As I said before, the first few weeks of this year were fantastic. That was, until this week. After a stressful few days, on Wednesday, I had a moment where the stress of work finally got too much, so was sent home from work during a meeting (after school, I might add). I got home to find that my flat had been burgled again (yep, second time in four months), returned to school the next day only to end up being violently sick in the middle of a lesson observation. I did run out of the room, highly unprofessional, but still highly embarrassing.
Like I said, it's funny how things happen all at once, and I can only hope that the old adage, "things happen in threes", turns out to be true. That was enough, thank you very much.
So, at times like this, when life starts to throw challenges at you, everyone has their own coping strategy. Some are decidedly more effective than others. My strategy is to sit and sulk for about 48 hours, have a good old cry and generally feel sorry for myself. This seems to get it out of my system, then I wake up on the third day ready to sort my life out. Now, I won't pretend this is an effective strategy, but it is how I have always coped. I have always had to sort myself out and I now remember why.
Because, as for relying on others...? No. So, what have I learnt this week? (Or, rather, what have I been reminded of this week?) If you want something done, you have to do it yourself. If you need help, tough, sort it out yourself. If you need some moral support, you will never be able to rely on anyone for that, not really, so again, just sort yourself out.
Some of my friends have been lovely, don't get me wrong, and I am truly grateful to those people, but, with one exception, they weren't the people I thought would be there. And, to be quite frank, they weren't the people who should have been there. When I've gotten upset, people have gotten annoyed with me. When I haven't wanted to go out, I have been told I've been awkward. When I said I was scared of my own flat, people told me "Ohhh, you'll be ok..." and laughed it off. When I cried, I was told I was wearing people down with my mood but, let's face it, I'm not actually like this a lot. I think I've cried in front of people three times In the last twelve months: Twice after being burgled and once when I lost my Grandad. I'm hardly a drama queen, I hate that about people and so I hate being made to feel like one when I occasionally let the mask slip and show that I am, actually, struggling.
It happens. Life is not always happy and, sometimes, people feel sad. Get over it.
So, in conclusion, other people suck and you can only truly rely on yourself. And a cup of tea. Because, let's face it, tea makes everything better.
