Current status:  a long way from home, frozen fingers and toes as the fire won’t stay lit, slightly pickled from over half a bottle of a very nice cotes du rhone on an empty stomach, feeling more than a little sick from eating a whole net of chocolate Brussel sprouts and a packet of comte cheese…

 

And yet liberated! …from feeling completely anonymous.   I can walk out of my front door without worrying about prying eyes, or bumping in to people I know and having to answer the question ‘how are you?’ or having to lie and put on a brave face and smile…

 

And also refreshed!  It maybe several degrees below zero but I put on my vest, bobble hat and long scarf and went for a long brisk walk … to pick up provisions of wine, cheese and chocolate.

 

The last time I was in this city, I wore a platinum blond wig, drank Crystal with the England cricket team and asked Kevin Pieterson where he was from in New Zealand (! I don’t follow cricket…had no idea who he was and they were).  I remember being very happy… I was with all my best girl friends, my boys were happy with their Daddy and I was free from responsibilities, free to have some fun, free to be me.

 

And I am here to do the same.  For the last 2 and half years I have been trying to please everyone else, make someone else happy because they were sad.  No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I reflected, changed, appreciated, loved, listened, responded and respected…  I couldn’t make them feel any better.  In July this year, as I came to terms with the loss of my Mumbo, I realised that life was finite.  And I had to make myself happy.  And they had to make themselves happy.

 

And so I did.   I let everyone and everything go and I focussed on me, my inner happiness, I built back up my own self worth, appreciated myself, felt myself sparkle and let my inner joy out.  And funnily enough, as my inner world improved, so did my outer world and I spread my light to others and love and happiness was all around us.

 

As I sat drinking my green tea on the train out of dodge, with each roll of the wheel, each chug of the train, I could feel the tension leak out of me.  I could feel my breath slow and my mind still.

 

And I reached for my book. Always a book.  And there were the words:

 

“and when I notice myself stuck in a Universal lesson, I allow myself to feel the feelings of rage and anger, and then I notice that those feelings come from a sense of not being lovable.  The fear comes from a belief that I am not good enough.  Upon realising these feelings, I compassionately guide myself back to self love.”

 

Oh lightbulb moment, she is so right.  The eruption of the last week had many underlying feelings and emotions, but right at the centre was the one I just didn’t realise – this one.  The crushing feeling of being unloved, unlovable and not good enough…. And for such an extended period without realising it, just magnified it, and with the sun shining through, it just ignited self combustion.

 

So, I am on a train.  I am on a journey back to self love, self appreciation, self congratulation, self respect and a time to be gentle to myself, put myself first and f*@k the world left behind and everyone in it…  Just for a while.

 

Just until I Gabi’s words feel true and that ‘the pathway to healing occurs when you love yourself so much that the darkness from the past can no longer co-exist with your faith in the light of the present moment.’