Processing a broken heart.

So many questions I want to ask.
Was it me?
Was it that argument we had?
Why did you give up so easily?
Why did I give up so easily?
When did it go so wrong?
Will we be friends in 20 years time?

I hope so.

You saved me from myself. You taught me that I was worth more than I believed when you met me. You healed me. With every kindness, with every kiss, I became the best version of myself. You were the catalyst to my recovery. And even though you’re no longer mine, I can honestly say you have left me in a much better shape than my last relationship. You have left me in a shape that now believes in true love, and self worth. A shape with only a tiny little hole to remind me of all you did for me.

Whatever you are doing in 20 years time, I hope that there is still a little bit of me with you, reminding you that even when it feels like the end, it’s only really the beginning.

Dear Heart,

Dear Heart,

It’s ok to feel adventurous, bold and strong.
It’s also ok to feel a little scared.

For it wouldn’t be an adventure if you were doing something safe, something familiar. Adventurers still feel fear, but they go anyway. For they fear the regret of not going will be greater than anything you may cross on your path.

Adventurers still fear death but the fear that haunts them the most is being dead before their pulse has stopped. Living pay day to pay day or weekend to weekend, simply surviving the days in between. That is the thought that terrifies them the most.

I know you are going to feel this pain that you carry wherever you are. Whether we’re sitting on my sofa at home together or whether we are exploring a new city or lake. The difference is that you are much more likely to heal when you are exposed to beautiful new places, than you will be staring at that phone waiting for a text that we both know isn’t coming.

I know you are broken and I am sorry I let this happen. I promise that one day you’ll look back at this time and realise it made you smarter, stronger and even more determined. You’ll look back at this with happiness for it is no ones fault, as much as you try to blame yourself. You both loved each other with all you had, and you grew and grew and grew together but at the end of the day it’s not just your decision. It’s mine too. As much as you’ve tried to ignore me,  you can’t make it work by yourself. You need me to see the things you are blind to.

You are a bird. One day you came across a tree, from your perspective the tree seems perfect so you built your nest their. Over the months, the tree has provided you with warmth, shelter, food and safety. You love this tree, and your nest you have built there but at the end of the day you are not a tree you are a bird and you need to go explore. For what is the point of being a bird if you do not use your wings to fly? Yes you may miss the warmth and all the comforts the tree bought you, but once you have the seen the wonders of this world you will be so happy of the sacrifice you made. And once you’ve been around the world and seen all you long to see, you will find another tree to build a new nest in or if you are lucky you will find your way back to your first tree. Because that’s the difference between birds and trees, you will always find your tree right where you left it.

Its time to fly the nest, go on your adventure, feel the fear and do it anyway. Then one day you will return home where you can rebuild your nest and provide yourself with everything you’ve ever needed. This isn the end of your story, its only just the start.

We’re going to get through this together.

Yours sincerely
Brain

Go.

Go to the lakes, let them cleanse your wounds.
Go in the rain, let it wash away your sorrow.
Go to the mountains, let them gift you with perspective.
Go in the sun, let it give you a smile to borrow.
Go any where and everywhere.
Go, remind yourself, despite your pain it will all still be here tomorrow.

 

Not Ok.

It’s when you look at your phone and although you agreed no texting, your eyes ache at the blank space.

It’s turning over in the middle of the night reaching out for someone who isn’t there and never will be ever again.

It’s when something funny happens and you automatically go to tell them but you realise that you can’t and then your laughter turns to tears and you can’t remember why it was funny in the first place.

It’s when your talking to a friend and you’re like “oh my boyfriend…” and you have to stop yourself because you don’t know what he’s doing or who he’s with, and he’s not your boyfriend anymore, he’s just this guy I used to hang out with a lot, and that is supposed to be ok now.

It’s like every bad day you’ve ever had rolled into one, only there’s no cuddle at the end to hold you together and make it ok again.

It’s not ok.

 

The little things

Isn’t it weird how someone can enter your life and change it completely almost over night.

It is stranger still that when they leave again, they never really leave. Because like it or not they are apart of you now.

The new food, music, shows, culture, expieriences youve shared now influence your taste, your preferences and your sometimes even what you desire.

But its also the little things you miss, the silence where there once was humming, the joke that no one else would get but that one person, the way they knew what you were thinking before you knew it yourself.

Do you know what i’ll miss the most? His eyes. The way that I can look into them and feel like i’m the most magical person in the world. The way that there was no bad day that couldnt be salvaged by a cuddle and a cuppa. The way he laughed at my jokes like I was the funniest comedian in the whole world.

I miss it all. Because actually it was these little things that created “us”, it wasnt the grand gestures, proposals or earth changing things, it was the way he knew I was crying, even when it was dark and I wasn’t making a sound.

 

 

Thank you

Thank you for your patience, with upsets, with anger, with hormones and with tears;
with dreams, with immaturity, with illlness and with fears.

Thank you for your kindness, through cups of tea, cuddles and thoughful gifts;
through laughter, through encouragement and endless lifts.

Thank you for your love; for inviting me into your home, your family and life;
for telling me that someday, I’m going to be an amazing wife.

Thank you for your support, for never giving up on me even when I had myself;
for holding my hand through this shit storm, never once thinking of yourself.

Thank you for your attention, for the compliments, the adventures and the cinema dates;
for the netflix sessions, the holidays, and the M&C steaks.

