Knowing what you want. — I don’t want a love that only exists under the cover of night, I don’t want arms that keep me at bay and guard your heart, I crave the sigh of contentment and safety, I desire the warmth of the sun on our tangled bodies, I want your eyes on mine as we fill the air with laughter and never forget how to dance. One of the greatest gifts of ending a long-term relationship is the space you receive to rediscover both yourself and what you want. None of us is the same person as we woke up as on this exact day last year. None of us has the same bodies or the…

Should we applaud resiliency? — For the last few years, I’ve been a single mother. Before that I was the mother of four home educated children. Before that I was a young woman navigating misogyny and racism in contemporary culture. And before that, and before that. There is always a story of strength under the…

The reality of parenting on your own. — There are times when the rage descends so quickly that it leaves me choking and unable to breathe. Having a person who you have chosen to no longer share time or space with hold ultimate control over your life is excruciatingly painful and maddening. As a single mother with no…

When you are neither black nor white, you inhabit a new space in between with its own experience. — Growing up as a mixed-race child in 80’s London, the narrative that black was bad seeped into the pores of my brown skin. The racism I experienced was rarely overt, that is not the British way, but it was a regular and insistent knocking against my young identity. The unpleasant…

When sleep just isn’t enough — Recently while scrolling through a social media feed, I read a quote, it stopped me, my thumb hesitated and I read it again out loud. ‘You have to be rested enough to dream’. Yoki Maya Yeh As the words crossed my tongue and travelled on my breath, their meaning landed…

An Interview with Matthew James — Dear About Me Readers, Another week and another opportunity to dive deep into the world of a writer to uncover their inspirations, hard won wisdom and meet the person behind the pen. This week we are sitting down with Matthew James, an inspirational writer who has fought battles with addiction…

Let’s elevate our book piles — The mission of this publication is to raise the voices of women and recently I started to wonder if we were limiting ourselves a little by thinking only about what you amazing writers were creating on this platform. We used to have a section in the bar above for ‘Self…

An Interview with Amelia Johannsen — Dear About Me Readers, Another week and another opportunity to dive deep into the world of a writer to uncover their inspirations, hard won wisdom and meet the person behind the pen. This week we are sitting down with the new to Medium, Amelia Johannsen, a writer, creator and artist. So, let’s get started. Amelia, could you tell us a little bit about the kind of writing you do here on Medium?

Is Ageing Gracefully Something To Fear or Embrace? — I thought getting older was about your body ageing. The grey hair, the eyesight, the hormonal shifts. I embraced all of that, I felt like a woman moving into her prime. I was passing the peak of the ‘nurturing everyone else phase’ and moving into the liberated wild woman! I…