Que Sera Sera

Life is strange.

I wanted to begin this blog with that sentence because I think strange sums it’s up perfectly. Life can be amazing, you could have so much happiness and everything you’ve ever dreamt of and in a heartbeat life is tragic again. Every second two people die, every second four people are born. For every two marriages one ends in divorce. That is alot of ying and a lot of yang so what does it make life, good or bad? Amazing or horrific? I think it’s both and the only way I can describe it is strange. Good strange, bad strange it doesn’t matter it’s just strange.

My Nan used to sing to me the song Que Sera Sera and as a child I enjoyed it but I didn’t understand it until now. Simply the song is about a young child asking her mother what’s going to happen to her life, will she be happy, sad, pretty, ugly, married, single, rich or poor. The girl much like all of us just wants the answer to how her life will be. Her mum can’t give her any answers because quite frankly there aren’t any. Que Sera Sera means ‘whatever may be, will be’ and it’s simple but true. We do not know what will happen tomorrow and I think we waste a lot of time believing in the tomorrow we have planned. You can’t know how life will go and you can’t predict it. We as human beings like to know what’s ahead so that we can deal with what is coming but this is a world where that is impossible. You can think and feel something with all your heart but that doesn’t mean it will happen. You can prepare for the next twist and turn but can you ever really be prepared for death, loss, betrayal or your world shattering?

I believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe that what we do and what we say can alter it. One decision can change your direction in life forever but ultimately whatever happens whatever is coming it will still come. One of my favourite Harry Potter quotes is actually when Hagrid says ‘what’s coming is coming and we’ll meet it when it does’.

I think instead of looking for the answers and trying to prepare for the next storm, all we can really do is build ourselves to be strong enough to survive life’s unexpected storms and alterations. I think we need to know how to bend rather than break. We need to know that life is strange and it follows no rule book, it lives by no moral compass and it doesn’t listen to anyone’s pleas. The trick is accepting it and meeting all of those head on with strength and peace and acceptance, not with hatred or bitterness or bargaining. Because however we react and however we choose to face it, it won’t change, because life is strange and Que Sera Sera.

So how do we build ourselves up to be that strong and resilient? For me right now it’s holding loved ones close whilst I can, it’s writing and reading, it’s exercising and having a routine. Its finding laughter in every day and being silly. It’s trying to meditate and look inside myself for acceptance of the answers that just are not out there. It’s sleeping enough and filling my body with things that are good for it. It is forgiving myself for the times I forget to follow what I preach. Will all these things be enough to hold me still whilst the wind roars around me, I don’t know. But I feel strong and I feel capable and right now that is enough.

And in the end, life is strange, Que Sera Sera.

Heartbreak

How do we end up giving people so much power over us that when they leave they utterly break us. How do we go from saying ‘I am never letting anyone in again’ or ‘I won’t let myself get hurt this time’ to end up straight back at square one after falling for all the promises. All the rules and boundaries you set after the last heartbreak so quickly disappear once your happy and in love. Then when it all comes crashing down again all your left with is pain and anger. Anger at yourself for forgetting in a second of happiness the rules and boundaries you’d built for years. After all you set them to protect yourself from this exact thing.

It’s completely unimaginable to me that two people can share a life together with so much intimacy so many shared thoughts and plans, and in the blink of an eye only one gets to completely destroy it. The 21st century feminist in me is so proud that we live in a world where if your unhappy you can leave, please don’t mistake me for that. It’s just so unfair that it takes two to built a world and only one to end it, with absolutely no choice for the other one left behind. If you need to leave, leave but don’t be cruel about it.

How can you go from private jokes, future plans and everyday I love yous. From sleeping next to each other so peacefully, from laughing so hard with eachother you don’t think you’ll ever stop to ‘I don’t love you anymore’ or ‘this isn’t what i want now’

Every time I think I’ve finally used up all my tears and I’m through crying I start again. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only been 2 days, and although it feels like it’s been a whole week of rollercoaster emotions it’s been 48 hours. How unbelievably crazy is it that in two days your entire universe can be flipped upside down, shaken, burnt down and the other person isn’t even around to watch where the pieces fall.

I was so close to having everything I always dreamt of, a partner who adored me, a dog I loved, our first home we were a month away from moving into, and a family we were planning for next year. How can you lose all of that in only 48 hours? And how could you have got it so wrong? There are so many questions that there just aren’t answers to and instead of looking for them in all the wrong places, I’m going to try and accept that there just isn’t any to find.

I feel like a fraud. I posted sixteen not even 7 days ago about how ‘life gets better you just have to be around to see it’, that blog was centred around my so called ‘perfect relationship’ and the next blog after it is me talking about my heartbreak. It’s almost ironic. If i wasn’t so terrifyingly broken I would laugh.

I’m not sure when the feeling comes when your ready to accept your new reality, ready to tell the world and make a new plan. For me if feels likes never but I’m sure it must come at some point.

I just don’t know how to be here in this life I’ve created for myself, in this world where I was a two, now alone. I don’t know how to do all the things i would normally do knowing I’m alone. I know I have so many amazing family and friends, and I’m lucky as hell for that. But I still feel alone because the only person who was my side by side partner, my second brain, my right arm, my be all and end all is gone. But they aren’t gone they are still here living breathing, just not with me.

