(Winnie the Pooh - A.A Milne) For those of you who follow the facebook page and had the opportunity to see the latest vlog, you will know what this blog is all about. At some point I will get round to putting them on the website though, I promise! For those of you who don't, shame on you. Naughty step for 10 minutes and don't come back until you have thought about what you have done! Once you are back, click on this link and follow! (Insert winky face here!) https://www.facebook.com/Rebeccareecephotography This wasn't what this weeks blog was going to cover but if you haven't already picked up on it, I write what I feel and grief is something that we don't tend to talk about, and in reality, death is one of the only certainties in life. The thing is musers, no matter who you are, grief will enter your life, and with it comes change. Huge change that will catapult you from where you are to somewhere completely foreign. Its an incredibly personal experience that changes not only your outlook on life but who you are fundamentally, as long as you allow yourself to work through the process and feel everything that comes with the loss of a loved one. The reason this has come to the forefront for me is because of that incredible woman in the picture above. That is Hannah Hazel Parish, my grandma, and I was, and still am incredibly blessed to have had her in my life for every one of my 46 years. She was an inspiring woman who fought her whole life for the things she believed in. No matter what they were or how much of an upward struggle there would be, she would be the first to arrive to challenge the establishment, demanding change for the people who lived around her, and refusing to back down till those needs were met. I think she put most of her grandchildren up at one point or another, myself included and she was a huge support when I was kicked out at 17, (well deserved and a whole other story). She gave me somewhere to stay and helped me get my own place. Her first love was animals and if I'm honest, I think the reality was that she loved animals more than people. She had a gentle heart and although outspoken and exceptionally sassy, (now we know where I get it from), she would give you the coat off her back if she thought it would help you. On the 24th June, she finally closed her eyes for the last time and fell asleep - leaving behind a legacy that will live on in every one of her incredible children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. As much as she will be missed, this blog isn't really about her, although she is the inspiration behind it. For those of you have had to deal with loss at one time or another, you will know well the emotional rollercoaster that comes along with it. For me, although we have known this was coming for a long time and we all had time to say our goodbyes, it still came as a shock when that call came through to let me know she had gone and it got me to thinking, how do we move forward when someone we love moves on and we are left behind to piece our lives back together? There is an element of fear that arrives with the loss of a loved one. I don't think it matters who you are. All of a sudden, you are reminded that physical life is temporary. That for every one of us, no matter how young or old, there will come a moment where life as we understand it ends and a new reality begins. Whatever your belief system, the idea of that ending is not only terrifying but also incredibly emotional because no matter how prepared you are, there is never a time when you are truly ready to say goodbye. I think one of the hardest things I have found is that all of a sudden, I see everyone as they are. I know that won't last, but wandering through that reality brings about a whole new reality and a lifting of the veil, or as some would say, a removal of the rose tinted glasses. I look at my parents, the two people who have been my strength, my guide, my confidante, my comfort and my greatest example of how love should be, and the reality hits. They are no longer those people I always see when I think about them. Although inside they are still young, vibrant, enthusiastic and passionate, their bodies are slowing them down now. They aren't able to scale the journey of life in the way they could as I grew up, and the scary thing is, they are more accepting of that fact than I am. They are more ready for the beginning of a new journey into a reality that none of us know than I think I will ever be. Even the thought of them dying is devastating and incomprehensible, yet they talk about it in such a matter of fact manner because they are beginning to accept that although they could still have years left, they are now in their twilight years and their time on this plane is coming to an end. The reality of losing my grandma has in essence reminded me that those people around me who never age, are in fact aging and unfortunately, that includes me. When grief hits, there is no going back. There is no burying your head under a blanket or pretending that it hasn't happened. Grief, in all its forms will change you intimately. It will tear away a piece of your soul that will never completely heal, but over time will become easier to handle. Those memories that cause such pain because they are a stark reminder of what you have lost will become gentler until the moment where you are able to smile and remember moments with fondness rather than hurt. For those with a spiritual belief like myself, it becomes a comfort. An understanding that the universe has taken that energy because its physical restraints were no longer strong enough to house it, and has transferred it into something more beautiful than you could ever imagine. Its a belief that what we truly are inside, the essence of being is not flesh and bones but spirit and soul. Love, energy, eons of life, experience and existence that span the whole of time are all collected into that one being, and although the physical is lost, the spirit will never die, continuing to flow and ebb throughout the expanse of the universe, creating, sharing and enveloping everything that this journey has to offer. Death is pain for those who are left behind, but for those who experience it, it is a doorway into a new existence. How do we manage it? We allow ourselves to cry, to laugh, to feel every emotion connected to the loss of that person. We talk to the people that loved them sharing stories and experiences and learning things that we maybe never knew. We keep a small part of our heart especially for them, protecting those intimate moments that we shared and we cherish the lessons that we learnt from them because no matter what, their very presence in our lives was lifechanging. We continue to love them even though they are no longer with us and most importantly, we say goodbye. We wish them well on their journey and we send them soaring with love, hope and faith that wherever it takes them, they will be happy, fulfilled and know that for the short time they were on this earth, they were everything and more and that their lives touched us all in a way we will never forget and forever treasure. Until next time.............

Sometimes life just wallops you. No rhyme, no reason. Just a big fat right hook straight across your face, knocking you sideways and leaving you bloodied and fighting for breath on the floor. Thats just life. For those of you who tune in regularly and watched the latest vlog, you will be fully aware that I just got knocked out 15 seconds into the first round of a new challenge last week, and right now I am sat a little dazed in the ring, trying to figure out where to go from here. (Don't you just love an analogy!) The small child, (my youngest and tallest one at 6ft 2") has left home. At 17 he has decided that he knows best, has learnt everything he needed to from me and has moved into the next stage of his life. As parents, we all know this day is coming but what I can categorically confirm is that no matter whether they are 17 or 27, its akin to being hit by a train, and nothing you can say or do will change anything. When they are ready, they are ready. The question is, as a parent, when the dynamic changes so dramatically, what do you do? How do you let go, and how do you continue to navigate all the hurdles that life throws at you when your purpose for being has walked out the door and is beginning their own journey? For my parents, it happened when I was 17 as well, and for the record, I was a horrible teen. Never I hear you whisper, but its true! I feel most of us can pick moments that we were awful, (apart from him indoors who is known as the golden child), but for the most part, we are okay. I however was not. I was rebellious and angry and determined to prove that I didn't need my parents. When my dad finally threw me out at 17 in sheer desperation, and with the hope the council would send me packing and I would come home, I was adamant that I would be okay. Unfortunately for us both they didn't, and I ended up with a little one bed flat the size of a shoebox, trying to master the art of being a grown up way before I was ready to be! (Only bonus, I could cook in the buff whenever I wanted to and that was the very first thing I did!) Looking back on it now, I probably should have admitted defeat and gone home. I knew where I was best off, but that stubborn streak inside me, (thanks for that parental units), and the need to prove everybody wrong completely overshadowed any common sense I may have had. The way I look at it now is that I am who I am because of those experiences and not inspite of them. Every single choice that was made, good or bad has shaped the person that sits here furiously typing away today whilst she tries to get her head around the actions of a 17 year old that she intimately knows only too well! The thing is, throughout my life, I never gave up. I never stopped fighting. In reality, I am not sure I actually know how to but I don't consider that a bad thing. Even at my worst moments, I would disappear, tend to my wounds and hide whilst I rebuilt, and then re-emerge stronger with a new mindset. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it took everything I had and then some to be able to do that, but I grew up watching two people never give up no matter what life threw at them, (thats you mum and dad), and it taught me that you are only out of the fight when you stop getting back up. My world changed a week ago in the most dramatic of ways. My identity changed completely and my purpose for being was ripped away. All of a sudden I am left vulnerable and lost and a little confused by the whole thing. (I know - very dramatic), but when you have been a parent for so long, especially a single one, and the last cuckoo flies the nest, the whole dynamic changes and you begin to question what you are doing moving forward. Not going to lie, like I said earlier, the change is like being hit by a train but now its all about looking at the positive and creating an environment that allows you to really focus on the things that you put to one side for all those years while you were being mum. The last week has been a week of me looking for the silver lining. Let me give you an example..... This past week my kitchen has been tidy pretty much all the time. There are no cereal bowls left on the side of the bath or wet towels shoved into the cupboard making everything smell damp. There isn't a bedroom full of dirty dishes with at least one dish that has the beginnings of a whole new life form which may or may not destroy us all! My dressing table isn't being commandeered by a young man who preens more than I do and uses my hairdryer to dry his body rather than going about it the traditional way with a towel. There is no cooking at 1am because he is hungry and a bowl of cereal just won't do. There are no boxer shorts shoved down the side of the bathroom sink or clothes left lying on the floor because apparently that is where they live after you've had a bath, a shower or in Alex's case, both at the same time! There are no empty milk cartons in the fridge. No empty biscuit tins in the cupboard. No empty cereal boxes or wrappers lying around. But................. My kitchen has been tidy pretty much all the time. There are no cereal bowls left on the side of the bath or wet towels shoved into the cupboard making everything smell damp. There isn't a bedroom full of dirty dishes with at least one dish that has the beginnings of a whole new life form which may or may not destroy us all! My dressing table isn't being commandeered by a young man who preens more than I do and uses my hairdryer to dry his body rather than going about it the traditional way with a towel. There is no cooking at 1am because he is hungry and a bowl of cereal just won't do. There are no boxer shorts shoved down the side of the bathroom sink or clothes left lying on the floor because apparently that is where they live after you've had a bath, a shower or in Alex's case, both at the same time! There are no empty milk cartons in the fridge. No empty biscuit tins in the cupboard. No empty cereal boxes or wrappers lying around. I know, crazy eh? You see, all those things drove me absolutely wild. They really did but in reality, my house was alive, albeit in a very annoying way at times. It supported a family but now the narrative has done a complete 180, and all the stuff that seemed to matter is actually so unimportant in the grand scheme of things. So as a parent, what do we do when the mini me's pick up and decide to start their own life? First and foremost, we let ourselves grieve. You will always be mum or dad. You will always be their safe haven in a storm but at some point, they have to step away and discover their own lives. They have to assert their independence and they have to make their own mistakes. As long as that door is always open, that is as much as you can do at this point so cry, shout, do whatever you need to but let the hurt and anger out because its counter productive. This is a step that was always going to come, and if your child is ready then you need to remember this one very important fact.......... You did your job right! After the grief is done, you take stock and you look inwards because do you know what musers? This is all of a sudden your time - in every sense of the word and you have the chance to truly embrace everything that you ever wanted. Scary, I know, but after 20 something years of focusing on somebody else you get to be a little bit selfish and start to do you - however that looks - whatever that is. Do you know just how exciting that actually is, once you get your head around it of course! The only thing that can stop you is you! So, like the man says - 'The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it aint about how hard it hits. Its about how hard you get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. Thats how winning is done.' Rocky Balboa Until next time........... The thing is, for me, its straight to the keyboard to try and work through lifes latest knockout - pick up the pieces and start moving forward again because like the big man says - 'Thats how winning is done!' and to date, I haven't stopped getting back up and have no intentions of doing so.

