I am sat with a dancing fire, my old favourite Cointreau, lime and tonic and a twirl reflecting on the last few days.

 

Today I actually think I am emotionless.  If that is possible at all? Probably… given the rush of intense feelings in the last week(s), exhaustion has set in or perhaps just self preservation through rest.

 

The frustration and underlying anger threatened in the early part of the week and erupted with  hot, molten anger complete with sparks flying on Thursday, leaving me a trembling volcanic mess: hot and raging on the inside and violently spilling out through my mouth, but cold on the outside as the ugly words hit home.

 

Yesterday, as the ash settled, all I could see and feel was a sense of complete emptiness and utter loss.

 

And I felt very strongly the presence of my Mumbo.  Lying next to me holding my hand, her hand as soft as it always was.  Not saying anything.  Just being.  The only person I could imagine being with in that moment.  And while I felt strangely comforted, I also felt a crushingly overwhelming sense of the magnitude of loss 2016 has brought me.

 

I am learning that to face in to the pain of an emotion is the right thing;  to let it flow through and out, rather than repress it, reject it or bury it.

 

So I made a mental list and sat with each thought and felt the searing pain in my heart, or the kick to my stomach as I lay there holding my Mumbo’s hand.

 

And once I had my little pity party and pain fest, I lay quiet.  And in that peaceful moment, I felt a double squeeze on my hand the words floated in to my head, “Come on now, where is the sunshine Boo I know and love?”.    The energy of my Mumbo clearly present.

 

In the car the previous day, I had been listening to one of my favourite books, Robin Sharma’s ‘the Monk who sold his ferrari’;  a light hearted read but with so many key, uplifting and relevant messages for living your best life.  And this passage sprung to mind:

 

“I remember him telling me that one of them said that the Chinese character for ‘crisis’ is comprised of two sub-characters: one that spells ‘danger’ and another that spells ‘opportunity.’ I guess that even the ancient Chinese knew that there is a bright side to the darkest circumstance — if you have the courage to look for it.”

 

And so, I took a deep courageous breath and went back round through the list to look for the opportunity.

 

I have lost my lovely Mumbo.  But I have gained back my happy, relaxed, joyous Dad.  And my Mumbo by my side always in spirit, rather than a lifeless, memory-less form.

 

I have lost my fit, healthy, vibrant, energetic, strong body leaving a weak, lifeless, gaunt skeletal, lacklustre one behind.  But losing a stone means I get to relax all my dietary rules and eat twirls for tea!  And I get to go shopping for the new wardrobe and the new clothes I have resisted buying for the last 2 years.

 

I have lost my strong feeling of self worth and the identity that I had finally defined, declared and accepted.  I have lost my sense of purpose.  But, I also felt I had lost it 3 years ago and I rebuilt it again, a better one, a brighter one.  So I know I can do it again, dream up and establish a shinier, much improved version of me again, learn from the experience and add in more of what was working and leave out what wasn’t.  It left me with a huge sense of empowerment and self control.

 

I have lost my inner ‘Joy’, my sparkle, my sense of fun.  But maybe when Joy returns, she will be less dominant, perhaps more sensitive to the other emotions and therefore be a stronger, more resilient version of Joy, brighter, more attractive, more sumpathetic and compassionate to others.

 

I have lost my homes, my anchors.  But I have found the most beautiful house and home for the next chapter.  The kitchen is the one from my guided meditation and I know it belongs in my future, full of light, laughter and contentment.

 

I have lost my memories.  So many of them tainted with association to the dark side and the unknown, the unfathomable yet undeniable.  But this is also an opportunity for a fresh start, for new memories, honest memories, true happiness.

 

I have lost my ability to trust.  Anyone.  But perhaps that will keep me from being an ignorant fool, gullible to those who take advantage of someone who looks for the best in everything, finds the good and smiles.

 

I have lost my first husband, my best friend and part of my soul.  I have lost the father to my sons.  But I have gained a more humble man, appreciative, complimentary, attentive, generous and thoughtful partner and the boys are benefitting from a father who is far more engaged with them than his phone, more involved and who actively listens and laughs with them like they are the most precious, magical beings on earth.

 

I have lost the future I was in love with creating, we were building.  But while I can appreciate the danger side of the crisis, I am willing to see the opportunity to look at new foundations, deeper, stronger, more stable, resilient ones to build a richer, more abundant, bolder and more brilliant one based on our experiences and lessons learnt of the last 20 years.

 

And so as I lay there, I could feel Mumbo smiling at me.  And I smiled back.  And I picked up my phone and invited him for chicken and chips.

 

 

 

In the eye of the storm there is only calm.
And tonight, it was accompanied by chicken and chips, a good red wine washed down with many tears from overwhelming pain and sadness on both sides, and holding each other in comfort, putting some of the pieces back together.

