I’ve had a few really good days, and a few really bad nights this week. A rollercoaster without the thrill factor, you could say. I’ve been away from the community I live in, staying at my ex’s flat (in other words the flat that used to be our flat) and it’s been good and bad. Good because I think I really needed a break away from my place and all that living there entails, and bad because it’s also made it very clear the things I miss; the things in my life I no longer have.

Being at the flat is good because I can do whatever I want whenever I want, meaning that I don’t have to constantly worry about the impact my way of being might have on the people I live with and, also, I don’t have to obsess about what they might be thinking about how I live my life. But, as with everything, there is a flip side; being at the flat means that, well, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. And, unfortunately, the choices I make may not always be the best or the healthiest, and I end up doing things in the stillness of the night that I would never do in the cold light of day.

That said, given a choice, I would probably prefer the latter; living on my own, left to my own devices. It’s the easier choice, because it’s comfortably familiar and not particularly challenging. I’m sure that says a lot about me and the way I view the world and other people.

On the other hand, one could argue that I do have a choice; there is nothing stopping me moving out of the community and into non-supported accommodation. That, in actual fact, my choice is to live where I live. I wasn’t forced to move there. I made a decision to do so.

I guess it would be fair to say that part of what I’ve been doing in this week of solitude is to re-examine the reasons I based that decision on. I haven’t reached any earth shattering conclusions, or had any amazingly illuminating bing-bing moments, but at least I’ve been thinking about it seriously.

Also, I’ve been considering why I’m doing all this thinking now. What is it about what’s going on in my life, what has been going on in my life, that has brought on this need to re-examine? Is this me repeating a pattern, or, is it me trying to break one? Or, equally possible, is it me creating a new pattern? And if so, why? And, again, why now?

The questions are endless and the answers few and far between. But sometimes – perhaps even most of the time – asking the questions is much more important than finding the answers.

In my last session with A. I made the somewhat sarcastic comment “Oh isn’t insight a wonderful thing?”, but I think what I really meant to say was that insight isn’t everything. It is, undeniably, something. But it’s not everything.
It’s the journey before and after that brief moment of insight that really matters.

xx

PS. Did my nails last night, using four different colours including a swirly-whirly tribal design.. I must be reallystressing out..