When the Story Finally Became Whole

It is the 21st of September. The Spring Equinox. A day of equal light and darkness. A threshold. A turning point. And it is also the anniversary of my father's death. Fifty-six years. Twice the lifetime he was given.

Three years ago, my life fell apart. And somewhere in the wreckage, I made a decision. I would write my story. Except when I began, it wasn't really this story. It was going to be a book about the hilarity of dating in your fifties. Look how far we've come.

What began as one book became another, and then another, and then another. I have rewritten it. Reworked it. Added to it. Stripped it back. Thought it was finished. Decided it wasn't. Finished it again. Probably a hundred times.

And now, after all of that, I am holding the final manuscript in my hands. The actual final copy. And it feels nothing like I imagined it would.

My father's anniversary sits here, at the beginning of spring, right in the middle of the story of my mother and father—the two people who shaped the beginning of my life. And now, somehow, I am standing here completing this book that contains so much of the life that came after them. It feels like a circle closing. Not neatly. Not quietly. But completely.

I was told, quite firmly, don't touch it. Naturally, I found one more thing. But something different happened this time when I read it. I realised the book had taken on a life of its own.

There has been this extraordinary oscillation between wow, I actually did this and suddenly being completely undone by tears. Because this isn't just a book anymore. It is the complete package. And that realisation carries a grief I wasn't prepared for.

Over these past few days, the different versions of me who have travelled through these chapters have begun appearing. The little girl. The teenager. The young woman. The mother. The wife. The partner. The sister. The daughter. Each one finally being seen. And somehow, in the completion of this book, I feel as though they are saying: Thank you. I have been seen. I don't have to hold this anymore.

And my body has felt every bit of this. Not metaphorically. Physically. Trembling at night. Sobbing in my sleep. Grief moving through me in waves.

Yesterday morning, I woke with such a deep physical ache in my chest that for a moment I felt as though I had been transported back to that moment when the knock came on the door. The moment that changed the entire course of my life.

Will woke me. He held me. And I sobbed. And somewhere inside that moment came a realisation: it was finally safe to feel it.

That morning, I made a decision. I wasn't going to get up and go to the gym. I was going to stay in bed. Will warmed the puppy heat pack, kissed me on the head and said, “I'll be back soon.” I placed that warmth over my heart and simply lay there. Feeling the shock move through me. Feeling something release.

It felt like a tsunami of emotion finally being released from my body. And then the saboteur got very loud. What the fuck are you doing? Is this really what you want? Who do you think you are?

But underneath that voice, another part of me stood up. And she wasn't frightened. She looked at me and said: Damn, girl. I'm so proud of you. Now go. Take your place in the world. Are you ready to shine?

It feels like standing at the edge of something enormous. Grief and gratitude occupying the same body. Looking backwards and forwards at exactly the same time. Honouring the girl who survived, the woman who endured, and the woman who finally decided she would no longer abandon herself.

At the end of this week, I will press the button. And Sacred Defiance will no longer belong only to me. She will go out into the world. I won't know who finds her. I won't know whose hands will hold her. That is no longer mine to control.

My part was to write her. To tell the truth as honestly as I could. To keep going when I wanted to hide. To let the story become what it needed to become. And finally… to let her go.

Perhaps that is what completion really is. Reaching the place where you can finally say: I have done what I came here to do. The story is whole. The book is whole. And perhaps, in some quiet way, so am I.

Now I get to see what happens next. The next chapter is no longer something I have to write. It is something I get to live.