... and breathe

Today has been my last day in London and never before has I felt further from myself or perhaps closer to all the reasons I need to leave.

I posted earlier that I was looking for some sort of sign. Some sort of affirmation that I am making the right choice. Some sort of reassurance. I was hoping to find that on the Internet (I know, I know, ridiculous beyond belief and I am clearly a complete victim of popular culture.).

Needless to say I didn't find it there. I have found it throughout my day in a million ways. Now especially, the house has been a mad house, last minute packing, not just my bags, but everything, the house, changing bills, updating contacts, everything. My parents have been here and it has been a frenzy. My mother is desperate to get the house packed and is obviously very emotional about that whereas I have been trying to get myself packed. Its been like being, I don't know, mauled(?). I have just found myself upstairs, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, reminding myself to breathe, wondering how I have got there, got here, got to this. I am not the kind of person who finds themselves feeling like this very often. I generally feel I can cope. Situations don't get too much for me. I break them down and do things one thing at a time. Systematically. Today has been too much. I am blogging as I want to shut myself in a dark room and close the door and not be disturbed again until tomorrow morning. I have had enough. I am running a bath and am hoping that that will calm me and soothe me and tell the migraine, which is persistently nudging at my temples asking to come in to stay, to bugger off.

I haven't found the answers or the affirmation or the reassurance I want on the Internet but as I sit here and try to string this out into a coherent thought process, failing probably, I do know this is the right thing to do. I want to be able to recognise myself in the mirror.

To all of you in London. Goodbye. I miss you already. Please come and stay. These are not empty throw-away words. I meant them every time I said them to each of you. Thank you so much for being beyond amazing. For going beyond in everything. For making me laugh when I wanted to cry. For making making my world a happier, more fun one. Unless I have a panic and a freak out, my next post will be from Mexico. Look after yourselves. COME AND STAY.



To you, you don't read this as far as I know, but anyway, to you. I miss you. I yearn for you. Every part of me aches for you today. The part of me that is yours I feel through it's absence and makes me sure it is with you still. You showed me a bigger world. You made me believe in myself more than anyone else. You taught me what it means to be brave. Keep safe please.

So its all a little close now...

and I am not sure how I really feel....

I am trying to distract myself...

I have been surfing the net this morning... looking for something... not sure what... but something.... some sort of sign or indication that I am doing the right thing...or perhaps just something - a distraction? It feels a bit like looking in the fridge when you are bored and feeling as if you are hungry but when you look inside you know there is nothing you want to eat.... make any sense?

My house is pretty much packed, except for the last dregs of what I am taking to mexico. The blank walls where pictures hung stare back at me. The space echos heartlessly. The books are packed and off the shelves. My suitcase gapes at me from the middle of the living room floor. A black hole with my life, or what I seem to consider essential for my life, embalmed in it.

I think I need to get out of the house for a bit.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? – Marianne Williamson

I guess with less 36 hours before I am on a plane this is appropriate. Who am I choosing to be? Or rather who am I choosing not to be any longer.

It has been a packing frenzy this weekend combined with saying good byes to friends and I am shattered. Please can I have a rest when I get to Mexico? 

My life is like a freight train... not a roller coaster...

My life is like a freight train, not a roller coaster, I think. Sometimes, I can be happily getting on with other things and its not so much the ups and downs, or highs and lows, but more that it smashes right into me. Shaking me to my foundation at best, leaving me a gibbering wreck at worst.

This week has been crazy. So many unexpected turns and twists. I have been saying my goodbyes, doing my bikini course, and the combination of the two has been amazing and ridiculous. I am going to need a week of sleep when I get to Mexico, and I still need to pack. Arggghhhhhhh....

The zen den has been rented and I have found a room mate in Playa. YAY! Things seem to keep working out. I am not complaining - long may it continue - I am relishing in it.

(Trying not to write a blog like a miserable woman with cats which is why I think I am moving away from my freight train spiel.... It's for the best I think!)

