11.55

Viper rooms are calling.

Where did the day go?

#365dayblogchallenge

Cannot fail…
  

I am not sure what to write tonight.  Usually when I sit faced with a blank sheet of paper, words just start appearing…

 

It was an emotional day yesterday.

 

I wonder if it had anything to do with the Bowen treatment and homeopathy remedies I had Tuesday?  She said I may feel worse before I got better, which is typical for a body that it is healing itself.

 

I definitely felt more intense, magnified emotions yesterday.

 

Maybe the Bowen treatment (which felt like she was turning little switches on and off all over my body) was actually releasing the energies and letting them flow out.

 

Today, I can still feel a trickle of emotion eeking its way out.

 

And maybe that is why I am not able to write much tonight…. Everything feels like it is seeping out of my toes.

 

I am looking forward to tomorrow.

 

I am packing for Las Vegas.

 

YAY!

 

 

Today I learnt that it only takes something small and sharp to burst your happy balloon.  Pop. Bang! Poof… and it is gone.

 

I considered the burstness, got angry at the person who caused the devastation and even shed a few tears at the shrivelled remains.

 

But this evening, although I am feeling deflated, all is not lost.  I know I can blow up another happy balloon.  I can fill it with the air and life that filled the other one.  The boys, family, good friends, big dreams… chasing big dreams.

 

I just need to float away from sharpness.

 

Or maybe I just need to learn to repel sharpness.

 

Or maybe I just need to blow up lots of happiness balloons, so the sharpness can’t keep up with bursting all of them.

 

All those happy balloons will have me stratospheric and untouchable!

 

Feeling better already.

 

 

 

“Do I want to live 90 years?  Or do I want to live 1 year for 90 years over and over”…

 

A powerful question I heard asked today… and really fits with my mind chatter at the moment..

 

“Do you obey the world’s opinion of you rather than be your own being?”

 

An interesting thought I heard today… and also fits with the conversation going on between my ego and my true self.

 

It’s all about the Ali career sandwich again. It is playing on my mind.

 

The universe is testing me, sending me leads and invites to what my gut and my heart says to do… and also offers up what my head and ‘the world’ thinks I should do.

 

One email sends me dancing around the kitchen and ringing my BFF, the Big Man and running next door to tell my mother-in-law …  The other makes my heart sink as the sound of the old fashioned till drawer pings.

 

The mark of true success is happiness.  Not the £ sign on your head, not the badge on your car, the rings on your fingers or the number of bedrooms or reception rooms.

 

I know what will make me happy. Obeying my true nature and doing what I have always wanted to do…  to be a Mum, to write, to teach and educate.  And I can see the path ahead of me far enough. It may not be a path paved in diamonds and in a Ferrari (to start with anyway), but it looks like a road I want to skip and dance in the rain down barefoot!

 

I know what will make ‘the world’ happy.  Obeying it may line my pockets with gold, but the gold will weigh me down, the weight of it bring me to my knees.  I won’t last very long.

 

Obedience.

 

Obedience plus comfort (Do what I know and keep doing it for 90 years) equals boredom, frustration, resentment.

 

Obedience plus courage (Do something new and keep doing new things every year) equals happiness, adventure, excitement….

 

Comfort versus Courage.

 

Doing the easy thing rather than the right thing…

 

Courage.

 

Bags of it.

 

 

 

I danced in the rain today.

 

I am breaking through the pile of crap that has been piling up on top of me…

 

My current theme tune.. ‘I can see clearly now the rain has gone’…

 

I feel that this time as I get to the other side of the storm, there is actually blue sky rather than another black cloud approaching.  As I pull myself up through the pile of poo to the fresh air, I can’t see another shovel of sh*t about to land on me.

 

I am so grateful that I have spent some time letting the grief, the sadness, the frustration, the anger, the negative emotions out, rather than suppressing them further.

 

I am so happy now that they are out…

 

Today, as I did a quick sprint circuit before picking up the boys from tennis, as I reached the summit, I was thinking of Mum, of gardening, of writing, of my boys, of my business, of my future and all the exciting little things that happened today… that the joy just bubbled up and burst out…..

 

And just as that happened, the heavens opened and the rain clouds burst too…

 

And I danced in the rain!  Literally!

 

Whatever happens… even if tomorrow is a bad day… today was a good one!  A great one!

 

Today, I danced in the rain.  I felt like me for the first time in a really long time…  it felt amazing!

 

As I sit and reflect on the weekend, I hear the words that the Canon spoke at the Christening service today:

 

‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone’….

 

In a small church in a tiny hamlet in Yorkshire, with the sun streaming through the colourful glass, I could feel my shoulders relax, my back bone straighten.  The winter, the frost, the harshness and turbulent storms are past.  I feel it now.

 

‘Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave… Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.  If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.’

 

In a small church in a beautiful hamlet in Yorkshire, with the sun streaming through the stems of daffodils, I could feel my heart soften and my resolve strengthen.

 

The words of Song of Solomon remind me that love is powerful and should be put at the heart of everything.  Put it at the heart of everything and you cannot fail.  Love and passion at the heart of family and friends will create bonds that are eternal.  Love and passion at the centre of what you do and who you are will generate a success that is infinite.

 

In a small church in a tiny hamlet in Yorkshire… the beautiful words of the Canon rang true.

 

 

 

 

Rejection.  Failure.

Two words I used to fear…  run from… hide from.

As a 17 year old failing my driving test 3 times was mortifying… I was the girl who came in the top percentage in pretty much everything (with the exception of drama and music).

