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Unsticking Susie

I found my old knitting project and I’m revisiting the ‘how to’ of this intricate knitting design. The pattern is called feather and fan and its just beautiful, and also complicated! I have created half of the scarf , and I have another half to go. And here’s the dilemma, I have another quarter completed and another quarter to go. The pattern sits there on the needles and beckons me, and yet I am afraid to begin again, as I’m sure I will mess it up! It is fun and exciting to feel this desire to begin again… and yet also there is a ‘tightrope’ moment coming, when I begin the first stitch. It is fun to feel my enthusiasm stepping forward again, and yet the nerves are here also as I don’t even know the stitch pattern and will have to teach myself all over again. I have spent many months leading up to this moment and now I am beginning to feel like I can start over. It is a process that I’m finding helpful to physically and emotionally go through with this project. It is helping me to feel my way through it, rather than just utilising my logic. Logic often gets in my way and stops me in my tracks. When I ‘feel’ into something and let that be my guide, then the confidence grows and I feel more capable and competent to begin. And then the ‘beginning’ becomes a possibility and I tentatively more forward.

I believe this is a really good ‘recipe’ for living different areas of my life this year. I had felt ‘stuck’ for so long and the process of reigniting my passion with knitting is helping the process of ‘unsticking’ Susie. I rejoice in that statement. I am in the throes of unsticking the stuckness of me. Woo hoo! And going through the process of reuniting with my lovely knitting project, is totally transforming me from the outside, inwards.

For me, the creation of this scarf is so much more than just a scarf. It symbolises the process I have been through to get me to this point. I had the slightly sticky years, the stuck years, and now the resolution. I had just re-ignited my passion for knitting, then the lockdowns happened, and now I am picking it all up again. And yes it is a tentative process and I am scared of messing up, that is true. That’s true for most areas of my life. And yet I am willing to give it a go. And I’ve already asked fellow knitters for help and been gratified that they’ve taken the time to help me a little further along. And so I will practice the pattern again, remember the stitches and go forth and attempt that which I started four years ago. With a caveat that having fun in the process is what really matters! I forget that so often!

This ‘recipe’ demonstrates that I can pick up things and move on. I can deal with endings of things like my knitting teacher retiring, and then I can find another way to make things work for me. And the support, may have changed, and I have changed too. And yet I’m still on the journey. And yes I’m talking about knitting here, and yet I can identify my life and ‘me’ in this. Obstacles happen, stuckness happens, and yet the stuckness did not last forever. And when I feel into something I want to create, then anything is possible, including a lace scarf. I am living that possibility now. Long live knitting, thank you for coming back into my life. You’ve demonstrated that I can move on.

I hear you

I have been taking the meds for two days, and I am impatiently waiting for this to be gone. I say ‘impatient’ because I am afraid that its going to stick around forever. It is very hard, if not impossible in this moment to believe that it can be gone. The emotional element according to Louise Hay, my guru on everything emotional about the body, is that I am holding on to anxiety and finding it difficult to release the old patterns of relating to myself and my world. In certain ways I would agree with this, and yet I have made strides towards my own independence from the ‘me’ that has lived this life. I have become so much more than I was. Being able to own my healing journey and truly believing that the choices I have made recently, will and are, bearing fruit. I have taken myself to the next level of caring and I’ve undertaken to find answers to the physical issues I have faced for the last eight years. It feels that intellectually I ‘get’ this and yet physically the ‘feelings’ of this have not been heard by this body yet. Its like I am skating the edge of the things that the body needs to feel. What would it take for her to feel safe. To be able to truly release that which is ‘old news’ and embrace the newness of hope that I have finally understood what she has been attempting to tell me for the last eight years? I wanna say to her ‘I have finally heard you and now I am doing the things that will make you feel better’. It’s like I am attempting to dialogue with a child that has gone rogue and refuses to listen, because she has felt unheard and abused for so long. And I guess she is still scared and wary about my motives. And she still believes that at any moment I will turn away and act unloving. Wow this reminds me of how I have felt in the past. Love being switched off, like a tap, and feeling abandoned by the important beings in my life. It is like the body has been trapped in a time warp of being five years old, and it is hard for her to feel that anyone cares about what happens to her.

