Down on the Farm

Had a really happy day today.  Julie stayed overnight with us.  Yesterday was a little bit rocky - it had been a tough week - but today everyone just seemed to get out on the right side of bed.  You know how some days, you wake up and everything seems to just go fine?  Helped, no doubt, by Julie sleeping thirteen hours straight.

The weather was promising, so I proposed that we went out for a little expedition.  I was surprised when Julie suggested that we went to a local farm which we used to visit a lot when the children were small.  It is one of those show places with a lot of rare breeds - though we used to visit in the old days because it had an excellent play area.  When you have small children, you jump at any chance to get out of the house into the open air.

It was strange to return - it must be four or five years since we last visited the farm.   It has an adventure playground for older children, and I can remember the days when this seemed a rather intimidating place, when we had little ones in tow.  I was astonished today how small and tame the equipment seemed today!  Now my grown-up teenager is long past the playground, and headed instead towards the farm cafe for a cappuccino.  We sat there watching the world go by, reminiscing about the past, and being entertained by a hooligan gang of escaped piglets. 

It is tremendously important to Julie to revisit her childhood, and I can understand why.  Mental illness is disorienting in its ability to distort your perceptions not just of the world around you, but of yourself.  Adults struggle with this aspect of mental illness, but just imagine having to deal with it during your teenage, when identity is still very fluid.  Revisiting important parts of the past gives you an opportunity to root yourself again. To be honest, it is probably something that most teenagers need occasionally anyway.

It is my role to make sure we record these good days.  We now have a memory box in which we keep photographs and momentoes of good times.  When Julie is struggling to manage, the box is there as an anchor: a concrete representation of why it is worth fighting.  The photo of the piglets that Julie took has gone in there today, and will no doubt come out every now and again when we need it in future.