Friday 3 February 2012

When life throws you eggs...

Sometimes life throws a few eggs. Sometimes it throws so many eggs that before you know it you are lying on the ground, covered in eggs with a gang of cats licking at your skin (and my cats wouldn’t think twice, they will eat anything). But we all have a choice in how we deal with the eggs (and the greedy cats), and my choice will always be to get up and do something.

Being proactive when all you want to do is sit around in your pyjamas and cry while watching Toy Story 3 (is there a more unexpected tear jerker? I think not) is not the easiest of paths to choose. But it’s when you are faced with the big challenges in life that you really find out what you’re made of.

With much sadness and regret, last week the man and me decided to part ways after 13 brilliant years together. My life went from stable to uncertain in a split second, as I lost everything I had dreamed and worked for my entire adult life. Poof. But I choose not to focus on the loss of a dream, but to instead use this opportunity to reinvent myself, make way for new dreams and focus on the positives (I’ve seen Toy Story 3 a bazillion times anyway). And most of all to take this time to teach my kids, and remind myself, that there is always a choice.

The mind is the most powerful and dangerous tool we have at our disposal and sometimes it feels like we have no control over it. I have given my mind its fair share of liberty over the years, allowing it to wander freely and take me to the darkest of places; places that I hope never to have to return to again. But the fact is, we all have free will, and we can choose to fight back and let it take us somewhere more special than we had ever believed existed. It might not be a fair fight, and there might be times when it seems like being happy ever again is impossible, but you can choose to go on, one foot in front of the other, not for others, but for you. So at the moment, when I have little of my old life left to grab onto, I’m trying to focus my mind and channel it to take me to a good place, a positive place, and it’s that paradise on the horizon that is keeping me going.

Whether we have made a bad decision and put ourselves there, or whether the eggs have come flying out of nowhere, we are all free to choose how we cope with things. It’s up to us to decide to walk into the sunlight.

Life can get pretty dull when you have everything you want, there is no need to try, you don’t need to push yourself, and there is no reason to. But when the tough times come, and you think all is lost, it’s a rare and beautiful chance to prove to yourself and the world that you can face a challenge and be victorious. I’m not ready to be eaten by the cats, I don’t care whether I’m 34 or 74, I won’t just lie down and get licked.

Today is the first birthday of this blog. A year ago I was bumbling through life, not really knowing where I was going, and I think that’s evident from the first post I made. So much can change in a year, for good and for bad, but one of the best things in life is that all those good and bad things are open doors to a new world. It’s up to you whether you decide to take yourself to somewhere fantastic or not.

You might think you’re backed into a corner, and you might think that there is nowhere to turn, that nothing you do now can change the hideous situation you’re in. But there are always options, you just have to make the decision.

Omelette, anyone?
                                                  
A little thank you…
I want to take this opportunity to thank all our wonderful family and friends who are loving us and supporting us through this difficult time. A very dear friend (who has faced more than her fair share of tough times) recently told me that good and beautiful things sometimes happen when it seems most unlikely. And one of the most beautiful things to come out of all this has been the reminder of how lucky we are to have so many wonderful people looking out for us. All is not lost when you have so many people who care.

But most of all I want to thank the man, who is the best friend a girl could ever hope for. xxx