So long, 2015

2015 was going to be a Big Year. I planned to sort myself out, 'get my sh*t together'. I revelled in the fresh white page of a new year. I would face the monsters and overcome. 

That resolve lasted precisely 3 days before the aforementioned monsters woke up and smacked me full in the face.

I trudged through January and then February, waiting for the downpour to let up. Little hopes deflated and were washed away by the rain. 

And yet!...

[NB. This is not some Disney story with a neat ending 1 hour 30 minutes in. We're all normal broken humans with good days and bad days, areas of growth and stubborn habits we can't break. I also believe we're all in a daily process of change. So no, I'm not 'sorted' (neither are you... Even if you think you are :P) But it's encouraging to recognise progress!]

And Yet, 'OCD' is not the big label hanging over my 2015. Things got pretty bleak and it felt too hard. But it got better - as it always seems to do, despite my expectations - and there were many pleasant times. Dinners with friends, laughs with my housemate, weddings and dresses and first dates. The guys who came to hang out on Friday night even though they knew I felt sucky and would be bad company. Birthdays at the zoo (yes, the zoo), punting in Cambridge. Driving through Spanish valleys in glorious sunshine with a minibus of friends, blaring out Mumford & Sons. Actually feeling grateful for this life. 

2015 didn't go at all as I had planned. I didn't get the job I wanted; didn't maintain the relationship I started; left a hundred things undone and messages not replied to. But (and I'm not just saying this because it's the end of the blog and don't you love some sense of resolution?), it was many other things that I'd never expected. Despite the bits I just don't understand, I can see glimmers all through the year of the Father who knows me, giving me better dreams than the ones I'd set out on. No, I'm not some 'fixed' adult. But I hope I'm more real and more true: with more fight in me and a whole lot more dependence on my sustainer. Less fussed about a five-year plan and more content with being where I am right now, secure with the one who's in it for the long-haul. 

I hope this is an awesome year for you! I hope it's full of breakthrough moments and steady ascents. Be courageous to do things your own way. 
Recognise when the loudest negative voice is your own, and seek help joyfully, knowing that we were never intended for independence but for mutual support. In everything, run toward and not away from the one who created you and calls you by name. 

And if it's not such a good year for you - if you get to January 29th and you're So Over 2016 - please keep going. It can get better. Yes it's a giant cliche but maybe Florence (or whoever first said it) was actually right. It is always darkest before the dawn. I don't know what stuff you're facing in 2016, but I do know there are beautiful things to be grasped. 

Breather

I have to admit the one good thing about the sh***y times in life. They do on the whole make you savour the good times a whole lot more.

Take last night for instance. We had our collection of London friends around to eat, drink and generally celebrate both our birthdays and one year of residence here. Nothing particularly extraordinary happened - except for a gathering of people we care about in the same room.

Yet I savoured the evening, one of normal nice things, happiness and hopefulness - one to encourage me that life can still be beautiful, that there have been and are and will be good times. And in the midst of difficult times, these moments - a day or an hour - are a relief, a respite from the daily grind and struggles to face. A breather before the next wave of difficult reality crashes over us. And I'm so grateful for these times, the breathers which offer a moment to reflect on the good stuff before we must once again confront Monday morning and all it will throw at us.

Sometimes these happy times aren't how we expected them to be - sometimes people we always thought would be there are missing from the photos - but this doesn't detract from all the good and beauty of the evening.

Life is unexpected, surprising; bumpy.  But there are moments where you get washed up on the shore and have a moment to stop, reflect and enjoy the sunshine.

Painfully / Honest

I sat in the bar, chatting with my sister. Being able to lay my heart and mind open without self-censorship was healing in itself. We were discussing how to go about talking honestly with people about our struggles.

My take on it is this: I have absolutely no desire to make people uncomfortable, and I know that there are appropriate and less appropriate times and ways to share stuff. But I cannot be part of communities where we are obliged to hide our brokenness. Maybe it was possible for me at other times, but it’s not right now. Pretending that everything’s fine is a lie, and one that’s too painful to carry on top of the other stuff. I would rather be without community than be part of one that is not real. 

During our conversation, we also talked about my frustrations with being ‘that person’ again, the one who’s not okay yet again, the one who’s still crying despite the fact that we prayed for her the last three weeks. 

The imposition. 

My sister said a hundred wise things that evening, and my memory is too poor to remember many of them. But one thing she said spoke to me so deeply. 

‘We are all broken. And that is okay’.

And it wasn’t said like, ‘that’s okay for now, but you should probably sort yourself out sometime soon’. It was from a place of complete acceptance and peace with all of our broken bits.

