Pinching myself

There’s a story behind this cheap and cheerful tree. It came into my life when my days were spent mostly alone in my childhood bedroom. I’d eat up there while my family ate at the table downstairs, being too unwell to get down there to join them and not being well enough to manage the sensory overload of having someone with me while I ate. (I now absolutely hate it if I eat alone because it reminds me of that awful time that lasted too long.) My body was so weak and frail then that I felt a constant magnetic pull between me and the mattress when trying to even sit up in bed.

Today I put it up in my very own home. When I bought it online for £10 all those years ago, I never imagined that I would ever leave that bedroom for longer than a few hours. It feels like the end of an era somehow. I can start a new chapter, even if the book as a whole is dominated by M.E. I am surely the luckiest.

We moved at the beginning of October but got the keys a month before. During that month a whole host of things needed to be done before we were able to live in the new house. There was no working toilet, the whole house needed rewiring, the ceiling in the kitchen fell through, plaster came off the walls wherever anyone tried to remove the multiple layers of wallpaper…

For a couple of years we could not get a mortgage. Lenders do not always take Disability Benefits into consideration, and those who do are not exactly queuing up to give a mortgage to those who are self employed, as Mr Tree Surgeon is. Then one Tuesday in June we had a call from our mortgage broker asking if we’d like her to give it all another try. This time we were successful. The next day Mr Tree Surgeon viewed a house promising to take photos for me as I wasn’t well enough to join him. He loved it so much we did in fact bundle me into the car to have a second viewing. We put an offer in the next morning and waited to be outbid by the property developer we were up against. But our offer was accepted the next day. I am still pinching myself, even as I sit here in our very own front room in our very own house. I dared not tell many people until we had the keys in our hands. We’re two months in now so I think it’s safe to say it really is ours.

Moving house is big enough but living amongst renovations is a tad too much for M.E. myself and I but we are happy and we are making a home. As I sit and look at my lovely little Christmas tree I cannot quite believe that only a short time ago I was happily resigned to the fact that I would live at home with my wonderful parents for the rest of my life. My health has not yet returned to me but accepting the restrictions of my illness has helped to carve out a new life for myself with the love and support of my parents, husband and both of our families. I have made progress; progress that allowed me to dip my toe into the world of dating four years ago this month. And look where it’s led me…