I’ve driven from the centre of Cork through Wilton to Rochestown. Struggled all the way…

The journey from the car park began with an incident I won’t forget easily. I paid 8 Euro and pushed Grace and several bags of shopping to the car. She was asleep. It wasn’t difficult to load her into the car seat. When I got to the exit, I couldn’t find the ticket in my wallet. Nor in my 11 pockets. There were two cars jammed up behind.

I was already feeling anxious, fearful and tense. You can imagine how my discomfort intensified. But out came a young man who said: ” You paid already? I’ll lift the barrier for you.” That was absolutely great news. How did he know I’d paid? Was there some desperate look on my face, throughout my whole frame, or in the voice that could barely speak?

As I was getting back into the car, I couldn’t find my wallet. Somehow, while I was pushing hands into pockets over and over again, the vital container of a little money, some plastic and loads of receipts was gone. I had to drive out of the exit. I was holding up so many people. Parked on the nearest double yellow lines, I rushed back in. A man stuck out his head from a car window and said “I’ve handed it in to the office.”

I couldn’t find words to thank him, or time to utter gratitude. I was so panicy. But when the wallet and I were restored to each other, I noticed how much tension there was in my body. My mind felt under siege, surrounded by pressing anxiety.

It would have been wonderful to have been able to celebrate these two bits of good fortune that came from the community in which I now live. All I wanted to do was to write the anxiety out of my body. I drove home thinking how urgent it was to blog.

Even Grace’s sleeping cheeks and relaxed eyelids didn’t bring me relief.

I wonder about writing about how I am.
I don’t yet read the newspapers, listen to the radio but I have stopped watching TV. (The significance of this breaking the link with TV is huge. I now have much more I can do, and want to do.)

It will take me too long to get better. I mean that, no matter how many days or weeks it takes for me to recover confidence and good humour, no matter how long it takes before I enjoy days without special medication, I will probably always feel that it’s taking too long. I’ll always have a sense of urgency and dissatisfaction. Is that such a bad thing? And, so what if it is a bad thing: it is the way I am, and it is enough for me to know that.

I can hear Grace grumbling in her cot.
Will she resume rest or stand up demanding light and attention?

I could do with her company. I am calmer now.

The drama of my inner world both tires and inspires me. In time I will love this combination a little more.

I’ve been thinking of the freezing fog over England.

How good it is not to be in Heathrow.

How fortunate I am to have been able to put a few coins in a collection box yesterday, to wear the yellow sticker, to have the cries within hearing.

To have possession of a mind that feels mine, and shared…

To have a room with a chair the feels as if it belongs to me, and from which I can reach…

To have a son who felt like coming over to see me for a few days…

To have moments for thinking and feeling these sort of things…