One Year of Living Positively - the beginning

One Year of Living Positively

Goodness this is hard.  I thought writing a blog would be easy.  You just open your page and off you go.  So, in the absence of anything deep and profound to say, off I go.

I am writing this blog as a very cheap form of therapy.  Over the last few months I have come to realise that I see things in a very negative way and have lost the art of seeing the positive in life.  I have turned in to my mother who as much as I loved her gave me the gift of seeing the problems before the possibilities.  Whenever I wanted to do art she saw the mess before the fun, when cookery was mentioned so was the time it would take to clear up, not the delicious food that might emerge.  

If I am honest, I have known this about myself for a long time, but over the last few months, events have conspired to turn a very high voltage flashlight into the recesses of my life.  A move abroad from a leafy village in Essex to the noise and chaos of Cairo has stripped away many of the props I relied on to get through the day carrying my burden of insecurities and anxieties.  Over a long summer we packed up much of our life and distributed it around the country into storage, the attics of forgiving friends and the houses of family.  We said goodbye to all the network of friends, family and institutions on which our lives had been based.

Suddenly, I found myself living in Cairo, feeling very cut off from everything and trying to make sense of it all.  Its tough getting through each day without feeling a homesickness which works away like a physical pain.  I found myself wanting to ring my wonderful group of friends to bemoan my lot and share the pain and did so many times. They were supportive and kind, tolerant and caring, and for a moment I would feel better.  But then something would happen and down I would go again, taking my family down with me.

About a week ago an email arrived from a friend which fell securely in the category of tough love.  It told me to put up or shut up, to try and see the positive in things, before I destroyed my family life and my marriage.   Combined with the continued support of all my friends I realised what an utter drag I had become and what that must be doing to those around me.

An so I made a resolution  - for one year I would try and live positively.  I don't see this as grand gesture stuff, but rather as small steps taken one at a time.  Each day I will write five positive things in a blog and chart my progress to a happier more adventurous self.  Each morning I will wake up and say to myself , today I chose to be positive.  I know that many times I will fail but for 365 days from today I will try and pull the joy to the front and push the sadness to the back.  

So here we go, ....... Five small positive things for today

•  

1. • woke from a gloriously deep sleep feeling refreshed
2. • talked on the phone with some of the most wonderful friends in the world
3. • saw a beautiful hibiscus flower beginning to bloom
4. • made the first batch of pancakes using buffalo milk which tasted good
5. • had a unexpectedly delicious lunch in a small hidden cafe

So its a start.  Welcome to my newly positive life, living in one of the most challenging, or should that be exciting, cities in the world.  

Persephone in Cairo