#VisDare - Precarious

Recently I’ve been writing Twitter poems, mostly inspired by some excellent poetry prompts. A mere 140 characters – give or take – I’ve found there are many ways to stretch your word limit when a single tweet is not quite enough!

However today I have returned to a more substantial writing prompt and I have up to 150 words to play with thanks to Angela Goff’s surreal #visdare picture prompt with the optional title Precarious…

When my world turned upside down I felt as if the “game” was being played without me.

It continued and I watched as if in a dream unsure of what my “moves” should be.

I no longer knew the rules but as time passed I realised I could make up my own this side.

Forwards, backwards, sideways, jumping - I concocted my own intricate dance steps.

But there is no one to watch, no challenge playing on my own, I have to find my way home.

This means taking a leap of faith, over the edge, into the abyss, hoping gravity will pull my back to earth and return my feet to solid ground.

Now here I stand finally ready to jump.

Unclenching my fingers from all I hold onto here in my upside down world, I let go.

I tumble, wondering what I will meet on the other side!

I don’t know if my words make any sense but I throw them out there hoping they reach someone who understands or someone who needs to hear them.

For me “letting go” always means giving everything back to God.

Once again on my own I have constructed a tangled knotted mess. It is such a jumble I’m not sure any more what I was trying to create in the first place.

But once more I drag the tattered unravelled and reravelled remnants to the cross and offer a heartfelt apology knowing that God will graciously smooth out each tangled thread. He will give me back what I need piece by piece, if I let Him and don’t snatch everything back!

It’s precarious standing on the edge when you know that’s the only way down but this morning I found this on Twitter…

“Sometimes you have to jump first,

and build your wings on the way down”

I guess that’s a good description of faith.

God’s never really let me down; I think it might just be time to trust Him once more…

The land of make believe where the little blue birds tweet…

I admitted a while back that been extra distracted of late and my mood has altered very little since. I’m still here in a house I can’t sell feeling stuck, thinking my life will never change for the better!

To that end I’ve been avoiding the real world, hiding my paperwork and trying to escape the overwhelming grief that is so stubborn it won’t go! 

However I know from past experience that my moods are subject to change very quickly and this can’t last much longer can it? 

And while I wait for some excitement in my life there is always Twitter, my latest favourite waste of time!

Only a few months ago I decided to give up Twitter altogether just because I was getting bored with it and couldn’t see the point of following the people I did.

My timeline then was filled mostly with two sorts of people

·         Writers promoting their latest blogs posts/ books/stories and I don’t feel like a “writer” anymore. Was I ever? Isn’t it all just hype spinning out of control?

·         And Christians expounding lots of wisdom that I didn’t always want to hear. God may have a plan for me but he is keeping it so secret I am totally frustrated to the point of falling out with him on a daily basis!

In the end I didn’t delete my account, somehow I knew I’d have a change of heart and in the last few months I have added a third group of people I follow and who follow me - my #Musketeer friends. 

And I hold my hands up and admit I now spend so much time on Twitter my best friend has to tweet me to get my attention because I don’t always answer her texts!

It all started with conversations about which musketeer/actor we fancied most – we are like a bunch of giggly schoolgirls sometimes and it is so good to laugh and daydream – I’ve reverted to being a teenager again!

It’s crazy to think they would be too old for me if I were still a teenager and they are far too young now I am somewhere in my forties (let’s just leave my exact age out of this - I've told you before anyway!)

But over the last few weeks I’ve discovered something else new to me on Twitter that I never knew existed – Role Play.

Some people have special Role Play accounts and pretend to actually be the Musketeers and other assorted historical characters.

Now one of my friends sternly raises her eyebrows at this, concerned that I am chatting to the wrong kind of men! She always has been suspicious whereas I am probably too naïve and trusting.  

I promise her I will be careful and not get carried away…too far! It’s a bit of harmless flirting and quite honestly I could use the practice! Most are university students, some are older and a few have admitted being single but you never know for sure what's true and what's not (inside or outside the brackets)!

