Happiness is winning

Happy Sunday evening everyone!

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend, watching fireworks and spending time doing things that you enjoy doing. 

I've had a lovely weekend and whilst watching fireworks last night with pretty much the whole of Medway at the Great Lines, I had a real feeling in my stomach that life is good right now. The feeling that life is back to normal has made such a difference for me this year.

So this post really is just a short one to say that I genuinely feel happy right now. 

I'm actually enjoying being single, doing what I want when I want, making plans for the times I don't have Noah and enjoying those plans I'm making. I've met numerous new people lately and it has broadened my horizons to seeing that life doesn't revolve around one person and their inability to love me anymore. And in fact it's made me realise there really are plenty more fish in the sea 😂

What life does revolve around is myself, Noah and my family being healthy and happy, my home becoming my little sanctuary and providing us with somewhere safe to live, progressing in my career further and enjoying something that I have to do to bring money into the house (thats a huge win) and making memories not only as a mum, but as a single woman who has so much life to live.

I honestly cannot explain how I feel at the moment except to say I feel excited for all of the good times I am yet to experience. 

Genuine happiness again 😊

Have a great week coming up....... I'm definitely going to 👍

Much love,

Sara xx

Read, learn, educate and then you'll understand

Morning everyone,

Hope you've all had a lovely half term break. I've managed to have some lovely days with Noah and today we are off to London to have dinner at one of my favourite restaurants and then to watch Matilda.

I have to be honest and admit this week has been a difficult week for me and Noah as we have navigated some challenging conversations, but if anything it has highlighted just how true he can be with me and therefore our relationship will be one of honesty and openness. I can't ask for more.

So, the reason for this post is because I've had some conversations with one of my close friends who happens to be going through similar to me and from reading I have undertaken, I feel I've been able to help her with regards to self-help books and people to watch for advice and guidance. 

So for others of you who have contacted me saying you're going through similar and are struggling, please do some reading to educate yourselves and ensure you are number one at all times.

When undertaking reading about relationships, break ups, affairs and marriage breakdowns it is so important to understand your own attachment styles and behaviour patterns. This is the only way you begin to understand why you have tolerated things for so long and why you can't let go etc.

Something I have come to realise is that there was a lot of 'love bombing' towards me in the first couple of years of my relationship. For instance I was actually told "I have never cheated on my ex girlfriend, why would I cheat on you"...... only for him to admit when we already had a baby together that he had cheated on his ex numerous times and he found it funny.

Would I have wanted to be in a relationship with him if I had known the truth from the beginning? I don't know, but I didn't get to make that choice myself. And that means the relationship began on dishonesty.

I fully admit I am an empath. I always want to help others, I notice slight changes in people's behaviour, I pick up on tonal differences even in text messages, I want people to be honest with me at all times and I struggle if people pull away from me. And my attachment style is without a doubt anxious attachment. This means I am insecure, have a fear of people leaving me and often will do anything to stop this happening. This style quite often attracts someone with an avoidant attachment style. Due to my need of pleasing and constant chase to make the relationship successful, the avoidant person has to put in very little work and the knowledge that even if they do very little to make the relationship work, the anxious person will not be going anywhere.

I mean I couldn't believe the accuracy of this 😂

Another thing that is definitely true for me is that the trauma bond I have is so intense. If you've never heard of this but find that you can't let go of someone who has treated you so badly, it makes so much sense.

A trauma bond means that you are actually addicted to the person who has treated you badly. I kid you not, it's similar to a drug addiction! Due to the highs and lows of oxytocin you get, it makes you crave them and you believe you can't live without them. You believe you love the person so much that you will do anything to keep them, but it's actually not love at all. It's a fear of abandonment by someone who you believe to be the only person who can fix you, because when times are good, they're really good and you forget that the majority of the time is actually really bad.

The only way to move on from this is going cold turkey & having no contact..... pretty impossible when you have a child, but I'm trying!

So for those of you who I have spoken to, who are struggling similarly to me, I am listing here books/people/pages that have helped me lots.

Eat, Pray, FML by Gabrielle Stone - This book is fab! I found myself nodding along to lots.

Matthew Hussey - The leading dating advice for women. He's hard hitting and says things in a brutally honest manner, but it's what you need to hear.

