Last Christmas doesn’t seem real now I look back upon it. It seems like it all passed me by in a blur of fake smiles, false hope and really grey days. It’s hard to believe how different December 25th has been a year on. Grief is a process, that’s what everyone says, and I agree. They  also say there are certain steps you will follow but that’s not what I say.

Grief to me is like any sort of recovery. Whilst grieving the death of my Father I have also been recovering from my own mental health crisis. Somewhere in the back of my mind I always thought (hoped) that both the grief and my personal recovery would reach a point at which I could look back and reflect upon the progress made. But there was also days I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Days in which there didn’t seem much point continuing to fight a battle I was never going to win. I don’t want to say I have won. I haven’t. I don’t believe I ever completely will. But I’ve found myself at a point where I feel content.

I hadn’t felt content for years. Just the feeling of being able to relax, being able to actually think about the future without dread, being able to really laugh until you can’t breathe. To even laugh and not  think to myself “you’re a fake, you aren’t really laughing inside”. To smile and actually feel proud of my happiness. Life is far from perfect. I have so many areas I need to work on in the next year but I have determination to do so. I want to be the very best version of myself. I’m sick of feeling I have so much more to give and not being able to do anything about it.

I miss my Dad everyday. I think of him everyday. I expect I always will. But my life didn’t end when his did. For a while it seemed like it had but now I can feel momentum again. I know he is always with me. I don’t know in what presence or whether that even matters. There is something leading me where I’m supposed to go. And it feels good. I know how it feels now to be at my very lowest and I am going to do everything in my power to fight to never be in that place again. I am also going to appreciate the happiness I do have at the present time. All I ever wanted through all of the pain and struggling was to feel I was getting a part of myself back, to recognise I was still there underneath it all. Slowly it seems like I’m coming back to myself. That’s all I could have wished for.