Dear Anita,

Yes, but my mothers moments of joy are based around money. She is temporarily happy when she has something new, but at the heart of it she is not happy. I had a massive realisation recently (which I’ll explain in a bit), that I have been living life with a close/ guarded heart. Growing up I was never taught love, or how to be in touch with my heart, or how to treat people from a place of kindness and love – hence me growing up, being guarded, mistrusting, lashing out at people etc. My sister has been the same, and I feel like she still hasn’t learnt how to really open her heart – something that I wish the most for her.

I agree, no one is joyful all the time. I think that there is a lot of beauty to be found in human emotion. All of it. Even grief and sadness. People often look for the meaning of life. Through religions, science, philosophical theories. But to me it’s simple. There’s a magic of life which allows us to feel. Emotions are indescribable – how we the coldness of the winter wind makes us feel, or the rays of the summer sun, or the pain in our hearts when we allow ourselves to grieve, and then the healing of the heart when we allow ourselves to love again. To me, the meaning of life is that – the pure gift of simply being able to feel it.

I am learning to feel every moment. Physically, and allowing myself to act in accordance to what my heart is feeling.

On the topic of healing.
When I returned to work last Friday, my manager specifically advised me to give one of my colleagues, I’ll call her Hannah, time to get used to me being back, before saying anything/ apologising about Christmas. I was working with my other colleague, I’ll call her Tracy,on Saturday and we spoke about Christmas briefly and I apologised for what happened. Tracy is Christian, very kind natured and understanding, and she said very gently, “don’t worry about it, I’m sure no one is expecting you to refer to that, I’m sure everyone knows that you were going through a hard time”. I had a really lovely chat with Tracy.

I went to work on Wednesday, and Hannah was already on shift. Because of what my manager said, I just tried to act normal and said morning, and asked her how her trip to India was. I could sense that there was emotionally confusion, and she did reply but left the room and didn’t want to be around me. I left it and tried to get on with my work in the office because of what my manager had said. Tracy came in to the room, and gently said “You know what we talked about at the weekend, when you apologised and said I’m sorry? Those words can go really far”. I replied to Tracy and said, “I know, and I’m planning on apologising but manager said to leave it for a while, give it a couple of shifts before saying anything”. Tracy said “I see, yes well go with what manager said”.

After that, I tried to continue with my work – but I had an emotional breakthrough. I was thinking about apologising, how I’d hurt people, and being forgiven. And it hit that memory that I told you about – me being in my room and crying and crying and not being forgiven. I had an cry outburst and ran to the garden. Tracy came after me, and I spoke to her a bit about what this situation had reminded me of, and why I was going through a lot/ processing a lot. Tracy understood.

I spoke to my manager that day, and explained what had happened with the emotional breakthrough. He understood, and said it’s good that I’m realising these things. He moved my annual leave forward and sent me home, so I am off until April now.

Since being at home I have just been allowing myself to cry when I need to, think, and try and feel my heart and the emotions going on in it.

Cat