Day 237
I have discovered that the best way for me to get past my present difficulties is to work hard at something physical - it stops the anxiety whilst still giving me odd chances to think things through(when I'm not consumed with thoughts about how bloody exhausted I am, that is), so I am still pruning like mad and have discovered another tree that was completely hidden by laurel.
Since Steve was last here two weeks ago, I have also lifted, levelled and relaid some twenty-six paving stones on the patio. Ta-dah! Not bad for someone with CFS. I am pleased to say that the only body I found beneath it belonged to a very big, fat, gorgeous, gnarly toad, with a spotty tummy, and rather a nice grin when I picked him up to relocate him.
Have also half knitted a jumper, sort of string-vest style. You all know I can't knit so when I tell you that I am attempting this without a pattern (gasp, is she mad?), you will understand why it took me four attempts before I had cast on the right number of stitches. This is another one I am making by unravelling an old jumper that I didn't particularly like - hope it fits better than the last one.
Now make sure you're sitting down for this bit, but I have also started decorating the bathroom and fitted a new loo seat. We had a whole pot of unused yellow paint - Couscous by Dulux - and I had earmarked that for the bathroom but when I tried it out, it was too strong for such a small space.Had half a pot of white left over from my student days so I mixed them both into a pleasant primrosey colour. Not too bad, I thought, so I gave everything a quick coat, but knew I'd need to see it in full daylight, electric light etc., before I made up my mind.
So I sat in the bath this morning and checked it out. Quite nice, quite fresh, maybe still a little strong. Then I noticed I was getting VERY hungry. That's when I realised it was now exactly the colour of scrambled egg and it was having a subliminal effect on me. Not sure if that's quite the ambiance I was going for - perhaps I should paint it lavender, or something totally unconnected to food as I get enough cravings as it is.
I have managed to break my glasses somehow - they just fell in half when I put them on - maybe they're exhausted too. As I have no spare ones at the moment I tried out Steve's contact lenses, as I still needed to see in order to get to the opticians. They worked moderately well as long as I put them in the wrong eyes and looked out of the corner of my right eye rather than straight on.
I also tried out an old pair of specs that I found but they were 7 years old and I frankly couldn't see distance in them very well, or read, come to that. The optician told me I had a squint. I DO NOT! What a nerve - he should get his eyes checked. Anyway, they quoted me six hundred quid for a pair of specs so I'm not going back there again.
I used to wear contacts decades ago, but then my eyes rejected them drastically - I have flat eyes apparently (but emphatically not a squint). So I'm going for a contact test today to see if my eyes have improved (possible) or lenses have improved (much more likely) and wearing Steve's didn't seem too bad. By which I mean my eyes didn't immediately turn beetroot, nor did my eyelids seem to be made out of sandpaper every time I blinked, as used to be the case.
Perhaps I should get tinted ones so that my bathroom doesn't look so edible. If I get blue ones it might cancel out so I can't see any of the colour at all.......
Maybe not - I'll only end up thinking about subliminal mashed potato instead.
Friday 30 April 2010
Sunday 25 April 2010
Cogito Ergo, OK, but Sum?
Day 232
More crises - help! What to do? Sam has finally made it to Malta after panics about money and trains and planes and packing weight, and I won't see or hear from him for a week. I am alone again, and braver now than before, so more issues are rising to the surface like pond scum on a stagnant lake.
I remember a time when I knew clearly who I was, a magical period of my life when Joe and I lived together in Crouch End. From 1983 to 1986 I was happy. I felt safe. I cried tears of joy every night for the first three weeks when we were finally rehoused and able to leave Joe's violent and bullying father. I sat in the middle of my precious housing association flat, on a vile green and orange patterned carpet, with absolutely no furniture and felt the happiest I'd ever been.
My life began then. I dressed outrageously, playing with vintage and charity shop clothes like marvellous new toys. I wore four watches, one of them set permanently to tea-time. Sometimes I wore odd shoes. My door was always open, and friends turned up constantly bearing gifts of furniture salvaged from skips, and bottles of Freixenet, and chips with Hellman's.
I painted rainbows on my walls and stuck outrageous cuttings from the personals in Time Out on my kitchen cupboards. I hung a chair on the ceiling. My bathroom light was surrounded by tinsel and the loo set off by a big pink tulle bow. My house was rarely tidy - interesting piles, my friends said - but sometimes it was actually spotless, all the furniture having been rearranged (a family obsession) and cleaned beneath, it having taken me till four in the morning.
I looked after my lovely and individual little boy, I explored the tentative beginnings of my creativity, I worked as a foster-parent, my home being blessed by the inclusion of the other children, and I chose how I wanted to live. I became a vegetarian, which had always been a step half taken anyway. I started learning to cook. I started learning everything, actually, so little having been taught me by my parents except fear.
I could put up shelves, change a plug, fix the hoover, and walk happily for miles. I acquired a cat. I had the odd boyfriend. I had various friends live at my house for a time, and once my sister lived with me for ten wonderful months. Sometimes I was lonely, sometimes I was jealous, but it was always OK and I knew who I was.
So when did I start to give myself away? I had worked so hard, in such a short space of time, to throw off the desperately negating effects of my childhood and stand proud. I had carved an identity that fitted and honoured me and those around me, but was still a developing work, open to change and growth and progress. Why did I trade it in? Was there a moment, a decision made, to throw it away, to let go, piece by precious piece, all that had been so carefully gleaned?
