LaurenPearl: Tis the season of love...

So last blog entry I spoke about the fun group I have joined called Get messy, we received our first set of prompts last week and obviously it being February and Valentine's Day our first prompts were in line with the season of love.

The first prompt I decided to try and tackle was the dark side of love, thinking about this side of love allowed me to open up a bit more about the dark side of love I had felt. I was in a long very destructive controlling relationship once upon a time, and in our time together I lost myself slightly as well as some of my closest friends (thankfully they are amazing and were there for me when it ended). So when the relationship did come to it's inevitable end. I fell to pieces slightly (ironically I was the one who finished it) not feeling like myself anymore and to start not having many friends, I felt I needed something to control as it seemed everything else in my life was out of control.
The most easiest thing to control....my weight, I have never been overweight nor did I ever feel fat. At first I just wasn't eating because I was stressed and heart broken, but seeing the pounds fall off all of a sudden it became a target that and my aim would be lost a couple of pounds each week. For people that know me I think it was quite tough to watch as I have the biggest sweet tooth in the world and all of a sudden I would deny myself chocolate, sweets, cake, biscuits and fizzy drinks anything I thought was unhealthy. I was obsessed with going to gym classes and counting calories.

Thankfully I got through it with support from some of the best people and even though this was a couple of years ago I'm still apprehensive about falling in love again because I don't ever want to be that person again. I have never been so honest about the tough and painful time in my life..feels quite nice and liberating to write down and get it off my chest.

On to something more cheery! I also tackled the prompt lessons in love, through having my beautiful Pearl I have learnt about unconditional love. Pearl is most definitely not just a dog to me...that is very obvious when you see the tattoo on my ankle of her name. This little border terrier is everything to me and more. The time I mentioned above when I fell to pieces, I couldn't have got through it without her. Some days she gave me a reason to get out of bed and get outside and down the beach with her.

Now that I live in London and she is still in Jersey, I always feel a little piece of me is missing ( I do go home nearly every month to see her). I know that one day I will make my dream come true where I can have Pearl at work with me.