These last few months I have watched as all I like to control in my life has unravelled , slowly and surely the threads that keep me all stitched together have been pulled and twisted in all directions. The strange thing is I have actually reached a time in my life where it is OK and in fact I am ready to accept this unravelling of self and the life I led as I knew it.
We spend so many years believing we should do this, think this, not rock the boat, quiet our voice and accept our own place in this crazy world that it seems we spend most of our precious years tightly wound up . I am the first to admit I like control and order and I love nothing more than a timeline and a plan. In my work life you will see me in January with the whiteboard out and all the yearly timeline planning and projects neatly mapped out. I have a course to follow and away I go. Well this year all that went to crap by March and it sort of left me unravelling. What now ? What happens now to all my grand plans and timelines. I had to adapt and move on and pleasingly I found I really enjoyed the freedom of clear thinking and of having no deadlines, no plans and no freakin idea what was next. Imagine that !! Interestingly I became more productive, a gentler person and was able to unravel all the things that were holding me tight in closed thoughts. If nothing else given the chance to free fall , let me just say I do it really well. Unravelling my work life to the basics, I have found a new love for my role and a freedom I didn't know I had been missing.
The same can be said for my "appearance" . You see I decided to grow my greying hair long. I was sick of going to a hairdresser, moaning about maintaining a hairstyle when vanity is not my strong point and the effort to style is just not me. I had visions of being a grey haired old women with wild hair or twisted plaits , just no fucks given hair styling :) So ISO came and the hair grew, and grew and got greyer. I can now comb it with my fingers and wrap it up in a big bun. The simple delight and level of effort involved in this is truly amazing. I stopped wearing make up as well. No real need when you are home alone, or working by yourself. I liked it so much I may never go back to putting product on my face. Other things I have found to enjoy- bra's are optional, active wear should be called inactive wear and oodies are the best invention ever on cold winter days.
Unravelling I tell you is wonderful and quite freeing.
All the tightly woven threads of beliefs and perceptions of life, people , humanity have also unraveled before my eyes. Watching how others have coped and communicated during these lock down times has been an interesting exercise. I have become so wound up with anger as I witnessed the utter selfishness of people wrapped so tight with prejudice and self interest to then become unravelled in tears with the simple emotions of humanity and caring. I think I have emotionally unravelled more in the last few months than ever before and that is OK. I have learnt to associate now a days with people who enhance the many threads of my life, those who sew together the good parts of living and life. I have been eternally grateful for the many threads of friendship weaved throughout the years who I can call on for a laugh and catch up, we are like a giant patchwork quilt of memories and stories sewn together by the many colourful threads that make up our tribe and I love my tribe.
So I have decluttered, redesigned, reinvented, recuperated and reassessed the last few months all in a wonderful state of acceptance and understanding. I often wonder why it takes so many trips around the sun to learn new things. We spend so many years thinking or working towards what we believe we need to be all to see it wasn't that important anyway.
When all this is over I hope to continually celebrate my unravelling. I plan to travel more, create more threads of friendship, take more road trips, enjoy silly adventures, waste money , eat out more, write for fun, and wear my long grey hair in plaits with overalls and gumboots , then I may just dance in the rain whilst eating a great big cream cake.
May your life unravel in a spectacular way
XX jan
I have needed to do a third print run of my book The Suitcase. I am continually amazed and grateful for all the positive feedback and messages I get from readers. Even thou I was unable to have a real book launch due to Covid the book is selling really well . I don't think I shall ever get over the excitement of seeing this book in print. xx
For anyone wishing to purchase a copy send me a message via Jann Daniels - writer on facebook or email me at info@janndaniels.com. happy to sign and post out :)
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