Tiny feet

Posted on February 20, 2013 by

Following on from my Huffington Post piece on feminism and the large number of women in their late 30s and early 40s who are facing the prospect of childlessness, without feeling they made a conscious choice, I wrote something for The Guardian Comment is Free site today on a related topic: IVF for women over 40 doesn’t address the root of the problem.

The patter of tiny feet?

The patter of tiny feet?

Today’s piece was on the back of new guidelines recommending the NHS pay for one round of IVF for women aged 40-42 (the previous cut-off age was 39). I only had 600 words so it was difficult to get the whole message across, but I thought I’d written it in quite a balanced way – although you wouldn’t have thought so from some of the comments.

It’s a complex and sensitive topic and difficult to cover in a short blog. We all have our own personal circumstances – we are all products of our upbringing and we all digested the societal and cultural influences around us in different ways. We all had our journeys.

But there does seem to be a growing number of women of my age who are wondering what their futures will hold as regards children. As I try to make clear, when I get the chance, most of us don’t want ‘instant babies’. Some of us don’t even know if we want children or not. What we would like is the opportunity to date without the pressure of the biological clock, to explore a relationship with someone and then to decide, as part of a stable partnership, whether we want children or not, and how we want to go about that.

Of course, we are all different and there are women who have decided a child is more important to them than a partner and have taken motherhood into their own hands – solo adoption, visiting a sperm bank or co-parenting, for example. I respect and admire them for doing that but it is not a path I can imagine taking (although never say never). For me, a partner is more important than children and adoption is always an option I would consider if we – my future partner and I – wanted to go down the children route and that wasn’t possible naturally.

No doubt I’ll be writing more on this topic shortly (I have a more personal post I am working on), but before that, I’ll be discussing today’s revised NHS fertility guidelines and the issue of childless working women on BBC Newsnight tonight, if you fancy tuning in.

It’s a great opportunity to raise the profile of this issue but right now, I’m sorry to say, all I can think about is what to wear – and will I look fat. I realise those kinds of thoughts and feelings aren’t much of a triumph for feminism or women’s lib but I can’t help how my head works and it’s hard to change the habits of a lifetime. But I can fight back. Or at least surrender.

So, with a deep breath, I’m off to explore my wardrobe and have a bath …

Posted in Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Feminism, 50 years on

Posted on February 18, 2013 by

Today’s blog comes to you via The Huffington Post and it marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique – a book, I have to confess, I’d barely even heard of until recently.

No, I definitely didn’t spend my formative years reading up on feminism and women’s lib like some other women my age. I wasn’t very politically aware – too many other things to worry about I guess: my body shape and size, how far I needed to run to burn off the consumed calories, whether people liked me or not.

I remember, when I was at university, stumbling upon a poll tax march in London one weekend. The march had turned into a riot, cars were on fire and there was broken glass everywhere. That was the first I’d heard about the violence. I’d been drinking beer in the sun with my university chums and watching the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. I did have an opinion about the poll tax and I do remember attending the odd march, but I guess I just wasn’t bothered enough to dedicate much time to the protest.

Or maybe, back then, I was politically apathetic because I was too unsure about myself to voice any opinions or even to trust myself to have any.

Well, I’m still pretty unsure about myself, especially when it comes to airing my opinions on public platforms, but I’m doing it all the same.

If you’d read this piece already via the Huff Post then I’m afraid to say there’s nothing new. If you hadn’t, then here it is – and your comments are very welcome. I’m working on a more personal follow-up but it’s not quite ready yet. In the meantime:

Fifty Years on From ‘The Feminine Mystique’, Now Childless Working Women Ask, ‘Is This All?’

Half a century after bored American housewives asked, “Is this all?” in Betty Friedan‘s groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique, many professional women are asking the same question – but for very different reasons.

Swept along by feminism’s second wave, a movement ignited by Friedan’s work, women in their 30s and 40s who’ve fulfilled their intellectual potential and earned their independence are waking up to the fact they might also want children – and they’re wondering how on earth it all got so late.

As a 41-year-old, single female with an impressive CV, a passport full of stamps and a foot on the London property ladder, I am one of these women. And as a journalist who’s writing a book about the predicament of would-be mothers of a certain age, I’ve talked to women around the world who are in the same boat.

Don’t get me wrong: I, for one, am hugely grateful that Friedan and her contemporaries liberated us from the tyranny of the kitchen sink.

I imagine I might be experiencing what she called “the problem that has no name” – “a vague undefined wish for ‘something more’” – if I had never had the chance to work, although I respect women for whom homemaking has been enough.

I also agree with the columnists and bloggers who, in recent days, have noted that the battle for gender equality is by no means won.

But for those experiencing feminism’s unintended consequences – childless, working women of my generation who, just like Friedan’s housewives, are wondering if there’s ‘something more’ – it can feel like the pendulum swung too far the other way.

In Britain today, one in five women reaches their mid-40s without children, a rate that’s nearly double that of the previous generation and comparable to that of women born in 1920, whose main childbearing years fell during World War II. The statistics are similar in the United States.

For some women, this will be out of choice, but for many others it’s down to circumstance.

There’s also been a surge in women giving birth over 40, but statistics show it’s not going to work out for all of us, even with the miracles of science.

So today, women in their late 30s and 40s who might want children – particularly those who are single – face a whole different set of choices to those initially offered by women’s lib: do I freeze my eggs or have I left it too late? Do I date like my life depends on it – shaving five years off my age on my online profile so I don’t appear desperate?

Do I explore IVF, co-parenting or look into adoption and do I have the financial and emotional reserves to do so? Or do I accept motherhood might not happen to me and make peace with a potentially childfree/childless future (depending on how you look at it)?

Many women have put their hard-earned independence to good use by visiting a sperm bank or adopting on their own.

But for those of us who, for whatever reason, don’t want to go it alone, it’s the most traditional of options we worry is slipping out of reach: the chance to meet someone, spend time getting to know them – free from baby angst – and to decide, as part of a partnership, whether to try for children or not (‘try’ being the operative word, because of course we never know).

As one 39-year-old female doctor told me: “I want the ability to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, rather than have the choice taken away from me because I haven’t met the right person or I’ve run out of time or whatever.”

Some might say that as so-called ‘career women’ we made our beds so now we have to lie in them. The word ‘selfish’ is often bandied about. But none of us recall making a deliberate choice to put work before families.

We simply followed the suggestions of our parents, teachers and glossy magazines and seized the opportunities presented to us, opportunities that our mothers often hadn’t had.

We studied and worked hard, travelled the world and dated a string of inappropriate men (or was that last one just me?), never meeting anyone we wanted to settle down with or never feeling ready to commit. After all, we had plenty of time, right?