I find myself now - twenty-five years later almost - back at square one. I could reel off a list for you of my talents and skills, principles and character traits, and it would be a long, impressive and comprehensive list, but it would not tell you how I feel when I wake in the morning - when I look at my watch and, seeing it is late, feel an immediate stab of guilt and what can only be described as 'wrongness'.
For so many years I have lived my life around other people, my husband, my children, and my friends, making all my decisions, I now discover, with regards to them. I find that I am even making choices in response to their absense - "must make good use of the time I'm alone" etc. - as much as I do their presence!
I'm sure there has been plenty of need to learn this consideration of others in order to bring up my children wisely, to keep my marriage together, or to cherish and nurture relationships, but where in the midst of all this loving and 'good' behaviour did I lose me? I am wife, sister, mother, aunt, friend. I am artist, creator, cook, garderner, animal lover, blogger, singer, the lady who laughs loudly in shops and buys mulled wine for strangers at the Xmas market. But who am I when I am not in 'relationship' to anyone?
Is this how it feels after a lifetime of habit, to suddenly be widowed or divorced, to sit silent in an empty nest, become finally retired or unexpectedly redundant? The most burning, important, impending question, each second of the day seems to be "what do I, and only I, really want to do?" and I find I just don't know the answer.
I can fill up my days with things that are for other people - make the house nice for when visitors call, get caught up with things I've had on hold due to my illness so that people think I'm worthwhile as a person, not just some lazy, housebound slob, or change the sheets for when Steve comes home and save wearing my 'good' underwear for then, too. This is madness! Whatever am I doing? I remember Crouch End, I remember it - this was not who I found myself to be then, in that golden dawn of self discovery.
So. I cannot programme my GPS with the co-ordinates 'Bev', but how I wish I could. To find my way back (or is it forward?) to the lady I have lost would take more than SatNav. The best I find I am able to do today is to refuse any action that is about others. I am getting little done, but better that than to do it for the wrong reasons.
I am living with the strange discomfort and the guilty feelings and letting myself hear the lie in these. I am making myself think again - and again - to clear out old conditioning and find clarity and peace in my choices. If anyone knows the way to me, send a map, a compass, a code, I don't care what as I long as it shows me a direction.
I'm not drowning, but I am waving, and any kind of life raft would be nice.
More crises - help! What to do? Sam has finally made it to Malta after panics about money and trains and planes and packing weight, and I won't see or hear from him for a week. I am alone again, and braver now than before, so more issues are rising to the surface like pond scum on a stagnant lake.
I remember a time when I knew clearly who I was, a magical period of my life when Joe and I lived together in Crouch End. From 1983 to 1986 I was happy. I felt safe. I cried tears of joy every night for the first three weeks when we were finally rehoused and able to leave Joe's violent and bullying father. I sat in the middle of my precious housing association flat, on a vile green and orange patterned carpet, with absolutely no furniture and felt the happiest I'd ever been.
My life began then. I dressed outrageously, playing with vintage and charity shop clothes like marvellous new toys. I wore four watches, one of them set permanently to tea-time. Sometimes I wore odd shoes. My door was always open, and friends turned up constantly bearing gifts of furniture salvaged from skips, and bottles of Freixenet, and chips with Hellman's.
I painted rainbows on my walls and stuck outrageous cuttings from the personals in Time Out on my kitchen cupboards. I hung a chair on the ceiling. My bathroom light was surrounded by tinsel and the loo set off by a big pink tulle bow. My house was rarely tidy - interesting piles, my friends said - but sometimes it was actually spotless, all the furniture having been rearranged (a family obsession) and cleaned beneath, it having taken me till four in the morning.
I looked after my lovely and individual little boy, I explored the tentative beginnings of my creativity, I worked as a foster-parent, my home being blessed by the inclusion of the other children, and I chose how I wanted to live. I became a vegetarian, which had always been a step half taken anyway. I started learning to cook. I started learning everything, actually, so little having been taught me by my parents except fear.
I could put up shelves, change a plug, fix the hoover, and walk happily for miles. I acquired a cat. I had the odd boyfriend. I had various friends live at my house for a time, and once my sister lived with me for ten wonderful months. Sometimes I was lonely, sometimes I was jealous, but it was always OK and I knew who I was.
So when did I start to give myself away? I had worked so hard, in such a short space of time, to throw off the desperately negating effects of my childhood and stand proud. I had carved an identity that fitted and honoured me and those around me, but was still a developing work, open to change and growth and progress. Why did I trade it in? Was there a moment, a decision made, to throw it away, to let go, piece by precious piece, all that had been so carefully gleaned?
I find myself now - twenty-five years later almost - back at square one. I could reel off a list for you of my talents and skills, principles and character traits, and it would be a long, impressive and comprehensive list, but it would not tell you how I feel when I wake in the morning - when I look at my watch and, seeing it is late, feel an immediate stab of guilt and what can only be described as 'wrongness'.
For so many years I have lived my life around other people, my husband, my children, and my friends, making all my decisions, I now discover, with regards to them. I find that I am even making choices in response to their absense - "must make good use of the time I'm alone" etc. - as much as I do their presence!
