More!

I am feeling reflective on a late Sunday afternoon in November.

I’ve been talking loads about what has been and not much about what will be. That needs to change. After all, we’re not going backwards, are we?

As always, a song is linked to the blog’s title. It feels like this is a thing now, so why change it?

More, by The Sisters of Mercy, sums up what I am standing on the edge of right now. Eight minutes and twenty-five seconds of gothic excesses. It reminds me of life nearly 30 years ago, when I spent much of my weekend living to excess!

So what has this got to do with next year? Some people pick a word for the coming year, and I did this in a vision board workshop earlier in the month. My word is expansion.

In the words of Andrew Eldritch, I want more.

This year has been dominated by fear, which is not how I want to continue.

Fear of losing the ones I love, a fear of being my truest self and the person I was meant to be.

Fear of being bigger, brighter and just more.

But I know I’ve also been telling anyone who will listen that something big is coming. I can feel it deep in my bones. My favourite analogy is that I am like a volcano that has been simmering for a long time and is about to blow.

The interesting thing about all this is what has been holding me back. I talk about the fear, and it is that. It’s my brain being really good at keeping me safe. But from what?

Mostly, it’s the weight of other people’s opinions of what I should do with my life. This thread has run through many of my recent blogs about how a woman of my age should look, behave and act.

Well, I am not that woman. Not deep down inside.

I was never here to follow the crowd. I never have done. I remember one very drunken evening in the pub back home in Sheffield telling someone I wasn’t like them (picture me standing there in all my glory, waving my arm at the rest of the people in the pub), sounds up my own arse, right?

Well, no, it’s not.

None of us are the same. Some choose to hide that fact. I don’t. I have always lived my life at the edges of what is possible. From the day I was born, I was different. I had a rare skull defect that meant I was operated on at 12 weeks old. That ain’t normal in anyone’s book. My life pretty much followed like that from there on in!

I have always been an early adopter. I am like that with music in my life as a tech analyst and how I am in business; it’s just how I operate. I can feel the zeitgeist in my core, but I’ve moved on by the time it’s mainstream.

But, at the heart of it all, I’ve been taught to be a people pleaser, and this is my flaw, my Achilles heel if you will. A lot of women of my age will identify with this. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

Well, I am ready to be damned for doing.

2024 is about being who I am in my soul’s deepest, darkest parts. The parts that don’t get shown to just anyone. The parts that probably would scare the shit out of some people, if we’re honest! Perhaps one day I’ll share why I say this, but for now, just know that this body and soul have been through more than most.

But then you don’t have to come along for the ride if you’re not ready; I don’t have a choice any more.

But, this levelling up has been on the cards for a while. I just had to shed some of my skin, and whilst I am shouting about it now, this won’t be an overnight transformation. And if this feels like where you’re at, it’s perfectly OK to take the smallest steps to achieve your goal.

You don’t have to scare the world; you just need to be you… and whatever that looks like for you is just fine.

I’ll leave you with the words of Mr Eldritch…

There are parts of me that don’t get nervous
Not the parts that shake
You won’t get what you deserve
You are what you take

That last line is the kicker, right?