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Given the emotional ups and downs of today, it felt like today was an emoticon blog kind of day.

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On balance, there was anger and there was joy today. 
There was relief and calm and moments of complete bombshells and the dummy being thrown out of the pram. By me.  For which I am not impressed.  And yet I congratulate myself for self soothing, calming my mind and then apologising.

 

It was a day of packing alone as well as a day of being with a friend, where she shared her tips and showed empathy on moving into old listed houses and I shared tips and showed empathy on long drawn out diseases on a parent.

 

It was a day of rollercoaster ups and downs, but Eckhart Tolle speaking in my car to me, reminded me that goals should be intentions to be let go in order to enjoy the moment, rather than wishing to be elsewhere.  His bumper sticker…”I would rather be here“.  And if only I had heard his advice on not saying yes or no after a question, but to answer it back with a question, to get more facts, to gain more time to decide, perhaps then I wouldn’t have nearly thrown a grenade into the sale of our London flat…..

 

And just has he had calmed me down to a Zen state, I received an emoticon filled message that could only mean one thing.  And I was back up on that rollercoaster, flying off the end… champagne in hand…

 

only realising, just in time the chicken was on fire….

 

 

What is it that is said?  The top 3 most stressful things – getting married, moving house and getting divorced..?

 

I don’t want to think about getting married. I have wiped that from my mind, rid my life of any reminders that trigger any painful memory.

 

I don’t want to think about getting divorced.  I have put that episode in a dark little box.  It was all too clinical, factual, emotionless, boiling down to just numbers and not the impact it had on the numerous lives infected.

 

I don’t want to think about moving house.  I just pack boxes, check my email, check my phone… back to packing boxes. Words. Caveats. Covenants.  Light restrictions.  My head hurts.  MIA solicitors.

 

While I forgot my manners last week, I forgot my tools for calm, I am remembering them this week.

 

Moment to moment.

 

And wine.

 

 

I picked up a lovely book today from a waiting room table.  It depicted the many unsigned, yet obvious, Banksy graffiti artworks.  I hadn’t seen them before.  The little boys with their buckets and spades, seemingly having snuck through a big gaping hole in the Palestine wall, from Paradise, in to rubble.  Or were they digging through from the dust to the sand?

 

The one I was drawn to was of a little girl holding a bunch of balloons that were lifting her up to where she gazed, the top of the Palestine wall.  I could sense her hope and desperation of her reach.

 

I remember reading, very early on, after my world collapsed and I sat in shock, buried in the rubble, my mind clouded with the dust, that sometimes certain things have to be demolished in order to be rebuilt again better, stronger, refreshed, modernised.  I didn’t quite believe it at the time.  But I do now.

 

And now I wonder, can marriage become like a wall that needs to broken down?

 

Was the Big Man the little boy, looking for Paradise on the other side of the wall?  And as he did so, he brought the wall down, and despite the pain of the collapse, he allowed for fresh air and freedom to recreate.

 

And am I, was I the little girl, desperately clinging on to my 8 balloons named hope, love, gratitude, positivity, joy, peace, dreams and belief to help lift me out from behind the wall up and out in to the fresh air and freedom?

 

The sharp pieces of the debris may have burst my balloons and buried him, and we may have lain in the rubble for a while, but we were and are together.  We have cleared the mess up together, working diligently and tirelessly to do so and to create our future Paradise, this time without any walls.

 

A I returned home, to further news of devastation in our communities, I wondered again.  I wondered if all this economic upset, nationally, internationally and between races and faiths, is going to bring down the ‘marriage’ walls of politics and faith and allow fresh air and freedom.

 

As with all collapse, it is painful and you can’t see your way out, or how the future will shape up.  But there is  always the first balloon.  Hope.

 

 

 

 

 

Today I took my cue from the bullfinch.  With the A64 coastal road at a standstill, we used the back roads, winding our way through the picture postcard village of Terrington, past the dramatic ruins of Sheriff Hutton and on to Strensall, Haxby until we hit our usual route home.  As we free wheeled down Terrington Bank, I put my arms above my head through the open roof, tipped my head backwards, looking to the sky and whooped!

 

As rudely as I had been plummeted downwards, it may have been breathtaking aswell as gutwrenching, but it was fast and the speed at hitting the scoop at the bottom, has flung me back up heavenwards.

