if you took away social events, regular sleep, sleeping past dawn, your silence, your me time, your cleaning time, your work time, your life admin time, holidays, weekends away, dinners at restaurants, brunches, walks, swims at the beach, a tidy house for longer 25 mins, unbroken walls, unbroken phones, eating together, seeing friends in normal places, seeing friends at their homes with your family, alone time with your partner, date nights, breakfasts together, running your dishwasher freely, listening to the radio in your own car, the freedom to walk without holding a hand in fear, car trips without screaming, hitting, kicking, banging glass, shoes flying at the windscreen… hair pulling. If you take away all those things, plus more, but for now, imagine those things… would you think you’d be ok for long? how long do you think?
a week, a month, a few months, maybe a year, even after a year wow that would start to get pretty hard, wow. what if i said nearly 8 years accumulatively building up from no sleep to less sleep from less social life to no social life from screaming in car driving to the fear of driving in the car. what if i said, how long is this possible, mentally and emotionally and physically to do? is there an answer? how do we go on and when we have nothing left in the tank? could you lose all those things, and more and for a long time to come? could you? what would make you feel better?
A Journey to Joy 