Life Mould

You are what life makes you….

Life has dealt me many cards, most that I would never have chosen for myself, but whatever hand I get I can never say that it has not made me who I am today, for the better.

I don’t surround myself with acquaintances, I don't do Twitter, my Facebook friends list does not reach above 40 and I would say that I only have a fistful of true friends. This is how I like it.

My life has been the roller-coaster that, with a mixture of my own wise and not so wise choices, I have seemed to plummet through it, not as gracefully as I would have liked. Having a baby at 18, a divorce by 22, a selection of undesirables for boyfriends, life’s been a blast! However I am probably one of the most patient people I know, I give far too many chances and love far too much.

Here are some of the cards I probably wouldn't have chosen….

Living the last two and a half years in a relationship with a man who never wanted to kiss or cuddle me. Without this I would never have been able to appreciate what real love and affection is, what I need from a partner to be happy and would never have found the love of my life…

I probably would have preferred to not have experienced the time that I lost my tent at a festival. It was the middle of the night and, after an hour and a half, had to get the security guards to help me and my children go through every tent in the field until we found it!! I learnt that before rushing off to the excitement we should always look at our surroundings and perhaps even go so far as to decorate your tent with solar powered fairy lights so you know which tent is yours!

I've turned up for job interviews up to a week before the actual dates, arrived at gigs two days after, been to the Space museum on the one day of the week it is closed, I've lost the car on a freezing November evening and had to search surrounding streets for it. I've forgotten names of people I've been friends with for years and can’t introduce them, parent’s evenings and other appointments go unattended even when written in a diary and birthday cakes are a rushed higgledy piggledy of ingredients the night before.

Whatever I seem to do I know that my family and my fistful of closest friends love me for those very reasons and although it annoys me about myself at least I am conscious of just how forgetful I can be plus I've heard some wouldn't change me for the world….