Adam Cam - Self titled 'spiritual badass', he is bloody brilliant. Loves a swear word, is mega easy on the eye, but gives you the wake up call you need.

Rece Witherdoom - Yes it's on TikTok, but if there's anyone out there that makes you realise an affair is never your fault, its her. She had an affair herself, she talks about how they are are not real, how they're not love but an addiction and also she gives my most favourite stat about affairs - 95% of affairs do not last and out of the 5% that do continue, only 2% make it to 10 years.

This is my 'good luck with your affair' face 😂

I hope this helps some of you and please know that if you have contacted me because you also are going through this........ you're not the only ones who have contacted me and you are not on your own.

Love to you all,

Sara xx

Single and not quite ready to mingle

 Hi everyone, 

Can you all believe that we are almost in November of 2021? I definitely can't! Especially because I feel like my life is exactly where it was this time last year 😩

I know most of you know the situation because we are friends on facebook, so I won't bore you with it all, but let's just say..... I didn't learn my lesson, yes he was having his cake and eating it (like many of you told me) and absolutely he is a massive twat.

But the good thing is I would not go back there now even if I had a gun pointed at my head telling me I had to (especially not after what I saw with my own eyes a couple of weeks ago 🤮).

So, I'm most definitely single and for the first time in what feels like forever I'm allowed to look at other men and think "hmm he's nice looking, maybe I should see if he's interested". See, even though some people don't, most people wait until they're single to do that so I'm definitely out of practice.

Also, how on earth do you date when you have a child? How do I know they're not all psycho killers who want to murder me and kidnap my child. How do I learn enough about someone to know they are the sort of person I want around my child? Who will love him like he's his own and treat him as well as I do.

This is really not going to be easy. Had I have known this would be my life, maybe I could've also lined someone up before hand so I already knew all this stuff before I had to make the decision of whether they were good enough to be in Noah's life! 😜

Plus last time I tried to date someone at the end of last year, it caused merry hell and meant World War III almost descended in my front room. Surely that can't happen again? I mean, I didn't think it would happen last time considering the other side of the situation was in love with his new girlfriend, but it did and it swiftly put a stop to everything for me because I needed to consider Noah above everything.

This really is something I'm not sure I'm ever going to be ready for. 

I'm almost 40, trying to meet someone. Men at this age have either never been married/had kids and expect me to think there's not something wrong with them or they are divorced and he has his kids on different weekends to which I have Noah and therefore we can never see each other.

Then I'm back to "Is he a serial killer"....... 😂

And these days I'm guessing I'll be swiping left or right rather than chatting at a bar?

If I can't laugh about it, I'll cry...... and there's been enough tears shed over this past year to fill a pool so laughter it is.

Wish me luck in this new chapter of my life, when I finally feel ready to step into the dating world.

Love Sara xx

10 Years

 It is T-minus 5 days until Noah's 10th birthday and something has happened that I wasn't really prepared for.

I can honestly say I have not thought about Noah's birth in an upsetting way for years. Yes, it has always been a 'pull in different directions' feeling due to being so happy celebrating the best person to come into my life whilst it also being the day that caused me so much struggle over the years, but I've never felt much otherwise.

But this year seems different and I'm not sure why.

I seem to not be able to talk about it without becoming emotional and it has honestly taken me by surprise because I've not struggled to talk about it for years.

I don't know if it's because it's 10 years which seems crazy that it has been that long, whether it's because so much in my life has changed this last year and I'm still dealing with those feelings too, whether it's because I'm genuinely hell bent on believing Noah will at some point end up with a sibling from his parent who can still have children or whether I'm just tired. Whatever it is, if you mention anything about it to me I will probably cry.

My counsellor hit on something last week that really made me stop and think...... "every negative experience in your life has been something you have not been able to control or that you have not decided you want to happen, which affects your ability to alter your perspective on them".

I don't really remember those first two pictures being taken. The first picture just reminds me of being brought back from ICU and still feeling so unwell that I couldn't hold my new baby. My only thoughts were "how did this all go so wrong? This wasn't anything that I ever thought would happen". The second picture was the first time I held Noah and I think he was 3 days old. I remember wanting to hold him so much but being in so much pain doing so.

