Searching for an origin {fmf}

"Where are you from?"

I wondered how my son was going to answer this question when it was put to him by a stranger in a supermarket. I was busy choosing which oats to buy. The ones with environmentally friendly packaging, or budget friendly price?

The stranger tried to answer his own question based on my children's accents.

"England? New Zealand?"

His guesses sort of surprised me, but my son's answer surprised me more.

"THAILAND!"

Neither of his parents are Thai, and he doesn't live in Thailand. But, to be fair, he was born there. He was totally blank when the stranger started speaking Thai language to him though.

As a Third Culture Adult I find that question hard enough to answer myself, so it will be interesting to see what the next generation make of it.

I ended up choosing the oats in the tin that the kids like to use as a toy drum.

End of Five Minutes

After reading blogs like this one, about the culture gap between expat parents and their children I realised it would be useful to find out more. At the moment I'm reading some books about Third Culture Kids (TCKs). I don't know if my children fit exactly and exclusively into that category (and everyone is different anyway) but they are definitely at least one type of Cross Cultural Kid (CCK). Growing up in Cambodia with a Cambodian father, but an Australian mother.

My reading started back here with Between Worlds, but these are books I'm part way through at the moment:

Third Culture Kids: Growing up among worlds seems to be like the "Bible" of TCK literature. And the 3rd edition broadens out to include CCKs generally.
"...the authority on "TCKs"--children of expatriates, missionaries, military personnel and others who live and work abroad. With a significant part of their developmental years spent outside of their passport country, TCKs create their own, unique "third" cultures. 

Authors Pollock and Van Reken pioneered the TCK profile, which brought to light the emotional and psychologoical realities that come with the TCK journey, often resulting in feelings of rootlessness and grief but also an increased confidence and ability to interact with many cultures.... widens the net to discuss the experiences of CCKs, cross-cultural kids, who are immigrants, international adoptees or the children of biracial or bicultural parents." 

Misunderstood 
"Tanya has spent 13 years working with, and advocating for, Third Culture Kids (TCKs). Her research focuses on TCKs born after 1985 – those who grew up in the internet age. If this topic is new to you (or even if it isn’t!) a good place to begin exploring is Tanya’s explanation of what “Third Culture” is and why it matters to expat children"

Finding Home is a collection of stories from different people about their experience of growing up outside their passport country.

"Who are Third Culture Kids? What makes their experience of identity, home, belonging, travel, trauma, school unique? And yet, what connects them together, across the globe?

How can parents and educators and friends support the TCKs we know and love as they walk through issues as diverse as transitioning to university in their passport country, where they may never have lived, to how to navigate being ethnically of one country but belonging to a family from a different country through adoption while living in still another country?"

Linking up with Five Minute Friday... a one-word prompt every week, and you have the opportunity to free write for five minutes flat on that one word, then join the link-up...the word: SEARCH

Photo credit: multiple places on the internet 

Just do the next thing. Our steps towards home-school. {fmf}

It started as a financial issue. A few years ago we realised would probably need to home-school our children. I met with people, read blogs, started to learn about it. We discovered we had more reasons than just financial to home-school. It seemed like a great idea but still totally scary and overwhelming.

Leading up to when the kids finished at preschool was stressful. But then just at the right time we realised the reasons we had enrolled the kids in preschool weren't needs anymore.

I was wondering what kids books and toys and educational activities I should be looking to buy, and where to get them and how to pay for them? But then just at the right time, a friend was moving back to America. She has a child a bit older than ours, and we ended up with soooo many kids books, puzzles, stationary etc.

And what about friends? Preschool had been our whole social life for a couple of years. Now we wouldn't have that anymore and we were moving out of town. But then just at the right time a homeschooling expat family moved out of town too! And a few more moved to town from elsewhere, and a couple of families started homeschooling.

End of 5 min.

After that came a few months of getting used to being at home together, they call it deschooling. It was uncomfortable. Next both Soeun and I became a bit unwell. A few months we were both extra tired, but just at the right time the kids seemed to start playing together more, and getting more involved in their own creations. And then just as the school year in Aus started the kids and I both seemed ready to start some letters and numbers work some mornings a week.

