A review of 2010 for Me

“You are the sauce to my spaghetti” (Unknown author) so thank you x

(Picture from http://blogchef.net/spaghetti-sauce-recipe/)

This year has seen great highs – my graduation, the cessation of counselling on my terms (not because of outside circumstances), a magical Christmas in the snow with hubby and son, the bigger things amongst other little ones along the way. There were also things that seemed so bad at the time but were really blessing in disguise – the withdrawal of a promise of professional help and support for my binge eating which led me to a new counselling source that led me to a thoughts breakthrough, and my surgeries which, whilst painful, taught me some valuable lessons, particularly about gratitude, which also led to the cessation of counselling.

This year brought allsorts of people and ideas into my world that have touched my thinking and contributed to allsorts of changes. I was grateful to hearing of:

• Julie Chimes (and her power of forgiveness) on national radio and her words of wisdom and support I have since heard. Julie survived a near-fatal stabbing – any one of several wounds could have been fatal on their own – but as she was being stabbed and her life was in the balance, she forgave her attacker and since that act, found the strength to live and move on spreading words of forgiveness to others.

• Alastair Hignell and his message that “Life is for Living”. Alastair was the guest of honour at my son’s speech day in July, being an old boy of the school. I didn’t actually meet him, but the message of his speech was that life is a fully participation activity, that to succeed, you have to first try, to do or risk something, so that you might succeed rather than avoid and always fail. He has MS and initially found the diagnosis difficult having been a busy sportsman, playing rugby for England and cricket for Gloucestershire in the 1970s. He recently had to give up his career of commentating on rugby union matches but rather than focussing on what he could no longer do or what the future might bring, he focuses on the moment and what he can do now – living life to the best of his ability. And that, with things that were also happening, resonated with me, having previously seen life as being only the happy moments in which I momentarily lived but felt weren’t my real life, rather all the bits and the journeys that led to and included those destinations and forks in the road. Alastair said that he actually thought that MS has been a blessing for him because it has allowed him to see how brilliant people are and experience such kindness that he wouldn't otherwise have seen.

• Mindfulness – I’m still relatively new to this, having always previously dwelt in the past, but my counsellor, Guuy (to whom I am also grateful) said something that resonated with all of this. I dwelt in my past, thinking that it kept me safe, protected me from further harshness, when actually I was a prisoner, not living in the here and now. I used to think that I had to go over everything, analyse every lesson that could be learnt from it all, in order to forget and move on. I felt that I couldn’t move onto, because there was still something yet to learn, to distil, condense and that way the problems would become smaller. Like a bowl of muddy water, I felt I had to keep stirring, keep remembering so that I could write it down to forget, rather than just letting it slow down, settle and let the silence in-between hold my gaze. I was so wrapped up with trying to reduce the mud that I forgot some things float, and some things, no matter how hard you try to alter them, fight against them, they will always sink. Holding onto the wreckage initially (some 20 years ago) allowed me to survive, the buffeting waves seemingly working against me, were actually taking me away, letting me survive, drift away from those mad, bad times, but inevitably the current does quieten. I was too occupied with holding on to see the present shore or that the water was now shallow enough for me to put my feet down and drift no more. Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment, using techniques like meditation, breathing and yoga. It helps by teaching you to be more aware of your thoughts and feelings by observation, as a way to manage them better rather becoming overwhelmed by them. I suppose I was holding on as I thought they defined me rather than it being my response to them, my onward life despite of them, which really defines me.

• Mentions in despatches also go to the following who I believe will help even more in the next year coming: Patti Digh (author of Life is a Verb, Creative is a Verb and a life coach), Melody Ross and her Brave Girls (who have the knack of writing about and making things I need to hear or see at the time I need them), Traci Bautista (an artist and author who lives her life in full colour) and Tangie Baxter (a digi-artist who wrote the Art Journal Caravan programme for 2010 and whose 2011 programme I have also joined). Acknowledgements and gratitude to my Blogging friends and followers, Facebook friends and family (the list isn’t exhaustive as my memory’s hopeless, but special praise goes to Audrey, Joanne, Laura, AnneofAlamo, Cathy and Dixie for continuing to welcome me out of myself), to Christine for always being there even when I was quiet, to the continuing inspiration of Brian Kennedy and John Barrowman, as people and through their music and philosophies to life, and finally (I know it sounds a bit little an Oscar speech but I mean it sincerely, and when am I going to make such a speech otherwise? ;) ) to my hubby and son for their unstinting love and support. I’m sure there are others whom I (for my imperfection) have forgotten in word but not in my heart for their deeds – sorry - but thank you to all of you for your help in my continuing to be a jewel shining through xx

As a review, this is working out to be quite long but this year has led to a sea change in my attitudes. For 2011:
• I hope to work on reducing my anti-depressant medication (maybe even come off it, after 12 long years)
• I will lose the weight that I have again gained (although I have kept below the 17st barrier I set myself as a limit not to breach ever again, which is progress :) ), and hopefully keep it off finally, and
• I will live more for, and in, the moment rather than waiting in the in-between for better, with less fear, and more belief in me.

