Word of the Week - Acceptance

There are a lot of things I've had to accept this week.

It's not been easy and I've not been happy about it.

But with acceptance has come a lot of peace and with peace has come - moving on.

Initially I was going with unsociable, then procrastination, but I decided to go with acceptance as it is more positive and being positive is my focus.

I published my post on being unsociable, my initial #wotw if you want to read it, as it's how I'm feeling.

This week I've accepted that I'm 4 weeks behind with my marathon training. As a result I went for a run on Tuesday.

I accepted that my drive to work with pot holes, flooding and road closures is stressful, but it's the same for everyone else and I'm not going to worry if yet another delay sees me arrive 10 minutes late, as I'm arriving 15 minutes before lessons start anyway. Now I've stopped worrying about being late, I've reduced the stress and I'm sticking to the longer detours and the main roads.

Since Stephanie died I've accepted that my friendship group has become smaller, but I've recognised that my smaller friendship group has become stronger.

I had my 6 monthly blood test on Wednesday. I'm now in my 10th year of this malarky, bloods will come back out of sync, there will be a recall, doctors receptionist will have concern in her voice, nurse will tell me tests are for x, y & z and I will calmly just let them take the blood knowing no one has read my notes properly and this is normal. It's amazing how hard it is to get my medical records from Dubai uploaded and merged rather than just attached. I've accepted this, but I am fed up of explaining it every time.

I've accepted that there are a lot of things to be done around the house that just aren't getting done because I've been unwell and my to do list had just grown longer and I was getting stressed and putting pressure on myself to get things done. It was taking longer to get better and I started getting migraines. This was all impacting on my running, my journey to work and being unsociable.

My 'to do' list had rolled over from October, was re written as the pages in my diary were turned and a new diary purchased in January and was last added to on the weekend. So I put a big cross through my 'to do list' and moved it to the end of February to take the pressure off. 

*diary corrections to spelling SOW not SEW.

There were a couple of things that were ticked off this week and a couple of things left to be done in the morning for the weekend and one or two things to be done on Sunday, but the other stuff which is not urgent, has been moved away, out of sight, to take away the stress and with that, comes acceptance that I don't need to worry about these things.

I feel much better now I've accepted there are some things I can do nothing about. I've had a migraine all week stressing over my journey to work, not being able to run for the past 4 weeks with the flu and now a migraine and stressing over not getting the jobs done around the house and garden and I was just spiralling, hence the migraine making everything worse.

I'm now looking forward to a nice relaxed weekend in London on the Winter Walk, raising awareness and funds for Bowel Research UK in memory of Stephanie, celebrating her life.

I'm linking up with Raisie Bay with Word of the Week

Word of the Week - Acceptance.

There are a couple of things niggling me at the back of my mind that I'm worrying about at the moment. Things I have no control over, but if they happen then life as I know it will change in a big way. It will be devastating and the impact will be huge with a massive ripple effect. It's not health related, it's to do with people.

I've no control over it. But what I do have control over is how I deal with it. I have to accept that people will behave in bizarre ways and whilst their intentions aren't to hurt others, sometimes hurt is inevitable. 

Acceptance is hard. My father's death in 2017 was hard. I accepted he had died. I just never dealt with the trauma of his death.

I've accepted our daughter died, but again, it was another traumatic death, that I witnessed, that I didn't walk away from. 

I could've left the room on both occasions, but I didn't, I chose to stay put, chose to stay with my father and my daughter as they took their last breaths. I didn't need to for me. I probably didn't need to for them, but something made me stay. I said after watching my father die that I was never going to do it again, but I did and I have to accept that. I chose to stay, however traumatic.

I'm still struggling with both these events. I've been diagnosed with PTSD, I've received targeted therapy, I'm on medication, I've had a mental health plan in place. I've reached the end of the support that is available to me. The help and support I want is not available. The help and support I wanted was in the first few days and weeks. 

There was help and support from some amazing people and I will be forever grateful, but it has taken 6 months for me to accept that the people I thought would help just weren't there, they didn't call, they didn't didn't come round, they didn't put aside their differences, they didn't make us their priority.

It's taken 6 months for me to accept this, to move on from questioning why? What did I do wrong for them not to care about us when we needed them the most? For them not to drop everything for us in our hour of greatest need? 

With acceptance comes peace. For too long I've been focusing on regret. I realise now people come in and out of your life, some for a long time and some for a short while. But it's the quality of the time spent, not the quantity.

I accept it's hard to know what to say to when someone dies. I've been in that situation so many times.

I accept that it's hard to know whether to call in or worry that'll you'll be intruding.

I accept that while you'll thinking about the above, time passes, then you start to feel awkward about the gap left.

I accept that maybe some people will feel triggered and can't cope.

But no matter how hard you are finding the situation, for us, it was harder than you could ever imagine and that knock at the door, that message, that late night phone call, that invite for coffee, that hug and and even those awkward silences meant the world to us and always will.

We accept our circle of friends and people we can turn to has grown smaller but it has also grown stronger.