Sometimes in life we find ourselves standing on the edge of a cliff, sometimes we sit and dangle our feet off the edge, sometimes we feel we are going to fall and sometimes we stand on the precipice wondering if we should just jump, occasionally we feel like we've been pushed and we're spiraling through the air waiting to crash onto the ground below.

Today I fell off that cliff, you could call it a meltdown, an emotional breakdown, a mental health crash, whatever it is, it's not the most fun thing ever and I just didn't see it coming...

Except, I did, it's been waiting to happen since at least October, you see I found myself or I thought I had, I thought I could go back into the world, find someone, love would blossom and for the first time in my life I would have it all.  The truth is though that no one wants the broken girl, I'm so completely damaged the repair work is going to take a long time and it's probably going to cost a fortune, at least in the emotional sense.

You see, the thing is, we just don't know how broken we are until we try to begin again, I thought I was healed and at least whilst I was on my own I really believed it but as soon as I tried to date again, all of the patterns from my past life started to unravel.

I'm a crowd pleaser, I lack self-worth so I seek approval in others whilst lying to myself that I don't require validation, the truth is, I needed to find someone who would build me up, someone who would tell me every day that I'm a little bit special and I'm ok, one of my greatest goals in life is to enrich the lives of others in as much as I possibly can and I always hope that a little of that might come back to me.

I've cried today, more than I've cried for years, please don't think there were floodgates opened but I cried, I spoke to a therapist but they couldn't offer a treatment plan until they've spoken to colleagues about my previous mental health issues, yep, bipolar is a bitch!

There are good things in my life, I very much have control in many areas, the part I'm lacking is learning to love myself and see myself as someone who's good enough to be loved and until I fix that, as much as my heart is lonely and broken it's got to be a brave and supportive man who would even consider being with me, it's literally the biggest ask, maybe too big?

So, what happens now?  Well I get some therapy, I try to work through it, I need some new challenges and to be honest, a nice overseas assignment I could throw myself into would be lovely right now, in as much as I'd love to stop the world and climb off it for a while I'm not sure it's going to be possible.  I'm lucky I have good people around me, not lots of people but a few good people are all it takes and I have the best teens, we're a super team together and always have been.  I just wish life was a little simpler and I myself was easier to understand.  I'm brilliant in so many ways, photography, writing, being a mum, it's funny that I can see those bits, I just can't see the part where I deserve to be loved.

Sometimes you have to look back to move forwards

I'm a photographer, I've seen the world through glorious technicolour imagery every day of the last ten or so years, I never used to notice the minute changes in light, or the way shadows fell as the hours in the day drew on, or the way the world looks when the sun shines after the rain or the hours around sunset as the world turns warm and glowing followed by blues and blacks invading on the light that is left in the day.

As I sit here writing this, my only light, the screen and keyboard, it's the wee small hours of the day, it's not quite tomorrow but there's not a lot left of today, all that has gone we cannot change but the unknown awaits, the promise of a new day, a blank page, one more chance to start again.  Often these late hours are the ones I enjoy the most, the comfort of the darkness which befriends my solitude, I'm not sure when I started sleeping in the middle of my bed but the two years that went before this when I slept teetering on the edge as if I might fall off at any time, I guess a reflection of my life stage, my relationship and perhaps my soul.  I really did always sleep half on and half off the bed.

Whilst the first days of September seemed brutal and unkind I always think it's a great time for a new start, to draw a line through the past, there are anniversary's that I am promising myself this time that I will never mark again, it's not good for my soul or my mental health for their is the greatest joy in life right now, I feel ready for a new start and some new adventures and I want to push myself and my business to the next level, I want to take on some new challenges and celebrate the achievements I've already made.

I am in love with photography more than I have ever been and I truly adore writing and blogging, I feel I've finally found my voice through my personal work, both photography and blogging, I'm more honest than I ever have been and every time I share something I do it without fear of repercussion, I was talking tonight to one of my best friends about the boundaries of a personal life when I pretty much live publicly through my blog, I had worried that one day I might meet someone and they're going to find my blog and read my story but then if that happens, I have nothing to hide, I am who I am whether you meet me on the street or you read my tweets/blog/Facebook status.

Whilst I still have anxieties, social, emotional, personal, I know that I am more happy and confident in myself than I have been for a long time and certainly more than I was a couple of years ago, treading on egg shells is not a good state to live in and so thank you September, thank you for temporarily taking me back to relive some pain and anguish because without that I would't have been able to appreciate just how very far I've come.  Sometimes we have to look back to truly be able to move forward.

Onwards to the next chapter, a whole new adventure awaits...

Who do you want to be and how are you going to achieve that?

