The Beauty in the Struggle (or What I Learned When Life Gave Me Lemons)
2020 was a beast of a year. It knocked me for six. It probably knocked you, too. This time last year, life seemed filled with questions and fear. I hoped we would be relieved from Lockdown V1.0 within a few weeks and it would be remembered as a sort of semi-apocalyptic, balmy, period in time when we got to hang out with our kids, bake bread, grow our own veg and take up running. I was wrong. It was part of a very long, very hard journey for me. But within these lockdowns and hardships, many people including myself, have had the opportunity to reset our values. We have gained priceless insight into our own flaws and maybe began to work out what we can do to improve our own lives, community, planet and future.
In my life up to this point I have been ‘lucky’ enough to experience some monumental mistakes, trials and ill fortune. Some of these struggles have felt utterly endless and difficult but on reflection I can see I’ve been lucky enough to be able to turn them into learnings and growth.
Let’s start with the job I got fired from at the end of the first week. Aged 21, fresh out of university I lost my position because I was “too soft, not cut out to do the job”. That was an awful experience and I drove home that day, filled with shame. I was going to have to tell my Fiancé, David that I had been sacked. I got home and hid under the blankets on my bed. Howling, with tears streaming down my face. David left me to ‘lick my wounds’ for a few hours, then he made me dinner and reassured me that my tender, caring heart… was not a weakness but a great strength. I spent the next day reflecting on David’s words, they restored my faith in myself and I got the first job that I applied for when I got home. My new boss taught me priceless skills in negotiation, record keeping and courage. He knew all about my experience of being fired from my first job and reassured me I was indeed not too soft. Maybe I could even be a little too scary!
My biggest challenge came when I was 23. I became pregnant with my first son, Alexander. At 22 weeks pregnant I experienced serious health problems that led me being admitted to hospital over ten times. I was eventually fitted with a Nephrostomy bag, which came out of my back attached to my kidney and over the course of 13 weeks, I had sepsis three times. I was overcome with feelings of shame, pain, fear and trauma. I desperately wanted to protect my baby, but I felt that I couldn’t even protect myself. My baby, Alex was eventually born prematurely, whilst I was under a general anestectic. He was a small, little baby, born in challenging circumstances who was whisked off to SCBU.
I’m by nature a very nervous woman and I try very hard to avoid situations out of my control so the lack of control and despair that David and I felt as Alex was whisked away to an incubator was unimaginable. But those early struggles of my health and a worryingly small baby, taught us many things: That lots of things that you think matter, actually don’t matter at all! That parenting isn’t really about nice toys and clothes but about loving your child, and ensuring that they know how loved they are. It’s about having fun your child rather than having a tidy house! And I learnt some things about myself, primarily that not everything in your life can be controlled. I learned to trust. Trust myself, trust my partner and trust that myself, Alex, and my subsequent second child Luca and I would continue to grow and recover at our own pace.
It was during my second pregnancy where I was so confused and desperate with the pain of my nephrostomy bag, that an addiction to prescribed pain killers began. This was perhaps the biggest trials I have experienced. There is a stigma and shame attached to addiction that made this struggle even more isolating. My medication, was always prescribed by a team of professionals who I am sure had my best interest at heart in assisting me to manage the pain. But I was an obliging and compliant patient and stayed that way until I realised how badly the medicine was affecting me. The process of dealing with my dependancy has taken over five years so far. I have fluttered between cycles of taking opiate pain killers and then withdrawing again. The withdrawals have made me question my life as when I am free of painkillers I am left in physical pain which consumes nearly half of my back. I wonder when I will be free of it? I just don’t know. But I do know that for myself and many others who are living with addiction, this struggle will probably last a lifetime. I developed such respect for people going through addiction and for their family too, who have to watch someone they love, change, struggle, juggle. relapse and repeat. I will continue to find way of navigating my pain and who knows maybe there will be a miracle and the daily pain will just vanish.
So back to COVID. To lockdown V2 or V3, these experiences as well as everything that I have been through have taught me to have compassion. They act as reminders to always try to to view each and every hardship endured as an opportunity to enrich myself.
I’m a stronger, kinder person for them. And that is an almighty reason to be cheerful.
Georgia Memon