What Sophie Said

I'm glad you're here, April. March seemed to last a really, really long time. I've had a little blog break, just because I felt like I needed it. One of the most recent posts I did, Sticks and Stones, took a bit of courage to publish. It had been ready, waiting, for months but pressing publish meant telling people, including those close to me, how much that event had affected me. I'm glad I pressed 'go'. I think I needed to get it out. To make it clear how important it is to think before you speak. After that, I stepped back a bit. I wasn't feeling particularly motivated to write, so rather than force anything I just took some time to breathe. That's the luxury of having a space that is all mine. March was busy, as ever. Work has been busy, and theatre trips have featured, of course. The Maids was pretty spectacular, and Avenue Q was the delight I remembered from first seeing it about four or five years ago (reviews on both to come...). The...

Anyone who knows me will know how important this item is to me: Every year I have an A5 diary, with an entire page for each day, and it contains EVERYTHING. The amount of to-do lists I make inside these pages is obscene. You’ll see the spine is taped up; that’s because the cover fell off about four months into the year because of so much opening and closing and being thrown into every handbag. I love knowing what’s coming up, noting down friend’s birthdays. To-do lists. To-buy lists. To-visit lists. To-read and to-watch lists. I’d probably write lists of lists if I had the time and the space. When I was struggling the most with my anxiety, these lists had got what you might call ‘out-of-hand’. I would obsess over their contents, and panic when things weren’t ticked off. I’d feel so overwhelmed by the contents that it would be hard to focus on anything or do anything. So things wouldn’t get ticked off. And so began a vicious circle. Now...