Wednesday 19 September 2018

Unanswered Prayer - an unpoetic poem

An answered prayer that brought light in the darkness;
the immeasurable hope brought by the whitest dove,
the naive optimism of a person who's never been hurt before.

Blindfolded by anxiety, worries and routine;
given the gift of a breathing compass,
a guide to show the way to reconnect with my faith.

My knees became weak and strength to stand was running dry;
you picked me up and carried me on your shoulders,
or a firemans lift around your waist.

Too much time spent believing in a clown wearing a mask;
with a faith that was unfaithful,
and intentions that were impure.

An attack with a double-bladed sword;
and a victim who froze.
An attack with a double-bladed sword;
and a victim who froze.
An attack with a double-bladed sword;
and a victim who froze.

Bound to secrecy.
I owed it to you.
You saved me.

An attack with a double-bladed sword;
and a victim survivor with the strength to fight.

You didn't save me, He saved me.
I don't owe it to you, you owe it to Him.
I am not bound to secrecy anymore.

Not an answered prayer, just pain, hurt and broken trust;
disguised as answered prayer,
an unanswered prayer left reserved for a better answer.

Wednesday 18 July 2018

Strength

I used to think that strength was something largely physical; the ability to push harder, throw further, or lift heavier. Strength was the voice that told me to carry on at the end of a run for one mile more. Just one mile. That would inevitably turn into two. Into four. Into eight. Strength whilst enduring difficult situations was the ability to build an invisible wall, brick by brick, to prevent the problems from leaking out and into anyone else's lives. When hope and faith were limited, and dreams and ambitions felt unreachable, I believed strength was what taught me to move on quickly. After all, I wasn't worthy of these dreams anyway, was I?

There wasn't a definitive day that my perspective switched but, if there had been, it wouldn't have been all that long aygo. Things don't happen overnight. My change in perspective was not like the flick of a switch; it was a series of events carved carefully into my story. A collection of people, lifelong friends, who each helped me to learn more about myself through meaningful relationships. Forever indebted by the strength they helped me find, but forever knowing that strength is built in two directions, but individual ways.

I learnt that strength is letting people close enough to help you when you're struggling, and supporting those around you when they need it too. It is allowing yourself to feel emotions that are difficult to feel, and accepting the truth that these are part of everyone's life in one way or another. Strength is found in trusting the path you are on, in not abandoning dreams at the first mound of adversity and through re-shaping your path with new factors in your life. 

Shockingly enough, strength was never the voice that dragged me through the extra miles. Or the voice that told me I would be worthless if I didn't spend an extra hour in the gym. It was the voice that told me to stop midway through a run as I reach the top of a hill - stop and appreciate the view. It's a measure of how well we handle the challenges that life throws at us. It's smiling through the chaos, knowing that it's taking you on the journey that you are meant to be on. 

Strength never was unspeakable pain, isolation and loneliness. It is found with time and answered prayers; the opportunity to rebuild something that never really had been destroyed

Keep smiling,
Kathryn x

Sunday 24 June 2018

Calm in the Chaos

Nature tends towards chaos; the enigma of natural entropy. But my mind tends towards order and I'm confused, conflicted and torn.

Birds don't sit in neat rows, sorted alphabetically by surname; they're randomly scattered like raindrops dancing on a puddle. Trees don't grow to identical heights, their creativity isn't diminished or limited by human motives, like the bricks carefully formed into a castle wall. Both behold beauty, yet one demonstrating nature's desire to remain chaotic, the other representing the human desire to override it.

Nature tends towards chaos, but my mind tends towards order. Numbered lists, hours of work completed tallied with lines of equal length. Everything counted and continued until the nimbers round evenly. Pages read, hours of sleep, pieces of pasta eaten.

My mind tends towards order, but I'm learning to see the beauty in nature's disorder. And my mind shifts slightly more in line with natural entropy. And I am learning to appreciate the calm within the chaos

Keep smiling,
Kathryn x

Saturday 5 May 2018

Hope

Sat with my notes scattered slightly carelessly across the table top; my laptop open, teasing me with the blank screen. I know that I'm supposed to be good at this, and I am, in theory. But that clinical-white blank page brings a cripling fear of making a mistake, and I freeze.

My mind wanders to a far-away place, a mountainside and all the freedom it brings. The colourful landscapes and the harmonies of nature. The sky is blue and clear, poles apart from my current state of mind. And then I remember. I remember that the world is so much bigger than this assignment. The world is so much bigger than me. Than university. Than education. The world is a beautiful page in someone's sketchbook, a narrative etched carefully onto a canvas of air.

I can see this beauty, but I can't feel it; it's like my veersion of real and everyone else's version of real are identical copies of the same page. Except they're carved in to a different secion of air and they never can quite align. I'm here, but I'm not actually here. I know I will be, it's just going to take time.

Still frozen. Eyes glued to the screen. Scared to write the first words. Scared of making the first mistake. Because once there's one mistake, what if it leaks mistake and wrongness into the rest of the words? What if they become contaminated by mistakes, plagued by fear?

An irrational fear of failure that, ironically, is more likely to lead to failure. But once recognised as such becomes even more infuriatingly difficult to control. I wish I could call it something more poetic, but it's not procrastination or perfectionism. I don't want everything to be perfect, I just fear the opposite too much to let the quirky imperfections shine through. An element of a proocess taking shape, a process that sometimes can't happen at all.

Still frozen. But someone hands me a lighted match, and lights an internal candle. A spark of hope; the power to thaw that panic. Someone hands a lighted match, and I realise that someone came from within me.


Keep smiling,
Kathryn

Sunday 1 April 2018

Appreciating the small things



I woke up to the sun-light blazing through my bright orange curtains. They were ready to be peeled right open to display the wonder of the world outside. I don’t know how twelve hours and a change of the clock seem to make the world of difference. Maybe it’s all in my head, some sort of placebo effect, but I swear waking up this morning was like waking up somewhere new. The grass seemed just that little bit greener, the birds in my back garden just a little bit happier. And with all of that, so was I. 


My day was more productive, to-do lists completed in record time and even time for a break in the middle. And knowing that I could go out for a bike ride at 6 o’clock on all of my favourite public footpaths, through fields after fields of greenery and wildlife, without worry about whether it would be light enough led to more productivity. The bike ride gave me the opportunity to appreciate my surroundings more and more, in a cycle of positivity that I’m determined to seize.

So even if it is a placebo effect, I’m always appreciative of our crazy little thing we do with the clocks to signify the start of summer. In a world consumed by technology, where the common lifestyle involves rushing from one place straight to the next, it’s so easy to let the little things in life pass us by. It’s not often we take time to appreciate the way the sun bounces off a lake that casts a warm glow everywhere, or the stranger in the street that smiles at us as we pass, but it’s something I’m trying to do more and more.



Keep smiling,
Kathryn x