These are a few of my favourite things…

Hello! I recently asked on my social media what I should write about next on my blog. I had a few suggestions – thank you!

One suggestion gave me a bit of a giggle to be honest; the suggestion was along the lines of ‘a day in the life’/’hobbies’ and it got me thinking of that scene in Bridesmaids where Rebel Wilson says “At first I did not know it was your diary. I thought it was a very sad handwritten book.” Because that is what a day in the life may look like for me most days at the moment (at least while I am working through my complex  trauma in therapy).

A day in my life right now is; get up, get ready, go to work, come home, read, hang with Graeme and Forrest, read some more while drinking Ovaltine, sleep. There are variations at the weekend where I am more social and on therapy days but that is generally it. Stable. Routine. Sounds boring doesn’t it?

I wonder sometimes whether I am missing some big secret, like everyone else is leading this exciting life and I am just plodding along. But this is so not true. I am not missing anything. I am exactly where I should be.

Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of stability in my life. I had drama, trauma, lots of upheaval, etc. I think that this has left me with a sense of unease when life is steady. I am waiting so much for the tables to turn that I am probably (definitely) guilty of flipping the tables with self-sabotaging behaviour just so that I am not in that state of limbo any more.

There is a big secret though. A badly kept secret, actually. Gratitude and appreciation.

This brings me on to what a few more people suggested I write about… ‘What makes me happy’, I interpret this as things I am grateful for as showing gratitude does immediately lift my mood by a little or a lot.

So, channelling The Sound Of Music, these are a few of my favourite things (to be grateful for);

·       Graeme – as a person and for the life we have built and continue to build together. He teaches me so much about love, life, forgiveness and compromise. It’s important to me not to take that, or him, for granted!

·       My best friends – I am a very fortunate woman when it comes to friendship. The men and women in my inner circle are amongst the best people in the entire world.

·       Forrest, and all my other furry friends. Life is better with animal companions around.

·       The privilege of therapy – and my therapist herself.

·       My freedom.

·       My health.

Honestly, the list is actually endless when I start thinking about it and it makes it impossible for me not to smile at the thought of what is good in my life/ in the world.

We look around and we see mass shootings, children in cages on borders, no deal Brexit, global warming warnings (and that’s just very recent news!) and think that the world must be falling apart. Well, I do anyway.

I look so long and hard at the big picture and all the bad in the world/ in my life and forget to drill in to the little things. The things like;

·       I am free to be who I want to be – including whatever gender indentity, sexuality, religion that feels right for me. Not everyone has even half of those privileges.

·       My life is safe – I am generally under no threat of attack. I have a home, a stable job within a company that respects me, a wonderful fiancé, great family and friends… I am safe. Stable is a privilege.

·       I can read and write. I am allowed to read and write whatever I want.

·       I can drive and I am allowed to.

·       I am loved and I am capable of feeling love.

Reading those back, they aren’t even little things. They are huge. But, I take them for granted.

This post/ these lists are not rambles designed to make me or anyone else ashamed of having mental health issues because ‘we are so privileged and have it so good’. Mental Health issues do not discriminate, we know this.

I am just showing my appreciation for  the big and small things that bring me joy – from the beautiful plants and trees so perfectly designed to bring me joy and give me oxygen to the fact that I can make contact with any one of my friends or family any where in the world within seconds using this device I am holding in my hand right back to the fact I can go home and lock the world out whenever I want to.

I am privileged and I am grateful.