Tag: life

No one to send to school

It is the first Monday in September. 

On social media there are photos of children in their clean and ironed school uniforms. They are standing still for the first photo of the new school year. There are remarks about how time has flown and how much has changed in one year. 

I’ve never noticed it before but today was unreal. Photo after photo. And then there’s me excited to be travelling again soon. It made me feel like travel is our baby. That with others around me chatter revolves around children and babies and with us it is what country or city is next. Is travel a distraction? Is that all it has ever been?

That may sound dramatic but when you start feeling like something is missing in your life you ultimately look back at choices to see if things could have been different. The truth is that no, travel, although an escape in my late teens/early twenties, is one of the greatest joys in my life today. It makes me strong, confident and the best version of myself. I am grateful to be able to still go out into the world as much as we do now and to have Mr W with me. 

Today I started feeling really guilty about the time I have spent travelling instead of finding a way to deal with my fertility issues. Hey guess what, if you had a baby six years ago, you’d be sending a child off to school today. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. But again, you question everything in your life when you are feeling particularly sad. What could I have done differently? Nothing. 

And that’s the truth. 

I hope when the day comes that I’ll show my child the picture of me in my uniform and tell them about my school days. I hope to take the picture of them on the doorstep as they take the leap into their scholastic life. One day I hope to share that photo with the people around me who have waited just as long as me to see it. 

For now I have no one to send to school. So I take the joy in the things I do have instead of those I don’t. I want to be mentally healthy for the baby I will one day hold in my arms. 

Because they care

Today I donned a blue dress. I’m not a fan of blue but it was a special occasion. 

A baby shower for my cousin. She is having a little boy. 

Hence the blue.  

The balloons were hung with care. The sandwich platters laid out just so. The sun even made an appearance. Do I like baby showers? Yes. Do I find them difficult? Also yes. 

It’s a reason to eat party food, which are just little bite sized morsels of foods of your own choosing, get together with loved ones and a chance to celebrate the future. Someone in your life is happy and therefore sharing that happiness is only natural. 

Today was no different. There was chatter and laughter. Quizzes and games. The games had us guessing the weight, name and arrival date of the baby boy. Even though when the event was announced I had been apprehensive about going, I didn’t feel anxious or upset by being there. By having time to prepare over the last few months, my feelings of insecurity around our own fertility was put on the backburner and I sat for hours with family enjoying the time together. 

As people slowly drifted out of the door to travel home, Mr W and I sat with my cousin’s wife and thier baby while the gazebos came down and the empty plates were tidied away. Baby Grace is 5 months old and so far I’ve managed to avoid the cuddles. It has to be said she is the smiliest baby with the most adorable chubby cheeks and so my trepidation about cuddles has nothing to do with her. I’m just very aware of being around baby’s and how it can affect my mental health. Nothing like a baby being in your arms to remind you that you don’t have one of your own. And then, she was in my arms. I didn’t crumble but by now my poker face is my real face. I’m getting pretty good at it. 

After everyone but us had left we stayed behind to chat. My Aunt got upset and said she wondered how on earth I had coped. Despite my insistence that I was fine she got really upset on behalf and it took a while to calm her down. In all honesty I hadn’t really felt sad until that moment. Like I said before, the time to mentally prepare for the day had helped a great amount. I was not however prepared to help someone who was sad for me. 

It is a difficult path to tread when struggling with fertility. If you keep it close to your chest you end up feeling alone. There is also the odd occasion when and if someone asks what the situation is that you’ll both feel awkward for needing to discuss it. Alternatively if you do tell those around you what’s going on, you open up the can of proverbial worms which can wriggle around at any moment. They should feel comfortable to ask how things are going whenever they want to. Unfortunately it can catch you at a time when you are quite happy ignoring the situation. It then brings the whole issue to the forefront out of the blue. 

So what’s the happy medium? How do we tell people so they are in the know and yet not have to talk about it when it’s the right time for them? There is now how. You can’t control it. You can perhaps ask to talk about it another time. But what if it’s a reaction like I had today, the sadness of tears. It almost feels strange to sit there consoling someone who is sad for yourself. I’ve thought about it a lot. Would I rather no one know? No, been there done that. Would I rather talk about it all the time? No. I need space from this reality from time to time. 

So what is the answer?    

