The hearts yearning….

 “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. In the silence, there is a sacred mystery, a path that shows the way not with words but with the heart’s yearning.”

    — Rumi

Connections….

Not my words…but beautiful ones none the less….

“The truth is — genuine connection is ease. It is peace. When you find it you will know. You will feel seen, you will feel like you are being mirrored back to yourself, like you are discovering the shadow of your own heart in another human being.

Slowly, through loving the right people, you will come to realize that the human beings who are meant for you in this world will not exhaust you, or hollow you out, or leave you feeling like you are hard to love. Slowly, you will come to realize that you do not have to romanticize the things in this life that hurt. You do not have to run towards the fire. Love does not have to feel like a fight, does not have to feel like battle, does not have to wound.

Slowly, you will learn how to lay down your arms. How to walk away from those who will only ever love you in halves. Slowly, you will learn that you cannot love someone into loving you, or being ready, if they are not. You cannot love someone into their potential. You cannot close their hands around your heart if they are not willing to hold it themselves. You have to let them go. You have to focus on the people in your life who bring you back home to yourself. You have to focus on standing up for that kind of connection, on honoring that calm, because it exists. It exists.

And I hope you learn to trust that, because when you come across it, when you ultimately experience it, it feels as if you are standing at a door you finally have the keys for. You enter it with ease. There is no fumbling through your jacket pocket trying to find the right way in. There is no desperately reaching into your bag trying to uncover the point of access. You are no longer banging your fists against the door, asking to be invited in. You walk through. Soundlessly. Softly. Relief washes over you. You take off your shoes. You hang your coat in the closet. You put on a pot of coffee. You’re home. You’re home.”

Safe spaces

Who believes in tarot cards? I never did…then I had a reading earlier this year. 

Apparently, according to my tarot reading I have the ability to provide safe spaces for people - somewhere they can come, offload and be themselves. What an honour to be able to do that. 

I should also do more of the things I enjoy - whatever they may be….tick. (That is going to be an ongoing mission). 

But the question I had at the end was….if I can create safe spaces for other people….then where do I find my safe space? 

Simple….do more of what I enjoy, have faith, and my safe space will come….. thank god says I - because life is a pretty lonely place without a safe space in it! 

Strangely, unexpectedly, hopefully - a recent encounter left me feeling just that….as though I’d found a safe space, a place where I can be me and be valued. That feeling is rare, let’s hope I can revisit it soon. 

Here’s to safe spaces and being valued in this life x

15 years......

So yesterday was my 15 year cancerversary as us old timers are calling it now. 15 years since I was first diagnosed, since my life, and more importantly my daughter's lives were all turned on their head....

It's a long time to be living with the prospect of dying, the thought that the next blood test can bring the news that the thing inside of you that controls your life, or death, is ready for a fight.

I wouldn't wish Leukaemia on anyone, it's force is so destructive. Die from it, live with it, once you've got it, it never goes away. And leukaemia is just one of many diseases/illnesses that thousands of us are living with every day.

So what did I do to celebrate this momentous occasion? I went to work, carried on as near normal as my days can get.......

I also took the time to contact Molly-Ann's uncle to find out how she is doing, now 21, yesterday was her big birthday celebration - imagine that! Imagine how her family must feel, 15 years ago their beautiful young daughter was on death's door - now she's a gorgeous 21 year old with a bright future ahead of her. Amazing!

I posted my news on the cml sites and had many likes and messages from newbies and others not as far along this journey as me, I don't post often but I knew that a 15 year marker and still going strong would give hope to some who needed it at that moment.

I also got lots of hugs, from people dear to me and from people new to me. You can never get enough hugs in this world I've decided........

And I carried on being a mum......stressing over a daughter stuck in a broken down car on a motorway, getting flowers (and more of those hug things) from the daughter still at home, and a beautiful message from the daughter now living away.....

Because being a mum has been my reason for being, for staying, for fighting.

Viva la hugs that's what I say..........
 

Let's be kind to each other shall we?

I start this blog with a knot in my stomach - you know, the kind you get when things are on your mind, when you know all's not right but you're not quite sure or in the position to change them. When you're watching people you care about going through difficult times but there's nothing you can do but be there or when you're life is not taking the track you'd hoped it would.

We've all been there - that knotted, heavy hearted feeling, a bit like indigestion that even Rennie's will not shift.......

