You can keep last week, I don't want it

This week tested me in ways I genuinely didn’t expect. The abridged version? Car broke down. Five-and-a-half-hour wait in the heat for the RAC. The van they sent couldn’t tow my car because it was too big. Couldn’t fix it roadside. I was on my way to the Brighton Sauna Festival with a bloody cow in the back, a sauna, equipment and all the chaos that comes with events. Then add a parking fine, my business bank account being put on hold because I’d missed an in-app message asking me to prove who I was, the hottest and stickiest week known to man, Neil having the shits because he was stressed, and a suspicious mole on my tit and finding two lumps on my mind. Honestly, it felt like the universe had picked me specifically for a “how much can one woman can fucking take in 24 hours?” experiment.

At 11pm, standing in the dark on the side of the road after the mini breakdown finally hit, I had a proper cry. The sort where you briefly question every life decision you’ve ever made. But here’s the bit I didn’t expect. I didn’t cancel the event. I didn’t give up. I didn’t have my cry and stop what I’d promised I would do. I pulled my pants up, turned it up another notch and got everything to Brighton anyway, even though I had to abandon the car roadside and figure the rest out later.

And thank God I did because I ended up having one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time surrounded by some of the most brilliant people. Somewhere between the sauna rituals, laughter, conversations and exhaustion, I forgot all about the shite that had nearly swallowed me whole 24 hours earlier. Then Saturday night happened. I was sitting there watching the huge blue moon over the festival and this overwhelming feeling hit me. I fucking did it. Not perfectly. Not gracefully. Not without swearing, crying and nearly losing my mind. But I did it.

And in that moment I realised something really important. Turning pain into power isn’t about pretending things don’t hurt. It isn’t toxic positivity and it isn’t standing there smiling while your life catches fire. It’s deciding that the pain doesn’t get to stop you. That moment sitting under the moon felt powerful because I knew exactly what it had taken to get there.

Of course the Sunday scaries crept in the next day because reality still existed. I still had to get everything back out of the event, sort the car, get back to London and pick Neil up. But something shifts when you realise you are the CEO of your own life. People aren’t always coming to save you. Sometimes they can’t. Sometimes they don’t even know you need saving. Although that can feel lonely, it’s also incredibly empowering because you start learning that you can navigate things you once thought would break you.

That’s where resilience comes from. Not motivational quotes. Not pretending everything is easy. It comes from standing in the middle of absolute shite and still finding a way through it. It’s so easy to sit in your own misery and focus only on what’s going wrong, but if you stop there, you never get to experience one of the best feelings in the world. Being genuinely proud of yourself. Not because someone clapped. Not because you got validation online. Not because everything worked out perfectly. But because you know what it took behind the scenes to keep going. 

Maybe it doesn’t sound that bad written down, especially when people are carrying far heavier things in life, but I think exhaustion comes from the build up, not always the size of the problem. And this week reminded me that even when I feel close to breaking, I’m still far stronger than I think I am.

Same person 

New chapter x