I must apologise before you start to read, but this is another rather introspective post from the bowels of my sad little mind, but if you’ll bear with me, you probably see light at the end of the tunnel…..*

Over the last few months (or years probably) I’ve developed IBS. Now for those of you who don’t know about it, or have it, or knows someone who has it, IBS is a rubbish condition generally brought on by evil stress that does weird things to your digestive system. You really don’t need to hear any more about it from me, as im sure if you are the kind of person who needs the yucky details you can look it up on the internets. But this isn’t actually about my IBS (or about any of my other medical issues I’ve sneaked into the conversation). Instead it’s about the stress. My stress.

Now lets just say until a couple of years ago I was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, deal-with-everything-life-throws-at-me kind of girl, someone for whom the concept of stress was as alien as ever being above 5 foot tall. Of course I worried about things (commitment, friends, whether how much was too much cake) and I spent as much time ranting to my friends / blogging about as any sane normal person.

I scoffed at stress. Stress like middle-age spread wasn’t ever going to get me. No sir-ee. In fact I thrived on pressure; I was lazy if I didn’t have enough to do, in fact if I had anything less than an in-tray/inbox running at less than 100% capacity I procrastinated so badly nothing gots done.

I was the ultimate had it all girl – long term man, big mortgage, demanding high-ish powered job, a large joint salary, potential kids and marriage, id even presented papers at 5 international conferences to people way more senior than me without blinking an eye. The ultimate had it all life.

There wouldn’t be any point in this post if nothing had changed.

At some point in the past few years I let the stress of it all get on top of me. I stalled, I stopped. Somewhere along the line I decided that I wasn’t good enough for my friends, my job, my family, my man. I just wasn’t good enough. And soon, like any self-fulfilling prophecy, it all came true, I lost everything apart from the job and even in that I lost ground over my colleagues. A self induced fall from grace. And I’ve been wondering whatever the hell happened ever since.

But, I sat myself down over the holidays (how American i’m becoming!) and gave myself a kick up the arse. I’ve decided to stop feeling sorry for how I treated myself a few years ago. I might be at rock bottom confidence wise right now, but there is only one way to go on this wheel of fortune.

So, 2009 is for me about building. I know I don’t want to reach those dizzy heights of having it all again. I don’t want to be screamingly loud, outgoing, or to be the centre of attention, but to find friends who like me for who I am, not who I think I should be. I don’t want to be a high flyer again, but I want to do my job well and with flair. I want to be able to get out of bed every morning with my IBS under control and energy to face the day.

And I’ve already started on a plan…

*as have the poo pun’s

Mwah

Kx