I'm sure there has been plenty of need to learn this consideration of others in order to bring up my children wisely, to keep my marriage together, or to cherish and nurture relationships, but where in the midst of all this loving and 'good' behaviour did I lose me? I am wife, sister, mother, aunt, friend. I am artist, creator, cook, garderner, animal lover, blogger, singer, the lady who laughs loudly in shops and buys mulled wine for strangers at the Xmas market. But who am I when I am not in 'relationship' to anyone?
Is this how it feels after a lifetime of habit, to suddenly be widowed or divorced, to sit silent in an empty nest, become finally retired or unexpectedly redundant? The most burning, important, impending question, each second of the day seems to be "what do I, and only I, really want to do?" and I find I just don't know the answer.
I can fill up my days with things that are for other people - make the house nice for when visitors call, get caught up with things I've had on hold due to my illness so that people think I'm worthwhile as a person, not just some lazy, housebound slob, or change the sheets for when Steve comes home and save wearing my 'good' underwear for then, too. This is madness! Whatever am I doing? I remember Crouch End, I remember it - this was not who I found myself to be then, in that golden dawn of self discovery.
So. I cannot programme my GPS with the co-ordinates 'Bev', but how I wish I could. To find my way back (or is it forward?) to the lady I have lost would take more than SatNav. The best I find I am able to do today is to refuse any action that is about others. I am getting little done, but better that than to do it for the wrong reasons.
I am living with the strange discomfort and the guilty feelings and letting myself hear the lie in these. I am making myself think again - and again - to clear out old conditioning and find clarity and peace in my choices. If anyone knows the way to me, send a map, a compass, a code, I don't care what as I long as it shows me a direction.
I'm not drowning, but I am waving, and any kind of life raft would be nice.
Monday 19 April 2010
Weather warnings
Day 226
Whilst the rest of the world has been coping with the fallout of a volcano, I am now in the aftermath of Hurricane Dalton. Steve - stuck in Romania for an extra day, eventually trained and bused back to Brussels, then finally Eurostarred home - was, naturally, exhausted, and needed looking after.
Sam, having got in a head-in-the-sand panic about his college work, was finally working like a demon, and had spread out over most of the downstairs as there were less distractions than in his room.
Steve flopped into the house after 11.00on Friday night, and unpacked a toothbrush before falling into bed. The rest of the unpacking took most of the weekend and covered the rest of the house. The laundry was everywhere. His coat was where he'd dropped it, as was Sam's.
Steve had to exchange the new laptop he been required to buy as it was overheating - this took most of Saturday, and the rest of it he spent reinstalling everything on it - he had no choice. As we had been out so long, Sam cooked for himself - he is quite self-sufficient, thankfully - then dutifully got back on with his homework, leaving all the washing up.
On Sunday, I mostly ironed and packed for Steve while he sorted out paperwork and money issues. Sam needed to be taken out to a derelict army base to take photos for a project. This took the rest of the afternoon. When we got back I ran Steve to the station, so Sam cooked for himself again, and left all the washing up, scattered around yesterday's.
I walked back into my house - the house that had been pristine on Friday, it having taken me the whole ten days that Steve was away to sort out - and saw the carnage that hurricane Dalton had wreaked. I was honestly gob-smacked.
Every surface in the kitchen was covered. The patio was covered. The kitchen table was covered. My bed and all the surfaces in the bedroom were covered with everything Steve had decided not to pack this time. The stairs were covered. The sitting room chairs were nigh on invisible, as was the rug. The hallway was an obstacle course of bags, shoes and hay.
I haven't drunk a thing while Steve was away, but I grabbed a huge glass of red wine, watched House, then pushing stuff onto the floor, went to bed and ignored it all. Well - wouldn't you?
This morning, when I felt a little more capable (but with a long list of things to do for Steve), I came down gingerly to find Sam had stacked the dishwasher and put it on - bless! Two dishwasher loads later and the kitchen still isn't clear though. Hurricane Dalton - watch out if it comes your way.
Whilst the rest of the world has been coping with the fallout of a volcano, I am now in the aftermath of Hurricane Dalton. Steve - stuck in Romania for an extra day, eventually trained and bused back to Brussels, then finally Eurostarred home - was, naturally, exhausted, and needed looking after.
Sam, having got in a head-in-the-sand panic about his college work, was finally working like a demon, and had spread out over most of the downstairs as there were less distractions than in his room.
Steve flopped into the house after 11.00on Friday night, and unpacked a toothbrush before falling into bed. The rest of the unpacking took most of the weekend and covered the rest of the house. The laundry was everywhere. His coat was where he'd dropped it, as was Sam's.
Steve had to exchange the new laptop he been required to buy as it was overheating - this took most of Saturday, and the rest of it he spent reinstalling everything on it - he had no choice. As we had been out so long, Sam cooked for himself - he is quite self-sufficient, thankfully - then dutifully got back on with his homework, leaving all the washing up.
On Sunday, I mostly ironed and packed for Steve while he sorted out paperwork and money issues. Sam needed to be taken out to a derelict army base to take photos for a project. This took the rest of the afternoon. When we got back I ran Steve to the station, so Sam cooked for himself again, and left all the washing up, scattered around yesterday's.
