Wishing Only  Love.

There was no sense of time. I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed. At one stage I definitely considered - is this what Death is like? Sounds terrifying, but being in a floatation tank was actually one of the most relaxing experiences I have ever had in my life. It was a birthday present from my gorgeous Sister and I will be doing it again. After 10 minutes of ambient music, the lights went out and I lay suspended in the Epsom Salt-rich water. 0% clothing. Total darkn

In June 2020, I developed a skin condition on my left cheek. Initially I thought it was hay-fever, the result of vicious London pollen, then potentially sunburn. But, even though I tended to it with different creams, balms and gels, it remained. I had never really had issues with my skin before apart from when I was a teenager trying to deal with the stress of exam season. Back then, I used to get patches of dry skin on my cheeks that Mum used to treat with Vitamin E oil. I h

I've been playing with affirmations for years. The first encounter I can remember was 'The Secret' when my Mum had been urged to watch and read it. The concept of manifestation felt curious and exciting to me, so I dabbled in the Law of Attraction for a while, mostly generating parking spaces. Then, life happened and I forgot about it all until around 2016 when I had left my 14 year relationship and was immersing in self-development. At a Health and Wellbeing event, a Life Co

'Mixed other'. That magically ambiguous box found on most demographic surveys. If you're very lucky you get an additional line of free-text to elaborate on your 'otherness'. I've yet to go completely rogue and tick the 'Rather not say' box although, the additional layer of mystery is quite appealing. Labels are an interesting one, often used as a form of shorthand, with them can also come assumption, stereotyping and close-mindedness. This is something I explored in 'Labelled

I tested positive for Covid-19 in January of this year. There was an element of inevitability - my partner worked in a school providing support for key-worker children and we lived in an area with one of the highest rates of infection. When it entered our household, I took it as a personal challenge not to contract it in the first place then, when I did, not to let it interfere with what I wanted to do. Initially symptoms felt relatively mild - the smallest of coughs with occ

I didn't have a full length mirror in my home for many, many years. My body was split up into what I could fit in the bathroom mirror when standing as far back as possible or, what I could capture with a compact one, scanning myself up down like I was checking for radiation. To see my body in it's entirety was a novelty and rarely pleasurable. It felt separate and disobedient, consistently presenting something that wasn't quite the right shape or density. Don't. Look. Down. I

As someone who, until a few years ago, was typically placid and agreeable, I imagined that I could 'go with the flow'. But, as I considered the the twinge of discomfort I felt whenever plans would change last minute, or if something got in the way of my routines, it became apparent that maybe I was change-averse. I plodded along, avoiding change where possible for years and, as a result, was unhappy. Not desperately so, just enough to provide a background noise of discontent.

I took a deep breath, buried my face in the pillow and screamed. What I thought would be a guttural roar came out as the pained cry of a wounded animal. It was years of anger coated in sadness and disappointment. I had been ignoring it, suppressing it, storing it in my body until it felt convenient to release it. It had been waiting impatiently for me to acknowledge it. Sending signals of skin flare-ups and teeth grinding in my sleep. What had paved the way for this release?

You're hoping to return it because it's faulty, not at all what you expected, quite disappointing really. You've looked at it and there are bits missing, in fact, it doesn't fit you at all. It looked perfectly fine beforehand. You were ready for it, perhaps assuming it would be similar to the 2019 model. Not amazing, but relatively predictable and something you could perhaps just leave in the background whilst you did the same things in the same ways you always had. But this

When was the last time you made an investment? 'This year Marissa? Are you joking? Have you seen the interest rates?' Not savings accounts

'The old ways' have been levelled and, for those of you who had a goal, be it 5 years or less, this is ...Very inconvenient.

Shouldn't you be doing something else? For someone else? How can you be so selfish?

I used to think about worst-case scenario all the time. Disaster planning. I believed that if I did, I would be prepared for the outcome

You have a list of things that you potentially could do, but you can't decide which one to start with.Or a list of stuff that you need to do

Is a desk a metaphor for my life? I've been thinking about 'working from home'. I'm not talking about negotiating dodgy WiFi connections...

Not good enough, brave enough, smart enough, young enough, enough enough. Enough of that now. Enough.

At your weakest point, when you think everything has failed, you have a hidden reserve.