annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Meh
[Apologies for lack of editing of sentences - too long, but I must go to bed right now]
Fuck Valentine's Day and fuck not being able to escape it and fuck everything. Meh.
I sent ten edited pages of blog off to the woman who's selecting people for this free reading/editing/advice thing that's going on for skint writers from disadvantaged groups, which includes me as I'm officially a mentalist. Actually, I don't know what the term is these days - it's not mentalist, obviously, and apparently it's not service user any more either, which is a shame because although I hated that for a long time, I'd pretty much come round to it, but now it's considered a term of abuse and I don't know what we're called. I expect dickheads have yelled 'service user' with a nasty sneer - you can make anything into abuse if you feel scorn for the recipient - there's no name that will be free of it till there's no stigma. At the recovery centre I was told 'clients' but that's no good when you're talking to people outside.
Anyway, the woman selecting the writing is now off work for over a week as she's currently ill then it's half term, so I'll have to wait and try and crack on. It's been kind of good, looking through the old blog - makes me sad that I've been so slack at keeping it up recently. And I will, though now it's late and I want to try and sleep more so I will set the timer for ten minutes then fuck off no matter what.
Writing groups - these are going well, though I was late this morning and arrived all agitated to find five people waiting for me in reception, with their coats and hats and bags, all crowded together and they cheered when I walked in which made me even more anxious, but we're all 'clients' together and they were all reassuring and it was OK in the end. We did a bit of mindful writing, which I keep reading about as A Good Thing for mental health writing groups, but people always groan when I suggest it, so I tend not to. They did today as well, but all wrote for five minutes and read it out then we discussed and everyone said they'd like to do it as a regular thing, that although it feels scary the results are calming. It's just writing about right here, right now, using the senses or about the feelings. They all wrote about their emotions, but I stuck to the room and the earache.
Yoga also today, still loving it, still struggling with the dodgy leg, but finally made an appointment to see the doctor about it.
The Younger Daughter and I went to the beach to Show Our Beach Some Love which is what the beach cleaning family do on Valentine's Day, though last year it was blowing a fucking gale and anything I let go of blew away at once. So this is the heart we made from rubbish we found:
Pretty cool, I reckon. Then we took it home and put it in the bin.
I am grateful for: my YD being in a good place; spending time with my writing mentor today after yoga; having a really enthusiastic response to my writing from a young woman who goes to art and has won prizes for her own stories; Dodgy Nephew sending me his recipe for turmeric and ginger shots which I will try tomorrow; getting this finished by 12.30
Night night dear peeps xxx
12:35 a.m. - 15.02.19
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