We need to talk!

I started writing this three weeks ago, and, ironically, a Twitter fall out silenced me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. So lets see if we can recover this story.

You ever get the feeling that life is directing you somewhere? When the events over a few days or weeks seem to be shoring up a concept or a thought process?

The day I started to write this, also happened to be Mental health awareness day, with the theme ‘Time to Talk’. It didn’t surprise me, as talking it out had felt like the theme of my life that week.

In the time since I started this piece that theme hasn’t changed, just grown. The past few weeks have seen Trump intent on disrupting media and the internet trolling Sweden for standing up for refugees. It seems that speaking out is ever more important and increasingly threatened.

Being able to speak and, more importantly, be heard is essential for our mental wellbeing. The silencing of whole sectors of society is depressingly common, but we at least recognise it as dictatorial behaviour. Oft quoted these days, George Orwell wrote ‘if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’

Speaking and listening are two essential skills for happy, healthy societies. We know this, yet we are so bad at both!

Are we looking at Period Sex all wrong?

If the title doesn’t give it away, then, brace yourself, this is going to get a little bit graphic.

I saw an article about a product that stems the flow of menstrual blood so that you can have happy period sex.

Before I go on, I would like to say that the article about FLEX makes clear that the company is keen to start and open and honest discussion about period sex.

“Our mission is at the core of everything we do and the reason we’re excited to get out of bed every day and talk to every woman (and man) we meet about menstruation,” said Jensen, head of acquisition and growth at The Flex Company.

I get that there is a market for this product. Who hasn’t fancied a bit of hanky-panky when Mother Nature is calling? Orgasms can help with period pains and even hurry things on a little, helping the uterus to expel lining. Sex at this ‘time of the month’ can feel different, better for some. Lubrication can come easier. There are lots of pros.

Why marriage after my divorce was a big deal

Moving on from a “failed” marriage is hard. Definitely harder than I imagined before finally admitting that it was indeed “failed” (a term I hate btw, but more on that another time). There are many aspects about my divorce that have left their permanent marks on me. One of the most profound is my relationship with commitment and marriage.

When my first husband proposed I was delighted. My future lay clearly before me and when we later exchanged marriage vows I meant every single word of it.I adored him and believed, whole heartedly, that we were meant to be together. We would have a family and a long, happy life, growing old together. I knew, without (much) doubt that marrying him was the most ‘right’ thing I could do.

But after well over a decade together (before and after marriage) that was no longer true. He was no longer the man I had fallen in love with or perhaps I was no longer the woman who’d fallen in love with him. Maybe both.It wasn’t quick or sudden. It failed over time. We weathered a few significant life dramas, which, at the time, I believed strengthened us, in reality they set rot at our core. I could see little bricks coming down around me and I tried hard to patch and work with him to shore. Then it was over. The life I thought I’d have had gone and in its place was another.

It’s time I added my voice to the chorus

I’m having so much trouble kicking this blog off. The annual renewal for the domain name came through recently and I’ve published a grand total of two posts.

I don’t have trouble setting and meeting deadlines or coming up with things to say. I’m active on Twitter for example and I manage to complete all manner of written tasks for my day job easily enough.

What I do have is publishing anxiety.

Is that actually a thing? Maybe I should Google it? Oh no, here we go…just another excuse to get out of writing this…Before I know it, I’ll be 2 hours into a Google trail and have lost all hope of ever finishing this piece.

I have plenty of half written or even fully written posts for this page. But they’re not published. They’re still being edited and re-written and quite frankly obsessed over. So what is going on?

What you say can change the world

What is in a word? Or a phrase? Most of us are aware of the power of words, we have heard the phrase the pen is mightier than the sword,

Words matter. A rousing speech, a well timed compliment that has you smiling all day, an off the cuff insult that shakes your core, a regular trickle that undermines or buoys you in ways you can’t put your finger on. An ear worm, subtly influencing your purchase choices, a shouted slur that burrows into your brain, taunting at the worst possible moments. A sentence that shapes your world, a song lyric that comforts you when nothing makes sense. Words matter.