Linking up with Five Minute Friday, for JUST
.. a one-word prompt every week, and you have the opportunity to free write for five minutes flat on that one word, then join the link-up...word prompt:

Not really sure {fmf}

"At its best, I think all the arts allow us to tell ourselves our own story. The canvas or the page or the theater is always willing, always open to receive, and to mirror back, that which needs to be said. It's a gesture from the inner world to the outer one. In a way, we let a thing be true when we express it in creative form. In telling ourselves a story, we give shape to something real. In sharing what we create, we give others a chance to enter our world, if even just for a moment."

Megan Devine 

The Unexpected Practice That Helped Me Cope With Grief — When Nothing Else Could

My husband was dizzy. 

For two years. 

For no reason.

That was over 5 years ago.

But now things are manageable. So I wasn't really sure why it felt so good to write about The Dizzy Monster in my spouse for My Migraine Brain a few years ago, or if it was a good thing to be doing. But the other week when I read this Megan Devine article I felt confident about it. Writing about grief is "a gesture from the inner world to the outer one".

"Tell the story until you don't need to tell it anymore" came up in a Facebook group last month. I think in relation to trauma recovery.  This made sense of what had been going on for me recently. Life has settled down now, no major changes or stressful things, but my recent blogging includes a dark blindfolded photo. I was unsure why something like that felt so good, but now I'm thinking of blogging as post counselling therapy.  I'm feeling confident that it is a useful thing to be doing. 

End of 5 min.

The posts I was thinking of while writing this one:

7 ways invisible illness is like reverse culture shock 

(Or why I prefer scorpions stings to visiting my passport country)

Allowing Emotions in 3 things I learnt in 2018
Linked up with A Chronic Voice

5 ways living with undiagnosed illness in the family is stressful
Linked up with A Chronic Voice

Linking up with Five minute Friday

... a one-word prompt every week, and you have the opportunity to free write for five minutes flat on that one word, then join the link-up...The word this week is confident. 

Photo by Oli Dale on Unsplash  

From boredom to building {fmf}

"I'm bored"

I often hear this from our kids. It can be a torturous 20 minutes when the kids feel like they don't have anything to do.

But what happens next is amazing.

They build things.

Over the last 6 months we've had some indoor structures big enough to climb into. A house, a boat, a spaceship. Sometimes with multiple rooms and various windows and skylights.

We've also seen small things built such as rockets, planes and helicopters. These are usually made to just the right size to be held and flown around inside or outside.

The building materials include but not are limited to- furniture, suit cases, blankets, pillows, pegs, rubber bands, cracker boxes, oat tins, the old broken bread maker....

Sometimes the boredom hits when I'm in the middle of doing something. I'm always trying to decide if I should drop what I'm doing and play with them. To play or not to play? Either way somebody is going to be upset.  I've been trying to remember all these amazing creations, hopefully it will make the next time of boredom easier, at least for me.

Friday Five minute link up

... a one-word prompt every week, and you have the opportunity to free write for five minutes flat on that one word, then join the link-up...word prompt: BUILD

5 ways living with undiagnosed illness in the family is stressful

I couldn’t have articulated it at the time, it was too overwhelming. 

But now all these years later, and with the help of A Chronic Voice‘s  Link up prompts I’m able to explain some of the things that made the initial years of Soeun’s sickness so hard. I also want to share this with the Velvet Ashes community while the theme is "marriage".

My husband was consumed by an incapacitating, invisible, incurable disease. I didn't have any of the physical symptoms but it had a huge impact on me. 

The stressors listed here are about what it was like before we had a diagnosis; he is still sick but now but we are not in crisis. We have a name and a way to manage it.  Although some stressors are still part of our life this list is mostly in past tense. 

I’m thankful for chronic illness websites and counselling that helped me identity these stressors , I hope this list can help you and your family too.

Prompts this month: Adjusting. Hoping. Surviving. Befriending. Awakening

 1. Adjusting to unexpected change

We didn’t know we were adjusting to a new normal. It only dawned on us years later. We weren’t given a warning or time to prepare. It took us by surprise. And even after the symptoms started we kept making plans, thinking that he would get better soon. It was always about waiting to see the next doctor to work out what was wrong and how to cure it.

2. Hoping in vain for health

I was always eager to see what was around the next corner. What would the next doctor say? What would the next test results reveal?  Always hoping there will be answers or something new to try.  It was horrible seeing Soeun in pain for so long, I kept hoping it would end. Surely he will be healthy in a few weeks’ time? The frustration of watching him in pain and not knowing why motivated me to keep waiting to see that next doctor, or try that lifestyle change.

 3. Surviving without him

“When will my husband get better?” morphed into “Will he ever get better?” and we just had to live day by day.

