How To Start Over When You Can't See A Way Forward...

Disclaimer:  This post is not intended to be medical (or any other kind of) advice!  Please honeys, if you find yourself feeling as I have these past months, please seek help from your Doctor or other medical health practitioner, call a friend, family member or there are volunteer agencies such as The Samaritans, your local Church, so many others who can help.  You're never alone honeys, please reach out to someone x  

Hello Honeys 
I'm so sorry I've been missing for so long.  I really didn't mean to fall off the internet but that's essentially what's happened these past few months.  I've been feeling very low.  

Five words. "I've been feeling very low."  They don't come close to describing how I've been feeling dear ones.  For months now, everything, every little thing, has been such a tremendous effort and it's left me feeling beyond exhausted.  All the time.  A great, cosmic straw has drained all of the energy I've ever had, it feels like.   

Maybe whatever we've all been dealing with in the last 18 months or so, since the pandemic appeared, has been somehow magnified by being locked away in our homes?  We've all been kept away from our regular routines, from seeing family members and friends and for many, even from our workplaces (so many, including Hubby, are still working from home.)  

It has to affect us all somehow, all of this taking away of our familiar, our everyday, our coping mechanisms.  I know that it has done with me. 

I've a feeling this might be a longer post honeys, so why not go grab a cuppa (and maybe a cookie or two 🍪) and we can have a chat?  See you back here after the page break, ok? 

 

Welcome back honeys ❤  Do you have your cuppa?  Good, me too ☕ Why not settle back, put your feet up, get comfy and we can have a chat 💖 

I don't know what I can say about the past year or so. I keep trying but words really do fail me.  There have been times during the lock-downs that have seemed to me to make no sense at all.  

I've actually thought, more than once, that this must be what it feels like to be a very minor character in one of those really awful, low budget disaster movies you find while clicking through channels on TV in the afternoons.  

The movies where you can sometimes see the scenery/backgrounds move or the "boom mic" (that large microphone wearing a furry cover) keeps appearing above the actors heads.  For sure, I'd be the character staring up at the sky watching the approaching Papier-mâché meteor (there goes the special effects budget!)  Not a clue what's happening... not even listed in the credits at the end 😊

Except we're not in a silly TV movie honeys.  I so wish we were.  People all across the world have lost family and friends to this horrible virus.  At work, we lost two much loved co-workers.  I still haven't been able to process that I won't see either of them ever again, we worked together for so many years.  

I've had enough experience in my life of grief dear ones to know that'll change eventually.  For now though, I still feel numb.  Everything feels very unreal.  As if we really are all extras in that silly, low-budget afternoon disaster movie. 

So often, I find myself wishing the world could just go back to how it was before we'd ever heard of covid but I know it can't. No matter how hard we all wish it to.  So I keep praying everyday that everyone will stay safe and that it will just disappear as quickly as it appeared.  

Warning! Short moan (but no pity party allowed!) ahead 💖  

I'm blessed that isolation is my super-power honeys.  For as long as I can remember, I've been happy enough with my own company.  As a child I was forever to be found in a corner somewhere, curled up with a good book and with a small stack of other assorted tomes nearby, waiting their turn to be read.  Books were my friends and I was fine with that. 

For (too many) years now, the only time I routinely went outside our home each week was to go to work.  On rare occasions I'd venture out for doctors appointments.  Along with various chronic health conditions I have arthritis dear ones, both rheumatoid and also osteoarthritis.  The latter is in my spine.  

If they could make it all go away, I know that our wonderful GPs (and the Doctors I see at our local hospital) absolutely would, in a heart beat, but they can't.  So, I try really hard never, ever to bother them unless I'm really struggling.  Sometimes not even then.  

In effect this means I see them around every two to three months to have my bloods done and my blood pressure checked.  Even adding the twice a year visits to the hospital (during normal, non-covid times) that's not so many trips outside.  Since covid arrived I've been outside our home four times, all to have bloods done.  A taxi picks me up, takes me to our Doctors surgery, then another taxi takes me home again.

