I've done an unusual amount of travelling recently - a few days in Istanbul with my dad, a weekend in Cornwall with friends and then a weekend in Northern Ireland for work. 6 flights in the space of 21 days, for 3 very different trips - I think I better plant a few trees to compensate for all that carbon footprint!
As good as those three trips were in their own ways, I'm glad to settle back into a quieter routine. Quieter perhaps isn't the right word, given that from this week onwards I'm going to be working 6 days a week between two jobs. It's going to be tiring but I'm just so pleased to have a bit more stability in my life again.
I had my last session of counselling yesterday. It's been harder to fit the sessions in recently, but it's also been useful for me to see how I've coped without having that safe place and listening ear every week. I often find that once you come out the other side of a difficult time that it's hard to remember how bad it was in the midst of it. Perhaps that's one benefit of keeping a journal. It was almost a year ago exactly that I wrote the following:
I just feel flat, empty and a bit dead inside. What is the point?
And a few days later:
You know things are bad when even your counsellor is telling you that you've hit rock bottom.
I won't claim to be 'sorted' or 'fixed'. Depression and mental health don't work like that. But I have worked hard to sort through a lot of painful memories and squashed down emotions over the past 18 months. I'm aware of sounding pathetically cheesy here, and I don't want to claim that I'm a new person or have reached a place of fully accepting myself. But my counsellor asked me what I thought the Katie of the future looked like, and for the first time in a long time (perhaps ever) I couldn't think of anything much that I wanted to be different.
You have to recognise what a big deal that is for me. I used to tell my mum that I wanted a personality transplant for birthdays or Christmas. I used to day dream about being a totally different person and how great it would be. But I'm never going to be the life and soul of the party, and that's ok. I don't need to be the popular kid, the one with the guy, the prettiest, sportiest, hundreds of facebook friends, packed social life, the stick thin kid. I can be the gentle, good listener, compassionate, creative, trustworthy, kind, hard working, perceptive and thoughtful kid. I can be the person I am and was already. (And that's not to say that popular people aren't kind, they just don't tend to be that great at listening from my experience.)
Sure, there are things I still need to work on like my self-confidence, social life and fears of being alone. But I'd say reaching this level of self-acceptance instead of self-loathing is a pretty good place to start from. It's freeing.
Here are my photos from the past couple of weeks. Click on the photos to see larger versions.
Day 118: Enjoying a blast of sunshine in between the snow showers!; Day 119: It's definitely been a week for journaling - glad to be able to write things down and have space to process; Day 121: When in Cornwall...; Day 122: Returning home after a fab weekend in Cornwall with some fab friends: Day 123: Sometimes you just need a wee cry on the phone with your mammy to remind you that the sun will shine again; Day 124: Oh so pretty packaging; Day 125: Blue & silver ribbon on a baby gift for a friend; Day 126: Oh I do love a good sunset: Day 127: Another day, another bird's eye view (of the Clyde): Day 128: Great to see this lovely lady again so soon; Day 129: Sunshine & tulips for a lazy Sunday afternoon; Day 131: Pastel colours & sunshine peeking through the blinds in work
Day 120: Oh I do like to be beside the seaside
(Could this beach be any more beautiful?)
Day 130: Enjoyed a quieter day & a chance to do some reflecting
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