Glimmer Stack #3 Feeling The Feelings 💖

I haven't been keeping up with this intended weekly post here's me taking a moment to remind myself to pluck the best bits from the chaos.

Usually I'd start a post like this by listing all of the reasons why it's been so hard to find glimmers in the mess that makes up my life, but I'm not going to do that this time. I mean, I might, a little, for context but… I'd like to try and describe the feelings that came up for me in the moments of joy I've managed to snag over the last few weeks.

I know, it's supposed to be a weekly post, I'm sorry. If there's one thing I can guarantee about myself it's that I only deliver on things for other people, never on the commitments I make to myself. I'm working on it, but I've been working on it for 37 years so…

There are some moments mentioned below that I hadn't even realised we're special until I fought to find them in my memories. Others saturated me in their presence. Glimmers provide nuance to my survival. They remind me how to feel something outside of the doom.

Pride

I couldn't get out of bed that morning. I was due to do several things but my need to be alone, brain in total shutdown mode, was rife.

My kids reminded me of their martial arts grading taking place later that evening. I knew they weren't expecting me to be there because their dad and nanny usually take them to their respective classes. This was a joint grading, their classes merged for the presentation. Getting out of bed at 4pm and making myself presentable took energy and effort. I guessed they'd be surprised to see me but the surprise was mine. Watching them do something they both love, something so physical, so disciplined and then to be rewarded with their belts, was everything. I looked at my mum, I looked at my husband and we were all smiling and clapping, each mirroring the same “awww” face and shouting our pride with cheers. I also realised I was proud of me too, for showing up on a day when I didn't feel well.

Contentment

I groaned, sweat pouring off my forehead when my son suggested on a roasting hot afternoon that my mum and I help him complete a 100 piece puzzle. He'd been at preschool all day, I needed to get him home and we were supposed to be getting ready to leave my mum’s house. There was no time for puzzles.

I resisted quite vehemently said puzzle, which turned out to be a map of the solar system with every planet and their respective names chopped into 100 pieces and mixed up on the floor of my mum's spare room. My son, known for his persistence, said “please mummy” …I really didn't want to.

However, what I’ve learned from interactions with my son every day is how he regulates his nervous system, and how he learns. He's such an enthusiastic boy full of wonder and excitement, it's impossible to say no to him when what he's asking for is more play time with me.

I relented when he started tipping out the pieces and putting them together wrong. I had no choice but to intervene and help, naturally! We then spent the next half an hour watching him undo all the correct pieces and tell us why they were incorrect. It didn't matter by this point, we were enjoying ourselves. My mum and I had a very childish joke about where Uranus was located and it was on the puzzle’s completion, the three of us whooping with delight, that true contentment settled in. We did it — together! I don't think I knew how much this moment would make my week until it had passed and I later reminded myself of it, chuckling in memory.

Fun

Having fun might not be a feeling in itself but I definitely felt like I was having it when I made the effort to go to a Stereophonics concert with my husband the weekend. When I say my anxiety was at peak meltdown about this gig, I'm not lying. Being disabled, neurodivergent and struggling in everyday life to function, going to a concert felt like too much, even kind of reckless. I had built up a lot of guilt about letting myself enjoy it, along with fear about whether or not I would [enjoy it!]

As I sat in my accessible seat a few rows up from the pitch, watching a crowd that I had earlier dreaded being in, enjoy the music, toss foam balls in the air and bounce around helium balloons, when I looked at my quiet and stoic husband singing along, I felt it. I realised how much fun I was having. How worth it, it was.

It's not always easy to catch the glimmers. Sometimes I really have to look for them. Other times they'll come to me on reflection, rather than in the moment. That doesn't mean I'm not “present” when they're happening, the opposite in fact — I was so much in the present, it wasn't until looking back I realised what the moment meant.

These moments, big or small, matter!

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Want to read more of my work? Here's a recent post outlining how shame and guilt play such huge behind the scenes role the lives of disabled parents.