52 sunrises

So it is the start of new decade as well as a new year. No new year resolutions for me but daily intentions, yes. Resolutions are so hard when you don’t know from one day to another how you are going to be feeling. Intentions are much more manuable when you have a chronic condition(s) and I’m a believer of laying one brick at a time, not a wall.

I booked a house in my happy place over the new year for ten days. My girls choose my happy place as our new year destination as a kindred gesture of care and love to me. I booked a house separate to them as a management strategy as infection is such a considered factor with me these days, particularly this time of year. Not ideal I know but unfortunately necessary when there is a large group of people. I had been looking forwards to our time away together for so long.

Literally as I drove onto the drive way of the holiday house, I could feel my body changing, becoming stressed by something. I went to the restaurant to meet my friends, but was barely able to eat anything. I felt so poorly. I drove home to the holiday home that Saturday evening, alone and didn’t surface until the Monday morning when my girls came and checked up on me. They would have come sooner but they both had the sniffles so had been checking in on me via the phone. As a side effect of the serious meds I am on, I get migraines with extreme vomiting every now and again. I’m v poorly for 2-3 days.

I choose my house as it looked out onto the sea and as I laid in bed very poorly, I watched the sea, for hours. Water is my healing energy. As the darkness came I looked for the lighthouses to show their lights. They helped me through the difficult nights.

My migraine and vomiting were my arrival presents to my new year vacation. That in turn made my eyes play up and become extremely sore. I have recently developed blepharitis (a very sore condition of the eyes) due to another auto immune attack. It is times like this, when I am sick, in pain, alone and struggling that my inner strength really gets tested. Tears are often shed and those statements go through my head, as they do with everyone who is in a similar position as me… “This isn’t fair” and “Please give me a break from these repetitive traumas. I can’t take much more of this.” They don’t last for long, the negative thoughts, as I know it isn’t about fairness. Life is not fair. But when you are feeling so broken, weak and ill, and alone, thoughts like this are inevitable. I replace those thoughts with “Hang in there Claire. This will pass. It is what it is” and I ask for help from a greater force than me. After 18 hours of vomiting things start to ease. However, my eyes stay sore for days. The dehydration caused by the sickness means I spend the Monday in bed too, watching the sea. By the Tuesday I manage to do a short beach walk, but again alone as my girls are out doing a longer walk. It is New Years Eve and I am feeling very reflective and emotional. On the Wednesday I do a slightly longer walk with my friends but I am still not right. My time with my girls is not going how I wanted it to go, at all. By the Thursday I am struggling again. I rest. By the Friday I think I am up for a short bike ride with some of the gang. I am up to a bike ride, just a much shorter version of what I actually do. I eventually make it home, utterly broken and watch the sunset in the garden, in my arctic duvet jacket with a hot chocolate. I’m determined to stay outside as long as is possible. It’s a breath-taking sunset.

My girls leave to travel home. We are all gutted I have been so poorly this week. I have hardly seen them. I am staying for a few more days in my vacation home. That night I sleep the best I have all week. I am utterly and completely exhausted. I wake up slightly more energised. I drive to the beach and feel very restless but have a nice walk along the seashore. I feel the best I have all week but no one is there to share it with me.

Since 2011, my life has never gone as planned. My trip away was not how I had hoped. Despite all my planning and preparation, implementing my sensible management strategies, everything went a little off plan.

I have been very ill now for over 8 years. At times, for months on end, I have only existed, I have been so sick. I have been too ill to live. I am continually trying new ways to improve my holistic health and wellbeing in a hope that I can stabilise and control my body more effectively to enable me to live, not just exist. And I believe I am getting there, slowly and surely. I persist in trying to find a method that will allow me to live. Persistence is the key when you have a chronic condition(s), if you want to remove yourself from the burden of uncertainly and worries that we face and live life, not just exist. It is daily grind and persistence that builds our brighter futures.

As my stay away came to an end in my happy place, I had to really remind myself that this had just been an unfortunate experience and that the next adventure would undoubtedly be a lot better. Being with my girls, (or not being with my girls throughout the week as it has turned out) had emphasised how much I missed playing outside and having adventures and spending quality time with my girls.

Whilst in my vacation home, I had been watching the lighthouse on Lundy every night. On the Saturday evening, a week after I had first arrived and the best I had felt since arriving, I smiled with very fond memories of the time I and my friends had sea kayaked to Lundy, on a perfect flat calm sea, climbing gear in the boat and camped on the island for a couple of days. I thought of the traverse we did on an extremely dodgy bolt on the classic climb of the island, thinking I really hope neither of us falls on this. And then I thought of the paddle back, the deep troughs and severity of the swell and how I had looked like a giant ball of salt when we eventually made it back to Hartland Point, a broken woman. It was an epic paddle back, in total contrast to the paddle there. But that is life. We have smooth rides and we have epic rides. This week had been a bit like the paddle back to the mainland from Lundy…extremely hard work. I texted my friend and paddlesport mentor to thank him for all the adventurous opportunities he had provided to me over the years. I know I am a very lucky lady to have had so many rich (in reference to the quality of people) and happy adventures.

At 3.30am on the Sunday morning I woke up unable to go back to sleep so I went onto the met office website to look at the weather. The morning forecast was good. I thought I am so awake that a morning stroll was a good idea. I got up at 4.30am, had breakfast and chilled watching the lighthouse on Lundy again. And then the idea came to me. “Bring adventure back into your life Claire. You can at the moment. Remember, what you always tell the Muddy Care participants…when you change the way you look at things, things you look at change. You may not be able to paddle to Lundy anymore but you can still have adventures.” I packed my camera bag, made my flask and I drove to the beach. I walked through the dunes in compete darkness and sat there and waited. As the sun slowly started to shine through the clouds, the birds started to chirp and arrive at the beach. A new day had begun. I started to take photos of the show. And that’s when I told myself, “You need to do this every week Claire. It’s good for you. It will be good for others struggling too. “ And so 52 sunrises was born.

As I sat on the dunes that Sunday morning watching the sunrise, I decided that my new years intention is that every week I will take a photo of a sunrise at a special location. During some of those weeks my girls will be with me and I can already hear one of my girls complaining in the back of the car moaning about the ungodly time and lack of sleep we have had, and see the other loading her swim kit into the car hoping for a morning wild swim. I am the navigator leading us to the chosen location. This is how our morning adventures normally roll. Those thoughts made me smile. I then think I can watch a sunrise when I am away skiing. And other people I am sure will join me for my weekly sunrise adventure. Suddenly I am very excited about 52 sunrises. And hopefully my photos and weekly words will offer both some inspiration and comfort to those who cannot chase sunrises at this time due to their chronic conditions. I couldn’t’ chase sunrises either for a long time. Remember that if you can’t at the moment. It doesn’t mean you won’t be able to in the future.

The definition of an adventure is an un-predetermined outcome. I didn’t have the outcome I wanted with my girls this week but another adventure was born out of the experience that did happen. I am sure that if I had had the adventures I had hoped for with my girls during the week, I wouldn’t have been so determined to get up at such an early time and watch the sunrise on my last day in my happy place. Sometimes in life, the initial outcome isn’t always what we wanted but actually it can still be a happy ending and lead to an even greater adventure(s).

So here we go, welcome to 52 sunrises and sunrise 1.