Happy

I've just had a revelation. I've just been lying in bed listening to James Blunt 'You're beautiful' and the opening line is 'My life is brilliant' and I realised something. My life is brilliant. Okay, something really shit happened, but my life isn't shit. I have a fantastic family behind me. My lovely Dad who would do literally anything for me, my brother and sister who are just fantastic and my fabulous Nana and Grandad. 

My Mum might have died when I was so young, 19 is a young age to lose a parent, but I am lucky to have ever had her. So many children have abusive parents who may be around for a long time but they are horrible. Other children haven't even got their parents. Think of children on continents such as Africa who aren't as lucky as us and have lost parents from such preventable causes such as malnutrition and AIDS.

There is so much pain and hurt in the world and yes what happened to mum was horrendous but there are much worse atrocities happening in the world with murder, dictatorships and wars going on. It is sad that Mum died and it shouldn't have happened but it did, and it was peaceful. She just went in her sleep. She wasn't frightened or in pain, and she wasn't murdered. We don't have to live on knowing that someone deliberately hurt her, because they didn't, she just died. 

I've been to university- something so many people and especially women are deprived of in the world. I'm lucky. I will probably end up with a career I love. I also have the most fantastic friends. Friends who have been there for everything. Friends who take my shit when I say the wrong thing which I quite often do now (I don't have the ability to think before I speak since Mum died, I'm not sure why). Friends who stuck by me even when I struggled to socialise at the beginning. So many people don't have the amazing friends that I have. 

In short, what I'm trying to say is, my life is actually fantastic. Yes it is sad at the minute but it won't always be. I won't always be consumed by memories of mum every second of the day and one day I'll be able to have fun again properly. Other things in my life are things I am so lucky to have and things that I am so grateful for and for those, I am happy.

Running- Couch 25K Week 3 run 2

I did plan on running 3 times this week but due to work and social commitments I haven't had time. I managed to squeeze in a run this afternoon and if I'm honest, it wasn't my best run.

I don't know if it was because I wasn't putting enough effort in (probably) or if it was because my asthma has been bad this week (partly) and also was rushed because I was going out. Either way, it was a bad run and one I'm not proud of. Hopefully tomorrows run will be drastically better. I'm going to do one more run of week 3 and then hopefully be able to move on to week 4 of the C25k.

I've been thinking of signing up to the Morrisons 10K run in July. As a sort of preparation run for the Great North Run in September. I'm also thinking about signing up to the London Marathon. Maybe not next year, maybe the year after instead. It's something I'll have to think seriously about because 26.1miles is a lot of miles. 

Also, well done to everyone who completed the London Marathon today, you are all fantastic.

Running- Couch 25K week 3 run 1

So I decided to go right in there to week 3 of the C25K podcasts. And I was right. It was manageable but challenging enough that I had to take my inhaler a fair few times!

Week 3 goes like this- 5 minute walk warm up, followed by 90 second run, 90 second walk, 3 minute run, 3 minute walk and repeat. 

I managed it all except at the end where I missed the last 30 seconds of the last 3 minute run as I had to stop at traffic lights.

It took me ages to decide to go running tonight but I'm so glad I did. Running through Manchester at sunset was actually lovely. I also discovered a lovely park where I might go for a run through at the weekend sometime. I feel like I've achieved something by going for a successful run tonight, long may it continue!

I'm done

For the last 6, nearly 7 months, I have felt sorry for myself. And for that, I am royally embarrassed. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of moping around being upset all the time. I'm done. That's not to say I'm trying to forget about Mum and move on. But I seem to be spending far too much of my time doing nothing and being unproductive because of it all. I can't be like that anymore. I have a life to live and I really need to start living it.

I'm not a religious person. I don't believe in heaven (although I really really would love to). And I don't believe that I will ever see my Mum again. For that reason, I don't take comfort in the thought that I will see my Mum again; quite frankly if I thought that, then I'd probably have killed myself by now. And I get by purely through coming to terms with it having been the end. 

I'm not done writing about my 'journey' through grief. Because despite the fact I hate it, it is a huge part of my life and probably will be for some time. And there will be times where I feel utterly miserable and take to the blog to pour my heart out, as I so very often do. It serves as a bit of relief for me sometimes. There are some things that I just can't say out loud to the people around me (partly because I like to pretend that I'm the strong one) so it is nice for me to be able to just type it all out. 

But anyway, here I am, blabbering away again about nothing. Basically, I'm going to try and be less miserable and more productive......rrrriiigghht after I have this one quick nap!

Running Again

I have decided to use this blog permanently as a place to document my running 'journey'. I know that's a bit cringe but I suppose that is what it is. 

So today I went on my first run in weeks. WEEKS! I know! Shocking. It was horrendous, I could only run for about 3-5 minutes and then had an asthma attack. 

I've been 'trying' to follow the Couch 2 5k podcast program recently and to be honest I'm finding week 4 tough. I decided to miss out the other 3 as I could comfortably run for those lengths of time at the time that I started doing it. It's not that my legs get tired or anything but my asthma means that I really struggle. 

I also really want some new running gear. I really want a thin pullover jumper that I can wear running. Nike do a lovely one but its 75 quid so I'll not be buying that anytime soon. I could also do with some new running trousers. Again, there are some lovely ones on Nike's website but as a poor student, I cannot afford to pay for them! 

So anyway that's a quick update on my running. I'm definitely going to make it more frequent again. I do quite like running once I get started.

The Poem that describes grief perfectly

It's been a long time since I last watched Four Weddings and a Funeral. And I forgot about this poem. Yes it is depressing but if you are going through the grief of a loved one, you'll probably find that this poem very much describes your feelings. In my opinion, it has hit the nail on the head perfectly. More so the last verse. The first is a bit too depressing. 

W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

One of those shit weeks

It's six months now since mum died. And everytime I think I'm coming to terms with it, another wave of grief washes over me and I'm not anymore. I've felt shit since the beginning of last week. I can't describe what it's like to lose a parent who is also a best friend. And you can't possibly understand what it's like unless you're going through it yourself. Losing other people, although devestating, is different, because that person was not someone who was a part of everything in your life (or maybe they were in which case, yes it's the same). I spent so much of my day worrying about Mum, I told her everything (yes seriously, everything) and because of her health problems, we had a special relationship that I know a lot of my friends don't have with theirs.

I feel like a piece of me has been ripped out. It hurts all the time and some days it is unbearable. I'm still struggling to come to terms with the finality of it. I'm struggling to accept that I will never ever see or talk to my mum again.

One of the hardest things is the sympathy. I know people are just trying to be nice but sometimes it feels like they think of me as a different person now. Someone who is vulnerable and broken. And people are awkward about it. We might me talking about something and I'll say 'oh my mum said that...' and everyone will go silent and ignore me. And everytime I see someone I've not seen in a while I get sympathetic eyes as they touch my arm and say 'how is everything? How's your Dad? How's your brother and sister?' And although they're just being kind, what am I supposed to say to that?

Some days though, everything is okay. That's what makes it all so confusing. That I can go from being happy, talking about the future and being really productive to lying in bed all day everyday wanting to just sleep because it isn't real when I'm asleep.

So anyway that is a collection of my thoughts lately. They're depressing and probably not something anyone wants to read but like I've said before, it helps me to write them down on the blog.