I walked back into my house - the house that had been pristine on Friday, it having taken me the whole ten days that Steve was away to sort out - and saw the carnage that hurricane Dalton had wreaked. I was honestly gob-smacked.
Every surface in the kitchen was covered. The patio was covered. The kitchen table was covered. My bed and all the surfaces in the bedroom were covered with everything Steve had decided not to pack this time. The stairs were covered. The sitting room chairs were nigh on invisible, as was the rug. The hallway was an obstacle course of bags, shoes and hay.
I haven't drunk a thing while Steve was away, but I grabbed a huge glass of red wine, watched House, then pushing stuff onto the floor, went to bed and ignored it all. Well - wouldn't you?
This morning, when I felt a little more capable (but with a long list of things to do for Steve), I came down gingerly to find Sam had stacked the dishwasher and put it on - bless! Two dishwasher loads later and the kitchen still isn't clear though. Hurricane Dalton - watch out if it comes your way.
Thursday 15 April 2010
All is well in the garden
Day 222
It is spring and I have been in the garden hanging things on walls - plaques and plates and other brightly coloured things gleaned at car boot sales. There are now three pretty little hand-painted bird boxes dangling from my Maple tree, the twisty wire coil with the optical-illusion glass ball has had a wash, and the tiny frog fountain has been cleaned out.
I've picked every daffodil in the garden and put it in the house, (I spend more time in the house at the moment, so I can enjoy them more there), along with cherry blossom, heather, grape hyacinths and pulminaria. The cherry blossom and forsythia are shedding everywhere, so there are now carpets of spring in the house as well.
The one thing I have always loved about being in the country is how in touch with the changing faces of the season one is. When we lived at the farm, each week there was a different mixture of flowers in the hedgerow, and blossom in the trees was followed by shoots, then leaves, then nesting birds, then berries. The world around was fecund, riotous, and abundant.
When I lived in London, however, I had only a passing awareness of the passage of time. Summer was hot, autumn was windy, winter was cold and spring was wet. That was all. Seasons came and went largely unnoticed. Once, my sister and I were so desperate to experience the autumn properly, that we went to the local park with four black bin liners and filled them up with fallen leaves.
Back home, we covered everything we could, drifts of them piled everywhere as if fallen from invisible branches in the ceiling. We put them in our hair and stuck them on our clothes. Friends turned up and it became a party, with all of us dancing about throwing armfuls of leaves into the air. Clearing them up three weeks later took hours and caused a large scale nervous breakdown in the hoover, but it was worth it.
Although I still live in a city, it is a small one, and my house is in a hidden sort of valley with deer and badgers that invade the garden at night, and fields and trees the view from every window. When I first saw the little walled garden with the huge Japanese Maple tree, I knew it was where I wanted to live, whatever the flat was like. Each Autumn the leaves turn a deep, burning, flame red, and as they gather on the rich, green, grass the colour contrast is heartbreaking.
Before I leave this house, (we never stay anywhere for very long, but we'll be here a few years yet), I want to plant crocuses to cover the lawn. A carpet of purple and yellow, the very colours of spring, as a gift to the next tenants. An awakening to life before the abundance of the roses and the headiness of the honeysuckle as you pass into summer.
If I put out birdseed regularly, then the squirrels come, followed by jays, wood pigeons, sparrows, blue tits, magpies, robins, and sometimes a woodpecker. Back at the farm in the real countryside, we were once terrorised by a wild boar, and there was a white stag with his milky family we saw on our walks, but this is good enough. As long as I can be where the daily difference in the season speaks to me, then I can be happy. To be cut off from that stifles something inside and I lose some sense of my own balance.
These are the joys that I cannot function well without - a gentle orange sunset, a fluffy squirrel snarling at my cat, a cluster of pink campions by the roadside, a robin on the wall, dandelion clock tendrils blowing in the wind, a polished conker, the song of a blackbird, the scent of lavender and honeysuckle and mint, pussy willow buds and old man's beard, a scarlet pimpernel growing from a cleft in a wall, a frog discovered under a large, damp leaf, and a place to potter and pot up geraniums.
It is spring and I have been in the garden. My mind has eased, my heart has danced and my spirit has sung.
It is spring and I have been in the garden hanging things on walls - plaques and plates and other brightly coloured things gleaned at car boot sales. There are now three pretty little hand-painted bird boxes dangling from my Maple tree, the twisty wire coil with the optical-illusion glass ball has had a wash, and the tiny frog fountain has been cleaned out.
I've picked every daffodil in the garden and put it in the house, (I spend more time in the house at the moment, so I can enjoy them more there), along with cherry blossom, heather, grape hyacinths and pulminaria. The cherry blossom and forsythia are shedding everywhere, so there are now carpets of spring in the house as well.
The one thing I have always loved about being in the country is how in touch with the changing faces of the season one is. When we lived at the farm, each week there was a different mixture of flowers in the hedgerow, and blossom in the trees was followed by shoots, then leaves, then nesting birds, then berries. The world around was fecund, riotous, and abundant.
When I lived in London, however, I had only a passing awareness of the passage of time. Summer was hot, autumn was windy, winter was cold and spring was wet. That was all. Seasons came and went largely unnoticed. Once, my sister and I were so desperate to experience the autumn properly, that we went to the local park with four black bin liners and filled them up with fallen leaves.
