I am writing a daily blog about my family and I being homeless as a way of trying to process my emotions through this and take the lessons and learning from it. If I help someone along the way, I will be very happy.
I woke up in the night with what I felt at the time was a great idea of what to write about today. But, as usual, I didn’t write it down and of course, I have forgotten it entirely. It’s like a dream when you first wake up, fully still in the dream only to find its content disappearing like smoke until it’s as though it was never there. Speaking of dreams, I think I had a good one last night. Naturally, I don’t remember it.
I am, though, waking up at around 3 or 4am every morning after a period of being mentally awake even if I’m not physically awake. Which is to say, my brain is working but my eyes refuse to open. My mind is whirring endlessly with all the things going on in my life right now and all the things that trouble me. As always when this happens of course it always seems worse in the middle of the night but as much as you tell yourself that, it doesn’t help in the moment.
I keep thinking about all the things that have gone – the past in other words. My brain replays for me all the stuff I have lost over the last 2 years like a constant reel. When I woke up this morning, I felt really down and was snappy with everyone. Then I had a little word with myself because being mired in the past helps no one at all. It’s gone, it can’t be changed and living in it doesn’t make it any different. Yes, take the lessons from the experience but don’t focus on it. And I have taken the lessons, I know what they were and are and how to do things differently from now on. So, there is no need for me to keep raking over it.
No, I need now to focus on the present and sort out the money I need just to keep going. I am living on benefits at the moment and because of my heart attack, I can’t go back to my old job but have received no sickness benefits whether statutory sick pay or any other type of payment. I am, therefore, significantly short on money and have bills to pay. The process, however, is not simple by any stretch of the imagination the ramifications of which are worrying me and keeping me awake. I am thinking of returning to my previous job despite the implications for my health because I have no real choice the way things are going.
But then I have to remind myself…the universe will provide.
I will say hand on (dodgy) heart that I have been able to see what’s coming even if I didn’t want to admit it. I knew that we were going to have to move out of the house, I knew we would have to take our son out of his school, I even knew I was going to have a heart attack way before it happened. Right now, though, I feel really in the dark as to what is happening and what is coming down the track. I really can’t see what the future holds which is what I think is one of the things worrying me. I always have a sense of what’s coming, always. And I don’t now which is unnerving.
Overall, I am struggling today if I’m honest. I know I shouldn’t but I am looking around me at people and just wondering how on earth they manage to make things happen and I don’t seem to be able. How other people manage to land on their feet no matter what they have done, and I seem to be mired in the brown stuff. I’m just feeling sorry for myself I know. But it’s just difficult especially when I am not entirely sure what the next step is.
I don’t know if it’s a reaction to finishing my trilogy and not being sure what’s next. I found myself wondering today…am I a writer, really? Because I can’t see the path for that anymore than I can see a path for anything else right now. It just feels like a big void, a darkness with no direction. Which as I say is difficult for someone who has always had some kind of knowledge of what’s next, good and bad. But then I guess it’s also coming back to the need to surrender to the universe, to entirely trust what it is arranging and sorting for you. To just allow it to happen because it will be marvellous. To stop worrying, to stop being anxious, to stop trying to figure out the how and allow the universe to make it happen in the way it is supposed to.
Because I am soaring. I am thriving. I am successful. I am grateful.
Louisa Simpson 