I guess in the end the pain and the anger and confusion will slowly take itself away and hide somewhere deep inside me, so that every day I don’t have feel it, so I can laugh and mean it, so I can enjoy my life and maybe even love again. But I know it will always be there locked away along with the memories and the dreams of what almost was. If I choose to go in and open it and feel it I can, but if not it’ll just stay hidden forever a part of me. ❤️

Heartbreak in any form is the single worst thing that can happen to a human being, whether it be through death, loss of love or betrayal – you heart will never truly heal.

At 16

I was thinking today about all the changes I’ve made in the past ten years and the person I am today. At twenty six I find myself interested in things I would have laughed at back then, i have such different beliefs and morals now than I did at sixteen. Luckily binge watching Geordie shore and wearing 6 inch stilettos I couldn’t walk in disappeared along with the years. My mental health although not perfect is stable, and my relationships are healthy.

I think back to how vulnerable and lost that girl at sixteen was and how I wish I could tell her all the things that I know now. So I thought I’d put pen to paper, or finger to phone and put my letter out there for the world to see…

Hey Tasha,

So I know it feels like life is unbearable right now and your world has changed in ways you don’t understand. Most days are just an overwhelming flood of darkness and you try to escape it in the most unhealthiest ways.

Friends have grown apart and since leaving school it feels like everyone knows what they are doing with their lives, everyone except you. There was a time when you felt like you fitted in the world and you had a place but slowly that feeling has disappeared and you feel like an alien in your own body.

There will come a time very soon when you try hard to banish your demons and do the only thing you know of to stop the pain. I am here to say that I am so glad it didn’t work.

Because in a lifetime far from now you are 26 and your sitting on the sofa with you partner who’s doing the elfin ear joke that he knows you can’t resist, your belly hurts from laughing so hard, and your face is starting to hurt from all the smiling. Please know that you couldn’t be happier right now.

Because you have had the most amazing life so far and it’s barely even begun, I wish I could tell you about all the nights you’ll wish had never ended. I wish I could count all the hugs that made everything seem ok again. I wish I could show you the laughter and the love and the joy that is coming. Because although there are tough times ahead there are so many beautiful and amazing moments that far outweigh the bad.

I know right now that you can’t imagine what it’s like to be happy but I promise you that you are. You are in the midst of creating the most wonderful life with your best friend, your days are filled with love and laughter. Although family will never be simple it is always worth it, this you have come to accept and understand. Your best friends are still by your side and the fears you had of growing apart ten years ago were so very wrong. In fact life with all its amazing wins and it’s unimaginable losses has brought you closer than ever.

You see life might seem utterly impossible right now though I promise you it gets better, but here’s the secret that I really wish every young girl struggling knew…life does get better but you have to be around to see it.

This letter is to me, to you and to whoever needs it.

And when you heal you will finally understand why you had to break.

Love Tasha.

Ps. Avoid Paul

International Women’s Day

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” — Audre Lorde

Throughout history strong women and men have fought for women to have the right to be seen as equal human beings, to vote, to have their work paid for, and discrimination acknowledged. They fought regardless of the threats of prison, violence and even death. They continued to fight and have their voices heard even at great personal loss.

Therefore in this civilised and modern world of 2019 it is inconceivable to think that sexism and inequality still exist, but it does.

In 2015 there were over 35,000 female officers in England and Wales, representing 28.2% of all police officers which was up from 25.7% in 2010. As of 2017, there were 300 female firefighters in the London Fire Brigade, which is 7% of the total fighters. In 2017 we saw a rise in female’s in the House of Commons to 208 women, compared to the 191 there were in 2015.

We have more women in CEO and board level Positions in the UK than ever before.Finally young girls are choosing to study to become engineers or mechanics, jobs that for so long have been considered too ‘manly’ for a girl to do.

So it is clear that as a country the UK is progressing and working hard to ensure that women are seen as role models, intellectual beings and just as successful as men have been seen for many years.

However as mankind we are still failing, the progression and changes that one country makes does not balance out the fact that in a country 3,555 miles away women are still being oppressed, girls are not allowed to attend school and children as young as 5 are being married off in a bid to merge business relations, and let’s not even talk about FGM…

Hilary Clinton said in 2018 that she’s believes the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st Century, and I cannot agree more. Just because we see our country flourishing doesn’t mean we can sit back and ignore the plight of other women.

The UN for Women are making it their mission to tackle gender equality and they believe that it is of paramount importance to end the multiple forms of gender violence and secure equal access to quality education and health, economic resources and participation in politics for both women and girls and men and boys.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been asked by friends, family and ex partners ‘it’s not you who it’s happening to so why do you care?’ Which I cannot even comprehend, this idea that for us to care about something terrible it should only be if it personally affects us?! Two babies are born with absolutely nothing different to separate either one from the other, ones life will be happy, full of opportunity and love. One will be brought up with hate, surrounded by war and sold to a man double her age. The only difference is where they were born.

We all have a voice and it’s time to start using it, just because we may be privileged enough to have been born in a different country with different values and cultures, it does not mean we should have the luxury or the ignorance to look away and ignore those still oppressed and suffering.