When I think back to those times, it often feels like it was a different me. So much has happened since and I've overcome so much in my healing, but times like now make me realise it will always be there. The trauma never completely goes, it just evolves and isn't all encompassing anymore. It's the standard route that grief takes.

So my thinking is, let me get all these thoughts and feelings out now. Let me voice them and unload them from my brain before Noah's birthday, so that come Tuesday 6th July it can solely be about my boy becoming a 10 year old.

My amazing boy, who has been nothing but loving and the best support I could've ever wished for. Who said to me the other day "mum this last year really has been the worst in everything, but at least I've still been able to make you laugh, haven't I"?

What more could I ask for? And we are sure going to celebrate him becoming a pre-teen, pre-pubescent stinky boy with an attitude to boot!

Lots of love,

Sara xx

No Regrets

I've been so busy at work, which feels like I work permanent nights at the mo, that the weeks have been speeding by quicker than I realised. And we're now almost in April! Wow!

Today just so happens to be 12 years since me and Tony got together, and I reckon right about now I was listening to him telling me how he was going to look at a Subaru Impreza the next day and I was thinking "I never expected him to be this fit just by gelling his hair". By midnight I'd say I had managed to wear him down for a public snog, before bundling him in the middle of the lockmeadow complex in Maidstone and then heading into Jumpin Jaks. Classy right? 😂

I've felt a little pang of upset today just because things aren't as I ever imagined them, but at the same time I certainly have no regrets about the last 12 years (well maybe some over the last 2 years but this post isn't about that and the good outweighed the bad for me and still does).

Thinking back over the past 12 years there are so many memories, happy and sad, that have shaped me as a person and that will stay with me forever. From being a 26 year girl to a 38 year old woman, I've had the best times.

• Our first holiday together to Tenerife in May 2009 - cheesy chips, Soulja Boy Kiss me Thru the Phone, being wiped out by a wave and coming up topless, shots shots shots, so much laughter and having 'the chat' about 'what are we'.
• So many drunken arguments, very soon realising maybe we aren't good together drunk.
• Both changing jobs in 2010 - me gaining a promotion and Tony securing a role in the gym within the prison service.
• Finding ourselves pregnant a year after getting together in May 2010, getting our heads around the idea that it was so quick, telling parents, then miscarrying.
• Realising that maybe we did want more from our relationship and selling our beloved cars to start saving for a house.
• Becoming engaged in Devon 18 months after meeting in October 2010, which involved the weirdest car journey there picking up hitchhikers Kez and Gaz. So funny!
• Falling pregnant on that break away to Devon after thinking for 6 months it would never happen.
• Quickly realising we need to save for a house!
• Tony going away for 16 weeks in January 2011 to gain his PT qualifications through the prison service whilst I sat at home crying most of the time due to pregnancy hormones.
• Finding our dump of a house and falling in love with it, with the offer being accepted in the March 2011.
• Completing on our house 1st June 2011, thinking wow where do we start.
• Noah making his appearance in quite a way that would traumatise us for the rest of our lives on 6th July 2011, yet it being something so amazing that we created this little ginger boy that would be our pride and joy for life.
• Tony starting his PT business whilst still working at the prison, whilst I also did hair from home and also still worked at the prison. And we wondered why we were always so tired.
• Getting married on 18th July 2015 and it forever more being my favourite day. Managing to include our kitchen dance song by being our first dance song choice.
• Tony going full time with PT and life just being exciting with the prospect of what was to come.
• Me getting the chance to study midwifery and knowing we were both finally pursuing our dream careers.
• Getting our boy Arthur and quickly realising dogs are hard work!
• Living our lives with holidays when we could, too many meals out and just enjoying the simple things in life. 
• Watching our boy grow up, us becoming more lined in the face (and Tony having less hair), with still so many years ahead of us whichever way life goes.

So I can't say I regret any of that. Any of the nights we just sat around the chiminea in the garden, or watched a boxset on Netflix, or talked for hours about things that only mattered to us. How could I regret any of it?

And I get to have my best friend in my life forever because we share a son, who means more to us than anything else and therefore I hope we will never allow anything or anyone to come between us having a good relationship.

