The one thing in life that won’t change, is that change will always happen! With out it we would stagnate, get bored or become complacent. So does that mean that all change is good? No of course it doesn’t. But it is not all bad either is it. The other thing that is amazing me more than ever before, is how fast life can change. Sometimes in a heart beat. We go about our everyday life and then suddenly something happens to throw us off our stride. That something, whether it is big or small, alters our path and we go off in another direction. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. That’s change.
Only a few years ago, I thought I had time, plenty of time to do all the things I wanted to do, everything on my bucket list. Now I know I don’t. David having Prostate cancer made me realise that none of us know how long we have. None of us know how life, or death, will interrupt our plans and dreams and all of a sudden head us off in another direction. That’s a change of a kind we hadn’t planned .Nothing like a cancer diagnosis to focus your mind.
A lovely thing happened this week . I have mentioned meeting my niece for the first time, a grown up niece, who life had prevented me from knowing until now. In a conversation, she said that meeting me, had been on her bucket list. I felt so humbled, what a beautiful thing to say. It had been in reference to something I had put on Facebook, re the Lavender fields of France being on mine. Being able to hug this lovely lady, share moments of our lives we didn’t know about,was so good and much overdue.
My beloved husband having what could have been a brush with death, has made it more important to do the things on our lists, sooner than later. Losing my big bear, my brother Tony, has also brought a change in me , in my hopes and aspirations for the near future. The day he died, the world became a different world for me, it had changed and was not the same anymore. I felt a bit lost. There was suddenly a change, brought about by the realisation that we are all mortal and that death has no time frame. Tomorrow might not come for some of us and so I have had to change so much. I have stopped putting off the things I want to do and the things I need to do. I have managed to bring most of my family, back into the fold, so to speak and now must concentrate on my grandchildren. This will be hard because their mother has poisoned their minds with her sick lies but I know at least ,my eldest grandson knows the truth and I will build on that. This change, not allowing my daughter to stand in my way, is huge for me. I won’t give up on it as I have emails from him, telling me how he wanted to stay in touch but his Mother didn’t like him having contact. He has never said he doesn’t want to talk to me or his Gramps, never asked me to stop contact, Lisa has intervened on many occasions, deleting emails and messages on social media, so he hasn’t known how hard I have tried to stay in touch. She eventually had her way. I know it will be hard for him but I won’t give up, ever. One-day this change will happen and I can’t wait, neither can David. A good change.
Life here on the farm has seen many changes of late, most of them positive. As I have said before, Marie, Jason and her animals are back here living. Today we have made our future plans and begun to put them into action. Exciting for all of us. A safer future than we had envisaged and because of how life is moving so fast, we are happy to be able to make them feel secure about a forever home and content in the knowledge, that although separated, we will all be close to each other if needed. This meant huge changes but well worth the effort.
During the past few years, my life has seen many changes, some positive but more, not so. David having cancer with a little ‘c’ was the scariest time of my adult life. He wasn’t scared, he was sad, in case he couldn’t survive it, but sad for me not for himself. He is so pragmatic, ‘what will be will be’. A phrase he uses too often and one I found difficult to hear at times. Life became different for us all during that time, the waiting, the tests, the results, the surgery and the changes within him and myself. In his positive nature, his ‘we are where we are’, he seemed okay. Me? I was far from okay and have documented how terrified I was in past blogs. The huge changes I went through and not for the good, were scary. I still have times where I panic, where I ‘what if’ and possibly will always have now. David has changed since his diagnosis, treatment and recovery. He has become more emotional, softer, more patient and more grateful for everything life offers him. But he has also become much more aware of his mortality as we both have. This has made us make changes in our future plans, in our wills etc. Putting things in place he calls it. Just in case. (One of my lines.) So yes, there have been huge changes for us as a couple. Then there are the physical changes that PC treatment has left us with but I have covered this in a previous blog, a Different Kind of Love. None insurmountable, all with a kind of positive side.
One thing I am very aware of, through posts on our groups, is the sometimes awful changes for men on hormone treatment. I won’t insult anyone by saying I know how they feel because I obviously don’t. I also don’t know how hard that is for the wives of these men. To have your loving husband change into someone you at times, don’t recognize must be heartbreaking and my thoughts are with you all. I do know however, quite a lot about hormonal change, having worked with it during training and with clients and so know how fraught life can become, for both the sufferer and their families. But take hope from the fact, that most of these changes, will revert to the norm once treatment stops. Change back. Then that will be a good change.
