You're going to have to bare with me here because I have a lot of things to explain and explore within this exert of creative writing. You may get confused as it goes further along, but here's a piece of me. Honestly and openly.
I was already ill before I left for a new chapter, I've battled with things for longer than I remember now, but I have a burning fire within me that constantly yearns to explore and confront my demons. I relish in the war within me, I would say that I willingly submit to my darkness. There are benefits to this, I'm highly empathetic, and nurturing to those who I become in contact with. "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." Khalil Gibran. My capacity for happiness is vast, and so comes the balance between my enticing darkness and ever flowing light love within me. The conflict between this is what wears me down, like tides of an ocean that ceases to rest gently. there are days storms are nearby and I can barely lift my chin, there are days where I can breathe and be. I arrived in Portugal at the end off May, ready to surrender myself to the needs of my grandparents, I was fed up of my self contorted reality where my thoughts led my feet. I needed to do something for someone else, something loving, rewarding and what better than with the two people I admire most, in a country so infallibly beautiful it never forgets to steal a bit of my heart every time I leave.
I had decided to also go sober, and smoke free, my support system was pulled from under my feet, my partner and friends were not there to emotionally hold me. I had to focus on being strong to help my grandparents, and suppressed and compressed as much as I could to do what I thought was, coping. I submerged myself in tasks for my grandparents pushing my body further than necessary to drown myself. At first I could barely eat, everything was a gravel cement mix in my mouth, but I pushed through. i had to, all I know is being the person they know. Helpful, Smiley and positive, never afraid to give up. I was afraid of giving up, and my drive kept me going. I enjoyed the times where I had energy to focus of personal tasks like writing poetry or pressing wild flowers. the variety of flowers that just grow on the roadside is magnificent. The nature around me comforted me a great deal. It cushioned the harsh reality of the city I usually inhabited. I was constantly in awe at how the rest of the world was suffering, and yet the beauty is so suffocatingly sweet and shrouded all my vision.
I couldn't comprehend why I wasn't sleeping well, I was bombarded with intense visual dreams, horrifying thoughts, I was dying, inside out. I fell down a hole that I knew I had been in before, for some reason that made it worse. I began to get very physically ill, spending half of the day in bed or laying down because I was in so much pain, IBS had come for some fights that I was too weak to win. The more I tried to understand the more I got lost and felt alone. I turned to literature. Terry Pratchett caught me by my arms in the evenings and cradled me with his novel 'The Nation'. I began to come inspired to write, I pursued my diary, daily, something I usually find very difficult to be honest in, as fear of others prying, but after all I was alone, I was safe to express myself. I filled a book with poetry before I knew it, it was dark, and cold, immature and sloppy. But I had done something, and time had passed, and I hadn't died yet, I was reminded of the beautiful knowledge that everything is temporary. My partner and our best friend would be arriving in a few weeks, and I felt like I could hold my own till they were here.
Things got easier after they arrived, we played music together, drank wine and gin, we grew weed and smoked our own crops. We busked in the streets of cities and made friends with local Portuguese. I spent time with my family, I stopped writing my diary, it felt to dark in there, and I began taking each day with a fresher mind. The pains I had been experiencing eased, and although fatigue started to become a daily battle in itself, I felt motivated again. We went to a festival and a museum all about codfish, a reggae DJ set within an ex-convent, a man travelling the world to tidy it up along the way from Chile played his pan flute with us around a fire. there was beauty and love all around me, everywhere I looked. Nearing the end of my adventure I began to feel the claws of anxiety spread from my chest, to my stomach to my legs as I thought on and on what going back to the UK would entail for me, and whether I was ready or even strong enough to cope.
But I still pushed, I won't give up, I don't know who I am yet, but I know who I don't want to be, and so I keep walking. I return to the UK without a tear shed. This place has always been so important to me, and it will never stop being a part of my soul. I will always return, I will always keep learning and I must always remember that everything is temporary, there is such peace within that. As I look around and see the love between others, and the nature pushing and pushing, i know that I am safe.
QB x
[All photos taken by me in Portugal. Please ask for permission to use]