And just for nostalgia, here's a pic from that fateful drunken night in Maidstone that was the beginning of all that we have shared and created 😍

So here's to life, with its twists and turns that creates our stories to tell the grandkids.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, 

Sara xx

The Yellow Orb of Positivity

Who else has a complete shift in mood the second the sun is shining? 🌞  I know I do and I have always been hugely affected by the weather. The second there is a sniff of spring in the air, it changes everything. It's always a sign of 'better days to come' for me.

As soon as I saw the weather was good this past week, I felt a pang of jealousy that I would be sleeping throughout the sunny days due to working nights. Whilst I'm talking about work, I'll give you a little update on my working life..... being a newly qualified midwife is so hard! I feel so overwhelmed most of the time and I was petrified of being on the delivery suite where I currently am based. However, I'm surprisingly enjoying it and I think once I feel more competent in areas of the care I am giving, I will actually like being on the delivery suite. Plus the team I'm working with are just amazing!

As soon as I finished nights on Friday morning, I had a couple of hours sleep and then waited to pick Noah up from school. The weather was still amazing at 3:20 and I just wanted a normal afternoon, doing normal things because it feels like forever ago since I've done anything normal. So we went to Riverside Country Park, got an ice cream and sweets and sat with the sunshine beaming onto our faces. It felt amazing and even Noah said he really enjoyed it. 

So, how else is the rest of my life going? Well, it's going 😂  That's all I can say about things at the moment to be honest. I have lots of things going around my mind often, but my life motto now is "things can only get better' (anyone who remembers the 90's can burst into a rendition of D-Ream if you'd care to).

I'm trying my hardest to get myself exercising and moving as much as possible, so that I can feel even better about myself than I already do. One of the midwives at work is a yoga instructor and offers a yoga class to us on a Sunday morning, so I have started doing that especially on the weekends I don't have Noah. Those weekends are still the hardest time for me and it is so important I keep myself busy, something which will become easier once lockdown lifts a little.

Again, the sunshine has given me hope for things to look forward to once lockdown lifts. Pretty much everyone of my friendship groups have messaged me to say let's arrange something for when we can see each other. So if it's not sitting around my chiminea in the garden with Bex and Amanda eating pizza, it's being in Keeley's garden having a garage brunch reunion or trying to arrange how a group of us can get out to Kel's place in Marbella later this summer for a long weekend.

I'll be honest, as the weather warms up, I'm gutted that our last hot holiday as a family was summer 2018 and that we will never do all the things we loved doing whilst on holiday together again. The early evening walks to the beach, exploring different routes, stopping for coffee whilst others would be stopping for cocktails, planning days out and laughing so much. Ohhh we had so many more holidays planned together......... sigh 😔  But I shall make new holidays with Noah that are different to before but will become our thing. I just have to pluck up the courage to book something for just us two and know that I can do it on my own.

So with a week off work booked in August, who knows if I will muster up the gumption to take Noah away somewhere on my own? Maybe I should start with somewhere in the U.K first before I feel brave enough to go abroad?

I hope you've all been able to feel the warmth of the sun at some point this past week and that along with the end of lockdown news, you all feel a sense of positivity and hope for the coming year.

We sure as hell all deserve it!

Sara xx

Parosmia and Phantosmia

I'm guessing most of you will have never heard of parosmia or phantosmia, but if you have, you'll know what this blog post is about.

Parosmia is a distorted sense of smell and taste. Phantosmia is smelling something that isn't there.

I had Covid back in March 2020, Mothers Day weekend. I didn't have mega symptoms. I felt achey, had a headache, sore throat, a cough (that I wouldn't call continuous) and just felt run down.

The following Wednesday I completely lost my smell and taste. When I say lost my smell and taste, I mean I could've bitten into an onion and not been able to tell you what I was eating. It was the worst thing I've ever known, or so I thought! (I mean I wasn't aware of what the rest of 2020 was going to throw at me at that point, but I still think my smell and taste was my biggest loss 😜).

Around June time, my smell and taste came back and I was so grateful it was over! But then one day I was sat on my sofa and I could smell smoke. Like cigarette smoke. Now, my house is quite far from the road, so it wasn't someone walking by, but it was definite smoke.