 

And it feels so good to be flying; flying on the winds, currents and thermals of life.

 

Refreshed from enjoying the simple things – family, picnics, nature, architecture – and feeling at peace, watching the Big Man embracing the little things, rather than always wanting and striving for more.  Feeling in my soul and my heart that things are changing, have changed for the better and will only continue to improve.

 

Refreshed.  And ready to face the next twist and turn of the bullfinch’s flight tomorrow.

 

 

And sometimes it is as easy as that. To choose to be happy. To look back and only see the happiness.
Despite some uncomfortable moments, I will remember today as a good one, one of the finest British Summer days with sprinklers and barbecues, long icy drinks and swingball competitions, and still laughing with comfortable, authentic friends into the late night, light evening.
A wonderful day to remember as we look back on our time here… 

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.

It’s a strange feeling, dropping from a great height.  Again.  A repeat.  Having just recreated that feeling of joy and happiness around me, it was very quick to shatter in to the many pieces of sadness, loss, grief, shame, so many little pieces of shame and the overriding feeling of anger that it was happening again.

 

In other times of anger, I have donned my trainers and run it out.  Until there was nothing left in me but breath to pant out.  But with the torn ligaments and damage done from a euphoric waterski accident, I have to sit with the ‘white hot pain’ that Glennon Doyle-Melton talks of.

 

And so I sat with it.  I tried to do as my friend advised, to choose happy.  But I couldn’t find the piece.  I could only find or feel the boiling rage, the searing pain, or the dull ache of loss and so I did as Tamara Levitt advised instead.  I let grief in.  I let the sorrow of loss overwhelm me.

 

I looked at it and saw that although there is excitement in the new chapter that begins now we are poised to sign the exchange contracts, it also throws up the reflections of the loss of all the houses we are signing away, a village we always wanted to live in, a school we had chosen for the duration, of friendship groups I once cherished, no feel no longer part of; the loss of everything and a life tainted by all that has happened.

 

There is one positive though, as I dive bombed out from my high happy state, I didn’t feel as though I had gone as far down to be on the rocky sea bed. This time, I was, or am floating high above my mountain summit.   And I do have a choice.  Even it if I can’t find the ‘happy piece’ and choose that, I can decide which way I am going to go when I float back down out of the sorrow cloud.  I can either follow my vision and run down the other side, free and exhilarated in to the new start or I can allow the gravity of the anger or the pull of grief to draw me back to the rocky sea bed.

 

I am going to stay here floating for a while.  Both sides tempting.

 

And just be grateful for my sister on the end of the phone, imagining her next to me giving me words of wisdom.

 

And for my therapist, who got the full force of my anguish and confusion today, who helped calm me with words; that it was ok to feel how I was feeling and not be able to find the happy feeling to choose, it was ok, not childish, pathetic or any of the uncompassionate feelings I had towards myself; and she brought my breathing back to a regular pattern, by simply making me close my eyes and tap so softly with my hands on either knee and just allow the tears to fall off my chin.

 

And for my boys, who let me judge ‘wallee’ (tennis against a wall) and then stroke their blond hair and tickle their brown backs as we watched TV.  They are my grounding and a blessing. 

 

Gratitude is the antidote to depression.  And while I can’t be happy and joyful, I feel a lot less frantic than I did this morning.  And that is progress.  So next time someone comes along with the ‘shit stirring stick’, I will know that I can survive it.  Again.

I wasn’t impressed with my evil, venomous sharp tongue today.    While I have softened, let the harsh words melt for a while now, under pressure, forced into doing something I am not ready to do, sharped them like a knife blade.

 

Do I regret saying them, out loud, in anger?

 

I don’t think so.  There is still anger there and stoked enough to make me remember the incredible pain, makes my heartache raw again.  It isn’t something to keep inside.

 

I need to go up to bed.  But I don’t want to.

 

Just home from watching the most incredible musical, I can hear the words of Donna’s imaginary screaming out of my mouth…  with all the same frustration, pent up emotion but with my hot, raging, raw hostility and grief wrapped around it.

 

I don’t want to talk.  I really don’t.

 

We have both played all our cards.  But we have both lost.  And we have both won.  And I hope neither of us have an ace to play.

 

There are moments, when one of us is tall and one of us is small.  And perhaps that is our destiny?