 

Rejection and Failure.

They used to make me angry.  I could feel the big black clouds above my head and the blood boiling through my veins.

They used to make me cry.  I would cry from the frustration and the mortification of it all.  What would people think of me?

 

Rejection and Failure.

I must have grown up.  There is a hint of the frustration, a slight frown maybe but I have realised, through experience, that these actions are just protection or even redirection in the labyrinth of life.

 

The labyrinth of life.  I can’t remember where I heard that but I love that image.

 

You start life on the edge of this big maze.  Your mission, your purpose to get the prize in the middle… your dream life, your dream man, your dream job, your dream house, your dream family and so on…

 

As you start on your journey towards the realisation of that dream, there are ultimately going to be roadblocks, obstacles, hurdles that will slow your progress as you work out which way to turn.

 

Some obstacles may feel or seem so big that you can never overcome them… or get through them.  A little bit like how I have felt recently with the death of my Mumbo….  But you do.

 

Some roadblocks are just not worth trying to get over or past.  I have learnt to see those as redirections.  You aren’t meant to go down that path.  If you have set your intention as Wayne Dyer describes, then the universe is protecting you from making a wrong choice or influencing you to go another way.  The other way could be a quicker route or a path that will lead you to an experience that will benefit you more so in the long run.

 

So the application rejection from the university where I applied to work in the careers department, is just a redirection.  I am not meant to go down that path.

 

I defined my intention to find work that puts my children, family and my long term goals first:  flexible, fun, happy environment, fulfilling, convenient, part time, contributing to the community, well paid for my time.

 

So clearly, the universe has decided that that role won’t meet all my criteria.  So Next!

 

And in the meantime, I am loving reinvigorating my Arbonne business, reigniting my love and passion for health in looking in to courses to take that further, writing… and doing what I love most, putting the boys (all 3) first!

 

That.. and enjoying the twists and turns of my labyrinth…until I find my centre.

 

Friday night.  Pub night. 
2 vodka and tonics. Empty stomach.

Brain emptied of all words that were flying around in my head earlier today.

Boys happily sleepy and full of crisps and pop.

Big man cooking pizza, while eating the batch of chilli resting to put in the freezer for while I am away.

I am eating toast. And bovril. Comfort. 

I think I might just fall asleep on the couch.
  

So the question for me today is… when do we stop calling Willy, Willy?  Or at least when do we stop introducing him as ‘Willy’ and as Will or William?

 

To me, he will always be Willy, my Willy Mouse.

 

But today, when asked in the hospital today what he liked to be called – ‘Will, William, Bill?’… the consultant seemed surprised when Willy answered ‘No, my name is ‘Willy’… but he wrote it on the cover of the file anyway…

 

And the other week, when Willy went to for a taster day at his new school, he told me quietly at bed time that some of the boys in the playground teased him about his name.  But he is tough, my little Willy has some balls on him. He said he didn’t care.

 

Before he was born, I referred to him as ‘Will’.  But when he came out as this huge bruiser, a great big chunk of a 9lb 10 baby boy and was introduced to his Scottish Granny… he just became ‘Willy’.

 

It reminds me of my sister.  Bambi is christened Alexandra.  But as my brand new sister, apparently, I refused to call her anything other than Bambi!  So it stuck.

 

Mum and Dad often recounted the story that as a young schoolgirl, when the headmaster and teachers called her ‘Alex’… she turned round and said ‘My name is Bambi’.

 

She and Willy have so many similar traits… I think they look the same too, in certain angles, particularly around the smile.

 

I think that Bambi remained Bambi until she was about 16 and went to a different school for 6^th form.  There she became Alex or Al… (very confusing as my school friends called me ‘Al’ too).

 

But she will always be Bambi to me.  She will always be Aunty Bambi to the boys.  And anyone who knows me, knows her as Bambi.

 

So Willy.  He will always be Willy to me.

 

But I am going to leave it up to him as to when and if he wants to be called anything different.  It’s his name.  It is his choice.

 

His name won’t define him.  His personality, his strength of character will.  Just like his Aunty Bambi.

 

 

 

 

The good news is that I pulled out another barrow full of weeds.

 

The bad news is that I just sent both boys to bed without bedtime snacks, bedtime quiet time, without a bath and no bedtime stories.

 

While I was digging out weeds, physically and mentally in the beautiful spring, warm sunshine… the boys had dug out the old playstation and the Big Man’s old street car games, plugged it in and were playing with it in the smart lounge.    Which wasn’t so bad, as they had been playing outside all afternoon making a new den in Granny’s garden..  But it was the attitude and the language that came out of their mouths when I asked them nicely to go for a bath.

 

A torrent of anger, mimicking, unpleasantness and total disrespectfulness towards me, including name calling!

 

It’s been brewing..

 

I probably haven’t been strict enough when they have been impolite, answered back, been rude.

 

Tonight they got the cool, calm, steely, no messing Mummy.

 

She doesn’t come out that often.  I am not her biggest fan.

 

But I do know that she has to come out sometimes, especially when boundaries are being tested and being tested just a bit too far.

 

Cool, steely Mummy is now chilling in the peace of the evening, about to serve the second sitting of supper and having a glass of something to return her to fun, soft, relaxed Mummy.

 

And then later, I will kiss their hot little cheeks, ruffle their hair with my nose, whisper I love them… and pray that they grow in to good, kind, polite, happy, healthy, wealthy and wise big boys.