What's in a name? About this blog

It's difficult finding a good blog name that is all encompassing of your true being and of all that you stand for in life.

After having thought of a few AP ones (like Connected Mum etc) and a few based on my personality (like Gritty Mum or Wallflower) and some personal ones (Sara's Own Path etc), I realised they definitely weren't all encompassing. I thought, hang on, I'm not just a mother, I used to be a person before I devoted all my time to these two little people!

And, deep in thought, I turned to my right, to the uber-stacked bookcases, that are starting to get so many double-parked books, stacks of books piling up vertically in front of a very neatly organised back row, screaming for someone to go to Ikea to buy more storage....

Not all of my favourite books are here. When I moved to Australia from Italy, back in 1997, I just brought a couple I could fit in my suitcase. And left behind close to a thousand books at my parent's house. So bit by bit I've been re-buying my favourites, because sending over 1000 books ain't cheap! Plus we really need a bigger house to accommodate for all of my interests...

And here is the book that I can singularly pinpoint as the one that helped me choose my path when I was at a crossroads in my life. In Italy it sat on the shelf after the Isabel Allende collection, here it's first on the fiction shelf just before 2001: A Space Odyssey, I haven't re-bought my Allendes yet because I decided to hold off till I learn Spanish and can read them in their native language...

Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I had seen a copy in the house but as a child I assumed it was a book about volatiles...
Then at 14 I was the Outsider, the happy child that has morphed into a goofy girl that doesn't know how to fit in, the one that tries and tries without every seeming to understand her peers, the broody teenager that often considers the easy way out.

A very unlikely neighbour (long story...) suggested I read it. So I did. And I managed to give my life some sense. I realised I WAS indeed different, and not just because of my missing forearm, I WAS the gull trying to fly higher and higher when the flock is diving for fish in the sea. And I realised that's the way I am and I shouldn't change it. My difference is what made me stronger.

So thinking about this and deciding to choose a Seagull inspired blog-name, I was reading passages marvelling at the parallels with my own life. And then I stumbled across the two star-bright gulls, and realised that this is indeed Part Two of my life, the second part where I don't smoke or drink to numb my feelings of inadequacy, the part where I tackle life head on because these two little people reminded me of the little happy child that used to be.

So this blog really is about Part Two, about following my own path and choosing to embrace my being different, about making my own choices regardless of what the Flock is doing.