Back home, we covered everything we could, drifts of them piled everywhere as if fallen from invisible branches in the ceiling. We put them in our hair and stuck them on our clothes. Friends turned up and it became a party, with all of us dancing about throwing armfuls of leaves into the air. Clearing them up three weeks later took hours and caused a large scale nervous breakdown in the hoover, but it was worth it.
Although I still live in a city, it is a small one, and my house is in a hidden sort of valley with deer and badgers that invade the garden at night, and fields and trees the view from every window. When I first saw the little walled garden with the huge Japanese Maple tree, I knew it was where I wanted to live, whatever the flat was like. Each Autumn the leaves turn a deep, burning, flame red, and as they gather on the rich, green, grass the colour contrast is heartbreaking.
Before I leave this house, (we never stay anywhere for very long, but we'll be here a few years yet), I want to plant crocuses to cover the lawn. A carpet of purple and yellow, the very colours of spring, as a gift to the next tenants. An awakening to life before the abundance of the roses and the headiness of the honeysuckle as you pass into summer.
If I put out birdseed regularly, then the squirrels come, followed by jays, wood pigeons, sparrows, blue tits, magpies, robins, and sometimes a woodpecker. Back at the farm in the real countryside, we were once terrorised by a wild boar, and there was a white stag with his milky family we saw on our walks, but this is good enough. As long as I can be where the daily difference in the season speaks to me, then I can be happy. To be cut off from that stifles something inside and I lose some sense of my own balance.
These are the joys that I cannot function well without - a gentle orange sunset, a fluffy squirrel snarling at my cat, a cluster of pink campions by the roadside, a robin on the wall, dandelion clock tendrils blowing in the wind, a polished conker, the song of a blackbird, the scent of lavender and honeysuckle and mint, pussy willow buds and old man's beard, a scarlet pimpernel growing from a cleft in a wall, a frog discovered under a large, damp leaf, and a place to potter and pot up geraniums.
It is spring and I have been in the garden. My mind has eased, my heart has danced and my spirit has sung.
Monday 12 April 2010
One step forward, two steps back
Day 199
I should have expected it, I suppose - all new beginnings come from a clear place unless one is just running away. That is the easy way to create the illusion of a new start - just leave the old behind with all it's memories, influences and energy, and embark on a new path with true and purposeful resolutions.
How many times have we all done that - moved to a new house or job or relationship vowing that this time it would be different, a fresh start unsullied by all our past mistakes? And how many times has it made a difference, truly, or made some, but not enough?
199 days ago I started out on this journey, thinking that it would lead me straight to my desperately longed for destination, confident, excited, purposeful and envisioned. Instead it led me to this morning where, finally having a quiet place this week to really confront myself in, I found myself weeping in bed until 1.00 in the afternoon. A final and perhaps long overdue catharsis.
In truth, I met myself coming the other way. I felt the weight of the baggage I still carry, that I had failed to really notice until now. I understood the message - there is much to unlearn and let go of before a space can be found to fill with My New Life. I invited the knowledge before I went to sleep last night and this morning, like God's Express Delivery, the answers began to materialise.
I have lived around an illness for so long now that it seems my sub-conscious thoughts all find their way back to that. I meditate on and visualise myself as healthy, strong, and vibrant. I make plans based on recovery and refuse to verbalise the opposite. When I catch myself saying "I can't.." I rapidly change it and open up to possibility and renewal. None of this counts as the core still holds fast to another truth.
This is what this time is showing me - the blocks that I carry invisibly within. Before I can move forward, I must roll back to these and vanquish them. I can do this - it is not new to me. When I started college two years ago, I had to discard so much in order to make space for my real creativity to shine out. It was a painful process - my tutor often likened it to pulling teeth - but it was worth it in the end, very much so.
My life, my heart, my spirit all cry out for this freedom. To be without the baggage, the weight, the burden of my past, so that the radiance of my true heart can shine out also. To lovingly let go of my abusive childhood, to acknowledge graciously the lessons of my illness whilst finding a way to live without it, to overcome my own internal harpy and find a gentle voice to choose my actions with - these are my quests.
Wish me luck, send me love, and leave me alone. This is my time.
I should have expected it, I suppose - all new beginnings come from a clear place unless one is just running away. That is the easy way to create the illusion of a new start - just leave the old behind with all it's memories, influences and energy, and embark on a new path with true and purposeful resolutions.
How many times have we all done that - moved to a new house or job or relationship vowing that this time it would be different, a fresh start unsullied by all our past mistakes? And how many times has it made a difference, truly, or made some, but not enough?
199 days ago I started out on this journey, thinking that it would lead me straight to my desperately longed for destination, confident, excited, purposeful and envisioned. Instead it led me to this morning where, finally having a quiet place this week to really confront myself in, I found myself weeping in bed until 1.00 in the afternoon. A final and perhaps long overdue catharsis.
In truth, I met myself coming the other way. I felt the weight of the baggage I still carry, that I had failed to really notice until now. I understood the message - there is much to unlearn and let go of before a space can be found to fill with My New Life. I invited the knowledge before I went to sleep last night and this morning, like God's Express Delivery, the answers began to materialise.
