Confessions of a Free Range Prolapsed Catholic

Its nearly a year since I spent a terrifying, long night struggling to breathe, feeling my heart race and hiccough, wondering if I was going to die! I had had a big few months at the start of 2016. Deciding to retire is what I called it but really it was walking my wounded self away from my job, from a community I had loved, pretending I was ” ready”; the death of my beloved friend Sharon who ” got me” like very few others in my life, the death of my extraordinary, wonderful, loving, hero brother all of which left me empty, rudderless in spite of the all embracing love of my family.  That night I thought I might die and I didn’t want to!

I had been terribly un-nurturing of my inner and outer health. I had avoided going to the doctor for 27 years. From the terrible events of 2007 which submerged me and mine in desperation, I had sought to self manage by drinking – every day – too, too much and in so doing, I had short circuited my heart!

So much has happened since that night ! The world seems to have gone nuts! Donald Trump…good God who could have imagined that! The horror of terror which has become a part of Western existence but with which millions of people, men, women, children, rich, mostly poor, innocent  in the parts of the world we thank God we were not born into , have lived for generations! And here I am now, propped up in bed like a capital V – wedge at one end, wall of pillows at my head, three months post  the reception of a pair of new knees, pacemaker doing whatever it needs to do whenever it needs to do it to keep my wonky heart going, alcohol free , 35 kilos less, hoping to be able to sleep pain free!

Writing has kept me going really. I don’t get much by way of feedback and I don’t think I am looking for it anyway! But to be able to string the words together, to be able to capture for myself  and revisit the moments that have lifted me up, to be able to laugh as I revisit what is so often the craziness of my life, makes me so thankful that I can write, that my Father and Mother encouraged me to learn as much as I could and that  life is a gift!