Stepping Into The Future

Grief has overwhelmed me since last year.

I am nowhere near over this but I know I have to take small steps to a different kind of life.

I have been poleaxed, hermit-like at home, bar a few special occasions. This has to change. I know now that I will always be carrying this grief; it may alter slightly but the ramifications of it never will.

Losing a sibling through grief changes you irrevocably and I can see that I will never be the person I was before. But I have to start looking after myself and my little family alongside treasuring precious memories.

I have been spiralling into somewhere I do not want to go. With a huge debt to my friends, I am starting to engage with the wider world once more and I want to stay here. At the turn of the year and decade, I am determined to bring some semblance of joy back into my life, and my son’s. He is the one who made me think; he came back for the University Christmas break in early December and his infectious zest and energy lifted me and our little cottage out of the fog.

I realised the other day that I have been blogging about life with MS since 2012 (The Teenager was 13, he’s 21 this year!), and you guys have seen me through ill-health, exams, the good times, the bad times and now the awful times. I feel immensely privileged to have this platform. You’ve been everywhere with me.

It’s too easy to feel we are alone when we are most vulnerable. I know, I felt that way. You, along with my close friends, have pulled me through yet again and I am beyond grateful.

I am trying to embed positive habits in 2020. I have started a journal-writing course with Mab Jones, which is an excellent way to reflect. I am changing one small thing every day to shake up my routine, something I first heard about through RD Laing’s literature – although there is a whole lot I don’t agree with him about. I am awake early every morning so I build in some PhD study time before starting work.

Very, very small steps. I will never, ever forget my brother. How could I? Yet, if I can incorporate some of his beautiful personality into our lives, surely this is a step in the right direction?

4 thoughts on “Stepping Into The Future

  1. Sue Johnson says:

    Lovely to hear from you with positive thoughts and wishing you the very best going on this forward journey! Good luck Barbara

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Thank you Sue! It’s been a long road and it still will be, but it feels good to take my brother’s legacy with me 🙂 X

  2. Joan (Devon) says:

    Time! That’s all it takes to get used to the shock of your brother passing before any of you were prepared for it ie illness, accident, etc. How is your Mum doing? A shock for her too.

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Thank you! She’s as good as can be expected; we’re all trying hard to cope in our own ways. Probably the hardest experience I’ve ever been through x

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