Ask any woman of my generation about the messages she heard when she was growing up and ‘make sure you plan for motherhood’ probably won’t feature.

But she’ll likely tell you she was encouraged to fulfil her potential and establish her independence. Maybe she heard she could “have it all”. And if her parents split up in the 1970s divorce boom like mine did, perhaps she was told never to depend on a man or not to bother with men at all.

Even in our mid-30s, often we were still building our careers and moving in childless circles. One friend recalls that at 35, she was thinking she still had years to get pregnant – instead, if you look at the statistics, her fertility had just dropped off a cliff.

And there was always IVF, we thought, sometimes without realising that the chances of conceiving via in-vitro also diminish drastically with age.

Then, in our late 30s or early 40s, we came up against a rapidly diminishing pool of potential partners. You only have to glance at an online dating site to see how things have got skewed – many men my age set the upper limit of their desired female partner at 38, if not younger, for understandable and slightly infuriating reasons. Like us, they don’t want an instant baby – but they do want the choice.

Of course, plenty of my school and university contemporaries had careers and children and they grew up in the same social context as me. So clearly there are individual reasons why women end up on the verge of missing the baby boat – mine include my parents’ divorce, addictions that flourished in my 20s and recovery from them that consumed much of my 30s.

But there are also societal and cultural reasons why there are so many women around my age who are wondering if it’s too late for biological motherhood, or who are grieving the fact they’ll never give birth.

Social movements, as experts note, often bring unintended consequences and it’s clear things are now balancing out.

From my conversations with women in their 20s, they’re aware they’ll need to plan for families if that’s what they want. The media is filled with stories of failed IVF cycles and the perils of late motherhood while enough women are talking publicly about their experiences around childlessness or the difficulties of finding a mate.

And, increasingly, thanks to women like Anne-Marie Slaughter, today’s professional women are also aware that combining high-level careers and motherhood requires painful compromises.

Hopefully, as we press on with the work begun by our feminist predecessors, societal expectations, government policies and workplace schedules will adapt to ensure more of us can have careers and families before time runs out – so in the future large numbers of women won’t end up childless without having made the choice.

Posted in Pregnancy, Women, Work | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Love me, love my guacamole

Posted on February 12, 2013 by

It was the pizza that did it.

I was sitting in Pizza Express on London’s Southbank chatting with a friend when I spotted a notice on the table. It was one of those flimsy, upright cardboard things with a picture of a pizza and, underneath, a whole row of social media icons: F for Facebook, T for Twitter and the camera symbol for Instagram (I still don’t quite know what that is but I’m sure it’s just as addictive as its predecessors). The notice was encouraging diners to take a photo of their pizza and post it on their chosen site – or all three – for the world to see.

I’m not sure if it was offering a free pizza in return for the best snap. I didn’t read that far. Instead, I groaned inwardly at the thought that people would actually break off from their lovely conversations with real people they probably don’t see very often to go online and post a picture of a pizza.

No, hang on a minute, I groaned inwardly at the thought that I would do that.

Because the scary thing is, I knew I was perfectly capable of taking a picture of my pizza and posting it on Facebook. And of then keeping tabs on my post to see how many ‘likes’ I’d got and to check lots of people had noticed I was out having a good time and not sat on my own at home eating cereal out of a box (à la Bridget Jones) and watching Coronation Street.

In case you missed it .. the before picture

In case you missed it .. the before picture

After all, only a few weeks earlier, I’d broken off from a lovely dinner with two dear friends to upload a photo of a bowl of guacamole I’d made to Facebook – and a few hours later I’d logged back on to post a picture of the empty bowl.

And then – and this is the sad bit – I’d checked far too many times to see how many people ‘liked’ my guacamole, simultaneously hoping it would get a strong seal of approval and wondering why on earth anyone would take the time to ‘like’ a photo of a bowl of guacamole – don’t you all have better things to do?! Of course, I also hoped the holiday romance guy back in Mexico would spot what a wonderful guacamole-maker I was and realise he needed to put his commitment-phobic ways behind him and come and join me in my kitchen. Don’t worry, that was a very brief delusional phase I went through – I’m over it now. But I know I’m not the first female to post something on Facebook with a guy in mind.

So when I spotted the pizza sign, it all became clear. I’d been trying to work out what to give up for Lent this year and suddenly it was obvious: Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, Facebook has been a wonderful resource over the years to keep in touch with friends, new and old, in faraway cities and countries, as well as to build a community around this blog. And I’m sure, once I return to it after Lent, it will continue to serve that purpose. I have friends all over the world and I get to see what you’re all up to, where you’re going on holidays, who you’re dating, how you’re feeling, what you’re reading. And all that without even talking to you. Quite amazing, really.

But there are things about Facebook that aren’t good for me. Here are a few of them:

- Spending too long looking at other people’s photos and thinking their lives are wonderful

- Spending too long reading about other people’s achievements and comparing myself with them (compare and despair)

- Spending too long looking at the photographs of other people’s children and partners and wondering if that will ever be me

- Posting my own holiday snaps, blogs and achievements – often because I genuinely want to share them with friends but sometimes because I want everyone to think I’m really happy (when I’m not, all of the time), because I want to be ‘liked’ (in both the Facebook and real life sense of the word), approved of, reassured or found to be attractive/beautiful/thin, or I want a particular man to notice me, believe that my life is totally amazing and think or say that I look cute in the snow, on the sand or in that purple sparkly dress

- Checking Facebook just before bed or first thing in the morning – because I’m bored, lonely or want to distract from what’s really going on inside my head or heart – when I’d be better off reading a good book, doing a bit of meditation or listening to some soothing music.

After all, Facebook, for all its plus points, is a huge distraction. It’s a bit like sitting in front of the TV. I can ‘zone out’ on Facebook. I can use it to procrastinate. I read the links you post or look through your old photos – or I look through mine, reminiscing about this and that. And all this for someone who’s always complaining she never has enough time.

So as daunting as it seems right now, I’m taking some time out from the delights of Facebook. I’ll miss your posts, your jokes, your news updates and your photographs. I’ll miss seeing your new haircuts and your cute kids. And no doubt I’ll miss a number of party invites (you have my email, right?).

But I won’t miss the late night glare of my iPhone screen and I won’t miss all those lost minutes, which I hope instead to dedicate to my creativity – creating rather than consuming, to quote a friend.

See - they loved my guacamole!

See – they loved my guacamole!

And I won’t miss that constant yearning for reassurance that you love me, or at least like me, or at the very least, like the look of my guacamole.

