I sit here in the quiet of the house mesmorized by how long it’s been since I sat in this chair. Behind me lies a myriad of boxes all junked on top of one another, a perfect metaphor for the last two months of my life. I feel like I want to cry and at the same time I am happy to be back – It’s been a while! How are you?

I’m good!

It’s taken a lot of determination and motivation to get myself back in the seat of my very own Ferrari that I call Alice In Weddingland and it’s a little nerve wracking to be honest. It’s like bumping into that old friend you’ve not seen in years, you know the one you had an argument with and never spoke to again – you stand, precariously giving away not much but being very over happy towards them in order to mask the discomfort you’re feeling inside. I’m a bit like that now. It’s like starting all over again yet picking up with such intimate, well known territory all at the same time. I’m sorry I’ve been away. Writing has been the last thing I’ve been able to do for the last two months. God knows I’ve tried so many times and failed.

I failed

The amount of blog posts I have piled up waiting to publish is ridiculously scary because it puts all that pressure back on me again but it’s like any part of our lives; if it were all an easy ride we’d get pretty darn bored pretty quick and it’s always here to challenge us right? 🙂 But I’m back! Writing! And it feels good at last; it hasn’t for so long. I have sat here many times in the last two months – frozen with fear.

Let me take you back a while…this is personal, and a little hard to write but I’m going to say it. Over the last two years of running Alice, I’ve heard from a lot of people one particular comment “bloggers all seem to have anxiety”. And you know what?! Me too! But it has very little to do with blogging itself, rather that creating a blog; being able to create a world of your own where you are completely surrounded by the things you are passionate about, is the most exclusive, personal cleanse you can ever experience. And for someone with anxiety, it’s our own slice of peace and calm in a anxious world. And although for the last year I’ve had anxiety it hadn’t really affected my life because I was lucky enough to control it – that was until January this year.

I should have seen the signs but when you’re a happy, positive, ‘glass is ‘always’ full’ kind of person, something like anxiety creeps up on you without you noticing it and when Robs Dad went into a home early this year, little did I know it would spark a chain of events that would drag me under my very own bridge, all wrapped up in a pink ribbon, and keep me there.

Hell and back again

I don’t want to drag you into the details, it really isn’t necessary but what I do want to speak up about is the ‘hell’ that severe anxiety creates. One minute I was plodding along whimsically living my life and then one day I woke up and boom! Literally, I couldn’t stop feeling shaky, fearful, sad and out of control. I was a mess. I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t cope with anything – cooking dinner and it failing was horrific enough for me.

It sounds ridiculous but one minute you mentally cope with extreme pressure without a hitch and then, you just melt. And the worst of it all was that all I craved was my baby girl to be beside me. She makes me so deliriously happy and so taking her to school every day was a hell I had to live. I hated leaving that gate and leaving her there – I craved my comfort, I craved being happy and all that made me happy was her! I really, REALLY was a mess.

And you know the hardest part of all of it? I couldn’t cope with being down, low, sad, grumpy, miserable – every day! It was not something I had ever experienced for a prolonged period and I hated myself for not being able to snap out of it. “I’m not miserable, I’m a happy person” I would sob to Rob. “I don’t know how to be ‘glass half empty yet I am sooo empty”. I had lost myself in the mess of trauma that was the last 15 years of my life starting with losing my Mum! It was time I started being honest with myself and stopped making every one else happy and become selfish! I had to make myself happy.

So, I started again. I was so determined to get out this hell because it’s AWEFUL! It really is awful! I felt so sorry for those people who had experienced severe anxiety for years, Id had it for months and was unmistakably a mess. It takes a hell of a lot of mental power to pull yourself out. But I had to..!

Finding my own inner silence

You see, I’ve started practicing something that I began 15 years ago. Something that took me to a place of calm. I am not a Buddhist but I whole heartedly believe in the power of ‘being’ in every moment of every day. That’s what I was missing. I was always fearful of the future and had my head stuck there – if only looking forward to a few hours from now and failing the dinner again – always in the future. I was missing in the present.

Now, I am feeling more in control, more capable, more determined and more at peace than I have in over two years. Even through the hell that has been our last two months, I am calmer than I have been and I try, tryyyy to ‘just be’. Looking back, I needed it – in fact I think somehow the world was letting me know, I had to sit back, learn to breath in this fast paced life and ‘see’. Don’t panic, I am not about to don a robe, shave my head (I am far too much of a girly girl for that) and abandon you and all that I’ve created over the last two years. it’s the opposite.

Why am I writing this? I have to be honest, it’s a pretty selfish reason – to cleanse my own thoughts, my own anxiety and my own fear of doing it and secretly to help anyone else out there who knows what I’m talking about.

Only a couple of weeks ago I came upstairs to start blogging and my fingers froze! I felt so guilty for not posting for what seemed like a century (but in reality was only 3 weeks) yet the pressure of ‘having’ to get something up was too great. I had to find my love for what I do again and find the passion that I had for weddings and all things stylishly creative again. I MISSED it so much! I missed the interaction with you guys. I dearly missed meeting all the incredible people working in the industry – instead, I felt alone, swimming in a sea of ‘must do’s’ instead of ‘want to’s’. I had to ‘be’ again!

The chair that is Alice

I have craved sitting in this chair and wanting to feel it mold into me for two months now but everytime I sat here to try and post – it felt wrong and I had to listen to that.

But now, I am cosy and settled 🙂 It feels wooooonderful!

So now my fingers delicately touch the keyboard in a celebration instead. A celebration of life being nurtured back into the blog and celebration that I have finally taken that iddy biddy step that seemed so damn hard to take. I no longer feel alone in a doorway. I am, right now, in this very moment and lapping it all up because I love my job. I really do!

Thank you for hanging around! Thank you for staying so loyal to ‘Alice’ and thank you for your inspiration.

Always with heart,

Zarn x

Zarn - Vow Renewal Doorway-1