An old Western, of sorts!

They say that the ‘art of writing is in the rewriting’. If this were 100% correct, then the blog post I will be publishing should be a masterpiece worthy of an award. Ha ha!
I have worked on this post (written, deleted, rewritten) for almost four weeks now! Goodness gracious me! 😮

I’ve now reached the point of no return – I need to publish something, and so here it is. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. (She tips her hat, loops her thumbs in her leather belt, and puts one cowgirl boot forward. 😉 )

It’s been just over three months since my last blog post. That’s just sad! I didn’t realise it had been that long. And yet… at the same time… so much has happened in that ‘short space of time’ that it feels longer.

Long story short? (When have I ever managed to use less words when telling a story, ha ha?!? I’ll do my best here though…)

I’ve been extremely ill. And many will mutter ‘over exaggeration’, and that’s okay because even now when I think of it, it seems unreal that that is what I was reduced to! There were entire days where even getting to the bathroom seemed impossible, let alone trying to get my brain to focus!
I went from Severe Bronchospasm, to Bronchial Pneumonia, then Pneumonia, and throw in some Pleurisy too. Along the way (at the beginning, with sufficient time in between) I had two Covid tests, but both were negative.
Blood tests about 4 weeks ago (because I just wasn’t recovering) showed that I had indeed had Covid, and the conclusion was that I now have Long Covid. Up until the point of the tests, the fatigue (coupled with the chronic fatigue that I already suffer from) was debilitating, to say the least. Thankfully, treatment has been adjusted, and I can make it through a good few hours before I feel like my whole being will shut down.
The ‘Porridge Brain/ Brain Fog’ is something else… especially for someone like me! If you love to read, like I do, you will understand my pain when I say : I could not even read half a page in my book! 😮
And apparently I have developed asthma!

The GOOD news is that I am definitely recovering! So, my beautiful blogging world, you’ve not heard the last of me yet! 😉

I already know that what I am about to type now is going to hurt me somewhere deep inside, and the tears will fall uncontrollably as I type, and I will have to stop to try and settle myself, so that I can see the keyboard and screen, and get through this.
I feel my chest tightening already, and I am struggling to swallow the lump rising in my throat. I am actually feeling physical pain, as if my heart is breaking all over again 😦

Five weeks and one day ago, at 2:10pm, my beautiful big companion and very best friend (my boy, Toffee Dog, who I blogged about here, and have mentioned countless times along the way) collapsed. I had to rush him to the vet, somehow knowing that ‘this was it’. I still don’t know how I drove us there safely, and made it home safely. Because I sobbed, both ways. You’d need to read the blog post, and perhaps try to understand (draw on your sympathetic and understanding part of your mind), in order to appreciate the drastic impact this had on me.
Honestly, it was the hardest goodbye of my life thus far.
(He had a brain tumour.)
And true to being a psychologists nightmare (which I often declare that I am, ha! 😛 ) I still struggle to say the above out loud, and my composure still shatters, five weeks and one day later, when I think about him too much!
So… now that you have confirmed your suspicions that I am a special kind of crazy (I am smiling with my tears) let’s move on, shall we?

I’ll leave you with some good 😉

In the three+ months that I have been M.I.A from WordPress, despite physical and emotional pain, each and every day has given me an ‘in your face’ moment of gratitude. Something good has happened (albeit something small most days) in a way that I have been unable to overlook! An email; a message on my phone; assistance in some way (a meal delivered, my kids helping with the housework) – all things that brought a smile and a whispered ‘thank you’ to my lips.
All things that equate to acts of love.
Love that fanned the flame of hope, so that even if it wanted to, it could not die.

May hope spring eternal for all of you, every day, in some way!
Please don’t forget that the world needs someone like YOU, and you are loved! ❤

Thank you for reading. ❤ Here’s to me writing to you all again soon 😉

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Meg’s mind… be afraid… ha ha!

In my late twenties, and then again in my early thirties, there was an extended period of self loathing – mostly directed at my physical appearance, but not so strangely sparked by emotional negative belief systems. It was bad! In fact, in my late twenties, I actually removed every mirror from my house. Make up was quickly applied in the car, in the rearview mirror – before going in to the office – because it minimised having to look at myself. And yet I did the make up anyway… because I still cared how I looked. What a conundrum, right? Not seeing anything good, and yet still making the effort!

