Tag: friends

One piece at a time

STOP placing your sense of self worth in other people’s hands. 

I saw something online during the pandemic that completely resonated with me and yet has taken me this long to fully incorporate into my life. It was a simple phrase. At first I thought it sounded quite bitter. Something a narcissist would say. However, as time has gone on and I’ve recalled it in times of sadness or doubt, it’s helped me look after myself and my own. My little circle of people. The people I take a picture of my garden for. The ones I let know that I’ve arrived at my destination in one piece. A funny memory that has popped into my head. A joke I’ve heard. Good news or bad news. 

‘It’s funny, when you quit texting first, you realise who was putting in all the effort.’ 

Let that marinade for a while. 

Are there people in your life whom, if you didn’t reach out first, you’d ever hear from? It is a scary thought and truth be told I wouldn’t necessarily stop reaching out to people to test them. They’re not lab rats and there are always plenty of situations that cause us to be flakey and forget other people for a little while. 

I’m talking about the ones who hurt your heart. The people who you try and try with and still get nowhere. Each time you may approach it differently. Wonder if you’ve done something wrong when you are ignored or cut short. Wonder if that is just how they are and why you’d want to be around it in the first place. When you see it happening to a loved one, who builds up such an image in mind of a yearned for relationship, only to have it crash around them you naturally want to help. You step in and try to play the matchmaker only to find the same attitude directed your way. It’s heart wrenching. 

Only today I encountered something similar. And then snap. The missing puzzle piece snaps into place. The picture is complete. All the edges have aligned. And yet the image is foggy, blurry and confusing. No more trying for people who don’t want to be involved, no more hoping they’ll say yes this time and no more excuses. It’s time for a clearer picture. 

I believe it’s age or experience that has made me sit up straight and swear to myself that the no bullshit approach is the one for me. Remember, the ‘he’s just not that into you movement’? The guy takes the girl on a date, says he’ll call and never does. Then the girl’s friends all swarm around with speeches about how ‘of course he likes you, he’s just busy’ and ‘he’ll call any day now’ or ‘maybe you’re just too pretty for him.’ I mean, how crazy can it be to be honest, he’s not calling, because he does not want to. And the same goes for friends. The same goes for family. 

It is not easy to be blunt. It’s often misconstrued as being a horrible person when you are. I’ve only ever done it once. To my beautiful friend who juggles her dating life with more than a little fear and trepidation. I’ve seen her confused, angry and hurt more than a dozen times in as many years and seeing her hurt more than enough times has led me down the path that leads to Blunt-town. And the truth is, it isn’t an attack on her. It’s an attack on babying her. And leading her to more heartache. 

The truth is, when dating, we build up a mock up of what we want a date to be. Then we build up a mock up of how the next one will go. And soon enough a whole relationship is plotted in our minds because it’s only natural to do so. The fact is, you create for you, to suit you, the other person has their own image and future puzzle pieces. You might have them cut out to fit into your picture, but you might not be in theirs. Maybe you’re sitting in a temporary pile waiting to be picked up. Or maybe discarded. It’s sad when you build up an image in your head only to have it ripped up. 

However, how can this be the other person’s fault? Unless you rolled out the image, pointed at the gap where they fit, and say, so what do you think? I’m unsure as to how they would know what is expected. I’ve been in that situation, I put my heart out there, he watched it jump out of my chest and took a further 3 months of my life to give me it back. It was bruised, exhausted and shaken when I put it back in my chest but if I had been honest I knew when he didn’t nurture it from the start that I could have saved myself a lot of grief. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. 

There is a limit to how many times we can build a picture of expectations up before it lays in tatters and we question why we aren’t good enough. Why don’t they want us? I wish I could reach through this screen and comfort you. Because you are enough. You do not need to chase the people who aren’t chasing you. You need to let go of those expectations. Focus on the puzzle pieces that fit into your life by choice. Not by hammering them in with a closed fist and telling yourself it works. It ruins the beautiful aesthetic of your life. Do you one of the most beautiful things that can happen when you stop chasing, you get messages and calls and they light up your day. Ring ring, this person is thinking about you. Ring ring, answer please, they want to talk to you. Ring ring, you matter. Ring ring, you’re enough. 

Playing devil’s advocate is a long running role for me. I’ll always try and look at things in a multitude of ways just to cover all the bases. But there’s an endgame when it comes to matters of the mind and heart. If your mind is racing through scenarios of why and what if and you can sleep at the end of it. Have at it. But if at the end of the race, you’ve found no consoling scenario, your night was sleepless, your tears are streaming and your heart hurts. You are the only puzzle piece that takes precedent. You are wonderful and you deserve everything because you are enough. Take a step back and realise not everyone thinks the same as you. Not everyone has the same image, picture, puzzle or expectation. We are all built differently. Some of us are laid back, easy going, like those wooden puzzle pieces with the plastic pins that fit into the wooden board. Some of us are intricate, with 2000 quirks and stories. You get the 3-d puzzles that just won’t cooperate. The double-sided dilemmas. And the box with the missing pieces. 

