Words of wisdom

Just while I remember and completely unconnected to the last post, I read this in an interview with Sheila Hancock in the Daily Mail in Costa on Saturday. I've quoted Sheila before. She seems to make a lot of sense to me and I can relate a lot to this:

"There is a tendency to think of Hancock as one of life’s great survivors, a strong independent woman striding out regardless. ‘People keep using this word strong, and I’m not. I’m quite vulnerable, as I think everyone is, deep down. I get letters from people saying, “How marvellous you can do all these things”, but I have to.

I’m better when I’m tackling the fear – whether it is climbing up on a chair to change a lightbulb myself (John always did that), or walking into a restaurant alone. It’s still scary, but I’ve learned the only way to tackle the fear is to do it.’"

And this from Justine Picardie, writing in The Times last year. This struck a real chord with me:

"The end of a marriage [in her case, divorce] is the start of the terrifying, yet exhilarating, discovery of what it might mean to be a grown woman, rather than a longstanding wife; and also the wonderment of falling in love again, when you least expected it. The map may have vanished, its certainties gone for ever, but the journey is beginning, as it always does; and out of this dark place, we find ourselves, in all manner of extraordinary and ordinary ways."

I think I'm beginning to discover what it might mean to be a grown woman, rather than a longstanding wife/partner. I also think this whole process is slowly enabling me to find myself, certainly in all manner of extraordinary and ordinary ways. I think that might be part of what my sister has referred to as me having a new eye for things. I also get the bit about starting out on a new journey, but this time without your trusty map. As Picardie says, that is both terrifying and exhilarating, but something propels you on regardless. Maybe, as Hancock says, we're compelled to tackle the fear, scary as it is, by just getting on and doing it. And that in turn helps you find yourself. Wise words indeed.