Yay! I passed my MA in Creative Writing at Teesside University. Yay…..

Fizzle…. splat.

I think I may have anhedonia.

This sounds like a terrible thing. Although I’m sure there are worse afflictions, it is indeed uncomfortable when people say “You must be so happy!” and you’re numb-er than an ice-skater’s bum. I’m sure I would have had a surplus of negative emotions, if the outcome had not been in my favour, but I’m finding it tricky to summon up genuine thrilled-ness.

Maybe it is still sinking in. Maybe I need a few more cards and flowers to ram the message home that I am not, in fact, a complete fraud who should have been laughed out of the classroom in Middlesbrough Tower way back in Week One.

Kind family and friends, who have borne the brunt of my self-doubt – along with my long-suffering tutors – ,  have even suggested that my ‘Distinction’ grade indicates that my self-definition as a ‘writer’ has not been overly presumptuous and premature.

So I am savouring their congratulatory greetings and will be keeping them as evidence in my defence against that clever, on-the-shoulder prosecutor who cross-examines me when she considers I am getting ‘ahead of’/ ‘above’ myself.

I will particularly treasure the note which accompanied the bouquet ordered by my lovely husband. He swears that the florist needs her ears syringing, that this was not an instance of his notoriously idiosyncratic spelling, and that he does not think I am a dodo. This makes me chuckle in a  wry manner.

Hedonia.