It is fun, reading Musketeer storylines played out, the writing is usually excellent and has you on the edge of your seat as you wait for the next tweet to appear.  Meanwhile another thread weaves in and out of the timeline made up of those of us reading and making comments.

Sometimes us “real” people even get to join in and it gets confusing, it’s sad, it’s funny, sometimes poignant and often very sexy *blushes* - I am learning lots. 

I’m not sure I can explain it all very well without if sounding, well just a bit strange to the uninitiated. My real life friends shake their heads at my new found hobby but they know only too well it will probably be another passing phase, another step along my grief journey perhaps, another way I try to mend my broken heart or at least fill in the gaps.

Consequently I have become a part of yet another on line community who at this moment in time are encouraging me, supporting me and mostly making me smile. That’s got to be a good thing.

In return hopefully I am being as encouraging and giving out as much as I receive because as people open up you can see underneath we are all the same - aching, hurting, needing - and Twitter is such a great way to communicate succinctly, dispensing positive thoughts like drops of April showers.

And I’ve found it easy to just drop into a conversation that I will pray about something. It’s not a glib comment I truly mean it and if people want to ask me more about my Christianity they can. Yes my faith is a little shaky at the present time but it’s still there under pinning everything, it always will be.

I think carefully about what I tweet and try not to get myself into controversial situations I feel uncomfortable with.

So now my Twitter timeline is made up of Musketeer fans, who make me smile, Christians who regularly challenge me and writers who remind me that once I wanted to write too and even if my words only fill 140 characters I think it’s good to remember that that is still writing!

“Nothing would be the same if you did not exist”

The other week I was watching the latest series of The Big Bang Theory, the one where Amy made a declaration to Sheldon that in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark Indiana Jones was a superfluous character, without him the outcome would have been entirely the same.

Sheldon's jaw drops at Amy's suggestion

The Big Bang geeks all sat and deliberated this and I must confess as I sat watching with my teenage boys we tried to figure out how true this was.

How can you have a film where the main character doesn’t advance the plot? And if Indiana Jones is redundant in his own story where does that leave us lesser mortals who don’t have such grand adventures? Just how important are we in the grand scheme of things?

The next day I found this on Twitter

“Nothing would be the same if you did not exist”

Now that’s quite a mind blowing thought when you are feeling insignificant in the big wide world.

Far too often as a blogger I sit typing away wondering just who will read my words, is anyone actually interested in my thoughts?

Yet I have made connections with hundreds of people all over the world and I mostly have no idea if or how what I have written has affected them.

But turn that thought around and I do know for certain that I have discovered many blogs that have spoken to me, I’ve often found the perfect words that have resounded and touched my life where I am now. Some have made me laugh out loud and lots have made me cry but then I am emotional at the best of times!

I try to make a point of leaving a positive comment where I can and so the connection is strengthened and my existence has made a difference to someone else.

I enjoy reading even the most prosaic blogs and reaching out, being that voice that says – I’ve read what you have to say and in some small way I understand, you are not alone, thank you for sharing.

So back to the original statement by Amy that Indiana Jones doesn’t alter the outcome of the film.

Well I’ve given it much thought and come up with this…

In the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy is reunited with his old flame Marion, albeit for a brief spell in his life because she is long gone by the time he sets off to visit the Temple of Doom in film number two but their relationship is absolutely crucial to the plot of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, film number four!

So in the end it all comes back to relationships and connections…

“Nothing would be the same if you did not exist”

Some dates you NEVER forget

Birthdays and anniversary dates become ingrained forever in your brain.

Today is one such day.

Nineteen years ago the 7th May was a Saturday, it was our wedding day. The sun shone, although maybe not quite as brightly or as warmly as it was today, I remember a light drizzle in the morning and some clouds.

May 7th 1994

I had no idea when I made my vows that less than twenty years later the “til death do us part” bit would already be fulfilled.

