Today, aged 52, I’m going to my first comic con. To say I’m a tad nervous is an understatement. Primarily we are going to promote my husband’s business and to network with other likeminded geeky types. But I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to dress up! However I didn’t want to dress up as an existing character. I wanted to create and be my own character. So I have put together her backstory; a classic tale of good overcoming adversity. Enjoy.

All About Angel

 

Angel was an only child. Her parents doted on her and she was blissfully happy as a small girl. She wanted for nothing. Like many girls she loved the colour pink, and her parents had lavishly decorated her bedroom to reflect this. She had a pink chandelier, opulent pink wallpaper and curtains, and a giant fluffy pink unicorn that resided on her bed. She slept under a canopy of pink voile. Angel shouldn’t have had a care in the world. But at school she felt different from the other children. She found her peers noisy and boisterous. She preferred her own company. She loved to read, devouring book after book and she loved to make up stories. Academically she was a high achiever, but at times her teachers would have to remind her to focus on her work, as she’d be so engrossed in her daydreaming. There was no doubting Angel had a vivid imagination but sometimes she seemed to lose herself completely.

Despite finding it hard to make friends, Angel wasn’t unhappy. She adored her pets; Alice and Tiffy her cats, Bun-Bun her rabbit and Oliver and Harry her goldfish. Oliver and Harry were named after the two boys in her class at school who weren’t mean to her. Though she never told her parents that. They were happy at home and that was all that mattered.

That was, until, one bleak November day, Mummy never came to pick up Angel from school. In fact, Mummy had told Angel that Daddy was finishing work early so they could pick her up together and go out for hot chocolate. Instead Angel waited in the school playground until all the other children had gone and still there was no sign of Mummy and Daddy. Her teacher took her back inside and let Angel choose a book to read while admin staff tried in vain to contact her parents.

As time went on, Angel became increasingly distraught and eventually she saw Grandma coming down the corridor. With a policewoman! Grandma had been crying. Grandma never cries. Now Angel knew for sure something bad had happened. She ran, throwing her arms around Grandma, sobbing uncontrollably.

Angel never got over the death of her parents when she was 11 years old. She went to live with Grandma, but she couldn’t take her kitties or Bun-Bun. Even Oliver and Harry didn’t last long, it seemed the move was too much for them. Angel was devastated. Her parents were dead, she’d lost her cats, her rabbit and now even her goldfish. She constantly went over her parents’ death in her mind. She felt it must be her fault because they wouldn’t have both been in the car together at that time if Daddy hadn’t been coming specially to meet her from school. It tortured her. Night after night she sobbed into her giant pink unicorn. For a time, Angel never uttered a word to anyone, not even Grandma. When the pain became unbearable, she retreated into silence. And her imagination.

As Angel grew up, Grandma was not in great health. And Angel’s behaviour deteriorated. She no longer ignored the school bullies. She got into fights. She was bereft and angry and she didn’t care who she lashed out at.

One day after school a social worker came to Grandma’s flat and told Angel to pack her things. Angel was devastated, begging Grandma to let her stay, but unknown to Angel, everything had already been decided. The social worker sniffed disapprovingly at the giant fluffy pink unicorn. It was more grey, balding and misshapen these days, but it was one of Angel’s few links to her parents.

As the social worker drove Angel to her foster home, Angel sobbed and sobbed.

From that time on, she didn’t wear pink again. In fact she only wore black. Although her foster parents were kind, Angel never felt she fitted in. She wasn’t even angry anymore, just broken. Desolate. And when things were at their worst, she became mute again.

As a young adult, Angel was a high achiever in her chosen career, but was prone to periods of depression. She also was sexually promiscuous as she sought to fill the loneliness in her heart. She seemed to attract unscrupulous men who took advantage of her vulnerability. She identifies two clear aspects to her personality, the soft, dreamy, creative, pink-loving Angel, and the darker, sassier, kick ass Angel. As time has gone on, Angel has finally reached a more contented place in her life. She’s in a loving relationship, has accepted her quirky traits and is coming to terms with her childhood trauma. She embraces her soft and harder sides. However there are times when she still struggles with social interaction and on occasions regresses to childlike behaviour or even muteness. She still enjoys creative writing, loves kitties, unicorns, taking photographs, and everything pink. Her preference is to dress in all pink, as it reminds her of her blissful early childhood and she even has pink hair and a pink tattoo on her arm. She has recreated a grown-up version of the pink bedroom she had as a little girl, which is known as The Pink Palace. But most importantly, she is happy once more.

