Waking at dawn

Last night I went out with one of my best friends to celebrate her birthday which was last week. Both of us were rock solid with stress: her after working a fifty hour week ( '40% of that was flipping internal meetings' she told me wearily) and me after writing and editing all week. So we went to Neal's Yard walk-in back rub and I paid for us both to have a back massage. Afterwards J, and my friend's partner joined us and we went to a posh restaurant for a bottle of wine in the bar, and then to my favourite sushi place for dinner. The sushi place, Hana, is hidden away: you go into a Japanese supermarket in the Centre Point building, and up some stairs and it is on the floor above. Most of the customers are Japanese. Afterwards we went for another bottle of wine at a bar over the road.

I woke up at dawn with a headache: I am not used to drinking so much. I used to be able to put it away but since I stopped drinking for a month in January my tolerance for alcohol has decreased, which is a good thing. I look back now and see how much I was self-medicating with booze over the last few years. I thought I was dealing with everything okay, but I wasn't. I wrote about it all to keep myself sane, and in doing so, made myself too open, which caused further problems. Then I had a reaction to what I had done, and started writing about politics instead. Now I just feel drained by it all.

I'm about to stop drinking again, after this weekend. Tonight J and I are going to the opera, to see La Boheme. Then I'm into a hardcore diet and exercise programme. I have been going to the gym every day for the last week, and I'm gradually upping the exercise. I want to be really fit for my wedding and honeymoon.

I have not wanted to write much about my personal life on this blog recently: I have felt too raw and exposed to do so. All my energy has gone into the PTSD book, which is as honest as I can make it, and which is tiring to work on. Only a little while left to do book stuff though, and then I can start looking forwards, not backwards. I can't wait. I am sick to death of dealing with the fall-out of tragedy and trauma, and trying to out-run shadows. I want my life back, daylight back, without all these extra activities and complications and responsibilities. I want to think of the future, not the past.

Waking at dawn today has given me some time to think, a couple of hours to myself as the sky turns from pewter to pearl. I have caught up with some emails, there are still more to reply to. There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything on my to-do list, which was why last night was so nice - time off, catching up with friends. I have a lot of stuff on at the moment but I still need to block out time to relax. I have a pile of books I have bought but not read, and all these plans and dreams, and I wish, more than anything, that I could shake off these shadows and step into the light, walk out under a brightening sky. I am thinking of an old lullaby as the cat snores on the floor next to the desk.

'Peace, soon come, long a-waiting, peace come child, soon come-along now.'

I hope so.