I can honestly say I can’t remember many anniversaries in between; Andrew rarely made a fuss of our special day. He will have been away working for about a third of them anyway.

But today, 7th May 2013 I will always remember. 

I was rudely woken at 1 a.m. by a loud noise; a huge chunk of plaster had fallen from the kitchen ceiling. It was inevitable really with the amount of water that has poured down the walls over the past couple of days and it’s all going to get worse before it gets any better.

the ceiling last night - just a bit of water damage!

oops-a-daisy - all fall down!

“Better or worse” now there’s another line from the wedding vows.

How seriously do we take them? Well I know we do take them seriously but we don't believe the bad bits will ever happen!

In fairytales the wedding is the beginning of the Happy Ever After. In reality that’s where the hard work begins.

When I got up early this morning to clear up the mess (I really couldn’t face it in the middle of the night) I wondered if my fairytale was going backwards, I’d had the wedding and now I was back being Cinderella before the ball.

Maybe it’s all too easy to get sucked into self-pity. 

I Tweeted and Facebooked what had happened and got some wonderful comments back from friends. Prayers and virtual hugs made me smile and have carried me through the day.

But as the sun sets my thoughts are taken back all those years ago to the day when the words “death” and “part” and “worse” seemed so vague and the only words that truly mattered were 

“I LOVE YOU”

With all my messages of support perhaps I have discovered on this special day that they still are the most important.

The Annual Christmas Letter

Now I have always been one to write a New Year letter instead of a Christmas one. I send mine out in January in reply to all the missives that have landed on my door mat the month before.

December is always such a busy month with both boys’ birthdays to contend with on top of organising Christmas.

The thing is these days I keep in touch with most of my friends on Facebook and Twitter, actually my friendship circle has increased exponentially, people I will possibly never ever meet in person have become incredibly important in my life. 

These friends don’t NEED a Christmas letter; they have been following the plot the whole year through in neat little instalments.

The people who have missed out are old friends without internet connection and lots of family members and I still want to tell them how I am doing – am I narcissistic for thinking they will want to know what I’ve been up to? 

Personally I do like this little catch up ritual, just think of all the social history that will be available to future generations about how we live now.

The Royal Mail have put up stamps astronomically, someone told me the other day it is 50p to send a card 2nd class – oh my giddy aunt, can I actually afford to send my news out in hard copy?

Well I am plodding away typing, cutting and pasting the events of 2012 and I thought I’d better check my diary to see if there is anything important I have missed.

So far re-reading my diary has made me laugh, in the first half of the year the humour is dark and inky black reading very much like my old teenage “woe is me” diary entries…

2nd May – I don’t know why I even bother to write anymore my life is so dull.

31st May – Day Cancelled, feel CRAP, didn’t go to counselling

8th July – church BORING Tennis EXCITING New chicks amazing Victoria Wood – funny!!

Fortunately my life takes a turn for the better a few days later

July 11th - Pulled woodchip from ceiling – feel elated every time I look at it!

July 23rd – I am now the girl with the purple streak in my hair!

September 17th – Lots of decorating. Luscious Lime is gorgeous!

Now these are actual diary entries I have shared with you, word for word, I have only changed one spelling mistake; these are not available in my Christmas letter!

They do show me how much I need colour in my life and how this year I have really turned a corner. 2012 didn’t start out as promising as I had hoped on New Year’s Eve but somewhere around July I had a revelation.

Actually it was at New Wine that a particular phrase flipped my world upside down setting me back on the right path …

BETTER NOT BITTER

When something BAD happens, and let’s face it you can’t get much worse than losing a loved one, you have a choice to make. A fork in the road appears and your decision here can colour your entire future if you let it.

I was all prepared to write a post about this phrase at the time but I don’t think I ever got round to it so I’m sharing it here as I peruse the pages of Sarah’s Diary 2012. 

Remembering and looking back but only for an instant because I have better things to hope for …

… just hope I get a lovely 2013 diary this Christmas to record it all in!