I’ve never been good at intimate relationships. I seemed to have not been gifted with an innate set of rules of engagement. The only wisdom I’ve garnered over the years, despite experience, therapy, self-help groups and books; was that I was better off avoiding them and focusing on my own life and the deep friendships that I have within it.

I seemed to love too deeply, too inappropriately and too obsessively, then suddenly realise that I am lost in someone else’s world that I need to race to escape from.

O there were wonderful partnerships and some great loves but as I moved rapidly from lifestyle to life change, they fell by the wayside and into a barely remembered past.

I walked out of my last relationship some five years ago, and subsequently moved into a myriad of my own potentialities.

I had no limitations on what or how I expressed myself. No one saying that I couldn’t do that or shouldn’t do this, no skeletons in my life that needed to be hidden in case I bought disrepute to a lover.

I flew!

Then I met someone at a recent exhibition of my work and for the first time in an age I felt a stir of love, madness and loss of control.

I’ve learned that putting my art on public display often brings things into my life that are unexpected, strange and sometimes wonderful and these gifts should never be ignored.

People from a long forgotten past, opportunities, strange synchronicities- nothing should be unacknowledged in case these gems are part of a new transformation or future adventure.

So I went with this stirring, followed the obsession and channeled the muse. My art flew in new directions, my dreams became exponential wonders and I forgot to sleep and eat.

Insecurity hit as I am a ‘little’ odd, and my youthful beauty had perhaps made this oddness acceptable to lovers who would have fled otherwise. I no longer had this beauty but instead a strength in my individuality, but I still felt the fear that my older, more tired face would lead to loss of my new lover.

I looked at other couples, ordinary people, older people, strange people and thought if they can have a partner…..perhaps I can too.

I realised that I did actually desire a companion and sexual partner, something I thought I had long ago eschewed in the name of development of my own strengths and goals.

So I took the leap and it didn’t work but I tried. I’m not battered, not defeated, not even sad.

Now I’m going to create art, art infused with power by my capacity to love, strive and take risks.