Not A Wine Post!
Some mental health talk and a soup recipe...
Hello friends, it has been a while. Coming to you live from that post-Christmas, pre-New Year void with the purpose of sharing something a little different with you this quiet evening. I am going to talk a bit about what I am currently occupied with, mentally.
It is a cold day on the way to mid-winter and I am sat at my Mother’s dining room table. We have made some more mince pies with left over shortcrust dough, completed a rather vexing puzzle in the shape of a Christmas pudding, and eaten one of the best soups I think I’ve ever made. Leftover heads of broccoli in your fridge watch out. We sipped on mulled wine, but I’ve not drank anything more than that warm mug of 5.5% sweetness in at least two! days (I’m sure I’ll be sharing an anniversary wine recap at some point).
It has been a strange descent into December and I will admit that as January nears, I feel more uncomfortable and unsettled than I have in months. I have done all of the things that I would normally do to occupy this little pause in time (ran away to the woods with my love, shared a meal with rarely seen friends and their smiling faces).
And yet, and yet, and yet.
There is a distinct and roiling feeling that I know not how to identify. My phone browser is filled with searches for a therapist, professional development and a new shower curtain.
Writing is a balm always, more often than not, in private scribbles and locked away manuscript drafts. Today, the poetry feels so far away, I’m so not sure on sharing.
So I appear to you here, somewhat a mirage.
I was supposed to arrive home 6 hours ago and yet when this morning came, I found myself in panic and shame, unable to step foot on the train.
Fear is no stranger and it has made its home in me like the cold.
In the New Year, I have so much planned for this blog, so much planned for life. Joy and blessings and all the enthusiasm that I generally offer to the world in buckets.
Not to detract from that then, not for a moment. But to briefly make the case that time and progress, as our journeying upon it, is not always as linear as we would like it to be.
Perhaps by sharing a moment of my own vulnerability then, I can offer a reminder of the strangeness in the ways we are all moving along.
Please note that a discussion of my experiences navigating mental health follows.
This time last year, a Doctor expressed to me that I was suffering with symptoms of PTSD. Now by the time I had actually taken action, gotten a referral and then sat on an NHS waiting list for for seven months, I had started to consider myself ‘better’.
I learnt to drive. We travelled to Kyrgyzstan. Summer came around and we moved down South. All the symptoms I had been plagued with over Winter faded, into warm sunsets and sparkling excitement about the next steps we were taking. Fears were conquered. The bad dreams dissipated, thoughts of terror and death with them. My complex anxieties, developed as a result of a blooded and painful brush with my own mortality, seemed to surrender as if they had never even existed. The scars on my stomach faded too, and the story became yet another anecdote: the ‘fallopian tube in a gift bag story’. It looks like dried up tea leaves. I worked so hard and became almost too busy to consider anything other than work at all.
There were murmurings of course, when I was challenged in other areas, we know hospitality can be unkind. For example, when my previous general manager began shouting abuse at me in an unprovoked fit of rage. Or when the culture of bullying and toxicity at that workplace got to be unbearable and I found myself walking away from a dream job that offered it all. And especially when I had an abortion this Autumn, and confronted so many reminders, both of fear and longing, head on. Even then, in each of these instances, I relished in the feeling of my own resilience and pushed to bounce back, the smile not dropping from my face for long.
Imagine my dismay then, when the dark returned, and with it my fears: irrational and angry.
I say this with deep recognition and honour of all the blessings I hold in my hands and so much knowledge of all the wonderful things that lie within and ahead.
In the way of unexpected and impactful trauma, I have become distracted and discontent. These days my thoughts wander off in every other direction but the one I am headed. I notice food only for it tasting bland and my senses being unbothered. I remain grateful and thankful. I resent my use of ‘I’ and how easily it slips from my mouth. My thoughts are not my own. Nobody knows.
The dreams are back. I go to work. I think about the ones gone from this world and write letters to them in my head. I laugh too loudly and struggle to make eye-contact so much. I can’t watch TV ‘cos the stress of it makes my whole body itch.
It goes on.
There is a near constant tug of war happening. One side shouts that ‘I should get over it,’ and ‘get a grip.’. The other murmurs that ‘There is no shame in feeling this way,’ that it is ‘okay to rest.’
On good days I know which side of the rope to grab with my own hands.
The prescriptions are simple, I know them by heart; to go outside and to move my body and to eat and sleep well.
I take lots of baths.
On bad days it is other people’s hands I grab.
I am working on it. Mostly with a smile on my face.
I try to read my books instead of picking up my phone. Challenge myself with new things to study and learn, like grape varieties and soil health. Dream up things to write about, like romances and redecorating.
I clean the house, and smile at the simple things, like sunlight or wind through leaves.
I am learning where my limits are.
I am working on being assertive.
I am asking for help.
Little by little, little by little, little by little.
Tomorrow I will get on the train.
This has been something far from what I usually post online, on this blog especially and perhaps a little too truthful. At this time of year when everything online feels a little distended and everything seems to be reminding you of how best to next reinvent yourself. I feel it is so important that these truths are spoken, and if we can help each other feel a little less alone? Then that is good I think.
So much love to you all!
I’ll see you in the next one, and we will be back to our regularly scheduled wine programming, including a new series!, some recommendations for wines on a budget and my favourite red wines of 2024!
Olivia
x
The Broccoli Soup Recipe
Some broccoli, stalk and all.
1-ish leek,
the celery that is all soft and limp in the bottom of your fridge
and 2 cloves of garlic.
Roast all the above in butter and black pepper (I had some bacon fat from breakfast so I used some of that). Once edges are crisping and leeks are soft, finely grate on lots of Parmesan and get back in the oven.
Left over bread chopped up in the oven with olive oil, salt & pepper for croutons.
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped. Boiled in a good amount of vegetable stock with a cup of milk added. When the potatoes are soft, add the roasted vegetables to the pot and blend with a touch more Parmesan. Stir in cream and more black pepper.
Serve with croutons, more Parmesan, and warm bread and butter.
I promise it’s really good.
‘Your mountain is waiting...’
Is what I think was written on the back of the wine bottle I drank two! days ago.
It is, I think, a Dr. Seuss quote, but it brought me across this, quite beautiful animated short film of the same name.
Anyway that’s me up a mountain in Kyrgyzstan in May.
I am ready for some more mountains I think, both metaphorical and literal...