Stronger as one to fight the next hurricane of emotion in the next phase.

‘Home is where your heart is’ keeps playing over and over in my head.  I don’t know where my heart is… so I don’t feel at home.  Anywhere.

 

I think of the 4 real homes I have had in my lifetime.  And I have mixed feelings as  3 of them will soon be gone, no longer part of my life.  Sadness yet ever so slightly tinged with relief at the letting go part, but then also sprinkled with fear.  Fear of losing all my anchors.  I am and always have been such a ‘home bird’.

 

My parents home, my childhood family home, is ready for a new family to make lots of memories in;  splash in the pool with wild school parties and family BBQ’s, to gaze out over the beautiful Chiltern Hills beyond the garden hedge and watch and listen to the Kites overhead. The home I always remember coming home to on Exeat weekends and half terms and holidays with great excitement, the home I remember waking up in on my wedding day, the home that has always been there for as long as I can remember.

 

My first house, my first home to own.  Our first home together.  Our fabulous, enviable party house, full of laughter, full of love and romance, girls nights, boys nights and disco party nights.  Always full of light.  And now full of darkness and dirty secrets.

 

My best friend from uni’s home, the most beautiful house, in the most beautiful village in Yorkshire.  The house snug where I first set eyes on the man who was to become the love of my life, as I lay by the fire.  The house that became my second family home, the central point we met while he was in London and I was doing my finals then vice versa, he did his finals and I was in London.   The house that was my home when we moved to Yorkshire to build our life and our future and our home.  The home I learnt the ways of Yorkshire life, learnt to cook on an aga, what a ‘snug’ was, how to always have an open and welcoming door and a fresh pot of tea.

 

And the home I am in now.  Our family home.  The home we built from 3 walls in to a our family haven.  The home we brought our babies home to, where they took their first steps, their first bike rides.  The house we filled with friends for celebrations, christenings, Christmasses and for no reason…   The house that haunts me with memories that pierce my heart.  I feel trapped.  I feel isolated and yet suffocated by the surroundings.

 

So where is home, if I can’t feel my heart?  I feel ‘homeless’ and more than a little bit lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A very kind person, who obviously reads my blog, sent me a book in the post anonymously.  It was the book I was drawn to on the shelf a month ago, but didn’t buy.  It was the book that reminded me to keep writing, keep blogging no matter how hard it got.

 

And today I read the introduction.  And on a day that I was finding it hard to think, let alone write, it refreshed that memory on me how important it is for me to keep putting my pen to paper, my fingers to my key board.

 

Psychologist James W. Pennebaker found in his research that:  ‘Writing about significant emotional experiences provides the same benefits as talking therapies.  Better yet, writing for several consecutive days for fifteen to thirty minutes per session resulted in a decreased in intrusive thoughts, a reduction of heightened emotions and an improvement in physical and immune functioning, to name a few.  Put simply:  developing a writing practice can not only be cathartic and therapeutic, it has long-term benefits as well.’

 

I am so grateful for the book.

 

And even more so on the day it arrived, the day my head is so full that my usual methods of reprogramming the negative, the painful, the unhelpful and the damaging just didn’t work.  Instead my brain ran like an overworked computer … and crashed with the final words flashing across it ‘do not compute!’.

 

So I took this little book and I let all the words fly in scribble accross the pages that said ‘write it down’.

 

And on the page opposite that said ‘let it go’, the page for the solutions and ideas… I wrote ‘Keep writing’.

 

And I felt a little sense of calm creep back in.

 

Thank you to whoever sent me this lifeline.  x

The Universe certainly gives you signs.  And today, it gave me the Serenity prayer:

 

‘Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.’

 

And also the words ‘You can’t change the past. All you can do is accept it and let go.’

 

And while I was in my heart space, those words gave me hope and courage and a reason to keep calm.

 

But while I am in my head space, I am frustrated and agitated by those very same words.

 

My head is a torrent of angry thoughts, a reflection and a complete dichotomy of how I felt just 10 days ago: focussing on the abundance of the future, seeing love and not feeling fear.

 

My head shouting – “but how can you accept what you don’t know?  How can you forgive if you don’t know the extent of which you don’t know?”

 

My heart pleading – “it’s done, move on;  there is so much love, regret, remorse and support around right now.  Forget the past and move on.”

 

But my head is shouting the loudest and I have no choice but to satiate it’s appeals.

 

I am very equal in being left and right brained…  just as much creative and visionary as I am analytical and factual.   My mind has done a complete U-turn and my analytical, factual side has taken over… telling Louse Hay and her forgiveness and her acceptance nonsense to butt out!

 

So today, I did what I do best;  I asked the right questions, I followed the answers, the clues and found more and more details.  I formed a spreadsheet of costs and a timeline of events.  Heart breaking.  Shattering.  Overwhelming.

 

But at least I know.

