I Got Lost... Again

I think I know why people don't keep New Year's Resolutions.  It has to do with `January.  I know this isn't a new idea, but rather a statement of well known fact.  Christmas and whole holiday season is such a high emotionally that we hit the New Year loaded with all of these endorphin releasing sensations that we make plans and have ideas of improvement without regard to the January Blues.

January Blues don't start, I have realised, on the 1st. They hit about the 20th. Christmas is down, boxed and put away for another 11 months. The weather is now becoming seriously boring with the cold, wet, and various choices of precipitation. The mornings are dark and the evenings are dark and all we have to look forward to Lent.  I often wonder if our friends in the Antipodes have July Blues.

Valentine's Day comes and it all starts to lift. Suddenly there is lots more light in the mornings and the evenings have a sunset at a far more sensible time...like when I'm home from work rather than at work teaching the last lesson. Nature creates a dawn chorus of birds outside my window. The weather is sending signs of easing up on the long winter. And I feel better.

I got lost about the 20th of January myself.  I woke up and I just felt awful -- physically and emotionally. I had had a serious riding accident nearly 2 years ago which crushed my left foot and ankle. After a brilliant surgeon and lots of ironmongry, I still have a complete leg. The pain however has not ceased. Now, I'm not a weak or "precious" woman. I like to think I am about as tough as it comes, but this really did me in. The pain lead to depression. I don't have time for depression.

I do understand depression in others and I am most sympathic about it. It is a horrible emotional imbalance that leaves you out of control and fighting with yourself. The feelings of self doubt and inability coupled with a mind telling you to get on with it and there is no rational reason to be feeling this way is a recipe for suicide. I get it. And I GOT IT. But I don't have time for it. I have a family. I have a business. I have people depending on me. I have animals depending on me. I have laundry depending on me. I have to be 100% all the time. The more I am not 100% the worse I feel. It wasn't so much a battle to get out of bed as a battle to get through the next hour. Some folks understood the situation but there was nothing they could do. To see my doctor on a non-emergency basis is a 6 week wait. I just had to fight my way through.

The fight became serious when things started to go wrong. I went to deliver a horse to its new home and on the way back to my yard I had an accident. The back of my trailer is now bent out of shape and must be replaced. Great. It was a stupid accident that shouldn't have happened. But I suppose that is why they are called accidents. Next my 4x4 died. The starter motor caught fire and I now own a very nice Range Rover Vogue yard ornament. I will get it fixed but the effort and cost is a bit much. Then there was the need to get new horses for the yard and I qualified for a bank loan...right up to the moment I discovered my passport and driving license was missing. After 25 years of banking with my bank, they suddenly don't know me and I have to produce all sorts of documents including the utility bill statements for the electric I pay by Direct Debit from the account I hold with their bank. ARGH! My beautiful husband steps up and produces all the required info and then I have the loan. But I lost the horses I wanted due to the delay (I do have some new ones which are fab and half the price so maybe it wasn't all that bad). The final piece was my mother died.

If you look back over this blog you wil know that my mother suffered from Alzheimers. It was awful to watch someone you love have their brain turn into scrambled eggs. I remember and now cherish the last moment when I know she knew who I was. It was beautiful and horrible. Now she is gone. She has been mentally gone for 5 years, but Mom was still there. Now she is not. And this really hurts. I know it is part of life and we all go through it, but it changes nothing. It doesn't matter that she was old (91) and frail, she was still my mother. Because I was a "late in life child" (trans: What the Hell do you mean you're pregnant? Who do you think you are? Sarah? [my father's reaction]), my parents were rather old when my children appeared. The children only have vague memories and photos of their grandfather. Two years after Dad died, my mother was diagnosed with progressive white vein dementia and Alzheimers. I see young people whose grandparents play a very big part in their lives and I am a touch jealous. My parents are together now and I hope that they are happy and not causing too much mayhem in Heaven.

It is now past Valentine's Day.  The days are getting longer and warmer. The rain seems to only happen 2-3 days a week instead of 5 to 6. I heard the dawn chorus this morning.  So rather than give up on my New Year Resolution, I'm just going to restart it. I've opened the pen and paper journal, taken a deep breath and begun again.  Perhaps that is what we all should do.  Accept when life just overtakes our good intentions and when the whirlwind we caught in slows down, not give up our ideas and dreams, but refocus on them.  Even when the sky is black, there is something beautiful to learn from the experience.

What did I learn?  I can really bend and not break. I am strong and capable. I need to love myself in order to be able to love and help others. If this means taking an extra hour to get ready to face the day, then so be it. Sometimes it is okay to be late and to be there fully. 

And tomorrow the sun shall rise and so shall I.  And I shall be thankful for the day the Lord hath given.

k.