4 years 5 months

The tide has turned

A huge pressure seems to have lifted. It is one of those things that you get used to. The weight hasn’t actually eased, you have just recalibrated. For as long as I can remember I have had that ever increasing weight hanging on my shoulders. Great responsibility at young age + motherhood in a less
than ideal relationship + coping with the fallout +new relationship and more children + at times crippling poverty + Brain tumour + caring for family + Mum’s death and taking on caring for Dad + Brain surgery and recovery + Study + Dad’s death.

We are at a stage now in our lives where we can just be us, together, and separately. We can be comfortable while doing that and for that reason if no other, we can enjoy it. Now my responsibility is to continue my life in whatever shape that takes. The world has turned on it’s head and I find myself in the last few weeks in a dizzy haze of bliss.

I have, as you know, been ill since the first week of January this year. I have finally shaken the chest infection. The current course of action is to try and repair the damage from 7 months of coughing up lungs. There is significant damage to my rib cage and surrounds. There may also be damage to my vocal cords, which will be investigated in the next few weeks. In spite of that my heart is light and I think I am possibly the least stressed and most happy that I have been since I was too little to have any clue about it.

I have picked up with study. I am going slowly and picking up some shorter course work. I am trying to cover a number of bases with it though. I am also not trying to push so hard.

I have in recent weeks picked up my camera and felt a genuine interest in photography again. I have been tending to my lithops (living stones) and delighted in watching them grow.

I had a conversation with a lovely lady on the bus the other day. She talked about her life and her family. She is 73, bright as a button and I have no doubt a force to be reckoned with. She was married to her first husband for 20 years. The ended the marriage amicably and had just taken that amount of time to come to the decision that they really truly just didn’t fit each other. Her next and current marriage was to a man 20 years her junior. Her sons were around the same age as her husband and they have continued to have a wonderful life together for the last 30 odd years. She told me a woman had read her palm when she was younger and told her that our lives are broken into three parts and that no one has a perfect three. There is always going to be struggle of some kind in at least one of those three pieces. She told me laughing that she is glad she got the struggle out of the way earlier in life so she could enjoy the rest of it.

Oh, 73 is the new 21

She told me I had a pretty face and that it hid a lot of the life I have lived until now. I told her, if I had a pretty face in spite of it all, it is because I have an amazing husband, my youngest son is a wonderful young man and I have a support system unlike any I have had before.

Before I went off and had that hole bored in my brain, I removed the negative people from my life. I realised that they were just sucking the life out of me. There were the ones who never had a positive word to come out of their mouths and those who created drama because they needed to be centre of attention. I knew that I needed to have a support system while I was recovering. It has come full circle. I have been in a pretty rotten space for a while now. I was getting sucked into other people’s drama as well. It is harmful. I greatly appreciate all of you who have stuck with me through all of this. I’m sure I have been a soul sucking energy sink at times.

I am reading up on my next bit of study and preparing for yet another course starting the beginning of next month. I am looking forward to the COGNO ASM and to meeting so many wonderful and inspiring people. I also look forward to meeting some more of my ‘brain buddies’ from around the world.

As I continue to recover from my 7 month illness, I am working towards the Twilight Bay Run in September. I promised I would push my Dad's empty wheelchair in the 5km.

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Be well.