A heavy pile of symptoms had swallowed him up. It was hard to imagine him ever coming back to life. Physically present, with all normal test results, looking healthy- but it felt like he was absent. I missed the person he was before he got sick.

Without Soeun daily stressors were harder to cope with; I was used to talking to him about everything. Happy experiences also became hard to deal with as I had been used to sharing everything with him. I discovered it was hard to enjoy anything if Soeun couldn’t enjoy it too. I didn’t know how to function without him, or even how to articulate that’s what was happening. And it felt selfish to focus on my own pain when I wasn’t even the sick one.

Living with uncertainty. Not knowing why he had gone, or having medical acknowledgement that something was wrong, not having a treatment plan, not knowing if he would come back to life or if he would be like this forever? Or would he actually die? Just surviving.

4.  Befriending and social isolation

We had just moved to a new community when the symptoms hit.  People started befriending us...well trying to anyway. When we were invited to events it became to frustrating and disappointing. We would say “yes” to an invitation but on the day Soeun would be sick so I would end up going by myself, or not going at all.

As a few one-offs that’s kind of OK, not so OK when it becomes the norm. I hated not being able to keep commitments, not being able to show people they are important to us by spending time with them.

It became easier not to make plans, and then we didn’t have the disappointment of breaking them.  So I came to dread invitations, but also dreaded that people would give up inviting us.  

The Chronic Traveller has a more poetic way to describe this- The Well of Despair.

5. Awakening and unsolicited medical advice.

I didn’t have a way to describe this at the time; it was a nameless struggle. When we shared our medical issues with people they tried to help- so why did that make me want to scream? I should be grateful for help.

It wasn’t until years later I came across websites such as The Mighty, Fruitful Today and My Migraine Brain and found others had the same struggle. The awakening was such a relief and I allowed myself to feel the bitterness that had confused me at the time. I was able to move on from delayed bitterness when I read words from a Christian teenager:

"I have to choose to respond graciously and not be bitter towards people for misunderstanding what I’m going through. They have never been chronically ill so they can’t possibly know how hard it is. Jesus has demonstrated so much grace toward me and He is teaching me to reflect Him in my relationships."

Ally, on Fruitful Today

This issue was described in a positive way recently by Erica on A Chronic Voice 7 ways to be a better friend to the chronically ill:

"2. Listen Without Trying to Provide a Solution

Sometimes I’m just frustrated and complaining. I’m not looking for you to fix the problem – I just want someone to listen. I’ve more than likely tried or heard the suggestions or advice you have to offer. Listen with an open mind and really hear what I have to say."

********

Its seems partners of the invisibly ill are likely to either end up with their own health problems too, or the relationships breaks down. I don't have any stats on that, just from the situations I've seen. When your partner keeps saying they are sick but the doctors say they are fine it looks like they are lazy and unwilling to pull their weight;  leaving may feel like the only option for some if this goes on over time.  I refer to Soeun's sickness as '"our sickness" which sometimes ends up being confusing, but its a mindset I find helpful.

Its only in recent years I've had counselors who listened first and found out the actual issue. My pain was seen, they used words like grief and trauma. At the time, all those years ago I didn't know how to explain it, and the only help I received didn't seem to have any positive impact. 

If its a choice between divorce and PTSD, I'm happy to take the trauma. But hopefully there is something in between. If you know someone in this situation it might help them to find ways to work out what is happening for them emotionally.  In last month's linkup I wrote about this under Allowing Emotion and posted some grief resources which might be helpful.

 Photo by Tony Rojas on Unsplash

Are you a big rice eater? {fmf}

Friday Five minute link up! 

... a one-word prompt every week, and you have the opportunity to free write for five minutes flat on that one word, then join the link-up...

"where"

Photo Credit 

It looked like such a small serving of rice, I had to laugh. Eating rice with my parents and siblings in Australia meant I had to ask for more.

It was such a confusing experience for me as when I'm in Cambodia with my in-laws they are always careful to serve me an extra small plate of rice.

I'm pretty sure I eat the same amount which ever place I'm in, but next to Cambodians I eat hardly any rice,  in contrast to Australians I'm used to a bigger serving of rice.

Its easy to talk about rice. Something obvious and tangible. There are so many other aspects of culture which are hidden below the surface. Out of sight, but they make up the bulk of the iceberg.

