Project Pickled Pear

In the name of making a start, I'm writing an introduction to what I aim to do here.

Essentially I want to explore ideas of self-sufficiency, in a very broad sense. My independence - physical and mental - have always been supremely important to me. Currently the necessity to be able to be alone in the world are taking on new meanings for me.

This is my context: I am approaching 30, newly married, planning children, and finally taking the way I make money seriously. The impending 3-0 is pleasing me, not least because it has brought about a reflective tone to my thoughts - a sense of taking stock of where I am, where I want to be, and how I intend to get there.

My husband is all a person could want in a partner, and our love is the greatest thing I have achieved in life, and the backbone of my future. But we are at the stage in our relationship that I am suddenly in need of redefining myself as something separate to that love, rediscover the things I loved about myself before I found someone else to love me.

I am not planning to become a mother for another couple of years, primarily for practical considerations. There is also one very important thing for me before undertaking motherhood - to feel that should I have to, I would be able to do it alone. My father died when I was 9. When he was first diagnosed with cancer, several years prior to his death, my mother thought to herself "I can't do this on my own". She was gripped with fear at the prospect of having no partner to help her. As a result, she was even more paranoid, over-protective and clingy than she would have been otherwise. Her inability to be alone is still a burden on mysef. I am determined to never let such fears overcome myself, or my future children. Although I have left my former paganism behind, I still find the maiden-mother-crone model helpful. I see myself as a strong huntress, almost at the peak of my skills, preparing to use my strength to protect my future cubs. I imagine myself as a mama-bear and think about what I will need to undertake that role brilliantly.

My career, as always, is less interesting to me than anything else in my life. But I have learnt a degree of practicality. Money is something that is necessary to all my other life plans, and I now realise the ways that work best for me to make it. I have learnt that I need to feel good at what I do, but more importantly useful and productive - not destructive - in my society. I am trying to live my politics in everything I do; in how I make money and how I spend it. I still have a long way to go.

I wish to catalogue all the things in life that bring me closer to self-sufficiency. Welcome to my work.