A Comforting Thought

Even though it’s only Wednesday, this week has been a little bit crazy already and November looks as though workwise it will be the same! I’m certainly not complaining, when you run your own business you want to be as busy as possible! Yesterday Lucy and I were working at an event and so we couldn’t make our normal class, instead we went in the evening. For some reason I always think I’ll weigh lighter in a morning, before my belly is full of tea, so I was pleased to have lost half a pound, because lets face it that’s a bag of sugar and they can be quite heavy!

  Although my “new” life is a bit bonkers at time, since I left my old one behind I know I am a lot happier and more positive. One of the reasons I put my weight on in the first place was down to comfort eating. Being stalked, the deaths of my Mum, Gran and two of my friends and then just generally being unhappy in my former workplace took its toll and my solace was food, normally chocolate or ice cream and as much of it as I could possibly eat. Over the last year I’ve pretty much kicked my comfort-eating habit and now if I feel a bit down I try and find happiness in something else, a book, a hot bath, a walk with Cyril anything that will boost my mood.

  Last week, that wasn’t the case. Last Wednesday was the fifth anniversary of my friend Matt’s death and for whatever reason it really hit me. Matt and I became friends when he came on work experience to Mansfield 103.2 and I think from the moment we met we were pretty much inseparable.

 In fact looking back I wonder how we avoided getting sacked, because we laughed every single day and got into a million scrapes. Even when Matt changed jobs it didn’t affect the friendship. I know some people believe men and women can’t be friends, but I think anyone who knew us, knew we were just best friends and would never be anything more because as much as we mucked about we also drove each other crazy! Matt was the sort of bloke who you could say to “fancy trying to recreate the dance off from American Pie the Wedding” and he’d say “hell yes” and that’s what we’d try and do. Weirdly I still have friends who I can say that to! (You know who you are!)

  Last week no amount of trying to cajole myself out of my mood worked and in the end it was my old friend Mr Cadbury who came to my rescue. As I ate every single last piece of chocolate I realised I wasn’t enjoying it at all, it wasn’t going to bring my friend back and it would probably lead to a weight gain (although I think I spent the rest of the week trying to make amends and fortunately it worked!)

  The thing is grief is a bitch and there’s no formula as to when you’ll suddenly feel better. I remember leaving the hospital after my Mum died and me, Dad and Lucy coming home and we had no idea what we should be doing. It was early hours of the morning, so we couldn’t phone anyone or do anything practical, we just sat there listening to the rain and watching the clock. 

  If you break your leg, the doctor can say to you, we’ll x-ray it, put you in plaster, it’ll be 6 weeks, we’ll take the pot off do physio and you’ll be OK, you know the sketch. With grief, who knows? 

  They say there are 5 stages of grief, denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I remember looking for something after Mum died that would tell me how I should be feeling. I found many websites who spoke about this and they all then sort of backtracked and said you might feel these in any order at anytime and there’s no telling when each stage will kick in. Helpful!

  So here’s my take on grief, you will miss whoever it is you’ve lost every single day. You miss them in varying amounts and in different ways, some days you will be absolutely fine and others it will just hit you like someone has walked up to you in the street and booted you clean in the stomach. This is all OK, it’s normal and above all it’s OK to miss someone, don’t pretend they never existed. Just don't let the grief define you, you're not Miss Havisham.

  So what I’ve told myself is that once in a while I’m allowed to feel sad and the occasional date with Mr Cadbury is OK, but it has to be rare and not the norm! There would have been a time where I would have let those feelings of sadness take over completely, but the next day, I put it behind me and got straight back on track, comfort eating never really offered me any comfort, it just made me fat and miserable and I’m on a mission to be slinky!