It's Saturday and I have an unexpected and unplanned day off, I could be doing anything with anyone and yet here I am in my pyjamas sitting eating hummus with breadsticks catching up on work.  Harriet did take pity on me and invited me to the pub for a non alcoholic drink but since I've been completely allergic to even a sip of alcohol, going to the pub for a pint of Diet Coke which costs the same price as 2, 2 litre bottles sounds as enticing as inviting someone who's allergic to bees to go to a honey farm, and for anyone who thinks I'm being glib, the last time I tried red wine, I started wheezing so badly I needed an inhaler.

I realise I'm supposed to be saying yes to everything but quite frankly, saying yes more often has only proved that it's not working, not only is it not working, it's actually made me more anxious than I've been in ages. 

I think the big difference between Danny Wallace and I is that, firstly he was 26 when he did it, he had a large supply of friends who invited him to do things, he was a young go getter working for the BBC, oh and he also said yes to most of the offers in his junk mail, something I refuse to do or I would be having webcam relations with a Russian woman and my penis enlargement, I wonder why junk mail is all written assuming that the readers are men?

I'm now around half way through the experiment and all I feel is bad about myself, I've been trying to be braver, to put myself out there, I even offered up a spare ticket to a classical music concert to any bohemian man who might want to take me, guess what?  Yes, tonight I am going to see the Royal Northern Sinfonia on my own.

It is of course all my own fault, if you live like a hermit and only leave the house for work then the chances are that great things aren't going to happen very often and whilst I'm sure that never bothered Hannah Hauxwell I can't pretend that I haven't been feeling a little more lonely of late.  The worst part of this is that I know it's chemical related, I swapped my HRT again and it's the same one which made me decide I should try and date last year and we all know how that ended... Oh, if you're a new reader, I'll save you reading back, it ended badly, it made me realise that I'm such a niche catch that the chances of finding someone else who's compatible is smaller than the Higgs-Boson particle!

I don't mean to sound "woe is me" I think I'm just genuinely a little low and anxious currently.  I'm happy enough when I am working because work is the thing that completes me, once I stop and I'm here in my pyjamas in an empty house it hits me every time.  Of course I'm grateful for Holly Bobbins who loves me unconditionally and even chats with me on matters of philosophy from time to time, not only that, her thoughts on string theory and time travel, second to none, she's not so keen on Schrodinger's cat but that's dogs for you!

I'm considering now whether I should keep saying yes to everything and the answer is I don't know, I wanted it to change my life, to enhance the way I live and to offer me new experiences, so far it's only made me anxious and miserable showing up the shortcomings of both the way I choose to live and in my personality as a whole.

If anyone out there has any life changing experiences to offer please get in touch, I'd love to turn this month around and say that saying yes makes life genuinely amazing.  As always I'm waiting for your emails!

At the end of a brutal week...

Nine fifteen on a Friday night and here I am, the rockstar, in bed, the cat next to me and some music by my side, music which comforts and soothes, music which heals.  This week has  been brutal, I have felt the warmth of human kindness and have experienced the cruelty of others which threatened to bring my whole inner self to a grinding halt, I hate negativity in any sense, I fight against it with all of my heart but sometimes things happen which you have no control over...

I've come to understand that this place in which I find myself now has been hurtling towards me for quite a while, what I held in my heart as being my happiest place was actually a bipolar high, all of those months of boundless energy were just my broken brain, thanks God, can't you give a girl a break?  The problem is no one noticed, I didn't notice, it's been so long since I've had anything other than small swings and times of light depression that I just thought I was the happiest I'd ever been and the associated anxiety was just that, I didn't see it being that jittery symptom of the high.

I can see all the patterns now though and here I am, on a low shelf somewhere in a well with the water rising to my ankles, I'm not up to my neck because I have friends actively trying to drop a ladder down for my rescue and I'm fighting hard to climb back up it.

I thought I had found everything I was looking for but here's the truth, the pursuit of love is so painful and yet we spend ourselves frantically searching like a lost child looking for their parents.  Some of us will search our whole lives and still never find that person, others will be lucky, they will find their soulmate, their twin flame and what I say to them is if you find it, love it, build that flame every day, feel everything with your heart, let yourself go, let yourself be loved and don't hold back, life is precious and short and every day should be spent in the sunshine with the warmth of love on your skin.

In this place where I am, please do not show me sympathy but be empathetic, be understanding and just give me a little time to pull myself back up, do not look down on me for I only write now so that others feel they can speak when they are in these places, do not cry for me for I have cried enough for everyone, in my darkest moments when I feel that the world hates me and I fear my fragile wings are about to break, I remind myself of the love I have for friends, my children and the animals I share my life with.

And, you know what, one day I'm going to have it all, I will be loved and cherished and someone will think me the centre of their universe and every day I will tell them I love them because they found me and didn't run away because I was broken, we'll just get some superglue and turn me into a slightly less broken new piece of artwork and I'll stand on platforms and tell my story, I'll tell the story of the woman with the broken wings, a woman who found the exact thing she was looking for when she wasn't even searching, I'm not going to actively look for something I can't find anymore, I'm just going to hope that it finds me instead, I'm not sure how that happens but love is nothing if it isn't magical.