You can’t control the outcome. You can only control how you handle your expectations. The beauty is that unlike a puzzle, life is an ever changing picture. You don’t have control over it and the truth is if you did it wouldn’t be as beautiful. It would be forced. The picture is there waiting. We just haven’t seen it all yet. But piece by piece, one at a time, it’ll all fall into place.    

Photo by Dave Watson

Please check out his work on https://www.instagram.com/davewatson_uk/ or at https://davewatson1980.picfair.com

Validate you

When I get together with friends, I’ll always have news to catch up on. That’s the way it works right? Work. Family life. Love. Loss. The bad and the good. More often than not, I have a small collection of stories I have to share. As the saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved. Joy that is spread, just multiplies that joy in my opinion. Not only does getting together with loved ones entertain the soul it cools a boiling pot of emotion. When I find myself ready to tell my story to friends, I have a small voice in my head telling me that I’m self-indulging in their kind words, hugs and nods of understanding. The small voice grows louder as I approach their front door, as I accept a cup of tea and it even starts screaming as soon as someone says, ‘And how are you?’. I often wonder if my tales are important to tell. Why should my problems and woes command their attention when their problems should go first, or be spoken louder or longer than my own?

During the pandemic, during its most terrible and confusing moments, I felt unable to share how very bad my anxiety had gotten. People were dying, people were grieving, kept apart for months at a time wondering when and if they’d see their loved ones again. How did brain rattling anxiety compare? I felt anxious about catching covid, I worried about my loved ones and the world became a very scary place. I honestly thought people would band together more, I sometimes thought of the stories from WW1 and 2, about milkmen that still delivered to houses that were more rubble than homes. In such big ways, people did so much to help others, the children in the school playground singing loud so the nursing home residents next door didn’t feel alone is just one amazing example. This shouldn’t be dimmed by the few that were selfish and were fighting against the rules. But they were out there, and when you have anxiety you’ll often see the one bad person in a crowd of amazing people. 

It’s all too easy to be consumed by how personal feelings affect us when we are shut inside our own homes with no view of the outside world. It is all too easy to text someone and try to convey feelings, make a phone call and try to explain, but ultimately it’s when a friend is in front of you when the mask may slip and it becomes all too obvious that there’s more to the story. Unfiltered, unshrouded truth. And yet there’s a barrier to be found when you feel that your problems are tiny compared to others. Invalidation of feelings.

It was during 2021 that I started exploring the concept of how invalidating your own feelings can be dramatically damaging to your mental health. The most selfish way of explaining it is this: only you feel how you feel, it is happening to you and no one else. You can’t feel how someone else feels and vice versa. 

The more rounded way of describing this is likening it to a physical injury. A papercut is tiny. It slices the skin in an irritating way and stops hurting almost as fast as it happened. Now imagine the first time you got a papercut, you’d think what the actual hell was that! Now imagine the hundredth time, maybe you shrug it off, maybe you don’t. Maybe you catch it later on, snagging it and reminding you of the irritation. Maybe you forget about it and cook dinner and get some lemon, chilli, salt in it. Each situation produces a different response, from different people. Some people are more thick skinned than others and some people bleed like from a tap. 

A closer look at pain, makes me think of pain management in hospitals. They don’t see someone rolled up on a stretcher with a broken leg and categorise it as a 5/10. They ask each person. ‘On a scale of 1-10, how is your pain?’ This is down to how differently each patient can handle pain. If you were to punch me right now, I’d cry, from shock, from a new trauma and then the pain. If you were to punch Mr W, well first you’d have to run and second he’d shrug it off. We have vastly different histories when it comes to that kind of treatment. So why is it more acceptable in society to understand an individual’s tolerance to pain and not understand someone’s sensitivity to their own mental health?

I’ll say this, the pandemic opened up conversations about mental health and for that I am grateful. I’ll also be one of the first to tell anyone out there that their feelings no matter what. Invalidating your own feelings in favour of someone else does not push your feelings aside and out of the way, it pushes them down where they’ll rise to the surface again to harm you once more. It is compassion that dictates the invalidation we put upon ourselves. Where this can be a kindness to others you are doing damage to yourself. And it needs to stop. Once you start to look on others with more kindness than yourself, pushing the nurturing smile to your face and the care into your eyes, you are taking it away from yourself. Believe it or not, you have enough in you to care for both yourself and others. By looking after yourself and validating YOU, you’ll find yourself a mentally stronger person and in a perfect position to be stronger for others. Win win, right?

I know there is so much pain in this world, so much lost, so much feared and felt. I hope we learn to love as fiercely as ever. To protect. To nourish. To heal. Starting with ourselves first. Giving ourselves the changes we deserve. That the world deserves. You’ll never know how much you can change the world, until you change your world. Protect your mind. Nourish your feelings. Heal your heavy heart. Validate you. 

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” ― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Photo by Dave Watson

Please check out his work on https://www.instagram.com/davewatson_uk/ or at https://davewatson1980.picfair.com/

Where did all the planes go?

