For most of June, I felt like I had a veil of sadness draped over me, there is no reason for this, I just felt sad.
I started the month with a short road trip with a friend to get a much-waited tattoo, now, I know that tattoos aren’t everyone’s cup of tea! This recent one has been thought about for a long time and I decided to go for 3 symbols that mean something to me & to act as a reminder when things get tough.
The purple symbol is Unalome – this is your journey to enlightenment, it is a reminder that our path from birth to death isn’t always a straight one, in the right direction or perfect, but full of twists and turns, challenges and lessons to learn and in the end, it’s a beautiful journey to be embraced.
The blue symbol in the middle is the international symbol of gratitude.
The green symbol at the top by my elbow has two meanings depending on the language you speak so either means inner strength or unconditional love.
For over a decade, I have wanted a watercolour tattoo as I love the beauty of them, they are still relatively new in terms of tattooing techniques, and I spent a long time looking for an artist who I felt had the skills to do it well and I found a lady down in Chippenham (hence the road trip). From start to finish she was amazing and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I did this for myself, however, I have had so many compliments about it.
The middle bit of the month is a bit of a blur, with the sadness hanging around I just had to crack on and put on a brave face, I was still in the throws of lecturing and also prepping for some workshops I was running in July so didn’t have the time to dwell on the feelings or search for answers as to why I was feeling like I was.
I know that I do get a period of sadness a week in my monthly cycle, this has become more pronounced over the last few years (putting it down to peri-menopause symptoms) but this was more prolonged and hit harder! When I did pause for a breath I found that tears came quickly and easily, generally, I let them flow knowing that they would stop and at some point, the reason for the sadness would become clear.
The end of the month finished on a high too, I spent the last couple of days of June in London. Late last year I decided I had had enough of not doing things as I was single so started to book events and activities for two people knowing (hoping) I would find someone to do the activity with me. One of the first things I booked was a silent disco at The Natural History Museum and I knew just the person who would come along with me!
Anyway with this in the diary, I was then invited to a 50th birthday party for an organisation I have worked with for the last 10 years and it just happily fell on the day before the disco! What perfect timing (thank you universe). Up until this party I had never met any of the people I had worked with, we do everything through email and the odd phone when it’s too hard to say something on email! I was pretty nervous about meeting the team, I probably speak to some of them more than I do my friends, but I didn’t need to be nervous at all as everyone was so lovely and very appreciative of the work I do for them which was lovely to hear! Everyone kept coming up to me saying – ah you’re Rachel GDA, Rachel Nutrition or Rachel Firecracker, funny how you stick in people’s brains!!
I spent the following day catching up on some work and then it was the silent disco, it was a bit of a late one for me as it didn’t start until 10pm (I’m usually in bed for 9pm) and we arrived just after 11pm and it was amazing, such a stunning venue and for 2 hours we danced our hearts out to the best party tunes and before we knew it, it was time to go home! I would definitely recommend it to anyone (Silent Disco – NHM). I admit the picture below is a bit rubbish but was so hard to get a good shot!! But the DJs were positioned on the central staircase and we danced under the massive dinosaur skeleton (EPIC)
And that was June, this rollercoaster of life really was up and down but…
Until next time, big love R xx
Lincolnshiregirl 