Inevitably, of course, I’ll seek your love and reassurance elsewhere – via comments on my blog or by checking my viewing stats or by seeing if anyone retweets my tweets. The bravest thing to do would be to give it all up. But I’ll start with Facebook and see how I go. I don’t want to commit career suicide or get social media withdrawal symptoms.

But I’m also hoping, during this Lenten period, to give to myself that love, reassurance and approval I far too often seek from others. I’m hoping to ‘like’ myself – to give myself that big Facebook thumbs up.

And that’s what my next post will be about …

Posted in Addiction, Creativity, Love, Women, Work | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Break on through to the other side

Posted on January 27, 2013 by

Breakthrough (Noun)

  1. a significant development or discovery, esp in science ⇒ a major scientific breakthrough ⇒ the test is a breakthrough in the early diagnosis of disease
  2. an action or event that represents the removal of a previously existing obstacle or barrier to progress

Source: Collins English Dictionary

I had a number of breakthroughs during my magical Mexican mystery tour and I’ve had a few since. Most of them have involved discomfort or emotional pain, as breakthroughs so often do.

Note to self: if you’re feeling pain, don’t be afraid of it, don’t run from it and don’t overeat on it. Embrace it, sit with it, cry through it, process it – it’s likely a sign of imminent growth. And growth, however much it hurts, is a lot more desirable than stagnation.

One of the more significant breakthroughs was about men and how I relate to them.

I’ll preface this bit of the blog with a quote from Dawn French who was interviewed on Desert Island Discs in December. She was talking about her divorce from husband Lenny Henry, her subsequent singleness and dread of dating (“Do I have to do dating? How repulsive. I’ll have to buy new pants”), followed by an important realisation, which came to her while walking her dog along a Cornish beach:

“Everything’s a bit great and I’ve got the work I want to do more than anything else – I’m writing in Cornwall – and I don’t need a bloke. I don’t need a bloke to be happy. I don’t need to vicariously live through anyone else to be strong and to feel any kind of proper joy. I feel joyful now. And I knew it. And it was like a big epiphany to me. And of course then, bang, I met somebody else. But I honestly don’t believe I would have been in the right frame of mind to meet him if I hadn’t gone through that process.”

Now, if you’re single and of a certain age, you’ll have heard this kind of thing many times before. You’ll have been told you’ll meet someone when you’ve learned to be happy without him, when you don’t need him, when you’ve stopped looking for him.

It’s a state of being that many singletons strive for. We pursue fulfilling work, cultivate interesting hobbies, take adventurous holidays, invest in our friendships and relish sleeping in a large double bed without having to listen to someone else’s snoring.

But while we might look delighted with our singleness on the surface, getting to that place on the inside, deep within our hearts, is easier said than done.

I’m speaking from experience. Anyone who knows me will vouch for the fact I lead a pretty full life. I’m sure I don’t enjoy my independence as much as I could but I was out at the movies on Thursday evening, salsa dancing on Friday night and I’ve just got back from a month of travelling, surfing, and partying in Mexico.

So I don’t do too badly – at least on the outside. But at a deeper level, there’s often a longing – for partnership, for companionship, for love, for intimacy (into-me-see – to be known and to know). And there’s often a loneliness, which I try my best to avoid, often through constant activity, but that generally catches up with me.

My recent holiday romance – while imperfect and short-lived – reminded me how great it can be to be in partnership. But it also led me to a breakthrough around my singleness.

Towards the end of my Mexico trip and a good week or so into my romantic interlude, I stood at a crossroads. The guy, over breakfast, had floated the idea of me staying on in Mexico to travel some more. In my sun-kissed dreamy state, I had taken this to mean to travel some more with him – an attractive prospect given how much fun I was having.

Of course, my first thought was that I couldn’t possibly do that. I was a ‘good girl’. I had a flight to catch, a schedule to keep to, admin to complete, a tax return to file, work to do, money to earn, a routine to return to and so forth.

And then it hit me. This year, 2013, was meant to be different. I’d started it differently – by surfing in the Pacific on New Year’s Day – and I wanted to carry on doing things differently. Why hurry back to a routine and a life that had had me contemplating taking antidepressants just a few months earlier to get myself out of a miserable rut? Why carry on being a ‘good girl’ and playing it safe when my soul felt so constricted and constrained when I did so? And why not journey a little longer along Mexico’s beaches and through its jungles with an attractive man? Tax return versus foreign adventure? Mexican sunshine versus London in January? Aloneness versus companionship? Taking a risk versus playing it safe? Well, if it you put it that way …

Of course I could stay – perhaps only for a few weeks (semi-safe, moderately risky) – but I was ready and willing to break the mould, to take a chance, to do things differently.

But on announcing my intention, I discovered that what I had heard hadn’t actually been an invite to stay on and travel with the guy. It had been a suggestion to continue an adventure that obviously was doing me the world of good – but not as part of a couple. Our relationship had a beginning and an end and the end was nigh. We’d had a great run but he was a solo traveller on a journey of self-discovery. It was time to go our separate ways.

Fair enough. I’d signed up to a holiday romance and that’s what I’d got – nothing more, nothing less.

But that knowledge didn’t stop me from feeling angry, hurt and rejected. I felt on the receiving end of that familiar push-pull dynamic that I’ve subjected men to on numerous occasions – the ‘I want you but I don’t want you’ message. I’ve touched on this before in previous posts: Taking the plunge, Waiting for my honeymoon and Be still my beating heart.

And when I say I felt angry, that’s a bit of an understatement. I was fuming. Not even a fast swim in a choppy sea could soothe me. Talking it through, however, with the guy in question and being honest about what was going on inside my head and heart succeeded in calming my fury.

View from a sandy hollow on a Mexican beach

View from a sandy hollow on a Mexican beach

As we sat chatting in a sandy hollow looking out to sea, I saw (and I see even more clearly now) that while I had some justification for my feelings, my reaction had been disproportionate to the situation before me, which was a clear sign that something deeper had been stirred. To recall the title of a previous blog post, my reaction was a touch hysterical, hence there was something historical going on. My past had invaded my present. The sense of rejection and the depth of anger I felt had very little to do with the man sat beside me on that Mexican beach and a lot to do with the very first man who, in my eyes, had loved me and then left, who had wanted me but then hadn’t: my Dad.

My fury, my indignation, my desire to lash out belonged to the eight-year-old girl who had sat quietly on her father’s knee as he explained in regretful tones that he was moving out, rather than to the 41-year-old woman who felt a little jilted by her temporary fella. And that vulnerable little girl who never knew where to take her pain lives on inside me, poised to react to any hint of abandonment. These days, it’s up to me to listen to her, to soothe her and to help her process her feelings.

