The Phoenix Diaries: The Chapter Where I Met the Exorcist and Won an Award

The week I vomited like a Victorian ghost and won a travel writing award in the same breath.

Phoenix Diaries
Personal stories of transformation, heartbreak, and rebuilding from ground zero.

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I drove myself across France like a woman in a coming-of-age film.
Windows down. Alanis Moriessette on full blast. Confidence at an all-time high.

I’ve become very good at driving in foreign countries.
Give me a roundabout and blind optimism and I’ll figure it out.

I arrive at my new place further south. Sun on the tiles. Suitcase thumping over stone. I unpack like a responsible adult. Have a wonderful dinner with my new housemates.

Next morning.

Migraine.

The kind where your skull feels rented out to a demolition crew. The kind where light offends you personally, and you briefly consider removing your own head for peace and quiet.

Then came the vomiting.

I have vomited before. I am experienced in this arena. This, however, was theatrical. If there had been a priest nearby, he’d have started stretching.

There I am, in a perfectly lovely French bathroom, channelling The Exorcist, thinking, if divine intervention is taking bookings, I’m available.

No partner. No friend. No mum with dry toast and sympathy.
Only me.
And my Oscar-worthy performance of “Woman Regrets Everything.”

When you’re sick, feelings swell like they’ve been given a microphone.

The ache.
The loneliness.
The whisper: I want to go home.

Then the sharper one.

Where is home?

That one settled in my gut and refused to budge.

I lay there thinking about the last nineteen months. Divorce. Nomad life. Rebuilding from ash with WiFi. Telling everyone how brave I am. How aligned. How intentional.

Meanwhile, I’m in France, on my knees, bargaining with the universe with my head over a toilet bowl.

Two days later, I see the announcement.

Bronze Prize. Women’s Travel. The Solas Awards. For my essay, Suitcase Full of Grief, Map Full of Stars.

Solas Awards Website

I read it once. Twice. Slowly.
Then I check if Mercury is retrograde, because this can’t be real.

There are writers in that category with decades behind them. Names I’ve read. Voices I admire. I am new to this room. Still figuring out invoice templates and where to put commas in French addresses.

And yet.

There it is. My name. Tanya Fraser.

I sit on the same bed I was moaning on forty-eight hours earlier and start laughing. Proper laughing and slightly feral.

One minute, I’m possessed by a migraine demon.
Next minute, I’m an award-winning travel writer.

Life has range.

I let it sit. The pride, the kind that sits in your chest and warms it from the inside.

I am a writer.

The writer, in Bordeaux.

I write.
I submit.
I win.

It feels surreal and validating. It feels like something inside me is standing up straighter.

The doubts still knock. They always do. Money questions. Future questions. Where-am-I-going-to-live questions.

One day I’m on the bathroom floor wondering where home is.
Two days later I’m holding proof that this path has roots.

It’s a wild swing. It’s also deeply human.

The universe keeps me agile. Keeps me awake and from getting too comfortable.

So what’s next?

No idea.

I’m staying in France for March. I’m writing. I’m pitching. I’m building something that is forming in real time.

Stories line up inside me like impatient Irish aunties at a wedding buffet. They want out. Every single one.

My job is simple.

Keep writing.

Life does not move in a straight line. It curves. It dips. It occasionally projectile vomits on your plans.

It also surprises you.

You can be on the bathroom floor and on an awards list in the same week.

You can ache for home and be creating one at the same time.

So I laugh. I flush the toilet, wipe my mouth and open my laptop.

If this is the rollercoaster, I’m staying on.

With a strong cup of tea. And maybe a bucket…just in case.

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Tell me…

Have you ever had a week that made absolutely no sense and somehow changed everything?

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