Fat, but not as fat as I was; old, looking down the barrel of my 50th birthday in a few years and looking backwards as much as I look forward. I’m a mother of two youngish children and have been married for 15 years.

But.

I am also a teacher; I used to be in a rock band in the 90’s; I had a stillbirth at 42 weeks; a boy shot an arrow in my eye when I was 6; I taught a sixth form class 20 years ago and two pupils committed suicide; I want to tell those stories. I feel they are important.

I hate how age has reduced me so people only see a frizzy-haired mumsy looking woman in an unflattering jacket. I hate how I have become invisible to the world.

For the last ten years I have been so caught up in my children I haven’t drawn breath. I feel exhausted and now I’m nearly 50. Time to take stock and time to start doing the things that I’ve always meant to do. I have wanted to set up a blog for years. I have spent my life writing all sorts of things: books, poems, articles and stories. Not once have I managed to get anything published.

So I’ve created this blog as a record of what I’ve learned. I want to share the experiences that shaped me in the hope they may offer some comfort to those who have gone through the same thing. I want to document my journey into getting my mojo back.

This blog has been going for almost three years and in that time I have ‘met’ some amazing people who I now consider friends. I’m older, the kids are older, Dog is older, but we’re happy – most of the time. The absolute amazing thing that I never imagined possible in that time was that I wrote two books and I am now embarking on the third.

The first one is under a pen name as it’s got too many embarrassing secrets in it, but you can buy my other one here. I hope you like it.

PS I named this post WELL before ‘The Greatest Showman’ came out