Thursday

I think i only know the day of the week because i am writing it at the top of these posts, i guess i've become slightly out of touch with the real world. I got a message from Weston earlier apologising again for all of this, even though none of this is his fault and doesnt really have anything to do with him at all i guess, although i can see why he may think so, the timing was coincidental. It was more of an explosive compaction of assuming everything would be okay if i could just make it to Christmas, everything would be alright once i got to Christmas, but then i felt the same at Christmas and after Christmas it was worse ... there wasn't any deadline anymore, just, realife. Perhaps you can look forward to something too much, but it wasn't that either, it was resting all happiness on that moment.
My mum took me to see Julia the counsellor on Tuesday, i don't know if it helped, she said grief has 5 stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I'm not sure if this is just bull or whether i actually haven't started to grieve at all because i haven't been through any of these, somehow i seem to be at depression now having skipped a few steps even though i thought i was at acceptance a long time ago, how can it have taken me this long to start to grieve??
This doesn't seem like a very nice thing to be writing on here but the whole point of this thing is to get this stuff out so i'm not thinking them anymore so if reading any of this makes you upset then stop reading,
i'm still in this 'nothings working yet' stage of things, because - nothings working yet, i'm taking the drugs as they suggested and doing this counselling thing and all that jazz but i don't feel any different, i'm not at uni anymore so i don't feel like i'm going to have a heart attack every 5 seconds but i feel exactly the same, i can't see an end to this, its like i'm in a tunnel and the tunnel is life and its completely dark and you used to be able to see what was going on ahead a bit but its totally black now and i'm just stumbling along not knowing what's going on, i lie in bed each night and wish that i was dead, life is actually too painful to cope with and the thought of the future is even worse. Most people say that taking these drugs help them feel better about things, more able to cope with life and stuff ... they may as well be vitamin c tablets because nothings happend. Something has to change soon, i can't live life feeling like this

Wednesday

I don't really understand what's happened to me lately, if my brain were a computer the only way to describe it to the computer tech would be "i was trying to multi task a bit and i think it overloaded and now its refusing to work" to which the computer tech would ask how many things i was trying to cope with at one time and i would have to answer "Oh not many, i had 42 things running in the background, and was working on these 11 documents whilst looking at these sites ... yes i guess i do have quite a few tabs open, would you call 92 a lot? Oh and norton was scanning ... maybe its a problem with norton?". So i guess its not surprising. I think i need somewhere to mentally splurge all of the things buzzing around in my head, i guess this works better than a diary because when people ask me whats going on i can direct them to here .... its a bit awkward handing someone a diary and saying "here, get yourself up to speed"
This is probably going to be very 'I' centered, which i hate but ... maybe thats what i need right now, stop worrying about everything else and focus on me.
I haven't slept in at least a week, i've actually lost count of the days, well, when i say i haven't slept, obviously i'd be dead if i hadn't actually slept in that long, i haven't had a good nights sleep i should say, i haven't felt well rested, and i haven't been able to relax, although i don't think i've been able to relax in a long time, i'm not even totally sure i know how to relax, that seems like quite a basic thing to be able to do, how did i not learn this when i was a child? Right between learning to talk and learning to read - these two events where actually quite close together for me, there is still debate about whether my sister who is 18 months younger than me may have helped teach me to talk.
I go to bed at between 10 and 11pm, i lay there thinking for an hour or two, then i drift into this turbulant uncomfortable state, i wake up every hour and move about a bit, my pillow has never travelled so much, before this i was dreaming a lot, horrible, terrifying dreams but i was dreaming, now i am now asleep long enough to dream, at 4am i start to feel too hot, theres no reason for this, the heating isn't on and its still winter but after that i don't sleep, i lay there with my eyes shut willing myself to but i don't.
All of this takes up quite a lot of energy, when day finally arrives i'm exhausted already, making myself walk downstairs is a marathon, yet everyone, including myself, thinks i'm lazy, i berate myself for only accomplishing walking downstairs and getting washed in a day but i don't know how i managed to do this all in twenty minutes in the past. I've watched the family of birds in the bush outside of the window for an hour now, i can't focus on it, my mind phases in and out.
In the middle of all of this my friends keep asking how i'm doing, i takes about a week for me to get back to them, i'm normally totally on top of stuff like that, its easier to push people away, its not something i can deal with right now, but not hearing from them would make me feel more lonely, i think i'm waiting for them to give up, like those little wind up cars that you push backwards and they go towards you, but you get to a point where you push them too far away and they don't come back anymore.

