I had an article published on Quiet Revolution! It is:
An open letter to everyone who has ever made me feel like there is something wrong with me—unintentionally or otherwise.
Read it here:
http://www.quietrev.com/portraits/sam-rose/
Hope it is relatable – I’ve had some really nice comments on it already, which is awesome!
I’m not shy
I don’t have low confidence
I don’t prefer quiet environments
I am usually quite happy and cheerful
I don’t dislike you (probably)
I’m not bored (probably)
I’m not mysterious or thinking deep thoughts
I don’t need you to speak up for me or talk to other people for me
I don’t need you to help me to be louder or to invite me to talk
Calling me quiet like it’s a bad thing (or doing any of these) does make me want to hit you
*emphasis on the ASS
Add your own to this list in the comments!
What do brave cancer patients/survivors do that cancer patients/survivors who aren’t brave don’t do?
What do strong cancer patients/survivors do that cancer
patients/survivors who aren’t strong don’t do?
I’m not going to spend long on this because I know this subject has been tackled a lot already – there are problems with the language
around cancer – battle metaphors, and so on, which seem to imply that people who ‘lose the battle’ didn’t try hard enough, or that people with cancer can do something about it, which is ridiculous.
I realised today that sometimes I avoid talking about my body for fear of making other people feel awkward. Isn’t that a bit messed up?
It’s Friday night and I’m at home drinking whisky and watching my favourite TV show, The Last Leg. And I’m thinking about why I love it so much.
Last week I was lucky enough to have tickets to go and see the show being filmed live. My partner and I went along, and we had so much fun. I can’t wait until the next season opens up for applications so I can request tickets again – it’s the best thing I’ve done all summer, and considering I visited Sweden, the Canaries, and went on a hot air balloon ride, that makes The Last Leg pretty awesome.
now is not the time to think about where you’ve come from
now is the time to be where you are
I’m asking because I really want to know. In a way, if it’s something that happened in the past, it kind of feels weird mentioning it to someone. But if a person is becoming a friend, you want them to know you better, right? I feel like if someone doesn’t at least know that I had cancer, then they don’t know enough about me, because now it’s a big part of me and my outlook on life.
I love how the friend I mentioned in the latest post basically answered the poem I had written in my previous post. <3
Spending the evening starting to plan my first self-published poetry collection! Exciting stuff. At the moment it looks like it’s going to be around 40 poems/pages, which is sort of a bit longer than an average chapbook and shorter than a typical collection. I think going for a chapbook length would be better, so I have some cutting down to do. This is going to be tricky.