March is here.

Despite us having a mild autumn and winter it certainly feels like forever since spring and summer were here.  I had actually forgotten how much I love March through to October.  In recent times I have felt more comfortable with winter, I have found solace in that season.
But I got up this morning, the sun was shining, March had arrived and all of a sudden I felt like everything was going to be OK.  It's at times like this that I realise what my family went through from December 2010 to April 2011, and then beyond with the grieving stages.  When you go through that you feel like you will never feel OK again, even when you can fucntion in your everyday life you still fell that nothing will ever be fine again.

But as March rolled round I have found that it has been fifteen months since my brother died, and the first year anniversary of my Dad's death is the end of April.  Time passed and I survived.  I still have trouble with sleep - although some of that is down to the fibro - but I am not waking up in sheer panic at some ridiculous hour panicking about people dying, worrying about who is going to be next.  It is during those dark times that everything feels impossible, your faith in anything gets shaken and you begin to wonder just what the point is.  Sometimes it isn't until you are through those bleak times that you realise you were actually there at all.

And then March arrives and I feel that the dark days are behind me, truly.  Even though I thought I had gotten past this stage I realise that it was still lingering on, catching me out at 3am and mocking me when I thought I was doing fine.  I know now that I am still getting through it because I am still as angry as hell and still don't want to talk about it outside of my family, and I only discuss it with them when I absolutely have to.  But having spring around the corner, if not here already, has given me hope.  Spring is full of opportunities and wonderfulness.  Spring brings hope and new life and holds so much promise.

March is here and I am eager to plant my seeds - no, I still haven't got it done - and see the beauty that will be my garden once life returns to it.  And I have magpies building a nest behind my house, I guess they really do love me these blessed magpies.  They have been coming closer and closer and have been right up to the house.  They ignore the cats and the cats ignore them and they hop around my garden like they own the place, chattering and calling out and arguing and fighting with the crows and gulls that frequent the back gardens and wasteland behind us.  I am looking forward to the coming months of new life, chicks and other babies, plants, seedlings and once again attempting to grow herbs from seed.

The joys of spring are plentiful.