85. The End

I really don’t expect anyone to read this entry.

It has been years since I wrote on this blog and to be honest I should never have given up on it.  Writing about my life and my little joys and failures made me happy.  And we all need happy in our life.

The problem was that I was not happy.

Life was not good.

Joy was not forthcoming.

Happiness was what other people had.

I felt adrift, separated from reality.  As Stitch said “I’m Lost.”

And I was lost,  moving from day to day, living but not living, breathing but not breathing in the air to feel how good it was. Everything seemed dark even on a sunny day, depression had grabbed hold and was dragging me down for the third time.

I was in a situation that had to end. My marriage had run its course. The journey that had started out of nothing but fun, excitement and adventure had become a rock that did neither my ex-wife or me any good.

So I made the decision to return to England.   I left the United States in October of 2016 and came back to my home town of Bury St Edmunds. The place where I was born, the place I knew better than anywhere.

I hit the reset switch on my life.

A clean slate.  A black page in a brand new note book, unspoiled and ready for the first words to be written with a new pen on crisp clean paper.

.

So OK its taken me two years to find a pen, but here I am.

When I landed I hit the ground running. actually more like sprinting.   I had a job within days of returning.  I got a better job that I love within days of finding the first job.  In three months I found a wonderful apartment in the town center which means I don’t need the expense of a car. Let me tell you readers, that not having a car is the most liberating thing ever.  From having to have a car just to go get some milk because the closest store is three miles away to only having to walk two hundred paces is bliss.  No maintenance, no insurance, no getting the tags renewed, no paying for gas.   NO EXPENSE!  Well apart from the milk.

I was free, to do what I want, any old time.

I went walking, taking the time to breath again. To take in the beauty of what nature has given.  I had been lost, I had forgotten how to see the beauty in simple things.  Life was hectic, travelling at a million miles an hour, and now the brake had been applied, everything was in focus again.

I tried new things,  I climbed rocks, I went crawling through caves, Cycling on secluded pathways.  Rambling through places that people rarely see.  I became alive again.

And it is marvelous.

The sun shines more it would seem.  When I was in America I told people that England was gray and dull all the time.  So to prove myself wrong I started a Blue Sky Project on my Facebook page to prove that the skies here and not all doom and gloom.

Every time, no matter where I was if I saw a blue sky I would take a photo and post it.   I Chose to do it for a year to see how many I would get.  By the end of the year I had 107 beautiful pictures.  and hundreds more I didn’t post.  It felt like everyday the sun shone.  It feels like it hasn’t rained.  Even on the cold winter days, the sky was blue.  It filled me up with energy and did that most awesome of thing, make me smile.

Now of course life is no fairy tale.  There are down moments.  When I miss my grown up daughters, that is tough, but I remember what wonderful independent young women they have become and that makes me happy.

There are the days where I do silly things like hurt my back, or slice the top of my finger off with a knife, but you get over those things.  Small bumps in the road. That is all they are.

So this is THE END of this blog.  I don’t need to write about the things I have wasted too much time on anymore.  That is the past, and although I enjoyed writing about it. That is where it needs to stay.

But this is not really THE END…….IT IS A NEW BEGINNING!

The start of something FRESH.

The start of Things I am GOING to waste too much time on!

A bucket list project.

Starting soon!