I have been out a couple of times this week with people I thought were friends and they have actually ended up being kind of dates. It's been interesting as I am clearly not even in that head space and am just thinking about getting on with things and the move, and somehow the not thinking about it makes them much more fun. In each instance by the time I have cottoned on enough to figure out the other persons agenda its taken a while, I have been too busy having fun and not caring about any particular outcome. The interesting thing is, I still, even afterwards, no longer care about any particular outcome from either one, I just want to continue having fun and being myself. I am going to Mexico. Who cares about anything else?

I need the yoga. I played some yoga playlists in Bikini class this week and I had to physically struggle not to get up and start to do sun salutations amongst the dummies.... The rhythm of the vinyasa is starting to stir and I cant wait to be standing on my mat letting it flow.

Not sure if this makes any sense.... its just where I am at. Tired, emotional, exhausted, a "to-do" list as long as my arm, not really apprehensive or nervous at the moment (not sure it feels real yet....), inspired, excited, ready for some sun and fed up of the British dank that passes as a poor excuse for a summer. I am really really going to miss my friends though. Badly. Every goodbye that doesn't seem quite real makes me more aware that some part of me cant quite believe I am not going to be able to see you all as often as I would like. It seems to the be the one thing I haven't really factored in. BOOM. I guess that's another example of my freight train. (this is me gibbering on the floor). You make choices with huge upside, things that you NEED to do, changes that have to happen, and you overlook the obvious. The people who make my world at the moment wont be coming with me. I go alone. Yes, of course I know people in Playa, I have amazing friends there, and I am sure there will be an incredible bunch of new ones (my new potential flat mate included) but nonetheless... you can't all come with me.

So I have been getting on with it, this move, the logistics (or some of them at least- my mother has been amazing), the emotions, the fear, the freedom at the end of it all, and I have overlooked the most obvious thing of all. I wasn't intending to post about this at all, but I will miss my friends - massive massive understatement. This week of having more time has made me realise I wish more of my weeks had been like this, that I had given you all more time, that I had been more focused on the things that really matter (you) and less on the things that have no real meaning...(please insert as appropriate here).

So here is to the highs and lows, the ups and downs, the booms and the times when I have been a gibbering wreck, and you have been there for me, please, if you want to, come with me?

Barbie, where are you?

This week I have been at Central St Martins doing a course in swimwear and lingerie design. It has felt like slowly coming alive again. Perhaps there is just more caffeine in the coffee in Soho than Canary Wharf, but I doubt it....

On Monday, walking into St Martins it could not have been more different from walking on to the trading floor. We are at the Charring Cross campus and they are just about to move to the new one in Kings Cross. The whole building is dilapidated in the most wonderful way, it feels a bit like a junior school with less money and more anarchy. Everything is a little bit grubby and worn around the edges, scuffed and rubbed. It reminds me a little of the poem the Velveteen rabbit as you can really feel how well loved the building has been. The other huge contrast is everyone is cheerful. The teachers, the porters, the other staff, and they all talk to each other. There isn't that hierarchical vow of silence that seems to permeate the city where people being friendly and human to one another is the exception rather than the rule.

I love it. I wish I could do an MA. We have been making blocks and patterns and toiles (the draft fabric version of your finished product, which you then tweak to make it perfect).  Seam allowance, grain lines, maximum stretch, salvage. These words are my currency now. It's a science. Physics on paper or in 3D and the ultimate lesson in cause and effect, and you learn by doing it.

On the first day we made a large, vaguely swimsuit shaped body cover and were told to put it on, draw on it in chalk and CUT. If it didn't work out, it didn't work out. No drama. The hiss and snip of the scissors and the FREEDOM of making the choice where you make that cut was amazing. I am typing this and realise it probably sounds slightly ridiculous, but just having the freedom to create what you want is so liberating. It felt a little bit like cutting your barbies hair off as a child with out the subsequent regret. It makes you feel, in a small way, omnipotent.

So on Monday, I made a plunging halter neck swimsuit and yesterday I made bras!!! Today, I make another bra, learnt how to make a corset, and made a killah pair of bikini bottoms. LOVE IT. Tomorrow, I want to try to make a corset pattern and do some more work on my bottoms - oooooo and please, can I try to make a negligee?