I leave you with a piece I wrote a few New Years back:

Wishing You a New Year

Here's to a New Year,
A year of beginnings or ends
Of possibilities, not disasters,
Of meeting new friends.
For some it may not be happy
But I wish positivity to all
And may you find it unexpectedly
In places you thought you knew well.

A "New" year's resolutions

(Sometimes you can't see the wood for all the trees...)

Prepare to meet the new me – a work-in-progress, but emerging…

I’ve known the highest highs, where each moment is magical, the smile is not just on your mouth but on your whole being. I’ve also experienced days where you believe that you will never feel the sun again – the dementors in Harry Potter sometimes seemed a bit too real. But this year has been better and here’s to the next.

I’m going to free a bit more my inner artist – to create with less listening to the inner critic. I am inspired by “those who ain’t afraid” (and aspire to be like that) – my dearest friends, my closest family, those who are able to see all the colours of the rainbow even in the blue and who know that there is light in the tunnel and at its end, even if it is the smallest candle, just as long as you remember that you have the ability to light it along the way. I am going to be, more, and exist, less, and be gentler on myself.

Here’s to the “new” year.

2010 - A summary of my (Facebook) Year

Sorry - in Memoriam Sandra

When I was at secondary school, I had a best friend called Sandra. She was the first person to sit next to me on my first day there in my first lesson, Maths. I had moved to the area just after everyone else's first day at secondary school, so knew no one and was the new girl, just days after the first term started. I was sat at the front as everyone traipsed in from an assembly I hadn't been at - all the form filling etc for my start at school - and as the rows behind me filled up and the fingers pointing and hushed whispers started, I wondered if anyone would ever sit down in the seat next to me, but she did and we became friends.

Sandra was kind-hearted and sharing. She lived in the same village as me although a few miles away and she had two younger siblings - a brother and a sister. I once visited her house but didn't go again, looking back, I think, because I felt, and was made to feel, embarassed by the comparative riches we had compared to her family- their house wasn't dirty or anything like that, but the atmosphere was estranged, felt but unspoken rows brewing under the surface and I didn't feel welcome, particularly from her dad, but Sandra came to our house quite a few times and we listened to records on my stereo in my room. We spent most of the first year at school together and then in the second year, classes were streamed for ability and I was in the top sets and she wasn't. We still saw each other but our paths were starting to take us away, although we did go on a school trip to Greece for a week, sharing a room, and the adventure.

I went to sixth form college, Sandra got a job, but it was with her and our then boyfriends that I belatedly celebrated my 18th birthday at our local club. We kept in contact - my parents divorced, she rented her own house with her boyfriend and she came to see me leave my mum's house when I was 22 and I moved to Malvern, 200 miles away. I had an address for her, but my cards were no longer replied to and the friendship fell a bit by the wayside. I wrote to her mum with an invite to Sandra to come to my 1st wedding in 1990 as I was unsure of Sandra's address by then but got no reply. When I married again in 1995, I tried to get back in contact to invite her then but failed. I now know why...

When I took up family history, I looked up school friends to see who had married etc and Sandra was one I looked up. In about Nov 1994 she married, but sadly her death is also recorded that month - perhaps a near-deathbed marriage. She was 28. I discovered this in 2002.

I don't know what she died of - I'm guessing either cancer or problems with her lungs as she has a childhood weakness there, although I remember being shocked that she smoked, but then both her parents were heavy smokers. I also don't know where she was buried, as since that discovery I have beaten myself up, unsure of how to contact her parents. I can only put this out on the ether and hope. She was in my dreams last night, which why this poured out today. I'm sorry I didn't persevere with staying in touch and I'm so sorry I didn't see you off on your last journey, I feel such a poor friend in the end. It will always be a regret, but at least (as the tears run) I have shared her with you now. I have only one friend now from my schooldays - we exchange Christmas cards only now, but that's something - I got fed up with others, of me being the only one who was in touch. I still send out far more cards than I ever receive back, but a Christmas list of over 100 cards out did become too much in these straitened days. Anyway, this is my cyber flowers in memoriam to a kind soul who had the courage to sit down by me, one day.