Life gives us times like this - we've all ridden a few storms - it's coming out the other end that's important. And it's knowing that you will that keeps you going.

But there are also times when we really can't see the wood for the trees - when the knot becomes a vice around our insides that you wonder if it will ever ease?

I've seen the darkness of depression and lived with it for a while - a year after being diagnosed I fell apart. A difficult and painful bone marrow biopsy, worrying about the girls, a difficult day in the office - it all suddenly became just too much - the shoulders too heavy to cope with the load anymore.

It's funny, I don't think I'd ever really thought about what depression would look like but for me it came in a wave of tears, hundreds, thousands of tears and the need to dive under the duvet and just stay there and cry, not knowing whether it was night or day and no longer caring either.

It was an incredible overwhelmingly numb feeling and knowing that everything going on around me was just too much - more than I could cope with - so I stopped coping. It also came as fear, fear of seeing people, fear of being in the outside world and a feeling that I had been bashed and bruised one too many times.

Of course, you can't stay like that forever, so I ventured out from the duvet and off to see the doctor who diagnosed depression and prescribed anti-depressents. That in itself was a momentous moment - something you never think you'll see, especially when you are someone who you believe is a bit of a sponge and can cope with life's trials and someone who is a glass half full kind of person rather than empty. I think of myself as an eternal optimist, but the optimism had been knocked out of me..........

I had an overwhelming question hanging over me..........so, you coped with your mother's death at an early age, you survived a particularly nasty divorce, you survived leukaemia and achieved remission - but the question I was struggling with was: 'Is this it?' Is this really what I went through all that for? Is this crap really worth all that?

My consultant was surprised, he said most people break when diagnosed but you left it a year..... you're in remission, you should be happy. I know where he was coming from but when diagnosed I had things to do, purpose, a reason to keep going so that I could get into remission - it was the getting there and finding that actually, life was still the same struggle, still the same stresses and people still treated you like crap at times that did it for me.

I'm also a stubborn, indpendent bugger so although I accepted the need for anti-depressents I was determined they would be a short-term solution.  I have to say that, for me, they did work - three months on and I was driving to work and caught myself singing to the radio and I realised that yes, life was still crap at times, but I was stronger and I could cope, so I weaned myself off the anti-depressents and got on with life.

Have I been depressed since? Well, yes, but not in the same overwhelming, totally consuming, can't cope anymore way. Was I depressed when I started this blog over a year ago? Well, probably more so than I would care to admit, probably nearer the darkness than I had been since before. Has blogging helped? Yes, that and changing my life so that I am happier with it. Though this kind of from the heart blog is a weirdly personal way of laying yourself bare.......

So why the knot know? Well, whilst I'm taking my life in a different direction, it's taking time and there's still a way to go yet and that means I'm having to utilise this thing called patience......not something I'm always very good at! I'm also looking for honesty, and am not sure I'm always getting that.....

I guess I'm also feeling other people's crap - leukaemia is far from being the only trial that people face in this life and right now I have friends/family going through difficult times, which you wish you could fix, but you can't.

One thing I've tried to do in this life is learn, and I've learnt that it's important to accept people for who they are and also to be kind to each other. Life seriously deals a lot of shit we have absolutely no control over, but we can control how we are to other people, and we should.

We should also learn to be honest with ourselves and then with others, even if we know that honesty will hurt - don't be cruel in that honesty, think always about the other person's feelings, but don't let the fear of hurting someone stop you from being honest - because honestly, deep down inside, they know........

I know it's a cliche but it's a good one - do one good thing each day people, don't make judgements about others when you don't know the whole story and please, please, please, let's just be kind to each other shall we?

Growing a voice......

It was at about age 14 that I started to lose my voice, not literally of course, but the voice that felt confident enough to have an opinion, let alone believe that anyone else would want to hear it.

One of the beauties (yes I did associate that word with leukaemia) of having a life-threatening illness is that you can lose the inhibition that growing up in the real world gives you. You gain a 'what have I got to lose' approach to life.

With that comes the courage to actually go for things I would once never have thought of doing, to say things I would never have said and to have opinions and learn to vocalise them. Many people lack confidence, I've found it's often the ones who seem most gregarious that are actually some of the least confident people underneath.

I get cross at the cruelty of other people that cause others to lose confidence with the words that they say, sometimes deliberately, sometimes to be fair, without thinking, I don't imagine I have been totally innocent of that. I wish that I could inject confidence into people so that the normality of life didn't have to effect them and bring them down, but I've learnt, from experience that has to come from within....