I am travelling around London with a camera now. Things that beforehand I wouldn't have noticed are now sparking my attention and curiosity. I went shopping for fabric yesterday, amazing store, "The Cloth Shop" on Berwick Street. I fell in love. The Indian printed silks. Hand printed, jewel coloured, and the kind of fabric that once you wash it becomes so light and soft its like a butterfly's kiss against your skin. I want to go back and find the printed cottons to make some bras and panties and nighties with. The owner's wife is a yoga teacher too. The back of the shop houses a collection of Ganesh statues, antique buttons and braids and some wonderful Japanese notebooks. The notebooks I loved. They are bound in traditional indigo and white patterns, very similar to those used for cotton kimonos in japan, but all the patterns are slightly different. I want to go back and lay them all out in a mosaic. I think that would look amazing.

I have also spoken to a designer friend this week who was full of amazing, invaluable advice. I feel very lucky. I am thinking of moving this blog to tumblr or at least using that for images etc and I think I probably need to jump on the twitter band wagon. I want a sewing machine. I am a bit sad I don't have one here to play with at night. I have so many ideas and things I want to do. Mexico is starting to feel like it might get a bit in the way..... (I know -mental and it's much needed)... but I am excited. REALLY EXCITED.

I wish I knew how to post a lot of pictures on this. I don't. Grrr. I am becoming more visual, or allowing myself to be more visual, and also in a small way, I realised my everyday omnipotence with my designs will filter out to the rest of my life and enable me to be more powerful in everything I do. Now where the hell did I put those metaphorical scissors? Barbie, where are you....?

Crazier and crazier - thought I had posted this and somehow it slipped through the net

Things have been getting crazier and crazier. I cant wait to go. I wish I was leaving tomorrow. Things are sorted, what I need to take with me is almost packed. The idea of the next five days at work is horrendous. I am over it already. Done. I know they are really going to drag.

I have been relucant to post recently as I have been reading lots of blogs and so many of them seem to be written by desperately unhappy lost souls trying to reconcile their life to themselves with an element of humour over the internet. I had no idea so many people were so unhappy. Its painful to read so many of them. I am glad they have a forum for their misery and a way of expressing it but I dont ever want this to become like that. Its made me feel a little insecure about the things I have been posting here, perhaps insecure is the wrong word - shakey.... People judge and I do feel like in these posts I have been sort of baring myself. Exposing myself to the elements of the internet. Its a funny idea isn't it? Slightly ironic as my last post was the realisation I am caring less what other people think, but our humanity is in our contradictions after all.

Where was I?
SO EXCITED!!!! It's unbelievable. Its starting to feel real. This thing that was an idea is happening, or the first stage is starting to happen. I am going to mexico in 17 days. This time in 17 days time I will be landing in cancun and making my way down the coast to Playa. Later in the evening I will be wiggling my toes in the sand before my first swim. Yes. I am going swimming on my first evening. It is, after all, the start of the rest of my life. No melodrama here - clearly!

Things have happened this week that have been even more affirmative that I am making the right choice. I see so many messed up relationships in London. People that clearly love each other and yet somehow find themselves in a downward spiral of unhappieness and discontent. How does that happen? I mean we are all adults. We all know we need to step away when that happens, but so often it becomes a cycle of madness.

Serendipity or just plain freaky?

Today was my last day at work. It has been in parts oddly emotional and at other time I have felt very detached. An observer. This probably wasn't assisted by the fact I don't think I have managed more than 5 hours sleep any night this week and was feeling a little worse for wear after last night.

A friend pointed out to me earlier this week when I was whinging about not being able to sleep that its normal in the circumstances to be anxious. (He is in DC and I am in London so his facebook times align nicely with my hours of insomnia.) It as if I have made these huge, momentous changes, and then expected them not to impact me in anyway, not to feel stressed, not to feel anxious, bottom line not to feel scared. Then when I do experience these emotions I am surprised. I know, I know, I type it and it seems ridiculous even to me. We ended up having this momentous chat, which ended with him echoing the lines my father always tells me "Don't be so hard on yourself!". I am strongly considering having this tattooed somewhere on my body, together with "Don't be afraid to ask for help!", of course, to fit in with my new yogaramma outlook I would probably need to get the tattoos in Sanskrit: English would just be too prosaic, although perhaps more effective. [Mummy, before you freak out - I am kidding - sort of....]