Depending on where you are, "normal" is different.  Its fun when you can see it and talk about it, like the rice. Not so fun when it unknowingly shapes communication.

So, am I a big rice eater? Well, depends on where I am.

Frozen sadness conveniently sums up my whole blog... {fmf}

Five Minute Friday Link up time! Word prompt: Convenient 

... a one-word prompt every week, and you have the opportunity to free write for five minutes flat on that one word, then join the link-up...

The Frozen Sadness of Ambiguous Loss is a blog post that conveniently ties together two of the main things I'm reading and writing about these days, so I was excited to read it yesterday.

Marilyn Gardner writes about her Adult Third Culture Kid life and as I've mentioned before (Between Seasons) I started reading her books and blogs to learn about Third Culture Kids (TCKs) but also found I related a lot as a third culture adult. Expat life in a cross cultural family is one of the things I read and write about most at the moment, and TCKs  are part of that. The losses of the TCK is what she was writing about here, but buried at the bottom of a paragraph I found this bit which I bolded:

"I move on and find out there are two types of ambiguous loss: One is that the person/place/family is physically absent, but psychologically present, in that they may reappear. This can be loss from divorce, moving, boarding school, migration. The other is that the person is physically present, but the core of who they are is absent. Examples of this are people with dementia or alzheimers." 

It reminded me of a post I wrote back in 2012 when my husband was sick. It was like when he was physically present he was actually absent (being absent feels like he is more present).  At the time I couldn't really explain to anyone how painful that was, and it felt like there was no reason why it would be painful. This unexplainable struggle is the other main thing I've been writing, the impact of chronic illness in the family, and here it is, mentioned in a post about TCKs.

"This is it!"I felt like yelling.

And I read on, the author had the same moment ..."At this point, it comes to me: this is it! "

*******

An example of my recent TCK thoughts:

6 reasons why my offspring's childhood is different to mine

An example of my recent thoughts about emotions related to chronic illness:

3 things I learnt in 2018

New! {Time capsule}

Just jotting down how life is now before it changes....

New! Baby chicks hatched while we were at church the Sunday before Christmas. Soeun got home first and was surprised to see them walking around the yard. And the family recently brought a second rooster from the province, so with the babies and new rooster its pretty noisy!

New! Since early December Soeun has been playing soccer weekly with a group of teenage boys from the neighbourhood.

New? Sundays have always been a juggle, we have tried lots of different combinations over the years in terms of local/expat church. Most of the time if feels like we can't be fully part of either. And this was all before kids and chronic illness joined the family. With the kids getting older we may need to adjust again...

New year... Soeun invited a few guys over to eat duck in the evening...20 people later and 5 more ducks....

New creations by the kids. They love building... the last half year we have had "spaceships", "houses", "boats", all big enough to climb into. This month the indoor preschool construction isn't one you climb inside. It's a carrier with some jet fighters etc, as well as some other boats. See photo. He took millions of these photos.

New perspectives on homeschooling. So I read about deschooling ages ago, and now looking back on the last half year it feels like the first few months with the kids at home were the hardest. They say not to do any school work at first, if you are taking your kids out of school, as getting used to being altogether at home needs to happen first. Feels like that how it worked out for us, not that we are doing any schooly type work yet anyway. Which makes me wonder how school families cope with school holidays! Kids would never be home long enough to get used to it?

New! Favourite song of the kids this month is Flawless by MercyMe.

“Mummy, you’re so tiresome.” {fmf}

Five Minute Friday Link up time... INFLUENCE 

... a one-word prompt every week, and you have the opportunity to free write for five minutes flat on that one word, then join the link-up...

“Mummy, you’re so tiresome.”

This made me laugh, we don’t use that word normally so it sounded strange coming out of his mouth. But I know where he got it from. I had been reading an Enid Blyton book to him, which he LOVED! I hadn’t expecting it to influence his speech like that though.

Which made me think- what do I read? How does it influence me? Over the last years I have mostly been reading this blog which I wrote about here: A Life Overseas, and books and blogs associated with it/similar to it. I guess it’s  fascinating to me as it’s written by and for other expats Christians living outside their passport countries and facing similar issues to me. 

So when one of the writers feels differently to me, it’s really noticeable. For example to day I was reading a blog by an American missionary (not on ALO, somewhere else I can’t remember) she mentioned how she can only get real rest when she is back in her own country, she can never truly rest in her host country. I feel very differently, at least so far/ in this stage of life. Visiting my passport country (Australia) is hard work, the prep, the being there, the recovering.  My best rest is in my host country (Cambodia).

