A letter to put in your pocket

'Come to me, all you who wearied and burdened, and I will give you rest.'

Rest, that laughable word coveted by Mothers around the globe. The thought of closing your matchstick propped eyes and easing into blissful slumber,  no worries about defrosting meat, no lists about all the chores that need doing, no panicked googling about that mysterious rash on your 18 month olds chest. Just peace. A blank mind. Rest.

I'm still searching for the elusive state, where there's actual silence and no ticking in my mind. Where the vacuum, parked up in the hallway, is not calling me. Where the disney channel is silenced and the dog doesn't need a walk. Life gets in the way of our sleep time but we need the rest to do the living. It's difficult. So very difficult.

My task is to carve out those little snippets of time, where deep baths are acceptable and my skin is allowed to prune. When my phone can be switched off, completely off, and I can unload my worries to Him, heave the anxiety off my shoulders and place it firmly in His hands. For really, what option have I got?

So Lord, please give me rest. Cos God knows I need it.

Linking up with Ruth Povey and Letters To.

Letter to... the one who noticed.

We'd been friends for a while, until we wanted more. You came to my house and never left, watching films on my teeny tiny tv, relaxing on a floor bed of duvet and pillows. We ate dinner together. Got some pets. We were happy. Only, you saw me crying, inconsolable, at photo albums of my much loved Gran, you battled into the bathroom and mopped up blood running down my arm, you peeked behind the mask and didn't run. 

You helped me to get help.

That day, sat in the mental health nurses all-too-comfy chair you cried with me. That day, with a thousand thoughts whirling round my head, I knew you would never leave, you'd seen my soul, bared raw, seen me, more vulnerable than a person has any right to be, and you stayed. You visited. You did the housework while I was away and you celebrated me coming home. You built me back up into a person of worth. And even now, years down the line, when I'm struggling and go a bit quiet, when my finger nails dig half moons into the skin on my thigh, you notice, you always notice.

There are no words to say my thanks, to explain my love for you. But for now, just for now.

We'll be forever and always.

Meg x

Linking up with Sabrina at Just Keep Singing. Come link up to!

A letter to explain

Dear depression,

This week-I'm going to kick your arse.

Depression,  you have taken too many years from me, reduced me to a shell, a puppet, smiling though I'm empty inside.  You've hidden, deep away, for months, then returned with a vengeance,  slapping my self control round the face and whispering bitter insults into my mind. You've tried to destroy anything good, everything good, til my Husband came along, stronger than you, and my friends, you cannot ruin my friends.  Because,  and hear this, they know what your up to. They know exactly what you're trying to do, and they said no.

And I say no.

So pills and sunshine,  fighting your exhaustion and rationalising your irrational. Ice cream, hugs, and loving arms. These are my weapons. And depression?  Believe me.
I will win. For I am never alone.

Forever free,

Meg.

Letter to the Brave

Brave girl,

I catch your eye in the mirror, make up half done, hair fuzzing like a mane around your ears. You don't look brave. Anything but. Your toddler bursts in demanding a drink and your smile snaps back into place, in a minute darling.

You aren't anything special, no stunning beauty, no weeping in the corner, no dragging the world down with your pain. So, why? Why is this averagely average woman brave? What could she possibly do? She laughs, she jokes, she cuddles her kids, even when her heart is hollow and her pelvis snapping in two. She got back behind the wheel when every frayed nerve was screaming not to. Last week she drove across a bridge of a doom, a bridge that she'd narrowly avoided a panic attack on just a few days prior. Before that, drove in rain so heavy she could barely see. This woman, this seemingly nothing, can look in the mirror and smile at the face looking back. She has turned her heart and is ridding herself of the darkness that invaded her soul. This woman is brave.

Braver than even she will ever know.

Concrete Words-The Tainted

For a while I was tainted. Now I'm getting over that and I have become a 'tainter', I break most things I touch and, am mostly always, sporting some cut, or bruise, from some clumsy accident.

In just a few short weeks I have dropped and smashed my very shiny, beautiful, new phone, dropped and chipped my husbands shiny new iPhone, broken myself building a lightweight, plastic climbing frame, and, as of last night, burnt the finger prints off my middle finger by touching a barbecue. A lit barbecue.

A large portion of these misdemeanour's is simple stupidity, my brain fails to catch up with my actions and pain happens. A smaller portion is my sense of super hero-ness. Lit barbecue? No problem for me, teflon hands! Pregnant with a dodgy pelvis? Walking 3 miles can only help, surely? Have a new, probably expensive, technical item? Dropping onto a hard floor from a certain height can only help it run better. No?

I do not like being a 'breaker of self and shiny things'. Unfortunately, as time ticks by and days roll forward my lack of spatial awareness and butter fingers only get worse. Especially as I have no fingerprints left.

Keep your technology away from me, please, unless you want to see if it bounces.   

Letter to...

Dear man,

As I lay there, crumbled and twisted, literally trapped under my own stupidness, you crawled through the chunks of windscreen. You lay, belly pressed to glass, chatting to me about my hobbies, my interests. Tucked me under a manky old jumper. You searched through the shards of plastic to find my brand new phone. You told me I was going to make it, and I believed you.

As the car was lifted and my hand finally freed. It hurt. Really hurt. You stayed. You strapped.  You told me not to move. You cared, really cared, about the 17 year old bloody mess before you.

For you. I was a job. A horrible job but a job none the less. For me, you made the worst time in my life survivable.

Thank you.

Five Minute Friday - Listen

Linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker here for five minute Friday.

So, my ears are open and I'm listening. Straining to hear the words behind the words. To see that look in my friends eye that means her 'I'm fine' is not fine at all. I listen with arms and heart open and tears running down   and sorrow hidden behind a mask of composure. I listen and I'm hear and I want to fix things. I really want to fix things. So many people are going through so much. And I know, I know I can't fix the actual problems so I sit. Offering tea and sandwiches. Letting these problems know I'm here, I'm fighting. I'm listening.