Glorious Catastrophising

A quick post before the day begins. I am grabbing the odd hour or so here and there this week in attempts to re-ground myself during another week of madness,

I post again after another weekend of modelling in the wildnerness. This time, it was not three degrees, there were no hail stone storms, and I did not set my alarm for 4.30am. In fact, the sun was shining, I set my alarm at a rather sociable 8am, and it was quite a glorious day in the end. I needed a weekend off really, but I am well aware that there are far worse ways to spend the weekend. I wonder too, if it was better to keep busy. Advice I was given very recently during a conversation about my research plans was not to worry; if you worry then you stop and you have to keep going. I think this is really quite relevant, especially for my life at the moment. I am an over-worrier and an over-thinker. I was the child who wrote and thought up stories of dramatic 'worst-case-scenario' terrible disasters happening... I am the person who bumps their car and assumes they have broken the engine. If I were a CBT therapist I may well situate myself in the camp of 'Glorious Catastrophisors'. Because that is what I do best. I catastrophise and my imagination needs no creative licence. It knows no bounds and it can be pretty terrifying if I allow it to breathe.

Not all goes gloriously tits up though. In fact, some things run just perfectly - rarely happens, but it does happen! I am taking a half an hour to myself this morning to get myself back into planet-earth mode. Last night Brys treated me to an early birthday night at the theatre in Newcastle. We drove up when I finished work and went for wine and olives and then saw the West End tour production of To Kill a Mockingbird. Of course this was stunning and beautiful and so very well put together that it moved us to tears. The story is one of truth and hope, and the human race. But what was wonderful was re-connecting to a theatre environment. I spent a lot of my teenage years in theatres and being back in them always gives me a sense of nostalgia. There was a beautiful and rather inspirational Q&A session with some of the cast members after the performance, in which I was reminded not only of the truth in the story of Harper Lee's novel, but in the rawness and authenticity of human beings when they act as vessels of stories and narratives. They not only carry and tell their own stories, but they find their own stories in the lives of others, and that is quite an incredible thing to learn about. Despite what is a very tumultuous time for me at the moment, I found some sense of 'home' last night with my sister in a city that isn't our own watching a play that was breath-taking and turning emails off. Despite such a very late night drive back down the A1, . That is probably why I can sit and type and drink my coffee feeling somewhat more grounded than I have done all week.

Life is truly being lived in extremes at the moment; client work, holding exam stress for my students, modelling jobs, birthdays, research uncertainties... And I am facing that question of 'how do I say goodbye to the last 5 years of my life and trust that my plans and hopes for the next year will happen?' I suspect that this brings me back to the old 'trust in the process' phrase that I tend to refer back to so frequently it might as well be tattooed on my forehead.

OK, typically I now have about 20 minutes until I must jump back in my car and take myself over to York. Must face the day...