Wish me luck!

Throughout my life, my dad used to tell the story of a gentleman who worked in the telephone exchange where he was a telecommunications engineer. The man, who, I can only assume was experiencing dementia, or mental breakdown, my dad simply described as a poor old guy, and he would tell us how the gent pushed a trolley with a huge tangle of wires around the work place repeatedly saying, “Trundle, trundle, trundle, wiry, wiry bundle.” As a young child the little rhyme made me giggle. Although my dad told me the story was sad, I didn’t comprehend why. I obviously understand the tragedy of the situation now, and I sometimes ponder on how the man still came to be at work when he was identified as ‘doolally’ or ‘round the bend’ by his colleagues. I’m thankful the fear and misunderstanding around mental illness has improved. Mostly.

When my first husband died, my late father in law understandably got himself some grief counselling. His counsellor likened grief to a mass of tangled strands of wool. Threads all twisted, entwined and knotted together. She reassured him that as they took each strand and discussed it, not only would it make sense, but the remaining tangle would gradually become smaller and more manageable. The analogy reminded me of the poor old guy and his wiry, wiry bundle.

My father in law was dealing with some complex grief issues and he became rather fixated on his ‘ball of wool’. He would tell anyone who’d listen about how grief is like a tangled ball of wool and you could only unravel it one strand at a time. I wasn’t accessing counselling at that time, which father in law openly expressed his disapproval of. He demanded to know how I would unravel my ball of wool if I didn’t have a counsellor. I said I had to do things my way. I didn’t say I didn’t relate to the wool analogy. But I didn’t particularly then. Currently that’s very much how my head feels. Not so much grief related, but just as if my brain has been replaced by an oversized, wiry, wiry bundle.

My thoughts and feelings are inextricably twisted and tangled. Emotions well up and leak from my eyes, but my wiry bundle is so tightly impacted I’m unable to discern the thread that initiated them. I, at some moments feel on the verge of utter breakdown. I feel wretched, vulnerable, overwhelmed. I am mentally, physically and socially exhausted. I feel like I’ve been running on fumes since before Christmas and I’m afraid I have no more mileage left in me. I’m so utterly spent from trying to stay strong and cope in constantly changing circumstances and situations, that my poor wiry brain has malfunctioned and initiated partial shutdown.

Maybe the time is right to consider more counselling. Because as father in law would have pointed out, I need someone to help me unravel my ball of wool. And frankly, something’s got to give, and I’d rather it wasn’t my sanity. Again.

Sometimes, I’m so overwhelmed by the feels,

That I don’t even know what I’m feeling

Anymore.

I’m so flooded by anxiety, sorrow, sadness, depression,

By frustration, by inadequacy and self doubt.

The despair, the exhaustion, the apathy. The endless, hopeless inactivity.

Those trials and tribulations of trudging-through-treacle-times.

A sense of loss, and of being lost.

Never quite feeling I fit. Always too much. Yet never enough.

When the dull ache becomes a searing pain that brings me to tears yet has no physical cause.

An emptiness. A loneliness. A dissatisfaction. A dissociation.

At my worst, I can’t function. Anxiety renders me useless. I can’t communicate, can’t process, can’t be around others.

I can’t cook. I can’t clean. I can’t shower. I can’t dress myself. Hell knows, some days I can’t get up.

Admin left backing up. I can’t think. I certainly can’t make calls.

I know I won’t always feel all the feels, but that’s how it seems when I go through it.

Depression tells me it will never change. And I should leave now. Save myself from this life of anguish.

He’s conniving and convincing. But he’s still a liar. I’ve got his number.

Sometimes when I feel all the feels I’m so overloaded I can’t feel at all.

I don’t know which is worse; everything or nothing.

Some days I need to blurt, other days I just ruminate. Over and over and over.

I just want some order in my chaos. Clarity. Some peace and quiet, both without and within.

I’m weary of just surviving, I want to live. I want more-than-fleeting-joy.

I want to feel feelings without feeling all the feels.

I need to be able to process. Unpick this overwhelm. Unravel the feels. Find my calm.

At the end of December I married my love. Having known each other less than 18 months it may have seemed soon to some, but we’re both of the notion that life is too short to be either unhappy or apart. We had already been through so much together, not least Martin’s train crash, and it had only made us stronger. Contrary to what some may have believed about me in the past, I’m here for a long time, not just a good time. Not that Martin and I don’t have good times, we absolutely do. And life also continues to have its ongoing challenges. But enough of those for now.

