Coming up to the change of year it always feels like there is a lot of pressure to make a new start. To promise yourself things or to seek to change yourself in some way seems to be the order of most January beginnings. I think that before we leap into another year of resolutions, it would not hurt to look at what our limits are. Where are your edges? What is your limit? Where do you stop and another begins? What are the edges to your property? Your travel zone? Your boundaries? How can you make resolutions if you don’t know where they simply won’t wiggle through?

I found this prompt to be funnily appropriate this week, given my recent health difficulties.

Towards the end of November and beginning of December, I must have been walking around thinking I had no limits. I was exercising. I was losing weight. I was dealing with difficulties like a rotated tailbone and weak ankle. I was on top of the world – well, my world.

But then I spent most of the weekend before last in pain and finally ended up going into hospital last Monday. They found an ovarian cyst. That, in and of itself, sucks, but I can deal with it. But what I have a harder time dealing with is the stress from the pain and the hospital visit.

You see, I am one of the ‘lucky’ small population of the planet who has a set stress limit. Put me past that limit, hello glandular fever (aka mono) despite already having it once (well, I’ve had it a couple times now). It’s not so much mono this round (thankfully) as just the complete exhaustion that comes with mono. I feel okay, but body says ‘no’ quite frequently.

So, for now, I am limited. I have to rest more often. I get tired by 9pm (two hours earlier than usual bedtime). Regular old domestic duties make me tired. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to an hour of exercise every morning.

But I’m not mad. I’m not angry at my body or accusing it of betraying me because it hasn’t. I treated it badly for many years (via McDonald’s and a lot of Gatorade) and now it’s still working out the kinks. People need limits. We need to be reminded we’re not superman because then, when we do something like superman, it makes it that much more amazing.

Got one? What’s the best one you know of? Have a writing idea that’s been pestering you? Well? What are you waiting for?

What’s your bright idea?

My bright idea comes from the grumpiness of being struck down by a stomach bug. Grrr. Hiss.

My bright idea is to slap all the advertising people upside the head and to get them to stop trying to make us feel so frightened all the time! For goodness sake! I saw the most idiotic product ad yet yesterday: an automatic soap dispenser.

The product in and of itself is only slightly stupid, but the ad is ridiculous! They try to sell it to you on the basis of the soap pump you press down to get your soap collects germs. Oh no! You’re about to wash your bloody hands anyway! Why, why, why save yourself from touching possible germs that you’re going to wash off in about three seconds?

*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*

So there. My bright idea is to get advertising agencies to stop attempting to scare the masses into complete idiocy.

I tried to think of a prompt that took advantage of the fact that this week’s Sunday Scribbling falls on All Hallows Eve, but I didn’t want to put anyone off who may not be a Hallowe’en celebrant. Either way this point of the year always feels a little intense. Colours seem brighter and the days just feel like they are about to be different. There’s Hallowe’en, Guy Fawkes, harvest festivals, farmer’s markets and changing clocks. So whether you choose to write a horror story, a creepy tale of goblins, the recipe for a witches brew, a rich chocolate fantasy, or a completely unrelated tale, make sure it is in keeping with the season wherever you are.

The prompt this week is: intense.

I’m trying something a little different this week. Hopefully it’ll work. (Please forgive the sound of sawing in the background. *shakes fist at neighbours*)

The prompt for this week isn’t one you’ve seen before, but I hope that it is one that will help you remember! It’s flashback time!

October 11th, 2006

I felt like I had really made it when I landed in Sydney and switched planes to head to Melbourne. I was finally on Australian soil – though not technically. I haven’t been on ‘soil’ for… way too many hours. But now that I’ve landed in Melbourne… Well, this is ‘made it’ in an incredibly different way.

I’ve made it through customs, though I don’t remember much about it. I think I was smiling the whole time. All I have been thinking about is M and how I’ll be meeting him face to face for the first time. For the first time in our relationship, we’re only feet away from each other. Well, metres. Well… What’s the next step up from metres? This place is huge.

I wonder what’s next. I have my bags, exchanged my money, had my bags checked… I think I’ll just follow everyone else. They can’t have much more to check, now can they?

And there it is: daylight. I can see the front doors of the airport, almost all glass, revealing the chaos of vehicles and people rushing around outside. It’s pretty funny because I’ve somehow gotten myself mixed in with a flight that must have come from Asia. We all have black hair, but I’m taller than everyone! Hey, maybe it’ll help M see me.

Someone is calling my name, I think. I spin around and…

…there he is. The love of my life. All I can think is: That’s for me? Man, he’s hot.

I walk over and we hug. Oh, it feels so good. And then, for some stupid reason, it’s important for me to take off my high heeled shoes and hug him properly. He already knows I’m a bit strange and doesn’t bat an eye as I kick off my shoes right in the middle of the airport and hug him again.

This time my head rests in the crook of his shoulder, just like it should. I feel this inexplicable weight fall off my shoulders.

