This I have only recently realised about myself

 I grew up in Oxford and resented it for rejecting me in various ways, and this has made me resent beauty and impressiveness, or at least take them for granted.

Alcohol does not agree with me. I am not at my best, even when I'm at my best, and drinking quickly brings out my worst.

I have forgotten how to enjoy things. Instead I make everything into a job that needs to be done. I'm not even sure what I like or don't like anymore.

I am quite cowardly and very,  very shy.

My favourite weather is rain.

I have been painting

 I have been painting, and for the first time since I was a teenager I am making art without any intention of showing or selling it. I am trying to make art that is a part of my life, not outside of it. And I am going to finish things and have objects that tell a story and mean something and are exactly what I had intended them to be. It is quite different to be making without the pressure to be impressive, or clever, or even 'good'. I hope I am coming into a time of my life where I can be an artist, and a mother, a gardener, a woman, a wife, without feeling shameful, or like an imposter. I think these are hard times for everyone, and it is a hard time to be a woman when that, often these days, feels like a dirty word. I am 31 and my womanliness has always felt like something less than I should be, something that should be concealed or overcome. What will I do with that? 

 I've lived a whole life between them and now, it feels like.

Made work, shown work, sold work, made a totally different kind of work and sold that too, grown vegetables, had babies become children, tried and tried and tried, loved, moved house, started again (or tried to), cried a great deal, made more work but didn't know what to do with it, got my bike fixed, wondered and worried. I have aged and it scares me. I never liked or knew myself and now I am not young anymore. 

 Hello?

Can you hear me?

I've been talking to you.