Even after 6 years, this is still one of a handful of my absolute favourite photos that I ever took. As a photographer, you learn very quickly just how important moments are. Every picture you take tells a story. Every moment frozen in time is something to be treasured and held on to tightly because that moment will never 'be' again, but regardless of that fact, you can still relive it over and over through pictures. Like capturing lightening in a bottle, a photograph will speak a thousand words without ever uttering a sound. Today I found myself thinking about this after coming across a couple of facebook memories. We all know what its like. Something you haven't thought about in a long time pops up on social media and all of a sudden you are whisked down memory lane with no idea of where you are going to end up. For me, it started with a picture of my now 17 year old son in his first school play at age 6 where he played Dr Who. For those of you who know me, you know how much we loved Dr Who in my house so when he got to be the Dr, he was very excited. What I remember more than anything about this particular moment, (other than the super proud, slightly emotional mum thing), was the fact that I had to fight the school to be allowed to take this picture. The rules have changed since I was at school and whilst I fully support the fact that not everyone wants their kids photographed, my 6 yr old wanted his photo taken next to the Tardis that he had acted in front of as Dr Who. At first, it was a resounding NO even though I'm mum. Then, after a few minutes of battling with the teachers, (and probably getting a little difficult), they agreed to speak to the headteacher and this photo was the result. I look at that photo and not only does it make me smile, but it takes me on a journey. My little boy, who is now a man, has been frozen in time. He looks slightly shy and a little unsure of himself, but that smile melts my heart and with it a whole host of memories are released. I remember how it felt when those little arms would wrap themselves around my neck and that face would snuggle into my hair. I remember hearing him tell me he loved me and that he would always be with me, and that he didn't ever want to live with anyone else. I remember him dancing with me to the latest pop songs and cuddling up on a Saturday night to the latest episode of Dr Who and whatever monster was terrifying the universe that week. From a photography point of view, it isn't technically brilliant. You could pick it to pieces if you wanted to, but actually, I don't care, because what I get from it is worth so much more to me. It doesn't just give me that moment, but also all those moments that envelop the time around that single memory, and that makes it utterly priceless. So, in my musings, whilst trying to decide whether the word fly came first or it came to be because a fly was known as a fly, and they fly, (obvs), and therefore anything that moved through the air must fly, (I know, way too much time on my hands!), I got to thinking. In my time working professionally as a photographer, I have had the pleasure of capturing some of the most beautiful, raw, emotional and exciting moments that I could ever ask for and its so incredible to be able to be part of those moments, but I find myself wondering, with all the changes in the world, and the speed in which those changes have happened, how do we continue to navigate in a way that is a true representation of who we are? I am the first person to admit, I am a little obsessive when it comes to photos. The walls of my house are covered in pictures, some of moments that I experienced when I have been exploring places, but the majority are a collection of family and friends and I can tell you a story about every single moment that every one of those photos represents. My life and the lives of the people I love are frozen in those moments, allowing me to experience them over and over every time I look at them and that is a truly beautiful thing. You see, the more I ponder this massively underappreciated phenomenon, the more I realise how precious it is. In this digital age of filters and editing, its so easy to get caught up in the pursuit of perfection when in reality, the very essence of what makes us who we are lies within our imperfections. The reality is my friends - that's the secret of truly memorable moments. A candid laugh, an unexpected moment, a look of tenderness and love - all those nuances add character and depth to a photograph that cannot be faked or duplicated intentionally, making it a true reflection of those split seconds that the shutter was pressed and the moment was caught in time. I watch the way technology is driving us forward, and whilst the possibilities are endless, when you break it down, in amongst the exponential growth we are trading our souls and everything that makes us what and who we are for something that will always leave us wanting. We have gone from pictures that capture memories that can't ever be replaced to taking selfies with duck pouts, filters, rabbit ears... the list goes on and on! Don't get me wrong, I am not averse to daft snapchat filter pictures. Myself and the kids quite often send daft pictures in the name of fun but the reality is, a lot of the honesty has gone. The picture we put out to the world with a filter is a poor representation of who we really are. A filter that wipes away laughter lines and wrinkles is a filter that removes everything that has made you who you are right at this moment. That porcelain look, smooth skin, overly bright eyes and teeth that would glow in the dark isn't the real you. It isn't the tears you have cried or the jokes you have laughed at. It isn't the battles you have fought and won or fought and lost. It isn't the lessons you learnt or the moments you keep safe in your heart. It isn't those secret smiles you save for the people you love or the gentle kisses that have made their way across your lips. It hides all those beautiful moments that have left signs on your physical body that they were, and in doing so it takes away a little piece of what makes you utterly and exquisitely unique, hiding you behind a mask which will only become more difficult to remove the more you refuse to embrace who you are. The question is, what do you want? Real or fake, and what would you expect from the people around you? I know immediately which I prefer, and what I would like to see from the people I let in to my inner circle. Its a tough one. We all want to look good on pictures, but the thing to remember is this. When you throw off this mortal coil and your physical body becomes food for crawling little critters, nobody is going to care whether your skin was flawless or your lips were plump in every picture you took. When they flick through the photos of the time you spent together, they are going to be reliving moments that created treasured memories that were never about anything other than love, respect and precious time. Life is too short for filters. Embrace the beauty that is every little lump and bump on your body. Embrace the lines and the dimples and the moles and learn to love yourself completely because musers, when those filters are removed and you have to look deep into yourself, its those moments that truly contributed to who you are and real is so much sexier than fake! What more can I say than this? Each photograph is more than just a picture. It's a fragment of time, a piece of our history. From unforgettable and important moments to everyday ones, photography allows us to create a portal to our past and revisit whenever we desire. Its an art form that transcends time, and all the AI in the world will never be able to create the honesty that the human eye can capture when the moment is right. The power it holds is mind-blowing. The power to freeze time. The power to evoke forgotten emotions. The power to etch memories in pixels forever. Until next time.......

