Change- a June update on WordPress

It is the 4th June today.

This year has flown past so quickly thus far, I hardly feel I had time to get out of bed in January before it was suddenly yesterday, and the sun has come out and the temperature is warm, and there are hundreds of people walking out and about blinking in the brightness and searching for beer gardens.

Summer has come, and it seems as though winter and spring hardly left an impression; it’s so hard to remember grey skies when you’re squinting in the sunlight and thinking about ice-lollys. I think we appreciate the sun in this country more due to the fact that we’re never entirely sure it’s going to come out at all; so when it does it seems like the whole country lets out a long sigh and embraces the warmth whole heartedly. It’s bloody brilliant.

Although, there was another attack in London yesterday; which I think has been made more distressing due to its close proximity to the Manchester attacks. I just marked myself as safe on Facebook, and spent fifteen minutes trying to come to terms with it. I can’t really, it’s just so horrifyingly sad to consider the perpetrators pain, and then the pain of the families of the people who died.

Why do we do it to each other? Why can’t be just focus on the sunshine and the relative warmth it provides, and just enjoy that? Nothing, apparently, can ever be that simple

And, focusing on these massive seemingly unanswerable questions for too long is guaranteed to give a person a headache, so I will move on.

I have experienced much change, it seems, in the last month or so. I had a terrible six weeks, and during that time went relatively quiet on WordPress as I worked to recover, and move forwards, and learn from the things which were happening to me. I have come out the other end stronger, and more able to meet my mental challenges head on. This is a cause for great pride and joy.

However, a very close friend of mine who had previously been fighting her own battle with this apparently cunning diagnosis has been hospitalised again with acute and very severe psychosis. For her the intensity of it became too horrendous, and more than she could cope with.

This happened two weeks ago, and for reasons which are currently out of my control I haven’t been able to see her, which has been a cause of great grief and heartache in itself. I can’t put all my feelings into words, because they run too deep and some of them run into places which aren’t rational or sensible. I am not religious, she is; and the last time I spoke to her she told me she was with Jesus, and that one day I would understand.

I have moments where I feel that I do understand, even now. I do not normally pray, but I have done over the last week. I have prayed to a God I’m not entirely relaxed with, because he is her God, and I have begged him to give her the strength to fight this illness back again and to come out the other side OK.

I have hoped and prayed, and I know that when I am finally allowed to see her I can impress some of that love onto her, so she knows how important it is that she keeps fighting, even after all of this, and keeps fighting against whatever it is which is keeping her unable to wake up.

As much as I know it’s silly, it makes me feel bad when I consider my own achievements and progress over the last little while. I have just been offered a full time position at the organisation I volunteer at; I did the interview last Thursday and they offered me the job that afternoon.

I am going to write another post on this topic, because it is absolutely massive and will mean that I come off of the benefits which have effectively been my safety net for the last twelve years, and instead move into the ‘real world’ of paydays, rent payments and working 9 to 5.

As said, this is huge, and such an achievement. I have been telling myself, over the last two months when things are bad, Ally- live in the real world. There isn’t anything more real that entering full-time employment and finally working for your own money. It is exhilarating and terrifying and satisfying; and I am proud of myself.

Yet, my friend lies in a hospital bed now, unable to connect to the people around her or muster the care or inclination to be aware of that fact. We have the same diagnosis, we are each of us battling our own personal enemies and adversities; yet I am getting a job and she is where she is.

A month ago I was still struggling with issues, and she was living in her own home. I was able to call her up and we were able to talk about the crazy things which were besieging our heads and our thought processes. She was about to start to treatment programme which she hoped would be effective. Now all of that is different. So much has changed in such a short time.

My symptoms are retreating, as I become more aware of my own abilities and thought processes; and it seems that as a continuation of that positivity I have been offered the contract I was hoping for at work, which has come at the ideal time and in the ideal situation. But my friends fight was too much for her, and so she has taken steps back. I struggle to see any grace or design in these facts.

And, outside, the seasons have changed so dramatically that the sun now wakes me in the morning, and I have started to pack away of my winter jumpers and coats once again. Ru and I are planning a travelling trip which we hope to embark upon in spring of next year; this time next year I may be writing from a beach in India.

Change, I think, is something which is colossal and unyielding. Perhaps the more you hold onto things the greater the realisation when they shift and morph, and the more tangible this great force feels when you consider what was lost and what was gained. It seems at times that there is no rhyme or reason, there is no purpose behind the manner in which things change and the outcomes which are created.

We all of us work to ensure that things change in ways which are positive and beneficial to us. But sometimes we work our asses off, and then only get knocked back. Is there a reason why things sometimes change for the worse, why sometimes bad things happen to good people? I do not believe in the christian God, and yet there are times when you do have to wonder about things. Although often I feel that this wondering does more harm than good; the answers which can come seem inhumane, and illogical, and uncomfortable.

I’ll stop now, because I have many questions and ponderings which would better fit another post. But I will pray for my friend, and I ask that anybody who reads this take a second to do the same because there literally never was a better person, and she isn’t where she should be atm; her changes are not the changes she deserves.

I will enjoy the sunshine today and know that soon, she will be able to do the same as well; and try not to spend too long wondering about where the first half of this year disappeared to, and how quickly it will be before the leaves start falling from the trees again, and the temperature will sink back down into the cold.

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