Saturday night feelings......

Mar 05, 2023

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***Before you begin to read, I would love if you hit play on the audio recording…..I apologise in advance for any grammar or mistakes in the text below…..I am tired this week, more than normal so the audio is definitely the easiest way to enjoy my words I feel and would love they might accompany you on a walk, a stroll, a sad moment or maybe even a moment when you are looking up at the sky xx

As I sit and write this post, I am of mixed emotions….excitement is in there but I have to admit, nerves, anxious energy and just those funny days ‘before something big in your life happens’ are playing havoc with my heart. I lost Gran 540 days ago…..Now to anyone who hasn’t met grief yet, that will seem like a lifetime…and in fairness before I lost two of my absolutely favourite people, I would have thought to myself in meeting someone who might be grieving, by this stage I would be thinking sure they are probably doing good now…..'It’s a long time since their loved one left’ - my honest thought……Now I know how wrong I would have been…Because I would NEVER have understood the grieving process until I was in it myself. I know there are lots of things in this life that we do not understand until we are in it ourselves but now I know ‘grief’ is a nightmare like no other you will ever experience. And again it’s not until you are in it until you really feel the pressure inside you & the loss outside you, and the loneliness that travels everywhere with you no matter how you think ‘it might be finally gone’. Grief is like a cloud….incoming sky analogy …no surprises here….but grief is actually more than a cloud, it’s more like a thunderstorm that won’t go away particuarly at the start….then as time passes, it lightens and even sometimes it leaves….but it keeps coming back…often without you seeing it come your way. One minute you are standing in sunshine, next minute the thunder and lightning within your heart is knocking you around….Yes time helps, and it heals but you will never not miss your person. For me, I am in early stage grief. Year one is always horrendous and more often than not, many find year two even worse. I think I am handling my grieving process as best as I can and I doing my best putting my grief into a space of creativity and I love that I am gently honouring Gran’s life and hopefully I am giving her legacy and love a place to live forever - in people’s hearts. But no matter what, my grief lives in my heart. No matter how I want to give it to someone else, it lives in me. And that is the battle of grief. Grief is love wrapped up in hurt and loss. You must unravel it yourself and remove all the dark parts from it, one piece at a time….Some bits are harder than others….and as each pieces leaves, the choice is there to fill it back up with love. And I think I’m doing well overall at that part and I think I’m leaning into the light and love more and more. BUT….when carrying Gran’s light forward, there are days when it weighs me down. I have to be honest. And that is grief. That is the process. It’s not in a bad way that this presses on me, it’s just loss and love colliding, & I just miss her terribly. How could I not….

If you can just imagine your most favourite person for a moment…..the person who you love unconditionally and the person who always believes in you. The person who loves you, warts and all and is always on your side no matter what you do, what you look like, how you feel, or what mistakes you make. They listen to you and all your ramblings and thoughts…They even care about all your ramblings and thoughts. You know that person! These people are our people. We don’t get thousands of them, we don’t get hundred’s of them, we don’t get many of them. We are blessed and so lucky if we have a handful of really solid believers in who we are while we travel this life. See this life is not easy. It’s actually quite hard. It’s so tricky and we, as we all know well here, will deal us blows and knocks that we never expected…..And that’s when we need our believers, our champions, our cheerleaders, our people….. The ones who are there when nobody else. The ones who notice when you are quiet. The ones who believe in you when you don’t believe in you. This is love. This is the magic of being human. This is the light, the love and the absolutely blessing of reaching out in this world. Human connection. It’s what this life is all about! The LOVE is what it is all about. I believe in love. I believe in connection. I believe in effort. I believe in the other. And I love love. But when you lose it, it is like being constantly tripped up forever more. At the start you can understand and see the trip wire of grief but as time moves, the trip wire fades and then reappears when you least expect it. This is the healing process and this is good but it’s just not easy.

