knowing more than you're supposed to

When I went to art school I knew more than most. I wasn't a great artist, I couldn't draw as well as anyone else on my course and I wasn't as inspired by life, experience as the rest. I was told by one lecturer to cheer up, go to Spain.

I was 18, the year before my brother had died and that year I was due to have the same operation that, as far anyone knew, had killed him. 

Spain would be nice, but there was no cheering me up.

I knew too much and to my art professors, just not translatable into great art. I wasn't grasping the opportunity of grief I was only letting it happen. 

Why am I remembering this tonight?

Because tonight I was part of a wonderful group of women, my book club. 

We talk, book clubs are rarely about the book you've read. They are a chance to say things about your life, to express and share. You allow the topic to roam, from one shared experience to another. The youngest in our group is about 36. I think of her as young but I don't assume inexperienced. 

We talked tonight and I shared, I feel safe doing so. We've all lived.

But a couple of times I thought, oh, you haven't been here yet. This is just my road for now. You all know it's coming, but I am the only one here with the past and the predicable future of VHL. 

All of us know someone who has had cancer, had a loved one die, felt grief, been lost in life, hated a job, a boss, a family member, know what suicide can do to those left behind. We know someone even if we haven't had it ourselves. 

So why then did I feel like I did at art school? The only one, the one forging the path of the inevitability of life and then, just when I could have said, whispered or cried my truth, stopped and waited for another person. 

Because it wasn't just my space and it didn't just belong to me. I'm not the centre nor should I be. And that's why I didn't thrive at art school. I didn't really want to be the one who knew more, who'd already faced my mortality and gently danced with it rather than faced it or tried to fight it, even though I wanted to just run away. Because like a shadow, you just waste your energy doing that. 

No, tonight I knew just a little bit more, wanted to tell my story, and did a little bit. A little bit at a time. No one really wants to hear it all.