Isn’t it strange how, when you find yourself in a difficult situation, the universe seemingly steps in and shows you the direction in which you need to go?

I discussed recently about the challenges that The Bloke and I have faced this year, particularly with the death of various family members and my mum being ill. We’re both tired and a bit stressed, we both struggle with depression and anxiety on occasion and both of us have found ourselves getting through the day on autopilot when things have got really tough. 

And yet, despite this, we’re probably the closest we’ve ever been. We’ve been together for what seems like forever and over the years we’ve been through difficult times, but what we have found is that most of those difficulties are things that are outside our relationship, rather than it being the dynamic between us as a couple, and because of this we have been able to tackle the more fraught moments as a team.

Over the last few weeks The Bloke has been on some much needed annual leave and once I had dealt with a few things we had started to decompress slightly – he had been able to catch up on some sleep, we went out for a lovely meal, saw a great show on Thursday night and he has been able to meet up with friends. We had started to make plans for a few things to look forward to next year, and both of us had started to feel a bit better. 

And then yesterday we received some news that has forced us to face a situation that we knew was inevitable, but have been quietly burying our heads in the sand and ignoring because of the enormity of it all. I won’t go into detail as yet – thankfully it is nothing to do with anybody’s health and wellbeing or employment situation – but after the last six months it was the last thing that we needed to deal with, and initially it floored us. 

After the shock of it wore off we were angry, not just at the situation that we had found ourselves in but angry at ourselves for allowing the situation to happen in the first place. We ranted, throwing angry statements around about what we wanted to do, expressed a thousand ‘woulda, shoulda, coulda’ regrets… 

…and then we calmed down. And talked. And had a little cry. And talked some more. 

And as we talked, the situation started to evolve from a seeming black hole into something much more positive. It doesn’t take away from the monumental task ahead of us that we are facing, but we were able to figure out a plan with an end goal that – as long as we are prepared to put the hard work in – will work. And it allowed us to examine our current situation with more gratitude than we would have done had it been a different day. 

Strangely, I woke up this morning feeling quite excited about it. I’m not entirely sure why, perhaps its because for the first time in quite a while I have a MASSIVE goal to work towards. And perhaps that’s what we needed – for the universe to force us to step up and take back control. 

Watch this space!