2021 - My Year Of Writing
In 2021, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote to record, process and understand. I wrote because I was lonely, confused, disorientated, stepping out on a new journey. I wrote because I had a lot of questions but not many answers. I wrote because pandemic life was very surreal.
At the start of this year, when we were on the cusp of another lockdown, facing yet more despair, I wrote about 21 manageable things to do that might make us feel better. I didn’t know how 2021 would pan out and I don’t know if anyone has followed my advice but looking back, a lot of these have simply made my life bearable. I hope there are some who ate an apple every day (pink lady, of course), nurtured a plant, moisturised from the inside, sent a handwritten note. I hope you enjoyed eating chips in the car at least once.
On Blue Monday, I wrote about my parenting failures and the frustration that ignited an explosion and caused a flood of tears. I have written endlessly about my children, my experiences of motherhood, how I’ve learned as much from my four daughters as they have from me. I wrote how Alice turning eighteen, was a defining moment, a coming of age for both of us. I wrote about her disappointment when she wasn’t made a prefect in May. I said it would hurt even more in September when her peers took up their positions and it did. Many of you revealed that you weren’t prefects either, but that it hasn’t defined you. Thank you! She needed to hear that.
I wrote about Lucy, how the buck stops with her as the goalie, defending her hockey team. I said, “leadership is lonely - it’s standing in the nets all by yourself waiting for the next attack”. I still can’t bear to watch her games. Her vulnerability breaks me. I tried again yesterday. I left before the end.
I wrote about Lydia’s anxiety, how the double whammy of the transfer tests combined with Covid had manifested into a range of phobias, and how at age eleven, she is the last one to hold my hand, the last one to turn and wave goodbye at the school gate.
“Mummy, why do you never write about me?” asked Ella. “Have I less issues than the others?”. Next year, I need to write more about Ella.
When I found out the children were reading my writing, I was a tad surprised. They never usually take me under their nose. Now I post it on Instagram as that gets their immediate attention. I smile when they rebuke me for bending the truth or using a bit of poetic licence. I realise they will always leap to the defence of their father.
When there was debate about hybrid working, I wrote about how women yearn to be at school pick-up, and so we must build cultures to support those with caring responsibilities. I dipped into gender equality occasionally and jumped back out quickly because that was where I faced my greatest critics. I wrote about the mental load that women carry, how tired we are with the ‘4Ps and the 3Rs’ filling up our headspace. I followed this up with the ‘twelve don’ts of Christmas’ with tips to alleviate the festive stress. (I didn’t expect some to panic about the ‘thoughtful’ gifts they’d already bought me. “You’ll probably not want this,” a friend said last week as she handed me a present).
With fear and trembling, I decided to write about church. My motivation was to dismantle barriers. It was never my intention to cause offence but I did. It seems offering a different perspective, pointing out bias and telling the truth is not always welcomed. I plan to continue.
“Is anyone as cross as me?” is still my most read piece. So many of you identified with empty toilet rolls, black fluff and HUSBANDS. My husband has featured regularly - so far, he has shown immense grace. Sometimes he wonders if his appearances might even have improved his ‘street cred’. There was great interest in his domestic mansplaining and obsession with laundry. His colleagues are now appreciating how this translates into the workplace. I wrote about his career, how he was always in the right place at the right time because he was never off on maternity leave. I told the battle of the hair versus the golf.
As I embarked on a career break, I wrote about what I was afraid of, and who had taken my confidence. I unpicked the first 100 days and declared them a bit of a mess.
At one point, I apologised for writing. I was embarrassed at how much I was filling up inboxes and social media feeds. I worried it looked like I was attention-seeking. I cursed my pursuit of validation, my quest for an audience. Could the value not just be in finishing the piece and hitting publish? But I needed to be convinced it mattered because it was never really about me. You don’t lay yourself bare if you want to look good. When someone asked me to write about ‘how to write’, I went off on a tangent, I portrayed myself as a creative genius with my four-step writing process. But I’d forgotten to explain why I write and that’s the most important part.
I write to give permission - permission to feel, to be reassured that your chaotic existence is no different than mine, that your loneliness, doubt, guilt, insecurities are mirrored in me. I needed a lot of you to hear that going up a dress size is not unusual in these times, that something had happened to my shape too. I needed you to laugh and cry, to be ok with your emotions, for you to know you weren’t on your own.
As I sat down and processed my year of writing, I realised how far it has taken me - it has taken me places I never expected. It has led me to open both my heart and my home. It has transported me deep inside and uncomfortably outside of myself. At the end of 2021, when isolation has become the norm, somehow, I seem to know a lot more people than I did at the start. I asked you to get in touch if anything resonated and lots of you did. I discovered your pain, your heartache, the secrets you had never previously disclosed. I discovered kindness and wit and wisdom and stories that need to be told. I recognised that we must have someone to talk to, to walk with, someone to take an interest in us.
“Is that your LinkedIn friend you are meeting today?” my husband would ask. “She is real,” I said. We may have connected initially via a professional networking site but we only live a few streets away from each other. A, I am so glad, we can meet up regularly. There are others I have yet to meet properly - J, we will catch up in Cambridge soon!
To those of you who responded when I said to contact me, you are braver than me. I may have extended the invitation, but it took courage to accept it. To those of you who said you were lonely too, we’re now in it together. To those of you who have trusted me with your stories, I am holding them close.
So many of you have given me insights, offered your expertise and shared your knowledge with unbelievable generosity. To those of you who have sat in coffee shops for hours with me and listened to my notions, my vision, my desire to find ways to bring people together in community, thank you.
To M - let’s work on that pub in East Belfast, or a co-working creative hub for women!
To those who have suggested I write a book, your encouragement means so much. I still have no idea though who would endure my musings! To those who email back when I publish on Medium, keep doing so. I love having penpals!
I have pondered what I can do to bring all the wonderful people I now know and love together. You all really need to meet each other. Maybe I could be the thread that connects you. I’ve already started an online coffee club and a couple of book groups. The conversations have been a joy. Nothing beats the magic of people connecting over shared experiences. In these bewildering times, the collective experience, the not just being in the same room but the being in the same space, really matters.
As 2021 ends, writing has become like breathing. I wonder though if I will ever say I am a writer. There are subjects I just can’t write about yet - the postnatal depression (I can’t get past the first line where I describe the sky sitting on my head), my dead dog (leave that one until after Christmas, my husband suggested).
Somewhere in the darkness of November, I had a crisis about where I was going, I feared if I didn’t have something to show soon, this year may have been a failure. The problem was I had (almost) failed to recognise how to measure its value. I was looking for success in all the wrong places. What 2021 has brought me is relationships. It has brought me the richest of blessings through the uniqueness of each individual person that has crossed my path. In 2022, my biggest dream and my deepest hope is for many of those people to be able to gather physically so we can create the magic of collective experience and continue to write our collective stories together.
Thank you for reading me this year!