We saw friends tonight. Ate beautifully home cooked food and laughed and talked for hours on end. Inevitably chatter turned to travel and we shared our plans for Scotland. When we mentioned that we’d be away for our 4th wedding anniversary, two jaws hit the floor. It is indeed shocking how fast time flies. Even though we accept it to a certain degree, I have to remind myself and others that we did lose two years due to covid. 

Two years in and out of lockdown, watching the world tears itself apart in worry and fearing lost time. The days turned into weeks which turned into months and people both stayed home and lost their way. Their routines changed. Their lives were static. Horizons unknown. We learned just how much we take for granted in this world. A cuppa at your grans. An impromptu road trip to the seaside. Walking into a shop without queuing or wearing a mask. And actually being able to buy what you need. Hello toilet paper! 

Christmas. 

Birthdays. 

Hugs. 

We are guests on this planet and this was not felt more than when the world fell silent.  Roads that were once so immense in their sound, fell silent and the skys were empty. But we heard the wind rush through the trees and the birds singing. The seas were without their splashing visitors. But dolphins were seen enjoying the waterways of Venice with nary a tourist boat in sight. We spent months in masks, scared to be closer than 2 metres, the very air felt dangerous. But the earth inhaled a deep fresh breath as emissions reached an all time low. Mother nature continued without us, making it seem all very trivial and humbling.  

Beautiful scenarios were shared throughout the world. A date between two neighbours on opposite rooftops in New York. Fathers and mothers on furlough watching their children grow without interruption. Enjoying our gardens and realising their worth. Balconies full of instruments raining down their tunes in Italy. Happy Birthdays sung over video calls. Families coming together with zoom quiz nights. Friends reaching out with a listening ear like never before. The roads of London were alive with singing and the UK were clapping for the heroes in blue. The sun shone for weeks on end and it felt, at first, like a giant bank holiday. Relationships were missed but stable in their state of hibernation. It forced us to stop and evaluate. 

Some of us could stay at home all day, working from home or being paid to stay still. We forgot what it was to be surrounded by people. We learnt the value of home. The value of everything. To pass the time people cultivated new hobbies. Learned a language. A new skill. Got crafty. Planted life into their gardens. We glued ourselves to the tv. Both for entertainment and escape and then updates on where we stood in an ever changing world. We appreciated the once mundane and lived for the silent security.

Once restrictions were lifted there was a picture circulated online of a large, healthy, glossy stem of bamboo, left to grow without human interference. It grew next to neighbouring stems that had felt the destructive power of the human hand. Words, letters and symbols had been scratched onto their surfaces. The glossy surfaces were gone, left tired and victimised. 

If we learn anything from this image it’s that mother nature not only survives without us it flourishes. 

Still waters became crowded again as noisy roads drowned out the bird song and slowly the skies welcomed the planes among the clouds. The world stepped into a new era. Fears of leaving lockdown were shared. How do we return to normal when normal no longer exists? We cried. Those of us who felt that lockdown had forced us into a much needed rest period wondered if we could or indeed wanted to return to our busy pre-lockdown lives. 

We questioned whether there was more to be found in life than the rat race and the constant to and fro nature of socialising and ‘living’. We had become comfortable prisoners in our homes. So what new world was outside? Could we nurture a new world? A world built in lessons learnt and a new appreciation.

Ultimately the world changed. It changed because we had changed. Priorities switched. Countless conversations took place about never ever taking anything for granted again. 

Three examples stick in my mind of moments I felt an almost alert presence of living in the moment. 

Dancing without the help of alcohol at family celebrations, once shy feet were running to sway, shimmy and swing. Fear no longer ruled this person. The fear slept in the past where feet were still and music was quiet. 

Travelling to Italy on a postponed trip. The city of Florence was quiet. Winding streets were ours for the taking. We were smugglers of dreams. Relishers of hope. Venice was sleepy. St Mark’s square was oh so alluring in its empty splendour. The Grand Canal was the main character and shone its shimmer proudly in between the few boats dancing along its waters. We were humbled by the circumstances and grateful for the opportunity. I wonder if we return to Venice, whether it’ll be the city we know or whether the returned crowds will have changed its face to something unrecognisable from our 2020 trip. Appreciation lived in this new world, where greed and entitlement once reigned. 

Drinks with friends in the garden. Restrictions meant only garden visits were allowed. Blankets, chairs and hot water bottles were packed. Umbrellas taken just in case. Gin was drunk in favour of food. By the bottle. Laughter ruled the day. And the rain came. On and off. And on again. It did not matter. The umbrellas covered us. The water would evaporate. We’d lost enough time. The dodging of raindrops did not matter, we learned to laugh and dance in its reality.

My only hope is that as the planes return, our eyes are not lost among the clouds. That our feet will dance without hesitation. Our loud laughter is heard again. That life is grasped and treasured and we remind ourselves that perhaps it wasn’t two years lost, but two years of learning and change. That the scars left by the world healing are a map of where we’ve been and where we find ourselves now. New paths built out of what once was. That in our learnings we have become kinder to ourselves. Not rushing ahead but taking the time we need to adjust. Taking as long as we need to navigate out of the old and into the new. The very personal, nurtured worlds we have created to protect the self and soul.