A Love Letter For The First Man In My Life Its fathers day again and just like every other year, that means Sunday dinner as a family, cards and the obligatory worlds greatest dad mug. Its lovely to be able to celebrate someone you love on more than just their birthday, and recognising the huge role that dad's play is so important. My dad was my first example of a man and he taught me an awful lot. We didn't have a lot growing up. Money was tight and we were the family with the hand me down clothes and second hand toys, but that didn't really matter. What mattered was the time and love that was openly shared by both my parents. My dad was strict. I was the firstborn so he was learning everything with me, and I am not ashamed to say that I could be a bit of a handful! I know, its hard to believe, but yes, I definitely had my moments, and he dealt with everyone of them. Sometimes he got it right, other times, not so much but he always tried to handle my naughtiness with love, and thats as much as you can ask. Having become a parent myself, I truly understand just how difficult it actually is now. Nobody gives you a handbook or teaches you how to do it. You just have to figure it out as you go, and hope that in amongst those moments, you are getting it right more than you are getting it wrong. I was blessed with a man in my life who may not have always got it right, but he loved me and my brother and sisters fiercely, and he showed us love unconditionally, even when we were ripping him to shreds. My dad was the first man to teach me that life was all about lessons and actually, if you listened quietly to the world whispering, the lessons were endless. Learning never needed to end. If you chose to, every thing that you experienced could be an opportunity for growth but you had to be willing to accept it, understand it and take responsibility for it. The changes that realisation created within you could develop you exponentionlly. Life would and should never be stagnant. Its never been about the destination and has always been about the journey. The journey is in fact the destination because the journey is where true growth, self development and truth lie. My dad made me look at the world in a different way. He made me see what was going on outside of my own space. I'm sure we have all heard our parents tell us that we don't know what starving is when we have complained about being hungry. I know it was something I said a couple of times to my kids because in reality, we don't. As my dad used to tell me, we may not have everything, but being born in the UK makes us luckier than the majority of the people around the world. But for an accident at birth, we could have been born in Africa or India, born into slavery or extreme poverty. He made sure I was aware of what went on around the world, and that I understood that not everyone had the luxury of the life that we had. We had a clean and comfortable home, food in the cupboards, fresh running water, toys, electricity, clothing, shoes, education, friends.... the list goes on. Being reminded of where we were and what we had grew with me, leaving me with a burning need to understand what goes on around the world. To stand up and protest against things that I believe are wrong and to always, always stand by my truth, no matter how much everyone else stands against me. He taught me that money will never buy happiness and that what really mattered was right in front of me. We may not have had much but we were and still are some of the richest people in the world. My dad taught me that life was for living. That the master will fail over and over but he will continue to get back up and keep going because that is what life is about. He taught me that your failures are only failures if you don't use them to learn about yourself and that if you keep trying, keep believing and keep going, you will get to where you want to be. He was all about self improvement and taking responsibility for who we were. Those lessons took a little more to learn, not because I didn't get them but because I didn't want to have to admit that I was responsible for the negative choices I had made. Once I embraced my truth however, I started to grow in a way I had never considered possible. My dad taught me about love. My mum was, and still is the centre of his world. She was the girl he took home to marry, and throughout every moment of their 40 something years together, no matter what they have endured, he still looks at her like a man who just found his princess. He still holds her hand and gives her kisses. When he talks about their marriage, he talks with such genuine feeling and adoration and its hard not to get emotional. They have gone through tough times, but always, no matter what, they have found their way back to each other and the love that started so long ago just continues to deepen. They truly are two halves of one whole, and their example of marriage and his example of love has become the cornerstone of everything that I believe in. My dad took me on my first date. I was 16 years old at the time and he wanted me to know how I should be treated. He opened the car door for me as I got in and drove me to a greek restaurant in Newcastle. The restaurant is still there and still makes me smile every time I walk past it but I have never been back. I don't want to risk anything tainting that most precious moment with him. We ate dinner that night with no time frame attached, and he chatted to me, showing an interest in what was going on in my life, and asking questions. The whole time we were there, I felt llike the most important person in the room. It was a truly wonderful experience and one that I will never forget. I may not have always demanded it, and its bitten me in the ass when I haven't, but what he did that night was teach me that I deserved to be treated with love and respect, and that anyone who was unprepared to do that, didn't deserve to be in my life. My dad is the biggest man in my life. We thought we were going to lose him not so long ago after he suffered a stroke, and the realisation that he wouldn't be here forever was devastating. He is doing okay, but the reality hit that none of us really know how long the people we love will be with us. Age is unimportant as anything can take someone away with no warning at all. Its imperative for us to tell the people we love every single day how much they mean to us. It shouldn't take a day once a year to do that, although lets be honest musers, it is a bloody, good excuse for cake! My dad is my hero. He is the man who taught me how to love and respect the people around me. He taught me how to live my truth no matter how much it goes against the grain. He is the man who had my back no matter what. Even when he didn't agree, he was still there. He is the man who loves my mother with a quiet beauty, elegant, respectful and with absolute certainty that they will be together throughout the eternities, and in doing so, he taught me how I wanted to be loved and how I deserve to be loved. This a shout out to my dad. Without you I would not be who I am today. Happy Fathers Day. You have been and continue to be amazing! I love you xx

For those of you who don't know, this week has been mental health awareness week. I have always spoken quite openly about the things that I have experienced because without honest and open conversation, the stigma's attached to these things will never disappear. This week has not been any different. The thing is, this has become so much bigger for me than I could have ever anticipated over the last few days, and I wanted to share with you why. If you haven't already figured it out, this page has become almost a form of therapy for me. Its somewhere I can openly talk about life and hopefully, in amongst the stories and the moments of craziness, there are lessons that I learned that will maybe help avoid someone else making the same mistakes. Even if it doesn't, what I do know is that it provides some laughter which is as much as I can hope for. My story started 46 years ago on the 2nd October. (Commit that date to your diaries please musers ;) As I am sure you can all imagine, I was the perfect baby - you at the back, stop laughing! I still cringe when my parents tell the stories of my childhood, although inside me there is that warm glow that comes with sharing memories - especially memories that I was too young at the time to remember. Being able to share those moments as an adult is a wonderful thing, and being able to experience the laughter that they still bring to my parents is pure magic. My mum was so much better as a mother than I was. I don't say that for sympathy. It is just a fact of life! She had it down to a fine art. She kept a journal for me and my brother and sisters. From the day that we were born up until the point that we were old enough to take over that responsibility, she religiously wrote in it, filled it with photos and attached cuttings of things that were important at that particular time. It is one of my single most treasured items because it tells my story. Its not how I remember it through the confusion and chaos of childhood, but instead, its told through the eyes of the woman who carried me inside her and carefully guided me through every step of my childhood - both good and bad. It is a testament to the love, the patience and the life that her and my dad provided for me and that is what makes it priceless. The thing is, what I have realised looking back through it is that as a child, I lived. I truly embraced everything that life had to offer and I made the most of every moment. As a child, my energy never seemed to fade. I could run and jump and play and still keep going, no matter what. I would climb trees, swim in rivers, ride bikes, write stories, go on epic adventures through the pages of wonderful novels, run around with my friends and not care about anything. Life was to be lived and I wanted to experience everything that I could. It was so much simpler because nothing got in the way. Priorities were completely different and fun was absolutely the name of the game! The thing is though, becoming an adult didn't ever need to change that. Unfortunately, the sad reality seems to be that as we get older and our responsibilities change, we begin to forget how to be that child that we once were, and our ability to just live for the moment begins to disappear. We forget to hold on to the childlike wonder that we once had and instead begin to become jaded and cynical. Mental health awareness week for me has really brought to the forefront just how important being able to embrace your inner child is. I've spent a lot of time just thinking about life this week and the twists and turns that I find myself experiencing every single day. For me, its been the realisation that actually, the destination really doesn't matter. Its the journey that is important. The older I get, the more I am beginning to realise that personal growth means the destination will always be changing and that if it doesn't, the reality is that you are standing stagnant and not allowing yourself to truly experience all the beauty that life has to offer. For a long time, my life stood stagnant. For a long time I was very lost. I couldn't see the future. I could only see survival and getting through to the next moment that would allow me to stop and breathe and just be. Life was so noisy. It was full of aggression and anger and pain and my ability to embrace the best of it was gone. I wasn't living anymore. I was slowly putting one foot in front of the other towards dying and I had no idea because survival had become the top priority. Every once in a while, the child I had buried deep inside me would appear, demanding to be heard and seen and allowed to play, and for just a moment, life would seem worth the fight. For me though, the moment my inner child refused to be buried again was about 4 and a half years ago, and I have never looked back! Ladies, just so you know, don't be afraid of your 40's. They are lifechanging and I'm going to tell you why. Your 40's bring about a complete change in the way that you think and feel and view the world. We all know that in our 20's, we are finding ourselves and we really don't have a clue who we are. They are filled with insecurity and a need to be what other people want us to be rather than being who we are. We are people pleasers and regularly hit burn out rather than just saying no! For those of you who figured out how not to be that person in your 20's - bravo! We worship at your feet because most of us were a little pathetic! Our 30's are generally a little more stable. We should be a little more settled, clearer on what we want from life and beginning to understand that caring about ourselves is as important as caring about the people around us. This is the decade that we really begin to understand self care. Unfortunately for me, I was a little late to the table. My own fault in the fact that I had made the wrong choices, and as a result, I found myself in a situation that was detrimental to my mental