As it’s just a number of short days before I take flight to the states carrying my story and my broken yet healing heart, I carry the grief that lies inside me. I have to work so hard everyday to push the darkness away. I have to work so hard to find the light and be the light. People see my smile and it is as genuine as it gets. I love to smile. My nature is of an optimistic nature and particularly after going through a number of years of tough obstacles, I know the value of the optimist. I look for the silver lining. I will always look for the silver lining. But that will not dilute my feelings of loneliness, sadness and grief. I will feel my feelings because I know in feeling them, it allows them to live, move and then leave my being. And that is a healthy approach. I am uneasy and anxious about this big move. For many it might not look like much. Many have said ‘you must be so excited about this trip?’ And even though I know they are right, to expect excitement from me, but inside my heart I am working my absolute hardest to take these steps…..I have been through trauma of my own kind. I am the age I am and I did what I did. Something not many would have done. I was rewarded in a million ways for it and I would never take a second of that time back, but I lost my person. I lost my best friend at the end of that story. I lost my purpose. I lost who I was during that time, and I watched a person I love die in my hands. The second person to die as I watched on as they left this world….People I love dearly dying under my watch was not something I had on my list before I was forty….Most might know of people who have died but a lot my age have not been in that very sacred space of feeling them let go of your hand….It was an honour to be there with gran as she let go but everyday my absolutely purpose and focus was to keep her alive, keep her here and on that fateful day I lost her. I lost the battle I’d been fighting for months, for years….And that loss, that pain, the hurt inside you takes a long time to heal…. Like a mother minding her baby, I lost my baby. And my heart still feels that ache hugely. I know I don’t have kids but Gran in many ways was my baby. I still can’t visit her grave. That tells me an awful lot. I pull in on the side road of the graveyard a thousands times but I can’t get myself out of the car. I know that tells me, there are parts of this story I am still trying to manage inside me. I am coping. I am healing. I am human. And I missing my best friend. And I am as much growing, becoming stronger and in many ways I am so proud of me for what I am achieving from the hurt inside me. I know lots of people who allow their grief, their hurt, their loneliness turn into negative things and even turn into negative parts of their being and it never ends well for them. I’m sure none of us need to think too hard to identify people in our own lives who instead of treating their grief or hurt with care, attention and process, they have denied, suppressed and maybe even worsened their darkness and in turn, these people end up causing much more hurt on others instead of looking inside and healing what’s in there. See it is so important to identify our own darknesses as best we can and then ask for help to cope and process those feelings if we don’t know what move to make next. See if you don’t, well they will never you any good fortune. Most people I meet who are angry, cross, negative, snappy or even bitter or hard on others, I always say to myself, well I instantly recognise they have darkness inside them that they have not dealt with. It is not always their fault, as circumstances lead us all out of the dark in different ways. But at the end of the day, we must look ourselves in the mirror and ask, what have I done to lessen the pain inside me….We are responsible for us and us alone and with the love and care from those around us, and by placing trust in people who show us the light, I truly believe we can heal from anything…..

you might be thinking to yourself, god I never expected Lou to be writing about this with three days to go ahead of the biggest adventure of her life….And I guess I never thought this would be what I would be writing myself but the reason I chose this topic today is over the last week I’ve felt every emotion possible inside me. I’ve been lost and found in one swipe. I’ve felt lonely and loved in two steps. I’ve felt scared and brave in one breath. And it is these feelings that remind me that I am not only human but I am healing too. I can look inside and let me be me. I can make mistakes and eventually recognise that I made the wrong call and eventually forgive myself for that too…. I can feel alone yet know that this will pass. I am learning more and more about myself and I hope I am becoming a better version of me through all these feelings and all these blurry parts of life. I hope I am a better friend and a better human for all these lessons. There is no such thing as perfect and nobody will ever be perfect, if that was the case, again we wouldn’t be human… And I love ye all because ye are human…we are all just trying our best. We are all just moving along unsure of the next step but hoping it is there…Life is no easy road. It is very hard and I will never shy away from the darkness. I will always always try shine my light as best I can and I will always look for the good. I will always smile. I will always let my tears fall too. I will always feel with the fullness of my heart because I truly believe that is where healing lies and that too is where strength and resilience is built too and that is where the magic of being human lives too. I know in my heart I’ve about to take a big leap of faith but I haven’t left a stone unturned ahead of it. I have worked so hard and I have went without sleep night after night but it will be worth it. I do not expect to be handed anything in this life. I work at my career. I work at my relationships. I work on me too. But this time, i feel something inside me. I feel the presence of all these feelings are a sign that something big is about to happen. I have been a good human for thirty nine years on this planet and I have tried my best for all who have entered my life. I have done my best and I have given away all my love to the best of people. I have also been burned in this world by people and I have learned from those moment I hope too. No matter what I feel something happening and I know that is why it’s been such a wobbly few weeks in the build up to this. This is not something that came about over night. Ive been working towards this day for the whole of my life and I know this move is meant for now. What’s for me, wont pass me and this is definitely not passing me. I’m going to lean into my feelings, all of them and I am going to choose to be brave and just jump and hope my parachute opens…..There isn’t one more thing I can do to prepare, all I can do now is be me…..and trust in faith and fate….

If there is one thing you might further consider from this piece of writing, I would love for you to look within and if there is pain in there, to lean in and try let it go…it won’t be easy but I promise it will lighten the heaviness inside you and it will give you freedom to fly….freedom to be you…freedom to find peace and serenity like you have never experienced. Sending you all the love inside my heart and thank you so so much for reading this post and thanks so much for always supporting me and helping me heal and not give up on me. Your encouragement is bringing me all the way to the states :) The power of another is magic. Lean in. Lean out and keep looking up to the sky. The answers are all in the sun, the moon and the stars and even in the clouds!

Love and loads of it from me to you,

Lou xxx

*Lou’s Story Telling Tour Stops are as follows:

Thurs. 9^th March – Swing The Teapot – New York – 6pm

Fri.. 10^th March – The Aisling Irish Community Center – New York – 6pm

Tues. 14^th March – The Irish Pastoral Centre – Boston – 1pm

Fri. 17^th March – The Irish Cultural Centre – Boston – St. Patrick’s Day Festival – 1.30pm & 4pm

Sun. – 19^th March – Scally’s Irish House – Cape Cod – 1pm

Wed. 22^nd March – O’Shea’s Olde Inne – Cape Cod – 4pm

Thurs. 23^rd March – Liam Maguire’s – Cape Cod – 4.30pm

*7 stops….7 wonders of the world…7 days in the week…..7 being a lucky number x