But then (we’re back on the Mexican beach), once I’d worked through my anger and had separated my past from my present, I had the real breakthrough – not unlike the epiphany Dawn French had on her Cornish coastal walk.

I was a single, capable, independent, Spanish-speaking, Mexican culture-loving, salsa-dancing adventurer. I could travel on my own. I didn’t need this man. I didn’t need any man. In fact, perhaps it would actually be more exciting to continue this adventure solo.

By this point, after nearly 4 weeks in Mexico, I’d got over my initial trepidation and had been well and truly infected, once again, by the travel bug. The prospect of an overnight bus ride to the jungles of Chiapas followed by a visit to Palenque and a stopover in Oaxaca on the way back to the capital – on my own – suddenly seemed like the most exciting thing I could possibly do. Think of all the new experiences I could have, all the interesting people I could meet, all the sights I could see.

So after a good deal of indecision (one of my main coping mechanisms when gripped with fear), I made a choice: I would change my flight, postpone the work I had planned back in London or arrange to do it from a Mexican Internet café, miss a number of appointments and travel for a bit longer. And I would do this without the security of this man – or any man.

I’d do it because that’s where my heart was leading me and I was brave enough to follow. After all, I’d followed my heart to Mexico over Christmas and to Puerto Escondido when I didn’t know where else to go.

As it turns out, once I’d made the decision to stay and after I’d cancelled an internal flight to Mexico City, my plan hit a brick wall. I couldn’t change my flight home to London. I’d been told I could, several times over the phone, but in fact, when it came down to it, I couldn’t. No way, José.

But it didn’t matter. The breakthrough had happened. As I realised that I didn’t need a man to enjoy my time in Mexico or to feel safe in a foreign land, I grew a few inches. The pain and anger I’d felt at being rejected, as I saw it, had opened the door to an extraordinary discovery – that I could do this on my own. No problemo.

And it’s that moment I hold on to more than any others from my Mexico trip. It’s that moment that gave me back my adventurous spirit and filled my head and heart with dreams of future journeys.

Since I got back to London – two-and-a-half-weeks ago now – I had another breakthrough and along similar lines.

Despite having walked away from my holiday romance feeling emotionally strong, I suddenly found myself experiencing a whole different set of emotions toward the guy in question, emotions similar to those that had gripped me on that Mexican beach: anger, resentment, hurt and a sense of betrayal.

I wanted to break all contact with him, shut him out, end our friendship, pull down the shutters, batten down the hatches and pull up the draw bridge. I began to think I’d been wrong to get involved, to let myself live in the moment, to open my heart, to experience glimpses of intimacy, closeness and companionship. What had been the point? Only to feel rejected, lonely and hurt afterwards? It wasn’t worth it.

But once again, the ‘hysterical – historical’ maxim came to my rescue. The feelings of anger, hurt and betrayal weren’t to do with him. This guy had done nothing wrong. He’d laid his cards on the table at the start and had hung around a lot longer than expected. There was no betrayal, no rejection, no cause for hurt. No, those feelings dated back decades and belonged to my relationship with my father.

I had felt abandoned, betrayed and rejected at a very young age by the most important man in my life. I had done my utmost to bring him back or to get him to love me exactly how I wanted him to: I’d starved myself to the point of developing an eating disorder, I’d got straight ‘A’s at school, been head girl, won a place at Oxford University, run cross-country for Liverpool and captained school sports teams. All, as I saw it, to no avail. Of course, Dad had loved me. He had always loved me – the way he knew how. But it was never enough for me. My need was too great, the hole was too wide, the wound too deep.

So what did I do with my hurt? How did I react to this sense of betrayal? I ran. I ran far away. Geographically and emotionally. Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, United States, Mexico, Brazil. I ran for ten years, coming home for brief holidays, never even trying to get close again. I shut him out. I battened down the hatches and pulled down the shutters. I lived in sunny climes but a thin layer of ice covered my heart.

Fortunately, it melted in time. I found recovery (from my eating disorder and other addictive behaviours) in time. I found therapy in time. In time to achieve some degree of closeness before he died. In time to spend a week or two beside his hospital bed, helping him pick his meals off the menu or listening to a Liverpool FC match on a portable radio. In time to tell him I loved him and that I was sorry I had thought he hadn’t loved me, that I was sorry I had run so far away and for so long.

Of course, it wasn’t enough time. It never is. There was so much more I wanted to say. There was still a gap I wanted to bridge. And maybe I’ll always question my choice to take a 3-week holiday – in Mexico of all places – in February 2006. I thought he had more time. I thought we had more time. As it was, he died just days after I got back and while I got the chance to see him before he passed away, I never saw him conscious again. There wasn’t enough time.

But there is still time to heal, to heal the wounds of the past by exposing my heart to love in the present – however much that triggers painful memories, however scary and crazy-making it can be, however much I instantly want to retreat behind my protective walls.

It has been said that our greatest hurt happens in relationship – and that is where the healing happens too.

So while I’m happy to adventure alone and to seek contentment without a partner, my heart is open and I’m willing to take risks. Or to use an affirmation I mentioned in a previous post, Somebody to love, “I am open to receiving love that heals my heart and makes my spirit sing.”

Breakthrough: an action or event that represents the removal of a previously existing obstacle or barrier to progress.

Breakthroughs happen when we take a chance, when we do things differently, when we face our fears. And every time we process our pain, work through our past and learn to live in our present, we chip away at the obstacles that stand in the way of progress, that stand in the way of happiness.

Posted in Love, Recovery, Relationships, Travel, Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Magic moments

Posted on January 10, 2013 by

I started this blog on the shady terrace mentioned below, the Pacific Ocean just a short walk away. I continued it in the comfort of my London home, to the gentle hum of the washing machine. And I finished it off in my studio, looking out on a church steeple and grey skies. I wouldn’t normally drag out a blog that long – I guess this one was pretty special to me.

Despite the change in location, I decided to keep the original intro – I felt it important to record the moment …

The terrace, the view, the cat and the blog

The terrace, the view, the cat and the blog

I’m writing this blog from a shady terrace high above the beautiful beach of San Agustinillo, Oaxaca, Mexico. I’m in a rocking chair with my feet up, there’s a cat on my lap and an ice-cold mango juice within arm’s reach. It may not be the most comfortable blogging position – the cat’s a little difficult to manoeuvre around – but right now, I couldn’t be happier.

There have been many other magic moments like this in the last few weeks so it’s appropriate I’m writing this blog – the first since I left Mexico City and the last before I leave the country – at a hotel and restaurant called La Casa Magica.

