Can you believe it has been 10 months since my life was so unconceivably altered and everything I knew was snatched away from me? It’s incredible how time passes and you get through it all. I mean, this time one year ago, I had no idea what was to come…..

But, I am finally in a place where I want to be, the life I had craved for so long, I am finally building and I have a sense of freedom that is quite frankly, liberating.

It has been a roller coaster to get here (and I am sure there will still be some bumps), grief is not linear, I didn’t process my grief in the beginning, it comes in waves, something will hit me, and I’ll feel it all over again. We can’t all just deal with it in a neat little 4 week period and then tuck it away in a compartment never to be dealt with again. It’s healthy to work through your feelings, however long that takes, to feel everything, no matter how hard, as when you come through, you come through a better and more healed person, open to so much more that life has to offer.

I had got quite insular in my past life, and rigid and restrictive and right now it is nice to live without constraints. I have been having the best time lately, making new friends, socialising more, working on my holiday business (https://www.instagram.com/champagnetravellifestyle/), blogging, I have my full time job, my family, ‘Jump the Queue Guy’ and of course Ms Binky Zazzles. I would like to add the gym is in there somewhere but that seems to have not happened yet!

The newer friends are people I have known a long time but haven’t actually been ‘out’ with, it has been really lovely and I have been having a great time, plus there are the established friendships. It feels so good to be getting out there. I think I have laughed more in the last two weeks than I have for ages. I know I am dating, but I feel that when we are thrust into the single world, we should be on the hunt for friends not romantic partners!

It is still going well with Jump the Queue guy and now we can go out and about we have had a few dates which has been so good. Plus, I am super excited as we actually have a few days leave together next week, our schedules are opposite so we haven’t had a whole day off together for so long! We just laugh all the time, we talk all sorts of rubbish, but just have fun and oh my paws (as binky would say) it is good to have fun. He is also very emotionally supportive, he understands my need to grieve sometimes and empathises with that. He also has my back which means a lot. We are in a really great place, and can you believe it’s been 6 months, (I only went on Tinder through boredom and for an ego boost, not to have my waistline increase because he’s a top-notch chef 😉).

But my biggest epiphany I guess was the realisation that I have absolutely no pressure for anything. I am happy living alone, I love my house, I am financially independent and working to enhance that. I don’t need to stay in a mediocre relationship because it’s better than being alone, or it’s ‘last chance saloon’, I can hop, skip and jump away, knowing I had a great time. (It’s ok JTQG is safe for now 😉!)

So, life is definitely on the up, up, up and I am finally heading towards the life I had dreamt for myself. I have said this before, and I won’t lie, but if it will be a huge hurdle to climb, change isn’t easy, it won’t be a breeze and sometimes it feels easier to stay stuck – but get your boots out the mud and march on – it will eventually be worth it.

Up pops a Facebook ‘memory’ from one or two years ago. Picture of me in gym gear, or my apple watch stats, or some healthy plate of food with a caption – something along the lines of….’up at 5am, fasted cardio, great weights session, followed by healthy breakfast, all before 8am’. I would like to punch past me in the face and if you have felt a little like slapping smug Sherrill then I get it now!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be healthy, to work out, to have goals, but why did I need to plaster it everywhere (clearly to show how smug I was 😉) as it’s only coming back to bite me on the bum….

Right now, I am what I call, Feral Sherrill, as since living alone, I have almost gone the other way. I have lost my mojo and motivation for exercise, a healthy food regime and a semblance of routine. At first, I gave myself a break, time to enjoy the freedom, but it’s 6 months later and I am still living like a 25-year-old. I can’t be arsed to cook, I don’t want to get up early, I can’t face exercise….Some days I have a sandwich for dinner, some times a takeaway, every now and then I eat a vegetable. Every week I tell myself it is going to change and yet here we are.

I am of course ‘finding myself’ again, determining who I really am and who I want to be. I had got myself into a place of rigidity, strict routine and heaviness that I forgot life was also to be enjoyed. I mean just the fact I had no idea what ‘real food’ tasted like anymore, shows just how many years I had become accustomed to substitutes and really healthy food – chicken sausages and protein cheese anyone? (Jump the Queue Guy, unsurprisingly, refuses it).

I am slowly, slowly finding my balance and I am sure it will all come, lots of people feel they too have lost their mojo, this pandemic has so much to answer for. I will get back to the gym and will find a (less restrictive) routine and will eat more than one vegetable a week, but these things take time and I am trying not to be harsh on myself.

When I do eventually make it through to the slightly less feral side then I vow to not keep posting smug posts but just enjoy it without the need to tell everyone, I am hoping I will find that elusive ‘balance’ but for now I am going to make the most of being ‘Feral Sherrill’ because quite frankly it is fun!

Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t, I don’t think it is cut and dried. I think someone can be the love of your life but you’re not with them, for whatever reason.

A couple of years ago I went to the cinema to see ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ when it came out, in the film Freddie sang ‘Love of my Life’, I don’t recall having heard the song before then, but when I heard that sweet melody, it made me cry. It doesn’t take much to make me cry at the best of times, so a sentimental song is bound to set me off. (I cry at the Dumbo song, I told you, it takes very little 😉)

A couple of years later, I had the most harrowing of break ups (read my previous blogs for that intel!) and it was, naturally hard, there have been so many grieving processes. But a few weeks ago, I was feeling really low (this will eventually pass but there are a lot of lows I have to process but I do also get a lot of highs), my ex was over and it came up in convo that I had watched BOHO and the song ‘Love of my Life’ came on and set me off and he said ‘oh, yeah I get it’ (as in he got why that got me, which just made me sad again – why? Because after a decade you know a person).

And it made me think, can someone, not in your life, be the love of your life? Maybe you’re not right for each other anymore and it is right you are not together but can they always be the love of your  life? Or more importantly, can they have been a really important and special part of your life (not the love of) that can live on in your memories. If you are lucky, as I am, that person can remain in your life as someone special and you can carry those memories with you.

You need to know that you can go on to have other important and special relationships that mean something, be it fun, serious, romantic, a mix… You don’t have to define it, it just has to feel good and right in the moment. Just don’t try to fill a gap or a void, you know, your relationship ended, the house feels empty, so you get someone who can make you feel a little like you used to…. Don’t do that, it’s not healthy for either of you.

This is in no way a ‘I’m not over my ex’ post, far from it, it is knowing you can have this myriad of feelings, even 10 months down the line and it is ok, anything can trigger it, it has been a decade of togetherness that I need to process (alongside the total upheaval of my life as I knew it). If you are in a similar situation, know it is normal and ok.

I think the love of your life should be YOU (and in my case, my sister 😉). Don’t confuse utter fondness/love/desire for a soulmate. If you’ve got that, great, but you can have all those things with more than one person.

Make YOU the centre of your world, make YOU the love of your life, rely on YOU.