Fasten your seatbelts

As regular readers will be aware, I am learning to drive. It has to be said though, that I find it easier to drive people up the wall than to drive a car. And there have been one or two moments within my three lessons to date that I was absolutely certain I was about to drive a car up a wall - or at least into one. Today I also nearly drove into an old lady.

It categorically wasn't my fault though, evidenced by the fact that Nice Man (my driving instructor) reached across and banged the horn at her for stepping out in front of me. (I'd like to say he flicked her a V too but I may have just imagined that.) Old lady turned to look at him, indignantly pointing down at the cobbles on the 'intelligent design' road and shouted "It's a zebra crossing". The cobbles clearly confused her. There was definitely no zebra. Not that I would have noticed as I generally prefer to keep my eyes shut when faced with anything that appears to be an obstacle.

Which is, funnily enough, a bit like my life to date. Things get difficult and I start la-la-la-ing with fingers in ears, eyes or wherever they need to be to prevent me having to pay attention to things I regard as too difficult to pay attention to. And the most difficult thing to pay attention to has been my dreams. Not my sleep time dreams, for I am a lucid dreamer and every night is movie night for me. I mean the kind of dreams I have about what I want to do, where I want to be and what I want to achieve.

I always dreamed of writing something that would move people, touch their hearts and maybe give them some hope or inspiration, make them laugh or cry, just maybe make them think. I imagined it would have to be a great novel or film script, both of which have struck me as too difficult. Too difficult because as Goethe said, Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

The idea of revealing my soul in my writing was horrifying. What would people think of me? (What would my Mum think?) And yet, unwittingly, through the need to find a way out of the mess in my head, I have been doing just that with this blog. Now I have discovered that I am in a small way beginning to live my dream and a little part of it has been fulfilled.

I am sure some readers have been reading just to be nice to me (see Blondes blog) but some readers have been reading ... and have been moved. OK, so some may have been moved literally, in a shifting in their seat sort of way, but some have been moved to tears, some to laughter and some to both. They have been moved enough to let me know (the more testeronic correspondents making it clear they are only 'fessing up on condition they will deny it in public).

The point is, I have revealed a part of my soul and it didn't hurt too much. The reward has been greater with a connection to others that makes me feel quite, quite privileged. A little bit bursting with pride that I have lived a little of my dream that always felt too difficult and too dangerous to do.

So from now on, with both dreams and driving, I am paying attention with eyes wide open. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.


Yours in hope and fear, AJ x