Grey clouds

There have been a lot of grey clouds around me lately, inside and out. Most mornings when I wake up I have a knot in the pit of my stomach and I am finding I'm lethargic and negative during the day quite a bit. I don't like feeling this way but at the moment I'm struggling to find much joy in things.

There are a few reasons I'm feeling like this and some days one reason is more important than another. In no particular order, here they are:

•  The awful weather for this past year and the past month in particular. Sometimes I feel this entire year has been one long winter, and spring and summer have been cancelled this year. We get the odd nice day but then have three more days of overcast to follow it. Looking out at concrete coloured skies day in and day out is depressing. I've barely touched the garden this year and I miss it. Not to mention it is cold. I need some sun and warmth!!!
  
• Someone who I thought had my best interests at heart let me down. Badly. 
• Some relationships with friends and family have been slipping away, due to life changes, apathy, and circumstances. Things just aren't what they used to be. Most relationships ebb and flow and some of mine are ebbing at the moment, maybe even ending. As our circumstances and lives change, so do our friendships and family relationships, and from reading cesca's and treezy's blogs I know I'm not alone in feeling disconnected from some people who used to be very important. I know it is all a part of growing and changing. But I do feel sad and sometimes a little angry about it.
• In less than a month I'll be leaving my home and moving to Auckland. It is my choice to do this, and I do believe it is the right thing for me to take this chance, but that doesn't mean it is easy to do. I don't yet have a place to live, and don't know where my daughter will be going to school. I have no friends there. I'm giving up a lot - my hometown, my house and garden that I've put so much effort into fixing up, my support network, my daughter's school, my routines – and don't yet have anything to replace it with. I know I will in time, but for the moment, it feels empty and sad.
• I work from home which is great, but I do feel isolated at times, particularly now. I work alone and my work is mainly conducted via email which means I can sometimes go a whole day and speak to no-one but my daughter. She's awesome, but I need grown up conversation sometimes. And I'm so busy at the moment that sometimes I don't have the time to get out there and see people, which I know I should be doing.
• I need to exercise more and lose a bit of weight. I'm not liking the flab that has been making an appearance lately, particularly on my stomach. It's like my winter coat (the extra 3-4 kilos I put on every winter and take off in summer) has decided to stick around since the weather is so useless. So not feeling too happy when I look in the mirror. I've started fantasising about tummy tucks.
• Oh yeah - and I'm premenstrual right now. It's not helping.

So that is my vent. I'm trying to put this out there in the hope that venting will help dislodge some of the block of sad and worry that is residing in my tummy lately. 

Although I have a feeling I might be feeling this way for a while. I can't do much about the friendship/isolation issue at the moment, I just have to stick it out. At the moment my life is in a state of flux and I have to attend to that before I can concentrate on rebuilding relationships or forming new ones. 

Change can be a great thing, but in order to get something you usually have to give something else up, and I am surprised at the mixed feelings I am having now I am this close to the move. I still want to move, but I've become so much more aware of the things I'm giving up so I can take this trip into the unknown. I have been told this is normal for any big life change, particularly when it also affects the lives of children as well, because there is also the worry about whether this is going to be ok for them thrown into the mix.

I know I will be ok and that I'll do just fine.

But it would really help if the bloody grey clouds around at the moment would just get lost so the sun could get though. Literally and metaphorically.