Other magic Mexican moments: learning to wakeboard on a lagoon; surfing one morning as a pelican swooped in front of me; swimming in the sea at sunset on New Years’ Eve; dancing salsa until the early hours – one of my all-time favourite occupations that I managed to do three times in the last month, not including the times I danced around the house or a hotel room (salsa dancing makes my heart sing – I feel like I’m floating, flying even); skinny dipping at night, once in the sea and once in a plunge pool outside my apartment on New Year’s Day; eating chile prawns, garlic fish and guacamole; travelling in the back of a truck along sunny roads lined with palm trees; giggling uncontrollably at things that weren’t even that funny; conversing with the locals in a language I love and – a particularly vivid memory – lying on a sun lounger on the beach a few metres away from the crashing waves of the Pacific, gazing up at the night sky filled with stars, singing along to karaoke tunes playing in a nearby bar and resting my head on the broad shoulders of a beautiful man.

Yes, you heard me right. This single lady has had a wonderful holiday romance. Who would have thought it? Well, maybe I had an inkling I might meet someone in Mexico but I try not to travel with expectations. And even if I had thought a romantic interlude was on the cards, I couldn’t have imagined that it would be such a positive experience or that I’d walk away from it feeling so happy, healthy and emotionally strong.

Even before my holiday romance began, I was having an amazing time – being reminded of the joys of solo travel, particularly when I’m fluent in the local language.

It took me a while to get on the road again after a week in Mexico City – my fear and indecision threw obstacles in my path and robbed me of my peace for a day or two – but once I was moving, I felt silly for having fretted so much and really couldn’t understand what I’d been so worried about. Or rather I could – I was scared, of being lonely, particularly at Christmas, so I’d latched on to some of my old coping mechanisms: anxiety, chronic indecision and control.

But of course, I needn’t have worried.

As soon as I got off the plane in Puerto Escondido on Christmas Eve, I met an Aussie surfer who was also travelling alone and just as keen as I was to hang out. I spent Christmas Day morning on a beautiful empty beach and took a trip around a stunning lagoon in the afternoon with a friendly British couple I’d met at my hotel. At sunset, we watched baby turtles crawl across the sand and into the sea – free at last.

On Boxing Day, I came across a wonderful Mexican lady and a fellow fan of fun when I went to get my legs waxed. A few hours later, the Mexican leg waxer and I went salsa dancing in a fantastic bar with a live band. I spent the next day on the beach with one of the Mexican guys we’d met on the dance floor and, later that evening, I had a great conversation about life and love with a handsome Argentinean when the Mexican leg waxer and I hit the town again.

I’d been in Puerto Escondido just a few days and already felt quite at home.

Then, just when I was starting to feel a little unsettled – I’d met the Mexican guy again but he’d drunk too much beer and was hitting on me persistently so I’d walked away along the beach as the sun sank into the sea behind me – I ran into a traveller I’d met in Mexico City and we went to eat some fish tacos and drink frozen lemonade.

I didn’t know it then – I thought we’d just be sociable for a few days – but that was the start of a 10-day relationship (for want of a better word – liaison perhaps?) that was, for the most part, a huge amount of fun and that helped me grow more than I could have imagined.

After a rather colourful, rocky and reckless past in terms of my relationships with the opposite sex – my recklessness was at its height in my 20s when I lived in Mexico – and after a number of failed relationships more recently, I think I’d lost faith in my ability to make healthy choices when it came to guys or to enjoy the company of a man without feeling terrified of getting myself into a muddle, or of hurting him or getting hurt. I was always walking on egg shells, trying not to trample on my own emotions or those of others and feeling restricted by what I thought I ought to be doing or not doing.

I think I thought I had to stay away from men completely unless I was sure it was going to be for ever – but of course, I never could stay away. So I’d end up in situations I didn’t want to be in – in relationships I knew were wrong for me or feeling guilty about things I had done. Brief encounters left me feeling empty and longer relationships – although they haven’t lasted more than six months in my recent past – left me feeling incapable of making good choices and pretty glum about my romantic prospects.

But this time, I made a choice to live in the present, to forget all my rigid rules and regulations, to trust my instincts and the guy I had met and to have fun. The result was a lot of laughing, skinny dipping, more salsa dancing, karaoke singing (from the beach lounger) and a new sense of freedom around men and life.

Of course, I had the odd wobble with the guy – the odd needy moment or twinges of guilt and worry. And I’m sure, given long enough, my over-analytical brain that’s now many miles from the sunshine, sand and surf would come up with a long list of reasons why it wasn’t all that good for me.

But right now, I’m celebrating the fact I had a lovely holiday romance and was able to walk away from it without any tears (I repeat – without any tears!) and feeling good about myself, happy to let him go and content to continue my journey in the opposite direction.

This feels new. It feels different.

And Mexico was good for me in a whole host of other ways. The decision to spend a month there had a lot to do with rediscovering my adventurous spirit – a spirit that had been very much alive and kicking when I lived in Mexico City from 1995-2000 but that had been fuelled by unhealthy behaviours throughout those years – binge eating, starving, excessive drinking and the courting of danger, to name but a few. As I described in my Mexican memoir, my fun, free exterior disguised a good deal of inner turmoil.

So was I capable of returning to the scene of the crime – as I like to refer to Mexico on occasion – without using those crutches? Was I capable of taking healthy risks, with my feelings (by spending Christmas away from family and New Year away from friends), with my security (by travelling in a country where I was mugged at gun and knife point), with my money (by spending a lot of it) and with my perfect little London flat (by renting it out).

It seems the longer I had spent in my cosy life in London (ten years now), the more fearful I had grown of solo travel, of potential danger and of loneliness. Before I got to Mexico in 1995, I’d travelled alone through Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and parts of the United States for 18 months, hitchhiking on deserted highways, running out of money in numerous places, finding random jobs from fruit picking to dish washing to be able to keep going. One of my first trips in Mexico, after I’d managed to get out of Tijuana, was down to the depths of the Copper Canyon, a journey I made on the roof of a rickety bus to heighten the adrenalin hit.

On the outside, I was fearless, but I was also rather foolish.

But in recent years, things had got very safe – as an experienced extremist, I’d gone to the other extreme. I’d taken organised group holidays (yoga trips or activity breaks) rather than solo adventures, preferring to know exactly where I was sleeping, what I’d be doing with my days and the kind of people I would meet. I’d decided I was no good at sharing rooms and could only sleep if the conditions were perfect (total darkness and quiet). I’d decided my days of solo wandering were over.

So Mexico was an attempt to break out of a mould that had become a little too restrictive.

