Space, space and more space.....

Quite a few of my blogs have mentioned space recently....emotional space and physical space. It is a bit of a theme....there is a great deal of 'stuff' going on in my head, but in the background, while in the foreground I am getting on with life....

But....it seems to me....after the incredible emotional ups and downs of the last..let me see...five years...when the illness and deterioration and death of my parents, and finally clearing and selling the family home, took every ounce of my emotional capability, and physical, constantly driving to Bristol, just about coping with them - the depression, anxiety, the shouting, the tears, the panic attacks, the not breathing, the alcoholism, the falling over, the denial, the cancer, the incontinence, the memory loss, the confusion, the loneliness, the helplessness..I cannot begin to describe really what that has done to me....

All people saw, probably, was an emotional mess, without ever really understanding what that was about. And after it was all over, I had lost myself. All the things I used to do I gave up. Stopped seeing people. Became a couch potato. Cried a lot. Wondered where I had gone - the real me.

Whenever I have blogged that 'I am ok now, I have had a good week', it has inevitably been followed by an emotional collapse or deep depression, as if I have been on one of those swing-boat rides that has gone back and forth constantly. But if you allow the swing to slow at its own pace, eventually the distance travelled lessens, and the swing gradually centres and then stops.

So with me, after Laura's wedding, which obviously had emotional demands!! and the second anniversary of my dad's death, and after the most amazing care of real, true friends, which continues to this day and I can never repay them....I have come to the point when I can say, I have come back to myself again. To the strong person I was. To be happy in my own space, it doesn't mean things aren't annoying me or upsetting me or making me cross, but I am saying my piece and not falling apart over it. I am protecting myself from relationships which hurt and damage me and have truly moved on.

I am able to get up in the morning now and face the day. In fact, this morning, at 7am, I made the decision to go swimming before work,. for the first time ever. History in the making. I rang Rosemarie in the hope that she might join me. She informed me that the pool was closed due to broken glass.

So...recovery...the ability to move on...but always, always, be careful of the broken glass someone will put in your way....