This feels rather a big ‘uncovering’ and I have had to sit here and catch my breathe at what I’ve just laid witness to. It’s like the body mistrusts the grown up me, because I was that child that felt love was turned off and on. Can she trust that I will stay tuned in and loving, even when she is in pain, like now. I have a tendency to want to turn away from the pain, rather that to be ‘with’ it. I guess that is my inbuilt mechanism of wanting to get rid of the things that I find unbearable. And I’m hopeful that now I have uncovered this, I can find some compassion and some curiousity and perhaps with these in place, the body will begin to trust the grown up me to help her to heal. I really hope this is now possible. That the five year old me will hear me when I say ‘I have heard you at last and I am here for you, whatever happens’. That seems to be what she needs to feel in the next few days, and weeks and months – ‘I hear you and I am here for you whatever happens’ – my loving statement to myself.

Endings and Beginnings

I feel some hope coming in. Like the buds on the trees and the tulips coming up in our spring pots. I have this feeling of possibilities and I feel thankful that it is real and stable and something I can hold on to. I feels like I am hitching a ride to an exciting new place and I’m optimistic and giddy with it all. There is the ‘old’ way and the ‘new’ way, and I have stepped on to the emerald green lawn of freshness and newness. A new chapter is here, and I am rejoicing. I can hear a metaphoric church bell on a hazy summer morning, proclaiming that we are celebrating. The celebration of new life, of a new chapter and a new beginning.

I read one of those meaningful quotes the other day and it said an ending is just the beginning of something new. And this time I am going to embrace the new and allow her entry. I’m closing the door on the past and proclaiming my willingness to branch out, on to the emerald lawn of potentiality. And there is hope here and optimism here and I can feel it like a warm bath, giving me solace after a long winter. And I deserve this new chapter, and I’m going to own it as mine.

I did the research, I followed my ‘gut’ and my heart, and I have arrived here. And yes there are still those pot holes to clean up and navigate. And yet now, today, I feel ready for the challenge. And I say this with my strength, with my courage and my Warrior Woman Armour on. And this is me, stepping up and saying ‘Yes!’ to my life, to new beginnings and exciting adventures. And I thank Beach Sue for stepping forwards and standing on the stage. I see her bowing and standing in the light. And as the applause reaches a crescendo, I do a little dancing jig and I exit the stage ready to go play in the sunshine today. Let the adventures roll!

My Tribe

Tonight I gave comfort and support to my dear friend who was needing a listening ear and a supportive loving presence. I remember times in my past where I have craved that empathic presence, and feeling alone and unheard. To listen to another’s fears and to offer comfort, is such a gift and I am so happy that I now have people in my life that can be that for me, and I am that to them. I spent many years feeling so alone, being the odd one out firstly in my family, then at school and beyond. I craved so much to ‘fit in’ and yet I never did. I always felt ‘separate’, like I was on the edge of the dance floor being an observer to life rather than a fully fledged member of the human contingent.

My alone years taught me the value of friendship, and I am so happy that I have a beautiful circle of women who I call my tribe. Each one is unique and calls to me in different ways. And each one I love with all my heart. Friendships are a gift I was given after a very long period of being alone. I feel I belong in this group and feel supported by their presence in my life. Thank you to all my friends for being the gift that keeps on giving! From my heart to yours, I love you all very much.

On being scared ….

