The Last Day of My 20’s (by sarah)

The last day of my twenties was spent in hospital clinics, at the Drs sugeries and in pharmacies. I fill this probably sums up my twenties, ok so some of the medical stuff was long term issues from things like glandular fever which I caught in my teens but sometimes I do feel that the world has been rather mean to me. Sometimes I also feel I am the luckiest person alive (to be alive to be able to do things!).

I found a diary entry from when I was like 15 - apparently I should have my PhD and be doing research, have an album out, at least one novel series published and have art work selling like hot cakes - not too mention two children (if I had a bloke if not I was to start looking at being a single mum!) all before I reached 30. There was also a long list of mountains to climb and charities to help.

Hmmm - well - fail I think! Still it could be worse - according to five year old me I should have been a paleaontologist and been into space by now along with writing, singing, making the costums and scenery of operas by now! Oh as well as running a joint orphanage and old peoples home where I would fly out in my special plane with attached motobike to rescue people from danger and abuse.

Ok so I have probably achieved more of these goals than would normally be theisable - I have performed in light opera - Musical Theater and stuff with various chiors, I have short stories and poems published, I have lie two novels written if not published, I have made stage senery and costums, I have been published (once maybe twice) in a scientific journal (ok so it's not a PhD but I did it without the PhD! I have raised money etc... for various charities (unfortunatly I was not yet in my 20's when I went to Kenya to help build a school), I'm not sure Snowdon really counts as a Mountain either! I've DJed all be it at the Union and only when Malcomn was absolutely desperate.

I have achieved alot - I have one beuatiful child and one almost here - missed that goal by 2 weeks!

I have also lost four good friends in that time, three of whom were contemparies, my peers and this still saddens me and will I think forever. All three of them partook in some way or another with my 21st birthday celebrations even if it was "just" a phone call.

I have also nearly died myself in this time frame - something which has left it's mark on me as the nightmares during this pregnancy have shown. I have also suffered my back getting worse, lose of hand usage and sometimes walking, I have scrapped myself back to functioning again so many times :/ I have also had a slipped disc, hernia, shingles, bone infection and infected stomach ulcers plus the standard popped and torn ligements. Cysts and nasty inflammation resulting in no baby too 🙁 which is why I have a current bump and not a yr old.

But I have been lucky as most of my twenties have been spent with Alaric and if you take our clumsy 'courting' via email it is well all my 20's! I have now known him a 1/3rd of my life!

And the thing about us is that I suppose we are not really like husband and wife - not the way the concept is normally portrayed - we are instead best friends and I'm hoping my 30's will be much better - I hate the idea of being old and 30 is not a number I want to be but at the same time I also feel looking back on things that me and Al have sort of grown up together - not the physical growing up and adjusting to glands growing up but the settling into and working out of life that happens after that. I hope we have done this without getting old.

Create Your Space (by sarah)

This is my entry to the ESA (European Space Agency) art competition Create Your Space. If you like it you have until the beginning of February (2011) to vote for it. You vote by liking my comment on the ESA image on their Facebook page - here is the link you'll need to tell you how to vote ;). I hope you all like it. I believe you need to "like" the page before you can vote. I am Sarah Snell-Pym and this entry is linked under the image of Christer Fuglesang's Space Walk - it is quiet a way down their wall on Facebook.

Did Life fall into this cradle
This Earth, this home -
We now attempt to climb out of?
Or is it more than a cradle
Some crucible or potters wheel
Shaping and baking us in forms renewed?

Maybe in truth it is a bit of both
And as humanity takes its first toddler steps
We begin to see the variety that our world holds

LIFE -

Life here investigated
In case of alien brethren
Life searched for by the heart if not the mind
As the astronaut steps out into the void
For themselves, for us, for a future
A future - As yet unknown
A future for us all
As we grow too large for this world to contain
A cradle we have explored from end to end

But it is only with eyes freshly opened
To the wonders beyond
That we begin to see what we have missed
That which hides in plan sight
The beauty of our world
We seek its twins, our mirrors -
Its twisted folly of form

OUT THERE

And if we are on our own?
Then look at the wonders the search has wrought
And if we are not?
Then maybe we will truly see ourselves
For the first time

Until then the void is calling
And all these things?

These investigations
These satellites
And images -
Are our jumping off point
Our call to the unknown

Do you wonder what it will answer?