and physical health. It took me a while to step away from that. I was scared to make the decision I knew I should because I didn't know how to, so my life stagnated for almost 8 years. Then 40 came, and with it came an inner child that wouldn't shut up and the beginning of a whole change in attitude. I realised that if I didn't make the change, I probably never would and that this would be my life. Controlled, fearful and empty. All of a sudden, in amongst all the noise and chaos and panic, when I just stopped and listened and looked inside me, there was this quiet little voice guiding me in the right way and if I let it, it would give me the strength and the courage to do what I need to. I began to get to know me and during that process, I began to recognise that there were elements of my life that were not healthy and needed to be removed. My tribe began to shrink and those people who were not good for my mental health were removed from my circle. This was never about them. They had their own needs but I was no longer going to be the person who fulfilled them, because in doing so, I was neglecting myself. I began to realise that becoming reactional because of someone elses actions was giving away my control, so I stepped away from activities that caused me to be angry and emotional and began to learn how to just breathe when someone did something that upset or angered me. That long single breath gave me the chance to defuse a little and take back my control. (Still working on that one by the way! Definitely a work in progress) I learned that I don't have to fight every single battle and I began to learn to forgive. Not for the sake of the people who had hurt me but for me, because to hold onto that hate and anger and pain was like choosing to drink poison every single day. It was toxic and detsructive and would slowly destroy me. I decided that I would take every chance that life threw at me and embrace it because I wanted to live. I didn't want to just survive anymore and in doing that, I have had some amazing experiences and met some incredible people! From a naked man living his best life in the Lake District to a man who was involved with the IRA as a child in Belfast, I have been able to live life briefly through other people's eyes and experiences and boy has it been exciting! I have learned to love my own company and think nothing of going out or going away on my own. Sometimes, not having to consider someone else for a short while is the most amazing way to travel! 40 was my rebirth. It was the beginning of seeing the value that I bought to the table and demanding that the people I had in my life not only saw it too, but respected it and embraced it. Don't get me wrong, its a daily choice to embrace everything that gets thrown at you, and there will always be those days that you get up and just don't want to have to 'be', but thats okay. The occasional shit day happens to the very best of us. You muddle on through it, get an early night and start again the next day with a new mindset and a fresh purpose. Life is for living musers. In the whole lifespan of the earth, our time on it is miliseconds. We only get a very short period of time to experience the beauty that this spinning ball of energy and life has to offer so embrace every second that you can. Take off your shoes and feel the ground beneath your feet. Smell the flowers. Breathe in the fresh air and look up at the sky. Put your phone in your pocket and look around you. Soak your world up and try not to miss anything, because every single second you are here is so unbelievably precious. Choose to start living every single second you have because the minute you stop making that choice is the minute you start dying. Until next time.............

So, for those of you who are not aware, May 13th to May 19th is Mental Health Awareness Week. Mental health has become such a huge topic over the last 20 something years, and rightly so. Prior to that, it was very taboo, and for a considerable number of people it still is, but as a nation we have improved exponentionally in the way that we not only handle this exceptionally sensitive subject, but also in the way that we openly talk about it. For those of you who have been with me since day one, I apologise, (insert laughing face here). I will not even attempt to justify it. (Also though, a huge thank you for your unwavering support.) You will have read the handful of blogs I wrote about mental health, and more specifically the one that outlined my experiences since hitting puberty. (God damn hormones!) That was hard to write, but for me, being open about these things is the only way that I can see for the world to begin to change how it views mental health so its an important thing to talk openly about. Also, I don't back down from a challenge! For me, mental health has been a battle for almost my entire life, but its only recently that I have really begun to understand the reason why, and that has allowed me the opportunity to be able to not only speak openly about it, but also to understand and control certain aspects of my life that caused me issues prior to this. I have gone from hiding in the shadows and hating everything that I was to embracing it and loving it because its what makes me who I am and do you know what, I am bloody awesome - albeit a handful and a half at times! Between myself, my sister and my oldest son, there are neurodiversities that weren't picked up on. Don't get me wrong, they never stopped any of us, but maybe having a better understanding of why certain behaviours were in place would have made certain aspects of our lives a little easier as we grew up. For me, I can pinpoint exact moments where my issues caused me immense problems because I not only didn't understand why I was that way, but I didn't know how to control it. There were no measures in place for when my emotions became too big and for those people around me, it wasn't easy at all. I could go into hours of hyperfocus to all of a sudden becoming lethargic and unmotivated and I could never pinpoint why. The thing is, even though having a clearer understanding would have made a difference, it doesn't change the fact that even with certain personality traits that tie you into a certain type of neurodiversity, we are still completely unique and individual in every which way possible. I have debated this many times and firmly believe that no matter who someone is, putting people into boxes to satisfy the need to categorise them is actually more damaging than allowing them to learn about who they are and what their individuality brings to the table. Now, for those of you who are lucky enough to know my parents, you will know how much my family loves a debate. Most of the time it finishes with everyone agreeing to disagree, but one thing we all appreciate is the unique perspective that each and every one of us brings to the table. Today, I had the pleasure of just such a conversation with my dad who is an incredibly intelligent man. Between me and you musers, debating with him absolutely terrifies me. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, he is my dad. He has the uncanny ability to make me feel like a 12 year old with just one look. He doesn't even need to speak. Its almost biblical in its ability to rip away 30 years of experience and leave me quivering like a scared kid waiting to get into trouble! I don't even know if he is aware that he still has that power but I don't think I ever completely grew up in my mind as far as he was concerned. Secondly, even when I have the evidence to back up my argument, I still find myself questioning it because he is one of the most intelligent people I know. I have a tendancy to get passionate where he is controlled and measured in his approach, and that passion leaves me questioning everything at times! As my kids like to say, its more about the tism's than anything else and I shouldn't worry but sometimes it does leave me questioning everything that I know in reality is correct! Anyhoo, I digress! The reason I mention todays conversation is because for me, I think that what we talked about plays massively into one of the biggest causes of mental health issues in the world today, and if you can't discuss mental health during mental health awareness week, then when can you? One of the topics of discussion was the worlds need to place people into boxes to allow them to be able to understand who they are. Gender and pronouns, neurodiversity, sexuality, political beliefs... the list is endless. The thing is, in doing this, we are missing one very important fact. Maybe the most important fact of all and that fact is this - Every last one of us is completely and utterly unique. Read that again. We are unique not only in our physical makeup, but in the way we think and feel. We are unique in the way we process knowledge. The way we live our life. The things that we love. The things that we hate. The choices we make. The people we choose to share our lives with. The things that make us laugh. The things that make us cry. We are unique in the way that we smile and the way that we open up to others. We are unique in our responses to external and internal stimuli. The way we see the world will be different to every other person that we speak to. The thing to remember in amongst the worlds need to categorise you is that there will only ever be one you. Even if you believe in reincarnation, you do not come back as the you that you are now. This very moment, this very second, there is nobody else on this earth who resembles you. There is nobody else on this earth who thinks like you and do you know what - that makes you so incredibly special! Myself and my dad talked for a while about this because there seems to be a desperate need at the moment for people to 'identify' as something and the big question is - why? Define for me a female. Define for me a male. Those roles are not defined by physicality, personality or anything else. What is that reality? I know I am female because my gender dictates that and I am lucky enough that I have never felt the need to question that, but I am also so much more than that. This is only a tiny portion of what makes me who I am and in reality, my gender is the most unimportant part of that! I am Rebecca. I am passionate and opinionated. I am argumentative and fight for the things and the people I believe in. I am emotional, creative, artistic, energetic, talkative, loving, open and vivacious. I can be incredibly difficult and when my control slips away, I struggle to control the huge variations of emotion that I feel. I am impulsive and adventurous and refuse to let fear stop me most of the time but that also occasionally falls into taking unnecessary risks. I am intelligent and incredibly confident some days and then other days, the lack of confidence in my abilities is crippling to the point where it stops me from doing the things I know I can. I feel incredible heights of excitement and energy that drive me forward but alongside that, the lows are debilitating and destructive. I have the ability to hyperfocus for hours on something and then all of a sudden lose interest to the point where I am unable to pick it up again for weeks at a time. This is a snippet of me. Nowhere in there is the need to put myself into a box because I am constantly changing and growing and learning and that process is incredibly exciting. Todays world is inundated with people struggling with their mental health, not just because of their day to day stresses but because there is a degree of expectation that wasn't there before. They are expected to conform. To fit into a box that keeps everyone happy. To hide the elements of their personality that would remove them from the box people feel they should be in because heaven forbid they embrace who they are and love themselves because who they are is enough. The thing is - and I want you to listen to this. You are enough. You always have been. Yes, we need to understand who we are, and we all have elements of who we are that we need to improve upon, but that understanding should never be defined externally. That definition is an internal thing. We know what we bring to the table, and we know what we need to leave behind. My first article about my mental health I used the phrase, I'm Rebecca and I have mental health issues. I am changing that because guess what - I don't. I am unique, and in that uniqueness is great beauty. My way of seeing the world brings a whole different perspective to the table. My energy and passion gives me the strength to stand up for the people I love even when the world stands against me. I am learning to love every single element of what makes me who I am because I am beginning to realise that the worlds definition of mental health is limited to a need to categorise. Embrace who you are. Be kind to yourself. Learn to love every element that makes you you, and this mental health awareness week, open up to other people. We can only destroy the stigma attached to these things if we open up about them. Until next time...............