Thank you for being the best boyfriend, right from the very start;
Thank you for who you are and everything you’ve done, thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

The voice inside my head

Over the last 6 months my life has fell to pieces. I’ve lost my health, my family home, the luxery of living at home with my family, hell the luxery of having parents within a 200 mile radius, my job, and now as the cherry on top i’ve also broken up with my boyfriend, loosing his family, the house we were in the process of buying, and my best friend along with that.

A side affect of my health condition is anxiety and depression. So doctors think its a biological response, not an emotional response. Regardless, I have had it bad.

Sometimes I can’t see an end to this relentless hurricane that has been destroying my life. All of a sudden there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The only thing I can think of is ending this pain that I feel inside.

Depression is real. Anxiety exsists. My brain is broken in so many different places I don’t even know where to start trying to put it together again, or if I will ever be able to.

 

 

In sickness and in health

Recently I have been diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called Morphea. If you’ve heard of it, I’m impressed because even my GP looked at my blankly.

The weird thing is that I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. I have patches of skin on my body that kind of look like bruises or stretched pieces of skin. It is caused by an issue with my blood vessels, they are too constricted, so the blood can’t get to the surface of the skin and it dies. Even though I have had patches develop over the last 12-14 years on my arm and back, I noticed a year ago that a new, more violent patch was developing on my breast.

The doctors don’t quite know what to do with me. On the one hand, if they leave it, it could potentially go deeper and deeper into my tissue/muscles and will eventually reach my organs. But on the other hand, the methotrexate will potentially make my hair fall out, give me nausea and make me infertile.

As you can imagine, this is very difficult information to process. But I will. I will get through this, because people get through much worse things. My conclusion is that I need to learn to love myself, “through sickness and in health”. Most people usually vow to love their spouse, through any situation. I am not ready for marriage yet but in order for me to be able to do that one day, I first have to learn to love myself no matter what my body throws at me. I could be angry that it has happened to me “why me?”, I could be frustrated that I didn’t catch it earlier or resentful of the doctors who have misdiagnosed me for the last 22 years. But whatever happens, it is my body and I have to feed it, wash it, take care of it and most importantly love it unconditionally because who else will if I don’t?

Trying Endlessly to Find Love

Or… TEFL.

Love isn’t a problem actually, it’s finding a job I love that is my issue!

Last year I completed a 120 hour TEFL course and I have since been going through what can only be described as the most long winded job interview process to be a teaching fellow in Columbia. I sent through my CV to about fifty schools in South America and I had one response… One chance is all I need! The first part of the process was to send in an application form, so I went through, telling my life story as you do, and the fifth line down “which university did you study at?” my heart sunk, maybe this wasn’t my one chance after all. At this point, I thought it was better to be open and honest than go through all of this red tape to find that they wouldn’t accept me even if I had the best application in the world.

So I emailed explaining that I didn’t go to university but I did an apprenticeship and I am in a professional job and most of the people I work with have had degrees and over 30 years work experience… Basically, I am not stupid. A piece of paper, or lack of, does not define who I am or what I am capable of achieving. I thought it was hopeless, because the application said it in black and white “degree required”, but I had to say my peace anyway.

Two weeks passed and I had no response, so I let it go and applied for a few other jobs. Until one night after work when looking for a shopping confirmation, an email appeared “sorry for the late reply…” my heart fluttered, is this my chance? Does she understand that I am a capable human?

Only time will tell.

Have you been through an interview process abroad? I would love to know I am not alone in my frustration that not having a degree is bringing me!

 

 

 

 

Light in Darkness

Last year bought several dark moments, but it was these times which I realised which lights were shining the brightest.

It was these moments that I found myself rediscovering my relationship with God.

I was brought up in church, went to Sunday school every week, knew all the stories, knew how to play “church”. It wasn’t until I turned 16 that I first discovered my own relationship with God, and surprisingly it had nothing to do with Church. There was little for me at the church my parents went to,  most of the young people were scared away by the hymns and the closed minded attitude. I fought it for ages, I got involved with a Christian charity called “One Generation” which encouraged you to run “Christian Unions” in schools. And of course my CU was the best… on valentines day I bought three hundred love-heart shaped post-it notes and stayed up writing/posting positive messages such as “you are beautiful” or “you are loved” etc. I posted the messages on students lockers purely for the joy of doing it. I wanted to spread the happiness and love that being a Christian gave me.

But then it all went wrong. I went from having the most successful year of my life so far, to absolutely failing my Alevels and losing all my dreams and ambitions (or so it felt at the time). Ashamingly, I blamed God. I believed that he had dangled this amazing bright future infront of me, and then stripped it away from me as a test. A test I failed too easily. I turned my back on Church, my friends, my relationship with God and buried myself into a deadend job, going out and a toxic relationship.

This lasted about eighteen months but eventually I stabilised, found myself an apprenticeship, broke off my relationship (a few times if I am honest), and accepted that I wasn’t going to uni to have the career as a doctor that I dreamed off. I applied myself to my new job and found myself being promoted a few times, I made amends with most of my friends and found myself in a healthy loving relationship. The only thing I didn’t repair was my relationship with God. I convinced myself I was best not to go back there, it would only cause me heartbreak and pain – right?

But then I found myself broken again, but this time, there was no obvious solution. Neither my parents, my boyfriend nor alcohol could help me numb the pain I was feeling and this was when I knew I had to try. I had heard about a new church in the centre of Birmingham with a strong student base, and I gave it a shot. Walking into that building for the first time was scary, but straight away  I knew there was something there. Even though I had never stepped foot in there before I immediately felt a sense of peace. It was the same feeling you get when you finally get home after a long hard day, and your favourite person in the whole world is there ready to greet you and welcome you.

I was home.