How big is your heart?

  
Morning all,

I didn’t write yesterday as ‘overwhelm Wilma’ (yes that’s right, I have characters in my life 👍🏻 this one’s named thanks to one of my friends and there’s also Time Of The Month *TOM 🙈 named by another friend) stopped by with the OT, (Overtired). 

Although it was nice it was acknowledged I didn’t write my standard Mon-Fri as its means you missed me 😉 or you just cared. But just as I wrote on that Saturday that one time, my blog may not always flow into Mon-Fri, but it’s a guideline. I get asked how I can write so often. It’s down to my commute. Which this blog has helped me with. It’s long and tiring at times ranging from just over an hour to 1.45 each day each way. Luckily I get a day a week from home for any admin to help recharge physical batteries of travel time and tiredness.  

So it’s back to my trusty Quote album for today’s topic as I’m still feeling a little nausea and can’t think but my love of writing will hopefully be the ‘pill’ I need to recover my ‘perk’. 

‘Courage’. It features in many of my quotes. A lovely, lovely strong word that holds a lot of weight to me. It can come in many a form. The gratitude attitude in me is not mad on the ‘cruel world’ bit as I say I trust in a universe despite there being a bazillion reasons not to believe in one. But on a basic level, it can be cruel. I don’t need to name you what makes it that way, you know the contributors. (I’m also concious of using terminology like ‘mad’ to describe things but I don’t have the energy to go into that today). 

For years and years and years after sunflower died in her field of fans I cried and I cried and I cried. Heart heavy and aching. About all sorts of stuff. In some twisty way linking back to her death. My mum’s mum, my ‘glam’ma’, the tough cookie I mentioned in my vlog, was who was there for me most in the family and bless her did she worry about me. Oh did she half. The love oozed out of her bulging Hazel eyes and tears usually stayed in there glistening and ironically ‘crying’ to come out. Occasionally, they did make an appearance. But to her (maybe her era/upbringing – there could be many a reason) crying was a weakness in me that showed I wasn’t strong enough for the world. 

“Abbie. It’s not going to get you anywhere. You’re not going to get far if you’re so sensitive, darling. You’ve got to be strong. What’s happened has happened. You think I don’t think about her every day?” 

A little older and wiser now I don’t take that to heart as much and I see it’s her way of being protective of me. Scared silly I remind her of mum. What with my battles of A&D and similar traits. It probably is genuinely how she feels though and she’s scared for me. She wants me to be happy and live a full life. I believe despite A&D that I do. I carry on, I fight. I am strong. Friends used to tell me I was strong during the time Glam’ma didn’t. As my woman in role model her opinion overshadowed theirs. I thought I might stay lost in my own sensitive soul searching for strength as I felt sad and numb from the aftermath of suicide from my primary caregiver. Years. Years of it.

I remember 10 years after sunflower passed i’d think to myself and even say to select people. “10 years? 10 years!  And I’m still here. Still sore. Still suffering. Because of her. Why am I not over this?!”. These thoughts and feelings were repetitive and reflected in my behaviours, erratic and all over the place in the land of suicide grief, overwhelm and loss of a parent.

Even now I am finally (can I get a hallelujah?! 🙏🏻🙌🏻) speaking it all through with my therapist. It’s really helping. Admitting to the truth and accepting the extent of how this one event turned it all upside down and inside out for me (even feels selfish writing about me right now, part of the damage it’s done to my insides 😔 my inner critic sarcastically saying ‘poor me boo hoo…get over it’) my therapist is teaching me that no one was there to reassure and be that figure I desperately needed to say it would get better or be okay. Most (average- I know we’re all different and not all fortunate) effective child development would need that secure adult and guardian to help soothe in their own way times of turmoil to help develop the young individual through…

This is only one example. A heart wrenching one yes but only one in the mix. My point is, yes I’m sensitive. Yes, I have a soft, tender heart that explodes passion for what I believe in and for those I love and YES, actually- I am strong. 

Tears, trauma, A&D, eating problems, experimentation – the answer to all those are yes too. Doesn’t make me weak though. As I’m still here, right? We all have coping mechanisms. Strength and courage are present in all different forms. As another saying goes, “they don’t have to understand your journey, it’s not for them, it’s for you”. Stand strong in the belief that your way is ok. Even if it shows vulnerability as long as it works for you in a way you can see and you identify risk and act accordingly. 

The size of my heart enables me to fully experience life and people (hence the ache for Sunflower to shine on earth again and the realisation she’ll only shine in my heart, maybe that’s why it’s so big in the first place?). 

Did I go through times that I thought what’s the point in having loving relationships (family, friends, loved ones) if you could lose them in any second due to the sudden death of sunflower? Ofcourse I did. Did I question whether t was worth the sore sore pain that’s left a scar? Sure. My choice. I’d rather have loved…

Keep ‘strong’ whatever that means to you. And look after your heart.

Abs X 💚