Sunet on New Year's Eve, 2012

Sunset on New Year’s Eve, 2012

But the change didn’t happen overnight. I started my trip with a good amount of fear. As I made plans to head to the beach for Christmas, I worried too much about how comfortable the journey would be, where I would stay, if I would be safe and who I would meet. I tried to control everything to reduce the chances of feeling lonely and insecure. I compensated for my fear by over-planning and over-spending. I tried to buy my peace of mind and sense of well being.

But of course, no amount of money or luxury can buy emotional security or inner peace. They’re free, which is a real blessing, but sometimes we have to challenge ourselves so our sense of inner security and peace can develop. They’re like muscles – they need to be flexed in order to grow.

And that’s what I believe I did in Mexico. I stepped out in faith, sometimes with very wobbly legs, but I stepped out all the same. And God and the universe provided for all of my needs, with chance encounters and great connections, as well as some difficult moments that really helped me to grow.

An experience I had learning to surf could serve as a metaphor for overcoming my broader fears. I’d fallen off my board and a novice surfer almost collided into me as I struggled to get back on. I cut my foot on rocks I didn’t know where beneath me and I was pummelled by a set of waves. I took myself to the shore and as I examined my bleeding ankle and emptied the water out of my nose and ears, I experienced something akin to a panic attack.

On reflection, I think the experience had triggered a childhood memory – of when my Mum’s boyfriend threw me into the deep end of a Spanish swimming pool before I knew how to swim. But on both occasions, I didn’t throw in the towel. As a child, I took myself out of my depth in the sea with my brother and taught myself to swim. And as an adult, I picked up my surf board and waded back into the water, only to catch the next wave and ride it into shore. Of course, I could have given up my surfing ambitions and sat on the beach in the sun. But then I would have missed out – on an opportunity to challenge my fears, to grow through them and to do something I love.

By exploring other experiences, I also learned on my Mexico trip that I don’t, in fact, need perfect conditions (total darkness, silence, aloneness and expensive surroundings) to get a good night’s sleep. Once again, I just need peace of mind. And I was also reminded that I much prefer travelling by local bus or open-air truck than in a taxi that costs ten times as much.

Towards the end of my month, I was having such a good time that I even decided to extend my stay (although only after a huge amount of deliberation that turned into chronic indecision). I was looking forward to a few more weeks of adventure, returning to places I’d visited before but with different eyes. I made the choice to stay but my plan didn’t work. I couldn’t extend my flight. That’s OK. It feels fine to be home.

But my thirst for adventure, solo travel and Latin cultures has returned with a vengeance and I’d love to find a way to spend a month in Peru (one of the few Latin American countries I haven’t been to) in the not too distant future. I can wait around in London for someone to adventure with – or I can go on my adventures alone and open myself up to a world of opportunities and experiences.

In the meantime, I hope I can hold on to my adventurous spirit and make the most of what London has to offer – particularly its salsa bars.

And on that note, I’ll leave you with a song I danced to in Puerto Escondido and at my friend’s wedding in Acapulco (if my memory serves me correctly), as well as around my hotel room on a number of occasions. It’s by Luis Enrique, a Nicaraguan artist. The tune is a brilliant one to salsa to and the lyrics (written out in Spanish and English here in case you want to read them) talk about living for the moment and not trying to control the future. Check out the fancy footwork of the backing singers and try and stop yourself from dancing (oh yes, and excuse the rather abrupt ending, if you get that far) …

Posted in Fun, Leisure, Love, Travel, Trust, Uncategorized, Women | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Postcard from Mexico City

Posted on December 20, 2012 by

I’m writing this from a café in the afternoon sunshine – one of the advantages of taking a trip to Mexico in December. It’s winter here too, supposedly, and many chilangos (as Mexico City dwellers are affectionately known) like to bring out their heavy coats, boots and scarves at this time of the year. But you could get away without them, especially in the daytime.

So it took me a few days to settle in to this metropolis, which is only to be expected. It’s a chaotic city of 20 million people with horrendous traffic and a public transport system that takes some getting used to.

But I’m pleased to say I’m now feeling quite at home. I’ve mastered the metro and peseros again (peseros being the small buses so called because it costs a peso to ride them – or it used to when I first arrived here in 1995, it now costs three or four), I’ve remembered how to get from one neighbourhood to another and I’ve spent some quality time with some of my dear friends from the viejos tiempos (the old days).

It’s interesting to see how some things have changed here since I left in 2000 (I was back for a brief holiday in 2006) – and how some things haven’t.

Ambulances still sit in stationary traffic with their sirens blaring but with no way forward, although I did notice a few cars trying their best to make way. Windscreen cleaners still clean your car windscreen at the traffic lights even if you say ‘No’ and people still weave their way through slow moving vehicles selling peanuts and chewing gum.

Christmas decorations

Christmas decorations

You can get a freshly squeezed juice or a cup full of delicious fruit on street corners for a very small amount of money, chilli is an essential accompaniment to any snack or meal and the colours – of the buildings particularly – are just as vivid as ever.

On the other hand, Starbucks and frozen yoghurt chains have overtaken the city, or at least its more affluent neighbourhoods, and there’s wi-fi wherever you go, which is great news for a roving blogger like me. And, to my amazement and delight, there are bicycles everywhere. I would never have dreamed of riding a bike through this city’s crazy traffic when I lived here but thanks to Ecobici - the Mexico City equivalent of London’s Boris bikes – chilangos are cycling all over the place.

And so it was that I rented an Ecobici on Tuesday and cycled all the way up the majestic Paseo de la Reforma, past the Angel monument, to the Alameda park and to the Palacio de Bellas Artes. I then took a wander around Bellas Artes and marvelled at the murals of Diego Rivera, the Mexican painter who had a tempestuous marriage with Frida Kahlo.

Frida

I’d been to Frida Kahlo’s house – the Casa Azul (Blue House) in Coyoacán – a few days earlier – drawn there by my admiration for her creativity and by some sort of affinity I feel for her inner turmoil, expressed so passionately through her paintings.

Frida’s house didn’t disappoint. The colours were as bright and the atmosphere in the courtyard as peaceful as I remember. And I happened to be there in time for a live drama performance of Frida’s life and work.

As I stood admiring her paintings, a thought came to me. If Frida hadn’t believed in her talent as an artist and persevered with her work in the face of illness, a crippling accident and her rollercoaster relationship with Diego, we wouldn’t have her art to look at and the world would be a less colourful place.

Frida said she painted because she felt that she had to, she had a need to. It was her way of expressing herself, her anguish, her pain, her passion. But what if she’d decided to ignore that need, to suppress it, to find something else to do with her time? And what if she’d succumbed to self-pity after she’d had her foot amputated and given up her painting.