What is with that actually, come to think of it, why so often do we have to take something simple and dress it up in a way that better fits how we wish to be perceived rather than sticking to the simple and direct and simply honouring that? When does how we represent something become more significant to us than what we actually do? What drives that? I don't just mean material things... I mean the introduction of the element of suffer... I think. Human nature, right? We have to make problems so we can solve them and then feel better about ourselves....

I digress. Today was my last day at work. How do I feel? I feel tired. Exhausted actually. Hungover. Kind of scared but the tiredness is masking all of that. A little apprehensive about the amazing amount of routine and structure I have removed from my life. I am going to miss the people I have been working with a lot, but I am not actually going to miss the jobs or being part of the struggle that the banking industry will no doubt continue to be for the immediate and medium term future. A bit numb. Its going to take a while to sink in. I am trying to resist spinning into a panic about how the next stage is going to work, deep down I know its going to be fine and I can relax and let it happen. Let's reassess in six months...

Quite funny, I am not sure how much I believe in astrology, but my horoscope for the weekend is pasted below. Serendipity? Or just plain freaky?


Can you earn your living doing something you love? Friday’s moon-Pluto lineup reveals new ways to profit from your talents. Think outside of the 9 to 5 box. While you’re a hands-on person, you only have so many hours in a day. It may be possible to create a product or published materials that can be sold independently of you, allowing you to literally make money in your sleep. On Saturday, the moon and Jupiter meet up in your income house, furthering your desire to explore new work opportunities. Reach out to your social network—particularly the ones far from home as Jupiter rules long-distance alliances. Friends in other cities may provide a golden ticket, even if you’re collaborating remotely from your current home base. Has someone in your life been continually generous with you? This is the weekend where you spring for an in-kind gift to keep the scales balanced. 

Ode to a Nightingale

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades	75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

Keats - Ode to a Nightingale

Tomorrow is my last day at work. Was it a vision or a waking dream? Both my life and the nightingale. My family have been banking since the 14th Century. We were bankers to the Princes of Milan. The word itself "bank" derives from the Italian word for bench which in the Milan Borsa was traditionally broken in two when the deal was struck. I wonder if today, in so many ways, I have come full circle. I am struck by this metaphor. Perhaps to move on we all need for the bench that we sit on to be broken? Perhaps the early Milanese bankers got it right? Do we ever strive for the new, for the difficult, if we are sitting in a position of comfort? I know I don't.

I walked home tonight from dinner and drinks with a soul friend. Across Paternoster Square and back through the city. I found myself walking across a cross roads, along the other arm of the cross, perpendicular, to the way I walked across it about six months ago. Again, it felt as if in some ways I have come full circle. It caught me on unawares. It is time for me to go back to Mexico. As my soul friend tonight said, its time for chapter three. I know she was referring to the next chapter of our friendship, but I am aware that these chapters are also aligned to those of my adult life. 

For clarification, I call her a soul friend as we seem to find each other and meet again in different circumstances, in different locations, in different occupations at different times. She is meant to be in my life. We have parallel paths. We met in Italy at a horse show in 2004, in 2005 I asked her to come and help us out in NY, in 2009 she came to London, we have spent time together here since then, somehow, she claims (I don't believe her as she would have done it anyway but it might have taken longer) me changing my life has inspired her and she is going to try to go back to the States in the next couple of years. We are connected.