I am scared. There, I have said it. I am afraid of this, the happenings that I am feeling right now. I thought nothing more could assail me, and then this appeared out of no-where, to here now. And it is a feeling of being out of control again, which is a state that frightens me and scares me and makes me restless and fearful and unable to sleep. I say ‘this too shall pass’ and yet in the dark of the night it feels that the hands of the clock are slowly driving me insane. I hate the dark tonight, or I should say, this morning. I feel alone in my terror, with only myself and these thoughts for company. I took the over the counter medicine and now I wait and I see if it gives me any reprieve from the ache and the burning that is this bladder tonight. Mark has said that this has been caused by ecoli, and I say ‘whatever, I just want it gone’. I am exhausted by it all, from the back that went twang last Friday, to the continuing food deprivation and now the burning when I pee. And there feels no let up in sight. I am held ransom by this body and I feel angry and overwhelmed and just a little mad at the state of play here. I can say ‘this too shall pass’ and yet right now it is here and the passing is hurting and I am so tired and weary. To have a reprieve from all of this would be rather nice, and yet that is not where I am. I have to weather this new symptom whether I like it or not, and I like it not.

If I could park myself right now I would. I could say ‘I have done everything to help myself, and now I must rest’. And it is hard to do that, so very hard. I am someone who likes action, and wants to makes things happen – and resting and patience have not been my virtues. To ‘rest’ in this feels like a giving in and yet perhaps that is what is called for now. A resting point between the ‘doing’ and the ‘being’ of who I am. I resist and things persist. I go to war at ‘what is’ and there is no room for compassion. My therapist used to say ‘Susie you are so hard on yourself!’ and right now I believe that to be true again. It becomes another measure of failure, rather than an opportunity for compassion. I am compassionate with everyone else, and not with myself. And yet to be compassionate is love in motion and that is something I wish to give myself right now. To be able to say ‘this is not my fault’ feels a difficult sentence to say, and yet it is my truth. I didn’t wish any of this on myself and I have attempted to make good and mend that which has hurt so much. I could blame and lament and shriek and cry, and it would solve nothing. Pain is here and it is better to acknowledge it, rather than go to war with it. Pain is here and I am still okay. Still a worthy person, still worthy of love. Pain is here and I can bear it. And the pain can have a voice and I will hear her. The pain is here, and yet it is not the sum of me, it is just a part that will get better. The pain is here and so am I. I can breathe with the pain and know that it is a temporary thing that will pass.

I consider the fear is because this is so unfamiliar, this particular pain I haven’t had for at least 25 years. So it feels somehow wrong and that has scared me. And yet I did get through this back then, and I can get through it again. And I will get Mark’s meds and I will take them and soon this shall pass, literally and figuratively. And in the meantime I will allow all of these emotions to air themselves out and I will acknowledge them with as much courage as I can. I know that courage and compassion dovetail together to create the mental emotional healing that I need right now. And as Louise Hay says about cystitis ‘I comfortably and easily release the old and welcome the new in my life. I am safe’. And I will dwell in that space for a while.

Stupid o’clock … again!

It is stupid o’clock again and I am awake. The sweat has awakened me and now I am up. It comes upon me like a cold swampy feeling, under my boobs, my arms and legs. A great damp river of water and a feeling of immense chills which I cannot understand. And then I fall asleep again and the cycle begins over and over again, until I finally get up to attempt to break the cold sweaty cycles. I have endured this ‘menopause reboot’ symptom for two or three years now. It comes to steal my sleep and brings yet more distress to a body already reeling from the stomach stuff. They say its ‘night sweats’ and signfies the peri-menopause and yet for me its just another symptom of this body that doesn’t work very well. One night I had the sweats for seven straight hours, and in the morning I just cried and cried, feeling clammy, cold and again an alien in this body. There is such a feeling of helplessness when the body is doing things I cannot control. And peri-menopause is yet another chapter of me being left bewildered in the dark, with no compass to navigate by. And these situations are really testing me, and I feel again like the little boat bobbing up and down on the stormy waters of life.

This body is my home, and yet the home is not stable, and attempting to exist here is becoming more and more precarious. I feel like the repair people need to come in and begin the fixing process, and that feels good and also a bit scary. That feeling of having another person step across this threshold and going round the ‘house’ of this body with a torch and assessing what is damaged and needs fixing.