The Casa Azul wouldn’t be a museum to her life and there wouldn’t be a line of tourists waiting outside. But instead of giving up, she famously said, “Pies, para qué los quiero si tengo alas pa’ volar” (what do I need feet for if I’ve got wings to fly?)

I had the same thought as I stood in Bellas Artes looking at Diego’s gigantic murals. If he had decided to hide his talent, if he’d thought his work wasn’t good enough to show, those walls would be empty or filled with someone else’s art. The same for David Alfaro Siqueiros or José Clemente Orozco, whose paintings are also displayed in Bellas Artes.

The wall of Frida's Casa Azul

The wall of Frida’s Casa Azul

So what’s your talent? And what’s mine? Is it on display for all to see or are we too shy, too self-conscious or too proud? Are we making the most of our God-given gifts or are we ignoring them or keeping them under wraps? And if it’s the latter, the question has to be why?

On the table in front of me right now, there’s a list of questions the café owners have provided for customers: what were your favourite moments in 2012? What are you most grateful for in 2012? What was your most important achievement in 2012? What new thing did you learn in 2012? What would you like to leave behind as the year comes to an end? Name one of your most important projects for 2013? What would you like to do for others in 2013?

While the questions all require some thought, the last two particularly caught my eye. I would like to leave behind my past. Not in the sense of forgetting it but I’d like to throw off the parts of my past that restrict my present and future – the wounds, the thought patterns, the insecurities. And that, in a way, also answers the last question. Because I think that’s the best way I can help others – or at least it’s the first step towards being useful – to become the person who God intended me to be, without the weighty chains of past experiences or self-defeating habits. To blossom into myself, my true self. And from that place, I’m pretty sure that I can help others, that I can be of service.

But I digress from my Mexico City postcard and I’m only halfway through. From Bellas Artes, I wandered through the streets of the historic centre and into the main square, or Zócalo, via a frozen yoghurt shop (pistachio and mango flavour).

The square was packed, not just with people but with an ice rink and an artificial ski slope. Mexico is definitely embracing the spirit of Christmas. Imagine the ice rinks of Somerset House or the Natural History Museum and add the backdrop of the Mexico City cathedral – the oldest and largest in Latin America – the adjacent ruins of a prehispanic temple, and the enormous Mexican flag hanging from a flagpole in the centre of the square. Quite a sight.

On my way home on the metro, something else caught my eye. It was a poster announcing a show that would take place in a theatre the following evening. The show would be a monologue performed by Mexican artist and actress Claudia Cervantes (@Cervantesclau) entitled ‘Soltera Pero No Sola‘ (Single but not lonely/alone – the translation could be either). Given I’d just written a blog with a very similar title – Alone but not lonely – I thought I’d better go along. So I suggested it to a friend – a fellow singleton – and off we went.

We couldn’t have made a better choice. We laughed, and laughed, and nodded to each other, and laughed some more. Claudia has her finger on the pulse of pretty much everything that goes through the head of ‘all the single ladies’, particularly those of us who like to think of ourselves as independent. How we approach relationships, how we often fall for the wrong guy, how our head goes off into the fantasy land of happy families on the basis of very little evidence, how we can spend days in our pyjamas after break-ups and how chocolate can be a substitute – a poor one but a substitute all the same – for other things that are missing in our lives.

How many of us have heard the words, ‘But you’re so pretty and smart and bubbly, how come you’re still single?’ Claudia asked, drawing laughter from the women in the audience.

Judging from the response of the female spectators of Claudia’s show and what my friends here tell me, it seems Mexico is just as full of smart, single, 30- or 40-something, independent women as Britain is. Which reminds me, I really must get on with my book.

In the meantime, a big thank you to Claudia for putting her amazing talents and gifts to excellent use, for making me laugh and for reminding me to appreciate my freedom, independence and singleness – as long as it lasts!

Frida's painting: Viva la Vida - Life life

Frida’s painting: Viva la Vida – Life life

Posted in Creativity, Relationships, Travel, Uncategorized, Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Alone but not lonely

Posted on December 15, 2012 by

If I’d written this blog a day or two ago, as I stood with my feet in the Pacific Ocean surf and watched the sky turn pink above me, it would have read differently. Back then, as my toes sank into the sand, I decided the title of my first Mexico blog would be ‘Falling in love again’, because that’s the sensation I had. That I was falling in love again – with life.

I feel like we’ve been through a tough time, life and I, over the past months or even years. That we’d fallen out a little. But six days at the beach in Mexico – a country that captured my heart when I first crossed the border into Tijuana in 1995, aged 24 and with a rucksack on my back, and that gave me a home for five marvellous, albeit crazy years – seemed to restore my faith in life, in myself and in the choices I make.

Hotel Boca Chica

Hotel Boca Chica

The first three days of my beach trip were spent in Acapulco at the über-chic Hotel Boca Chica, a prime destination during the town’s 1950s heyday when Hollywood movie stars draped themselves from its balconies or lounged around its pool. The refurbished Boca Chica played host to the wedding of a dear Mexican friend of mine, someone who was like a sister to me during my stay in this fascinating country and who accompanied me on a number of adventures.

There were plenty of moments during those days at the Boca Chica when I had to pinch myself. There I was, dancing on a moonlit terrace to my favourite Mexican tunes until 4 am, sipping a frozen margarita with friends I hadn’t seen in years, taking a spin around the bay on an inflatable banana, watching our boat captain reel in an enormous swordfish and, perhaps the highlight, watching the Acapulco cliff divers from the sea, under the stars.

I’ve seen the cliff divers once or twice before, from the Hotel Mirador, another prime 1950s destination, or at least from the public viewing platform next to it. But there was something incredibly magical about watching them scale the rocks and dive from a great height while sitting in darkness on a gently rocking boat. And things got even more magical when one of the cliff divers swam out to us, climbed on deck and gave us a potted history of the spectacle – before collecting his propina (tip), of course. All this as the moonlight reflected off the sea. I really did have to pinch myself.

For the final three days of my beach stay, I moved on to one of my favourite spots in the whole world – and that’s saying something as I’ve seen quite a lot of beautiful beaches from Australia to Fiji to Brazil.

The beach at Pie de la Cuesta

The beach at Pie de la Cuesta

Pie de la Cuesta (or Foot of the Hill) is only half-an-hour from Acapulco but it’s a world away. Mass tourism has yet to discover this beautiful spot – thank goodness – and it retains a really local feel. On one side, there’s a long stretch of sandy beach and the roaring waves of the Pacific while on the other, there’s a lagoon where you can swim, kayak, water-ski, jet ski, wakeboard, visit islands, bird watch or cover yourself in restorative mud.

