It’s no secret that 2019 has been one helluva year. I have lurched and free-wheeled from crisis to crisis, never feeling I was on solid ground. I felt like I was either wading through partially set concrete or scanning for shifting sands or watching out for storm clouds brewing on the horizon. My boat of The Self has been hammered by a relentless ocean of awful situations, pelted with rain and hail of always being on high alert. I haven’t been able to come up for air. And. Just. Breathe. In January, I’d been in hospital with my liver failing.
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This is the 14th essay in the #26essays2017 challenge that I’ve set for myself this year. I’m doing this because I’m the first to admit I’ve become a lazy writer: allowing guest posts and series and cross-posting to make up the bulk of content on The Diane Lee Project across 2016. The brave, fearless writing that readers admired and respected me for has all but disappeared. This year—2017—will be different. I’m reclaiming my voice—my write like a motherfucker voice! After only a few days in Hanoi, it was painfully obvious that I needed to learn Vietnamese. I could say thank you, and hello (learned from
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Fuck It Right Off. After a year of wandering around in a work desert, with a brief respite in only one or two oases, I’m checking out. And by checking out, I mean checking in. For the last three months, I’ve been back in a marketing communications role. Finally, after close to nine months, I thought I’d found my home. That I could relax. Nothing could be further from the truth. After working my butt off for the last three months, putting my hand up to help out my immediate team (who by the way, are wonderful and I respect
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Hands up all of you who have made New Year resolutions? I have in the past, but I usually don’t because I find it an exercise in futility. I mean, why wait all year to change a behaviour that needs changing, or improve your life if it needs improving? Surely if things needs to be addressed, they should be addressed sooner rather later? Later only means that stuff gets even more fossilised, ingrained, bolted on. Why decide to quit smoking or take up exercise in March and then, barring prohibitive and necessary things like surgery, wait another nine months to actually do the
Continue reading...As regular readers know, I turned 50 this year. I have experienced a lot in these 50 years: love, joy, laughter, wonder, passion, sadness, humility, rejection, awe, embarrassment, pain, fear, anger, betrayal. Feeling each of these experiences has taught me something of life: sometimes things go well, sometimes they don’t. To slightly mangle Dr Seuss’s words: I am stronger than I know, weaker than I think. I am also a bundle of contradictions, wrapped in a shroud of complexity. As we all are. You would think at this age, there isn’t much left to learn. But I am here to
Continue reading...When my relationship with The Italian ended five years ago, I was in my early forties and my life as I knew it – and how I thought it was going to be – was over. I had put a lot of time, effort and energy into that relationship because I wanted it to work. I adored The Italian, and thought we would make a life together. Consequently, I made a huge investment in him and Us, and I put Me on hold. I lost friends because his family (which was large and extended) became my social circle. I made
Continue reading...I have worked in and out of education for the last 15 years. My first foray was in my early thirties, when, upon discovering I was going to be a single parent, I thought I’d better do something “practical” with my Arts degree (apart from serving fries with that!). I’d always enjoyed school, and was good at it, and what with the school holidays and civilised hours, teaching seemed like a natural fit for a soon-to-be single parent. So I signed up and completed my Graduate Diploma in Education, teaching English and Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE). In my
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