I had heard it was National Writing Day. First time for me, seem to have missed it over the last few years. I had no idea it was a thing. Unless I wrote about it last year and have forgotten. #possible

The idea of this challenge, shared with my by Sarah Davies (she who is super organised – I bet SHE knew it NWD today! 😀 ), is that we free write for 7 minutes on the theme, ‘I feel most free when…’

Now I love free-writing, most short stories I’ve written have come from raw material gathered during free-writing sessions. But here is the down side of it… when it asks you to be honest and you don’t have time to think about what you’re writing, and the truth comes out.
The truth will set you free, the Bible says. So let’s give it a whirl.

I feel most free when…

I’m alone.

Doesn’t that sound awful?! But yes, when I’m alone I feel I can relax and I don’t have to worry about what I’m wearing, what I look like, what I’m saying…

My natural facial expression is a scowl. Seriously it is. Typing away here quite happily, I can just see my reflection in the screen (I’m outside and it’s sunny). I look very unhappy. When I’m in company I have to remember my natural scowl and ‘turn that frown upside down’. So if you know me, you may have thought, ‘ohh she’s not happy today, she looks miserable.’ Nope, it’s my resting face, sadly.

So… when I’m alone I don’t have to worry about it, or anything else. I can sing along to rubbish music, dance around, practise out loud for a talk I’m doing.

I’m the same when I’m walking. Though I enjoy stroll and a chat at times, my preference for my daily exercise is to walk alone, stomp out the steps to whatever music is playing in my ear and just get the steps done.

I feel I should be saying, I’m most free when praying, or when I’m in the presence of God, or when I’m in church on a Sunday; and though I wouldn’t enjoy being alone all the time, when I AM alone there is no act to put on, no mask to wear, no feelings to hide. I can just be who I am.

And it’s not that I’m happier when I’m alone. I’m not, but I am freer.

It’s something I should work on. Actually no, it is something I am working on. I think a lot of it comes from carrying a lot of weight for a lot of years. I’m addressing that now. So maybe I’ll be happier in my skin, and freer for other people to see me in it.

There we go, seven minutes of honesty.

If you’ve done the challenge, please leave a link so I can check out what you’ve written.

A x