The biggest lesson I have learned over the last few years is this... When someone shows you who they are, pay attention! I am almost 47, (say it quietly and it doesn't seem so bad), and I am only just starting to get my head around this fact. It's taken me several boyfriends, two failed marriages, neither of whom were bad men but neither of whom were right for me either, and one almost 8 year relationship that that at times could be extremely abusive. That relationship almost destroyed me. For 8 years he was my biggest support through everything. He pushed me to challenge myself and picked me up when I struggled. He encouraged me to demand better of myself, to expect better and to fight for the things I believed in even when everyone else was standing against me. He could be an incredible human being and even up until just before things ended, we were still struggling to watch a movie all the way through without getting into a deep conversation about something. We didn't always agree on things, but we could talk for England! I hear you asking, why the issue? He sounds wonderful. It sounds like a match made in heaven and you would be right. It was for a huge amount of the time. But he also drank. A lot. Way more than anyone should and whilst sometimes he could be quite fun and vivacious, at other times it went the other way and he became incredibly cruel, cold, vicious and abusive with absolutely no warning. It would hit like a cyclone, and during the time it went on for, it caused huge amounts of mental and physical devastation. The atmosphere in the house would change and the anxiety that I had managed to keep in check for those few weeks of peace prior to the explosion would begin to grow. My stomach would begin to churn and my skin would crawl as if there were hundreds of ants all over it. My head would pound and I would feel terrified because I didn't know what this particular mood change would bring. I only knew that the next four or five days would be horrific and I needed to try and hide as much as I could from my kids so that it had as little impact on their day to day existence as possible. And then it would be gone, as quickly as it started. It would always be my fault but I was okay with that. I lived with that blame because it meant that the mood would disappear quicker and things would go back to normal for 5 or 6 weeks until someone said something wrong or something completely out of our control would kick it off again. I lived on high alert for the majority of our relationship, but I did that because when he was good, he was great, and for a lot of the time in the earlier years he really was good. I tell you all this not because I want pity. I don't want him to suffer. He has an addiction. Trust me when I say he is suffering more than he could ever put on anyone else. I tell you this because I had the warning signs right from the start of the relationship. We were together for a short while before the first mood swing hit. I just let it go. It was early days, we didn't live together, I knew there was other things going on at the time and I guess that is the point I am trying to make. He showed me who he was early on, and I chose not to pay attention. I was sure I could change him, (that old chestnut), and as a result, I made the mistake of justifying everything and taking the blame. In doing so, I created the pattern that dominated my life and caused huge emotional trauma for almost 8 years - probably for both of us because I do believe that somewhere in amongst all his pain, buried deeper than he cares to admit, there was a good person. The pattern itself is known as the cycle of abuse and played a huge part in my life for a long time. Let me just clarify, I am not for one second suggesting that I deserved any of what happened, however the signs were there early on and I ignored them. I made excuses for them and I didn't set healthy boundaries that would have either ended the relationship or put him in a position where he would have had no choice but to figure out his triggers and deal with them if he wanted to be with me. I talk about this openly because in society, we are encouraged to consider others feelings before our own. We are encouraged not to walk away from situations or people that maybe aren't the best for us and to fight for relationships. We are made to feel that we should get on with everyone and actually, life doesn't work like that. We aren't all going to get along and even when we do, that doesn't necessarily make it a healthy relationship. We don't have to allow people to treat us in a negative or abusive manner because we don't want to hurt them or upset them. We don't have to put up with disrespect, disdain or ridicule no matter what you have been led to believe. You choose your boundaries but you also have to be strong enough to walk away when they are crossed. One boundary crossing can be changed. Two is pushing. Three or more is a pattern and that is someone showing you who they are and that no matter how respectful you are of them and others, they are choosing to disrespect you and will continue to do so, no matter how well you treat them. Mental health is talked about so much more nowadays than it was when I was younger and that is an amazing thing. None of us get out of this thing we call life alive, and we all have our own demons that we fight every single day. I suppose what I am trying to say is that you have to start by looking out for you. The rest will fall into place. If something feels wrong, it probably is and the worst thing you can do is ignore that instinct. That instinct is what kept your ancestors alive and is there to protect you and keep you safe. I truly believe that there is good in almost everyone but we don't know what battles they are facing behind closed doors. That snappy comment or derogatory judgement is more than likely hiding hurt that has turned into anger because they have refused to deal with their demons. The thing is, that will always be their battle, and the only one who can change that is them. If they don't choose to then there is nothing you can do, and maybe that is one of the hardest lessons to learn! Kindness goes a long way but not at the expense of your own mental health. Always look after yourself first because you won't have the strength to be there for those you love if you don't. I learnt that I could choose to walk away from people and relationships that drained me emotionally, physically and spiritually. Those people were/aren't my tribe, and do you know what, thats okay. Everyone does not have to be. You cannot control who they are. That is their choice. You can only choose the control that you allow them to have within your circle. It a hard lesson to learn and one I am sure I will still struggle with for a long time, but its definitely one we all need to get our head around. People always show you who they are. Make sure you pay attention. Until next time.........

