It's Okay to Laugh, too...

So difficult to write

This time three weeks ago I was writing my brother-in-law’s eulogy. I still don’t know why I offered to deliver it - as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to suck them back in - but it was something I felt I wanted / needed to do for my lovely sister and her children. When I was writing it, people said to me, ‘Don’t forget the funny bits’ which seemed at odds with what I was trying to say. We were saying goodbye to someone we loved, continue to love, and there’s nothing remotely amusing about that. But the truth is Rod was funny - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not so much - and writing about his life needed to reflect that. So I included some ‘funny bits’ and people laughed. In the midst of a sad and solemn occasion, people laughed about him setting a dead tropical fish in plastic resin and pushing a brush down the chimney because it got stuck going up, covering the house in soot in the process. Later, at the ‘party’ as his youngest granddaughter called it, we continued to laugh at our memories of a man who always put his family first. The human spirit at its finest. 

How do we do that? We just carry on, going to bed, waking up, eating, drinking, laughing, regardless of how we feel inside. I remember a really surreal moment the day my dad died, standing in the fish and chip shop at lunch time. My dad had died less than twelve hours ago, and we were buying fish and chips. But, we needed to eat, and nobody felt like cooking…needs must! I remember my mum saying the exact same thing as my sister is saying - ‘I’ll be alright’ - and it’s true. In the face of bereavement, loss, tragedy, people are, in the main, alright. There’s no alternative really, other than curling up in a ball and dying yourself, but the human spirit prevails and we carry on with our lives as best we can. Yes, we are sad at times and anniversaries  and special days may be sadder than others, but we shrug them off and find that we can actually enjoy ourselves again. The trick is not to feel guilty about it.

Never feel guilty for having fun!

Events in Manchester and London over the past couple of weeks have shown people’s ability to rise above tragedy and show that life carries on - the coming together of thousands of individuals for the concert in Manchester on Sunday, the man who tried to return to pay his bill at the Borough Market restaurant he’d eaten at on Saturday night and the countless millions carrying on with their daily lives, metaphorically giving the finger to those extremists who would try to disrupt our society with fear and hatred. Humour is the best antidote - how funny that one of the heroes of Saturday night, injured trying to protect others, was given a magazine in hospital, ‘Learn  to Run’ - hilarious!

The best example of the human spirit

The human spirit - a truly marvellous phenomenon. I have written before about how it is okay to be sad(here), but we also need to remember that, whatever life presents us with, it’s also okay to laugh!

My daughter and her friends certainly know how to laugh!

My Lifelong Relationship with Guilt

I have ‘blogger’s block’. Its been over three weeks since I posted anything and I am not happy about it. I’ve been unwell - nothing major, just a virus, but its left me low and lacking in energy. This means I have reverted to daytime telly and comfort eating. Which also means that I feel lazy, fat and useless. And guilty. Guilty that I have kept my husband awake with my coughing. Guilty that I haven't done anything productive. Guilty that I have put on weight. Guilty that I have let my tennis buddies down. Guilty that I haven't blogged. Guilty that I cant even think of anything to blog about.

Comfort or guilt inducing?

I googled the definition of ‘guilt’ and Collins Dictionary gives this: Guilt is an unhappy feeling that you have because you have done something wrong or think that you have done something wrong.

There you have it - ‘think that you have done something wrong’. I constantly think that I have done something wrong, or could / should have done something better.

Born guilty!

This is not a new feeling for me. I was born guilty on 17th February 1956…because two years earlier, on 17th February 1954, my sister died. She was ten, and had leukaemia. I was born on the one day my Mum didn't want me to be born. Typical. It wasn't even my due date. 1956 being a leap year, I could've contrived to be born on 29th February. Maybe then I would've felt special rather than guilty. 

Now logically I know that babies have absolutely no control over when they arrive, but this really has blighted me for the past 61 years. My parents were amazing, and would have been horrified if they had known how I felt, but odd comments about me being born on the wrong day, and them feeling that they would never be able to have birthday parties for me resonated far more with me than the ones about me being the most wanted child ever (don’t know how that made my siblings feel - oh God, something else to feel guilty about). Thinking back, they probably over compensated. I had amazing parties and birthday presents and I was truly loved. I’m not really sure if this feeling of guilt was a conscious one, but as an adult, during a hypnotherapy session, I suddenly found myself staring at my sister’s gravestone, crying because it had my birthday etched onto it. So each year, on birthday, I also reflect on how my parents and my older brother and my sister felt on that day two years before I was born. I can not, and do not really want to imagine how they felt.

Reason to celebrate or reflect?

While this sort of explains why guilt is not alien to me, the feeling doesn't seem to serve me any purpose. The logical, intelligent and reasonable me understands that it is a wasted emotion and that I am not responsible for everything that happens, but the under confident, anxious and low mood me still feels this to be true. All my life I have felt as if I should be able to change things for the better and that not being able to is my fault.

Ridiculous I know, but that’s how I roll! It’s all part of this complex maelstrom that is ‘mental health’. I save my most miserable self for my closest friends and family (aren’t they the lucky ones!), presenting a more balanced front to people who would be mortified to be confronted with my guilt ridden presence. But then I feel guilty that I am making the people I care about the most miserable too. I’m buggered, basically!

But, for those of you who live with someone like me, someone who is able put a brave face on to the outside world, but needs to retreat to how they really feel in the safety of their own home, don’t get sucked in by us. My lovely hubby said this morning that he feels that he is failing, because he should be able to make me happy. This simply isn't true. Someone once told me that, to help someone in a hole, the worst thing you can do is jump in the hole with them. Offer support, a helping hand and eventually they’ll get out - they may even be able to climb out on their own! Patience is probably the key, in the face of the most frustrating of circumstances.

It weighs some of us down

Sorry - this has been a cathartic, stream of consciousness rant. But at least I don’t feel guilty about not blogging any more!