The biggest instigator of change is of course death. As I have written in my blog ‘What Tony Meant To me’, the changes then, are involuntary . They happen because the loved one is no longer here. In the beginning, the mind plays tricks with us and we think it is not true. We may awake each morning, for a quite a longtime, at first thinking life is the same. All is well. Then it hits us like a sledgehammer, it is not the same. All is far from well. Someone we love has gone, left us, disappeared, gone away, passed. Died. Then it hits us for real. Life is never the same, it is hugely different. We can’t, in that instance, ‘change back’. It has changed forever. That is where grieving comes in. To do this, at our own pace, is so important and vital to our recovery. Changes brought on by death are some of the hardest because they are never instigated by us. Grieving is part of the healing process, that the only constant and inevitable event in life; death; can bring about lifelong change. It can help in recovering, to allow you to continue and although different, life can become good again.
Throughout our lives, change is inevitable. As the photo above says, you can’t stop it, you can try but yes, it will happen and just drive all over you metaphorically speaking. Life itself is change. We grow from babies to children, to young people and hopefully, to adults. Changing all the time, throughout, sometimes not realizing, so not acknowledging the changes. I grew up in a dysfunctional family and left aged 19 and a bit. Married at 21 and had my first daughter, Lisa Jayne. The changes during the next few years were amazing to watch. Most of that wonderful time we were ecstatically happy, most of it just the 2 of us. Eventually marrying again I had my 2nd daughter Marie Leanne. I had lost 2 sons, I have talked about this before and so these little girls became my world. But life changes, they grew up and Lisa left home. Marie didn’t, apart from going to University, she remained at home, living independently but on our property. Another change. Marie, David and I are very close and now we have Jason, our son-in-law. Lisa changed so much over the past few years after being so close to me,I don’t recognise her, I have spoken at length of her and her ways of hurting me so won’t go there today. But she has changed more than any member of my family and not in a good way. So children grow up, life changes and so it should. For that I am glad. My daughters are both very capable of living their own lives and so I must have done something right.
In my professional role, I have to believe in the positive aspects of life. I have to believe that everyone is capable of change. CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, of which I am a Psychotherapist, having gained a Masters in Counselling of this model, is all about change. I work with a diverse section of clients, who come into therapy to change something that is making them or part of their life dysfunctional. Usually they are thinking in a negative manner and CBT helps them change this to positive thinking. Once the thought pattern is established as positive, the emotions that come with it change, that then, affects, the way they behave. Life then improves. It sounds simple but can be very complex and can sometimes take a very long time. If negative thinking has become their ‘norm’, changing that pattern can meet resistance on their part. But it does work. Change does happen and in this context, change is good.Helping someone to live a better , happier more fulfilling life is so rewarding.
Over the years, life has been hard at times, especially in my childhood. One of my lifetime aims, is to make children’s lives safer. To help create a world where children always have someone to turn to in times of fear or sadness. I have, in the past, been part of Counselling in Schools initiative which is up and running in some parts of the UK.I am also working to ensure that all children looked after in care, are safer and that not only are the physical and practical needs met but the emotional ones are too. Children taken from their families, sometimes unnecessarily, need extra understanding and love, not just someone to feed and give them a home but someone they can turn to in crisis. If they have been abused, then the carer they are entrusted to, needs to have the understanding and patience, to be able to fulfill the role of a good mum and help them through behaviour, that might be seen as ‘wrong’ to those witnessing it. All adults, parents, carers need to have the capacity to give a child time, listen to their fears, believe them if they say they are scared of someone and then act. We read all the time of CSA and its effects, I would like to be part of a generation that helps protect our kids and makes it almost impossible for them to be hurt in this way, without the child being able to talk to someone, be okay with ‘telling’. A change I feel desperately needs to happen.It is obviously too late for me but this is a change I would like to see implemented in care of all kinds and with any child in fear, whether living at home or in care. Working with other professionals, it is a change that is long overdue.
Since losing my brother and David having cancer, I have changed so much. Yes I still have sad days, down days but meeting with my niece who does not have good health, but who gets on with her life with courage and fortitude and yes, fun, something missing from ‘here on the farm’ for far too long,I realised that most of my ‘sad’ now belongs in the past. Most of my fear is the same as anyone else who has suffered loss or been through the trauma of a loved ones illness. I am no different but I am the only one who can change things.
I need to concentrate on our future, my future and that of my family. So when ‘it’, change of any kind, again creeps close, instead of fearing it, avoiding it, blaming it, I will embrace it. Embrace the change and see it as an opportunity not to be missed.
Watch this space!
Thankyou for reading x
carolannwright 