We did manage to have a bust up in the hotel the night before the wedding, which is slightly ironic given we rarely fight. My best lady and I left half way through dinner, me in floods of tears. It was essentially a case of having differing priorities, and not having communicated those opinions prior to the event. As so many arguments seem to be. But it was resolved. I can’t cope with confrontation or conflict, I tend to try to sort things out as quickly as possible.

The wedding day flew by. Penny, my best lady and I had breakfast in my suite, so as to avoid Martin and his not-best-man Sean at breakfast. I may be modern in many ways, but I didn’t want to run into Martin before the ceremony. Not least because he’d reduced me to tears the night before, with how high our emotions were running. It seemed no time at all before Lauren our hair and make up artist arrived, and Michelle from the bridal shop who was dressing us. The atmosphere was absolutely lovely; warm, light hearted, relaxed. We popped a bottle of pink fizz and just enjoyed. Greg, our photographer, and Sam our videographer would pop in periodically, always respectfully, and shoot snippets of our preparations. There was much laughter. I genuinely don’t know where the day went, because before I knew it, Christine, our event manager for the day, knocked on my door and announced it was time to head downstairs and attend the pre-ceremony meeting with the registrar.

We bundled my large, lavish gown into the lift. For the first time, nerves started to kick in. I will never forget my son’s face as the lift doors opened and he saw me. Beaming all over his face, I’d never seen him look so proud of me. Immediately my eyes brimmed with tears. I fought to stop them from spilling down my cheeks. If I could only keep my makeup intact for the ceremony, at least. I passed the closed doors of the ceremony room, knowing Martin was waiting for me on the other side. Probably insanely nervous, probably more so than me. I completed the formalities with the registrar in a blur, giving my name, my parents’ names and professions and suitable responses to her questions. She was appropriately convinced I was both free and willing to marry and not being coerced in any way.

I remember hearing my entrance song playing, the double doors of the ceremony room being flung wide and for a second I froze. Panic gripped me as I saw the crowd of friends and family stood, awaiting my arrival. I instinctively took a deep, slow breath, in through my nose, and blew it calmly out through my mouth. On the arm of my very handsome son, we approached the equally handsome groom. The two most precious (living) men in my life. Suitably dressed in pink. The wedding attire had my stamp all over it. When my son had put his tie on earlier he text me to comment ‘it was outrageous!’ Hell yes! I knew what I wanted and that was exactly what I had. In the absence of my beloved dad, his face was memorialised in a photo charm on my bouquet; that itself a nod to my mum’s teardrop bouquet in the 60s. An eclectic mix of traditional, modern and wholeheartedly frivolous.

As I said my vows to Martin, I remember looking at him and thinking, “Oh my God he looks like he’s going to pass out!” His eyes were glazed over. A feeling he later confirmed. If we hadn’t have sat down to sign the register, just then, I’m not sure he’d have stayed upright much longer. I remember wondering if he should have gone crashing down, how the hell we’d ever have got him up again. Thankfully it didn’t come to that.

I vaguely remember walking out of the ceremony room with Martin, being handed a glass of fizz by a waiter, and heading out the hotel onto the steps at the entrance. It was a typically grey, damp, end of December day. It seemed to have rained earlier, but had stopped. Still I regarded the wet, muddy tarmac of the car park in front of the hotel and knew in that moment, this was where I should say goodbye to my dress remaining clean. I couldn’t bear the thought of the full extent of the stunning train swishing across the wet, dirty ground, so asked Michelle to hook it up. Bustle mode activated. It wouldn’t save it, but maybe limit the damage.

It was a standing joke that our wedding definitely didn’t have a train theme. It clearly did, and I’m not just talking the train on the dress, but given Martin always denies liking trains, any railway theme had to be played down. Our pièce de résistance was a glorious land-train, fully illuminated in the winter dusk, giving rides around the car park and providing fabulous photo opportunities. Seeing Trigger the Train parked up outside the hotel, I admit, cheered me. Because of his owner/driver being quite elderly, any engagements Trigger attends are only confirmed 48 hours before, so we’d waited eagerly for news of his attendance. I was never supposed to be excited about trains. But there we go. Seeing the joy in the face of my great-nephew as he told me later the best part of his day was the train, was an absolute delight.

