LIFE!

Life.
Life has a way of happening. 
It comes at you, hitting you like a huge truck. Perhaps more like a hurricane. Without adequate warning. With an unprecedented and relentless force. Without care or sympathy or subtlety. One doesn't notice life's ability to topple or maim unless one has, themself, been assaulted by its full fury or callous fervor. 

I have always felt I lived a rather charmed life. I have had to work for it, but have largely been left unscathed by life, riding its waves, but remaining afloat and with enough control and momentum to continue forth. I know this now. I know this as I have had life flung at me for the last four years. It hasn't been nice. I have shed more tears than I ever thought were possible. I have had losses that have been torturous and heartbreaking and totally unexpected. Before the pain from one affliction abated, another pain would assail itself. I have felt as I have been drowning. Carried along by a racing current, without relief or respite. Without support or succor. Every time I thought I might be able to catch a break, life 'happened' again.

Amongst everything else that has happened, I lost both my parents. Unexpectedly. Painfully. Too close together. This has been a huge wake-up call to my own mortality. I had started this blog for my parents. As a means of communication and updates from afar—before the advent of social media as we now know it. Mum longed for my updates and snippets of news. Then with everything that ensued, it all ground to a halt. I won't go into all that now... perhaps another day. But, I had always intended to return to writing.

I know my pains are largely first-world. There are so very many in the world living in conditions and situations that are merciless and incessant and without any hope of opportunity or amnesty. I will never feel that level of pain. 

I have the opportunity to make a fresh start. So here goes!