The weekend of 21st April 2012.
Sitting listening to my friend Adam deliver his grooms speech could turn out to be a turning point in my life. He and I share the experience of losing our Dads to illness - my Dad in 2005 and his in 2010.
I was expecting to feel a bit emotional as he began to speak about his Dad but not the sudden wave of feeling that I experienced.
I am always the first to look out for my friends and give as much as I can to them to help them in any shape or form but I realised as I listened to Adam that I haven't been looking out for myself in the same way.
I think I have developed a habit of shutting off certain thought processes in the time that my Dad hasn't been here as a way of not allowing myself to get hurt again. I was in and out of a relationship around the time of my Dads death which was a very confusing time for me, when I began to clear my head about what had happened to Dad and the finality of it, the relationship ended quite abruptly. Losing him broke my heart and there will forever be a part of me that will never recover from that. (hard to type with tears in your eyes).
The timing of the relationship ending was hard to take in equal measure but for different reasons. I had realised that I totally loved this girl and I finally let all my walls down and wanted to move on in my life with her and then wallop! As soon as I let myself be vulnerable I had my heart broken again.
So what did I do? I actually shut up shop with wanting to experience those feelings of love for someone, to have the heartbreak that makes you want to throw up and not being able to think of anything else.
The only thing I could do though was to move on, yet I did it in a way that punished myself emotionally in order to protect myself, or so I thought up until recently.
The wedding has been an accumulation of change within myself this year, when I got up to do my best man speech I had a lovely sense of pride that I had been asked to be in that position for a friend. As that realisation hit me I felt totally at ease with myself and felt like my emotional barriers had been lifted. To such an extent that I was an emotional mess at times! haha took me about an hour after my speech for me to calm down. Was a brilliant speech so I am told so I am happy with that! :-)
Since Saturday I have continued to feel quite emotional with feelings of my past surfacing that I haven't felt for quite a while and where I am struggling a bit with it I am pleased that this is happening - albeit it feeling like absolute sh*t at random times.
I took the decision recently to open up to someone very special to me and tell her how I feel.....which to be fair was a massive leap of faith but something I felt I had to do.
I crashed and burned like something out of Top Gun!!!!...... but I did it. It is no longer the time to hold myself back for the sake of not getting hurt again.
The more I put myself through the training of this event, the more I am realising what I am capable of. I wasn't quite expecting to experience the things I am during this process but whether I am slogging up a tough climb on a run or laying my heart on the line for the chance of something great, I know that I will give all my heart to it and have no regrets.
Nick
