PWow! So I have finally reached the age of a 1/4 of a century! 25 years old :))) (Very happy btw :)))!!)
So lets rewind a year! Last year, my birthday had been unregistered by my mother, which has always made me cry on my birthday (too many years to remember!). I hoped at that time (last year) the help she was getting would 'create' her into the mummy I never had.. Sadly is never came to be....( some damage just cannot be resolved...)
This year I didn't shed one single tear.... Ok well maybe I let a couple out..but they were due to laughter of the present my big brother created .. a canvas of me with a Mustache
...even though she didn't contact me.. Through the many ways of virtual contact.. Text, phone call, Facebook...! I think I accepted really at 10/11 or maybe before, that actually 'mum' was never going to be there for the big B-Day (or any bday?!) wow sad I know!
...even though she didn't contact me.. Through the many ways of virtual contact.. Text, phone call, Facebook...! I think I accepted really at 10/11 or maybe before, that actually 'mum' was never going to be there for the big B-Day (or any bday?!) wow sad I know!
Can we cheer this up abit?!?
Anyway So this year... Life is still (very much) moving forward!
The year may not have been always positive... I have had to deal with ups and downs that .. (Christ,) has been hard at times.. It's tested my 'parent' skills to the most upper level (the parenting of my little brother.. I didn't become an actual mum in the last year!) .. Or did I?
Anyway, although the year has had it's hard factors.. I still can not get my head around how amazing and actually positive the last year has been.
I know hands down that at every turn and choice, I could have taken one of two routes... Positive (yay!) or negative (boooo!)
Maybe not every time I have taken the positive route.. (Because WOWZA that's really hard to do when life sucks so bad!!! )A few times I have taken the negative route because it was so easy.. But then, when I pulled my head together and thought about what was going on.. I was pulled back (yes not willingly) to the positive (blegh you can't be positive right?)
But I actually am (positive).. Because I am alive (very lucky!).. And I am moving (positively) forward in life. I didn't always move 'forward'.. For a good few years I was stuck fast feeling just crap about everything and everyone..( And sometimes I have that slight moment when it flushes back...Buuut everyone has those right?!)
But once I started to take a step back from my issues..I saw a big, bigger picture.. More than I saw usually (because I have always wanted to 'know' why the world works..and how it does)
I am a very happy place in life .. A happier one than this time last year.. If you can believe! (Even with a sleep talking bf, who wakes me up with his sleep chit chat in the night <3... 'Yes of course Sheffield United will win'...umm what?! )
So I suppose this blog is about thinking about the slight (or massive) positives when life just massively and ultimately gets you down and out. And I know, it's sometimes hard to connect when sometimes I don't share everything that I go through...but my life is my own and I try to share what will not negativity effect those who I care about in the future (or now) it's their life in the end.. And it's not my place to share their's!
They are there (the positives!) but sometimes they are hard to see ...FYI my bf just slept talked the following line 'i don't want the buildings to get cross' I just cannot be negative when i get told such words of wisdom ..sarcasm aside.. (I have not got a clue what his sleep talk means!!)...and sorry for the random distraction!
Life is a positive in its self.. It's such a delicate thing. I lost one of my cats this week, Merri.. My youngest cat (kitten, really, 7 months old) he was sadly run over .. What I like to think a careless driver (although I swerved and avoided a baby rabbit when driving!) took him away from my family I have created. It's been a sad week... A lot for my other cat.. He really misses him.. A lot!
But I am getting a new puppy, so one life is lost but another enters my life.. What a cycle.
When you are struggling to see any positives in life.. Start small! You are Alive (positive) TRUST ME! The world is better off with you IN IT not WITHOUT you!
Work from there... Create a list.
What are you feelin crap about.. How can you change it?
What is positive?
Life?
Home?
Friends?
Family?
Education?
I am aware that half of those things are harder to come by for Care Leavers... But Not unatainable.
To the next year of my life!
It's good to read a positive blog, because so many care leavers are in bad places. So sharing the positive is ever so important.
ReplyDeleteI left care in 1960, back to the bad home environment that we'd been taken from in the first place. I escaped as soon as I was able, joined the Army and never looked back.
The Army gave me the family I hadn't had and security and employment until age 60. I've been lucky, despite a poor start, I've been able to make my way in life, with a happy marriage and 5 lovely grandchildren. My siblings weren't so lucky. One has had the worst life possible, many failed relationships and over 40 years of ill health and unemployment. The other was married and has children, but it couldn't in any way be described as happy. Now she has dementia and aged 60 is in residential care.
When we left care and afterwards there was no support for any of us. Left to our own devices as the authorities washed their hands of us, dumping us back into an abusive environment which made life hell for all - at least these days things are slightly better, but not that much.
In the last couple of years I got my care records after a fight with a local authority and a childrens society. I couldn't believe the things that social workers had written about us, more 'Dickensian' than enlightened. It took a lot of support and counselling to move past it and to move on.
The care leavers association is a gift to today's care leavers, if only they hear about it? I note that many people that I've spoken to, have never heard of it - so perhaps more work is needed to spread the message that those leaving care have support from people who've been in the same position as them.
So thank you for the positive and I hope your message gets pushed further into social media.
Thank you ever so much for this comment! Its amazing where a 'family' is found sometimes. There is no 'normal' family unit, even when talking about society as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIt is such a shame that still now in 2013 young people leaving care are left feeling the same way you did over 50 years go!
I will pass on the text about the CLA - Very Positive Thank you!
In the same way that bad news floods over people, Positive attitudes also have the ability to spread and be shared.. but sadly it isn't shared enough.. we seem to live in a world where people enjoy being unhappy and only concentrating on the negatives in life.. ( Are we all grumpy old men and woman?!)
Maybe I should create a campaign where the major news outlets are only aloud to publish POSITIVE stories for one day...