Let’s go Grief Surfing

We’ve come to the chapter in my story which I’ll call The Adult Orphan Gets Published. Only I’m not the adult orphan anymore… If I’d have published my book a couple of years ago, it’d have been called Adult Orphan. Yet it’s coming out in a few months and it bears the bold title of Grief Surfing. What’s changed? I have.

Firstly, in a literal sense, because I have nurtured a relationship with someone who has become my step-dad, and I put the effort in to go and find my birth dad. I feel both proud, lucky and grateful. I am still the one who lost my only parent, my wonderful mum who raised me single-handedly and I miss like crazy. But I just can’t call myself an adult orphan while I have new family who care for me and I care for them.

Secondly, internally I have changed my outlook and resonate deeper with the notion that over time we need to play with our grief with open curiosity and flexibility. To ride the waves that come and go, finding stability on the board of life. With a surfboard to hand, we can learn to calibrate between the ups and downs of the sea of emotions.

I have been writing and editing intensely on my book for some months, so not been posting on here, my blog. I am so incredibly excited to finally be getting published after over a decade since starting it, but really it started in 2012 when I began my journal. My haunted scribblings of someone who was caught in the churning waves one minute and floating adrift in nothingness another. It’s been challenging re-reading it, the letters I wrote to Mum in those early days, the free flow writing where I tried to understand my situation in the drama of life and death. Yet it’s been rewarding also, as I see how much I’ve grown, and how I’m able to apply the knowledge and understanding gained from my loss so that it permeates into all aspects of life.

It's been a bit of a rough summer. I found out I’m unlikely to be able to have children. As someone with very little family this rocked my world and sent me back out to sea, as it’s something I’ve always wanted, but not been able to action until ready. Through all of the grounding I’ve learned to do as part of my grief journey, I think I’ve done pretty well to bring myself quickly to a place of acceptance, self-compassion and hope. I understand that the sea of emotions we must learn to surf in the face of death, is actually the sea of life – this is what life is like. Ups. Downs. Challenges. No challenge? No life.

At the same time as working through this I found my publisher. In fact, it all happened in the same week (annoyingly the good news came first). This is literally how my life goes… I’d have expected nothing else! I’m focusing now on birthing my book baby and am so utterly excited to bring it out into the open in a matter of months. It’s a labour of love, blood, sweat and tears. I’ve interviewed dozens of amazing, courageous people, all with their own stories to inspire and resonate with. There are activities to do, questions to answer; the process is active. This is your journey as well as mine. I can’t wait to take it with you.

Let’s go Grief Surfing.