Ultimately I don’t think there is one. I think as honest as we have been about our struggle is just how honest we have to be about our feelings when approached to talk about it. If today was a day I needed to ignore my feelings then so be it. If someone else gets upset I need to understand that too. If I need to scream I will. If we aren’t in the place to talk it is okay to say so. It all comes back to being honest and open. It’s the only way to be kind to ourselves. We told others to share a part of ourselves that is hurting. They ask because they care. 

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

Lucky

I’m finding myself lost for words.

Today 23 members of my family got together under a cloudless sky, huddled under a gazebo to enjoy food and drink together.

The BBQ was roaring, the music blaring and the laughter was carried through the space on the subtle breeze.

My two beautiful nieces ran around entertaining everyone whilst life stories were caught up on.

The sun beat down mercilessly and yet for the first time in weeks it wasn’t a bother. I sat and watched my family together and felt happy.

Solely happy to be a part of something so big and wonderful.

The family will be growing soon. It’s funny when you are young, you think you have a big family. I have 5 cousins which is relatively small. But when you, your two brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents are all in one room the space makes the family seem enormous. As time wears on, partners enter the mix and the numbers almost double. And then came the children. Now there are three babies to be born into our large family in the next couple of months. The brood is now getting very large.

New stories. New lives. New everything.

As we were driving home. I looked up and saw the big, beautiful moon and started thinking about all the people who too would be looking up at its beauty. I wondered if they had big families. Whether they saw them often. How different peoples’ lives can be for the better or for the worse when it comes to the families they belong to.

As we drove towards that moon I started thanking the big wide universe for the privilege of being in a family like mine. Not everyone has it. Not everyone acknowledges it. Not everyone takes the time to sit and drink it all in.

Whether it’s by choice or circumstance not everyone does or can. I’m just lucky.

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


Scars

They remind us of where we’ve been, what we’ve done and what we’ve lived through. Big or small; they all have a story. Real or unseen; they sometimes never heal. Nothing looks the same again now the rose-tinted glasses have fallen.

The tissue that covers the once exposed wound is like the denial you live in everyday; it covers the bad but still shouts out for attention. like a tattooist you gave them permission to cut into you, deep, leaving an everlasting mark on your history. On your being. On every hope you ever had. We can look at the irreversible scars as bars we are trapped behind. The lines we once crossed and can’t erase. The marks made we didn’t see until etched too dark to delete. We see the history on our skin everyday; play it though our minds interwoven with shattered dreams. I pull down my cuff, my sleeve is my silver lining. I no longer fear the past. The damage is done; it is not bigger than me. It’s as big as I allow it to be. The rain stops and the sun peeks from behind the smallest cloud. The rays nourish me, the scar isn’t as ugly anymore, it fades with the impending hope. We grow from our past. I am bigger and stronger than my past will ever be. The path we have led winds back and away. You can move forward.

They are the map of the past. Leading us into a clearer future.

Photo by Dave Watson

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

Cars everywhere

The memory of this writer is bitter sweet. I remember everything I want but not many things I need. I remember someone asking me what Snow Patrol meant when they sang ‘ let’s waste time, chasing cars, around our heads’. Its not integral to name the questioning person but it’d be nice to give them some kind of recognition for their inspiration. Its hard looking for it and when you have it even harder to put it down on paper, luckily enough I ‘knew’ the answer and share with you today my musings. For many music is a medium in which we find answers; in which we find entertainment on that packed train and in which we find ourselves. Our dreams and hopes. It helps us run away from the bad times and unite in times of good. A favourite song can help tell a lot about a person, mine being the one in question. A self proclaimed emotional masochist this song isn’t the best option, it tears at the soul and tugs on the heart strings. Struggling until resistance is futile and we sit in a pool of our own despair. On my other more resilient side is held the meaning I find more alluring. This song gives me hope about finding the one whom I can sit and ‘chase cars’ with. To my friend who posed the question, don’t you see? Don’t you all see, chasing cars can be anything; anyone you wish it to be. Chasing a dream you have. Its being with him/her and doing nothing. Having no words spoken and knowing all. Lying apart without touch and feeling everything. To be together. That possibility keeps me going on in this sometimes but very rarely mundane life. They, the person chasing that car waiting for you to join them could be on the platform next to you. In the same office. On the walk to a drink with friends. It only takes a moment and you’re hit. Smacked with the next possible ‘one’. Unpredictable? Yes. But isn’t it comforting knowing that until then you have the hope that doesn’t fade because everyone has their own car to chase after.

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/