And so Mark’s plan is like the fixtures and fittings of what is needed to mend this broken house. And so it becomes a methodical one foot in front of the other to bring this ‘house’ up to scratch again. And I feel a sense of calmness is beginning to land here, and maybe a sense of hope is beginning to bud into life. Perhaps the foundations can be made more solid and the ‘mending’ be easier than I anticipate. And it is good to have Mark’s plan, as it gives me a road map to follow. And yes there may be pot holes to navigate, and yet in time the ‘house’, that is this body, will rejoice with a new coat of paint so to speak and will hopefully sit majestically on the horizon with a smile on her face again.

Beach Sue to the Rescue

Today, in parts, has felt like an endurance test for me. The back did its ‘twanging’ thing this morning and it hasn’t been the same since. It felt like pieces of elastic being ‘stretched’ or violin strings being plucked. No beautiful sound emerged, just me effing and blinding and rolling over in agony. And then the inevitable realisation that this hurts and I need help to put myself back together again. Fortunately my wonderful oestopath was able to slot me an appointment and I’m hoping that soon, I will stop waddling like a duck who has lost her quack, and ‘feel’ myself again.

The back has had lots of adventures into pain and spasm over the years. From a silly impatient me at a road junction at the age of 21, which rendered my car bent out of shape, and me with it. Then the ‘child bearing’ years, and the lugging of baby and buggy and then the Pampered Chef years lugging crates of kitchen tools to ‘kitchen shows’ around the town and beyond. And occasions when laughable domestic bliss like emptying the dishwasher, loading laundry and washing up, have made it go again. I have correlated the back ‘goes’ when I am heavily stressed. And today I have been waiting for the food plan to drop into my inbox and I have been rather fretting about the marathon of changes that are going to be asked of this body and this mind in its quest for healing.

And last night I was incredibly tense, driving in torrential rain on a road surface I’ve coined ‘Pot Hole Nightmare’. And in the dark, the pot holes, or bloody great craters on the roads, are impossible to see in the dark. The bumps and jars are like the landscape of this body and they symbolise the events and situations that I have had to traverse and navigate around. I have felt blind in the dark and I have run over some of the metaphoric ‘holes’ and made more damage than I knew possible. I have, over the years, attempted to fill in the holes, and yet they have just got bigger. And now I am looking directly down the road, seeing all these pot holes, which represent all the things that need fixing. And contemplating the ‘tools’ that I need to employ to fix them. And these changes seem very daunting, and I’m unsure if it will make any difference.

Tonight, we started the food plan. I’m going gently with this because it’s not easy. We had lambs liver and I didn’t like it. It reminded me too much of the dried congealed liver my Mum cooked for my Sis and I when were kids. It tasted like sawdust back then, and Mum would make us sit at the table until we had eaten it. To this day I feel sick when I think of that horrible dinner and no wonder I wanted to eat my Angel Delight first. My family were shocked when I partook of the Angel Delight and Strawberries first. My logic was …. have the thing you like first, and then if you have any room left, then have the other stuff. My sister still laments to this day about my eating dessert first. Yet another time that I didn’t comply to the norm. I think about all of the ‘rituals of conformity’ that I have adhered to over the years and I’m beginning to question a lot of them. It was a joy eating my pudding first and I love that me who put joy before conformity.

The non conforming Susie has saved me so many times in the past few years. She’s the girl that took her 8 year old son to Bournemouth beach one sunny Thursday evening and had a picnic on the beach. She’s the woman that said ‘no’ to the MRnA gene therapy jab, which Mark says has probably saved me from further pain and ill-health, and the me that found RDI to help our little family communicate much better. ‘Beach Sue’ is the fun part of me, the little girl who ate her Angel Delight first, and the woman who has crusaded for answers to life’s challenges she has faced. And I know I need to channel her this year as I take a deep breath and read Mark’s plan to bring health back to this body. And I need a decent recipe to make liver more palatable please!

‘The Big Blue Tent’

It’s stupid o’clock again and I am awake. I laid there and contemplated whether sleep would claim me again, or whether it was time to get up and meander my thoughts. The stomach is aching right now and making whiny noises, much like a child does when they are not happy.

