I keep seeing big red, fat chested bullfinches everywhere.  Never seen them around before.  But one hovered, peeking in through the snug window last night.  This morning, two were flying around the tree by the kitchen window and as I walked in to a book shop, the first shelf had 2 books with bull finches on the covers.

 

As I sat in the car earlier, contemplating the strip of emergency Valium given to me by the Doctor at Christmas, I was too scared to look up the symbolic meaning, feeling they were a bad omen.

 

What else was going to go wrong?  Surely a neighbour in London as mad as a box of frogs claiming we have moved the boundary fence in our favour, when it clearly hasn’t during our ownership of the last 14 years and an emotional, highly erratic and definitely manipulative, quite possibly underhand seller who has decided at the minute we sign the exchange contracts to delay the completion date by 3 weeks, all on top of all the ‘shit stick’ stirring in my emotional, heart ache turmoil …. Is enough?

 

…

 

I decide that Valium is not a good idea.

 

The one and only time I felt the need to use any hard medicinal help for my emotional and stressed state, was Christmas; when everyone was on tender hooks and walking on egg shells to try and keep a brave face for the boys. Then Tom fired a Nerf gun, by accident, point blank into his cousin’s eye.  The aftermath of crying children and adults tipped the precarious atmosphere into darkness and Christmas was disolved.  The Valium took me up in to the clouds and I was no help to anyone, least of all myself.

 

I can’t be in the clouds today.

 

There is too much at stake.  And I need to drive.

 

As I do, I listen to radio 2 and I hear the incredible words of the mothers who lost sons to the pointless war in Afghanistan.  My pain is nothing.  Nothing.  Those that have lost lives in the tragedies of the last month, Manchester, London Bridge and Grenfell.  My pain is nothing.

 

Tara Mohr, the author of one of my top 10 best books ever, ‘Playing Big’ wrote in her blog this week about ‘just writing’.  That ‘just writing’ and journaling has healing powers and that multiple studies show it, through their results of fewer stress related visit to doctors, improved moods and well-being, less depressive symptoms and more.  So rather than the V for Valium, I sat down and wrote.  I write and expose my feelings and choose V for vulnerability.  It has helped me through the pain of losing my Mumbo, through the heart break of a shocking and traumatic infidelity and it will help me through the frustration of the house purchasing system and human interaction of the housing market.

 

And the Bullfinch.  Ah, the Bullfinch.  Just like the current song on the radio, Tom Petty’s learning to fly, “learning to fly without wings, coming down is the hardest thing… but what goes up, must come down”, the Bullfinch is a reminder that, like it’s flight patterns, they don’t take the typical direct A to B route.  They take a journey in flight that twists and turns, taking enjoyment for the ride.

 

Most of all, they are an omen of exciting and joyful times on the horizon and a message of praise and congratulations for the liveliness, enthusiasm and excitement that have been characterising one’s life as of late.

 

So this highspeed downturn, while feels like a terribly frustrating, stressful time, is also a time to throw up my arms and scream, not with anger, but of exhilaration…. Because what goes up, must come down.  And what goes down, must go up.

 

And with that, it’s time to throw away the Valium and pour myself a stiff Vodka and nestle in the arms of all my boys and wait.