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Life happens and, unfortunately, it’s not all springtime and rainbows. There are storms. The wind can be taken out of your sails, the bunny slippers stolen from your feet. Just when you think you couldn’t be happier, just when you think you’re safe.

But not being in a perpetual state of comfort is not a bad thing. Sometimes, we need to be reminded that life has rough edges and sharp corners, and it can’t always be controlled. This should engender a healthy respect for life; it should foster a feeling that nothing and no one should be taken for granted.

While I obviously never wish anyone to come to harm, I’m glad I don’t live a charmed life. I wouldn’t have anything to write about. On which note, I need to let you know that the countdown is almost over! Scarf-gate has been resolved. The battle is won and my first book, The Night Butterflies, is forthcoming!

 ….

I stopped writing there last night. Usually, I write a post all in one go and hit publish. But there was something I wanted to say, and I couldn’t quite say it. Then I read this post this morning by Gunmetal Geisha, You Probably Think This Post Is About You. Needless to say, I did. The messages in it are exactly what I wanted to share.

Don’t get too comfortable – because all your comfort can come to an end in a heartbeat. But enjoy the discomfort of uncertainty. Embrace every minute, every hour. Enjoy. Laugh. Love. I’d rather live an uncomfortable life – one of highs and lows, triumphs and defeats – than one lived in a single, steady trough, no dips, no peaks.

The Geisha says, ‘I’d like to think people are subject to the same amount of rejecting and rejection. But there are those who proclaim they’ve never been rejected. Good for them, I say, until it turns out they are the same people who say they don’t know what it feels like to be in love. Here’s what it feels like:  Opening your chest like a coat and letting in sunlight.  Naturally, you’re then open for the cold elements and letdown too. So it makes sense for a person all bundled in a safe, zipped-up chest not to feel either rejection or being in love. For myself, I choose to walk coatless.’

And so do I. As I ended up commenting: When someone is the sunshine, when it’s they who makes your day, every day, and suddenly the thing they want to change about their life is seeing You every day – that hurts. It makes a hole. It feels horrible and bitter and, while you’re still utterly in love, utterly immersed in someone else, their rejection of you makes you feel less and less in love with yourself, makes you feel less, full-stop. If the person you placed at the centre of your universe can’t love you, how will you find love?

But I’d rather walk through this world with coat cast off and feel like this right now than never know love in the first place. I’d rather be uncomfortable and cold sometimes – then know what it feels like to be warm again.

Do you walk through this world coatless? If you don’t, try unbuttoning it. There is nothing like the feeling of warmth on your skin, of love in your heart.