I HAVE AN ADDITCTION

'Writing is the painting of the voice.'  Voltaire.

I never imagined I would write anything for others to read. As a child, I was encouraged to do anything so long as I did not draw too much attention to myself. So this is a little out of my comfort zone. Yet as a stay-at-home-mum for over eight years, I have been having conversations with myself for a long time. While this enables me the pleasure of always being right, I'm not sure it is conducive to my long-term mental health. It seems I have a lot going on in my head so I thought I might try my hand at writing some of it down. I can achieve this aim while also looking after the three children I own who are eight, five and two. I love being their mother and stuff, and making people is simply the best job in the world, but sometimes I just need to do other stuff besides them.     

So I begin. I don’t mind if nobody except my nearest and dearest reads this. I am not a great wit nor a great writer so don’t think you need to point this out to me. I am doing this simply for me. Please feel free to comment if you think I might like to read what you have to say. I aim to be honest, somewhat interesting, and at best, ever so slightly entertaining.    

The ‘Jane’ I refer to is, of course, Jane Austen. Although I am certain she would hate my children, I feel like we would have been great friends. I would absolutely have her sit right next to me at a dinner party of famous people of my choice and we would quietly poke gentle fun at all the other guests. I have loved her since I was studying Persuasion in my final year of High School. My English teacher asked her class if anyone had actually read the book and liked it, and I was the only one who eagerly thrust up my hand while simultaneously committing coolness suicide. Thus it became one of those awkward, embarrassing high-school moments that stay with you forever. I envy anyone who never had any of those because, unfortunately, I had many. I was once told firmly that I was a ‘nerd’. That absolutely mortified me at the time, though now, I see it has a huge compliment.
  
Wouldn't it be grand to have the ability to pull a 'Back to The Future' stunt and go back to high school, grab your teenage self and give her a good old talking to? Then I could assure her not to worry, it's the "popular", "cool kids" (use scare quotes here) who become most definitely less cool as they get older. The nerds always come out on top. We're just more interesting. 
  

I have been listening to Jane’s books as I go to sleep via audiobook for years now. I initially used this as a relaxing tool when my firstborn was young. Such a lovely distraction from exhausted sleeplessness. But now, all of these years later, I confess I have an addiction. I simply cannot fall asleep without listening to Jane! I am listening to Northanger Abbey again at the moment. I just started it last night. Sometimes it can take me months to get through a book because invariably I fall asleep while listening and have to rewind back to where I was before I fell asleep the night before. Often I have woken in the middle of the night in fright, still with a headphone attached and the cords wrapped around my neck. As any Janeite would testify, you can read them over, and over and never tire of them. So I do a loop as follows: Northanger – Pride & Prejudice – Mansfield Park – Persuasion – Emma – Sense & Sensibility – Northanger, and so on and so forth.

When thinking of writing this blog, I was thinking of Jane. She simply wrote what she observed around her. She had what some would call a small circle in life. Nothing amazing happened to her, yet she created beautiful stories about the minutiae of everyday life. She is my inspiration.

TIDBIT: While walking along a well-used path in a popular tourist spot the other day, I noticed somebody had etched a message in the concrete. What would you choose to write? Everlasting words of wisdom? A popular, inspiring quote perhaps? Not this person. It said ‘I wrote this while it was setting’. Hopefully, I will be a little bit more entertaining in this blog.  

What would Jane have written?  Certainly one of my favourites:  ‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more’.  Ah, Mr Knightley, you’re just as lovely as Darcy, just not nearly as popular, unfortunately. But just between us, I have always preferred you.