I found myself listening to the birds singing their evening tweetings and was suddenly aware that my eyes were leaking. The massive panoramas of beautiful vast places are easy to feel a sense of awe about. A sense of spirituality. I think that we all find this in our day to day, generally without even thinking about it. This world is a place filled with possibility, and we are people of much curiosity.
It is seriously easy to assess our time with negative things, to mark off the milestones with the disappointments and hardships. But what if we marked off our time by the things that have amazed us, by the things that have elevated us. That would be better.
I went to university when I was twenty-five and made a conscious decision not to share any of my sad stories. Before this, I had sort of carved my personality around them. It wasn’t that I was always unhappy, as there were definite ‘up’ times, but I didn’t understand myself well enough to be able to maintain that for extended periods of time. So sad stories became something of a theme. However removing all my sad stories, it transpires, wasn’t enough to make me happy. So I began to make changes.
For me, change wasn’t an all overnight thing. I have the deepest admiration for those who can make decisive cuts into their lives and have the tenacity to stick with it. So from my mid-twenties, changes have been small.
I think that the purchase of me new rock boots marked a new era (aged twenty five). They are massive, they are striking, they are happiness in the shape of a boot. I stand over six foot when I wear them (the platform is intense!). However the boots themselves are utterly arbitrary, but it’s how when I wear them that’s important. And I feel amazing. The same applies when I dye my hair. My hair when I was small was a rich chestnutty auburn, but has faded up over the years. And as such, I occasionally put a bit of colour in it. My favourite would likely be a bright post box red. The feeling that I get when I change my physicality, be it through different clothes, hair or make up, gives me an instant inherent confidence, I feel like the person that I am meant to be.
In understanding the link that my physical self has on my mental state was empowering. But it didn’t change the basic way I was feeling, it could provide a short term boost, but nothing that could be sustained (I now understand why some people obsessively clothes shop!). Then after my daughter’s dad left, things started to change emotionally for me. I learnt who I wanted to be. This was the first time in my adult life that I had been single for a sustained period of time, and I also had a three year old to take care of too. It was scary, my Mum’s support was invaluable, and I coped. I developed a strong circle of friends around me, people that I could genuinely rely on, which although I had epic friends before, I acquired more! Through these beautiful friendships, I learnt so much more about me. For the first time, I could see my strength. And from that position, I started to see beauty and my place in my world.
The birds are still tweeting.
Map Point. What changes have I made recently?
Shiny journey 