From the time I came downstairs prior to the ceremony, until the time Martin and I collapsed, utterly exhausted into bed that night, I have quite limited memories. I remember being sat down for dinner, giving my speech. And wondering if perhaps my dark humour was wasted on the majority of our guests. I remember singing to Martin, flanked by my security blanket of ladies who surrounded me and sang along. Martin singing to me was unforgettable; yet again my tears were freely flowing. The part of the day I’d happily forget; being shot in our faces at close range with a streamer cannon during our first dance, Martin yelling at his not-best-man and storming off the dance floor, that seems forever etched in my memory. And of course the moment has been immortalised on YouTube. I recall dancing, The Time Warp amongst others, and with Penny to her special song. I had glitter art on my face. And I posed with Martin, Chris, Annabelle, Penny and various friends in the magic mirror. I genuinely can’t wait to see our official photos and videos to help me decipher the rest of the blur.

The were minor niggles, already resolved with the venue, but on the whole, it was a great day. I regret not having the time and the emotional energy to chat with more of our guests but unfortunately making conversation is a challenge for me, unless I know someone a little better. Instead I could be found kicking back with a Diet Coke with people who understand my social anxiety. I live on the edge. I was happiest back in my room with my new husband away from public glare. As he snored beside me, I was way too hyped up to sleep yet, so I reflected. And changed my name on my socials 😊

It’s a month until our wedding. When Martin bought my little countdown I was chalking in 300+ days. Now I’m down to thirty. To say it’s flown by is an understatement. A time that should have been made up of cherished moments, joyful planning and looking forward with hope and anticipation to our new life together.

Now don’t get me wrong; those moments have been present, just in glimpses, and sadly, mainly overshadowed by the difficult times. I’ve tried so incredibly hard to stay positive, but it hasn’t been easy. I haven’t even felt like writing much, since I have seen the power my writing has to inflict pain on the person I love. Unintentionally, with no malice intended at all, but wounding nonetheless.

Martin no longer works on trains. He’s making tentative steps into working in the event planning/celebrations market, but he’s still struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD and ongoing financial worries. At least while his merciless insomnia keeps him up at night, he’s grasped the opportunity to undertake our own wedding planning. But it’s not how life should be lived. He’s incredibly vulnerable and life just seems to keep kicking him further down.

I am currently unable to drive. It’s been about five weeks now since I received the letter from the DVLA informing me I couldn’t drive unless a doctor expressly stated I could. Something that just doesn’t happen. Especially when yet another GP has left so no one in the surgery actually knows me. It should be a routine renewal of my three year medical license; neither my condition nor my medication has changed. Yet here I am. Struggling with public transport or feeling hopelessly dependent on others for lifts. I hate the lack of independence with every fibre of my being. Being mental and physically disabled is one thing, feeling disabled is another.

When Martin wrote off his car a while back and the insurance money barely covered the outstanding finance, I made the decision to buy a car for his use. At that time, technically he was still working and needed a vehicle to get to work. I know he struggled with me buying it for him. All I can say now is, thank goodness I did. He wouldn’t have fitted to drive my little car, and potentially we’d have both been stuck without transport. It has been especially beneficial when attending wedding dress fittings, genuinely in the back of beyond, even if it did mean Martin waiting in the car. Those trips would never have been possible on a bus.

It’s the spontaneous trips out I miss the most; to collect a prescription, something from the supermarket, or just to have a cuppa somewhere other than within my four walls. I’m celebrating a Costa with my son today and writing here while he works. It’s lovely. When I’ve drained my second teapot I’ll head down into Tesco and browse a little. Bliss.

I’m not very good at talking through my relationship concerns when they come up. I tend to dwell on them and mull them over for a while until they come blurting out when least expected. I feel sorry for Martin when I brain dump everything on him. It’s my attempt not to bottle things up indefinitely, or brush them under the carpet, but I’m aware they can rather come out of nowhere like an unguided missile launch.

I recently blurted out my concerns about how much time and energy I exert looking out for Martin. Checking in with him. Checking on his mental health. Establishing if he’s eaten. Did he sleep? I wrote a supporting statement for his benefit claim as to how his health conditions affect his everyday life. And please don’t think that I resent any of that, I don’t. I just thought that I’d reached a point in my life where I’d cared for my first husband until his death, brought up my son, cared for elderly parents and even worked in the nursing/care sector for many years. In short I thought my role as a carer was done, I thought it was time to prioritise my own self care. And when I started my relationship with Martin I dreamed of someone else taking care of me too. Something, I should add, he’s really good at, when his mental health is better.

