The start of an other day and once again the best alarm clock in the world woke me up, my bladder. This morning was the third in a row that I woke just after 7am, so not terribly early but I had actually given myself permission to not get up when the alarm went off. I have for years believed that my body has been part of a conspiracy to make life difficult and it supplies yet more proof. There are always occurrences like this for all of us, those moment when you have made your mind up to do something and then then something appears to stop it happening. Wouldn’t it be nice to decide that you are going to do something and then life let you, no barriers, no phone calls, or emails, it just all goes exactly as we plan. Nice dream, but be assured that is all it is going to be, unless of course your plan was to do the same as every other day in your life, reacting to others rather and doing what we want. I didn’t actually realise just how much of our lives are totally driven by others until I stopped working, there was this huge void in my life, not just because my work day routine had gone, but the emails stopped and the requests to do the impossible ended. Strangely the thing I have found harder than anything throughout my life is to just do what I want, not just without interruption, but without influenced from anyone else either. Think about it, when did you last do anything that you weren’t taught the way how to do it, or your time wasn’t set up around the needs of your friends, family and work. When was it you truly had free time, not time made by you cutting time give to something else, but real free time.

The stupidest thing is we all know that time to ourselves is actually important but our lives are set up in such away that it is almost impossible. Even now when I spend so many hours actually not physically with other people, I am guilty thanks to this and twitter of actually not doing something that could be seen as relaxing. It’s not work but believe me it can be mentally extremely draining raking through everything I feel, do and think. Several people in the last few days have said that same thing, that I have been through so much in the last few months but here I am still day in, day out, ripping myself into bits to make sense of it all. I know I do need time out, but I also know that I have to keep working on this, but I also admit that may be I need to take a look at my daily routine and build in two things that just aren’t there, free time and flexibility. As I said in the last few days, I am in no doubt that my health has taken a large down turn and that the more I sleep the better I feel. How I set out those time periods of sleep into my day and how do I set in also, time to do nothing if that is what I want at the time? I need to plan this, as well I can’t do anything with out a spell of analysis and to be sure that I have covered all the bases, yes I know that means I will be setting up barriers, but I can’t work without them, I don’t think anyone can.

The mad thing about life that I have learned in the last few years is that although stress destroys us, we can’t actually live without it. If there is no stress from others, or work, or family, we will invent it by looking at our homes and demanding we clean them, or redecorate, things that really don’t matter as much as we think. Without them though we wouldn’t have that free stack of stress there to use when the rest of life removes it. Many of the conditions I have now, for which there are no cures for all had their start point in stress, they have made me slow down, to stop and to think, things we all should have been taught to do, rather than how to add more stress. So I am now sat here unable to do the things that stressed me and at last not actually stressed by them, my health has taught me eventually that stress over tiny things, is stupid. I now look at them and I know they are what they are and does that matter at all, no. I shouldn’t have had to go through all this to learn one simple lesson, slow down and relax, life happens regardless what you do. On paper I have all the time in the world, in reality I have no time at all, it is running out on me.

I will put money on it that someone reading this will be saying but she must be stressed out, she is dieing. That is actually the daftest bit I can’t get my head around it, that information doesn’t add stress it removes it. Somehow knowing that it is now out of my control has allowed me to move on and yes it has been the catalyst into making the changes that I am in the middle of. This is now my time and if I need or want to spend a day in bed, well I will. I doubt knowing me that will actually happen for a long time, but I am giving myself permission to do it, if I want to. I am no longer going to let my life feel as thought there is this stack of things that are waiting to be done, if I can’t do it that day and it’s not important, well ditch it, not move it along onto another list, just get rid of it. This is the start and I have loads to do right now to make the changes, the space to actually live without unneeded pressure and stress. I know this is right for me, but I have a feeling there are far to many out there setting themselves up, living with stress they think the can manage, but will mean they to will be joining me with illnesses that will one day will steal all your choices.