How Are You Doing?

Don’t ask someone ‘are you happy?’ instead, ask them ‘How are you doing?’

Then pause to give them space to feel it, to lean into how they feel before they respond. Here’s why I am sharing this.

When asked recently my response was ‘fabulous and falling apart!’.

I’ve spent the last six months living in such contrast, more passionate and more fulfilled than I have ever been in fifty one years of walking this earth.

Discovering the direct link between success and being me, the real me after over a decade of being wrongly told, even though well meant, that I needed to be a certain way, to be someone else in order to have success. That I needed to be the person other people wanted and needed me to be. I found this exhausting, When I decided to give up and play small, to just be little me in my little life and get on with it, everything started to shift.

That choice activated the bigger me and the bigger vision, a vision I had not even conceived. Getting comfortable with being me has been uncomfortably fabulous.

So why falling apart? I write to heal, I write to express my emotions, some of it gets shared, a lot of it does not so please be warned, what I share in this blog post may trigger you, but this is my way. So, those who have followed me or been part of my world for some time now will know that for the last two years, I have been watching someone I love slowly die. My dad. Slowly, gently I have been falling apart over the last few weeks as it became clear his journey is coming to an end. Those painful days, that we have known for two years would come are here.

Truth is I don’t know what day it is. Since Sunday I have lived in a two hour medication cycle, Taking care of my Dad here in my home. Day and night. With every two hours questioning whether this will be the last two hours I get to see my dad’s face, my dad’s eyes looking at me at 2am, 4a, 6am. Sitting in the silence of the night feeling the blessing of having this moment, no matter how tired I am. My body, my mind and emotions are drained and hurting right now but I know and appreciate that I may never get this moment again.

So yes, absolutely I am falling apart, unable to do the things that bring joy and love into my daily existence and instead choosing to give my all to the moment that I am in. Falling apart quietly, as I ensure everyone else in this picture is ok. Loving, caring, supporting and protecting my dad every step of the way. Falling into a new way of being as I face spending the rest of my days without my dad here.

We have had our time together, we have had the conversations I believe were needed to know that there is love in our hearts. The hardest and most emotional thing I have ever done in my life was have him hold my face in his hands as he talked to me but I am at peace. I know not everyone has the opportunity to have these moments. Now my role is to do everything in my power to have him pass in peace.

So I would like to ask you ‘how are you doing?’

I am writing this in the middle of the night, as a way of giving a voice to the emotions, my own raw emotions as a way of allowing myself the space to heal. I have spent time deciding whether to share this or not, but my thoughts are that if I can remind just one person, to be present in the moment that they are in, even if it feels cruel and unkind. That in all of the moments, there is something to see, hear, learn or understand, then maybe I have also helped them to be fabulously falling apart too.

Thank you to everyone for your kindness. Go where the love is.

I could not do this journey without the help of the Prospect Hospice. If you would like to make a donation, know it will be money well spent. You can click here to do that.