Twice in one day...

How exciting - I have another follower! Welcome!

I'm also enjoying the comments - here and on Facebook, and also in person and by Skype/Twitter/text - thank you!

Back in the day this blog was just - a blog. Then it sort of got taken over by my scoliosis story. No - scrap the sort of - it totally got taken over by my scoliosis story. Days and weeks stretched into months, and eventually more than a year, as I painfully documented my progress and recovery. And I know - because I have been told and because I am not stupid - that it did not make for particularly happy reading.

With thoughts of further surgery pretty much on hold for now it's nice to have the freedom to write about things that don't involve doctors, operations, high dependency units and hospital politics. (Makes me wonder how the script writers for Casualty cope but I guess they get paid for it...)

Which takes me back to the earliest posts on lookingforlinda and that feeling that writing on here is somehow baring my soul, opening myself up to criticism and probably going to end in tears.

The irony of course is that the hundreds of thousands of tears shed over the past 18 months have indeed made me stronger (what doesn't break you and all that...) Along with the freedom to write what I want is a strength to cope with what others might say. If you can survive scoliosis surgery and recovery believe me you can survive anything.

I had a philosophical sort of thought on the loo today (too much information? sorry - feel free to comment and say so ;-) )

It was along the lines of what you often read in the tabloids when they interview those who have survived life threatening disease such as cancer or a heart attack, or who have been involved in a dreadful accident. People often - make that always? - describe a new found appreciation of life, a confidence, a desire to make the most of every day.

For around 18 months I've felt an abject failure for not feeling like this. I'd wake up depressed and dreading another day of pain, made all the worse by wondering why I hadn't experienced that transforming revelation that made the sun shine brighter, the birds sing sweeter, and every cloud disperse on sight to reveal a glorious technicolour rainbow (possibly with Jason Donovan sliding down it to make all my dreams come true...)

What I hadn't factored in of course is Time. Time with a capital T for paTience, with a capital I for frIendship, with a capital M for eMpathy and a capital E for lovE.

Thanks to those friends who were patient, who loved and empathised I clawed my way back to a new reality. Not to normal - I could write a hundred posts on how and why that never was and never would be a word to use when someone is recovering from major trauma. But that new reality does indeed include a fresh appreciation for life and for living - I just wish someone had told me at the time it might be almost two years away!

And so - to round off a ramble. This blog is now more about where we are going than where we have been. But it's not what it would have been when I set it up, had I not been where I went for a while.

I'd really like others to join me on the journey now - not to offer sympathy, support or encouragement, just to laugh along with me. To suggest subjects to blog about (and yes, skirts and dinner party guests are on the list..!), to comment, complain and keep me writing and blogging till that big break comes and I meet you all at my book signing in Selfridges :-)

Not the chirpy post I'd planned but I guess that's the way it is -I caught another butterfly, not the colour I expected but in it's own way beautiful maybe ...

Linda x