The Yeats quote is one of my favorite poems for so many reasons. Both deeply personal and more abstract. I realise that in a few months, with hindsight, my times here might seem like a dream. It will cloud over, the memories will haze up, things will become more diffuse and less defined. I welcome that day. I have regrets, of course I do, but on the whole they are small ones. I wish I had had the opportunity to work in the City. To walk the lanes and steep myself in the history and legacy of the place. The city seems to me to be one part magic to two parts modern and odious. The one part magic would make the experience a worth while trade. But, then again, we all make our own magic. Someone asked me today if I was looking forward to running away from it all. I said not at all. I am running towards the rest of my life. That is what it feels like, especially cemented by the past two weeks in the markets which have done nothing but affirm my choice. This is me. Breathing deep. Preparing. Running towards the rest of my life.

Things are happening

Things are happening. I have a tenant for my flat and provided credit checks etc work she sounds perfect. Better than perfect. Better still I have a place to stay in Mexico. An amazing apartment. Only having got these things resolved do I realise how much they have been worrying me. On both counts I had sort of made the conscious decision not to worry about them and that they would resolve themselves, and low and betide they have. Part of me is surprised it has been so easy. The part of me that seems to be evolving with this journey isn't surprised at all. This is, after all, what it means to have faith and believe in what you are doing, and when this happens things fall into place. I like this new me. A lot.

Other things have been changing too. Some that I am aware of and others that I can feel shifting on the peripheries of my consciousness. This new found awareness is interesting for me. It leaves me uptight and anxious and I feel like I am experiencing more emotions than before, perhaps my fight or flight has been triggered by the move, who knows. One of the big changes I have noticed is that I seem to be getting better at setting boundaries for myself in my relationships and recognising who is a positive influence for me, and sadly who isnt. This has been a long time coming and its a huge relief that its arrived (at last).

I tend to think of myself as a bit of a Labrador puppy of a person. I will wander up to anyone, wagging my metaphorical tail, share my toys, perhaps chew their shoelaces, roll over on to my back and hope they scratch my tummy, and given half a chance will lick their face. I cant help it. Its just how I do life. I just want everyone to love me pleeeeaaaaaaase.... As a toddler I used to give my sweets away to strangers, which I think was perplexing to my parents but also a huge relief as I was always the one doing the giving I never had to be told "don't take sweets from strangers". I find I still do this now as a adult but the behavior plays out in a different way. It has huge upsides but sadly it also has downsides. Finally, I am finding myself filtering this behaviour more. It seems to matter less to me now than before that people like me. I am sticking up for myself. I am ok with people not liking me. It surprised me at first, its been almost like watching a stranger from the outside. The wonderful thing is, I have realised I care less if others like me a little less now as I am starting like me a LOT more.

(Also I know the people who really care about me like me anyway. end of.)

Chaos

Sorry I haven't posted for a couple of days. Its been for various reasons.

I have builders in the house at the moment and it has been turned upside down. The zen den is definitely no longer zen. For any of you that know me, and how ocd I can be about it - it looks like a bomb site. Even sitting here typing is difficult. I want to get up and tidy up, and I cant. The bedrooms and hall are being repainted - the areas of the house where most things are stored, as are the insides of the wardrobes and there is stuff all over the living room. I hate it. I cant start to tidy up as the builders have craftily painted the floors and I cant go in the rooms now. Experiencing the chaos has brought it home to me that I really do care about being in a tidy serene environment. This didn't used to be something that bothered me, at least not as a teenager, but somewhere along the way I have morphed into someone who cant abide clutter or disorder. How did it happen?

Its funny isn't it how we change? We don't even realise it ourselves and real changes happen slowly and gradually. I don't think my mother has understood it yet. I think she still sees me as the teenager who used to make a mess, leave things all over the floor and around the house. I guess that's because that is when she last lived with me and for her it must seem like a sudden change to see me now. In the zen den everything has its place and when her, or my creative cleaning lady, decide to rearrange things or don't put them back where they should be it feels like everything has gone awry. I realise I have developed this habit from having so little free time, not being able to find things immediately feels like such a waste of it, not to mention it often makes the difference between being on time, or not and a precious few extra minutes in bed. Actually, typing this I realise I must seem insufferable but also hand in hand with this tidiness has come a ruthlessness with clutter, or extraneous "things". I don't keep things I don't use. I don't keep stuff for the sake of it. If something is old or damaged or broken or not useful it gets thrown away. This isn't out of wastefulness, although it might seem like an expendable way to live life, I prefer to think of it as a distillation. I keep the essentials. The stuff I need and that means something. I don't want the attachment.

