Thursday, 22 December 2011

Warm Winter Wishes

It's really just been so unlike me. I haven't been able to string a sentence together for ages and my poor blog has been suffering so much. You will have no idea how often I open up this laptop, come to this page and just can't think of anything to say. My depression has reached an all time low this Winter and as today is the Winter Solstice I am fighting back. And would you look at this link - 2012 is going to be a good year! Though in saying that if we believe the Mayans and their calculations this is also going to be the apocalypse, erm, Yay! eek

So another year draws to it's ultimately anticlimactic end. Yes at the moment all the children are super duper excited about their presents and what Santa will bring, us grown ups are slightly nervous about the Christmas family dinner being perfect and everyone liking their gifts and then of course we'll all eat too much and feel fat and then there's New Years' Eve to consider...

I warn you now I am the original Scrooge - bah humbug to the lot of it.

As you know dear, lovely readers, I have been having a most difficult time. Christmas does not help. I am not one for the forced jollity, the socialising, the drinking and I get no sense of religious wonderment either. To me it is just a time to rub noses in the dirt, a time of 'look what we have and what you don't', spoilt children, an over abundance of food (and that gets thrown out), worry about bills, and the memory of loved ones lost. Yes, my depression and anxiety does not realise it the holidays and take itself off for a few weeks to Spain.

Andrew and I will have each other and that is all I care about. Mamma G will be cooking and hopefully not too stressed. We will all eat Lottie grown Parsnips (the bestest in the world) and I shall have a glow in my tummy because they taste so good. Our Carrots were a disaster! and we forgot to plant Sprouts (hahaha - oh dear!)

I was at the Lottie by the way. Well I couldn't actually get to it as we bounced down the crater filled road and had to park in a small lake of what looked like cold tea. Turns out that even though I haven't been well enough to go there alone, I couldn't anyway - I would be on my face, the road is so bad it is dangerous. I'm really a bit angry about it. Then, naturally there are people who refuse to listen and will drive their cars right down to their sheds and so the ground is all ruts and pits, ready to catch me out again.

Did I already say Bah Humbug?? No?! Well BAH bloomin' HUMBUG!

I am not going to end this on a sour note, oh no. I have gathered together all my resolve and I am using it to ignore Winter and focus on Spring. Spring shall once again conquer over this season and I shall be reborn. So from me, from Andrew and from Maggie - Happy Holidays and may 2012 bring with it much joy, hope, health and good growing to you all.

I thank you most humbly and most honestly with all my heart for sharing  2011 with me.

 Kisses to everyone xxxx



Wednesday, 7 December 2011

The hardest post I may ever write

Yesterday was the day that was firmly written in my mental dairy as the day I was going to kill myself, I had everything planned.

I have just had a shower and tried to thoroughly scrub that day off my body, as far as is possible (pity life wasn't so simple). So it is now, sitting with my hair wrapped up in a towel that I come before you. I come to apologise for my utter selfishness, my deplorable weakness.

There are a few people out there that need proper thanks for helping me live and I shall contact you individually; terrified that I may leave someone out I shall not mention any names at all bar that of my darling, my reason for being ~ Andrew.

I promised myself at the outset of this blog that I would not shy away from the truth, that mental ill health and the stigma attached should and would be blown up on my little piece of the web. So you signed up to read my thoughts, share in the adventures and as with any relationship, you have seen me have some great days and some days I'd rather not think about. In return I have been honest, I have spoken out loud what some have feared to say. I hope that this post will also act in that way. For anyone who is low (and let's face it Christmas can be the worst of times for many) I urge you to speak out, even if it is to me, my e-mail is over there on the right. Though naturally I would prefer you talk to a professional.

You are loved and I believe in you, I believe in the beauty of people and the strength of the spirit. I have visited hell and survived.
Namasté

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

***
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

***
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

***
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Monday, 5 December 2011

So...Winter, we meet again......

I hate it, I utterly hate it, I was not meant to deal with Winter, like a bird I am supposed to fly away to a warmer climate and forever live in Spring/Summer. Yet here I am, cold, miserable, with the heating on and can you believe it - getting the sniffles again!

The lottie is just too water logged to do anything and there is an icy gale blowing through the field away = I would be dying of pneumonia within seconds and Maggie would never forgive me for taking her out there in the first place. Basically, it's just not worth it.

So I have been making flowers (seeing as I can't get to plant any), and reading lots.

Last night I didn't sleep and turned to my current novel 'The Tiger's Wife' by Téa Obreht; this is an adaption of page 92. It spoke to me so powerfully, not in the way it was intended but I thought I would share my version of what is being talked of here; a Tiger in a zoo trying to cope with the noise and confusion of war, bombs and destruction. It is just like me at the moment, trying to cope somehow with my depression.

A grey sun rises and falls each day in what seems like matter of minutes as I sit within the walls of my own private enclosure; strong steel bars seen only by me, mess everywhere that I just can't seem to get on top of. Alone but not; I have the consistent low mumble of that voice behind me urging to be to give up, give in; a deep rumble creating a kind of awareness of my own death. I can neither dismiss it nor succumb to it - it leaves me fragile and constantly exhausted. I am too weary to move, to make a sound, think clearly or react in anyway. Inside, the real me is always screaming. There is so much noise.
What is it that drives me forward everyday, what is it that says ' get up!...it will be okay.....it will be okay'.
******
On a happier note, I was blessed by the gift of another book to read - 'Minding my Peas and Cucumbers', by Kay Sexton. It was sent to me by the ever beautiful Debbie (Ms J) after she had borrowed it from the oh so adorable Flighty. It was a surprise and a heart warming item to receive and I look forward to reading it. I guess that is one thing about Winter - I get to snuggle up and feel miserable joined with everyone else and drink warm drinks and read about other people's adventures. There is always a better world in a good book or at the very least, I feeling that you are never alone.


And with that I must also thank everyone for their comments and emails xxxxxx