Veronica Foale

Author: Veronica Foale

  • Pursuit of Happiness

    There is a voice in my head that tells me I am not good enough. Even if I’d like to argue with it, that little voice shouts me down and so I slam the door and leave that part of my mind alone.

    I write things and then I tuck them away for later.

    Later I’ll have time,

    and inspiration,

    and energy,

    and ideas.

    Not now.

    Now is too hard. Why write now when tomorrow is better?

    Now is for daydreams, for moments that last a lifetime, for words tumbled and crafted inside of my mind, but not committed to paper.

    Being a wordsmith is hard and frequently feels like pulling teeth without anaesthetic. You can’t show someone progress on an idea and sometimes, when I’m daydreaming, trawling for ideas, I wish that I worked in something more tangible than gossamer ideas and fairy dust.

    Chasing ideas, I’m wondering why my love is for words, not accounting, or stone masonry.

  • When it gets dark

    It’s a slow slide down into the dark places in my mind. Moments stretch into infinity as I imagine the worst case scenarios and how I would deal with them. I’m not sure how I got here, all I know is that I’m sitting at the bottom, looking at the light a very long way up.

    It’s always unpleasant down here and the road back up is long and cold, usually.

    The screaming outside of my head is never as bad as the screaming inside of it. The way the sound reverberates around, shaking all coherant thought with it, until I just want to curl up in the corner and drown it out with someone elses words.

    It will be okay. It will be fine, I will be FINE, this is all fine. One foot and then another. It will be okay.

    I’m regretful and despite regret being useless here, it insists on hanging around and I’m raw enough without adding regret to the mix.

    Some nights, I dream ghosts and then I have days like today. Dreaming the past, I’d like to stay there. Nothing was broken there (only… everything was. We just didn’t know it yet.)

    That’s the problem with dreaming the past, rather than the future. You can’t get there anyway, so there is no use trying.

    Better to dream the future.

    At least then you’re left with possibility.

  • On looking forward and back

    I look around. It’s dusty here and a little damp. It seems I left my blog in the darkness and it’s started to grow moss.

    Never mind, I like moss anyway. It gives character and somewhere for the bugs to crawl. What use is light if there is no darkness to balance it out.

    I’ve been stuck. Caring too much, wanting too much, not wanting enough. The landscape has shifted under my feet and riding out an earthquake appears to be harder than surfing a wave. I don’t want what you’ve got, I want what I want.

    I want to write. And I’m going to, even if I’m tired. Even when it hurts, I’m going to write.

    What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

    ***

    I’ve lived in my house for three years now and it wasn’t until my grandmother died that I hung pictures on the walls. Her pictures, the paintings and photographs that had lived in her house for as long as I could remember. I hung them and I thought of her and missed what used to be.

    But you can’t go backwards. This life of ours dictates forward movement only and here I am, moving along. A snails pace sometimes, but it’s movement. Time passes and I pass with it.

    Yesterday, I went looking for a manila folder I knew I had. Dusty and tired I eventually found it, the detritus of high school. Inside, paintings from another time, done when I had time to spare and no one wiping snot on my trousers.

    Carefully, I pinned them to my walls, wondering if I was still the same person who painted them.

    I haven’t painted in years, now.

    ***

    Blogging is strange for me lately. Peeling off layers of my own skin to poke around underneath and see what falls out.

    It’s still a shark tank out there and while I’ve got my oxygen, I’m not sure I’m going to last much longer.

  • And here we are

    As one year ends and another begins, I start to wonder if I’ll ever forget the exact shade of ivory that hands turn after death. Or how a newly dead person looks like wax, not like the grey sunken shapes we see in movies and fiction.

    Memories flow and threaten to drown me, the gurgle of a death rattle and the urge to vomit, laugh and cry all at once. How I didn’t cry, for weeks. How I can’t think about death now, without crying.

    It feels like not coping, like anger, like heartbreak.

    It feels like grief.

    ***

    Two years pass and here we are, almost at the year of thirds.

    You expect it to get easier. Not harder and yet, it is.

    Nothing we can do, but put one foot in front of the other, and try and see the beauty in things, rather than taste the bitterness.

  • Welcome to the InterWebs, Part 4

    Part One

    Part Two

    Part Three

    ***

    The InterWebs had gotten hot and sticky and Anna’s hand still throbbed from the bite her Blogroll had given her. While not a nasty bite by any stretch of the imagination, Anna couldn’t seem to find the place in her head where she could erase the bite and move on, and so it continued to hurt.

    Susan had brought her into the fold of the personal bloggers a few days ago now and she was slowly settling in. There were a lot of bloggers still racing around and trying to outdo each other, but it wasn’t anything that Anna couldn’t cope with. The pace was less frenzied in this section of the InterWebs and while the advertising continued to flash at her, it didn’t seem quite so bright anymore.

