Be Kind.

Hello again,

It’s weird what happens when you aren’t really looking. What changes and moves without any comprehension.

Recently many things have happened in my life which has changed my whole outlook on life. It has made me stop, re-assess and evaluate how I am living my life and the things I need to make significant changes to.

When you really think about it, people don’t really have a whole heap of choice about what happens to them. Sure, people make choices and it affects how they trundle through life and I’m a great believer in making your own destiny but you can make infinite plans in your life and really, something can happen which you have absolutely no control over and blow all your plans out of the water.

Whether you may have guessed it or not, I recently had a family bereavement. Be-reave-ment. Even the word seems odd to me. I’ve never grieved before – I am extrememly lucky.

The circumstances in which this bereavement happened were horrible – I saw it happen, in a foreign country, without any kind of warning. Immediately after the event, I was in a deep daze and shock. I thought that was grief. By my own admittance I was shocked at how quickly the ‘grief’ passed. How quickly I returned to normal life and didn’t cry every day. Little did I know that I had not even begun.

A few weeks later, the tears began again and I didn’t know why. A song on the radio or a car that passed and all those feelings returned. I started getting angry. I started not understanding the world around me again and again, life had shifted right from underneath my feet.

I suppose I should rewind a little shouldn’t I? Rewind to the time where life was ‘normal’. Where things skipped along at a happy pace.

I had this dream life. This life of complete bliss – which I wan’t truly aware of, of course. I was married, with a gorgeous baby, in a beautiful house with an abundance of family and friends. I had a great job, two brilliant cars on the drive and lived in a town many would die for.

I had the usual arguments. The lovers quarrels about picking up clothes off the floor and who’s turn it was to get up with the baby in the night. I bitched about people. Bitched about things they did which really, in hindsight, didn’t matter one jot. I got tired and ate too much and exercised too little. I cleaned too little, cooked not often enough, spent too much and wasted too much. I was an average Joe, plodding through life. Going through the motions. A holiday here, a night out there. The usual. Just life.

And then this whirlwind came in. This life alterating, mind blowing change. And suddenly, most of it didn’t matter any more. Most of it was a sham.

Who gives a shit how much stuff is in your wardrobe? Or the make and model of the cars? Trust me, these things don’t matter.

I have made no secret of my struggles to deal with this loss in my life and I ended up seeking help in the form of CBT (Coginitve Behaviour Therapy for those not in the know). (I’d be more than willing to do a separate post on CBT and what it involves if that’s something you’d be interested in?) This changed my life. Truly. It transformed me and my thoughts into a world where I recognised the change but also understood that my life was a direct impact of my own making and actions. Things became important to me that hadn’t been before and I had a deep desire to make a difference and do something that would leave a mark on the world.

Yes, of course I had the Babe. She is definitely a blot I have left on the blank paper of life but I needed something for me.

The grief? Well that still remains. I have learnt that although you learn to live with it, the pain doesn’t really ease that much. It’s a constant that you learn how to accept and in some ways ignore in order to carry on.

This ‘thing’ that happened to me, rocked my world. It hurt me and others around me in a way I never thought was imaginable BUT it also changed me for the better. I want to believe that some good has come out of this terrible situation. I now notice things that previously I would not have done. I have a zest for life that wasn’t there before. I want to strive; have a purpose.

I want you to know that if you are going through the same thing, it will be ok. I promise. Use your hurt. Use your anger and let it change you for the better. Make something of it.

Speak soon,

L xxx