What a difference a year makes

My last anniversary post was written just after the last time I visited London before C19 was really talked about, and in the time since the entire world has found themselves living with loss and disruption on a scale none of us could ever have predicted. Its is a funny predicament I find myself in knowing that my brain pop and the the time since 2012 strangely prepared me well to adjust for a global pandemic.

This picture is from a little book of notes I jotted in the days after I left ICU and from when I have no real memory of events. I started doing it because the staff annoyingly asked me the date every day and often I didn’t know, so this was my cheat book, I’d sneak a look before they came around. This particular entry is 1 week out from IWD and my attention grapping brain event. The handwriting is pretty good compared to other entries and I think shows me trying to make some sense of it all. Making sense is something I think we have all tried to do for events over the last year. Making sense of something is always a fairly pragmatic approach to take when faced with any upheaval or change or loss. Thinking and trying to work out what you can manage within the limits of circumstances and then discarding the stuff beyond your control to remain just as it is, trying to stay positive and keep moving forward , all the time trying to mitigate lossess and accomodate it as best you can. It has served me well as a practice.

I don't like being told what to do at the best of times but equally I now know there are times in life when you have to relinquish the things which cannot to be swayed even though you would like them to play out differently. I have developed a practice of care, self and otherwise, and try where possible to pause and offer solutions rather than control and influence which was probably more my mode and territory before SAH. It is still a work in progress though, I still have way to many opinions! 

That said I am definitely more at ease with not knowing what comes next, instead I just try and pay attention with whats with me now, be that disruption, loss, pain, joy, but not be so consumed by that emotion to think I can define the outcome. Just take a 'it is what it is' view and enjoy and to live with that as best as I can. It’s been a helpful mode during all our lockdowns that’s for sure. Life marches on relentlessly doesn’t it and this last year has certainly continued to serve up its fair share of disruption and did so without let up or any allowance for a pandemic. It has been so hard for many people, our family included; I've lost friends and loved ones, we said sad farewells to two much adored animals and juggled and muddled through all working together and the absence of not seeing the people we'd like to or going the places we want to. We faced it by knowing that time moves and changes will continue to occur. We found days of sunshine , extra long walks , shared jokes , all of us knowing there is no 'going back to normal' (a phrase beloved in the media and politicians), instead there is only the promise of what comes next and what we will make of that. 

That’s my skill given by a brain bleed, I have no illusion of better, no guarantee of days, just the hope of today and tomorrow. MY brain bleed and hydrocephalus did break me on this day 9 years ago but in the time since it also built me better. It allows me to know and value the fragility of life and not cling to what we think is guaranteed, to be happy to go at the pace life allows but to always keep hoping and be curious about what can come next. I let go more. 

 This last year saw yet more healing, new adventures, greater solitude, increased mindfulness for me personally and all of which i am grateful for everyday. I also got to spend probably more time with my wonderful daughters than a usual year would have probably afforded me so I treasure that, not sure they would feel the same as I know mum is a poor friend substitute at that age. 

And without fail we move timidly into Spring,and now just as then, the sight of daffodils give  me hope as they did after my SAH  as they still offer witness to the continued growth and colour as evidence of any life opportunity. 
And so we all go on. Pandemic or no pandemic. 
Curiously exploring with a smile.

I wander'd lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host of golden daffodils, 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 
Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretch'd in never-ending line 
Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 
The waves beside them danced, but they 
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
 A poet could not but be gay 
In such a jocund company! 
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought. 
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood,
 They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills 
And dances with the daffodils. 
“William Wordsworth”

Annie-versary post; transformation and trust

I got talking this week to an old friend about transformation. We have chatted many long hours over the years on the subject but they equally have observed and been part of my own transformation project since my brain blew up.

Often transformation comes as a planned event, on a domestic level it may be a household or building project, a garden makeover, a wardrobe clear out and splurge and transformation as a concept was not something I think I was unfamiliar with or so I thought. Change is the one constant I used to often tell myself , and my career for a large part of it before my brain pop was working with companies and people to look at what might be barriers to change and how you can engage along the way as you move to a new way of being . I was used to talking in terms of risk, of mitigation, impacts, consequences and plotting a route to take adjustments without the whole thing falling over.

And then I got do do a full user impact test of all my theories of what might actually help a person adjust to a transformation and whilst some definitely helped me ( like have a daily task list) , some swiftly proved to lip service concepts to what other people might have wanted to hear.

There is a quote I quite like;

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however , is disagreeable and therefore not popular. C.g.Jung.

 The truth is we don’t like to face up to the harder less palatable elements of change. Often in life we soften the messages of it, expecting that others can’t take the truth of a situation but that’s more the case when we are talking to ourselves, we try and hide from reality or the fear of what’s the truth. I was faced with a life landscape which had been transformed in an instant and pretty much none of it, none of me was recognisable to the body and mind I had grown up with. That was terrifying to be honest. What if none of it ever came back. I was entirely lost and broken. And I could have stayed there.

It was my Alice through the door but not just a fleeting moment in time, this new landscape was now something I had to now find a way to live and learn and adapt to. And do do that, to make that a possibility that took a whole load of trust of others and of myself to have permission to act. And that not something that sits easy.

I’ll try and give examples. Early on I was just hanging on, surviving, scarred, full of drugs and pain and absent from daily life. I had to trust that people I loved would look after my girls, that they would wrap them in the love they needed and also be truthful with them about their mum. And they did, not maybe my way but it was done. I couldn’t stand, walk , wash, do any tasks really unaided so had to trust those who then helped me that they wouldn’t let me fall, I had to give that trust unconditionally if I wanted all those things even knowing that sometimes I still might stumble. It was the only way through. I had to trust and most of all be curious enough to explore that this transformation, whilst sudden, whilst not on my agenda, still brought the only possibility of what was in front of me that day.

I started really small , I blogged early on about those, like enjoying hanging washing , or Going to the cinema, but as my confidence and knowledge of this changed version of myself grew, so did my keenness to just always try and see what I can do alongside the pain, the scar, the losses and hurt.

And that’s the power of any change , any transformation, Wanted or unwanted, you might realise right from the start it’s going to hurt like hell, that life as you know it can never be the same again or that realisation might come once you whilst you are in the midst, or late in the day, and yes you can rail and shout about that and that’s ok but at some point in order to really transform with it just have to accept there is no turning back of the page and to just trust that today will be one you can lift your head off the pillow , find what works and happily be you.

It is eight years today since my brain literally blew up. I knew nothing of it. I know everything of it now. I can’t remember really how I was before as this is me now and there’s no going back. I’m definitely similar in some ways to before, others things had to changes, some bits, well are gone forever. It’s not progress despite what anyone might badge it , it’s not innovation or evolution, it’s honestly adapting , evaluating, trading of what is possible today. And that’s really always been the only way to operate and transform. To know and test the limits of that new possibility and keep being open and curious and yes trusting that new ones will no doubt come and you’ll adapt to those too.

Be steady friends. Look at the possibility of today. And thanks for all the hands they still keep me up.