I wrote my first piece to post a few weeks ago. I just didn’t have the courage to post it. It was all about my move out of South London, about leaving my life behind, leaving everybody that I loved and cared for. My husband, my children, my brothers, mother, friends, work colleagues and my dog. I was leaving behind a comfortable home, a job that I loved, voluntary commitments and organisations that I was part of. It felt like I was running away from everything and everyone.

At the time when I made the decision to just leave, it felt like everything was going wrong in my life. Or that’s how I perceived it. My menopause kicked in towards the end of last Summer, so my hormones were all over the place. So everything did actually feel like it was going wrong. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. Trying to keep things together seemed like an impossible task. I really thought I was going mad. I was irrational, emotional, needy and was over thinking everything. It felt as if I had undergone some kind of a personality transplant. This was not me and I hated this me.

Another significant factor which added to my need to ‘escape’ was that my youngest son had left for University. I couldn’t come to terms with the whole idea of ‘Empty Nest’ syndrome. It basically took any purpose I had right out of my life. I’m not saying that my entire focus in life was on my children, but they were a huge part of my life and my day to day existence for nearly 20 years. My thinking, decisions, planning was all around them. Suddenly that was all gone.

The strange thing is that I had been waiting for that moment for many years and when it happened, it wasn’t joy and happiness that I was feeling, far from it, it was an unbelievable feeling of loss and without any direction or purpose to my life. I was suddenly made redundant. But at the same time I kind of described myself as this giant tanker in the middle of the ocean with its anchor embedded to the bottom of the sea bed. Suddenly that anchor came up very quickly and the engine had started and I needed to start sailing, but no idea where, I just needed to move.

But there was more, I was attacked at work. Somebody tried to strangle me. Tried to kill me, or just hurt me. Who knows? Either way the experience has left me completely and utterly traumatised. You see I am a people pleaser, I like making people happy, I work in events and fixing problems for me comes naturally. I am also studying to be a counsellor so I am full of empathy and understanding. So the fact that somebody at this particular point had so much anger and rage towards me that they started to strangle me goes against everything that I am, everything that I do and everything that I believe. And yes I probably have PTSD because of it.

There is also the whole discussion I have been having with my husband around our marriage and I have been using the phrase: ‘I love you, but I’m not in love with you.’ I have been questioning everything about my marriage for some time now and I am no closer to figuring out what it is that I actually want moving forward. What is the difference in loving someone and being in love? I have talked to many people about this and so many people feel the same. I’m hoping that this is one of the questions that my ‘leaving’ will help me to figure out.

Then there is my mother. She has dementia and she no longer knows who I am. In fact it’s been a few years now that she has no idea who I am. Sometimes she calls me her mother, her sister, her aunty or even her grandmother. Seeing her deteriorate over the years has broken my heart. I am the only girl in my family. I have four brothers, so I always had a strong bond with my mother. It feels as if I have been going through this mourning of her life since she was diagnosed with Dementia many years ago. Since she stopped recognising me. It’s just the worst feeling to lose someone you love so much in such an awful way. She is now happy, at least I hope that she is, in a Polish run care home in the UK. I will be sending her postcards as she always loved receiving postcards from me when I was away and maybe, just maybe, for a moment, a flicker, she may remember who I am.

So now I have left everything and everybody. You see my life was fine. I was busy and involved in so many things, full of energy and always so positive but I just wasn’t feeling happy deep inside and towards the end of the year, I felt empty. Or maybe that’s the wrong word, fulfilled. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled. Something was missing in my life. I didn’t want to feel OK and fine. I wanted to feel something else. Something that I didn’t feel in London, in my home, with my family, in my job, in my whole existence. There is something not quite right and I need to try and find what it is and try to fix it or find it and come to terms with it. The good thing is that I’m doing something about it. Not sure if it’s the right thing or the wrong thing, but it’s a thing.

So I have now escaped and I am here, sitting in a bar in Kenya, writing. A far cry from Streatham in South London. I’m staying with a close friend and her family in Nairobi. Thank you Magda and Mark.

And what is it that I’m actually doing here? and for how long? I have no idea. Seemed a good decision at the time and after telling everybody and anybody that I’m leaving for Kenya, (Yes I made it very dramatic!) I couldn’t really go back on my word. This is how I work, if I tell lots of people that I’m going to do something, then I have to do it or I will back out, drop the idea, be too scared to go through with it. I used this tactic when I first decided to try Stand Up Comedy. I had to do this or I would let people down. Then there were all the leaving dos that friends and family had organised for me. I can’t be going just for a couple of weeks, I need to be away for at least a couple of months to justify these leaving dos!!! Maybe more? Maybe I also go somewhere else after Kenya? Who knows? The most exciting thing is actually not making any plans and dates about going back home. This just feels so liberating.

So, going back to what is it that I’m actually going to do. Write. That’s all that I have ever really wanted to do. I have so much so say and I am missing some kind of an outlet. Over the years I have dabbled in writing, I had a column in the local paper which I absolutely loved writing for. But I have also written a musical, several plays, lots of depressing poems, lots of comedy scripts and started a couple of novels but they all sit in a file, physically or on the computer. None of them have seen the light of day and none of them are finished.

I should add that I don’t see myself as a great writer and what I write may not be of interest to people but it brings me so much joy when I do write and that is probably more important, doing it because it makes me feel happy.

Now, I'm desperate, I have come to the realisation that I am desperate to write and finish something, maybe this is my purpose in life and it has always been my purpose, something that uplifts my soul but just for one reason or another I was too scared to pursue it or it seems that life and everything just got in the way. I have also become too comfortable, too laid back, too relaxed, I lost my drive, motivation, ambition. This is what was killing my creativity, killing my soul and killing me inside.

Am I going mad? Is this just not too extreme to leave my job my home, my life, friends, family, everything that is secure and familiar to me to just walk away from it all? It seems like an insane thing to do but at the same time, it seems like the right thing to do or I really will lose my mind. Am I having a ‘Mid-Life Crisis?’ or an ‘Eat, Love and Pray’ moment? Maybe.

When I was boarding the plane for Kenya, there was a large sign advertising HSBC, it said. ‘Is it a midlife crisis or a mid-life opportunity?’ I would really like to think it’s an opportunity to seize the moment, get out of my rut and do something completely different. It’s like having a circuit break from life. However long it lasts and where it may lead, at this moment, I don’t care. I’m living a different life to what I had a few weeks ago. It was the same as it had been for so many years and I was dying inside. At least now I feel that I’m starting to very slowly come back to life and if even one person reads something that I have written and it touches them, helps them, makes them reflect on their own life, question things, gives them the courage to do something and maybe make their own changes, then it has been worth me writing and putting it out there. But it’s also fine to just read this blog and share my thoughts, experiences and my journey with me, at least I won’t be alone!!! Jo x