 

At least I know the extent.  At least I know the magnitude of what my heart needs to accept and hopefully, maybe, forgive even if it can’t forget.

 

And maybe now that I know the extent of the situation, maybe now I can have the serenity to know that I can’t change it, and perhaps I can  have the courage to  start the process and change how I feel about it.

 

And above all, I will have learnt from it and will have the wisdom to make sure it can never happen again.

 

 

And tonight, I am back to calm.  Slept most of the morning after a restless, sleepless night.  In the afternoon, went for an autumnal, riverside walk and then chilled with my smiley, happy, brave, stupid, gorgeous son who teaches so much about letting go of the past and living in the moment.   I lap up the special time with him and absorb his positivity and affection.

 

And right now, I have quietened my mind, numbed my senses with red wine and dark chocolate brought round by the Big Man.  Listened to him with an open mind and an open heart.

 

And that is all I can do for now, for the moment.

 

 

Tonight I read a line in my book that helped me forgive my actions and behaviour today.

 

‘You can turn your life in to a paradise, but the only way you can do it is to make the inside of you a paradise.  There is no other way.  You are the cause; your life is the effect.’

 

I had thought I had it all under control, proud of my calmness.

 

But I suppose it was only a matter of time.

 

There was a storm brewing in my internal paradise.  It came from nothing, from nowhere.  A tidal wave, a tsunami of suppressed feelings:  frustrated, rejected, offended, shamed, pressured, overwhelmed, insecure, lonely, hurt, helpless, tricked, trapped, tired, disrespected, disappointed and oh so sad… all the feelings under the surface of a giant iceberg, the tip of which manifested as anger.

 

As all family and friends and distractions left, my resolve weakened and as Willy threw his n’th tantrum of the day for no reason, I could feel the rumble, my calm sea bed beginning to shake.

 

Anger isn’t a natural state for me and I know I fight it.  I hate it.  The loss of control frightens me.  But this was too strong an emotion for me to fight and I knew I had to let it out.

 

Privately.

 

The eruption itself was intense but brief; the aftershocks left me trembling.

 

A few hours on, I am lying supine on my rocky sea bed looking up through the clear water at paradise above, just breathing.

 

Feelings have to flow through you, just like storms pass through Paradise.  And calm follows.

 

Despite the most amazing sleep and probably the best one I have had in the last 34 days, I woke up in a complete funk.  Agitated.  Frustrated. Unsettled.

 

I really wanted to wake up and it for it all to be over.  The line drawn.  The past left where it should be left.  Not necessarily forgotten, but the lessons learnt.  And the present moment and the bearing it has on the future, the only important thing to concentrate on.

 

But that is grief for you.  It is a slow process.  And for good reason.

 

So as I did as I did when Mumbo was dying, when I was recovering from one my visits and when my head was noisy with trying to block the pain, yet trying to face it and think of the positives.. I used the same technique as I did then to get me out of the loop, to get my mind to play to a different tune.

 

I practiced mindfulness.  It is a form of meditation, but true meditation doesn’t come easily to me.  Focussing on nothing stresses me out, the watching of my thoughts only makes me want to beat myself up for not being able to stop thinking…

 

So I have worked up my own little routine of calm, of mindfulness that takes me from a place of anxiety, to a place of peace.

 

I can’t sit bolt up right.  My body too tense.  So I lie down.  Flat.  And I like my hands on my tummy.

 

I plug in my earphones and listen to trickling water or the wind in the trees or some gentle rhythmic pipes.  Something that entices me away ….

 

And then I have a 4 step process, which I flow through, moving on to the next one when I am ready.

 

The first one is breathing.  I tried kundalini but I felt sick.  I tried fast power breathing but I felt like a dick…   So I just breath.  I imagine the breath from the bottom of my tummy flowing up to the top of my head, where I let it rest and then I let it go back to the bottom of my tummy.  I focus on that breathing sensation and thoughts do come, and sometimes I follow them.. and sometimes I don’t.  And when I feel relaxed, the tension gone from my shoulders and my mind a bit quieter, I move on.

 

Step 2 is all about gratitude.  What am I grateful for in this moment, right now. Answering that question, I always give thanks for this quiet time.  And then I move on to whatever comes to mind – usually something one of the boys did or said and then invariably for an event or moment in the day so far.  These moments of gratitude make me relax even more, because I realise I have everything I could ever need.  And that is a very liberating feeling.

 

Step 3 is my ‘loving kindness’ mantra.  I read in my favourite book ‘I love me’ about this meditation which provides healing to not only yourself but to others. And I have adapted it slightly to make it work for me.  I perform a body scan and give thanks for all the different parts of my body that have supported me, provided for me over the years.  I think of how I have benefited and then I focus on my heart.  And I repeat ‘I am loving kindness’ over again until I know that everything I do, I do and will do with that in mind.  And if I am upset with someone or someone has upset me, I think of them and repeat it again and let the anger or negative feeling go.  Currently this step takes me a while, but when I am ready to move on, I do.  But I can’t move on to the next step freely until I know in my heart I can.