And another noticeable time was when I was reading a book by an ATCK (adult third culture kids) and she mentions she likes travelling, like she needs to travel. That highlighted for me, I really don’t like travel at all. Our best holidays/vacations are at home, we only go away for things we need to.

8 lists of my expat life

Velvet Ashes is thinking about numbers this week.  

From reverse culture shock, to renting, moving house, bringing up cross cultural kids and English teaching- here are some lists of my expat life to date: 

6 ways  I can see my offspring's childhood is different to mine

6 lengths of time I've had to make a speedy but emotional investment in a home

7 ways reverse culture shock is like invisible illness 
See also 6 types of reverse culture shock incompetence 

5 things I like about living in Siem Reap

3 reasons for a cross cultural family to laugh at dinner time

10 things I hate about renting

3 ways parenting preschoolers is like teaching adults English

3 things I learnt in 2018

Better yet? {fmf}

Five Minute Friday link up time! 

This week the word is BETTER.

"Are you better?"

Soon after we got married I felt like my husband was lying to me. He was sick with a cold. At one point I asked him if he was better. He said yes. So the next day when he was still obviously sick I felt betrayed.

 "Hey, I thought you said you were better?"

It turned out he thought I was asking if he was better as in, not as bad as before. In his native language, Khmer there is a word "more good"/ "gooder". But I actually wanted to ask if he was completely healed already. We speak English and most of the time I forget he only learnt it as an adult.

We kept laughing about that misunderstanding and referring to it over the next few years. Little did we know it would feature in our conversations even more as in our 5th year of marriage he developed a chronic illness. The first 2 years he was debilitated and mostly not diagnosed. But these days we know how to live with it. We are enjoying out a new normal as we celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary.

He is never going to be completely sick-free until the Final Healing, but some days are not as bad than others. Better but not better.

Mixed reactions, mixed success. Baby steps toward zero waste.

She screamed out in horror when she saw me coming. Approaching the soy milk seller was amusing this morning. She was calling others for help as she doesn’t speak English. It’s not the first time I’ve scared someone with my white face.

I got a very different reaction from my regular sellers who work at the back of the market.

“Haven’t seen you for a long time! Where did you go?”

They usually see me a few times a week and they know I can speak a bit of Khmer so no need to be scared. Between eating foreign treats for Christmas (bought at the supermarket) and having Khmer relatives stay over New Year (so they did all the shopping and cooking) I hadn't been shopping for a couple of weeks.

Like the reaction of the sellers, my success at zero waste was also mixed. . As I wrote about here our rubbish is piling up:  Breaking up with plastic.

We have no garbage truck to whisk away our bread bags and milk cartons since we moved out of town. All our rubbish stays with us in one form or other.  If we can’t compost it, or send it out to be recycled we either burn it (breathing in the smoke), or bury it (so it becomes part of the soil that gives us our water and food). 

Horrifying! Is this a mini version of what’s happening on the whole planet? All the rubbish/trash has to go somewhere.

Success this morning included taking my own bag for vegetables and box for eggs. Now that the sellers are used to my weird habits it’s easy. Even though some of them need to use a bag to weigh the produce, they know to tip it into my cloth bag. And the egg lady has finally given up trying to give me a plastic bag.

This morning’s fail was buying chicken and beef while my meat boxes were at home with pork in them. You can see in the photo the sellers had to put the meat in the single use plastic bags. And I mean really single use, they often break before I even get home. Not like the supermarket bags which you can actually use many times. The ones from the market are too small and break too easily to ever really use for anything.

A new rule recently came in that we have to pay for supermarket bag; a step in the right direction. But there are only a handful of supermarkets in the major towns in Cambodia as far as I’m aware, and the majority of shopping is done at markets where vast amounts of really thin plastic bags are used.

I’m not sure whether to call buying soy milk a success or fail? I’ve been meaning to do it for a while. A few months ago a dog broke open our rubbish bag during the night and I spent the morning picking up the mess. It was really interesting to see what we throw out! One things is milk cartons and bottles. With no local dairy industry I don’t think I can go anywhere to refill reusables. But locals make soy milk. Maybe we should try to swap? There are some issues with that though but I was happy to finally take the flask and get it filled today. Baby steps in the right direction. Even if I did scare the soy milk seller!

