My life as a crumpled daffodil

In the latter half of last year I was quite pleased with myself for losing considerable poundage, and also re-working my eating habits much to the better. Thus, though I knew my self-care was still lacking in many respects and though the weight loss had stalled, I wasn’t expecting the letter that arrived on the doormat yesterday lunchtime - following last week’s eye examination - which informed me my diabetic retinopathy had gotten a LOT worse. I had been expecting there to have been little or even no change.

For a person who had just started the ominous 13^th day of the month with a dental checkup and been informed she needed work next week that would be painful and more than she could afford, I had been in quite a good mood prior to this.

I had woken up to a sunny morning and a brain that had obviously received a “little chat” from the Universe overnight since it was full of quotations and thoughts about approaching life with boldness and the meaning of bravery.  My mind was saying fie to the approaching doom and gloom of dentistry and was full of plans for getting on with my list of stuff to do before I die, and encouraging others to do the same!  I was straight on Facebook first thing posting up bits from this “epic-fanny” (epiphany!). Obviously I had misconceived what the “little chat” had been preparing me for..

After the 10 a.m. appointment, since my husband was due to work a late shift, I had lunch with him and listened to him jamming creatively on his ukulele, and was glad I had been forced into an early start and ready to enjoy the day the best I could, M.E. allowing.

Unfortunately the spirit-dampening letter arrived about five minutes before he was due to go in to work, so there I was, left alone with it, and a little black cloud sidled through the door as he left, took up place over my head and grew, mockingly,.

Like a child I wanted to yell “It’s not fair!”, and like a child I gave in to fright. This is it, I’m going to lose my sight sooner rather than later, I won’t be able to see the Scottish mountains when we eventually get to live there, I won’t be able to see to play my uke, I will be sightless as well as trapped and knackered by M.E.  There was a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of the teeth (but not too hard, since some of them are dodgy…) All my other problems and stresses drew in on me.

I shared my news on Facebook and a friend kindly offered to phone to give me comfort, but I felt pretty sure if I tried to talk over the phone all I was going to be doing was sobbing, and that doesn’t make for a very coherent or two-sided conversation, so I said no thanks. Another friend texted, in the middle of a walk in the woods with her dog, telling me about the wonderful bluebells. I knew she too would have tried to lift my spirits had I told her what was going on, but again, I wasn’t up to phone calls. I felt like a cheery little daffodil that had poked its head up for spring and had been trampled on.

But as the afternoon wore on I found myself slowly uncrumpling my leaves and raising my head. This little anthemic tune arrived insistently in my mind – something I had not even liked when it had been in the charts and hadn’t heard for years – “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never going to keep me down”. I found myself rather crossly singing it. Bloody Universe is sending me messages again… it could have fixed it so my eyes were ok instead but no… it sends me gormless little ditties about perseverance in the face of life’s trials! Grrr.

Then I started thinking of ways I could maybe  better look after myself and prevent further deterioration, and started breaking it down into small concrete steps to work on.  And I went and played uke for a while. And lo and behold, my Dad, who I had been nagging about getting on Facebook for like.. forever… actually arrived on it , which fact cheered me considerably! And seeing my posts from earlier,  he rang me, rather worried.

So I was faced, after all, with a phone call. And though I did share some of how I had felt, there was no sobbing, and this slightly mangled daff was sticking her head back up over the tall grass and exuding the best cheery yellow, even sometimes laughing, voice she could.

And I wondered… why do I do that? Why do I often laugh when I am so close to crying, make jokes about things that frighten me or make light of them, or take the mick out of how I am feeling? Many years ago a friend, who I eventually fell out with, complained that I never take anything seriously … “You laugh too much!” she said.

I have lost count of how many comedians I have discovered suffer from depression… some of them hysterically funny and very creative. I don’t claim to be among their number but I bet this woman would have thought they laughed too much too.

One of my friends had remarked the previous day that I was braver than her, to which my immediate comeback was “I fake it”. Another, this day, remarked on my persistence when faced with a problem, as did my husband. I have always felt like a wimp, covering up by being quirky.

There’s a fine line too between bravery and bravado, between persistence and stubbornness or even obsession or control-freakery.

Thankfully, while I can see some kind of a funny side, or even just laugh at my own silly self, I am practising the ability, the flexibility, to bounce back up and be annoyingly bright and yellow again, whichever side of the line my behaviour has fallen on.

So I guess the instructional thought that I was given in my sleep to wake up and face this grotty day with (and impertinently put up on Facebook) was quite apt: “Bravery happens when you start to laugh at yourself, but lovingly.”

I didn’t write it myself, the Universe told me… I have a hot line… and if you don’t believe me… ner ner ner ner ner! So there!