Write about what scares you the most. What is the big monster inside you that stops you from writing?

In order to answer this question, I need to explain how I feel. How do I feel? I feel that nauseating twisting cord in the pit of my stomach, that bit that hits the lungs and makes it hard for me to catch my breath. It is pure fear. I’m waiting for fear. I’m crying with rage thinking that I am going to fail. Going to fail? WHY  the hell have I put those words down? 

I’m 

fulfilling my own destiny if I continue to write, to think this way. So pessimistic.  I’m so sad. Who wants to know about sadness? There is too much of it already in our lives. I try my hardest to carry on and swallow down the lump of sadness and anxiety that keeps rising up trying to force me into regurgitation mode. I try to smile and distract myself by the cows and the horses and the sheep passing by. I make the animal sounds with my daughter. I never want her to know such sadness.

My big monster is a haunting sense of failure. As I type the cord pulls tighter. It is my very own Gordian knot but it pulls at me with such a force that I forget that I’m typing and it reminds me that I’m freestyling it. Winging it. Just getting it out.

 Letting it all hang out. Let’s face it, I’m not going to become a better writer if I don’t write.  A pause here. My partner doesn’t know how to help me. I glance at my daughter. She brushes her teeth and gives me a smile of pride. She turns around and I suddenly notice her honeyed hair has grown and she finally looks like the little lady she is. She is an only child. She has lots of imaginary friends and is always talking to her friends and singing.

 How can I be so sad and have this terrible sense of inauspicious dread pervading my insides? I should be happy! I’m getting married in 8 months. I am loved and I love.

Yet, here  I sit -twiddling my fingers – hesitant. expecting to be caught out.  I’m waiting for the tokoloshe or some other monster to come and turn me inside out and roll me out and shake me around like a big old cotton sheet. Hang me up and then beat the starch of uselessness out of me- for all  to see. I know it is there-somewhere – camouflaged chameleon-like  – waiting to expose its true face. I just don’t know when it will strike.

It will be quick like a scorpion attack – one quick whip and all my innards will be turned inside out.  Something has happened to my breathing.

The knot has gone away! Where the hell did it go? Did I imagine it? No, it is gone. I’ve typed myself out of a brooding sense of failure.

At least I hope this is what I have done. Has typing down just anything and everything cured my manic inflictions? The one thing I fear – is I can’t write and yet, when I write I feel more contained, a wholly vessel, worthy and strong enough for arduous  travels across the waves of  an ocean of enigmas.

Okay, so this post is no masterpiece but I know what cures me. The sadness has lifted somewhat. I can now pin down the real reason I feel sad today.  Before I continue, my partner has just come to tell me he loves me and to take a break from typing. I told him

“Oh I’m just typing some rubbish!”

Why the hell do I put myself down so much?  I’m currently holding the title of Atlas… I don’t want his burden, thanks. How do other people cope and stop that feeling of failure? Don’t answer that… or do if you wish to. In fact please do…

Sadness comes from an afternoon visit with my Gran with Dementia and Alzheimers. Why does this illness have to exist? Why does my Gran have to live like she does? How can there be a God when there is so much suffering behind those eyes-  her confusion staring back at me? Staring me down. A mischievous imp -goading me to carry on smiling with my eyes. It knows I’m faking it.  

 She stroked my face -touched it like a  blind person -feeling every bump, every contour. I’m sad because I can’t control time. I can’t control what is happening to her. We are all getting older and time is running out and I need to make a bigger contribution to my life and to the people around me before my time is up. I close my eyes and think : When was the last time I really laughed?

Oh yeah, two nights ago. I Skyped my mom and I said something and my uncles overheard what I said and started taking the piss about how direct I am. Family…. not going there but I need my family.