Some of you reading will, I imagine, feel mega-uncomfortable with all of this kind of talk. Emotions and vulnerability and being exposed etc.  But whether it’s a relative’s death or depression or a broken relationship or a secret regret, we all have our little broken bits.  Yes, mine are more obvious at the moment. They feel more like gaping sores than little scars. But that is okay. I’m still alive; I’m still valuable and loved. I still have worth and can still contribute, in the midst of and despite of my brokenness.

I’m not saying I want to be allowed to wail loudly during sermons. I don’t need people to ask me in-depth questions about the things I am struggling with. I’m just suggesting that there are things we can all do to make our communities places which welcome people who are not ‘sorted’, a space for people who are hurting as well as those who rejoice.  The Christian faith sums up perfectly the bittersweet paradox where sorrow and joy sit alongside one another. I would love for our communities to be the same.

With thanks to my little communities who accept me as I am :-) x

Thanks for making it REAL

Those Facebook '2014 round up' things are a great way of summarising the year in pictures. But only after publishing it did I realise that it's actually not all been plain sailing. There have been many happy times - this isn't a 'woe is me' blog.

But to ignore the reality of the more bitter moments is to wallpaper over the reality of life, and pretend we live in a Disney film. And as much as I would like to do that sometimes (hello John Smith), it's not true and it's not helpful.

So much of this season can boil down to a pressure to be happy, lighthearted and suddenly forget the normal ups and downs of the last 364 days. We don't help ourselves or others by doing this.

So here's how my year really looked:

2014 was Sunday roasts with friends. Coffees in the city; yellow flowers, Ben & Jerry's and a solitary to-die-for brownie at the end of a rough day.

Job interviews, life admin, wedding prep with invites, découpage and jam jars. Playing keys for the first time in church and doing life with home group. Ecstatic dancing to good news and prayers graciously answered. Goodbyes and all the loss that comes with it. Turbulence and turmoil, new homes and IKEA flatpacks.

Weddings and gatherings and new homes. The cementing of friendships through laughter, prayer, occasional tears and always tea. Discovering that the things you've longed for don't look how you expected them to. The rearing up of old beasts; good friends, chocolate, and a LOT of patience. Brokenness, openness and sheer gritting of teeth.

Walks through Greenwich park in the sunshine and watching Morris Dancers on the heath. The walk from the boys' house to our flat. The loss of dear ones, friendships, and a silver ring somewhere in west London. Waffles, fancy dress and awkward cookies in Hyde Park.

Street food on the Southbank; Monday nights with Tingley; reunions with many wonderful people I'm blessed to call friends. Roadtrips with Lydia and getting acquainted with east London. A thawing out and a going deeper. Bridesmaiding for two really special ladies in my life; new friendships, fireworks, poppies.

Thank you to everyone who made this year REAL in all its joys and imperfections.

Here's to the next...

A long overdue letter to a friend

It’s been so long since I last wrote, I can barely remember what life was like at that point. The world now looks very different: different home, neighbourhood, job, office, flatmate, commute…. a lot of different.

As I write this now looking back on 3 months, it’s like looking out to a nearby mountain peak, with a small chasm between. I feel like I’ve been crossing rockier terrain to get to my new look-out. But it’s nice here. Just different. 

I’ve been reminded of things I thought were behind me; fear raises its head and looks for a new home. But I’ve also made stronger friendships; relationships built on lazy evenings watching television and drinking tea.

I’m convinced that there has been growth; I now use both my brain and my heart at work, which is a privilege (although sometimes doesn’t feel like it on a sleepy Friday morning). I feel as though God has brought me to exactly where I longed to be for the past year; and yet it all looks so different from how I imagined it.

There has, undeniably, been loss in different forms. Freedom. Friendship. And a godmother who so faithfully prayed and cared for me, remembering every single baptism anniversary and birthday, constant in faith and always believing that I could be, that I could manage, that I could achieve.

However, I’ve very slowly been learning, something that’s probably taken me far too long to grasp.

Life – any life – isn’t meant to be all roses and happiness and sunshine. Well, perhaps it is, the other side of death. But right here and now – the crap times aren’t just crap times that we must skip over, hurried through ‘til we get to the next good bit. The crap times are also life. And yes, sometimes it’s easier for me to say than others. 

But I’m slowly realising that I can’t wait until all the chains are broken and all the cancer patients are cured and all the rifts are healed before I embrace this thing called ‘life’.

I’m realising that ‘life’ is not just waiting for the happy bits, rallying against the crap and wondering why this storm is getting in the way of our day of sunshine.  Life is broken cracks as well as the sunny days. 

When I next feel low or anxious or fearful, I can assure you I won’t want to embrace life. But this is it, right now. In all its glory and beauty and sorrow and brokenness. This is what I’ve got.