As I said honeys, isolation is my super power and normally I handle it very well.  I'm happy with my own company and I'm beyond grateful for the many blessings in my life but what I've never been able to handle terribly well, is change.  I'm not a fan. 

🎶 You've got to accentuate the positive...🎶

I will admit that at least one of the changes brought about by the lock downs and covid measures has been positive.  It's been wonderful actually 😍   

For our little "bubble" - which is made up of Hubby, our furbaby Jade & myself, lock down has meant extra, lovely, time together.  Hubby works long hours and added to his commute, well, Jade & I didn't usually see much of him during the working week (pre-covid,)  

Then of course Hubby & I would usually pass each other at the front door on a Friday evening.  I worked really late shifts every Friday night and then back in again by Saturday lunchtime until late again.   So, we really only had our Sundays together and I would usually be so tired from work that we couldn't do very much at all.   

So, as I said, one precious positive to be found in the lock downs, has been Hubby mostly working from home.  He's still working very long hours (longer than he did before even) and we still don't see him while he's working because he's in his home office upstairs, but we've all gotten to have lunch together each day 💖  Hubby says the commute is much easier and "bring your dog to work day" can be every day since Jade can just follow him upstairs and nap 😊 (mostly though she keeps her Mummy company downstairs, hugging me on the sofa, bless her💖) 

🎶 Eliminate the negative...🎶

Of course not everything has been great though honeys.  Here it is then, that (very short, I promise) moan.  As I'd mentioned in a previous post, I recently lost my job.  In the scheme of things, especially considering all of the other losses in the world around us, it's nothing.  I know that.  

To me though, that little minimum wage, retail position was a really huge deal.  Really huge.  We've lost my income of course, I didn't earn very much but it helped with our bills.  My wee job gave me a reason to go outside, it gave me a connection with the world and it gave me a purpose.  

More importantly though, it was proof that my chronic illnesses weren't winning the battle.  I had something they hadn't taken from me.  I'd been there for 15 years and I adored everything about my job.  I really did. 

When I lost my job, I fell into a depression. I don't use that word lightly dear ones.  I've battled depression for so many years, holding it at bay with lots of picked-up-over-the-years coping mechanisms, by counting my blessings every single day and when all else failed I'd go visit my beach for a while..  Then I lost my silly, wee part time job and none of that seemed to help so much anymore 💔

Not the end of a journey, just a change of lane...

Hubby said something very wise to me honeys, and he said it (as he always does) right when I needed to hear it most 💖  Don't go telling him I said this 😊 but he's a very smart cookie and sometimes has a way of seeing things that I wish I had.  

I had been trying to explain to him how low I had been feeling, that I just couldn't shake it off and he said it was because I hadn't grieved yet. He said until I faced what a huge change not having my job anymore was, and maybe allow myself to deal with it, grieve for what I'd lost, that I wouldn't be able to draw a line under it and then find something just as great to take its place.  

He said it wasn't the end of a journey, it was just a change of lane. Of course he was right, and I'd been far too close, and felt far too low, to see it.  

A change of focus was needed.  It hasn't been the easiest thing to do, and I'm still working on it, but I think I'm starting to feel a little more like my old self.  That conversation with Hubby led me to later sit and scribble down thoughts in one of my ever-present notebooks, and those thoughts have turned into this post...  

As the old saying goes honeys, "start where you are."  Sounds so easy, doesn't it?   

As I was saying earlier, isolation is my super power but what I've never been able to handle terribly well, is change.  Change has always scared me.  I'm a "happy with familiar" kinda gal.  Not many changes in my life have lead to anything positive so you'll have to forgive me if I don't run towards them...  

The only places I go seeking adventure is between the covers of a good book and generally, if change comes calling at our house I'll be the one hiding in the cupboard under the stairs because I'll know the world might be about to end 😊  So, if you're anything like me, even when changes are expected it's not always easy to cope with them. 

 

Life doesn't often give any of us a "heads up" or time to prepare for the knocks and bumps we all face along it's road and even if we've been lucky enough to have had some warning, there's often still a big ouch when whatever it is finally happens.   