 

I thought I belonged in the arms that he gave to another.  I was the fool.  He played me like a fool while I built a home, playing by the rules.

 

The Gods were cruel, throwing the dice the way they did, playing with our life.  We have both lost someone dear.

 

I can still see the image of the kiss on the lips that weren’t mine.  And I want to ask all the questions – did she kiss you like I used to kiss you?  And did she call your name, as I was calling you?

 

Yet I played by the rules. And I continue to play by the rules and it feels like everyone is watching us playing this marriage game.

 

So I don’t want to talk.

 

I don’t have any self confidence.  So little left.

 

I used to think I was the winner.  And now I feel like the loser, even though I have won it all.

 

 

 

“Whatever you focus on, you feel.”  A Tony Robbins’ quote special…  and today I realised he was right.  I could continue to feel the distant discomfort of the usurper in kinky boots on the golf course or I could focus on something else.

 

D-day minus 10 and I started to feel uncomfortable, nigh on panicky, about the amount of stuff we have accumulated over the last 11+ years, 2 babies, turned toddler, turned young boys.  With the minutes ticking by, I decided rather than worry, I would just crack on with it… and listen to Tony.

 

So I focussed on our future; methodically going through cupboards and drawers and filling black sacks of rubbish and brown boxes labelled with contents and rooms of our new home.  As I stuffed teddies in, I imagined where they would go and what they would look like in the new bedrooms.  As I imagined unpacking, I could feel the excitement, release and relief.

 

I was miles away from the golf course, London, Paris and Boston Spa.  And I moved from Tony’s ‘Suffering state’ to a far more ‘Beautiful State’, I moved from despair to happy and my productivity and energy intensified.  As Tony predicts, emotion has cause and effect on motion.

 

I barely slowed down, until I came to the shelf with all the baby memorabilia, christening cards and gifts.  The brown bear suit.  The brown bear suit that Tom came home in that dwarfed him, that Willy wore in the winter after the summer he was born, now looks tiny!  It reminded me how much they have grown and what they have become over nearly a decade.  A decade of nurturing and love.

 

And in the Super Soul Sunday session with Tony I was listening to he made that point clear.  When babies are born but not given love, they fail to thrive.  ‘We physically die without love.’

 

We poured so much love in to that little bear suit, both times and they have grown strong.  As I put the bear suit on top of all the other clothes and blankets, it was a clear message for me to keep pouring love in to my family for the next decades to come and watch us out grow bear suits, houses and more.

 

 

 

I am getting used to the ebbs and flows of the aftermath of any grief or traumatic experience.

 

Sometimes it feels like I am the shore and the waves flow over me and I just watch what is happening, feeling some sense of strange discomfort or a distant, muffled happiness..  Sometimes I feel like I am a rose petal being picked up by a wave, either flowing forward, running backwards or in the hardest of times, being buffeted in all directions and ending up drowning.

 

Yesterday, I felt the strange discomfort, that something wasn’t quite right.  And yet it should have felt brilliant!  While the sun was shining, everyone was laughing as one by one, the golf balls landed in the moat of water around the 5^th green and I felt like I had been scooped up by a wave to watch my family from a cloud in the sky.  To watch my family from a cloud in the sky, and see myself replaced with a petite, long haired Parisienne and she passed golf clubs out to the boys, cheered at their good hits and giggled at their duff shots.

 

It didn’t last for long, as I leapt of that cloud and back in to the moment, my moments, turned down her volume and threw her over my shoulder.  But it was enough to make me feel sick.

 

Today, I was relieved to be back to being a rose petal, being pulled by the tide back in to a flow towards our future; school planning, multiple house selling and house purchasing and all the semantics that go with it, not to mention the spiders web of insurance claims and the hot potato that is being passed from one to the next.

 

Gabrielle Bernstein talks about the 5 steps for spiritual surrender and how to unlearn control and planning of our life.  She reminded me of those today and as I listened to her, it reminded me of being on my waves, allowing life to take me on a journey.  The hardest times have been those that I have resisted what was happening, trying to take back control, forcing a decision, forcing a future.  Those were probably the times I ended up drowning.

 

Now as I feel I am so close to being free, feeling free, I know I have to let go even more.  Let go of my desired outcomes and wait for the signs to show me the way and know that it is the right way and at the right time.