I then realised I could smell it no matter where I was and even at work whilst wearing a mask, the smoke smell was still there.

My taste then started to become impaired and has been ever since. Nothing tastes as it should with the exception of tea, smoked salmon, cherries and cheddar cheese (praise the lord).

I'll give you an example of how things smell.......

Lasagna smells the same as any roast meat, which smells the same as Arthur the dogs poo. But none smell like lasagna, meat or dog poo 😂 But they all smell absolutely disgusting.

The list of foods that are a complete no go are:

• Eggs
• Meat (anything with meat in)
• Bread
• Chocolate
• Fatty food (including all fried food, pastry, chips etc)
• Onion
• Most fruit (especially citrus)
• Nuts (including peanut butter and nutella)
• Most sweets
• Fizzy drinks
• Coffee
• Tomatoes
• Yoghurt

I think the list goes on, but that just gives you an idea of how difficult eating has been for almost a year 😩 It is physically impossible to eat some of the things on that list without heaving.

There is no known cure and the hope is that the nerves will rejoin at some point to allow my brain to decipher smell and taste correctly again.

I have recently found a facebook group that has over 7000 followers worldwide of people who are suffering from the same thing, although I am certain it has affected more in some way. It sounds like such a ridiculous thing to moan about, but you don't realise how much enjoyment you get out of food until you can't taste it as you should.

If any of you are suffering from the same thing, I shall link the facebook page here so that you can join it and get advice from others in the same situation:

AbScent Parosmia and Phantosmia Support

I also bought a smell training kit from the AbScent charity as research has proved it can help speed up the recovery programme. So far I haven't seen any improvement apart from finally being able to smell my mother's day perfume from last year! At least it was worth the wait!

So this past year I've not even been able to enjoy food to console myself..... good job really because there was a lot of consoling needed and I've at least found the uni weight gain even easier to lose with no real variety of food I can eat.

So when Boris re-opens the country (come on Boris, please let me have a life), you'll find me somewhere eating cheese and forcing a gin and lemonade down my throat in the hope that it will begin to taste nice after a few 😂

    Much love,

    

    Sara xx

The Joy That Comes With Hope

I've read somewhere that when you feel despair, it unfocusses you from being able to motivate yourself and achieve what you want in life. Whereas hope, apparently does the complete opposite of this. That is until the hope is taken away from you.

The thing with hope, is that it is supposed to be something that is made up by the person feeling it due to the circumstances they are in and that actually there is no truth behind what they are feeling. 

However, when you are actually made to believe that the hope you are feeling is real, the despair you feel when it is taken away feels 100x worse.

So, I admit life is a little up in the air again at the moment, with everything I thought was happening now very quickly not happening and the realisation hitting me that I have allowed my heart to make decisions when I should have listened to my head instead. But what else are you supposed to do when you love someone so much that you cannot imagine your life without them and you would have been willing to do anything to fix everything that went wrong?

The 'Visualisation of my Hope' - Boxing Day

So I'm now ready to start the rebuilding of myself again and this time I'm going to do it the right way!

1st thing: I'm currently watching First Wives Club so that I can channel my inner Goldie Hawn 😂 Gosh she's bloody gorgeous isn't she? And it is just the best film for reminding me of why these things happen in life! Men and that green grass on the other side of the fence 🙄

2nd: I'm going to be more directive about what I want going forward, rather than being submissive to pacify the situation and keep that false hope alive. I'm going to stop hanging off of every word and believing everything. I'm going to attempt to gain some control.

3rd: I'm going to keep working on myself. I'm going to keep improving all areas of my life so that I am the best version of myself and therefore I only attract what I fully deserve (which, by the way, is the world).

4th: I'm going to be the best mum I can be. I'm going to ensure I provide for my son, I'm going to be the best role model he could possibly have and I am going to make sure he knows that no matter what happens, I love him more than anything in the world.

5th: I am going to continue improving in my career and using the busyness it creates to take up some of my thinking time. That's the thing with this pandemic, it gives you too much time to sit around thinking and becoming almost neurotic with my actions.

Today was the first sunny day that actually felt warm on my face when walking the dog and even Noah had a spring in his step. We loved getting out today and this time the feeling initiated the right kind of hope.