I have lived around an illness for so long now that it seems my sub-conscious thoughts all find their way back to that. I meditate on and visualise myself as healthy, strong, and vibrant. I make plans based on recovery and refuse to verbalise the opposite. When I catch myself saying "I can't.." I rapidly change it and open up to possibility and renewal. None of this counts as the core still holds fast to another truth.
This is what this time is showing me - the blocks that I carry invisibly within. Before I can move forward, I must roll back to these and vanquish them. I can do this - it is not new to me. When I started college two years ago, I had to discard so much in order to make space for my real creativity to shine out. It was a painful process - my tutor often likened it to pulling teeth - but it was worth it in the end, very much so.
My life, my heart, my spirit all cry out for this freedom. To be without the baggage, the weight, the burden of my past, so that the radiance of my true heart can shine out also. To lovingly let go of my abusive childhood, to acknowledge graciously the lessons of my illness whilst finding a way to live without it, to overcome my own internal harpy and find a gentle voice to choose my actions with - these are my quests.
Wish me luck, send me love, and leave me alone. This is my time.
Saturday 10 April 2010
The Big Bad Fairy Dust
Day 197
Ooooh I wish I didn't like my tea so hot c'os I've just spilled it and burnt my fingers. Well now - day 197 and I'm finally getting going. My time.
My mate Rebecca said to call her if I get too lonely missing Steve (while he is in Antwerp), and I said it was very, very unlikely that I would. Truth is, I'm very happy with my own company, and much as I love my husband and undoubtedly will miss him, after ten months of him being with me 24/7, I'm perfectly alright for a bit without him. He'll be back every fortnight anyway, and that's not long, so I intend to make the most of this precious time on my own.
It's a bit like going on retreat, (apart from the bit where I still have a teenager to nag at, "what about your homework/ your socks smell please wash them/ when will you be home/ have you eaten?" etc.) my thoughts are, for the most part, purely about myself, and that is proving an invaluable experience. I hadn't realised, for instance, how many of my thoughts are designed to fit around other people, rather than really look at myself. I do so many more things than I ever realised because I think I should, rather than because I want to.
I have always listened to my body with regards to health but now I have a clear space in which to listen to my mind a bit more, and, as the two are indivisibly connected, I am listening hard. I notice how often I have an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach and back of my throat, that feels something like guilt, and comes attached to inner accusations of laziness.
I notice that many of my habitual actions are motivated by a low-level but distinct fear - feeling overwhelmed has become my default setting. The most common fear is of being unable to finish something, or even start it. I am fearful that my body will let me down much more of the time than I ever previously knew - the hustle and bustle of somebody else's presence and energy distracted me and diverted my attention away from noticing it. Now the silence is showing me the truth.
I have lost trust in my body,
I have lost the habit of honouring it's limitations,
And I have really low expectations of it.
I am out of sync with myself - no wonder I am not making much progress on the physical front. So for the last two days I have been confronting these issues and, lo and behold, I have managed to do five times as much as in the last six months, and some of the stiffness and aches and pains are starting to diminish. My food cravings are down a little and my ability to resist them is up a bit. All this is good.
However, inside I feel uncomfortable where usually I feel calm. I have found a lump of disquiet and a good wodge of anxiety that would generally be blocked out. Although I'm quite normal and don't much like feeling like this, I am happily letting myself delve into these places to find out what information they have about me. I am letting them sit here and get comfortable so that they give up their secrets. What is beneath them and driving them? I will find out.
I'm not an avoider - I prefer the freedom that comes with real resolution. I like to move onwards and upwards, not round in the same old circle. I got some books from the library to help kick-start this process. One is about beating Fibromyalgia through a five-week, intensive, inner exploration course. I have another five weeks before Steve finishes his contract so I'll give it a go. If I can reduce some of the pain in my feet it would be a real result.
Today's assignment was to give my pain/illness a name. I have called it the Big Bad Fairy Dust. This may sound daft to you but it makes sense to me and that is all that matters. I feel clogged like an over-used and under-emptied hoover most of the time. Tonight I will visualise a wonderful, warm, sparkling, magical wind blowing it away, bit by bit.
Even as I clear out the cobwebs and clutter from my recalcitrant mind, I notice that I am acting this out in real life too. Suddenly, I am desperate to clean, tidy, sort out and re-arrange the house, and am doing so, little by little. My energy fluctuates madly, of course, but that is ok. Took me an hour to hoover the kitchen yesterday, and the damn thing kept blocking up and having to be unclogged with a wooden spoon. Synchronicity at it's clearest, I think, and the parallels are obvious, so I must be on the right path.
I even had a phone call from the landlady's odd job man, Mike, who is coming next week with industrial strength drain clearer. As messages from the Universe go, this has style.
Perhaps I will have some answers next time I write. Perhaps I will just have a much cleaner house. Either works for me.
Ooooh I wish I didn't like my tea so hot c'os I've just spilled it and burnt my fingers. Well now - day 197 and I'm finally getting going. My time.
My mate Rebecca said to call her if I get too lonely missing Steve (while he is in Antwerp), and I said it was very, very unlikely that I would. Truth is, I'm very happy with my own company, and much as I love my husband and undoubtedly will miss him, after ten months of him being with me 24/7, I'm perfectly alright for a bit without him. He'll be back every fortnight anyway, and that's not long, so I intend to make the most of this precious time on my own.
