Urgh! Life is too short to fart around.

I’m just getting over a bout of what was, apparently, vertigo. Most unpleasant. The most frightening thing was the feeling of vulnerability and isolation and the knowledge that I was alone with three little critters depending on me for their basic needs (ie, food). I have to say that I felt better for two valued friends who I was able to call on. Liz, for your reassuring nursing voice telling me what the likely cause was (you were right) and the knowledge that you were there ready to get help if it were needed. And Dave for coming straight down despite our break-up and his own difficulties. I am humbly grateful. So although I was still feeling ghastly, I then didn’t feel so alone.

Being forced to take time off work and being relatively unable to rush around like normal, getting Stuff done, has given me time to take stock. Being so ill so unexpectedly has come as a wake-up call too. Vertigo can be, I find after a quick Google search, brought on by stress and depression. Of course I have no way of knowing what the cause was, so I'm not automatically stating stress as a cause. Just a possibility.

I have undoubtedly felt a return of the depression over the past weeks, unsurprisingly. I have felt powerless in the face of opposition, whether from Dave himself or his wife I have no way of knowing, but I have felt invalidated, a nuisance, unwanted, no longer needed. I realise that some of my own actions have had a large part to play here, they were the result of pain and hurt and frustration, which isn’t to excuse them. But it wasn’t all my doing. My own instinct for justice kicks in very easily and I will not be misrepresented, I have to have the chance to put the record straight, as I see it. I have allowed myself to be misused and have allowed others to do so. That was my failing.

I have gone into work every day holding my own personal grief to myself, because I have too much pride and misplaced self-respect to burden myself onto my work colleagues. Facing each day has been an effort; in fact, I haven’t wanted to face the day because I have not wanted to face the reality of where I am. I have questions with no answers. Questions that go round and round because they have no place to be shelved. I have been blessed with two angels who have listened without criticism, or interference, or unwanted advice. They have just listened, understood, and loved unconditionally.

Another ending which I didn’t want to have to face, but I have done. I have played too passive a role in my own life over the years...I have allowed others to make my decisions for me, to shape my life for me and to give impulse to my actions. Now it is down to me to take control over the rest of my life and to steer its course in the direction I want it to go in.

Something that I think holds many of us back is fear. In my case the fear has been that of losing....losing Kent, losing Dave, losing control. Being alone. I have lived in fear of ending up alone...but guess what? I DO live alone! How ridiculous is that? I waste countless hours worrying about what might happen, when the reality is that each day comes and goes with its own particular issues, and I am still ok. So what is there to fear, really? I am already facing that fear, without even realising it.

My biggest fault has been that of concentrating too much on the wrong areas. Spending hours worrying about what another person is or isn’t doing. Worrying about what is going on behind my back. Worrying about whether or not I am being lied to. Where someone else spends the night. What he thinks of other people...and so on, and so on, and so on. How does any of this worry benefit me? Worrying about things I cannot change. Instead of thinking about things I can influence, that I can do, that are within my grasp. Missing out on opportunities because I have been too preoccupied with stuff that really, doesn’t matter. I have so much, and yet I long for what I cannot have.

Time to stop worrying, to leave the past behind, and to really start living. Because with every day that passes, there is one day less to be lived.

xxx