One thing I have learned as I have gotten older is just how important friendships are, and how in amongst all the craziness of life, having solid people around you can be the difference between sinking the boat or sailing off victorious into the sunset. I remember friendship as a kid being this thing that involved everyone. For example, birthday parties in first school consisted of inviting every kid in the class because one day, little Jimmy and Jason could be the best of friends, but the next they no longer played together because someone else was on the scene. The idea of friendship at that age was much more about playing, having fun, running around and just being generally boisterous and a little mischievous. It didn't need to be anything more than that. That was quite simply enough because at 4 and 5 years old, what more do you need? When you look at the reality of it, the earlier years are more for developing social skills and learning how to play nice with others. Not always the easiest but an important life lesson that even as an adult, I think most of us struggle with at times. I have some amazing memories from those times and some friends that I occasionally still catch up with. Although our lives have all gone in very different directions, its nice to be able to touch base, and for just a few moments, shed all the stress and anxiety of adult life to reminisce about the good old days when winning at marbles and catching the boy you fancied during kiss chase was the most that you had to worry about. I know. I sound ancient right now, but for those of you already in this age bracket, you will know intimately how nostalgia can do that to you. It has an uncanny knack of sweeping away the years as if they had never happened, and taking you right back to the playground again. That was the playground I stopped eating Weetabix on because one of my friends told me they were made of earwigs. Haven't eaten them since. That was the playground I chased Tony Waldron on, my first ever crush and the boy I was sure I would marry at some point! That was the playground I walked across to go to my guitar lesson with Mr Gibson who I was also a little bit in love with. Everyday on my way into school I would pick him a flower. I could go on and on. The memories are endless and once you start digging, its like falling down the proverbial rabbit hole! The thing is, for a lucky few, these become lifelong friends, but for the majority of us, as we get older and begin to grow and develop, we discover new people, new ways of being and thinking, and those friendships that defined our childhood become a happy, albeit distant memory that you occasionally smile about. Maybe that is how it should be. I know for me, without the likes of facebook, I wouldn't have any kind of contact with the handful that I grew up with because I would have no way of finding them. Its a strange reality to be faced with because the undeniable truth is, life moves on. Like a river, twisting and turning, life carves its route with a ferocity and determination that can be difficult to understand, but there is always a purpose, and maybe living too much in those past friendships and memories prevents the chance to make new ones. Throughout life, our paths cross with different people and as I grew and developed, I began to figure one very important thing out. Not everyone needs to be part of my tribe, and not everyone needs to like me. Now, make no mistakes musers, this was not something I learned quickly. In fact, this is quite a recent discovery and it would be an understatement to say it was a lifechanging moment when it clicked! I had spent such an incredibly long time trying to be everything to everyone that one morning, I woke up and realised I didn't actually know who I was anymore, and that was terrifying. Those people that I had spread myself so thin for were only ever there when it benefitted them. They were happy to leave me high and dry when I needed support, but demanded every second when they wanted something. The realisation was in equal parts incredibly freeing but also absolutely devastating. Don't get me wrong, the devastation didn't actually come from the fact that the friendships were massively out of balance, but from the time that had been wasted on people who didn't deserve it when I knew that in reality, I deserved better. You see, and this is always the tough pill to swallow, I had chosen to continue those friendships. I had ignored the obvious, and as a result, time that could have been spent in healthy friendships was wasted. Its a hard reality that we all have to get our heads around and one I have written about many times. Even when you don't believe you are making a choice, you are making a choice not to make a choice. Its one of lifes very few constants, and something that at some point, if we want to move forward, we have to get our head around. So, here we are, at the crux of it. What is friendship and why is it so important? I mean, after all, you are reading the words of someone who is more than happy to take herself out on a me date or away on a holiday alone. I have come to love my own company and its not something I would give up lightly, but in amongst those moments of happy solitude are moments with my little tribe that have been so much more than just making memories. Those friendships have become part of what defines me as a person. I think you can tell a whole lot about a person by watching the people they spend the most time with, and the people who have broken down my walls and worked their way into my heart are some of the most honest, warm, caring, loyal people I have ever met. They have the most beautiful souls, capable of such warmth and beauty. Even when their own hearts have been broken, they have been a support that I cannot begin to put into words. I was always a bit of a loner. My friendships lasted for a period and then fizzled out on their own. Nothing held any permanence for me and I was okay with that, but in amongst that fierce, self inflicted loneliness, people started to find chinks in the armour, and my little tribe of one began to grow. Throughout the years I have collected some amazing people - some who have stayed and some who have moved on. The wonderful thing about understanding how friendship should work though is recognising that not everyone is supposed to be in your life forever. The universe is a fickle creature, and she brings those people to you that you need at the time that you need them. Some of those lessons are painful, but some of them are the most beautiful, wonderful lessons that you could ever experience because if you let them, those lessons will bring you souls who will expedite and encourage such incredible growth that your life will never, ever be the same again after they have entered it. I consider my self to be one of those incredibly lucky people whose lessons have stuck around and will hopefully stick around for the rest of my life. My tribe is small but I like it that way. They have become so much more than friends. They have become family and they hold such a special place in my heart. In amongst the deafening chaos and noise of the world, they have become the anchor that keeps me grounded, and I hope that I have done the same for them. I have to be honest though, in amongst those wonderfully special people, there is one who deserves a special mention. The one who has supported me through some of my darkest moments and who has always taken me as I am, warts and all. From exploring the streets of Paris to counting sheep around Newcastle and grass animals around York - (thats a whole other blog) - we have laughed, cried, worked, studied, partied and generally caused chaos together for almost 11 years. And man, what an 11 years its been. She truly is my friendship soul mate and I couldn't imagine not having her and her family in my life. Without her and her unwavering support, patience and love, I wouldn't be where I am today so I am dedicating this article to my sistah from another mistah, my bestie Rebecca. (Yes, there is two of us!) My life would look very different without her and for that, I cannot thank her enough. Honestly, all I can tell you is that those people who have your back no matter what, and who will always be honest with you are worth their weight in gold. They are like that because they love you and they only want whats right for you. Hold them tight, treasure them and don't let them go over petty sillliness because it will be something you will regret for the rest of your life if you do. I love you Becca and I can't wait for the next decade of silliness! (Sorry, not sorry!) Until next time...............

Sometimes, in amongst the laughter, the games, the socialising and the fun, there are moments. Quiet moments that make you catch your breath and drag you back to a pain you had long since forgotten. Briefly, you're reminded that behind the smiles and the laughter is a world of trauma that you will never get over, but instead, have learned to live with and use as a driving force towards success. Memories and guilt flood in like a raging tsunami, moving so quickly that they leave you disorientated and scared, fighting the urge to step backwards into the all too familiar comfort that comes with hiding in the dark. After all, you know the pain intimately, and within its black wings you know you are safe. You know you can bury your torment, nobody will ask you to deal with it. Hiding in the pitch black, cocooned and protected from all the possibilities of living as the irresistible pull of despair beckons you in, facing the reality of the healing process becomes too big to contemplate. Its a reality for so many of us for many different reasons, but for those of us who have been the victims of abuse, its a reality that you have to learn to live with because it never completely dissipates. There are always going to be triggers but when you learn to control them rather than letting them control you, the difference is night and day. Whatever age you are, the one thing I can guarantee you is that you will not reach your dotage without damage, and that can raise its ugly head in so many different ways. The question is, how do you protect yourself from the inevitable devestation that comes as part of life? How do you learn to recognise the toxic environment that has the potential to destroy you, and if you find yourself in the thick of something you never saw coming, how do you get out? My story is the same as millions of other men and women around the world. Girl meets boy. Girl falls for boy. Girl ignores red flags from the very start because she is convinced she can change boy. Boy moves in inspite of not being asked because girl was trying to help him out in a sticky situation. Once those feet were well and truly planted, everything changed and the fallout was unimaginable. I don't talk about this for sympathy. Far from it. I have washed my hands of that period of my life. It took a lot of internal soul work to push through it, and there were times I didn't actually think I would make it, but here I am. I talk about it openly because if there is just one person out there who can relate and who finds the courage to step away from something toxic because of it, then my work here is done. As the people who know me can attest to, I have always been a huge romantic. I was the generation that grew up on Disney princesses being rescued from towers by knights on horses. We were fed the line that all you needed was love and life would be complete. Our prince would come in waving his sword on a white charger and save us, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, till death us do part.... hopefully not too quickly. (insert winky face here!) Now, don't get me wrong.... I am still a huge believer in that knight riding in. I still believe in a love that will stand the test of time and everything that this world throws at it, but what I have realised is that its not fair to expect someone else to save you. Its not fair to put the pressure of your own individual happiness on somebody else, and it is far from okay to blame them when your life doesn't go the way that you wanted it to go. My life, up until around 3 years ago was chaotic. It was filled with drama, angst, complete shakespearian tragedy, and the result was a complete imbalance in everything I did, said, felt and experienced. A huge part of that was me choosing the wrong people and putting myself into situations that were less than healthy. I am by nature a saviour. I want to help everyone, even when it created huge mental health issues for me, and whilst my mental health deteriorated daily at the expense of keeping others happy, I lost myself more and more until one day, I looked in the mirror and saw a stranger in front of me. I had completely lost everything that made me who I was. I didn't even know what 'me' looked like anymore. I had become this tired, twisted, broken creature that didn't how to be, how to live, how to breath. I only knew that I was desperately unhappy. That everything in me was screaming for release but nobody could hear my frantic, panicked cries because I had buried them so deeply that the noise around me was deafening. I knew that if I didn't take myself away from everything that was slowly seeping poison into my soul, it would kill me. The damage would be permanent