13/05/2020: 7 Weeks!!!

Come on! This is silly! And I am not talking about lockdown. 7 weeks ago today I woke up coughing. Today I woke up coughing. Today is a better day than yesterday granted but come on, I mean WTAF!

I have not written anything for a couple of days, mainly because I did not have anything to say, that I have not already said or was remotely uplifting for you and me, and I have felt crap for the past few days.

Another thing is I have been getting caught up in the news, and shouting at the TV, which is never helpful. What ever our opinion is about how our government, there is not a huge amount we can do about that at the moment, but just store up your opinion and express it, at the ballot box. What we can do is control our response to what is going on around us, and therefore influence the outcome for ourselves.

This morning when I woke up, I was coughing and feeling pretty rough, I wanted to stay in bed and wallow in my self pity. I didn’t I went and stood in the bathroom and had a wash and brushed my teeth whilst feeling sorry for myself. I then got dressed full of self pity. I had a bowl of cornflakes whilst counting my aches and the times I had to stop and cough. I sighed and shuffled taking the dog for a walk to the end of the street, bemoaning the fact I had a headache. I fired up my work laptop without an ounce of enthusiasm. I huffed and puffed whilst opening my emails. I wrote a list of jobs for the morning, replied to a couple of emails. Wrote a kickstarter post for our working from home Facebook group. I started creating a leadership hub for our intranet page. I stared wistfully out of the window, coughed and remembered I had a headache. I found a great leadership website for NHS staff. I had some paracetamol for my headache. I remembered my chest was hurting. I sent off a couple of emails, I scan read a couple of articles for our leadership hub. I uploaded a couple of videos on difficult conversations to the hub. I had an uplifting conversation with my boss. I coughed, my chest hurt, and then my morning was over. I was exhausted, I had got quite a lot done in 4 hours. At the beginning of the day I did not feel like I could do anything. I managed quite a lot. I did not force myself to be positive. I allowed myself to feel what I was feeling but was I was feeling it I got on a did some stuff. The more stuff I did the less time I spent worrying about stuff I cannot do anything about. I got on and did what I needed and wanted to do.

If you feel fed up and out of sorts, allow yourself to feel that, but don’t let it stop you what you need to do. Don’t let your circumstances define you. Life is rubbish some of the time, life is great some of the time. Most of the time it is mish mash of both.

Today has most definitely been a mish mash of both. Embrace the happiness and acknowledge the pain.

Stay home, stay safe, and be a lert if you want.