I WANT MORE!

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After an incredibly difficult past year, whenever I run into people I’ve not seen in a while they all ask me the same hushed question - ‘Are you ok?’

It’s a fair question. There’s no exaggeration when I say the last eighteen months have been some of the hardest months of my life. Mentally, emotionally, financially, practically, professionally, personally, legally, you name it - I went through the wringer and it’s going to take me some time to unpick it all.

That said, sometimes, in the midst of chaos lessons start to ribbon out in front of us like will-o'-the-wisps. Uncertain thoughts that become clearer and clearer the more we talk them into existence and coax them out from the bottom of that pit in our stomach. The loudest of mine is screaming: MORE!

I grew up with “more” not being a thing. We were poor, you took what you were given and were thankful, you shared even if you didn’t want to. I learned to hide what I wanted, to make myself smaller to make others feel bigger. If I didn’t want anything then I could be whatever you wanted me to be - I tangled myself into empty knots hoping that not asking for things would make me loveable. Surely I should be happy with making other people happy? Wasn’t that enough?

Then, this unpredictable time comes along and I try to manage it, to tackle it, to contain it and in doing so I spread myself so thin that parts of me almost disappeared. But then all of a sudden, deep in the tautness, something unexpected would happen and it would fill my heart with such joy, or surprise, or laughter, that I could feel my heart take a deep gasping breath as it drank in what I needed - a girlie dinner in a private dining room, an unexpected text that had me out to 4am, drinking an entire liquor store out of a particular rose, a tattoo of text, a pedalo with a slide. All those little things sparked a tiny flame, and that flame blazed into a one word yearning - MORE.

What if I wasn’t spread so thin that I was as translucent as greasy fingerprints on newspaper? What if I was really outlandish and asked for what I wanted? What if I wanted my own good time rather than facilitating the experience I wanted for others? What if I want MORE? More Fun. More Spontaneity. More Money. More Connection. More Purpose. More Sex. More Joy. More Things That Feed My Soul.

What if I wanted, I realised as I voicenoted a friend, not to be the side dish, but to be the main course.

As soon as these thoughts appear, so do the little Rumplestiltskin voices in the back of my head - ‘what makes you think you deserve more?’, ‘you should just be happy with what you’ve got’, ‘so selfish, what about everyone else?’, and the loudest one as ever, ‘who do you think you are?’

Yet, like the fairytale goblin, these thoughts are no match for my curiosity searching for more wisps of light in the sunrise woods. Quiet gifts start to appear - moments of pause, of opportunities for spontaneity, of playful runs through fountains, snuck moments of laughter, of ice creams on hot days, of unexpected praise, and of literal grantings of wishes not yet even spoken aloud. As if the universe has been waiting for your questions so it could deliver gifts with a card that says ‘Here’s what you wanted… what are you going to do about it?’

And these gifts aren’t what you thought you were going to get, or maybe not in the form you expected, maybe they’re random, maybe they’re things you stopped believing in - like the fairies I used to see everywhere in my Gran’s garden until the day I didn’t. Maybe you don’t even know what you’re supposed to do with them?

So you have to change your perspective. You have to dig into your curiosity, and you have to be BRAVE, and you have to believe that maybe, just maybe, this IS for you. Maybe YOU are the MORE!

So although I don’t have any answers - only questions bubbling in my chest like a swollen creek in Spring - but as it crests over the rocks I just catch a wisp of light on the horizon and hear that one word on the wind that’s urging me on and promising MORE!