Sometimes you need a break in life, time for reflection maybe, but it may seem to others like you’re missing in action.

Either way, it stirs up questions, right? What’s going on? Is everything okay?

My last entry was two weeks before Mother’s Day. I had expressed my dread for it, among other things.

As it’s been quite some time since that post, I’m guessing you can imagine how things went. And if you’ve never been good at guessing, I’ll tell you, it turned out how I expected it to, actually if I’m being honest it was worse than I expected. And that is saying something.

So, things haven’t been great for me lately. I found myself barely getting through each day. I fell into a hole that surrounded me in darkness, and I didn’t see any glimmer of light.

Until one day I could. I wish I could say it was a beautiful moment. It was anything but, if I’m honest with you.

But, it was a glimmer of hope nonetheless. And from then on, each day has gotten better.

Some days I almost feel normal. The pain I feel isn’t all-consuming. And anyone looking in might think I’m okay, that my life is great.

But, a lot of energy goes into feeling and looking like everything is okay.

Some days the cracks appear, you hear a song, see something on social media and then that wall you’d put up around yourself breaks.

One tear falls, and then it’s like a waterfall or a dam wall, the floodgates are suddenly open and you can’t stop them.

You feel like running away, because somehow you believe that if you were ‘missing in action’ you wouldn’t be reminded of the pain you’re feeling. Or by some miracle, the pain will stop.

But there is no truth in that.

I remember seeing a clip of some male actors sitting around a table, and I believe it was Tom Hanks who said “I wish I had known that this too shall pass”

I say this in my head a lot because if I don’t I won’t feel like there is an end to it.

Not too long ago I felt like everything was right, going well, I was happy I was feeling like my mental health issues were a thing of the past. I talked about coming off medication, I had a positive outlook on life.

But the thing with mental health is no matter how strong you feel, it can wipe your feet out from underneath you.

So, as Tom Hanks said ” I wish I had known that this too shall pass. You feel bad right now, you feel pissed off, you feel angry. This too shall pass. You feel great, you feel like you have all the answers, you feel like everybody finally gets you. This too shall pass.”

Each of us is different and unique. Our journey in life, from one person to the other, is never the same. That is what makes life so interesting.

You may be inspired to experience something someone else has experienced. You may learn something from someone else’s misfortunes, and that’s not a bad thing by any means, because life is about lessons.

I’m learning some lessons at the moment that are hard to swallow.

I’m struggling to accept some things in my life that are out of my control.

But at the end of the day, I know that “this too shall pass”.

I’ve learned I need to lean more into my faith when things start falling in a direction that I feel is out of control. Some might not understand that, and that is completely fine. I’m not here to preach to you.

Because each of us has different coping mechanisms to get us through our tough seasons.

If it were as easy as becoming ‘missing in action’, I think a lot of us would do it. It would be an easy fix to our problems, right?

Anyway, I honestly can’t believe I’ve shared this much with you. I’ve gone through moments where I thought about giving this up. Who am I going to reach, will anybody care? All the answers I came up with were negative. But in amongst all that, there was a push inside me to write.

So here I am.

I don’t know if I’ll reach someone reading this. I’ll never know, but I guess there is a little therapy in getting it all out for myself too you know?

Anyway, If you need to reach out, feel free to contact me, I’m always here to help out where I can.

Until next time,

Be kind to yourself. x