesn’t stop me from freaking loving the school holidays. You see, I am not a ritual and…
Generosity – what does it mean?
Generosity. What does it mean to you? Is it the same as giving? Is it more than giving? What exactly is it and how do we know it when it’s happening? My grandmother was a generous person. As a child, I remember walking to her house with my parents for Sunday lunch. Being working…
Out with black and white, in with shades of grey
The world is not black and white. It is in fact full of shades of grey, with a good heap of colour, definitely not black and white. Yet, as humans, we are committed to this notion that life has to be exactly that – black and white, right or wrong, yes or no. It is…
Connections
Master J finished school on Friday. He bounced into the car, full of as much joy as a nearly 17 year old boy can muster. “I’m done. I’m done for 8 weeks.” I smiled. I love the school holidays. It is just he and I at home. Mornings are lazy. No time frame constraints…
The dreaded selfie
I am not a fan of the selfie. To be honest, it all seems narcissistic to me. I love photographs, don’t get me wrong, but this era of The Selfie just seems, well,self indulgent. Quite often my Instagram account will get “liked” by scantily clad women whose account is nothing more than one boring selfie after…
Piece of mind vs Peace of mind
If you had the opportunity, would you go back to that one person who hurt you so badly and let them have it? All that visceral anger that you have been harbouring, unleashed. One of the traits of someone living with depression is that we tend to ruminate, especially on those people or incidents that…
The sound of a voice
When my mom was dying with lung cancer, my sister and I travelled up to Birmingham in the UK, where my mother had grown up. Without consciously realising it, we found ourselves outside my grandmother’s old house, my mother’s childhood home. I did not know my grandmother that well but my mom would regale stories…
Answering the call to write
For as long as I can remember people have told me that I could write. My earliest memory is when my first grade teacher told my mom that I had a reading and writing ability beyond my years and that my stories were lovely. I ignored those early cues. I moved from England to…