Here We Are Again

Family SM have decamped to Cornwall for three whole weeks of sun (sometimes), sand and surfing.

For this first week there are twelve of us: we five, my parents, my brother, his wife and their three children.

We're in two separate houses, both two minutes walk from our favourite beach. Our house has a telescope, and we can actually look straight into my brother's house across the bay.

(This has not impressed Aunt A, who is now very nervous about taking a shower, but the cousins all think it's a hoot).

We were here exactly a year ago.

I'd been sober for five months, and the fog had started to clear. I remember feeling, for the first time, that perhaps it really was possible to live without booze forever. Not only possible, but maybe even enjoyable.

I felt as if, for the last few years, I'd been living in one of those dreams where you're trapped in a room and the walls, floor and ceiling are slowly moving inwards, leaving you less and less room to move and to breathe. And I'd found a door - a way out.

Then we'd gone on a boat trip, and I'd said something like if my life is about to change in miraculous ways, then send me a dolphin.

And, blow me down with a feather, an actual dolphin appeared, swimming right under our boat.

(For the full story, click here).

So I waited for the miracles to happen - for fame and fortune.

Then, two months later I found The Lump. (To read about that one, click here). A cancer diagnosis wasn't at all what I was expecting.

I didn't die, but one of my best friends did, just a month ago.

So, here I am again. And while the dolphin didn't bring me fame and fortune, I realise that getting through the last year sober, stronger, wiser and still happy, has been nothing short of miraculous.

So perhaps the dolphin wasn't lying after all.....

Love to you all,

SM x