I’m Deborah, middle-aged, married, with four daughters, I live in Belfast in the North of Ireland. I left my academic career in 2022 and have been figuring out who I am ever since. And now I write….
What do I write about?
I write about leaving. When I reached that stage called midlife, I started asking questions about my relationship with various institutions such as motherhood, career, and the church. I left various things, not just places, but also beliefs I used to have. For most of my life, I did what I was told. I measured myself on being a good mother, a good employee, a good person. Now, I question the impact that years of conforming had on my life and the difference that leaving those various things has made. I tend to talk about my faith regularly in my writing, but I do not write exclusively about it. It just informs a lot of who I am. I process my (internal and external) journey through my writing and write on a range of topics. I am also a fairly normal person! I like good books, good television, travel, food, fashion and nice things so you’ll find recommendations around these in my writing too. I don’t write self-help. You are unlikely to find any advice in my writing. All I do is share my experiences.
I grew up and still live in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Home, my husband and my children are very important to me. They feature regularly in my writing!
How did I get here?
Having worked in higher education for almost twenty years, in 2021, I was restless and stuck and I took a one-year career break. Nine months in, I made the gut-based decision to resign from my job. I didn’t know where I was going or who I was going to be, but I knew I didn’t want to go back to my old life and the professional identity I had there.
As a mum of four girls, juggling work, home, church, and other commitments for many years, I found my identity was mainly based on the roles I fulfilled for others. I struggled to get what I needed for myself on a daily basis never mind achieve my full potential (whatever that is!). I thought my career would provide fulfilment. I was reluctant to give it up and so I battled hard to hang on to it alongside the demands of motherhood. But I always felt resentful and that something was missing from my life. In many ways, I was probably missing from my own life. I didn’t really have my own story and my own fully formed identity. I was just a bit-part in everyone else’s story. And then I started writing….