Warnings or not then honeys, even silly wee Rosie's like me still have to accept any changes to our routines, avoid the panic, find a way to adjust and move forward.  

As with any other task though, it's usually easier to do if we break it down into steps.  Divide and conquer. Turn that lemon into lemonade and all those other inspirational phrases scattered about on Pinterest 😊

Take stock...

No matter what we're dealing with, we'll feel better, and cope better, if we know we have the wind at our backs.  If we know that whatever happens we're in a good position to cope with whatever it is, we've at least part-of-the-way already won 😊  

For example, in my case, my immediate concern stems, understandably I think, from having lost my job.  This reduces our household income. Will we still be able to cover our monthly outgoings, pay regular bills etc?  I also have health issues making my day to day life evermore difficult, they have to be addressed too but I can't concentrate on them while worrying about our finances. 

My way of coping with anything has always been to put my thoughts down on paper.  It doesn't even have to be very detailed, sometimes it'll just be a few words or phrases, but there's something about seeing things written down that's very reassuring for me.  

So, following this well trodden path then, I sat down with my notebook and tried to push my worries out through the end of my pen onto the paper.  I didn't discover anything earth shattering (back to that disaster movie again lol) but it did make me feel better.  Somehow, a little more in control (take that! papier mache meteor! 😊) and just calmer. 

I never know what'll appear on my paper when "free writing" like this.  Sometimes random thoughts, completely unconnected to the issue at hand (like an idea for dinner that night)  There might even be a solution in there, who can say 😊  It really doesn't matter at this point because all I'm doing is taking stock. 

Identifying any immediate concerns and then trying to calm my worries-too-much Rosie brain by finding a few possible solutions. The latest scribbles in my notebook clearly highlighted three areas weighing on me...  

Areas of concern 

1. Lost my job, loss of second income - it's been so many years since we last lived on one income, can we still do it? 

2. further loss of mobility/worsening of arthritis impact on spine - I know it won't be easy but I have to try to reclaim whatever I can of my mobility.  

3. Not sleeping - I'm barely sleeping at all 😪💤 so I'm just always tired.  I don't want to take more meds so would rather find a more natural way to deal with this sleeplessness.  I have a new lavender pillow spray and maybe evening yoga might help.

So, starting where I am then honeys.  I always try, when going back over what I've initially scribbled down, to find at least one positive, one action I can try, to add alongside any problem I've flagged.  

Sometimes it's not the easiest thing to do but it's so worth the effort because when I'm feeling stressed, worried or having to face difficult changes I don't like, having a visible reminder that there are choices open to us and to have some of them scribbled down right there in front of me, is a great way to push away that initial overwhelm.  A way to tell myself, everything will be fine. 

Note: I've never really taken time to think about it but if you quickly list any worries or concerns, do you find that you automatically prioritise them?  

Mostly, I find that I unconsciously write down issues in the order they're bothering or worrying me most, that makes sense I suppose since these are the issues that would be foremost in my mind, but not always.  So, when going over my pages of notes again, I've sometimes written numbers in the margin, to show the order I think it would be best to deal with each issue in.  

Dispel the panic and prioritise which issues to work on...

In my notebook then (and with tiny numbers in the margin, placing them in order of priority) I'd listed, as you saw, my concerns.  Naturally, I listed losing my job first.  

Yes, I know my health should always be first on any list of priorities honeys, and in an ideal world it would be, but losing one income (even the smaller of the two) is scary and if I know we can still "keep the lights on" it allows me to focus on my health without my (already stubbornly high) blood pressure going through the roof worrying about it.  

First then, I turned to a new page in my notebook and wrote out a very basic household budget, being careful to only include essential expenditure such as paying the mortgage, average food costs (lots of online shops this past year so easy to check) and the direct debits (for utilities, insurances etc.)  I know that weekend pizza for movie night might seem really important, but it's really not right now.  I only included essentials.  

Since the purpose of this mini budget was just to give me a starting point, to stop any panic in its tracks, it didn't need to be complicated.  Just two columns, everything coming in (only Hubby's salary now unfortunately) and then everything going out, such as all those regular bills etc.  

