<div class="fr-view"><p>I am a firm believer that every now and then, life throws us a chance card – sometimes you don&#8217;t see it peeking out the pocket of an awkward situation, masking itself as another hurdle instead of an opportunity. Don&#8217;t get me wrong – I don&#8217;t do tarot or send wishes to speedy stars in the night sky. However, as I&#8217;ve meandered the tricky rivers of life, I have noticed a few turns that ended up taking me places I did not expect.</p>
<p>It is hard to see myself as the person I was even a year ago – I remember that person well, despite my best efforts to forget her. A small, anxiety-riddled woman under a mass of curls, rocking Russian roulette-style mood swings that tested many of my loved ones, spending money like I had it, and blazing through life like a forest fire. I was a force to be reckoned with and not in a good way (think tornado of emotions-style).</p>
<p>The majority of my life was spent in the city – I am a city girl through and through. I thoroughly enjoy cocktails with friends in fancy bars, cinema nights and coffee dates in town, followed by a lot of retail therapy. I do miss the very accessible nail salons, wearing high heels on even pavements, and manging to look pretty throughout the day without a worry of being tsunamied by rain. My city life came to a sudden halt when my landlord of eight years decided to evict me and sell the house I was living in. In a few short weeks I had to leave my home. My significant other who serves in the military packed the family up in a large rental van and moved us to his hometown. An exhausting three-hour drive with a couple of toilet stops and a quick Maccies took us reluctantly, dragging ourselves through the door of our new home in Powys, mid Wales.</p>
<p>Here I am now, in the smallest town I have ever lived in, where nothing opens on a weekend, there&#8217;s one supermarket, the ratio of people to sheep is rather alarming, and it has rained solidly since we arrived. Safe to say initial thoughts on my new home were slightly negative. I was far too used to drive-thru Starbucks and Primark being my next door neighbours. I felt like a fish out of water. Other than taking the children to school, I spent the majority of my time safely hidden in my house dreaming of my old life, until I had a knock at the door. On my doorstep stood the larger than life, pink-haired, comical hoodie-wearing Amy. Amy welcomed herself into my life without giving me much opportunity to object. She forced me out of my home, insisted I went to therapy to sort my &#8220;obscure personality&#8221;, and took me out into the community I&#8217;d been so desperate to ignore.</p>
<p>Amy triggered many changes in my new life. Firstly, it turns out my hurricane emotions were due to being undiagnosed as Bipolar, which was a surprise, although looking back I think it shouldn&#8217;t have been. Secondly, she threw me head-first into a wonderful commuinity – I have made so many great friends that I definitely would not have made without her – and thirdly, she encouraged me to think about myself more, what I wanted in life and where I wanted to end up.</p>
<p>I decided to pursue my dream to become a writer, which I had always buried deep down for fear of rejection. It took me a long time to realise that I didn&#8217;t really allow myself a life, through fear of failure. I wasn&#8217;t present in my own life, I&#8217;d fallen into the dark, twisty world of &#8216;what ifs&#8217;. Without Amy&#8217;s encouragement to think about my own wants in life, I would have always looked at my dreams as regrets – missed opportunities that I would have rather inwardly tortured myself over than accepting that it was always in my power to make my wants a reality.</p>
<p>Signing up to do a degree felt pretty remarkable at first. I don&#8217;t think reality had struck yet that I would actually have to complete the work – when it did hit, I felt an overwhelming wave of panic. I became my own internal detective, questioning every decision that led me to the OU. In a desperate cloud of anxiety, I called my therapist who convinced me not to withdraw my application, and wait and see where it took me. &#8220;Trust the universe,&#8221; she said – I did have a little scoff at this, which I now regret. When I started studying my first modules, I felt very apprehensive about managing home life and completing my work on time. Initially I had concerns about studying as a parent, especially with my partner away so often. Being a parent is a wonderful but difficult thing – the responsibility you feel for the happiness of your children, and that horrendous ache when you cannot control that, is exhausting. Being a parent with mental health issues brings an entirely different angle of self doubt and worries about how you as a person may affect the identities of your own children. It&#8217;s a tough road to navigate – adding working towards a qualification made me feel like I was setting myself up to fail.</p>
<p>But reaching out to people and learning to take myself out of that comfort zone (that actually was not very comforting) made me a better version of myself. I learnt to roll with the punches and not take things so seriously. I also learnt that I am a control freak, and accepting that I cannot control every aspect of my life made me start living a whole lot more, and actually enjoying it!</p>
<p>I hope if you are reading this that it provides some sort of light on your own journey. Through whatever tasks you&#8217;re facing currently, I encourage you to try to say &#8220;yes&#8221; to something unexpected. Open new doors, try new things – you never know where it might take you.</p>
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