Nothing can stop me now

Day 41

My old life is starting to disappear (at long last), and I can't quite believe it. My health is improving in leaps and bounds (barely coughing now, energy OK, and PMS not too bad), and my focus with my book is easier to maintain than it's ever been. I used to struggle so hard - concentration was almost impossible, decision making a nightmare, and the exhaustion so interminable - but now, after two years at college, most of those problems have eased off. I knew I was making progress against this illness, but without the structure of college or anything else to measure against, it had all felt like it was falling way.

My New Life is now starting to take shape. I still can't commit to plans that require a certain amount of energy to fulfil, as I never know when my body is going to demand a 'rest day'. I do find, however, that I can follow through on my decisions far more frequently, without it taking so much effort that I end up shaking and in tears. There are days when I put off going to the loo for as long as possible because of what is required to get there, but I now find myself able to work around those days very well, and they are getting fewer in number.

I am delighted to report that all the pictures for my children's book are now designed, and so Steve and I went out yesterday, and bought new paintbrushes and some Gutta for me to start transterring them onto silk. I use steam-fix silk paints, which means the images come out of my old pressure cooker as bright and rich in colour as stained-glass windows on a summer's day.

When I was a young girl I had an Aunt and Uncle who I never got to see - they were retired and sailing around the world on their boat - so every year at Christmas, they sent us each a book token and it was always my favourite present. I distinctly remember sitting on the floor in the bookshop with the sun slanting through the window onto the brown, tufted carpet beside me, illuminating the pile of books I had spread out to choose between. I remember the feel of the new pages and the different smells of the inks.

Books with utterly beautiful illustrations drew me like a magnet - books of fantasy and fairy-tale, magic and marvel. The more imaginative the story, the better the pictures were. These are the kind of books I aspire to produce. I want to write the books that I would have loved to own as a child, to tell the stories that would have stirred my imagination. I don't know if I have the skill to do this, but I like to have a strong goal to aspire to.

This first book I am working on though, is much simpler than that. It comes from an idea I had ten years ago. Ten years, I ask you! So many times I had to put it aside 'to be continued', and so many times my husband inquired if I had "given up on it, then?". This is why the excitement I feel now, as it nears completion, is like a small, underground volcano erupting beneath my breastbone. I can feel it tremor inside me, chilling my breath internally like a fresh breeze. It has a pulse of it's own. I tell myself "this is it - this is what My New Life feels like". It is here, it is beginning, it is mine at last.