Let’s all take a breath…

On trying not to retreat into my shell 🐌

Photo by Fabian Laabmayr on Unsplash

Hello, hello.

All week, I’ve been fighting the urge to hide. To pull the (metaphorical) duvet back over my head and not come out until November.

As many of you probably know, October is the designated pregnancy and infant loss awareness month – next week, from the 9^th to the 15^th, is baby loss awareness week, culminating in the wave of light and day of remembrance.

And with the first flurry of social media activity around it a few days ago I felt myself shrink back. It’s like a reflex; the flinch of a poked snail.

I hope it’s pretty obvious that raising awareness around pregnancy and baby loss is really important to me. I choose to immerse myself in the subject all year round as part of my work (as well as, you know, having lived it). So it still puzzles me that I can’t – however hard I prep myself for it – feel more gung-ho when this week rolls around.  

There’s not really a reason I should feel this way. I’ve been feeling pretty resilient, lately. Most of the time, I walk around feeling stupidly, almost disbelievingly, happy with my lot. I’ve also been trying quite hard to guard my time a bit better. And yet. Here I am, flinching. Out of things to say. Out of energy.

Which is a long-winded way of saying…. This is all I have this week. I need to take a breath.

But, then again, perhaps so do you?

Please consider this newsletter a big metaphorical pause for a breath. You can catch up with any posts you may have missed below – or you can just take it as permission to do a bit less this week, and, especially, next week.

Lots of love,

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