and the fallout would destroy me. For the first time in many years, I began to realise that I needed to choose me and although it took another 18 months of rebuilding before I left, I finally got to the point where choosing me became important enough to walk away from everything that was destroying me. I walked away with nothing. I didn't care because all I knew was that anything was better than where I was. Anything was better than living in constant fear of a raised hand or a barrage of cruel words that cut deep into your soul and ripped away every last element of what made you feel worthy of love. Years of living on high alert had left me with panic attacks, crippling anxiety and had convinced me that I was worthless. maybe even less than worthless, and for a long time that anxiety and debilitating grief convinced me that I would never be worth anything more than what I had experienced. How could anyone ever love me? How could I ever love myself when all I could see was a broken shell with nothing left but pain and despair? My healing process began with a Japanese art form. Something I had never come across prior to this, and its introduction into my life was serendipitous. All of a sudden I was faced with the opportunity to physically create something beautiful from something broken. Kintsugi became the physical manifestation of everything I was going through. For those of you who don't know, it is the art of creating something beautiful out of something smashed and broken. The Japanese take something that seems to be damaged beyond repair, and using a gold powder, they create a bonding that brings those broken pieces back together and creates an incredible strength that was not there before. Something that may have been discarded suddenly becomes even more beautiful because of its imperfections. What a wonderful metaphor this is for mental health and broken people. The very idea that in spite of everything that has tried to destroy us, we can create something even more beautiful from the chaos and the damage is at its very core not only inspiring but also incredibly lifechanging. This started a journey that began a transformation I never anticipated. For the first time in I don't know how long, I began to see glimpses of me coming back. Seconds of frivolity and excitement that I hadn't experienced for as long as I could remember. The girl looking back in the mirror began to look less like a stranger and more like a warrior who was returning from a war that she had never expected to survive, but somehow, inspite of everything, she had. The wounds were deep and the scars would never disappear completely, but in amongst all of that pain, there was a glimmer of something beautiful. Something divine. Something inspirational. In the dark, there was just a tiny sliver of hope that broke up the blackness and cast a bright, white light upon everything that had seemed so desperately bleak. My journey back to me had begun with a small broken dish, who would have thought it. The symbolism behind that tiny object was breathtakingly powerful, and still resonates with me to this day. My transformation isn't complete. It never will be. One thing I have learnt is that you are learning and growing every single day of your life. Self improvement is never complete. You have to continue to choose you every day. You have to continue to remind yourself that you are worth so much more, and you have to learn how to love being on your own and not relying on someone else for your happiness. Until you can do that, you shouldn't be with anyone else because your happiness will always be dependant on them and that is not fair for either of you. I journeyed to hell to find myself again, but do you know what, when my feet hit the floor on a morning, the devil is the first person to say - shit, she's up, and I intend to live every single day of my life that way because too much has already been lost. From me to you - You are worthy. You are loved. You deserve happiness and if you do the work, you will find it. You just have to believe in yourself and the value that you have and bring to the world. You are who you choose to be and ultimately, where you end up in life is down to you. You have the potential to be amazing. See it. Feel it. Hold it tight and don't let it go because the one thing you don't want on your death bed are regrets. Live every day like its your last, and when youfind honest to goodness true love musers, love with everything in you. Love with your entire heart, mind and soul. Feel everything that giving yourself entirely to someone else is. Drop those walls and experience love in its entirety because I am telling you now, its worth it. It won't always be pretty. It won't always be roses and chocolates, but when you find your human, the good times will make those few difficult moments worth every single tear. From me to you - until next time xxxx

As a woman of a certain age, I'm resigning myself to certain things. For a start, girls today aren't made quite the same way now that we were 40 something years ago. Now, don't get me wrong. That is not necessarily a bad thing in some aspects, but in others, so much is being lost. Now, at 12 years old, young girls are contouring their makeup and dressing like grown women. I don't know how to do that at 46! (And I am talking about both dressing and contouring there!) They are careful about what they say because heaven forbid someone is offended by a different opinion. Honestly, my filter has all but gone and if it needs to be said, I am going to say it and I may not be diplomatic about it. They base their self esteem on likes and the number of friends they have on snapchat, facebook, whatsapp, insta etc. My need to hear I am fabulous to prove I am worth someone making an effort just isn't a thing. For those of you wondering - I am bloody awesome, and guess what - I figured that out all on my own! I may not be to everyone's taste, but I am so completely okay with that because I have learned to love who I am and thats what is important. With age and a modicum of maturity comes a devil may care attitude, and after 20 years of growing up with the uncertainty that comes with being a young woman, I love that confidence. Suddenly, I don't worry because what I lack in diplomacy, I make up for with honesty and integrity. Don't get me wrong. I won't intentionally be awful, but I will be honest, and what I am discovering is that todays world struggles a little bit with that. As I mentioned, us slightly older chicks are built slightly differently because we straddle two very different realities. We sit in between the women who were starting to step away from the traditional mum at home, dinner on the table at six lifestyle, and the women who now work full time, have a career and bring up kids whilst studying for a qualification in a whole new walk of life! We were the generation with the best of both in my opinion. We had been brought up with those traditional family values but also with that desire for more than just motherhood and being a wife. We were being encouraged to find ourselves again in amongst all the responsibility that came with settling down. The 70's and 80's really was the beginning of women being reminded that they could be anything and do anything. We just needed to work hard and apply ourselves, and that path was paved by the women who came before us and were brave enough to shout up for their rights to be recognised as more than just a homemaker. It was an exciting time for young girls, but those young girls I grew up with, like myself, are now slightly older women with bambino's that are no longer little, lives that maybe didn't go quite the way they had initially anticipated, and we are suddenly finding ouselves trying to navigate the craziness of a world that seems to take great pride in being offended at everything without an ounce of understanding or appreciation for the fundamental diplomatic right everyone has to an opinion, educated or otherwise! On top of that musers, and here is the real kicker, we have another huge thing thrown into the mix, and this particular thing doesn't disappear when we tell it to, or stop wingeing that it has no rights because the school took its mobile phone away. #firstworldproblems This beast is epic - truly diabolical - the essence of pain and evil and all things monstrous. It is the stuff of legend. The behemoth rising from the black sea. The leviathan straddling the darkness and tearing children from their slumber, ripping them limb from limb in a bloody mass of destruction and devastation. What is this craziness I hear you ask? What could honestly be so bad that it would bring up images of such apocalyptic proportions? One thing, and one thing only...... Menopause has entered the building and she is here for the long haul! What a cruel mistress she is! For those of you already putting her up in the spare room, you have my deepest sympathy. For those for whom she is still a fair distance away, be afraid - be very afraid! For those of you like myself who have just welcomed her with great trepidation into your home, there are no words of comfort that I can give you other than this - apparently you do come out on the other side! (insert weeping face here). For those of you without the necessary flora and fauna to experience this wonder of human development, let me tell you, its definitely not the most fun I have ever had. Mine began with night sweats that were so bad, there were times I would wake up and wonder if I had wet the bed! Without wanting to appear overly dramatic, I am beginning to wonder if peri-menopausal women may actually be the cause of global warming and subsequent melting of the polar ice caps. I am not sure anymore that industry and pollution really has that much to do with it! Alongside extreme heat, (maybe its just preparing me for the firey depths of hell), there is the brain fog. Having had two bambinos, myself and brain fog are already firm friends. Pregnancy brain is a thing people, and it really does leave you a little 'doo lally tap!' We have all experienced those slightly strange moments where we get up to do something and by the time we have left the room, we can't remember what it was, but imagine that as a constant, and about 100 times worse! I can be mid-sentence and completely lose track of what I am trying to say. I struggle to remember certain words, (thank goodness for online dictionaries/thesauraus'), and even names can disappear whilst I am stood in front of the person about to say hello! Apart from the embarassment factor, (I would be lying if I said I occasionally didn't wonder if there is a bit of early onset dementia kicking in), I work in an office with women of a certain age who are all going through the same thing so I know I am not going completely crazy! In amongst those wonderful little gems that have invaded my body like a parasitic worm, there are around another 40 or so symptoms that the lady of a certain age may find herself faced with over the years that her body goes through this change. It sounds awful, I know this, but if you have read me before, you know that its not all bad and when you flip it on its head, even menopause is a beautiful thing. You see, I was more blessed than I could have ever expected being born a woman. I was lucky enough to be healthy and develop in the way that I needed towhich allowed me to carry two amazing, albeit slightly crazy kids. My body fed, watered and protected them whilst they grew inside me over 9 months. I felt every little movement and experienced every incredible, emotional moment that brought them closer to this world, and it was my physical makeup that allowed me to be able to do it. I got to play a starring role in the gift of life and nothing has or will ever come close to that. I sometimes look at the girls who are growing up in todays world for whom life is so different to what it was for me, and I pity them. I know that every generation does that, but I think the world has changed so much in such a short space of time, and its not for the better. The pressures are so much more, and unfortunately, a movement put in place to create fundamental rights for women has turned into something toxic and created a generation who are essentially a little lost and a little spoiled. Our kids are being encouraged to be offended at every little thing that is put in front of them and rather than giving them a healthy understanding of the right to differing values, views and opinions, they are being encouraged to shut down anyone who disagrees with them. The beauty of humanity lies in its diversity, and diversity by its very definition is those who are, who think and who feel differently. This is something that we should be teaching our young people to embrace and emulate but instead, the world is teaching them to close off, discriminate and prevent the exchange of different ideas. You couldn't pay me enough to be a young woman growing up in todays world. I think our generation was the luckiest. I think that the 40 something woman is one of the most balanced because we straddled both worlds and grew up on both sides of the coin. Yes, we are now hitting a time of life where our bodies are kicking our ass, but do you know what.... I wouldn't change any of it for the world! We may not be snowflakes, but boy are we melting! Until next time........