3 things I learnt in 2018 {A Chronic Voice Linkup}

If I had a magic wand to make suffocated emotions, plastic waste and tiredness disappear I wouldn’t be writing this post.

On pondering 2018 with this month’s A Chronic Voice link up prompts I noticed 3 things I learnt that caused to me consider some new habits. It turns out all 3 of them involve toxins/nutrients cycling though a system.  So here they are:  In 2018 I learnt about the importance of Establishing,Breaking and Allowing. 

Establishing good eating habits

Disruptions to our family life came in the form of my fatigue and other symptoms. Over the last few months life for my chronically ill husband was forced even slower. Unconfirmed, but likely due to anaemia from me not absorbing enough iron. (At this point I can hear everyone getting ready to tell me to eat leafy greens and make sure I have Vit C with that.)

Although this isn’t new information for me, the importance of it was driven home last year, something so simple and obvious.  If I want to have energy to support my husband and look after our energetic, curious children I need to get the right nutrition. 

Breaking up with plastic

We have no garbage truck to whisk away our bread bags and milk cartons since we moved out of town. All our rubbish stays with us in one form or other.  If we can’t compost it, or send it out to be recycled we either burn it (breathing in the smoke), or bury it (so it becomes part of the soil that gives us our water and food). 

Horrifying! Is this a mini version of what’s happening on the whole planet? All the rubbish/trash has to go somewhere.

My parents were upcycling before the word was invented, so thinking about the environment and waste is not new. But if my yard and house are filling up with coffee packets and shampoo bottles I’m going to need to pay more attention to moving towards zero waste.

Allowing Emotions

A familiar sight caused me to double take while scrolling Facebook. It was a picture of the emotion chart my counsellor gave me that I didn’t know I needed.

Under it was written: “The 'Emotion Chart' My Therapist Gave Me That I Didn't Know I Needed”

The colour coded wheel starts with general emotions in the centre and fans out into more specific ones (see photo, credit unknown). It helps identify what you are feeling.

A long time ago in a country far, far away my husband was sick.  His illness was debilitating over a period of two years, but still mostly invisible to doctors and others. Soeun’s health is manageable now. That was a stressful season of life but we have been out of crisis for more than six years. We’re glad it’s over!

 Or is it?

Invisible emotions can spring from invisible illnesses. So much loss and grief at the time, but it wasn’t allowed or acknowledged.

The ubiquitous yard stick of health problems kept appearing “At least he doesn’t have cancer”.

Papering over the pain with thankfulness helped me get through each day.

When I tried to explain what was happening people reacted as if I had a paper cut on my finger when really it felt like my finger had been hacked off by a blunt axe.

It actually felt like my husband was gone and I didn’t know if he was ever coming back. (I’ve since been told losing a spouse is one of the most stressful life events.) But that was too huge to feel and also felt silly to say out loud as the doctors said he was fine, all his tests were normal.  And the doctor I went to see about my mental health also said I would be fine in a few months. Plus, Soeun was the one in pain, why was I complaining?

On the surface Soeun was just dizzy, and mostly without a diagnosis, medical tests ruled out all the diseases he didn’t have. And he’s pretty much fine now. So what’s the problem? When I’m explaining the circumstances I feel like there is no problem.

This is what I see out my window. Even in "winter".

Using the emotions chart revealed something unexpected. It was like the shock of opening the curtains and seeing the palm trees in tropical Cambodia covered in cold snow. When the counsellor asked me to check off which emotions I felt during that season it revealed huge losses and grief!  

Unseen losses mean they might be unexpressed for years and may need to be unravelled somewhere down the track.

Or as Sarah Schuster on The Mighty put it:

“Because of course, feelings you don’t feel don’t simply go away. They don’t seep into the ground never to return again. In fact, it’s more like the water cycle. Whatever the earth absorbs eventually comes back as rain. Except in this version of the water cycle, the more water that goes unused and unprocessed, the bigger the storm. Water you ignore comes back with fury, demanding your attention, raining big, angry drops on your head.”

So I don't have a magic wand to deal with the tiredness, trash and tears but potentially I could turn these into new year resolutions. I'm not willing to make such a commitment on the internet though, but it will be interesting to ready this again next January.   

******

Another article and video also helped me to keep thinking through "Allowing Emotions". Have a read & watch. It makes so much sense and was so eye opening for me.

The mistake I made with my grieving friend  on Huff Post.

And this video from Refuge in Grief , Megan Devine: