little_h's big dreams :)

little_h_2

thanks all I do feel better for a good night's sleep but did a visualisation thing with my harp teacher tonight about feeling grounded and got v upset again!

I love a bath but I find if I have one too close to bedtime, I end up too hot. It could work well earlier in the evening so may try and aim for this on Friday evening when I get in from work.

I have had some thoughts on where to start with all the thinking about life stuff. (if that makes sense) will make some notes and save these for April!

It has been freezing down south today as well, really foggy. We were all expecting a beautiful spring day but it hasn't materialised! Hope it isn't honking down with rain on the way up tomorrow, I hate the M6 in the rain.

hoping for another good night tonight, and also hoping for no loud/overactive air conditioning tomorrow in the hotel! :eek:

Shoe_Gal

Wow, laods to think about there! Take care of you :A

little_h_2

evening all

well, a successful trip up north. I am thinking hard as I literally feel the weight lift from my shoulders as I head up the M6! :eek:

Work has been mental all week. This morning's meeting went well, I had really wound myself up about it but it was all good. I have LOTS to do now, even more, but am fired up and ready to go.

Mainly because I had the afternoon in the car yesterday, with my colleague driving and my boss in the back seat. We all get on well so we put the world to rights, chatted about work and had a really good giggle about everything. most importantly, I didn't have to worry about things as they were a long way away

I nabbed work mate's company car and went to my granny's in the evening - my nice boss let me off going for dinner with my team, which was great as some of them are a touch on the mardy side - so I had tea and a chat with her and then had a little rag of the car back round the M60 back to the Trafford Centre. That is definitely going on my list as an utter pleasure, late night fast driving on a deserted motorway :rotfl:

There is a tunnel run you can do around London on your bike which I have never tried, but I know a guy who knows it well so may well get in touch (not in that way, he is v happily married) as he is always up for a ride

I had a wonderful night's sleep, 5.38 is the new time to wake up every morning, but it's not the end of the world as my alarm goes off at 5.55. Today I slept in until 6.45, utter bliss. This week I have taken time to do lots of skin stuff before I go off to sleep (including a lovely eye cream sample which makes me look like I have had more sleep than I have actually had!) and that has been a nice treat, and I look better for it.

This afternoon on the way back, I had unwound a lot and so started to turn to thoughts of where to go from here. My colleague asked me if I was running away from things by wanting to move back up north (something I am thinking about very seriously) but I said that if I had to plot a map of where the people lived who I loved the most, it would be within 15 minutes of where I slept last night. Really, there is not much down here for me now except sunshine, my mum and dad, work and harp stuff.

My tummy is still up the pole though, and I don't have much of an appetite. This has happened a few times, think I have worked out why it is but won't go into gory detail on here. But am enjoying the shrinking effect, even if it has rendered one of my pairs of jeans which I only bought 2 weeks ago, too big already :mad:

LOTS to think about. No further word on the musical coming up at the end of the month yet, so will wait and see.

My hand/thumb has been well rested and I have been able to do a little playing with it tonight. Just a bit though, so I can save it for Saturday's concert.

This evening, I was back home at 6pm which is almost unheard of. I took a little time to get my motorbike plugged into the battery charger. I was thinking of taking him to work tomorrow, but really I need to save my hand for Saturday.

BUT I am planning a brief trip out on Sunday evening to my favourite seaside place, for a little bit of wind in my hair and thinking time, if the weather is nice. Can't wait

It's Friday tomorrow. It will be crazy at work but I have had some good rest and feel a lot more able to cope.

Will catch up on diaries tomorrow evening

beanielou

Good to catch up on whats been happenning~ta for update which is very positive.

little_h_2

morning all, hope the weekend has been kind to you Souk I have been thinking of you and your mum.

garrrrrr it's Monday morning.

Weekend has been a whirlwind as normal, although I have taken some time to pause a little so that's something.

Saturday's concert was amazing. I will probably come back and post something else so that I capture all the ins and outs/highs and lows. But a marvellous special thing happened while I was tuning up for the concert about an hour before it started. I started to play to myself, quietly, partly to check that I had tuned correctly and partly because I wanted to see what my harp sounded like in the big concert hall.

Well, it is a fabulous venue, brand new with very very good acoustics. So I got louder and louder and it really sounded impressive! I stopped for a bit and got a little round of applause from the sound/lighting guys who I was praying weren't thinking I was being a show off! Then fortunately my mum turned up so I could play some more on the pretence of showing her what I had been working on

It felt brilliant and I didn't want to stop. I have found something I would really, really like to work towards. It may be a long time before I do a big proper solo concert in a place like that but it surprised me that I might want to do it, and now I really really do.

Yesterday I had a day off (almost, apart from teaching in the morning). Popped into town to get some cleanser as I had a discount voucher, resisted everything else so was very pleased with myself. I got home and mooched on the net for a bit then noticed The Red Shoes was on in the afternoon so did an internal leap for joy :j as it's one of my favourite films. It gave me the perfect excuse to curl up on the sofa in a little daydream. I thought I would fall asleep but made it. Sadly the end clashed with the start of the bike racing, but I knew the ending anyway and it is a sad one so decided to go with the racing instead.

In the film, the strict fusty director of the ballet asks the beautiful unknown ballerina why she wants to dance. She is very plucky and asks him why he wants to live. He is caught off guard, and blusters saying he isn't sure, he just knows he must. She replies, with a smile, knowing she has caught him out and he wasn't expecting it, "That is how I feel about dancing"

Without wishing to get ideas above my station, I feel like I can explain it a bit now, why I want to do all this musical stuff. Basically I don't have to explain it

Today I am very tearful and I think this will last a while so hopefully I can avoid any waterworks in the office. I am seeing counselling lady tonight so can talk about things. To cut a long story short, I am feeling utterly invisible and I don't know what on earth to do next. My life isn't how I want it to be, and I don't know what the next step is.

Excuse the rambling. I thought I was less tired after yesterday but instead I feel more tired than I thought!

hypno06

When you come to the end of any sort of serious relationship, there has to be a time during which you re-connect with your true self - you have to rediscover who you are, where you want to be, what you want, and how you are going to get there......

That can be a very scary, very emotional, and very bizarre thing to go through, as you adjust to being "you" not being someone to someone else, if that makes sense.

In the process, it involves having a bit of an identity crisis of sorts, and it seems that is what you have right now.

However, it is all just part of the process - little by little the layers will be peeled back, and the real you will be revealed - already you are noticing things about what you want - to get out on your bike, to play in that solo concert......all part of the discovery of who you are.

The rest will follow - it takes time, it is emotional, it is sometimes unbelievable or just downright difficult, but it will happen.

After 25 years of being with XOH, this was the scariest thing for me - but little by little those layers were peeled back - they are still being peeled back, and I am discovering "me" for the first time in a very long time, and not only that, but I like what I have found - and the same will happen for you too - just give it time.....:D

little_h_2

what a lovely post, thank you hypno

it's the not knowing how long it will take that is the worst bit I think! :eek: sadly I feel like it has been such a long time of being the girl with issues, and i just want to feel normal again - even though there is no such thing!

a few bits are falling into place, certainly my ability to appreciate and value the little things has really come on, and my attitude to money is very different. I feel that I know what is important now but just have no idea how to make that happen.

the support on here is brilliant, it's lovely that so many people understand and are encouraging me. My friends are not in the same situation and are of the say/advise one thing do the opposite slant, so it makes it very difficult to talk about what's going on with them. I have a list in my head now of people who it's OK to lean on and this has been a good thing to develop, although as you say, pretty difficult.

I am currently very, very lonely. This is hard to admit, and even harder to know how to address without seeming desperate but I hope it will come in time. Part of the desire to move north is to be at least nearer some friends and family, but part of me feels like these are friends who have not been there when needed before, so maybe this is not the best strategy either. So that needs some careful thought. I am also desperately missing having a pet, but my current lifestyle means that even a part time pet has not been able to happen the last couple of weeks

On the plus side, I am really looking forward to April as I have a full house of free weekends so far, which means I can book in a couple of weekends soul searching and some much needed TLC for my house. I am starting to think about moving again - the feeling of being surrounded by failure in my house and that there is nothing left for me here now that everyone else has moved on.

That sounds very morose, I know, but I have been very inspired by hypno's move even though I can't imagine all of the hard work that has gone into making all that happen.

I can feel myself starting to dip a little, but knowing there is some space to come in April is keeping me going. Another plus is that a little bit of weight has gone and I am feeling a bit better about myself in that way - I had time for an hour of Davina yesterday and while my thighs are killing me today, this is a good thing! This week I should be able to fit some of her half hour workouts in which will keep me feeling healthy and sleeping well.