Months ago before I even knew I was going to be making this move I had a ruthless declutter. Boy am I grateful for it now! I guess there is going to be a lot more to come. A lot more stuff I can afford to loose and leave behind. The fact is, if I am not going to take it with me, it clearly doesn't matter to me so I can let it go and get rid of it. Obviously, this is now becoming a metaphor, its not just "stuff" that I will be applying this to, but to every aspect of my life. I am looking forward to looking back and seeing what really matters to me, what comes with me and what I leave behind. I wonder if it will be what I expect...

What surprises you the most?

I feel like my blog posts aren't as good at the moment as they were at the start. Perhaps I am being less introspective, perhaps I just don't have as much to say, perhaps the novelty of being able to regurgitate my day across the internet is wearing off - who knows. I think it might be more that I am taking each day at a time. I am being forced to. I managed to exhaust myself to the extent that I got sick, couldn't sleep and spent yesterday catching up on sleep.


Why is it I need to push myself to that point before I rest? Why can I not set up boundaries and say "Enough!" to people before I reach that point? Why can't I do that by myself? I am hoping this is one of the things I am going to learn from a more regular, sustained yoga practise. I will need to if I intend to practise two hours a day seven days a week for three months. Typing this is making me tingle with anticipation and I can almost feel my achilles and hamstrings breathing deep sights of relief. I am so excited and I think this opportunity to deepen my practise will change my life. 


One of the girls I work with today has had a shoulder pain for several months and went to the physio today to be told that 8 vertebrae of her neck are fusing and she is at risk of early onset arthritis. She is 27. Why is it we repeatedly ignore what our bodies are trying to tell us? Until they step the pain up to such a degree we can no longer ignore them? I guess this comes back to an earlier blog post on if the universe is trying to tell you something you should listen, or it will just shout louder. Bodies are the same. Is there something that your body is telling you that you aren't listening to and are trying to ignore?


Mine is definitely trying to tell me it's tired and I haven't been taking very good care of it in recent weeks. It has definitely had too much sugar, too much wine, too much salt, way too much caffeine and not enough rest, or TLC. I am contemplating using the time before I go to Mexico to do a juice fast but somehow I think that would annoy everyone I am supposed to be seeing for good bye drinks etc. It's still nice to know there is a nuclear option - perhaps next week during the week? That shouldn't be too disruptive... although it will probably make me quite grumpy.


Today, for the first time it crossed my mind that the yoga practise I will be doing will cause me to observe myself in a very different way, and call for much deeper introspection than I had previously considered. Actually I am taking way too much credit for this observation, I read a post on the elephant journal entitled "10 signs you are ready for Yoga Teacher Training". Most of these I could relate to although I want to stress my main motivation for doing the training is to deepen and completely establish my own practise. I do want to be able to share it with friends, but I am not sure I can quite envisage myself teaching classes at the moment. This may well change.


Either way here is the link to an awesome article by Kelli Harrington


http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/08/10-signs-youre-ready-for-yoga-teacher-training/ 


It was point nine that leapt out at me in flashing neon...
"You’re prepared to take an inner journey. Yoga teacher training can be an emotional rollercoaster, as you peel off the layers of the ego and reveal parts of yourself previously buried or unknown. It’s usually ultimately enlightening but can be temporarily traumatic."


Woah there! What's all this talk of trauma. This wasn't something I had actively considered, however now that I think about it, its very likely indeed (tremble). Am I ready for this? I don't know. I am not ready to keep doing the same thing all over again though and nor am I ready to not listen to my body. Not listening is not an excuse. 


This quote (below) that I saw for the first time today sums up so much of what I see in my current life. 


They asked the Dalai Lama: What surprises you most in humanity? 


Men, he said, because they lose their health to gain wealth, and then lose their money to regain health. And while thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present in such a way that they neither live the present nor the future. And live like they were never going to die... and die like they had never lived.


