It’s nearly three Octobers since I started a Creative Writing Masters at Goldsmith University, and you’ll be forgiven for wondering what I’ve achieved in that time.
Well, I’ve already mentioned the baby – now also nearly three. And I’ve probably even mentioned the extension we started at the beginning of lockdown #2, and which I’ve now been enjoying the benefit of for at least seven months – did I mention we’ve got a hot tub? Well, we do.
So with all that going on, plus post-lockdown socialising, it’s perhaps hardly surprising I’ve ground to a halt on the aforementioned book. Having spent much of last year editing and re-editing 100,000 words on a dodgy Googledoc – now languishing in the cloud somewhere (must update my Word subscription) – I now find myself feeling rather defeated by it.
Every day, I successfully quash the nagging urge to open my laptop and pick up where I left off among infernal Zoom calls and prevaricating baking – which I’ve taken up with gusto now Tom has finally been recalled to the office.
Add to that the frequent interruptions by daily deliveries and the stupid new WordPress format (what on earth’s a ‘block’?) and you’ll understand why I’m not even blogging much these days.
And though I’ve glossed over my depression, PND and subsequent recovery, there’s something to be said for having an artistic temperament to be able to write. Being relatively content and stable doesn’t really cut it, while anti-depressants don’t half dull the spirit. Add to that fewer worries – time, money and joy are in more abundance while stress and its inevitable hangovers are increasingly things of the past. That’s not to say I’ve given up the booze – far from it, but I am indulgently in moderation much like everything else these days – except, of course writing.
So, where to pick up? The menopause is as good a place as any, since I’ve recently started HRT. It’s something that has soothed my mood swings even more, and got me sleeping not just through the night, but also my lunch breaks as well.
It explains the rattiness and weight gain of the last five years and perhaps its also the reason why my hair had lost its youthful lustre. Either way, my shiny new, bioidentical hormones have done the trick in solving the last piece of my mental health puzzle.
So, I’m a new woman, albeit an older, happier, dare I say stodgier one. But I’m increasingly seeing the benefits of middle-aged anonymity over dramatic youthful vigour.
As an older woman, you have a carte blanche to be as acerbic as you like, and blame your hormones when you take your (younger, male) manager to task for work you feel is beneath you. The profound benefit of lockdown has more autonomy at work, but the benefit of growing older is no longer giving so much of a fuck what people think.
You have a far greater acceptance of yourself, and with luck, a plan for the future – I’m now in the fortunate position of being able to map out my finances almost to retirement – it doesn’t hurt to have found a copywriting niche in investment services. But neither does working for a corporate leave much time (or imagination) left for becoming a novelist.
Perhaps that’s all part and parcel of being okay with who I now am – which is much easier when you’re not constantly being asked to speak to your son’s head of year, while simultaneously being frowned at for leaving early by your head of department, shunned by the school mums (many of whom were secretly reading my blog – more than one so called friend has called my son by his blog name).
The kids, at least are all right. Jonah, who’s competition climbing at an elite level, while finishing his GCSEs for which he’s already got top grades. Ava – well my 13-year old is today’s tricky one, but like all cats (which we have also now acquired, although the pug has gone on long-term loan to my friend), I find if you leave her alone, eventually she’ll come to me for a hug. So, I’m hoping a strategy of minimal intervention is the best route forward. Not-so-little Lana continues to be a joy unabated, but I’m aware this is largely thanks to a good helping of quality childcare.
So how to move past my writer’s block? Now that I find I have a little more time to myself, I’m hoping the writing takes on a life of its own, stultifying contentment notwithstanding. In the same way I attack all problems, a little more discipline wouldn’t go amiss. Having finally found the wherewithal to admit that keto isn’t working (partly due to my age, my tendency to cheat with wine and other occasional indulgences), I’ve turned to Noom to help shift the post perimenopausal/ lockdown weight gain the old fashioned way – calorie counting.
It’s psychological method is similar to that of cognitive analytic therapy: don’t dwell on mistakes, start each day afresh (with a weighing in) and log your meals. So far, I’m seeing my weight steadily decline having faced my refusal to stand on scales since the disordered eating if my teens, head on. Ad they don’t lie. So whilst I am encouraged enough by my two week free trial to consider getting a subscription, at £88 a month for little more than encouraging posts and a calculator, I think I’d rather just be more retained in the future – no wine on weekdays, a Huel or a salad for lunch, no evening snacking on peanuts. Daily runs. So much, so normal – it’s the wine that was the problem, so by taking the bull by the balls, so to speak, I reckon I can manage without an expensive pep talk.
The same goes for writing. I know the score – you have to just keep at it, day in, day out. Accepting I needed a break after a summer of kids, Covid and Tui, and facing my laptop for the first time in months is the first step to success. But 90% of success, whatever you’re trying to achieve, is simply self-discipline. And when all else is manageable, I’ve got that in spades.
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