A new Twitter writing dare...

Oh dear I've found some new writing challenges on Twitter from @storybandit, including this one 

We dare you to write a 199-word story that includes the following words: scream toddler metallic glazed failure #writingdare

well obviously now I am back in a writing mood I can't resist, so here's what I came up with. It didn't quite go the way I thought it would but it was interesting to write ...

There was a time she would have screamed in outrage, thrown herself on the floor and had a full toddler tantrum fit.

But now the medication gave her face a glazed countenance. 

She was revered as one of the success stories here at Sunny Brooke. An oh so cheery establishment where problems were dismissed and swept away by the popping of pills that kept the residents numb.

Her eyes unfocussed and the world passed by. It was easier that way.

Only she’d been getting restless for a little while, surreptitiously hiding the metallic tasting tablets in the pot plant behind where she sat for dinner.

With fascination she monitored her own little science experiment. For weeks the plant showed little ill effect.  However there was a renewed spark growing within her, a sense of something stirring. 

Then one day she discovered a dead leaf lying like crumpled brown paper by her chair. Stooping she bent down to retrieve it, turning it casually to dust between her quivering fingers.

It was time once again to embrace the idea of being a failure. It was time to see if she could still scream and put a voice to her growing disenchantment.

Learning to Laugh Again

For some time now I have noticed that I am laughing more and more. Others are noticing it too. The dark clouds of loss and depression are abating. I’m certain it is not just a result of the anti-depressants or even a stabilising of my overactive thyroid, there is a much deeper joy that I have managed to tap into.

Being a Christian I call it the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings lots of fruits, as they are called in the Bible, and JOY is just one of them.

I am still a work in progress but I have reached a plateau of contentment and peace where the joy bubbles up freely.

It is an understatement to say that I have had a very tough couple of years; my unexpected journey has taken me through the deepest valleys of despair. I have pioneered this foreign land constantly tripping and falling but with the help of friends, family and God I have picked myself up and persevered.

On my travels I have carried a sprinkling of guilt at being able to start things afresh but then I’ve hit a barren patch of ground littered with the frustration of being stuck in a rut.  Irritated at not having my fair share and compensation for all that has happened.

All finally building to this point in time when I feel at peace, satisfied with what I can and have achieved. I am finding my own way through this emotional maze, picking up the tools I need to survive along the way.

I am learning to laugh again – I have the old Sarah back. The bubbly Sarah who’s full of fun and great company.

That's not to say I don't cry anymore, just the other evening tears sprung up from nowhere as a memory reached my heart. But when I look into the mirror now I can see that my smile has at long last reached my eyes not just my lips.

At my last counselling session we reviewed how I was doing and I was let loose with the crayons to draw my emotions.

I had to draw my journey...

In the centre of the paper I drew a black rectangle representing the dark room where I was when I started the counselling process. On each side I added lines sticking out like a floor plan of my dark prison and these were the doors that had been unlocked and opened.

All around the blackness in the centre I drew flowers in beautiful colours, this was the potential I was reaching out towards and the beauty I was beginning to see in the world again.

When I’d added enough flowers and leaves I decided to transform my black box into a dancing girl. The doors stuck out at appropriate angles and I drew a head with wavy orange hair.

Well blonde hair with grey bits wouldn’t have looked as colourful as I felt and I was certainly the girl dancing in the middle through the flower meadow.

I then tried to make her dress blue rather than black and if I had paints rather than crayons I would have obliterated all the darkness but maybe sometimes you need the shade to emphasise and appreciate the light.

At the beginning of the year I made some new year's resolutions, ten altogether, I have just checked up on them and number 10 is “LAUGH  LOTS!” I have always known it is an immensely important thing to do. It makes you feel better.

Whatever you are facing today look for something that will at least make you smile, chuckle or best of all laugh out loud. It might not make your problems disappear but it certainly help along the journey.

Perhaps this picture will do the trick...it shows the madness in my head!

Dancing in the Flowers - self portrait

Emotional Leakage

While away at Scargill House last week we had a film night and watched Johnny English Reborn.

He is a spy of the highest calibre (not!) and trained in all manner of secret agent techniques including not cracking under pressure or giving away crucial information.

However just the mention of Mozambique causes him to remember an incident he would rather forget, his face contorts in a way that only Rowan Atkinson could manage!

These movements are recorded by MI7's very pretty behavioural psychologist as she taps into his subconscious to discover what really happened on that fateful night the president was assassinated on Johnny’s watch.

She calls his reactions “emotional leakage” - physically displaying thoughts and feelings you are trying to keep hidden.

I think I’ve been having my own “emotional leakage”, two people independently have told me I sound depressed from reading my blog or words to that effect. I’ve lost my sparkle.

My attempts at bravado and making light of things is clearly not working as well as I hoped. I have tried hard to be positive even when I had a go at being a pessimist.

Maybe I need a break from writing or maybe I should stop this blogging altogether it’s no longer helping like it once did.