It's a bit like going on retreat, (apart from the bit where I still have a teenager to nag at, "what about your homework/ your socks smell please wash them/ when will you be home/ have you eaten?" etc.) my thoughts are, for the most part, purely about myself, and that is proving an invaluable experience. I hadn't realised, for instance, how many of my thoughts are designed to fit around other people, rather than really look at myself. I do so many more things than I ever realised because I think I should, rather than because I want to.
I have always listened to my body with regards to health but now I have a clear space in which to listen to my mind a bit more, and, as the two are indivisibly connected, I am listening hard. I notice how often I have an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach and back of my throat, that feels something like guilt, and comes attached to inner accusations of laziness.
I notice that many of my habitual actions are motivated by a low-level but distinct fear - feeling overwhelmed has become my default setting. The most common fear is of being unable to finish something, or even start it. I am fearful that my body will let me down much more of the time than I ever previously knew - the hustle and bustle of somebody else's presence and energy distracted me and diverted my attention away from noticing it. Now the silence is showing me the truth.
I have lost trust in my body,
I have lost the habit of honouring it's limitations,
And I have really low expectations of it.
I am out of sync with myself - no wonder I am not making much progress on the physical front. So for the last two days I have been confronting these issues and, lo and behold, I have managed to do five times as much as in the last six months, and some of the stiffness and aches and pains are starting to diminish. My food cravings are down a little and my ability to resist them is up a bit. All this is good.
However, inside I feel uncomfortable where usually I feel calm. I have found a lump of disquiet and a good wodge of anxiety that would generally be blocked out. Although I'm quite normal and don't much like feeling like this, I am happily letting myself delve into these places to find out what information they have about me. I am letting them sit here and get comfortable so that they give up their secrets. What is beneath them and driving them? I will find out.
I'm not an avoider - I prefer the freedom that comes with real resolution. I like to move onwards and upwards, not round in the same old circle. I got some books from the library to help kick-start this process. One is about beating Fibromyalgia through a five-week, intensive, inner exploration course. I have another five weeks before Steve finishes his contract so I'll give it a go. If I can reduce some of the pain in my feet it would be a real result.
Today's assignment was to give my pain/illness a name. I have called it the Big Bad Fairy Dust. This may sound daft to you but it makes sense to me and that is all that matters. I feel clogged like an over-used and under-emptied hoover most of the time. Tonight I will visualise a wonderful, warm, sparkling, magical wind blowing it away, bit by bit.
Even as I clear out the cobwebs and clutter from my recalcitrant mind, I notice that I am acting this out in real life too. Suddenly, I am desperate to clean, tidy, sort out and re-arrange the house, and am doing so, little by little. My energy fluctuates madly, of course, but that is ok. Took me an hour to hoover the kitchen yesterday, and the damn thing kept blocking up and having to be unclogged with a wooden spoon. Synchronicity at it's clearest, I think, and the parallels are obvious, so I must be on the right path.
I even had a phone call from the landlady's odd job man, Mike, who is coming next week with industrial strength drain clearer. As messages from the Universe go, this has style.
Perhaps I will have some answers next time I write. Perhaps I will just have a much cleaner house. Either works for me.
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Life to the power of Ten
Day 193
Ten days since I have able to get to the computer - ten days! And now Steve has left for Antwerp and it will be another ten days before he comes home. I drove him to the airport, he's flying to Amsterdam, then getting a train to Antwerp. At the weekend he'll be going down to France ready for an early flight to Romania on Monday, then back to Antwerp for Thursday and home on Friday, before returning to London on Sunday in order to make it back to Antwerp on the Monday morning! Phew......!
The last week has all been about preparation and everything changing at the last minute. His contract is now for six weeks and after that we wait and see, but it is a start and means we can pay the rent OK, so we're happy with that. Plus, Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world, apparently, and I have been hinting a lot, and not subtly, because I can't be doing with that.
Our lovely, sweet neighbour, David, went up to London to submit some paintings to the Royal Academy for the Summer Exhibition. This required a lot of paperwork. David is in his eighties and 'computer' is not his first language by any means, so that meant Steve scanning in and emailing copious amounts to David's daughter and others, until it was organised. He brought it over last Wednesday and Steve finished it yesterday, (so it was complicated, or David made it so, I'm not sure which, bless him).
Then there was lots of money stuff to sort out, what with signing off the dole but still needing to get some pay forwarded so that we could live until proper payday, all over a bank holiday weekend, of course. And buying underwear etc. - ten months on the dole and it's all looking a bit too sheepish to pack, and there aren't enough socks in pairs c'os the kids pinch 'em.
And he had to get a laptop - up until now he's always been allocated one as part of whatever job he was doing. Now things are different so he had to buy one to take. Got a really good deal on a Compaq from Tesco, then had to spend hours and hours transferring stuff from the PC onto it. I am such a computer widow sometimes.
Then there was the issue of the car. I won't drive Steve's massive Saab because it is automatic and has power steering which I am not used to. The last time he made me drive one of his cars, I ended up totalling it on (or rather, around) a side barrier, and I've been supremely unconfident about my driving ever since. That car was very like the one he has now and I am just not ready to go there yet. This is me being very wimpish, I know, but there it is.