This week has been a wonder and a revelation dear reader, it's great to hear so many of you joining in with grabbing your life by the horns and roaring like a panther.  I've been roaring myself in the quieter moments.

You see it's great to help other people find themselves and I think it almost pushes me onwards to become the person I've always wanted to be.

Have you ever asked that very important question of yourself?  Who do you want to be and what are the actions you can take to be that person?

For me, I want to be self confident, honest, happy, lovable, someone who will be embraced and will be able to give as much love as I receive, I still want to be successful although my definitions of success may have changed ever so slightly and of course I want to continue to work towards being an experientialist.

So I know where I want to be, I know what I want to be and now I have to ask myself the questions of how I'll achieve that?  Well I suppose that goes back to my last blog about getting control of your life right now!

My biggest thing was to forgive myself and others so I did that in January, I've talked about this before and lets just take a minute to ponder it, a blanket of forgiveness for yourself and for anyone who has ever wronged you, look I'm not suggesting you go and knock on peoples doors and tell them, nor am I suggesting that you ever have to speak to people who've wronged you ever again but you just need to say it to yourself and to the universe and let it all go, the minute I did it I felt the biggest amount of relief, I actually felt it in my neck and in my shoulders, it was a big Ahhhh moment and I think it's the very first step to any life plan really.

You also need to know that it's ok to feel whatever emotion you are feeling, we spend so much time keeping emotions in and they are damaging, I learnt to keep emotions locked away quite some time ago and it's taken me so long to be able to release them again and I can't tell you just how good it feels to be able to just cry openly again, it still doesn't happen all that often but yesterday for example I had moments of happiness and sadness and I let myself feel those emotions as they occurred and I think I sleep much better at night because my brain isn't constantly in turmoil.

One final thing which is great to embrace is that it's ok to be the person you are, be honest and be forthright, if people can't handle that then it's definitely not your fault, you will end up in a situation where you have exactly the people you need in your life to help carry you forward and you in turn will help them in the same ways, you see we're all on a voyage of discovery, we're all trying to be the best people we can be and as long as we realise you only have to be good enough and not constantly strive for perfection then that is a very good thing.

So this weekend when you have a spare 5 minutes (It's my birthday on Sunday so I'm planning lots of spare minutes....which contain copious amounts of cake or Champagne) just ask yourself that very important question, who do you want to be? and if you aren't already there, and lets face it, we're all mostly on the journey towards it, people who have achieved it are definitely in the minority, so what are you going to do to make those changes and achieve your own personal state of nirvana?

In the wee small hours of the morning...

I woke up singing this today, ironically it was 5.30am dear reader!  I've always alternated between someone who could sleep for Britain and the ultimate insomniac.  I suppose that it's to be expected that the insomnia would creep up and get me at this juncture of my life.

I have some rules for life which I try to live by every day - 

1. Be as lovely as you can be every day
2. Be as positive as you can be every day
3. Do good deeds whenever possible 

and yesterday I decided to add number 4 to that list - Just try to do at least one thing every day to make my house lovelier.

I think it's good to set yourself targets to live by, obviously there are days which are tougher than the others but I guess that's all part of the challenges of life.

There is one good thing about the early mornings and the late nights, I write so well at the moment, I find that I get all of those jumbled thoughts out of my mind every morning and it leaves me ready to start the day with a clear head.

I've spoken this week about healing at the passage of time, although I haven't had a time where I have wept inconsolably there are definitely times when the tears come and sometimes by surprise.  I was talking to Paul yesterday about the future and those tears tumbled down my cheeks, salty tears of emotions collected over the years which at times were held back for fear that if I started to cry I may never have stopped.  We had some really difficult times but then we had the best of times too, and sometimes they were intertwined. 

I'm happy that I think we've achieved a strange kind of friendship again, especially at this early juncture but I think that's the thing which will ensure that our children come through this as unscathed as possible.  One thing I hadn't mentioned is that I now share my bedroom with Looby, where Abigail needs space, Looby needs her mum and so I now have in my bedroom, a Petunia, a Looby, 22 My Little Ponies, an original Cabbage Patch doll called Rupert Matlock Smythe and a very curious and slightly sinister china Welsh doll, I haven't asked what her name is!

My message today is that it's ok to cry and have emotions as long as they don't overwhelm all that you are, it's only when we get those emotions out there that we can really begin to heal.

I'm going to go into the office on Monday, I have to work, I can't stay home forever, I need to support myself and my children and that's not going to happen if I hide away in the corner of my room forever.  I'm lucky really that business is so successful that I'm full at weekends until the end of October!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, be kind to yourself and others and maybe do just one thing to make the surroundings in which you live just that little bit lovelier.