To be honest I don’t know what will help any more, I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel whatsoever. While other people’s lives move forward I feel completely stuck.

It’s almost like I have travelled in time to a future date when I am widowed and I am waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with me. When I am in my seventies being a widow won’t seem so strange. 

It’s as if 25 years of my life have disappeared and yet I still have to live through them in slow motion while I wait for the boys to grow up and become independent. And I have to be both mother and father to them too.

Today on the advice of a friend I started taking the anti-depressants again. I was taking St John’s Wort as an alternative but forgot to take them away on holiday with me and now I feel all out of kilter. 

But I don’t want to be the girl who has to take a pill every morning forever more but maybe in this topsy-turvey time travelling existence that is what will see me through. 

I may not write for a while (or I could be back tomorrow – who can tell?). I need to somehow find my sparkle again without it I am truly lost.

Hanging on by a thread

Well after writing something hopeful on Thursday morning I kind of crashed again yesterday.

On Thursday afternoon I went to the first funeral since Andrew’s last year.  I generally make it a policy not to name people on my blog but I’m going to make an exception with Vic.  He was a husband, father of four, grandfather and great grandfather and also a great friend to many.

He died at the age of 83 and had been ill for several years steadily deteriorating in the last few months.   Vic was a gifted speaker and leader in the church as well as holding down a full time job in the probation service.  I will always remember his sparkling eyes and ready wit.  Those sparkling eyes remained even when his speech deserted him, it was through his eyes he communicated.  I saw him a few days after Andrew died and Vic’s blue eyes held so much compassion; he didn’t need words to express his heartfelt sympathy.

His funeral was held in one of the local Methodist churches and the last time I had been to a service there it was Andrew’s dad’s funeral, Vic was leading it! 

It’s no wonder so many emotions were churned up as I embraced another widow and keenly knew her pain.

Maybe this post should be back in unravelling-edges but today I wanted to revisit my Goldilocks poem which I wrote a year ago. 

 

Sometimes my grief seems so much more painful now.  Yesterday I was aware of its black tentacles clasping me tight, tears came welling up and were squeezed out.  I felt suffocated, debilitated and overwhelmingly depressed.

I thought turning the calendar over to December would help, just as earlier in the year I thought a much needed holiday would be the answer.  The truth is I will never completely recover from this and I didn’t believe that a year ago, even six months ago. I thought one day I will get over this tragedy.  Now I know I just have to learn to live with it.

However much I want to write about the gloom and doom, the words were running through my head all day yesterday, there is always a bright spark.  Writing really does bring out the best of me.  In the end I guess it matters very little who reads this it’s given me an amazing focus and helps far more than the anti-depressants.

This morning’s hope came as I was driving oldest son to tennis.  There appeared to be a smudge in the sky, almost like the vapour trail from an aeroplane but the line was too curved and came straight up from the ground.  Not the usual trajectory for an aircraft.

As I stared it became clearer.  It was a faint rainbow almost imperceptible against the bright blue sky.  There were so few raindrops on the windscreen it didn’t even warrant the wipers going on.

I turned the corner and the arc became brighter, sweeping across the entire sky.  The watery colours getting brighter.

I’ve written about rainbows before so many times and they never cease to amaze me and give me hope.   

Sometimes there is nothing new to write about you just have to hold on to what you know is true and what you know has been there all along.

That little spark of hope, that thin thread of truth, the joy of a smile and glint of understanding in someone’s eye.

I hope you find yours today.  Why not tell me about it and we can hold on to it together…

Inappropriate Music

Last month while I sat in the doctor’s waiting room they were playing The Carpenters. 

                         

Now I am a fan of Karen Carpenter’s beautifully mellow voice.  We had a neighbour once who played her album very loudly with the windows open and it provided a pleasant accompaniment to an afternoon in the garden.  A bit of “Please Mr Postman”, “Jambalaya” or “Calling Occupants” would have gone down a treat while flicking through the out of date obscure magazines.

However I was treated to “Goodbye to Love” and “I Won’t Last a Day Without You”.  Hardly appropriate listening for a grieving widow stopping off for her monthly supply of anti-depressants!

It’s a good job the tablets are working and I could giggle about the musical selection with my GP when I was called in to see her.

Andrew and I used to do hospital radio together and we used to joke about the tasteless songs we wouldn’t play.

How about “The First Cut is the Deepest”?   Or our favourite inappropriate song, scoring for both title and band name, “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight” by the Cutting Crew?  Just what you don't need to hear while waiting to go to theatre!

Karen Carpenter was still warbling today as I went for my check-up.  I walked out to the melancholy lyrics of “Solitaire”, another prescription in hand – I think I just might need it! 

 o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

By the way the background picture isn’t lights or anything to do with Daleks or anything else Dr Who related.  Those were the guesses so far on my facebook page.

Here’s more of the photo – have another guess!