    The personal bloggers were an interesting mix of people, some parents and some not. The parents amongst them tended to call themselves Mummyblogger Rejects, which seemed a little harsh to Anna, surely the Mummybloggers didn’t reject anyone? She’d only left because she couldn’t seem to fit in and that was her own issue.

    Anna wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore and her grandiose dreams of InterWeb life seemed a very long way away, when compared to the unReality of the situation she was in.

    Since she had moved over to the Personal Blogger section of the InterWebs, Anna had felt like she could breathe a little easier. It wasn’t so perfectly shiny and happy over here and there was some grit and substance to the bloggers, which she liked. It suited her here, better than the Mummybloggers had, with their perfect children and smiling personas.

    It’s strange though, thought Anna, I’m not sure what is actually different here. The label, yes, the pressure, probably, but these women, they’re all the same really.

    Anna was busy pondering this when a group of women ran past her, looking frenzied. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening, when the shouts started.

    “BANDWAGON!”

    “QUICK, SOMEONE CATCH IT!”

    The women jostled her and she found herself being moved along with the group, quite without wanting to. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be trampled.

    The shouting started again.

    “QUICK QUICK, THERE IT GOES!”

    “DID YOU GET IT? DAMMIT, SOMEONE CATCH IT!”

    Carefully, Anna maneuvered herself to the side of the crowd, to try and see what was happening. The press of bodies didn’t make this easy and they were running faster and faster. Beside her ran a stocky looking women with dark hair. Anna tugged on her sleeve.

    “I’m new here, can you tell me what’s happening?”

    The stocky woman looked at Anna, and answered without breaking stride. “It’s the Bandwagon love, we’re trying to catch it.”

    Anna wasn’t any less confused. “A bandwagon? But what’s a Bandwagon?”

    “You jump on it love, and do things as a group. They’re powerful, Bandwagons are.” The stocky woman put her head down and ran faster.

    “But why?” Anna asked.

    “Why love? Because we can. Why not? There’s power in groups love, lots of power.”

    Without a backwards glance, she pushed through the people in front of her and disappeared.

    Anna wasn’t certain this was what she wanted to be doing, but the push and crush of the crowd made it impossible for her to escape.

    Suddenly, a giant cry went up from the crowd and the running slowed. It appeared the Bandwagon had been caught.

    The excitement in the crowd was palpable and Anna had to fight to not get caught up in the heady rush of peer pressure. The people behind her were pushing forwards and she moved with the crowd, completely trapped now. Keeping her eyes on the backs of the women in front of her, she moved along.

    Then she was being helped up into the Bandwagon and even though it looked like she would never fit, a space opened up for her. The stocky woman was sitting across from her.

    “I see you made it here okay then love?”

    Anna nodded, still out of breath from the chase.

    She looked around.

    “What are we doing here?” she asked.

    “Why, we’re on the Bandwagon love! It’s going to empower us to make changes in the InterWebs and we’ll be able to use it to our advantage!”

    “What kinds of changes?” Anna was normally a smart woman, but the Bandwagon jumping confused her.

    “Well, this Bandwagon is about fairness for all bloggers. It’s showing us all how to behave, so that we can all get along. Isn’t that just what we need?”

    Anna looked away. She didn’t think that this was exactly what she needed.

    “Where do Bandwagons come from then?” she asked after a time.

    “This one’s Jennifer’s love. She’s had some cracking ideas lately, ways for bloggers to get along and make money and it’s just lovely.”

    Anna was even more dubious about the Bandwagon now. The rumours about Jennifer had been steadily growing since she left the Mummyblogger camp – rumours of Jennifer making decisions for the entire community and there was talk of a rethinking how a community works. She wasn’t sure she wanted a Queen in the InterWebs, not even a queen of the relatively small Mummybloggers.

    She looked around, trying to work out if she could get off. It looked like there was a path back off to one side, if she could just reach it. Standing up, she braved the crush of sitting people.

    “Excuse me, sorry, can I just get through…. thank you so much.”

    A few minutes and countless trodden toes later, she was able to climb off the Bandwagon.

    Standing in the open air again, she was able to breathe.

    Looking around, there seemed to be a few bloggers who had decided that this bandwagon wasn’t for them, or who hadn’t climbed on in the first place. Anna smiled at them and one woman smiled back, before walking over.

    “Are you okay? You look a bit shaken.”

    Anna laughed. “Yes, I’m fine. My first experience of a Bandwagon, that’s all.”

    “Ahhhh.” The woman smiled knowingly. “That’s okay, you get used to them. The key is finding out whether it’s something you truly believe in before you jump on.”

    “I know that now” said Anna.

    With one last pat on the shoulder, the woman made to walk off.

    “You’ll be okay?” she asked.

    “Yes, yes, I’ll be fine.” said Anna.

    Taking a deep breath, Anna turned around and walked away. Behind her, the Bandwagon trailed off, taking the bloggers with it.

    Anna was sure that Bandwagons were perfectly alright for some people, in some cases.

    But she just wasn’t sure that they were right for her.