Reasons to be Cheerful – A Sign…?

Not too much more than a year ago, I wrote this post.

At the time, I was going through a pretty rough time, and it stings a little to read myself back, trying to put a brave face on it and make jokes, pretending everything was ok and pretending to feel optimistic. In that post I said that people see rainbows as a symbol of hope or luck, but scoffed that I didn’t really believe in that stuff, and brushed it off with a flippant comment about them being pretty to look at, so cheerful all the same. Well, I saw another rainbow today. I still don’t really believe in symbols or luck to be honest, but I do believe in hope, so this time I chose to take it as a sign, because sometimes hope is actually all there is left. Who knows if that first rainbow really was a sign. What followed within weeks was both the worst, and then the best, year of my life, so I’ve got no way of knowing if it was a good omen or a bad one, but if anything it signalled change, and if there is one thing I need right now it’s for something to change, so I’m hoping this rainbow will work it’s magic for me once more.

You see, things did a bit of a flip flop for me again this week, and as life tends to do with such irritating frequency I found myself crashing back down to earth from that nice little wave of oblivious happiness I’ve been surfing on for the last 6 months in a spectacular fashion. So here I am again, seemingly back where I started and wondering what I did wrong to find myself here and how to get back up again after everything that felt worth getting up for has been snatched away so alarmingly suddenly. The last few days have been dark ones, and I’m pretty certain there is only worse to come. Everything inside me is screaming to just give up and bury myself under the covers for the rest of eternity. But we can’t, can we? We have to get back up again, brush ourselves off and hope for the best, because otherwise, what else is there? I can’t do the things that just a week or so ago I would have been doing to cheer myself up, because those things are no longer an option to me. I can’t bring myself to blog, because all my photos are just painful reminders right now and I couldn’t feel less like shopping (I KNOW!!). Instead I’ve had to distract myself by cleaning up some of the mess that caused this in the first place and force myself to do the things I’ve been putting off for so long. Starting running again, chasing up my drivers licence, listing things on eBay, dress alterations…. all seemingly trivial insignificant things that I never realised were so important before. In distracting myself though I’ve managed to rediscover little pleasures I’d long forgotten about. I forced myself to go out for drinks when I really didn’t want to, and chatted with strangers who made me feel like a worthwhile person again. I took my Niece to a theme park I haven’t been to since I was a child. I giggled to myself listening to her singing in the shower before bed and wondered when she started growing up so quick. Not too quick to cuddle up for a bedtime story though, and I don’t think I’ve read her a bedtime story since she was a baby. I went and drank a coffee in a cafe and read a book. Nothing distracted me from feeling broken entirely, but they all helped, and that in itself made me realise that a lot of that change is possible, and it’s up to me to do it on my own.

Part of why I’m where I am now is because I allowed myself to let life take over and was blind to things going on around me, and don’t we always realise that when it’s seemingly too late to change it? The one thing I want now is out of my control, and while that’s heartbreaking and really unfair, all I can do is focus on the things I can change, and hold out hope that the rest will come later. It’s not looking likely that things will turn out the way I want, but until I know for sure I’m doing what I seem to have become an expert at over the last two years – putting a brave face on it and cracking on and basically not giving up, because I’m a stubborn old cow when it comes down to it really, under this weepy, whiny facade I seem to have been hiding under lately, and I may be many unworthy things but I never give up on what means the most to me and what I know is right, no matter how much I’m pushed in the opposite direction.

Last time I saw a rainbow my world came crashing down around me, but then someone helped me build it all back up again. I can do that again on my own I guess, but I really don’t want to, so this one better have some silver linings for me somewhere down the road. I can hope at least for that.

Love,