I’m home.

Thought I’d go back to basics with a deceptively simple prompt: love.

I thought I would answer this with a poem. Well, if you can call it that. This is over five years old, back when I was just starting to use poetry to express myself, so please forgive the lack of poetic form. I wrote this for the man I’d just fallen in love with who wanted to back away because he thought I could do better than a long distance relationship.

Well, given that we’ve now been married for nearly three and a half years, I think I’ve shown him the distance I will go for what I want…

Does it Hurt

Does it hurt to have honor
when you long to touch her?
Does it hurt to step aside
when she returns what you feel?

How can you give her
to another man’s touch?
How can you bear
to need her in silence?

Does it hurt to only watch
when you care for her so?
Does it hurt to let her go
not knowing if she’ll return?

How do you resist
when she loves you
like you love her?

Clean slate? Clean house? Clean teeth? Clean thoughts? Clean living? Clean lines? Clean laundry?

My mother has OCD, but a kind that isn’t about counting or handwashing. She needs things to be clean. There were times growing up when I didn’t even notice. Other times… Seeing her break down were some of the worst times of my childhood. There were times when I fancied myself as Cinderella, on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor because the floors needed to be clean, but my mother couldn’t kneel down to do it. And yet, sometimes it got so bad that she would kneel down to comb out the tassels on the rugs in the house.

When I moved to Australia and got a clean slate, I resisted cleaning. I didn’t want to be like her, and yet, I sometimes felt the rush of anxiety at seeing the mess. So I would have to clean for my own sake. But I wouldn’t be pedantic. I did what needed to be done and forced myself not to worry about the dust.

Sometimes I think my husband would like it if I embraced my mother’s cleaning habits more, but I can’t. I can’t let myself open that door. I do what I need to do, even though that means some messes deliberately stay messy. I still have my times when I have to brush everything off my desk except the bare essentials because I don’t have the time to clean because of work but I cannot stand to look at the mess. But those times are less and less.

Clean is overrated. And too clean is dangerous.

Is there someone that you need to meet half-way? Is there something you have half done? Are you half-way to something or someone? Have you ever hit the wall half-way there? Is it better to be half-way there than at the beginning? Are you happier half-way there because you are afraid of the end? How do you feel about half-way?

There are many stories half-way finished in notebooks scattered around the flat. Colourful covers call to me, inviting me in to work on them, but I don’t. The characters always want something from me: life, a point, a page, a scene, a finish to their lives on the page.

They are a plague, these half-finished notebooks. They almost appear to multiply on their own. Like viruses, they infect other notebooks, filling up half way with dreams, characters and places… The viruses are not strong, though. They cannot complete without the human part: me.

I’m not happy with all my half-stories, and neither are my characters. I promise that I will get to them and finish their stories, but I don’t know if I’m up to keeping that promise. All I know is that I’m trying to.

This week you are going to write your acceptance speech. Whether it is your Oscar’s speech, the dedication page from your book, or some other award, make sure it is for the award that is the most important one you can think of. In that moment of accepting your prize, who are you going to thank and why? What would you like to say to the people in your life who have helped you get this far? Who do you need to acknowledge?

To my loving husband, who has saved my life in more ways than just the literal. Your never-ending support and encouragement has inspired me to go places and do things I never thought possible for me. Your love is a beautiful thing that I never dreamed I would be fortunate enough to call my own. You are my lover, my friend and my muse. You make me a better person.

Eternally grateful,

Your Wife

This one should be pretty easy! After all, who knows you better than you? (Unless, of course you don’t want to talk about you.) Your prompt is: me.

A butterfly,
true love’s first kiss,
a child’s cry,
and a starlight wish.

A dance in the rain.
The taste of a snowflake.
The beat of passion
a loving heart makes.

Sometimes darkness
surrounded by light.
Sometimes love guiding,
bringing others through night.

Accept me, love me
for who I am.

I am she.
She is the best I can.

Is there anyone whose life you would swap yours with? What about for one day? One hour? If you did swap lives and then got yours back, what lessons would you have learned? What would you do differently if you could? Whose life fascinates you? If you wouldn’t swap lives with anyone, why not?

You can never truly know what someone has been through to get to where they are today. Sometimes I wonder what people see when they look at me. Certainly not my past, given how shocked they are when I do choose to share some of the things that brought me to Australia. I learned early on not to judge because you never know.

That being said, despite every negative thing that has happened in my life – and there have been plenty, just like anyone else – I would not swap my life with anyone. Some days, it’s because I wouldn’t want anyone else to have gone through what I went through. On other days, I wouldn’t give up my husband and his love for anything.

One day? One hour? Well, now my curiosity strikes and the ability to come back to my life makes everything a bit more appealing. I would swap. I’m not exactly sure with who – it would take a long time to decide – but I would simply because I love new experiences. (Call it writing fodder.) I’ve also often wondered what it would be like to be in someone else’s head or someone else’s body.

Now just to decide who…