Life moves pretty fast

Express yourself. It’s a curious phrase, “express yourself”.

Nothing to do with railways sadly, although it does feel like it should be: Express Yourself : An encouragement to get off a suburban stopper that crawls its way home from the big city to a provincial town station just down the road from your cul-de-sac, and to get on board something powerful and belt your way at high speed between two grand termini and soak up different energies from the outside world you have travelled through. I think that is just my inner trainiac coming out!

In musical terms, Madonna encouraged women to express themselves and ensure that love was dedicated, honest and on their terms. For New Order, it was an encouragement to John Barnes to beat his man on the wing whilst playing for England in the World Cup.

Both examples proving that expression of oneself leads to the best of scenarios, whilst simultaneously proving I need to bring in cultural references to this writing that go beyond 1990!

However, this March of 2026, I feel the need to express myself and, based upon recent thoughts about what medium I best do this in, I have come back to writing and this little epistle.

I’m not a painter or a musician, the latter of which I did try over my teens and early twenties, and to no great loss to that artistic quality, quickly despatched as lacking in, what some would call, talent. I do like to do a little bit of drawing, and maybe at some point, that could be something I could develop in, but that is not now, and so here I am typing away. It would seem that “myself” is best expressed in my wordsmithing. And even more remarkably, other people have said that too, for which I thank them.

So, what is it I need to express myself about? Actually, I am not quite sure. But it is there, bubbling under the surface, the fizz of my mind.

Partially, I think it is a taking of stock. When I consider my life when I first started writing these little tomes for my blog and where I am now, it isn’t quite a chalk and cheese, or toothpaste and orange juice clash of difference. It’s more like this little car that is my life has some new tyres, has been washed and waxed, had its engine serviced, its oil changed, the upholstery vacuumed and the fluffy dice shampooed!

Best of all there is someone new in the passenger seat beside me on the journey and that is a happiness I feel blessed to have discovered, particularly as in the dark days of recent memory, that felt something very distant and unlikely to occur again.

Maybe then, when I chose to delve into this mantra of “express yourself” here, it is simply an expression of that happiness? It could be that fundamental. The fizz is that emotion of love expressed as a want to share it.

Anyone who has visited my home, or maybe looked at my Instagram profile, would know I love to express and share my joys. The thousands of little threads that make up my tapestry.

Well, this is a time when whole new pictures are being formed, and not solely of now, but of tomorrow. A chance to dream and imagine what might happen next with a grin on my face, as a counterpoint to earlier times when, sadly what might happen next, was filled with grief and ending.

That chance is a gift I have received. A thought that possibility exists. This is a present that lifts the eyes to the horizon as opposed to the foreground and, like the days that often bring literal presents, it is full of excitement and nervous anticipation of colour and light.

Thus, it is in writing this that I think I have understood what I need to express. Gratitude.

Firstly, for that person who is sitting with me in the car – literally today as it happens! I love you.

Secondly, for the ability to express myself. Is there a greater thing within humanity than the freedom to express ourselves as we truly are? The modern world shows us this definitely should not be taken for granted.

But I think overall, gratitude for its own good and decent nature. The chance to be grateful. What a thing that is! How fortunate I am to have that opportunity. It’s mind blowing really when you think about it. It means you have received something from another soul, whether that soul resides within another person or within the fundamental essence of this largely incomprehensible universe and life, but it has been given to you.

So, I think maybe it is simplest to end with that pretty incredible thought, and to go away from these words and just think that thought a bit more. My gratitude to you who are reading these words. I hope you receive something that makes you grateful. And if you do, that you can go ahead and express yourself in your little way too.