As good as you make it....

I’m going to moan, and for a positive reason which will become clear as you read. It has not been an easy start to the year, indeed, the past three months have been a little short of torture. Although it sounds as if I am writing about the state of the world, of Trump, of Britain, I’m being quite selfish and looking out from my own little puddle.

It feels as if life is against us. We’re in a house empty of furniture with our stuff in storage as we look for somewhere to live because my diminishing health forced us to move closer to facilities. The five houses we’ve loved these past six months have each had problems beyond our budget and there’s nothing suitable around. The expenses of looking, paying for house surveys etc, has emptied our pockets so for two months we’ve literally been living on beans at a time when the country has been in festive mood. At this our lowest economic moment, last week the car required expensive repairs.

Confident questions about the latest house are finally being resolved, we instructed our solicitor to proceed, which involves spending money. The following day we discovered there might be covert action, and so, even although money’s been spent, it’s back to the cat and mouse waiting game. The stress of it all takes quite an effort to deal with.

And the weather! It’s been like living in that film The Piano. Three part-days of weak sun in as many months. “Depressing or what!” people keep saying. You simply have to get out there during those rare hours when it’s not raining. If you've the energy....

Unwell for months, needing more comfort than our ‘sofa’ the metal garden bench in the kitchen can provide, I really struggle. But I did have a small window of sanity - five days of feeling a tiny bit human, a state normal people would call "I'm not well", but to me - bliss! Christmas Day was an amazing day with friends, but we both caught a nasty flu from them. Two weeks have later it lingers....

Even before this bout of flu, almost all my muscles have been stiff beyond anything I’ve ever experienced, its like having a stitch everywhere at the same time for they are ridden with pain. This week it was diagnosed as a permanent condition. On top of the pain and stiffness, part of what it does to you is to de-press the brain, which eventually causes depression. Me! Positive me who’s been bright in the face of years of difficult and dangerous health problems! Me who’s never had depression now faces that prospect on top of all the other conditions I have. I need to shine up my positive attitude by engraining powerful exercises long before I’ll need them.

All each of of can do is to thank life for the positives and to tell ourselves that this is as good as it’ll get. (True in my case). That is sobering. It wakes you up to the small things. It shows you that you have choice - to emotionally sink or swim.

Quite the New Year’s resolution.

This morning, stir-crazy for being indoors so much, we will muster the courage to drive to a nearby stately home owned by The National Trust. We will slump around the gardens for twenty minutes. We will return home exhausted but perhaps elevated for having got out.

It’s what you make of your life, no matter what’s happening, that counts. In nasty Nazi camps, those that were able to be positive in some little way often seemed to be the ones who survived.