I told him he’s not the man I met. He’s a broken down shell of the former Martin. His reaction was to apologise. I never pointed it out to make him feel bad. I just feel incredibly sad that the world has thrown so much at my kind, funny, generous, loving gentle giant that he now expects the worst in every situation and hides in his bed to avoid the circumstances of his life.

A month before we’re due to get married we shouldn’t be feeling this dejected. I’m ongoing fighting with my own head in an attempt to keep myself from slipping into depression. And trying to be the strong one for Martin, because honestly, we’re both a little afraid of what should happen if we’re both not-strong at the same time.

One month. One more month. Please let December be a better one.

I haven’t felt so much like blogging recently. Even though it helps me express what I’m potentially bottling up, I have self imposed a silencing order upon myself. I hate censorship , but I am still digesting the concept of the consequences of my words. It’s not been easy. Because of my right to freedom of speech someone I care deeply about has suffered and I’m struggling with that.

So I’ll write about wedding preparations, which surely can’t be damaging.

Wednesday I went for my wedding hair and makeup trial. I was very brave, driving to Southampton, just relying on Apple Maps for directions. I have to say, I really like my MUA, she’s lovely. When I entered her pink, girly salon I knew I’d met a kindred spirit. She totally got the measure of me, which was reassuring. It meant that I absolutely loved what she did with my hair and makeup, pretty much first time. She allayed all my worries and I’m looking forward to her working her magic on the big day.

I also went with my Best Lady to try on her dress yesterday. We’d been prepared that although the dress was the size and colour we ordered, it had arrived from the supplier in a different fabric, meaning it was less stretchy and therefore coming up tighter.

Well! That was fun. It took two of us to get the dress done up. It was so snug the zip got stuck where there was a seam in the material and we only succeeded with the bridal consultant holding the two sides of the zip together while I yanked on the zipper. Praying it didn’t break in my hand.

Once on, both Penny and the dress looked amazing. I suspect the former felt as if she’d been crammed in with a shoehorn, but apparently it will be possible to let the dress out a smidge before the wedding. Thankfully.

In addition, we have made our appointment with the registrar early October, and been in negotiations with our photographer, DJ, photo booth operatives, florist and gentlemen’s outfitter. It really does feel like suddenly everything is getting very real. It’s exciting!

I saw the photo/meme below on one of the widow pages on Facebook that I’m still a part of. I say that because I am no longer a member of WAY – Widowed and Young, despite having benefited from their support for many years. I just felt like life had moved in a different direction and I was ready to face the future without that particular organisation any more. I was 12 years into widowhood at that point, nearly 14 now. I appreciate all they offered across those years and I made amazing lifelong friends. Whether I’m a member of WAY or not those friends will remain friends.

But I do still belong to a couple of other groups for young widows, as I said, and some of the content still resonates, even all these years on, some less so. The meme below less so.

For many years I felt exactly that. Life seemed incomplete and somehow second best after Andrew died. In fact my entire existence felt as if it had been completely blown apart. And I’m not certain when the transition occurred to how I feel now, but I’m definitely in a different place.

I’m going to be controversial here. This isn’t about Martin and the fact I’m in a new relationship now. I made no secret of the fact that I became very mentally unwell five years after Andrew died. It was hideous, I wouldn’t wish that kind of breakdown on anyone, but it caused me to rebuild. I worked on myself, long and hard and the truth is, I am still working on myself.

That hard work meant that when I did meet Martin I was in a significantly stronger position to start a relationship. I’d sorted the worst of my ‘stuff’ and as I say, I continue to do so. There’s always room for improvement.

So my hankering after my old life, my desire to talk to Andrew one more time has been firmly put to bed forever. I’m good thanks. I’m a different person. Andrew never wanted me to be strong and beautiful. Strong would have been a threat to his authority. Beautiful may have caused another man to desire me. God forbid. He took an exquisite young woman and beat all the spirit out of her. I’m not up for revisiting that. Give me my freedom and I will always come back. And you will see the incredible person I was created to be.

My life now is immeasurably better than my old life. Wonderful relationship, inspirational grown up son. Training, singing, writing, amazing friends. And a fulfilment in my spirit like I’ve never known. I’m really happy to leave the past in the past.

At the end of last week, I was all set to write this, coinciding with my last session of the Healthier You course. I was, quite rightly, feeling rather pleased with myself. Sadly over the course of the long weekend, my food intake has been rather shocking, characterised by way too much cake and chocolate and I felt bad promoting how I’ve smashed healthy eating when I’m still struggling to exercise moderation at times. And it felt wrong to bang my own drum.