Another positive is that I have finally sorted out the balance transfer, and have fished all the yukky blanket weed out of the pond! Not a nice job but very satisfying and I hope the fish will be grateful

hypno06

I think the biggest thing that I found I needed to do was to be honest with myself.....if faced with a "do I want?" question, I had to give the honest answer, not the answer that fits.....I think all too often in the past I had given the answer that maybe best suited others, what others expected, or the answer that I simply thought I should give, telling myself it was really the right answer, when in fact it wasn't *truly* what I wanted deep down.

Now that I am more honest about things to myself, I find things easier to accept, easier to ditch, easier to say "yes" or "no" to, and therefore I feel far more at ease with both the things that I do, and the things that I don't.

This can be on a very superficial level - eg defining what is a "want" and what is a "need" (and YES, I did NEED those LK Bennett Shoes - they define a part of me, so are actually very important to me!), or on a very big level - I wanted to move house, have done for a long time as my various musings about property !!!!!! on my diary over the years will testify) but it then became an overwhelming "need" to do rather than a want.....when it happened, it was nothing like I had anticipated - the house I fell in love with, and subsequently moved to, was nothing like the types I had talked about over the years. When I was honest, truly honest, with what I wanted and what I needed, the answers were very different. As a result, I have the house that is completely right for me, and has therefore made me even happier.....

But it all takes time - I am still very definitely peeling back the layers - I have some way to go, and at times it is still very emotional - but for different reasons than those that were providing the emotions a year ago. Now I am as likely to be angry with myself, over something that I can change, so have to deal with how I am going to change it, rather than being upset with things that are seemingly outside my control, IYSWIM.....we are all different, with differing issues, differing sets of circumstances etc, so will all take differing amounts of time to "get there", but "get there" we will.......

little_h_2

thank you again hypno. think you may have been eating the same thing for breakfast yesterday as my counsellor as my session last night covered a lot of what you said

as you say, there is a lot of adjustment to be done. The thought that I have to be really honest and not be led by others is spot on, and similar to you, I have been a bit soft on this one for rather too long.

We talked a lot about knowing what to do, but she said that sometimes, knowing what we don't want is as important and can help us get to what we do want.

I really am exhausted by all this and after last night, my thoughts turned to booking another break, but a proper one this time, not dashing about like a mad thing. Money things will need some juggling, but I have tried to cut things back to the bone and this just doesn't work without a blowout occurring. So I need another approach.

I popped on my pooter when i got home last night to check email etc and my google horoscope (which I find excellent as a rule) said that someone very close to me was acting completely out of character, so far out of character that it was extremely unusual indeed. It suggested that there were two possible approaches, either to worry and analyse as normal, or just to laugh out loud about it 'as if a child who has found out school has just been closed due to snow in the middle of July' (or similar words).

I have been thinking about this a lot - sometimes a different approach is indeed required. Obviously we read things into our own horoscopes but this is ringing quite true at the moment for me! So I will be laughing about it, brushing it off and thinking of other things instead.

The musical I had been asked about last week is now not happening. They wanted me to do it for nothing, I said no because I couldn't afford to. I'm not being mean about this, it meant travelling over an hour from home each way, backwards and forwards for 3 evening performances after doing a full day's work, plus a further afternoon and evening performance on the Saturday, 'for charity' which in my experience means we don't want to pay you and are going to try and guilt you into it. The fuel bill alone would have been over £100, plus I would have to have taken a day off work to recover in between.

Giving my time to charity for me, at the moment, is doing something for my own community. I am not feeling mean about saying no. It would have been good experience, but not at the expense of my own wellbeing which is important.

I help with Brownies and am supporting local churches by performing there to help raise funds. This is more than a lot of people do so I feel comfortable with this.

Souk08

Hi lovely, thank you so much for your kind words. She's home now so that's great but with a way to go before she's well enough to do all her usual stuff.

As Hypno says it easy to lose 'you' along the way in life. I've only once been in a relationship little_h and that didn't feel like me as me is not someone who has boyfriends IYSWIM but I have watched many friends change for men and it's scary. They get that they think that the way the are with whatever man they're with is the real them...and it's not! Not saying you do this but I think many women go along, keep the peace and ultimately dont actually know what they want along the way.

Knowing what you DONT want is a good way to finding what you do and someone it can come to you in a flash. I dont do things because I think I should...but this also leaves me left out amongst women who do. What I'm trying to say is that no one has this perfect life...and those who come close often have to make concessions that we couldn't make to have it. You're on the right road lady...now keep walking X