Ah this reminds me of trips out with my parents and Grandparents when I was small. I remember the feeling of annoyance at having to sit in the ‘middle’ of the back seat, just coz I was the littlest and the smallest. My Nan groaning coz there was a tiny draft on the back of her neck, and my mother feeling travel sick in the front of the car, and Nan moaning coz ‘Susie keeps banging my legs’. And my Dad bellowing at all of us to shut up ‘Coz I’m driving!’. I remember us counting blue or red cars for miles and miles, and stopping at the side of the road so we could pee. This was the days before service stations and drive thru coffee places.

Oh and the holidays we went on. No kidding when our big blue tent was pitched on the lawn being ‘aired’ for the Grand Cole Family Holiday, then everyone in our close would quickly change their holiday dates. Our family, almost always picked the week where the heavens opened, the skies fell and the water didn’t stop. Boggy, muddy fields with drenched ground, drips coming inside the big blue tent, and Mum fed up to the back teeth of my Sis and I teasing each other. Oh what fun times we all had! Squelching through the mud to the toilet block, and squelching back to the big blue tent in the pouring down rain.

I remember being huddled around the gas stove, eating ‘Mum’s Stew’ – bought from tins from the onsite camping shop. And Mum’s epic fry ups in the morning, huddled together trying to stay warm. Some holidays we would do the ‘stiff upper lip and soldier on’, one rain filled day after another. And one trip we all bailed within days as the rain fell, and fell and fell.

The ‘Close’ where we lived would ask us at Christmas when we were taking our holibobs, and quickly change their dates. So they didn’t have the Cole extravaganza of a wet filled week. And I think by the time I was 10, our family was so sick of the rainy camping delights, that the Blue Tent got relegated to the loft, never to see the light of day again. And as I write this I contemplate my father’s love of keeping things ‘just in case’ and the Blue Tent is probably still kicking around in one of this ‘storage’spaces that he has.

My Dad tells this story of me at a camping site near a place called Pooley Bridge. I think a feeling of remembered joy, not that I can really remember it in any details. He says that me, aged 5, got to go to the toilet blocks as a ‘big girl’ without her Mum. I think my big sis was in charge that day, and oh my goodness she was only 7! This was the 1970s and people were much more trusting back then. Dad says I went with my little wash bag and felt on top of the world as I, a big girl at last, got away from my Mum’s watchful gaze trotted off with my sister feeling grown up and important. He smiles as he says this, and I love him for that memory that he has gifted me. A happy memory from many camping trips that just felt flipping cold and wet.

So when the Blue Tent got packed away for the last time, the camping trips also got packed away. Holidays became much more civilized, swapping the water for the dry land! What I remember most about those camping trips, is the family bonding over stew and cups of tea. Over family moans and my big girl trips to the bathroom block. Ah and peeing into a bucket late at night or first thing in the morning. These holidays were unique, not always enjoyed, probably endured by us all. And if we came out the other side, slightly smiling, then that holiday was taken as a success.

There have been many holidays since I was 10 and yet the camping ones remind me of where I have come from and how loving my family was. We had ‘experiences’ together, whether they were happy or sad, and that, I will be forever thankful for.

A Joyful Reboot

I have been reading Pam Grout’s book and this week’s task has had me thinking about the things in my life that bring me joy, and the things and situations that steal that joy. I first have to remind myself what joy has meant to me. Seems an easy enough question to ask, and yet I’m finding it hard to answer. There is the idea of ‘Grand Joy’ which are the moments in the calendar for ‘epic’ events in a year. A holiday, a birthday, a trip to the theatre or pop concert. These are not the joys of my everyday life and it is actually the everyday joys that I probably remember the most.