Skydiving

A couple of weekends ago i went to a place called AirKix, indoor skydiving, a huge wind tunnel where you fall into the wind and you fly. It was Awesome, really awesome. The awesomeness wasn't so much the flying though, although that was a lot of fun (although slightly terrifying!) It was how clear my mind felt whilst i was doing it, i've had this feeling before, where one moment you have all of the worries of the world on your mind and then you can only possibly think of this one thing you are doing and its like thats all your brain has room for. It really puts your priorities into perspective. It happened when dad was having the heart attack and i was doing CPR, I didn't panic like everybody else, i knew what i had to do and thats all i could focus on at that moment in time, the rest of the world narrowed into this sort of tunnel vision almost. It happens everytime i have an important exam (not quite so useful in a driving exam where you need to be aware of all of your surroundings!) the adrenaline is pumping and your mind is perfectly clear, only bringing to the forfront the information you actually need at that point in time, if somebody had asked me what the capital of Australia was during that moment i wouldn't have been able to answer you. Although being able to see the bigger picture is important sometimes so you can do the right thing at the right time, sometimes you just don't need to know it, you don't need to worry about things you can't change right now and its much more useful to you to focus on the things that you are doing right now. I guess things are like that with God, we don't know the bigger picture, he doesn't give us that insight because it would be just too overwhelming for us to cope with, we get the here and now to focus on.

How did you get here?

Last week JD said hi, we spoke about Liam and he asked if i ever felt like one conversation could push someone over the edge into atheism forever. I feel like this with every conversation i have, i truly believe most people around me are one push from the eternal void of atheism, never to return. God trusts us not to make that push though otherwise we wouldn't be having the conversation, He has prepared us for this situation in every step we have taken up until this point. I started wondering how He had affected things and was actually quite shocked at how much He had prepared me for where i am today. Hilary and I used to play this game 'if ..... hadnt happened who would i be now?' where one person names an event in the others life and you have to figure out what the wave of difference would have been as a result of this, this post is pretty much me playing this game with God.

I am a second child, (yes God was planning stuff before i was even born) as such from the moment i was born i looked up to my older sister and wanted to copy what she did, as i got older i wanted to prove myself and beat what she could do. Amy started gooing to Sunday School when she was around nine, I dont know why she started going, my parents didnt take her, maybe one of her friends invited her along. She kept going every week until she moved to university. The rest of us were jealous and wanted to go to, eventally our parents caved in and let us all go, i hated it and soon started begging my parents to let me stay at home. On Sunday mornings we had to go to church parade with the brownies, we sat in a dank dark thousand year old church in out little brownie uniforms and marched a flag up the aisle, sang hymns which mostly we just said 'blah blah' to and tried to stay awake so Brown Owl didnt give us a sharp poke in the ribs, our dad would pick us up from church and take us to Sunday school, my class was a combination of two school year groups, i was the youngest of the five kids in my class, everyone elses parents were part of the Salvation Army Corps, i really didnt feel like i fit in, i didnt know any of the things that these kids had been brought up doing, i'd never had to find a passage in the Bible before, i didnt know that it wasnt really appropriate to wear my mums 'Brown Ale' apron when we did our easter play, i gave up, they were, and are, nice people, but it wasnt designed to let outsiders in. God had opened my eyes to the concept of church but made me realise this wasnt really how it should be done. I had been told God existed, so i believed it, i had no reason to question it, my parents didnt tell me otherwise.

From this brief period onwards i had no connection to the church, i'd left Sunday school, brownies and Guides and so had Sundays free. In secondary school God introduced me to a girl names Susy, she is a Christian, the only Christian in our class, we thought she was wierd but she ended up taken me on as a friend, Susy has influenced the type of Christian i have become and taught me some lessons along the way.