And in those awful periods of hatred, the people who knew me and actually loved me, were consistent in telling me that it needed to end. That I was not what I had been told I was. That I was different, and worthy, and beautiful. That in this self loathing period, they still loved me, but they missed me. That I was the sunshine in their lives, bringing a positive attitude to all circumstances… and they needed me back.
And in all of that, something in me was still the ‘never say die, prisoner of hope’, because although I was emotionally self destructive, I didn’t give up.

Nowadays? Those same people are still in my life. We don’t see each other very often, and the pandemic has almost wiped out our social time. But the odd phone call is usually accompanied by the statement, ”I just needed a dose of Meg (Meg is my name, in case you didn’t know). I needed to at least hear some sunshine.”

Sounds great, right? But here’s the thing, everyone who is reading this : I am NOT sunshine all the time.

I woke up with this blog post on my heart, but checked my email first. Regular readers will know that I often share posts from Letters To Pogue… and there was a new post in my inbox. So I went off to read it first, and I guess that in a way it confirmed the words in my heart.

Now let me explain why I made the statement I did, and repeat for those who may have missed it :

I AM NOT SUNSHINE ALL THE TIME.

Yes, if you knew all the things that have happened to me in my life, you would see a woman who definitely holds onto hope like it’s as important as the air she breathes, and you would probably see that my nature – despite everything that has tried to twist it to the contrary – is upbeat and happy.

And I generally am. Funnily enough, the pandemic has made me EVEN MORE SO! absolutely crazy, right?!?!?!

BUT if you could spend a day in my mind – if I dared to write an hour by hour account of the thoughts in my head? You’d be more confused than a chameleon on a smartie box (roll of Rockets, for my US friends)!

I love to make friends online. I love that the world has evolved to a point that it has been ‘made smaller’. I love that I have a heart that can connect with people ‘across the miles’, even if I never get to see them in person.
What I don’t love though is that this has also evolved us to a point where we struggle with trust even more, because people have taken advantage of being able to hide behind the internet and many have proven themselves to be dishonest to a frightening degree. It makes me sad.

In my posts, I am genuine. I promise. The words I write are where I am at on that given day. Honesty is important to me. I try to be as real as possible, without dragging you all down any negative emotional roads 😛

But this morning, as I reflected on words spoken by someone I love dearly : ”I was just saying that you always find the positive and are just so darn sunshiny, that it is sometimes nauseating, but I love that about you anyway” – this blog post was born. The person who said them? She knows me better than I sometimes know myself. She’s seen the good, the bad and the ugly – and yet she still said that about me? The funny thing is that I got all defensive! I had replied to that statement with : ”No, I don’t! You’ve heard me complain, and be miserable, and be angry!”

Further explanation and discussion revealed to me that ‘she knows those ugly sides of me, but in general my sunny disposition seems to win, and she loves that about me’.

Why on earth am I telling you all this?

Because this is me at my most real – some raw truth about Meg, which may disappoint some, I might add…. and oddly enough, I am telling you as a form of ENCOURAGEMENT! Wait, what?!?!?!

For every person who is still reading, who regularly reads, who is waiting for the explanation :

Yes, I have always been ‘full to overflowing’ when it comes to hope, and not given up when I should have.
Yes, I smile FAR TOO MUCH, that even the staff at the local store and gas station call me ‘Miss Smiley’.
Yes, my general disposition resembles sunshine.
And maybe those things make it ‘easier’ for me?

BUT GUYS!

When I woke up this morning to the USA news (8 hour time difference means that chaos usually erupts while I am asleep!), my heart sank and I swore and I was instantly discouraged when I thought of how this will impact everything, all over the world. (I felt the same way with the UK Brexit news – except with only a two hour time difference I was awake for that!)
For a good half an hour, it felt like all hope was lost. My mind was a browser, ten tabs open, and it crashed.
I will never fulfill any of my dreams! My bucket list may as well get torn up and trashed! It’s all going to be downhill from here. I was afraid : what will the impact be? Every day just keeps getting worse – my own personal circumstances, the circumstances of those I love, the circumstances of people I have no knowledge of, my town, my country, this world as a whole.
And I cried. And I felt miserable. And angry. And I FELT hopeless. Exhausted. Ready to just go back to sleep.