So now I have a voice, and what's more I can feel the passion inside again that is needed to have an opinion and voice it - and strangely, twitter has been a vessel to help me develop that further, to voice what I feel.

So let's talk about equality........I absolutely, totally, completely believe in equality. I was born equal to every other man and woman, colour, crede, ability, faith. I may not always understand, but yes, I do mean equal.

Yes, I'm a feminist, and no that's not a contradiction. Two of my best-loved books were written by Germaine Greer, a third is Bitch by Elizabeth Wurtzel.....feminist lit at its best. But I guess it's the perception of the reader cos I don't seem them as male-hating, bra burning zealots. In fact quite the opposite, in my reading of them they advocate equality, not superiority.

But I don't think equality means that we have to lose respect for each other, or lose the ability to care enough to be kind to one another. I'd happily hold the door open for a man and I don't think he's insulting my independence by doing the same for me, all I would like in return is a thank-you and I would most happily greet a door being held open for me with a smile and a thanks - it's about respect!

I love the people on twitter who advocate doing something kind every day - let's all just do that.

I fail to understand why some people think that they are better than another, why they think they have the right to hate someone else. That is why tonight I will be kitting myself up with a candle and spending the evening with Norwich Pride at a candlelit vigil against hate crime, because it's time to have a voice and it's time to make it heard........

Call me a lily-livered liberal or a lentil eating veggie if you like, feel free - because this girl has finally learnt to have the confidence to be comfortable with the labels you choose to throw at me :-) 

Here we are again.......

So, this blogging thing, haven't done that for a while.........

Since I last blogged back in May such a lot has happened in my life, I've moved house, bought a newer car (almost), gained new friends, spent more time with my daughters, worked out what a social life is and moved so much closer to being me again!

All of these things have been positive, have seen a massive change in the person I am inside, I'm still not 'fixed', whole, complete, I'm not sure if I ever will be, does anyone ever really feel like that?!..... But I am now in much better place and for the first time in years I feel like I know who me is again.

I've learnt some lessons from all of this - never again will I live in a new house, for only an older property with character can stir my soul and be a true home. I say this, despite the fact there are currently three adults cramped into a two-bedroom terrace and my dining room is doing a great impression of a student digs......I care not, I'm happy.

I've also learnt the true value of good friends - I had a great friendship circle many years ago when I lived in Hornsea but I moved away from them, I don't regret the move, it was something I had to do. And those friends, though I see much less of them, will always be important to me. But what I never developed was a friendship circle in Norfolk, people I could laugh with, share problems with, just 'be' with - so the move has meant that I can now develop that and I have and undoubtedly this has helped put me in a better place.  Who knew how healing a girls night out drinking cocktails and talking waxing could be?!!!

So, it's with this new-found happiness and one-ness with myself (yes, yes, aged hippy really!) that I decided perhaps, tentatively, I was ready to think about dating again................

So what does every sensible 45-year-old woman considering a bit of romance do? Well, I joined an on-line dating site....

It's not the first time I've used one, I had a great two-year relationship thanks to one, so I thought, why not? I'll join up and just explore what's out there.

Well, I have to say I don't remember it being such a laugh before - I've had the ' did it hurt when you fell from heaven chatline' - no, but it hurt when I couldn't stop laughing.....I'm normally more associated with hell in the dating world!!

'Notbig' keeps trying to flirt with me.......with all due respect perhaps a different name would have yielded more success? 'Bikerboy' stood more of a chance (especially if the bike turned out to be a harley and not a 50cc scooter) but 'Smutt' really was going nowhere.......

Perhaps I'm too old and cynical but another thing I've learnt - online dating just isn't for me, if only cos being a true Scot I absolutely refuse to pay for it so I can't actually 'connect' with anyone, yet despite this, in a manner similar to an credit rating agency, the pointer on my popularity rating is moving up and I am now officially 'popular' - let's not speculate what my rating could be if I could actually talk to anyone........

So, whilst I guess I'm declaring myself 'open for business' (or probably more 'less likely to recoil from the thought of being with a member of the opposite sex' - you may laugh but that is how I felt until very recently) I've decided that you can't force these things and that perhaps the best way is to go 'au naturelle' - no Smutty, not that........perhaps it's best to just leave these things to chance and see what happens.........

So- anyone out there know how to unsubscribe from a dating website?!!!!!