When we were 14 we had to choose which GSCEs we would study for, its actually quite a life directing point when you think about it, choosing your direction of study at such a young age, i chose the subjects i was interested in and Sociology (because Amy had studied it). Sociology was oversubscirbed. They gave me Religious studies instead. I was crushed, i was horrible at RS. When i started the course the next year though we had a young enthusiastic teacher called Miss Gill, we started studying philosophy and she made it interesting, i was hooked, i aced the GSCE and started the A level course in the subject, we started learning about Plato and Aquinas and i started debating against my classmates (if you dont know me well enough, i am quite a shy person, last century i was a million times more so, i wouldnt say boo to a goose let alone argue with someone about philosophy) and strangely my views werent always against God. I started wondering about philosophy and praying, i didnt think it would make any difference but it wouldnt cost me anything. Studying about philosophical ideas, from all perspectives and about all the different religions really drew me closer to God, i really dont think i would have accepted Him if i hadnt, because i simply dont make that sort of decision if i dont know enough about it and dont know all the information available. Many people think teaching children about all religions as well as the scientific theories is wrong and Christian children should go to Christian schools were they are only taught the 'Truths' but i strongly disagree, why segregate the few Christian children away from those in need of saving, maybe it will strengthen their ideas, whilst making them ignorant of the rest of the world, but whose salvation has it cost?

The later God directions you are probably familar with so i will be quick, if Dad hadnt have died i would have been content with England, i wouldnt have studied abroad, i wouldnt have met Jon and i wouldnt have started going to Church again, i wouldnt be saved and i would be encouraging Liam towards atheism when we discuss God, which is quite often, he is very curious. I only had one moment where i felt the Sunday school confusion when i went to Church this time round, one of the first times i met Kami she asked, in the middle of prayer if i remember rightly, "were you brought up in the church?" Now i sort of understand the question now but i really wasnt sure what she meant at the time or what was the 'correct' answer. What does being brought up in the church mean? I nodded because i figured id been to church a few times when i was eight and she seemed disappointed, i later found out she wasnt brought up in the church, i went away thinking ' .... was i brought up in the church?' My parents have never believed in God and never came to church or imposed any kind of belief system on us but somehow i did end up there. So Kami, i think to better answer your question -

i wasnt brought up in the church but i was brought up in God, my Father made sure of that

My little miracle

I find it hard to trust God, no thats not true, i would trust Him completely of i knew for sure it was actually Him and not just me hoping things would go a certain way. But im starting to notice the difference when i see it. Heres my little miracle, proof that trusting in God, even when it seems ridiculous, is the best thing to do. Back in September i applied to become a csv, ive blogged about it before so i wont repeat myself, and was offered a placement in Luton, everything about it seemed fine but there was something inside me that was saying i had to turn i down, my head was saying it was a great thing to do and i seemed like a God thing - helping the needy, but something was wrong and although my head said it was just me being nervous of things i knew i wasnt that, i prayed a lot about it and asked God why i was too much of a wuss to go through with it, i asked others what they thought, and in the end i turned it down, expecting not to be offered another placement and not being able to give any reason why i had done so which would sound in the least bit sane, in a christian culture its easier to simply say "God isnt in this" but you sound like a fruit loop saying that here, people want a real reason. Well i did get offered another place and it felt right immediately, i knew i would love it even though the thought scared the hell out of me. This is where i am still, all of these months later, still loving every second, more than most of my friends say about their jobs. There was always this doubt in my mind that i had just chickened out the first time though, that God would have had great plans for me there too. Yesterday my housemates were talking about one of their friends, a csv too, at a placement in Luton, who has had such a hard time of it as are her housemates, she explained the situation and after asking a few confirmatory questions i realised that was my original placement, i realised how miserable i would be right now if i hadnt listened to God and how He always knows whats best for us. This morning (after starting work at 10pm last night im due to finish work at 10 pm this evening, getting only one and a half hours of broken sleep after getting nomes into bed at one and getting us both up for uni a couple of hours later) i walked into nomes' room, she peaked out of the covers with a look that said 'four hours sleep wasnt enough!' and gave me the kind of grin that makes everything worthwhile, i dont believe its possible to be sad when there is a grin this wonderful out there. So trust in Him because that is how great His best can be.