And then I heard that quiet voice – barely a whisper as the waves of negativity tried to drown it – PLEASE STOP!

I still felt all those horrible things. I was still miserable about all of it. But I got up, and made my first cup of coffee. And as I took my first sip, I asked myself a question that I have trained my brain to ask when these moments come : ”Can you control it?”
And because this post is about being transparent, here’s what happened in my brain :

”No. And I am f***ing sick of that question. Over it. Who the hell came up with that smart ass concept to start with, anyway? Like it’s supposed to just magically make everything better? I don’t want to play that game! There’s enough depression and anger in this f***ing world already! And now this! I can’t control it, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I can’t change it either, and that makes me feel worse.
What CAN you change?
You know what? Just shut up! Take your positivity for a long walk off a short pier. I’m done!
No, you’re not.
No, seriously. I am. Everything just f***ing sucks.
Everything?
Yes, everything! I hate this! There’s no jobs here, we’re scraping by with no hope of anything getting any better, my friends are depressed, every time I leave my house I don’t know if I will come home unscathed because crime is so bad, I don’t want to die here, I want a future, I want my dad.
I thought you were upset about the US thing?
I am. But there’s a bunch of other stuff and it makes me just think of everything that is hopeless. There’s just no point anymore.
Hey, take a deep breath.
No.
Yes. And go get more coffee.
Fine. I need coffee.
You do.
What’s going to happen next? I am so tired of it all.
Well, what do you need to do today?
I don’t know… but I definitely need to vacuum my bedroom. I should probably think about what to feed the kids today as well, and I need to check email.
Okay, then that is what is going to happen next.
What?
Sometimes things just suck. You know this. It’s hard to understand when stuff defies logic. You don’t even know the question, but you’re looking for the answer. There might not even be a question. Who knows? You’re upset, concerned, afraid. You’re allowed to be. But it’s shifting you to think of everything else that is wrong. And yes, there is a lot. If you keep thinking of everything that is wrong, you will forget to remember everything that is right. Go write down three things that are right and think of them! It won’t magically make you feel better. You might still feel sad and angry and discouraged. But you still have sh*t to do. So do it.
Okay. *deep sigh*

And here I am. Doing it. The conversations in my head can get quite entertaining – but they DO make my heart hurt sometimes. I let myself feel it all, and process it. And in that process, I seem to calm down. Strange, right?
SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER : your thought processes pretty much determine your life. Yes, circumstances play a big role and can often ‘dash our hopes and dreams’… but that’s why it is so vital for us to practice daily the ‘carry on’ concept. Eating right is important, but so is ‘thinking right’. I haven’t quite mastered it yet… but I am sure as heck going to keep trying!

How do I feel now, you may be silently asking?
I’m still sad, and a little bit worried about it all. I’m angry that this world is such a horrible place. I’m afraid.
But I have drummed into my brain, through daily dedication to doing so : I NEED to accept the things I cannot change and change the things I can. I NEED to not dwell on the negative. Even with my doubt and discouragement screaming the opposite, I NEED to carry on, regardless.
I need to remember that my life, my ‘small and insignificant existence’, STILL HAS PURPOSE!
Even if, in an overwhelmingly negative moment, the only purpose seems to be a clean bedroom carpet 😛

Dear ones, you may be afraid and discouraged. You may be feeling lost and alone. Sad. Angry.
I don’t know your circumstances, or what it is you have to choose from.
But please know this : if you are reading this, you are here for a reason. You have value and meaning. There will be plenty you cannot change. But please change the thought pattern that says that all is lost. I’m living proof that it’s not true.
If you need help, reach out! KNOW that despite everything, you are loved!

YOUR LIFE HAS PURPOSE!

(And now you know why my brother has always said : Nobody’s perfect, but some of us are closer than others, and you, little sister, are not one of them 😛 )