Perhaps this is the very choice I am really making by all of this, perhaps I am choosing life and that's why it feels so easy?

Pigheaded

What happened to me today? I honestly cant remember. It blends so seamlessly into so many other London days. Restless night. Got up. Washed. Dressed. Decided I couldn't be bothered with make-up. Went to work. Got an incredible coffee from the Italian girls at Costa. Got into work. Tried to deal with work issues - in particular two trades that were enigmas to all of us and made no sense. Emailed friends. Looked at the papers. Dealt with more work issues. Decided I needed another coffee. More work. Wondered why I was working so hard as I am leaving. And thus the day drifted into a sort of amorphous nothingness. Like so many others.

I am so glad I am going. Life is too short for days that become a list of things that you cant remember by the end of the day.

Actually I did read an interesting blog, that became strangely compulsive reading and I intend to buy her book, called Tout Sweet about a beauty and fashion editor who moved to France and restored a cottage there, broke up with one boyfriend, got a dog, found another crazy boyfriend who she was clearly more in love with than the first and that (somewhat ironically) is as far as I have got.... Something to look forward to for tomorrow at least.

I gave me a slight moment of worry as if that kind of life change, from west London to France whilst keeping a vaguely similar career is the stuff of books it makes my idea of continental move, complete career change and setting up my own business seem vaguely off the chart. Am I being over ambitious / ballsy or just plain idiotic? Watch this space. I am hoping I am just too ballsy to consider that it might not work? Shall we stick to that one?
[For ballsy please feel free to insert pigheaded at your discretion.]

AT LEAST I WONT BE BORED!!!!

Every step of the way

Today I posted the zen den on the work intranet and the one at Goldies too and had a phenomenal amount of interest in it. I sat at work with the horrible idea of someone else living in my home for the whole day. My lovely little haven in London, where everyone always feels safe, or as Chopper calls it, the North London Waifs and Strays Hostel, as its where all my friends seem to gravitate when they are upset. I love that it has been a place of solace and welcomed so many of you as it has me. Sitting with this idea at work was heart wrenching until I came home and met one of the guys who was interested and he was lovely. Better still I could see he had fallen as in love with it as I am. Suddenly this made it all seem better, that in fact I can choose whom I rent it to, and renting it is just another opportunity to share it with people I wouldn't otherwise get the chance to meet and that it will bring them the happiness it has brought me, and they will no doubt love it too.

That's kind of what happens right? If we pour love into something everyone picks up on that and treats the thing with love. This has happened to me with horses before. The ones you take time with and adore. That you don't rush or push and allow to develop, that you don't force but rather offer them the opportunity through positive reinforcement to grow up. You give them time. Those are the horses that you sit on and you can hear them think, you know they will attempt the impossible for you, and that no matter who they go to and where they end up they will be loved and looked after as that is their only understanding of the world. Are we as humans the same? Is this what we need too? I can definitely see parallels.

How can we best support others when they need this kind of compassion? I personally have to fight the urge to be too invasive, I think (and I fight this knowledge every time I am vested in an outcome) sometimes you have to work like a horse whisperer and allow them to come to you. Do they know you are there? Supporting them even if you aren't around them? How can we hold someone's paw as Piglet so pertinently asks without the physical contact? How can we let someone else know they can be sure of us?

I received an email today that moved me to tears, not because of what it said but rather because of what it didn't say. I know how much regret and unhappiness was in that email for that person and that's not where I want them to be. I want them to be happy, to know that we are all allowed to change our minds, for them to be able to forgive themselves and to be in a good place. How can I let them know that?

To be able to have a new beginning, we need to let things go. I need to be prepared to let go of my attachment to this house to enable myself to have the new beginning I want in Mexico. I guess sometimes you just have to have faith that the love you pour into creating something will continue to be there even if you aren't physically present. You don't always need to be able to hold someones paw to be sure of them, sometimes you are just sure of them and wish they could be more sure of themselves. And even if you can't hold their paw physically you will be mentally. Every. Step. Of. The. Way.