It has been a very busy week. Work has meant late nights on a job where the client kept changing the specifications at the last moment... but it was finally put to bed on Friday afternoon (it was originally due to go to the printer on Monday, so that gives you an idea of the scale of these changes). Anyway, we celebrated on Friday night. Cut loose after all that tension. I admit I cut loose a little more than I had expected and suffered for it all day Saturday. And today has been a write-off as well. So a waste of a lovely weekend. Oh well. Live and learn.

During the past few weeks I have been thinking about things though. Jotting down notes. Trying to make a little sense of them before putting them in words here.

There are stories in my life than I have never given voice to; events and relationships that I have avoided thinking about rather than question them. I was brought up in a household of stoic tradition, where problems were not admitted. You didn't cry into your cornflakes, you just got on with it, regardless of what 'it' was. And if I didn't 'just get on with it', it was down to the fact that I was too sensitive, a typical Cancerian, taking everything too personally, the subtext being that I was weak. Even today, any question about my childhood seems to be taken as a veiled criticism, and that it was my reactions to the events in my life that was flawed, and not that any of those events might well have been worthy of a reaction.

I never voiced anything for fear I would be criticised for being too soft, or even worse, because I might hurt those around me if I did find my voice, and I couldn't bare the thought of causing hurt. So I kept quiet. And soon I found myself without a voice at all. Afraid that any call to accountability in my relationships would be just cause to stop loving me. And to not be loved was the worst punishment of all.

I don't want to be seen as the sort of person who blames the world for my problems. Trust me, I take full responsibility for all my fuck ups. But for a very long time I took responsibility for other people's fuck ups as well, and I'm trying to find a way to sort my way through those things, to let go of the guilt that I still feel over a lot of my past.

For a while... I'm not sure how long... I plan on voicing my stories. I don't want them to be taken as blame or guilt. I just want them to be voiced, from my perspective. I understand that there is no truth. We all see things through our own flawed and self interested eyes. So these will just be stories. But maybe by letting them go, they will let me go as well.

At least, that is what I hope.