Where Is The Life I was Born To Live

When I was five I knew I was special.
Put aside for the moment that I wore pink national health glasses, had eyes set scarily far apart, sported a semi-permenant scab on my chin and was always injuring myself through clumsiness or utter stupidity; in my head I was simply biding my time until I grew up and took over the world.

At the time i didn't have any firm plans as to how I would achieve this, but there was always an obscure understanding that when the time was right the knowledge would come. Therefore I was able to smile and ignore the crushingly unoriginal names I was called at primary school (e.g. four eyes and frog face), because in my head I was already planning the eventually annihilation of the name-caller and possibly his favourite family members.

By the time I was a teenager, I began to realise that actually physically taking over the world would require a massive effort on my part - at this point I found all my energies were used up stalking which ever boy I happened to fancy that week (including keeping a detailed timetable of all his movements) - therefore I had at this time a vague idea of writing a book that would change the world. My diary entries for around this time include title ideas such as: The Sky As A Metaphor For Life, The Girl Who Loved A Boy and Why Do My Parents Hate Me?

I was confident right up until I was in my thirties that I was special and that I would change the world. I always knew I had a vivid imagination, I always knew that I wanted my life to be an adventure and I always knew that I wouldn't settle for the mundane. What I didn't realise was that all these things, rather than enhance my life and make me special, would end with me at the age of thirty-nine having completed two degrees, started writing numerous novels and still be no nearer to knowing what I want to do with my life.

So here I am just nine-months away from turning forty and it really is now or never. So I have two plans for this year: the first is to actually finish the book I started writing two-years ago and the second is to start up my own herbal products company (my second degree was a BSc in herbal medicine) and launch it online. The plan is that by keeping this blog, I will have to make some progress on both projects every week, otherwise I will: 1. have nothing to write about 2. look like a complete fool and 3. have waste another year fannying around trying to decide what to do.