Ups and Downs...

My recent posts (and my life) seem to be veering rather wildly from one emotion to another. I have felt alternately: happy and positive; glum and teary; stressed; relaxed; chirpy; thin; fat…. All within the space of a few weeks. Mrs L texted me yesterday in her own inimitable style and pointed out that “There is a LOT going on with big rapid changes…that my chimp/sub-conscious is likely to be freaking out which is a) normal and b) to be expected”. She said she knew that I’d be trying to be positive and practical (which I am) but that I should acknowledge these big changes and allow myself to freak out about them (I’m paraphrasing, her text was much better).

Everything she said, I knew in theory but, until I read it from an objective (sort of, she is a bit of a cheerleader!!) source from outside my bubble, it hadn’t really sunk in.

Yes, I’m going through a lot at the moment:

1. A difficult divorce in which my feet are not on solid ground and a lot of the time I don’t know what is going on.

2. The divorce impacting on my financial situation creating money worries which will hopefully be temporary but which prey on one’s mind.

3. Forging a new relationship, which is lovely in one sense – that gorgeous, new, in-love stage – but is difficult in another as it has come later on in life when relationships seem to carry more weight than in one’s youth and very soon after my defunct marriage.

4. Fitting that new relationship into my old life of friends and family.

5. Forging new relationships with my friends and family as this “new” person who has stepped out of their comfort zone and done this extraordinary thing of upsetting her life’s applecart, apparently on a whim (and most inconveniently for several of them….).

6. Having to find a new place to live (which will be affordable and will take dogs) under time pressures and contemplating building a home with Richard in that new place.

7. Coping with a suddenly much more demanding job in the public sector where the threat of job cuts and wage reductions hovers over everyone like the sword of Damocles, funding for projects is scarce, support is non-existent and much, much more is being expected of me professionally.


Put like that, of course I’m a bit of a bleater at the moment. And of course my emotions are going to be changeable and fragile. I’m trying to be strong but also to ask for help when I need it. I’m leaning on Richard a lot and he has been there for me. But I do feel quite needy and fragile so seem to want more reassurance and extra “stroking” than I would normally need. I’ve tried to express this need and hopefully I’ll settle down and he’ll step up and we’ll meet in the middle.

And in the midst of all this I’m trying to lose weight and get fit so that I don’t pile on the lbs and so that I can successfully complete the Three Peaks Challenge in July. Maybe it’s a silly thing to do. Maybe I should just forget about it but I don’t think so. If you let the weight and fitness stuff go every time life throws some challenges at you, you just have a worse problem to deal with later and probably lower self-esteem with which to do so! So, at the very least I need to be implementing damage limitation measures. But always, being kind to myself and recognising that I’m not trying to be perfect and that my weight and fitness are not reflections of my worth they are just that, weight and fitness!

And my friends in real life and online have been great in helping me. I’m, once again, soooo pleased that I started this blogging business back in 2007. Wonder where I’d be if I hadn’t??