So, on one of my many distracted moments scrolling through facebook throughout my day, I came across this. Like most ladies I suspect, I love a post related to love. We all pretend we are modern women and we can do it all on our own, and for the most part, we absolutely can. But then something like this makes an appearance and reminds you that actually, for all that you love your life with just you in it, sometimes, in those quiet moments, there are things that you really do miss. I am a big romantic at heart and I love being in love. I believe in it with everything in me and I know that when its right, its the most incredible thing on the planet, but I also know that fundamentally, you can't love someone in the way they deserve to be loved until you love and respect yourself enough not to actually need them. I appreciate that sounds illogical, but stay with me. There is method in the madness! The question we all have to ask ourselves, (and the answer will be different for everyone of us), Is the essence of love the foundation of a fulfilling and vibrant life? For those of you who are part of the gang already, you know how this goes from here. I splurge a mix of thoughts and feelings, but tonight, rather than the usual process of unloading, I want to carefully pull everything apart and give it some thought because it has really stopped me in my tracks. In reading that quote, it's made me consider everything that has gone on over the last 40 something years, and look at all of the moments that have brought me to this point in my life and moulded me into the person whose crazy waffles you are reading, (and I thank you all for that support)! The thing is, when anyone mentions love, I think the immediate reaction is to think about romantic love and everything that comes along with that, and whilst romantic love is an amazing, incredible thing, there are so many facets to love and so many elements that make it the backbone of a happy fulfilled and successful life. The reality is, until you stop to truly consider it, you don't realise how every element of life requires love to give you the best chance at success. It can be the harshest lesson or the most beautiful encounter, but however it manifests, love is love and will build you or break you dependant on how you choose to experience it - and musers, it absolutely is a choice. Getting your head around that will not only save you a lot of future heartache, but also give you a freedom and control over your own life that most people don't have. Believe me when I tell you, its a biggie! It all starts with loving yourself. We have seen a huge shift over the last 20 or so years and its something that was way overdue. As we all know, there is never an excuse for being a dick, but it is paramount that you look after you first If you don't, you can't be the person you need to be for the people that you love. Self Care has become front and centre, and not a moment too soon. As someone who has spent the vast majority of her life worrying about other people and putting her own happiness on the backburner, I can testify to this. The results weren't pretty! I became a shell of my former self. Withdrawn, irritable, tired, anxious, stressed..... it was an inevitable burnout that walloped me in a way I could never have seen coming. That was the point that I had to step back and say no more, and honestly, I have never looked back. Now, let me just clarify. There is a huge difference between self care and being a selfish prick. Self care is about making sure you are healthy and making sure that you are meeting your spiritual, physical and emotional needs that in a way that benefits not just you, but the people around you. Self care is removing negative influences from your life and for those that you can't get rid of, its learning to minimise the effect that they have on you. Its learning that before you ask other people to love you, you learn to love yourself in a way that negates the need for other people love. When this happens, you don't go looking for love but it does find you in the most wonderful ways. We hear it a lot but happiness really does come from within. It can be a lonely journey to find that happiness and peace, but from me to you - its worth every single step. Throughout that journey, you discover so much more than just peace. You discover yourself, and that my friends is a beautiful and sacred gift to be able to embrace. The thing is, until you take that first step, every single experience of love will be conditional - even the love you have for family or friends because every moment of happiness will rely on someone else creating it. Thats pressure the people you love do not need. I can promise you that. So, you start your journey with self care and self love, but once you have that nailed, there are so many other beautiful experiences to share. I think, as a mum, the most incredible love I will ever experience is the love I share with the musings bambinos. Not so little anymore, they have been the hardest thing I have ever done, but also the most rewarding. Nobody prepares you for the love that you feel when you feel that baby move inside your body for the first time, or the first moment you hold them in your arms after you have given birth. That first glance into their eyes, you know that your life is never going to be the same and you just don't care because in your arms lies everything that you are, everything you have been and everything you have yet to be. They are a lifetime of potential, a million dreams and experiences all wrapped up in one tiny little bundle that you know you would die to protect. Its a fierce, wild, indescribable love that will never change and only gets stronger with each passing moment. When it comes to children, love most definitely equals life because without it, how would you get through those moments where they try your patience and stomp all over your very last nerve? (Parents - you know exactly what I am on about!) How would you navigate those moments that they make choices that you know will hurt them, but you also know you have to stand back and let them make their mistakes? How would you move past the pain of those choices if the love involved was not all-encompassing? So we have self love and we have the love between a parent and a child. What about the love you share with the people you are close to though. As I like to call them - my tribe? Could we honestly be happy without that love? For those of you who like a bit of Disney, I am sure you will be familiar with the below quote from Lilo and Stitch. For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure - shame on you! Get it watched. Its ace! I love this film for several reasons - one of the main ones being how wild and untamed Stitch and Lilo are, but in amongst that crazy, rebellious nature, they found each other. Kindred spirits who had both gone through something very different, they connected and became the best of friends. The reality of life is that none of us get through it totally unscathed. We will all break at one point or another but we can choose whether to embrace those breaks, or run from them. Finding your tribe can be the main difference in how you experience those moments that you never think you will come back from. My tribe has always been small. I was never one for large groups of people and when I bring someone into my chaos, I tend to hang onto them like one of those barnacles at the coast. You would have to give me a bloody hard kick to lose me! The thing is, I could tell you a million stories about the amazing times we have had, the daft things we have done, the day we all got tattoo's together because of a nickname we were given, but the moments that they picked me up when I didn't think I had anything left - those were some of the most incredible moments of love and sacrifice. There were days that I would have never gotten through without certain people in my life, and I will be forever grateful for them choosing me. For me, the real beauty of your tribe lies in the fact that it is a choice that you make, and if the bond is strong enough, they will become family without even trying. So many people will come and go in the short time you spend on this earth, but those people who truly get you, those people who want to be part of everything that you bring to the table and who take the good with the bad, those are the people who will change your life for the better if you let them. You talk to anyone who has that bond with a friend. It absolutely equals life in all its beauty, humour, tears and pain, and those are bonds that will never break, no matter what, as long as you nurture and protect them till the day you die. So, what about romantic love? Poets have waxed lyrical about it for centuries. Writers have tried to dissect its very essence and understand how it takes over our entire soul. Wars have been waged in the name of love and lives have been lost when love has gotten out of control. Its a force of nature that we will never truly understand but without it, what would life be? I am going to throw a small spanner in the works a little at this point, but with good reason. I promise! Romantic love is where it begins, but it is not where it ends, and this is the fundamental key to understanding love. Learning this is what helps you to live it with every corner of your soul, and allows it to take you on a journey that will bring you to the highest peaks of ecstasy but also the lowest depths of despair along with everything that comes in between. Love is so much more than flowers, jewellery, expensive dinners and lavish gifts. True love - real love, is quiet and understated. Its that secret smile across a crowded room that only you understand. Its knowing that in your worst moments, your lover will pick you up and hold you close, comforting you in a way that nobody else can. Its knowing every inch of their body in a way that only you can read it, but at the same time, feeling like its the first time every time they run a finger down your arm or you kiss their neck. Its knowing that you can talk to them about anything, no matter what and they will still love you, that there will be no judgement. Its feeling safe in their arms in a way that nobody has ever made you feel before. True love is days out in the sun, laughing together at jokes that nobody else would understand but not caring because they are just yours and nobody else needs to. Its those secret moments lying exhausted and spent in each others arms, safe, warm, loved and valued beyond anything that you could have ever imagined. Its quiet whispers under a starlit sky while the moon shines brightly above you. Its tears and pain because they are the only person with the capability of hurting you, and their words can feel like a dagger to your heart but when the pain is over, its ecstasy that reminds you why you endure those less than perfect moments. Its being together no matter what, and understanding that sometimes, life will throw you a curveball but that together, you can hit that ball right back and keep on going because together you will always be stronger. Its all this and so much more. Love has captivated the world for centuries because we cannot define it, categorise or explain it, and in a world of thinkers, the inability to do so is infuriating and intriguing in equal measures. It is and will always be the essence of life in all its forms and with all its potential. We fight love at times because we want to avoid pain but in reality, that avoidance is what creates pain and plays a huge role in stunting our growth as individuals. I haven't even scratched the surface of what it means to love, to be loved and to embrace love, but what I do know is that the very essence of life lies within love, however you choose to love and that embracing that reality is at the very least, a new beginning and at the very most, completely and utterly lifechanging in all the best ways! Until next time........