Nerves and wrecks

Today I am looking out of my friend Jays window onto an orchard. All the trees are in full blossom and lambs are playing around them and their grazing mums. Bliss!

Ive been waiting for the aches and illness to come upon me because i went to a wedding on Thursday and ended up exhausted.  Nothing has happened yet. I’m a bit confused but pleased that I’m feeling so well. The wedding was gorgeous!! Kate and Brian looked amazing and so happy and i felt very honoured to be asked to do a reading during the service. Somehow I managed not to worry about it or even feel nervous –  i managed to stay calm and relaxed before and after – i still don’t know how but it was my intention and somehow i made it happen. I really do feel like a different person but I’m pretty sure i was this calm and unfazed person before i became ill.

I am starting to remember people saying, throughout my life, that they admired me because nothing ever seemed to faze me. Of course i was nervous sometimes but did something happen that made me a nervous wreck? I’m wondering if it was this ….. I was in a horrible car crash on the M25 about 5 years ago. I wont go into details because it was awful. My car wasn’t involved but it all happened about 10 cars ahead of me and we were stuck there for about 4 hours with 30 mile jams building up all around us. I shook for about 12 hours (imagine how much adrenaline was used to acheive that) and had nightmares for about 2 weeks afterwards. I do remember that i wasn’t scared of driving with Jon before that but afterwards i was a very nervous passenger (for nervous you may more correctly read critical). I stopped wanting to drive myself anywhere for months afterwards and i haven’t driven myself on the M25 since. I’m wondering if the accident somehow triggered something off in me?

I did notice that when we, Jon and I, were driving to the wedding (and also to Cheltenham and Jays house) i didn’t feel nervous at all and i had reverted to saying ‘Nice driving!’ and smiling when he did something fast and ‘tricky’ on a roundabout, for instance. Is this because I’m not living off adrenaline any more? Was the adrenaline making me feel nervous and edgy? Im pretty sure it was.

Ive had a couple of conversations about relaxing since i arrived here. Jays dad, Mike is recovering from a heart attack and is being forced to relax, much to his chagrin. Mike says he can do most things whilst feeling relaxed so im starting to think that relaxing is more a state of mind than a state of ‘being’. Meaning, i suppose, that you don’t have to be lying prone to be relaxed. I don’t think I’ve been relaxed doing anything for years!! I was buzzing around constantly flitting from activity to activity and even when exhausted couldn’t stop. In fact, in hindsight, being exhausted probably made me push on because, again in hindsight, i can see that id probably used so much adrenaline to get to that state and that i was so ‘wired’ there was no way i was going to be able to sit down and relax.

So, will i get away with not being ill or is my body holding off until i get home? At the wedding Jon made it OK for me to be sitting down whenever possible, we left at around 10.30pm and we were both nicely tired and fell asleep easily when we got home, me with the aid of Dusulepin but dont think that matters. We then had a nice relaxing morning, no rush, and since I’ve been at Jays shes been making me rest and relax and taking any guilt away that i might have had about being entertaining and staying around at all times. So maybe I’ve found a way to stop the illness coming? When my glands popped up yesterday evening i just rested and they are almost back down now. I have a feeling the train journey home tomorrow will kill me but you never know ………… 🙂