The Road There

This isn't a smug post its a proud as punch post. It's a celebration and recognition post. A well-done post. A belief post. It's we can do it post. A positive post. It's you can do it too post. It's how we worked out and improved our marriage to post!

We got it - our offer was accepted on our forever home- we did it.

Five years ago we thought we would never have a forever home to live in! The tumultuous curves and swerves of life become what we choose them to be. I live by that. Choice. Self-owned even the shit bits.

2015 we had lost pretty much everything, the deli had gone, we were tens of thousands of pounds in debt. We were struggling to feed ourselves, get through the day without a consistent worry about money and the next penny, struggling to pay the mortgage, at breaking point emotionally and my drinking was at its worst.

It happens, life can suck, and it can slap us around literally, it can burn us, and it wears us down, and at times it can break us. Many cliches say that until you hit bottom you don't see the top. I slammed headfirst into the depths. Friendships frayed and some lost never to return- amazing what happens and who shines through. People had opinions without facts that they believed. I was ashamed, embarrassed and lost my self-worth.

My secret well not that secret actually as it is my husband. He stood beside me, and I beside him—partners in it all. Partners, who cried together, faced it together and most of all believed in each other so much that we boosted each other without even realising it. I may not have felt I believed in myself at that time, I did believe in him, and that right at that point was enough. We have spent the last five years building our credit files, our work, our business, our lives back up.

The past five years have seen us moving thousands of miles away to heal, restore, reset and reveal our next focus to ourselves and create the steps we needed for the future. One person said to us we were running away, we weren't. We were facing head in, face forward, looking up and not down. We worked every moment we could to get better, improve, learn, listen, seem to hear, feel.

Life can be hard, and maybe it should be hard? All I know is we appreciate it. More through our experiences- and it's my failings that have given me the best lessons for sure. I know I do so much more now than ever before. I see others better, and I don't judge or assume,( so this is an intentional focus on NOT doing it, and I don't get it right every time).

I accept. I even made a coaching technique up called Triple-A - Accept, Acknowledge and Act based on this.

So five years, 60 months, 260 weeks, 1,820 days and remembering this is still a work in progress…….this is about working, choosing to work hard and through what life throws at is, choosing every day to a focus. Ours was always a forever home- one like us ready to be changed, remodelled, renovated, updated. The hat we could wear for the rest of our lives, a lifetime project, and it takes time.

Being in it is exhausting at times, emotional and can feel like life will crap for perpetuity. It isn't. Being in is.

The reality is choosing to see that at that moment the one that feels like crap, yes, that moment is crap. The next moment is one you can choose to be different. That's how we did—each moment. We decided the next one to be better. We cast out thoughts and wants, our needs, our desires, and we changed our language. We accepted the good, bad and the indifferent, yet did not wallow in any of the moments. We lived them, felt them and moved on each time. The biggest thing we did over the past five years was.

We talked to each other.

Not that much of a big deal? It was. It is. We told each other everything. I shouted a lot, and I argued a lot (mostly with myself). We saw each other and checked in every day. We made sure we talked about the moments, saw them and work out what we could do better. What did we need to do next? We have each other's backs. Even in those moments when we don't agree with each other, and the final thing that helped us get here and will keep us moving forward. If we didn't accept, couldn't see what we should be learning, couldn't understand each other points of view. We did nothing. We take no action until we had worked it out.

Choose. Choose intentionally every day. Every moment.

Today we have had our offer accepted, and we are eight weeks from moving into our new home because even when it was so hard, we didn't stop once. We faced it every day, even on the exhausting days. I've laughed, cried, had tantrums, loved, hugged, felt lost and felt happiness, felt calm, felt wrought, felt useless and felt unstoppable.

Just found this and it perfectly sums up my points- Albert Camus

“Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful. An analysis of the idea of revolt could help us to discover ideas capable of restoring a relative meaning to existence, although a meaning that would always be in danger.”