Hope for the summer, the end of lockdown, the end of loneliness and sofa sitting, the end of tears at least once a day and the end of wishing I could go back in time rather than hoping for the future.

The Future

So, as always, no slagging off of anything mentioned in this blog please. Yes, I'm hurt but I only want messages of positivity for me and my future left for me to read!

Love to you all as always and stay safe 💛 

xx

Onto the new

Sorry, today's post is going to be a little bit of a brain dump. Sometimes you just have to get things out. I'm serious when I say this blog is like therapy to me.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas with your loved ones and were able to enjoy the time as best you could.

Mine was bloody lovely. We spent it as a family from Christmas Eve until New Years Day apart from a few hours apart here and there and at times it was almost as if things were normal. In fact, it was probably the most 'present' we have been in a long time due to being more considerate to each other now than we have been for years. Life is a funny old thing isn't it.

So for Noah, he had a normal family Christmas and was able to share it with both his parents which for us was the most important thing. In fact Christmas highlighted to us just how much Noah needs to be priority at the moment and other parts of our separate lives have been put on hold whilst we concentrate on the most important person to us. 

⭐

Another thing that New Year signalled for us as a family was the gym moving and therefore Noah not having his dad here every day. Which again, we knew was going to happen, but the reality of it is slightly harder to deal with than the thought.

I'll be honest with you all, I've really struggled with the gym situation. And I've really struggled reading people's comments of 'onwards and upwards', 'living your dream', 'onto bigger and better' etc.

And I'll tell you why.

Tony becoming a personal trainer was something he achieved with me by his side. I used to tell him all the time to leave the prison service and go for it. If it didn't work, I would go back to work full time and we'd be ok. I couldn't have been more proud of him. Forever sharing his work on social media, being the star of all of his videos to promote the business (I haven't featured for a long time but if you scroll back far enough you'll find me in every video and picture at first) and I feel I had a part in him being as successful as he is. One of my best friends mums is one of his longest clients with her dad joining soon after.

Yes he ran the business, but without me giving up any idea of being able to do anything for myself in the evenings (yes he used to work from 5am - 10pm), without me being on child duty every night, and yes without me agreeing to the gym being in my garden it wouldn't have even existed. He attended conference after conference, always doing CPD to further his learning and this was around him working full time still at first.

But that's what you do when you're in a partnership, you support each other's dreams and do anything to make them happen.

The plan was always to have a premises at some point. It had to be the plan if the business wanted to grow and it was spoken about often. We'd look at shops or units and discuss whether it could happen. Once I was qualified it was absolutely going to be on the cards. I saw it as OUR FAMILY BUSINESS!!!! 

And now it's happening, without me, because of the situation that arose last year. So I did all the hard years. The no evenings together ever, the continuous working, the not being able to use my garden in the summer because people were training and now I don't get to enjoy this next part. I don't get to see the business grow and become more successful, I don't get to be part of this next step and that will eventually be someone else's life with Tony.

So reading 'onwards and upwards'....... really? Is that really where Tony is at? "Onto bigger and better"....... so better than the family he once had? And the final one "living your dreams"....... Nope this was definitely not his dream, I can assure you.

I'm sure it'll get easier, but at the moment reading those comments stick in my throat a little. Especially because as always, lets just say......... social media is a highlight reel.

And do you know what upsets me the most? I want nothing more than to be so pleased for him and support him in his new journey. If anyone knows what he's been through to get to where he has, it's me. Yet my emotions of what I have lost still stop me being that person at the moment.

And one final thing...... I really don't want anyone to comment horrible things about him on my facebook or in the comments from this post anymore. If I don't speak horribly about him, no-one else should. He's human, he messed up, he made some bad choices, and there's not one of you reading this who hasn't made a bad decision in life too.

He's a fantastic dad. Literally couldn't ask for more from him on that front. I will stand by that forever. He's also pretty much still my best mate to be honest & the day I don't see him every day/speak to him every day is going to be like him leaving all over again.

So 2021 for me, is starting as 2020 ended, but hopefully at some point I'll stop being bitter about the gym and go down for a session with the idiot himself. If I'm honest, I probably deserve to be the first one through those doors! 😝

From a sour and bitter Sara. 

xx