I then totalled each column and subtracted the regular outgoings away from the incoming amount.  I knew that if Hubby's salary can cover essentials (I'm so thankful it does) then, for the immediate term anyway, that was one thing less to worry about.  

Note: If you find your outgoings are too high or for help making a new budget or advice in lots of other areas, why not check online for your local branch of the citizens advice service or the money advice Service or any other similar free services.  Remember though that these agencies do offer advice but can't be held responsible for the results of any decisions made.   

Try to stay positive honeys. Easier said than done I know all too well.  This is where having a friend or loved ones help can be a real blessing. Someone to help navigate any choices that need to be made or even just to listen and offer advice.  

What's your happy?  

Where do you see yourself, in an ideal world?  What would make you happy? No, we're not talking a lottery win 😊  What do you need to have in your life to make it happy?   This really was the question that pulled me out of the very low mood I'd fallen into these past few months.

As I said earlier, my little minimum wage retail job was literally the only time I regularly went outside, other than rare visits to hospital or to our Doctors surgery.  It was where I had friends, where I had regular customers I looked forward to seeing, some of whom I'd been serving for years. It was where I was happy.  It also helped me to maintain a connection with the world outside of our home.    

So, where do I see myself, in an ideal world?  Back at work of course!  What would make me happy?  Very same answer 😊  Unfortunately, having lost so much of my mobility, that's not going to happen anytime soon, so I have to address it from another angle.   

Other than its social aspect, what my job gave me was a purpose.  Something to show up for.  That element is what I have to concentrate on regaining.  I need to find a new purpose. Something new to love, enjoy and pour my heart into.  

Set Positive (and achievable!) Goals

So, now that we've identified that we need to get from A (where we are) to B (achieving our goals) all we have to do is to break down the journey into manageable steps.  Again, I'll use my own journey as an example (it's not much but it's all I have and I'm happy to share 💗)  

Point A: Where I am: 

I'm still staying home "in my bubble" I've ventured outside to have my bloods and blood pressure done four times in the past seventeen months.  I'm unable to stand for any length of time, I need support to walk around our home (presently supplied by hanging onto furniture/walls/Hubby) 

I believe that my weekend job was acting as a form of physio every week, keeping my joints moving and since that was taken away over a year ago.. my poor wee body has seized up?  In all fairness though, the loss of mobility had been increasing over the past couple of years, pre-covid, so I can't lay all of the blame there. 

In addition to loss of mobility, general joint pain is also more severe.  I'm not sleeping.  I'm depressed, but thankfully starting to feel a little better than I've been these past months. I'm working on my coping mechanisms which have served me well in the past.  Mostly I feel rudderless, just completely without purpose. Wow, even I don't want to keep myself company after reading all of that! Sorry honeys x 

Point B: Where I want to be: 

I am determined to regain as much as I can of my mobility.  I did it before (although it was many years ago and the arthritis was less severe) but I have to believe I can do it again.  

I really need to work on my sleeping patterns because a body with a flat battery is not a body that can concentrate on her yoga. Last, but certainly not least, I have to find my new purpose! 

Finding those solutions and setting those goals...

1. Regain mobility:  

I do think this will require physio of some kind.  I can't attend the physio clinic at the hospital, not right now because of covid restrictions etc. I could though phone them and ask for advice and I'm going to do that.  

What else can I do?  There is of course my beloved yoga. I've never progressed beyond beginners level but I'll make that my goal again.  To be able to reach the level I had reached before.  

I can't stand for very long without awful pain in my spine but I could try to start over again, this time with seated or chair yoga.  I'm hoping that starting out with seated exercises will lead to my being able to move on to standing sequences again.  There are so many videos on youtube to follow and I hope that I'll be able to gradually build up enough strength to get back to where I was.  Baby steps, honeys. 

2.  Beat insomnia:  

For many years honeys, over 20 years in fact, I've had terrible trouble sleeping.  In fact the only way I can get any sleep at all is to have the TV on when I go to bed.  Eventually, my eyes get tired and I nod off.  