My own car has been in the garage for months now as we felt there was no point taxing and MOTing two cars while Steve was out of work. Plus it needs some work doing - water pump and probably head gasket. Steve didn't want to leave me without transport, (even though I said it was okay and I would walk everwhere, but he knows my feet are agony at the moment), and my car would take a few weeks to sort out. Hmmmm........what to do? Steve went where he always goes at a time like this ..........Ebay.
Got a gorgeous Ka, S reg, clean as a whistle, and in Cheltenham which is only down the road. (Steve has got carried away and had me drive all the way to Harrogate from Dorchester for a car before now, so he knew better than to do that again - especially as I now know it shouldn't take two and a half hours to get out of the Peak district!). Got it for only £700 - bargain! Thank you, Steve's work for giving him that sub. I am loving it. The plan is to pass it on to Sam for his birthday this year, as long as he has passed his test by then, so he's a happy bunny too.
So we have been mostly driving, or shopping, or phoning various official people about money, or washing, ironing and packing, or slaving over various computers, or trying to find the cheapest way for Steve to come back at the weekends for his course, or working out how we're going to phone each other without it costing the Earth, and finding time to watch Masterchef.
Now I am going to chill out for the evening, and try and get my brain to stop saying "right, what have I got to do next.." because everything is handled. Deep breath, glass of wine, exhale......and relax.
Tomorrow, finally, My New Life actually starts. In one sense it feels like that scene at the end of Ghostbusters - the one where they have to choose the form that the destructor will take, and they pick a marshmallow man. I have to choose the form of My New Life now that Steve has gone from my space and bring it into being tomorrow.
I don't know what it will look like. I do know I am ready. And I have ten days........
Ten days since I have able to get to the computer - ten days! And now Steve has left for Antwerp and it will be another ten days before he comes home. I drove him to the airport, he's flying to Amsterdam, then getting a train to Antwerp. At the weekend he'll be going down to France ready for an early flight to Romania on Monday, then back to Antwerp for Thursday and home on Friday, before returning to London on Sunday in order to make it back to Antwerp on the Monday morning! Phew......!
The last week has all been about preparation and everything changing at the last minute. His contract is now for six weeks and after that we wait and see, but it is a start and means we can pay the rent OK, so we're happy with that. Plus, Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world, apparently, and I have been hinting a lot, and not subtly, because I can't be doing with that.
Our lovely, sweet neighbour, David, went up to London to submit some paintings to the Royal Academy for the Summer Exhibition. This required a lot of paperwork. David is in his eighties and 'computer' is not his first language by any means, so that meant Steve scanning in and emailing copious amounts to David's daughter and others, until it was organised. He brought it over last Wednesday and Steve finished it yesterday, (so it was complicated, or David made it so, I'm not sure which, bless him).
Then there was lots of money stuff to sort out, what with signing off the dole but still needing to get some pay forwarded so that we could live until proper payday, all over a bank holiday weekend, of course. And buying underwear etc. - ten months on the dole and it's all looking a bit too sheepish to pack, and there aren't enough socks in pairs c'os the kids pinch 'em.
And he had to get a laptop - up until now he's always been allocated one as part of whatever job he was doing. Now things are different so he had to buy one to take. Got a really good deal on a Compaq from Tesco, then had to spend hours and hours transferring stuff from the PC onto it. I am such a computer widow sometimes.
Then there was the issue of the car. I won't drive Steve's massive Saab because it is automatic and has power steering which I am not used to. The last time he made me drive one of his cars, I ended up totalling it on (or rather, around) a side barrier, and I've been supremely unconfident about my driving ever since. That car was very like the one he has now and I am just not ready to go there yet. This is me being very wimpish, I know, but there it is.
My own car has been in the garage for months now as we felt there was no point taxing and MOTing two cars while Steve was out of work. Plus it needs some work doing - water pump and probably head gasket. Steve didn't want to leave me without transport, (even though I said it was okay and I would walk everwhere, but he knows my feet are agony at the moment), and my car would take a few weeks to sort out. Hmmmm........what to do? Steve went where he always goes at a time like this ..........Ebay.
Got a gorgeous Ka, S reg, clean as a whistle, and in Cheltenham which is only down the road. (Steve has got carried away and had me drive all the way to Harrogate from Dorchester for a car before now, so he knew better than to do that again - especially as I now know it shouldn't take two and a half hours to get out of the Peak district!). Got it for only £700 - bargain! Thank you, Steve's work for giving him that sub. I am loving it. The plan is to pass it on to Sam for his birthday this year, as long as he has passed his test by then, so he's a happy bunny too.
So we have been mostly driving, or shopping, or phoning various official people about money, or washing, ironing and packing, or slaving over various computers, or trying to find the cheapest way for Steve to come back at the weekends for his course, or working out how we're going to phone each other without it costing the Earth, and finding time to watch Masterchef.
Now I am going to chill out for the evening, and try and get my brain to stop saying "right, what have I got to do next.." because everything is handled. Deep breath, glass of wine, exhale......and relax.
Tomorrow, finally, My New Life actually starts. In one sense it feels like that scene at the end of Ghostbusters - the one where they have to choose the form that the destructor will take, and they pick a marshmallow man. I have to choose the form of My New Life now that Steve has gone from my space and bring it into being tomorrow.
I don't know what it will look like. I do know I am ready. And I have ten days........
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