I am a mother, a writer, a friend, a sister, a journalist, a cat lover and, in my free time, a bit of a lyricist (I love capturing and harnessing all kinds of emotion within the discipline of rhythm). Before all this, I was an advertising copywriter with a lot more disposable income and a lot less sustainable happiness.
What happened between then and now was the global recession, more or less in tandem with my own personal credit crunch. To cut a long story short; in 2009 I decided to go for what is sensitively yet bureaucratically known as “voluntary debt review”. I was freelancing at the time, and made up my mind to address the writing on the wall before the red letters started arriving. What has happened since has been an eye-opener – not without its trials and tribulations (this ain’t no get out jail free card, folks), but mostly a constant unfolding of insight and understanding, of distinguishing between quick fixes that might make your day or moment and things that truly matter.
One way of explaining this is via a quote (oh, I’m also quote junkie). I do not know who said the following to whom regarding what, but here goes: “She knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.” Suffice it to say that you can quiz me in the middle of the night about everything from the price of a can of tuna (albeit in oil or brine) to everywhere you can buy affordable face serum. But I have also come to know, and deeply appreciate, the things that matter – truly talking to my son (instead of taking him to the closest theme park), arriving at a friend’s dinner party with a Mr. Price candle tied up with a piece of string and decorated with a single leaf (instead of a breaking the budget and/or bank with a bunch of long stem roses or St Joseph’s lilies), allowing myself the primal comfort of a hug from a friend and a glass of wine instead of splurging on the nearest cashmere jersey or designer jeans.
Looking back, I have come to the conclusion that my life is, more or less, the equivalent of a mathematics problem for which you end up getting the right answer, even if used the wrongs methods, and that answer keeps unfolding and unfolding…
Leave a Reply