Hello

This is my first post. I'm not entirely sure what I'm about to use this blog for. I had a tumblr but I don't really get the point of it. The blog title is a reference to some thoughts I had the other day. I'm having bereavement counselling atm and my counsellor asked me to draw a timeline of the last ten years and write what the good and bad parts have been, and I realised that more things have happened than I even thought were possible, and that my life has been a whole series of ridiculous peaks and troughs which have left me feeling a little bit... tender and cocky. Tender because urgh, lots of it hurts, and cocky because people keep telling me I'm amazing for getting through it all so well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking really horrific stuff like being on the edge of death, witnessing a loved one's murder or being raped, but still plenty of things which are hard to deal with. 2010 alone, for instance...

began by burying my Granddad on New Year's Day
finished with burying my Mum on New Year's Eve
My brother's girlfriend gave birth to my 'first' nephew, the most amazing person I've ever met, I felt love like I've never felt it before
I broke up a four year relationship
I had a six month relationship/fling/whatever with a close friend
I started a relationship with my current boyfriend
I learned more about myself than any other year of my life to date
I graduated university with a 2.1 degree, including first class grades for half of my final year, inc. an 11 thousand word dissertation on progressive metal and got the highest grades in the class for animal rights in philosophy, a class which I wasn't even due to take until I heard about it and begged my way on
I moved house
Took a bit of a codeine overdose in the November and wound up in hospital... in the same ward as my mum :\ and with one of my closest friends a few floors up
I found out via the local newspaper that my half sister I haven't seen since I was 1 just got a four year jail sentence for arson, apparently with the intent to die through it
I had numerous operations, investigations and treatments for a six-years-and-still-going-strong mystery illness which gives me a lot of bladder / urethra pain and frequent UTIs and renders me incapacitated when it really gets going with the pain
I visited three different prisons regularly to give help, training and support to volunteers within the prison
I lived the year with the sickening feeling that my Mum was going to die but not actually knowing when or how, tried to look out for her as best I can, many hospital visits, plenty of nights spent in A&E corridors sleeping on a chair next to her in her makeshift bed
I went to see one of my favourite bands at the Royal Albert Hall
I flitted around between Newcastle, London, Norwich, York, Leeds, Hull and various other places
I left a job, began a new one, left it, started a new one, and got moved branches
I volunteered for a charity which provides emotional support for people experiencing distress or suicidal feelings/intentions

That's most of it I think, I'm still reeling. My mum was an alcoholic, she started to get properly sick in Summer 2008 and then declined for 2.5 years until she was dead. December 23rd 2010 we spent a few days in the hospital hearing subtle indications she wasn't going to get better such as 'she's been really drowsy today' etc. until they said they were gonna turn the oxygen off as she wasn't responding to antibiotics (pneumonia) and wasn't going to get any better. She was amazing, yet she went from this normal, healthy human to a skeleton that couldn't walk in such a short space of time. We sat around waiting for her to die and going outside for cigarettes, until she finally took her last breath. Then started planning the funeral 2 hours later, my brother was devastated, it killed me to see him cry so much. I decided to deliver the eulogy as nobody else felt they could handle doing it and I didn't want her funeral to be a remote kinda thing where the Priest says general random things about the person. I thought it was shit (the eulogy) but everyone else thought it was good. The funeral was as lovely as a funeral can be. And then boom, you have to live with the grief of knowing they're not there anymore and living with the stuff you saw and heard happen to one of your favourite people in the world and knowing you couldn't help them. I fucking tried, I tried the tough love, hiding the vodka, being accepting of it, taking her to alcohol counselling meetings, and AA, and the doctors, calling ambulances, staying with her in the hospital, my brother and I moved her from our old home into a bungalow when she had to sell up, all the while trying to handle the way she was being. I tried a lot of things and nothing worked, which is just the way it goes I guess. I started training a few weeks later to join a charity which runs rehab units within prisons for drug addicts and alcoholics and started there in May, volunteering a couple days a week. It's really hard, sometimes frustrating (being a young female in a male prison isn't easy), very occasionally a tiny bit scary, fascinating though. My supervisor asked if it isn't too hard to see addicts on a weekly basis knowing what happened to my mum but it really isn't because they're a world away from her, they're still walking around, talking etc. I do love doing it, I hope my future is in that, I'm starting a course in a few weeks from now to get the necessary qualifications to become employable in that field. I'm alright most of the time but now and then something will crop up or I'll get bad pain and take a load of pain medications and end up sobbing and getting upset that she can't listen to the latest Dream Theater CD with me like we used to, having long drinky smokey chats in the kitchen playing each other music. She got me into music, she used to play Tchaikovsky to me while I was still in her womb. I'll always be grateful for everything she did for me, always.