Maybe this is the most hazardous and dangerous adventure I have ever been on. I am leaping off to somewhere that I don't know, if you really questioned me I'd admit I should have done this ages ago.
Over the last few weeks it has often occurred to me that I knew something was up this time last year. The thing is life is not BAD it is just stressful and hard to work out.
Before my Mum died over ten years ago she was given less than a year to live, as the months passed and her "departure" got nearer I started to go slowly more and more insane. I was in no way equipped to deal with this. (Who is?) The way I dealt with it was A LOT of vodka shots with Corona chasers and disappearing into music festivals for the weekend to emerge with dilated pupils the size of dinner plates on Monday morning.
Those methods of "self medication" were abandoned nearly a decade ago but I recognise the emotional triggers and questions that come with upset and fear. I felt them early last year, and thought I could deal with it, my "emotional muscle memory" would know what to do. My recovery from destruction and misfortune has always been fast and good, but maybe there is a price to pay? What was I locking away to rear it's ugly head later?
When I was still a teenager I made a point of developing a positive mental attitude, I am sure it is essential. There a pockets of mental health and depression dotted around my family and I had no desire to end up there. Have I managed to avoid it? Or have I just messed it up even more? I am not surprised it has happened to me but I am certainly not going to let it rule me,
What I have learnt in the last 12 months is to seek the line between positive mental attitude and dumb denial. Getting smacked so hard in the same way made me stop and look at the cycle I always seem to set into, the only person who was ALWAYS there was me. I knew I should not blame other people for everything that happens (or does not happen) but was it really me?
I never found out how insane I would have gone. My Mum died six months early in May, the same month she she was born in, the same month #babybernie was born in ten years later. It is all very special. She was amazingly accepting of her condition, her calm faith and relationship with God was spot on. I crave that calm, maybe not crave it - aspire to it.
