http://husbandorcat.blog.co.uk/2007/12/

It’s exactly a year today since I logged on here, and – in characteristically gloomy mood – whinged about my boring New Year’s Eve. And set myself a challenge. To blog every day for a year. Well, I didn’t make it EVERY day. Just every day I was here, home, in my study, in front of this battered old PC. And it wasn’t always 500 words, not in the early days. I’m not sure when the ‘write 500 words every day’ merged into the ‘blog every day’. Some of the earlier posts were fairly cursory, although the rest of the 500 were lurking somewhere in the background, on my hard drive or in a notebook. I didn’t always feel able to share them. But I got tired of editing. So, now, everything comes in here, often in a big splurge. And a lot of the time I genuinely don’t know what I’m going to say until I say it, though there are other occasions too, when the words are just hammering to be let out.
Needless to say, it’s been one hell of a year. I’ve fallen into and out of love twice – actually, make that into twice and out of three times, given that I started the year still nursing that stupid infatuation that had been rolling its way around my heart since the first faltering steps of this blog, over three years ago now. But I let him go, replaced him; let him go, replaced him; let Himself go - the only one who was consummated out of the three - but he’s gone now too. So be it. I have sealed up the box marked ‘love’ and deposited it in a left luggage office, ‘Not wanted on voyage’.
At the start of the year, I thought I might be going to Vienna and/or Sydney. Well, that didn’t happen, but I did go to Hungary and Berlin, unexpectedly, and also to Brussels, Oxford, London and Paris, all stations along the way. And metaphorically, to other places I never expected to see. I have spent good times with old friends, happy memories to lay down and treasure for the hard times, and made quite a few new ones, both on and off line. As for other plans, I still haven’t made any progress on that bloody novel. Or on my research. No high grade journal papers this year, I’m afraid. No poetry published. Just blogs and notebooks.
Marian suggested the other day that I should close this book and start a new one, something which had already occurred to me. But I still have another step to take, one which will be the culmination of the last three years, in fact, of a much longer journey than that. A culmination AND a springboard, as I said in the presentation for my doomed interview. The first of many down a new path. And part of me is excited and part of me is terrified.
I always strive to be honest, here as in real life. Oh god, how disingenuous does that sound??? ‘Trust me, I’m a used car salesman/doctor/politician’??? Well, I AM a doctor, of sorts, if not of medicine. I can’t swear that I’m always consistent, but I always sincerely believe in whatever it is I’m writing as I’m writing it. I hope those who have known me for some time know that is true and appreciate my sincerity. I never set out to create any special persona for myself, just to draw out what was there, the things I didn’t understand or recognise about myself.
And in the process I have discovered/created this unique and – if you don’t mind me saying so – rather wonderful woman. She was always there, but she never believed she could emerge into the light of day, always doomed to be the ‘might have been’, the ‘should have been’, the lost twin. It has taken a crisis to pull her out at her full stature, to stand blinking in the daylight. I have no idea where her next step will take her, but it has to be done. Because the one thing that makes her really uncomfortable is deceit. And she has been living a lie for so very long, by default if not by action.
And HusbandorCat is the appropriate place for the chronicling of that step. So, I’ll be around for a little longer. And then, my friends, expect news about a different blog. I hope you’ll choose to join me there, but the choice is up to you, of course.
In the mean time, celebrate today in the way that suits you best, and let us all welcome 2009 with hope.
Linda
xxx