I’m back from a weeks holiday in Spain.

I sensed that I was in need of rest, as the date for our departure came near.

On our arrival I felt tired, uptight, edgy, anxious and this combination has been toxic within me in the past because I have not been able to to contain it.

This time, however, I let the fatigue run it’s course by sleeping and actually more importantly exercising – running every day along the beautiful coast and allowing the heat to overwhelm me, allowing my body to feel what it needed to feel in those precious few days.

I noticed that to feel any sense of unburdening, I have to be conscious first of the burden I carry.

It feels heavy.

It feels too heavy, and a weeks rest will not solve it or unravel it or put it right.

What I have tried to do throughout my married adult life is nothing short of heroic, but the flip side of that sentiment is an inner intensity of cowardice.

I have not been able to deal with my feelings in such a way that would have enabled me and those whom I love to break-free and come together under a new, richer, healthier more honest understanding.

I’ve tried so hard to keep things going, just as they are and I’ve invested everything into maintaining a public facade whilst inside the struggle although more clearly understood and accepted has never gone away.

And what my rest has brought me is a hard truth, which hurts, that it will never go away and I don’t know which way to turn, but I sense a turning is near.

What I need is space, and I am resolved to create this space in my everyday life because our lives are not a holiday, they are an occasional oasis where we can have time to think, time to be, a place from where we can resolve to make our next move.

My next blog will be: Sea-snakes

William Defoe