“Listen to what you need, eat well, rest up, take care of yourself. And remember you only have to do it for a day.” (My dear friend, Bill)

 

On 4th November 2017 I married myself.

 

It wasn’t the most straight forward of days.

 

I only decided at 9.45am that’s what I was going to do and by 10am the ceremony was complete, with only myself as the witness, but wow she was beautiful, I just had to marry her. I was beautiful; just as beautiful as I am now sat in my big fluffy red dressing gown enjoying our honeymoon breakfast.

 

I spent so many years having to question so many things as I watched people close to me loose their minds and find them again, and I learnt to accept that one of the closest people to me was never going to find their mind, the kind-mind that would keep them standing stable on the surface of the earth.  I spent a good 7 years walking the fine line between insanity and extreme pleasure (extreme pleasure thanks to my art, my family and my incredible friends). Then, on the 4th November, I decided not to question anything at all, to do everything my heart told me to do, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone else, I would do it.

 

For the first time in a long time, I made time for myself. I did exactly what I wanted to do. I took a bath; a long bath full of bubbles and listened to the WHOLE of an album (Jess Morgan’s Edison Gloriette – if you haven’t got this CD I’d highly recommend you buy it, the lyrics and the melodies are full to the brim with love, care and understanding of the battles we go through trying to live and make sense of this crazy world). This was the first time for months that I had approached a bath like it was something other than the cold plunge pool at Centre Parcs (other holiday parks are available – but if you want one where you can laugh your heads off, eat take-away pizza, take a bike ride, witness your family have a melt-down / fall out, then get another take-away pizza this is a great place for all of that ;) ).

 

This wasn’t an overnight switch, it was something that had been brewing for months, 5 months to be specific, starting with the moment I chose to live again (and put on Arianna Grande’s ‘Break Free’ so loudly that the floor shook), having spent some months disintegrating into despair ending up with only a small voice (small, but by god (I don’t believe in god by it’s a powerful phrase) it was a strong and powerful one) telling me I would laugh again, and when I did laugh again it would be a belly laugh so deep my friends all around the world would hear it.

 

Recovery is exhausting. Withdrawing from anti-depressants is exhausting. But on the scale of my emotional capacity nothing is as exhausting as depression. Not even the most severe of headaches that you wake up with and go to sleep with.

 

“What you are thinking now is creating your future life. You create your life with your thoughts. Because you are always thinking, you are always creating. What you think about the most or focus on the most, is what will appear as your life.” (The Secret, Rhonda Byrne)

 

So RIP my depression. Loving myself is a much more comforting thought process. Just please no-one else die this year as that could really trigger me back down the slope. I’m joking of course, I have a long list of things that enable me to not only cope but enjoy life.

 

For the next post I may try to use brackets properly. Or I might not. I’ll just do what my heart tells me to do.

 

Now I’m off to give my horse a cuddle.