Pie is incredibly special to me. I guess it played a pretty big part in my Mexican life – I went there countless times during my five years in the country and took pretty much every foreign visitor there to try their hand at water-skiing or to lounge in a hammock drinking micheladas (beer, lime and ice, with salt around the rim). So many happy memories.

Laguna de Coyuca

Laguna de Coyuca

But there’s something about the place itself that draws me. Perhaps it’s the peace or the abundance and variety of Nature or the exhilaration of water-skiing or the power of those crashing waves that almost dragged me under once and threatened to carry off a friend on our first visit. Perhaps it’s the combination of so many things I love: natural beauty, sunshine, freedom and adventure sports.

On this occasion, given I was travelling on my own and not en masse as I generally was in the old days, I was blessed to find the Hotel Baxar, a beautiful hotel with a real family feel where I didn’t feel at all lonely – despite being very much alone. And here, in Pie de la Cuesta, I had a few more of those ‘pinch myself’ moments – like the one when all of a sudden and despite thinking I’d never learn to wakeboard and would have to stick with the skis, I was upright and gliding along at top speed, watching the lagoon go by. I really haven’t a clue how I got out of the water and onto my feet but it was an amazing feeling.

Or the moment when the sun went down and the sky turned an incredible pink and tears came to my ears – not of sadness, or loneliness, but of awe, wonder and privilege. Or the moment when my guacamole and spicy shrimp tacos arrived on a tray as I lay on a bed facing out to sea. Or when I caught sight of a fish darting through a wave just before it broke and turned into churning white froth.

In those moments, I really did fall back in love with life. Through my brave choices, through my hard work and by following my heart to Pie instead of heeding warnings of potential danger or my own fears of loneliness, I was staying in a stunning location on my favourite beach. And I didn’t feel at all alone. ‘I trust you life’, I said out loud, over and again, as I walked along the beach in the morning sun. ‘I trust myself.’

So why isn’t this blog called ‘Falling in love again’? Well, after writing the above and recalling my time at the beach, I think it still could carry that title but, inevitably, I’ve lost a bit of my inner peace since I left that tranquil location. I am back in Mexico City, a fascinating place filled with colour, culture, art, amazing architecture and incredibly warm and open people but also a gigantic metropolis that’s filled with noise, traffic and pollution and that doesn’t have the family feel of Pie and the Hotel Baxar. And like any big city, it takes some getting used to.

I’m still remembering how to get around and learning the public transport system again. I’m still trying to locate the shops, supermarkets and friendly cafés. And I’m still coming to terms with my aloneness, felt more starkly in this place of so many people and where Christmas and family are incredibly important. Despite numerous friends in this enormous city, they all have their busy lives, friends and families and fundamentally – as it’s been for quite a long time – I’m on my own, and a long way from home.

Of course, I knew these feelings would come up. I knew I was taking a risk leaving the safety and comfort of my London flat, friendship group, community and family to spend the festive season on the other side of the world. But I made a choice – a choice to shake things up a bit, to do things differently, to challenge myself, to break out of my comfort zone and to reignite my adventurous spirit. I was always going to miss the Christmas lights and trees, the carol concerts, the gift shopping to tacky tunes, the bright winter days, the homely movies and the promise of a cosy few days with my family.

So my emotional wobble since returning to the city is only to be expected. Nor do I have plans for the next few weeks. Things are very much up in the air. I could stay in the capital with a few friends or I could go off and explore this marvelous country, aware that a lot of Mexicans and foreigners are also exploring it at this time of year so prices will be high and the prime locations packed.

The bottom line, however, is that wherever I go and whatever I do, I am alone. I am fundamentally alone. But then, at the same time, I am not alone. It just depends how I look at things.

Since I got back to the city on Thursday night, I’ve realised that I’m always looking for a place to belong, a way to feel part of something, part of a group, a family or a community. But even if I find that group, community or family, I never truly feel like I belong. I always feel a bit of an outsider. This is a feeling that has been with me since childhood – a feeling that’s explained brilliantly by John Bradshaw in a book I’m reading: Healing the Shame that Binds You. (I do have some light holiday reading too but I’m really pleased I’m reading this book – it’s helping me to know myself even more).

Understanding that I carry this sense of apartness with me wherever I go has been a big help because I now see that this feeling of belonging I so yearn for needs to come from the inside. I need to feel like I belong to myself or that all the parts of myself belong to each other. I need to integrate my adventurous, courageous, outgoing, grown-up side with the insecure, fearful, somewhat paranoid young child inside me. And I need to draw on my inner strength and on God to find my peace and poise, in the face of life’s ups and downs.

So yes, I am alone. And a long way from home. But I am not alone and I carry my home with me, inside of me. I am my own companion. And as the Mexicans say, ‘mejor sola que mal acompañada’, or better alone than in bad company, which for today I interpret as better alone than in a relationship just for the sake of having someone to lean on or to not feel like I’m some sort of anomaly.

So this trip seems to be about embracing my aloneness and celebrating everything I am and everything I have – my resourcefulness, my courage, my imagination, my persistence and my willingness to trust myself. It’s also about getting out there and discovering the riches of Mexico City and beyond. Which is why I’m really excited about going to the house of Frida Kahlo later today – the troubled Mexican artist whose life story inspired my Mexican memoir blog. My decision to go to Frida’s house today is interesting given an article I read this morning by Martha Beck (@MarthaBeck): ‘When you feel lonely‘. In it, Martha explores three types of loneliness: absolute loneliness, separation loneliness and existential loneliness. It seems to be the existential loneliness that I often feel and I was very pleased to read her solution: Art. So here I am, partaking in my art – writing and creating – and soon I’ll be immersed in the art of Frida and the beautiful bright colours of her house.

Before I sign off to take a bus down to Coyoacan, this piece by Melanie Notkin (@SavvyAuntie) caught my eye this morning. Thanks to Jody Day (@gatewaywomen) of Gateway Women for tweeting this and Martha’s article. Melanie writes about being single and childless and confronting the thoughts of others in her Huffington Post piece: ‘I know what you’re thinking’. It was an interesting read for me given the fact I’m single, childless and alone in Mexico over Christmas and New Year.

I was also very much the only single guest at the Hotel Baxar amongst a number of couples and families. But it was OK. In fact, it was more than OK. It was positively delightful – it was one of those ‘I’m going to have to pinch myself’ experiences. It was a gift. It was a blessing.

Alone doesn’t have to equal lonely – even if that’s what we imagine others are thinking.

Posted in Addiction, codependency, Creativity, Fun, Happiness, Leisure, Recovery, Relationships, Uncategorized, Women | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments