Saturday 3 August 2013

Fear is a friend that’s misunderstood

This is not baking related but it explains the last three months of my life. It might even help someone else who is going through the same thing.

Nothing will prepare you for the moment where everything you’ve built comes crumbling down.  Why me? Did I do enough? Did I do too much? The more I tried, the less it worked.

Break ups.  Devastating.  We’ve all been through them and we can all empathise and sympathise.

Once the reality sunk in, I reacted like I was very ill.  As if I had a 24 hour bug and the only thing to do was to get it all out and be left with nothing.  I wasn’t ill though.  But my body reacted like I was.  I couldn’t breathe.  I had moments of sheer panic where I just couldn’t be alone.  I couldn’t sleep.  I cried endlessly.  I lost half a stone.  I was experiencing stress and I always knew in psychology lessons at school, that given the choice of the options: fight or flight, it would always be fight.  Why metaphorically run away and deny?

I locked myself away.  I saw the light of day only when I needed to or when I saw my friends.  I didn’t go out drinking like people tend to encourage.  That would have ended in tears, literally.  I saw my friends and family quietly; we talked about it over and over again, like the same song on repeat.  Forming various flow charts in our heads to try and understand. However many paths they led me down, the end result was always the same.  Powerless. 

I have grieved like this was a real bereavement.  That person is no longer in my life and can never be in it again.  Too much has happened.  He is circa 2006 – 2013.

I gave my relationship postmortem what it deserved.  Time, understanding and respect. I took the time to listen to my head and my heart no matter how conflicted they were.  However, should I have seen it coming? Were the signs there? I just wanted it to work - that’s all I knew.  Nothing like this is logical and straight forward, however much you want it to be. 

What have I learned in this brief three months? Not much as yet.  I am the same person now as I was six years ago when all this begun.  My fundamentals never change.  I always work some moves ahead, like a game of chess.  I like to know where my life is going or at least working towards it.  Some say this is controlling, I prefer ambitious.  My fundamentals is my personal gravity – essential to just being.  What would I do without them? They are my benchmarks.

I have got stronger and wiser from this experience and I now realise I have some serious courage.  I was told I was brave, “I’m proud of you”.  Are you kidding me? You’re proud of me in the state I’m in? I didn’t understand.  But it’s because I had the guts to listen to my intuition, take control and call time on my relationship that could never work.  I had to say goodbye to my first love who I wanted to live out all my fundamentals with.  My gravity was our gravity.  But life isn’t that logical and you don’t always get what you want.

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