Stress free & I plan on keeping it that way

August 26, 2017

It’s funny where life takes you.

I mentioned last month that I got sick. Really sick. I wrote during my weekend in Malvern how difficult I was finding things but the worst part of it all, the absolute worst part of me being sick… was that there was absolutely no real reason behind it.

I went for a number of blood tests, doctor visits, even the emergency dentist since I went through a week of not being able to eat and (thank God) all came back fine?

For real? Nothing?

The more they couldn’t say what was wrong, the worse I felt. And then they eventually told me that the only reasoning could be that I was in fact stressed.

Stressed?!?

I had just come back from holiday, we had just had an amazing time at the Eid festival, there was lots of great things happening but for some reason my body had chosen that moment to shut down. And then to top it all off, the weaker my body got, the more stressed I got. I ended up spending ten solid days on the sofa. Just me, the sofa, a blanket and every DVD under the sun.

I did nothing but watch hours and hours and hours of movies… wasting the days away. And as my body started building back it’s strength, my mind had started to freeze over. I had lost the will to do anything. No matter how much I wanted to get up and get back to my life, my mind had other plans.

I complained and complained and complained, poor Mo had weeks of me whingeing in his ear about how I had lost the urge to do anything but sit and stare into blank space. Even when I went back to work, it was like going through the motions but there wasn’t anything else that interested me. I could sit on the sofa and even feel too lazy to reach for the remote. That’s how lazy I had become.

All I wanted to do was sleep.

The last thing I wanted to do was go on a press trip to Sheffield.

It was going to be a weekend that required attention, required me to work, to socialise… was I going to be able to do it?

Turns out it was exactly what the doctor ordered. It was a weekend where we met some amazing people. We stayed at a fantastic hotel. And I felt all the great vibes and love that I have for my blog float back into my heart.

YES.

We only stayed the one night but we had an absolute blast, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, but the best outcome from this situation was that I felt like my old self again.

Once we got back I slowly started to get back to normal, it wasn’t full force like I thought it would be, I still had doctors appointments to attend and as it happens I did in fact have a simmering infection that was causing me to feel lethargic.

But as the days went on, I started to realise it doesn’t matter whether you’re lucky or unlucky, whether you’re well or sick… feeling happy is something you can choose to be. And you don’t have to be happy all the time. It’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to feel down, it’s ok to struggle.

Over the last few weeks I’ve sat with family, friends, loved ones and I’ve heard tales of struggle, of loss, of heartbreak and the most important lesson I’ve learnt is that this is life!

It’s not perfect. In fact it can be a real b*&%@ from time to time.

But there are some really amazing people in the world ready to share stories, brighten our day and make us laugh.

And sometimes when you least expect it, things can start to fall into place.

I watched the movie Collateral Beauty recently, loved it despite the bad reviews. To me, it highlighted the burdens we can carry round and that only by acknowledging them or facing them can we move on.

I think that’s what I needed to do. Maybe thats what the stress came down to, the stress of all the drama we’ve had to deal within a year. Let’s face it, there’s been a lot going on. When you’re in a job watching the news all day, every day, it’s very hard to not let it affect you. We’ve had major elections, two here, one in the US, France, wars both new and old and everything else that happened in between.

I had always said to Mo, and to others, that you should always do what you want to do. And I think I’d reached a point where I didn’t know what I wanted and I had to figure that out. Luckily just addressing that I had hit that point was enough, for things to change.

I started a new job this week! I made a difficult decision to say bye to a group of colleagues I had grown to love in the hope of setting myself a new challenge. I wasn’t sure whether I’d made the right decision at first, but one week in and I know that all of this fell into place for a reason.

I’ve been working in Cheshire for six years, it’s a beautiful part of the country and I’ve met some wonderful people over that time, some who are very special to me, but my attitudes and opinions conflicted massively with the area and I craved the conversation and opportunities of being in a busy hub. Moving to a new job wasn’t just about a new role in the office, it was very much about a new environment.

I am finally –

FINALLY

based in the big, bad city of