 

For the final step is the future.  Letting my mind wander and dream and create.  And I can’t do that if I am stuck in the present with hurt and anger.  So then I ask ‘What do I want to happen, if my wildest dreams could come true?’ And here I stay… for either a brief period or a long period..  Sometimes I am clear on what I want and it is quick and precise and done.  Other times, I let the dream play out, I let my mind fill in all the little details and I allow myself to smile, my heart to swell with joy and my mind to get excited.

 

And then, I let it all go.

 

And my mind has been miraculously cleared of all negativity, doubt, frustration, anger and resentment.

 

And I can get on with my day, with positivity and loving kindness at the heart of everything I think and do.

 

And I remain calm in eye of a storm.

 

 

And so for the second time in a month, unforeseen events outside my control have left me feeling pretty stunned.

 

So many kind people have been trying to tempt me out from my ocean sanctuary, but in the end it was my gorgeous, adventurous, crazy son who inflated my emergency ascent buoy that brought me rocketing to the surface.  My adrenalin spiking, keeping my sleep deprived body and mind alert and active.

 

For 24 hours it was if nothing had ever happened, the last month blocked from my mind.  My focus purely on him, his wellbeing, his protection and his recovery.  It was all about him.  My hurt and my invisible pain superseded by his obvious, very real breaks and discomfort.

 

And now we are home, his morphine worn off, my focus can be on distracting him from his pain with his favourite movies, milk and cookies, melon and strawberries.

 

But I am wary to not distract him too much; for I am learning that feeling the pain is part of the healing process.  Fearing the pain is almost worse than feeling the pain.  Avoidance of feeling means you don’t learn the lesson from the actions and resultant consequences.

 

And boy, does he need to learn this lesson.  The death drop and the double bang resulting in a concussion clearly not lesson enough!  So a double break and a banana arm it is…

 

This is a very real, tangible, palpable lesson for him and a lesson to me and to the Big Man and to anyone running from the fear of pain.   Distractions only provide only a temporary, momentary relief.   To feel the pain is the moment you start to heal.

 

So while I know my little man is safe, healing surrounded by treats and love and affection, I can slowly drift back down into the depths of my watery haven where I can lean in and return to facing my fear of the pain, anger, resentment and bitterness and know that it is all part of the healing process.

 

 

 

 

I can’t quite work out which bit is the worst bit.. The moment you get the call or when you pick up the phone and it isn’t who you are expecting on the other end…

The moment you hear the words – ‘Mrs Mortimer, it’s your son, he is badly hurt and needs to go to hospital straight away.’

The moment you arrive at hospital but no one can find him… you can’t get anyone on the phone to find out where he is…

The moment you see a pale face through the car window…

The moment you see how bad the injury is, a body part looking completely the wrong shape..

The moment you see the truth, the evidence and proof of the damage on the x-ray machine..

The moment he whispers he is scared and his little face crumples…

The moment he reaches for your hand and calls your name as they wheel him for surgery…

The moment his eyes are one minute clear and looking in to yours, the panic in them as he can’t breathe or the next as they roll into his head as the anaesthetic takes hold…

The moment you are asked to leave the room…to leave him in the hands of others..

The many, many moments in a clinical, plasticy, cold room where you wait.. and wait for the moments to pass, seconds like minutes and minutes like hours…
Each moment a little pieces of your heart swell and shatter, wishing if only it was you, not them that was hurt.
In those long moments of waiting, i read my book and 2 lines gave me comfort:
‘In the midst of the darkness, grab a flashlight. The light is available to you at all times, all you have to do is turn it on by tuning in.’
So I tuned in to find the ‘lights’ of the situation ..
We live in a first world country, with the amazing NHS and brilliant care.
The orthopaedic surgeon at is a friend, I rang ahead, he was waiting with his team to provide the best care for my little boy possible. 
Bones may break but bones mend, especially with little people. 
Laughter as Tom Tom answers questions, “when was the last time you ate and drank and what was it?” 

“I had a mug of Yorkshire tea with one sugar at 7.30 this morning and I had a mento, 3 skittles and a fruit pastille at break.”
Laughter as Tom Tom Asks his questions. “Will you wake me up? And what is your favourite film?”
Lying with my biggest boy, watching movies and eating grapes and knowing that that is what we will be doing together for the next few days as he mends, he will be helping me mend and heal too. 
All the words and comments of support from friends and family.. knowing he, we are in the prayers and thoughts of many.
And the other line…
“Trust that the Universe never gives you what you cannot handle.”
Come on Universe… I am strong! And each time you throw more to pain me, it just makes me stronger!