I even have a collection of favourite dvds which all have silent menu pages.  This means that when the movie or episodes (if it's a box set) finish and the disc goes back to the menu screen the bedroom is silent and sometimes that allows me to sleep for a precious couple of hours.  

I know how ridiculous this sounds, being grateful for quiet dvds, but when you can (too easily) remain awake for more than 2 days straight (not a talent I want to have but there it is...) believe me, you'll be glad of anything that can allow you to nap, even a little. 

How to solve such a deeply embedded habit, a coping mechanism I suppose.  I honestly have no idea honeys, but I'm making it one of my goals to try.  

Reaching for the TV remote when I go to bed is such an established habit.  Maybe I just have to swap it for another habit? Change my routine?  Maybe reading for half an hour or so before bedtime might work, it's what I used to do (many) years ago.  I stopped doing that when I fell asleep once holding a large, heavy hardback book that promptly hit me right in the face.  Ouchie.  Maybe some evening yoga then putting on my sleep mask and visiting my beach could help 😍  

I still have a little flat kind of speaker, designed to be placed under your pillow to listen to music or whatever when going to sleep.  Maybe I could try falling asleep listening to audio books again?  I did actually have some success with this but eventually went back to watching TV again.  Habits.      

3. Find a new purpose:

As difficult as regaining my mobility and retraining my brain to sleep when I want it to are going to be honeys, I've a feeling that finding a new purpose, a new focus for myself, might be even harder.  

My little part time job gave me somewhere I had to be, things I had to do.  A reason to go outside and be in the world.  Losing my mobility has taken that away from me.  At least for now.  I have to believe that that can change.  Baby steps honeys.  First I'll work on my mobility, then find a way to sleep like a normal person and then maybe somewhere along the way I'll find a purpose and not be the rudderless wee Rosie you see before you 😊  

To sum up...

Knowing where we want to be, and working out what we need to do to get there, is like creating our own map of intention honeys.  Making a deal with ourselves to find a way to accomplish our goals or solve any issues facing us.    

Yes, every journey needs to start with a first (sometimes scary) step, but it's only scary until you've done it.  More often than not, we'll look back and just wonder why we waited so long.  We just need to get started.  Maybe those changes aren't so scary after all 😊  

I haven't given up honeys, I think for a while there, I did, but enough now.  Time to give myself a (gentle) shake, be truly grateful for the blessings in my life and find another happy 💖

I'm counting my blessings and thanking my angels for their care 💖

There are elements of this new life I can't change, and I'll have to accept those and learn to live with them.  For instance, I don't think I'll ever get my much loved job back.  I'm praying though, that I'll be able to battle the arthritis again enough to regain some of my mobility. I might not get back to exactly how I was, but I can try 💖  

You know what though? This is how it would have been anyway.  The arthritis was always going to get worse, I knew that, I've been battling it for over 20 years and if I'm honest with myself, my very manual (clerks do far more than just go "beep" behind those counters) job had been getting a lot harder to do for quite a while now.  It was getting to be an issue long before covid stepped in. 

I just loved it too much to admit it and was far too stubborn to give it up. So, instead of being sad and hurt that I lost my little part time job, instead I'm going to be glad and grateful for the friends and the years of happy memories it gave me 💖  

Instead of moping about our home, I'm going to do what my dear Grammy always taught me.  I'm going to keep on counting my blessings and thanking my angels for their care every day 💖 

After I do that though, I'm going to make sure that I spend some time each day working towards my goals.  I still have a new purpose to find 😊  I wonder what it'll be?  Maybe I'll write that book...

This is an odd new world we find ourselves living in, honeys.  Having to wear masks, health advice changing so often it's hard to keep up to date with it, but I'm going to keep on praying that it will pass soon, disappear as quickly and as mysteriously as it appeared and until it does, that everybody stays safe and well.

Stay safe dear ones, keep smiling, be happy and I hope you're enjoying the gorgeous sunshine we've been blessed with all week.  Thank you so much for visiting and keeping me company, it means more than I can say.  Chat again soon, hugs always x