God's work

I'm so thankful that God has such a marvellous way of working everything out, especially when it seems like there is no way that it could possibly work out.

I got into Cardiff! i can't remember if i blogged before on the millions of reasons why i almost certainly wouldnt get offered a place but there were many, mainly because i fluffed up the interview and then it just seemed like everything was going against me and it was becoming less and less likely - for example they didnt recieve the reference that Naomi sent off for me and so a replacement one wasnt emailed back to the uni until 11.45pm on Monday night (the day of the deadline). I'd pretty much given up hope that they would even consider my application anymore and was wondering what on earth i'd do now. This may all seem a little dramatic if you consider that i applied to four other universities too but it wasn't until i sent off the applications that i actually crunched the numbers on how much all of this would cost and realised that i really couldnt afford to go to a university in England, there are differences with how the funding is set up and the basics of it are that to do a nursing degree in Wales you get a bursary to live off of that isnt calculated on how much you or your parents earn, if you do a nursing degree in England it is calculated on how much you earn to determine how much you would need to be able to survive. The diplomas in England are calculated in the same way as the welsh degree programmes but since the government are now saying in five years time all nurses will need to have the degree, it seems pointless entering the diploma programme just to be set back in years to come. Originally i assumed this small difference wouldnt make any difference to me, im 24 and at 25 you are counted as a mature student so finances would be calculated from my earnings anyway but of course it is calculated from the age you are when you start the course ... what is more ridiculous is a 'means tested' bursary would be calculated on my mums earnings, even though i have lived by my own means for the past four years, because three of these were at university apparently that doesnt count, you have to have lived for 36 months on your own means, apparently whilst at university i was living off of the government. This is a really ridiculous system because my mum hasnt been able to help support me for like five years, and even if she had i wouldnt have let her give me any money! I paid my own tuition fees and my own rent and used my scholarship money to support myself but the government doesnt take this into consideration, so 'means-tested' means calculating my mothers means from last year, which were higher than usual because she started working full time, and she was getting my dads pension to support Eliot, so basically i'd be classed as a middle range earning student that means the bursary wouldnt be enough to live off of because the government would expect my mum to help with things like rent.

Anyway long rant short this meant that if i went to one of the three English universities i had applied for i would have been too poor to afford food. This is why there was such a high volume of applications to welsh universities for the course and how there ended up being a short list of 900 people at the interview. Plus the fact that Cardiff is one of the best universities in the UK of course.

And of course the most wonderful thing about going there being that i'll be so close to the Elliotts, totally not the reason i chose the uni but a fantastic added bonus. God must have big plans for all of this if He is bringing this all together so nicely, i just can't imagine what they are.

And the other added bonus is that now i can go to Barry and Heathers wedding in September in Cyprus, i'd originally told my mum that i wouldnt be able to go because the uni start dates for english unis are too early but Cardiff starts a week after the wedding, i really dont know why i worry so much that things wont work out when its obvious that God has it all under control.

Now i guess the only things that need to get sorted are finding a car that is within my means (i.e. almost free) so i can drive to placements and wont have to live in the city centre and finding a place to live that isnt horrendously expensive and ideally not in the dorms (because coming home after a 24 hour shift to a student flat full of drunk flat mates who only have an hour of classes at 4pm the next day doesnt seem ideal) but how that is going to be possible when i dont know of any other students in Cardiff and cant afford to rent a place by myself is going to interesting to see how it all works out, but of course i know it will somehow.

Awesomeness!!

Money ....

Money is a worry, of course it is, i earn £74 a week and that has to last me, it would be shocking if it wasnt a worry i guess. I would very much like to be out of debt though, there are things i would really like to start saving for and putting money into but its just not really happening at the moment, as soon as i think im about sorted with it and know how its going and where its heading something comes up that puts me a million steps back. Its not depressing, its just something i need to be wary of.