So, currently, the state of play is oscillating wildly between anger, shame, joy, grief, hope, despair, and then… probably some more anger.  This is my angry stage of the healing journey.  

The reason for this blog is to remind everyone who bothers to read my shit that the journey is about progress, not perfection and YOU are always the only person who can save yourself.  Absolutely futile waiting for someone to come along and rescue you.  You gotta do that shit for your own damned self.

The reason this has sprung to mind in particular lately is this.

My wonderful wife Damon is fucking next level lovely.  He is beautiful, kind, smart, brave, patient, ambitious and recently he’s suggested we ought to get fit and fabulous so we can get back to some healthy middle aged tantric type sex, which requires core strength and a sense of adventure.  Seriously, he is annoyingly wonderful it can make my eyes roll.

While all this is absolutely true, and we have had five lovely years as a dedicated couple and been married for nearly two years, I must take a moment to remind the world and myself that this safe and functioning relationship is a symptom of the intense and occasionally excruciating inner work I have been doing since my second severe nervous breakdown in 2019.

People sometimes elude to or outright say things like “Oh you are so lucky, Damon saved you!”

Erm.

What now?

I saved me.  I fucking got my drunk boundaryless ass out of the hostage situation with my first marriage.  I stared down my demons and now I dine quite comfortably with most of them.  I did the therapy and the work.  I built a healthy and accountable culture with a few good friends and severed ties with anyone who was not brave enough to be actively supportive of my evolution.  Steve and I remain civil.  That’s all I will say about that. And I choose that civility too.  Me.  I saved me. 

This does not mean I am not grateful for the support and accountability that are offered by the chosen few I let near me these days.

Had a lovely time at the P!nk concert with two of the winners of the Love Letter to Yourself competition and I couldn’t cope with how people-y the whole situation was after a while.  Luckily Sev felth the same way and we nipped out and headed home early.  There’s a word for being on the same page/frequency in Turkish and it is Bilmukabele.  It is more nuanced than this, but it is a state that I enjoy with Sev.  We are both beautifully broken and brave goddesses and unafraid to do the work that is required.

On the walk we talked about how much we have both changed and how at some point in our deeply feeling and cortisol laden journeys we each figured out that the issues in our lives always, always, remained rooted in us.  We’ve struggled and battled and felt uncomfortable in our own skin and been angry at people who Love us.  Today we are both doing pretty great if I might be so bold as to say so.  We have Loving stable partnerships and great friendships.  We are both exhausted a lot of the time, but on balance, pretty happy people.  Why?  Because we stopped blaming and deflecting and started very brave journeys inward.

We have boundaries, and see beauty everywhere.  We are talented, complicated and so fucking brave I can’t even begin to express how proud I am of both of us.  

Life’s not perfect and there’s still daily battles and a huge amount of effort required to stay on track and continue to evolve into the women we deserve to be.

But, I just needed to say to anyone who stumbles across this that it is you that will absolutely be your own greatest hero in this life.  

Big Love thanks for reading.