Hopefully this weekend’s blip will not hinder too much my general downward trend in the body mass department and I’ll be back on it tomorrow. And hopefully smashing out some gym workouts too this week.

So a few facts and figures from my Healthier You journey since October 2021; I have lost 12.4kg in weight (that’s less than a lb off 2 stone for those who still work in imperial weights), my BMI has reduced from 42.1 to 37.4, I have gone down 2 dress sizes, my bra size has reduced from a 46H to a 42F, my activity level is up, regularly exercising for an hour at least 3 times a week, because my weight is down my mobility is improving, meaning I can walk further, and as a consequence of all these things, my HbA1c (blood glucose) is down from 44 to 33, meaning I have totally reversed pre diabetes.

I did what Little Miss Cynical here didn’t believe possible at the outset. I totally thought that because there was type 2 diabetes in my family I was futilely fighting the inevitable genetics. I also thought my mental health and physical mobility difficulties would hinder my losing weight. And while it has probably slowed me up a bit, it certainly hasn’t stopped me. I didn’t mention in the statistics that my mental well-being has improved, because it’s more subjective and less easy to measure. But it definitely has. Since starting to train in the gym I feel stronger mentally and physically. I feel generally more resilient.

So you may expect me to be singing the praises of the Healthier You course. No, not really. What spurred me into action was my GP breaking the news to me that I was pre diabetic and that she was referring me to the course. My most trusted and reliable source of information and support was my son, who has undergone his own incredible weight loss and fitness journey. The course in comparison, presented very old school advice, via a range of different educators (who were trained only to present the course, and didn’t actually have health qualifications or experience). Because it was done online via video call it wasn’t conducive to building relationships with others really. Many dropped out. And two sessions before the end, our group was technically discontinued and we were told out of the blue we had to attend at a different time of the week. Different facilitators and changing participants made for a pretty disjointed experience in my opinion. For me, the lack of learning and engagement was summed up by one lady asking at the end, now her blood glucose had come down one point, did she still need to eat healthily? Or could she go back to normal now?

I engaged with Healthier You because I didn’t want it fed back to my GP that I was not engaging with services. The principals were basic, I didn’t actually learn anything new. I was ticking a box as much as the educators. But my outcomes speak for themselves.

The thing I have taken from all of this, is this is my journey. I am responsible. What I eat, or not, is down to me. If I lose weight, it’s not because of the Healthier You course. It’s not because of my son even, or the other guys in the gym who cheer me on. As helpful and supportive as those outside influences are, only I can show up and put the hard work in. Or not. I make the changes, I reap the benefits. And, if I’m honest, I’m really rather liking this new found autonomy.

I have recently adopted the above hashtag particularly when posting my gym exploits on my socials.

When I had my boudoir shoot done last year to celebrate my 50th birthday, I was feeling very anxious about seeing the results when I went to collect my photos. Sitting with Martin, my fiancé, in the studio as the pictures were revealed, I began to sob uncontrollably, such was the intensity of my emotions at seeing myself. I asked him, “Where’s that strong, beautiful woman?” And his answer blew me away. He stated, “She’s been sat beside me all along.”

I recently saw a T-shirt online with the slogan ‘strong and beautiful’. I had to have it! But when I checked, my size was sold out. I knew going larger I would be absolutely swamped, so in faith that my weight is on a downward trend, I ordered a size smaller. As soon as I unpacked it I could see it was very generously cut and would fit me now. It felt like it was destined for me.

In the same way I claimed back the bikini last year, recently I have embraced the crop top for working out in the gym. It has taken me a few weeks of regular attendance to build up my confidence, but this week, and especially after a conversation with one of the female fitness instructors, I ventured out with my chubby midriff on display. Frankly, it was just more comfortable when exercising not having a vest or T-shirt over the top. I was greeted by the same instructor, grinning from ear to ear as she congratulated me for overcoming my fears.

I was a little self conscious, did check a few times that my wayward boobs were not trying to escape out the bottom of my top, but all was well and as predicted, no one else seemed to be batting an eyelid. As I take steps like these I feel I’m claiming back my body from the bullies and critics I’ve encountered during the years. Genuinely if people have an opinion about my appearance, they can take that opinion and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Because my body is my business and from my point of view, this body is both strong and beautiful.