Hello there internet people.
Been a while since I wrote one of the posts, it was last year in fact. The year has been a long slog of increasingly frustrating circumstances, punctuated by lovely moments and reasons for hope. It has been one of the hardest years work-wise in a long time and I will be honest, it’s been rough.
Outside of work, there’s been medical worries across the family, our recent addition to the family unit (Wilma the WTF Dog) has had a rough go of it, to the extent that the vets know us by sight now. The vets however have been lovely, so there’s that. Our recent trials seem to be levelling off, only fueling the belief that more shit is coming down the pipeline. What next?!? Has been the family response to almost all news we have received. It’s been a rough year and we’re not done yet.
So why post now? What prompts this little bit of time-wastage? Well I’ll tell you. I’m still here. With trips to A&E for both boy and dog as well as the MIGHTY Rosie and a dozen other things besides, I have stayed upright. There is a version of me, from not too long ago that would have buckled under all this. There’s a me that would have retreated into myself, or reacted very differently. There is that version of me, but I am not that version. At least not anymore.
I have weathered much of the storm of this year and it has been and continues to be hard. I have had moments of worry and stress that have moved towards the anxiety and panic attacks of old, but I have done alright. My son was at A&E (SuperSam is fine, but not the best day I can remember) and I was able to cope. There was a crisis with the dog (again, long story short she is also okay) but I was not only able to cope, but be the calm voice that kept my boy from freaking out. Both times I had used the phrase “It’s not okay now, but it is going to be okay.” That’s a bit of a platitude and those that know me know where I get that habit. But it was truly what I believed and truly what ended up being factual.
It’s not okay right now, but it is going to be okay.
I think I just became and optimist. When did that happen?
Maybe it was at the point where I stopped trying to survive and tried to live. Surviving isn’t enough, you have to live and that it what I want. I want to think well of myself, live in a nice place, do nice things with my family and write for pleasure, not to clear the demons out of my head. I want these things for me, I want them for the people I love, hell I suppose I want them for everyone. So how do I get them? What steps to I need to take?
I don’t know all those steps, I suppose like most people, I make things up as I go along. Fortunately for me, the MIGHTY Rosie and I are King and Queen of plan B.
This year has been hard on multiple levels and the strife isn’t over yet, but I will not give up, nor will I lose hope.
It’s going to be okay. For many of us it isn’t, but it will be. It will be better than this, we might just have to fight tooth and nail to get there.
I have been fighting for 5 years and more and I am done yet.