I was talking to a friend today about making joyful memories and I guess these are the true moments of joy that I have experienced over my lifetime. The green handbag I had at age 4, and the red one at age 6. The Snoopy stationery at age 8 and Boo Boo, my teddy bear at age 10. My sister and I with nightdresses on our heads aged 9, pretending to be princesses’ with long beautiful tresses. Sneaking into my sister’s room and playing ‘red and green’ with her age ?, mm I actually don’t know when that was! All I remember is feeling sad when she outgrew our bedroom, and seeking her company when I was lonely. My 16th birthday party, with the best chocolate cake my Mum ever made me. Oh and the Christmas when my sis and I sneaked a present from under tree, and stuffed ourselves with biscuits. Oh and the first duvets Sis and I ever owned, given to us that same Christmas.

And then in later years, the ‘perfect day’ in Studland I had with my Mum and Dad. I remember standing in front of a mirror in the hotel they were staying at, and saying to myself ‘this is the best day I have ever had with Mum and Dad’. Perfect weather, perfect company, perfect us. I said to myself ‘I want to remember this moment forever’ and I still hold that moment dear to my heart. I remember going shopping with my lovely Mum, eating bacon butties in the M&S cafe in Camberley and Hedge End. And the hot pink suit my Mum made me. So many joyful memories that I treasure.

And on an everyday level, the joys are probably more mundane. A trip to my favourite coffee house with my Simon, sitting in our ‘thrones’ which are the big chairs in the window. Seeing a cherry tree in full blossom and hearing my son giggle.

My creativity brings me immense joy and my handbags that I upcycle lift me up like I was age 4 again when I owned my bright green patent bag. My joy is stolen by the ailing body which I’m hoping can be fixed, and the clutter we have accumulated in our house.

Now my tidiness, or lack of it, has been a continuing theme throughout our marriage. I am forever dovetailing between wanting to be a ‘minimalist’ – which in truth really isn’t, and never was me – and the ‘let’s cover every flat surface with crap’ kind of girl. They say clutter creates stagnant energy, and I have a lot of that in my life! And now I am on a mission to clear the clutter, one flat surface, one draw, one centimetre of floor at a time. A lifetimes habit of untidiness being turned on its head.

Now de-cluttering is bringing back that joy, and tidier spaces do feel more satisfying. This is where I shall start my joy inventory, and I will feel into the other areas of my life that need a joyful reboot. I wonder what else I will find?

Coffee Breakups

I have woken with a low level of anxiety present. It is morning light, when usually it is 4 am and all is asleep. The clocks have ‘sprung forward’ this morning and as this month marches on, spring has sprung. I’m not sure that the weather agrees though, as it has been raining here for days, with no let up in sight.

The anxiety is here and I am striving to breathe through it. I had the functional med appointment and I’ve learnt about the things that have gone awry with this body. Phrases like leaky gut, SIBO, histamine intolerance and chronic fatigue. Knowing is one thing, fixing is another thing! I am now in ‘limbo’ waiting for Mark’s food plan which will help this body’s recovery. Whilst I’m waiting for the plan, I’m making little changes that I’m hoping will help.

I feel like the sinking ship at present and that the changes I am making are just plasters over water that has been leaking from many holes. This kind of works and yet feels such a small thing! And yet my changes are (I hope) gradually bringing the sinking ship back to life.

I am struggling to leave coffee behind, and yet it is not a friend to this body. Coffee is a ritual for me, the first sip in the morning gives me an immense feeling of pleasure and satisfaction. The coffee I drink with Simon in our favourite coffee house helps me feel grounded. And now the affair with coffee must end. Another ending to cope with! Probably many break-ups with food coming this year! Ah and that is emotionally hard, and physically frustrating!

The ritual of drinking coffee is my solace in a world that has felt out of control. Through Lockdown the coffee shop offered a drive thru service and everyday Simon and I would ‘go out’ and get coffee. Then we would sit in a carpark and pretend we were actually sitting in our coffee house. I got dressed up for the daily occasions of the coffee drive thru and it stopped me going completely insane. At that time I was feeling suffocated at not being able to meet up with my friends, so this was a small moment of the ‘new normal’. Oh those were hard days!

So my break up with coffee is not easy and I’m sad she’s leaving my life for a while. Maybe there is a compromise in that and maybe it is not forever. And maybe I will learn to live without her. I can at at least attempt that one, gradually perhaps!