I travel not to go anywhere, but to go

A Robert Louis Stevenson quote. I’ve never used this many quotes in my life - my blog is littered with them at the moment.

Self care for me is breaking out of routine and getting out of my house.

Not to go to the pub or visit friends or the other things that feel a bit too normal at the moment.

To get out of London. To pack my stuff, the million of things needed to entertain Ramona, and Jack and get away from everything.

We were lucky enough to get away to Newquay for a few days. If there’s a beach, Ramona is happy. If there is a body of water, Jack and I are happy. Newquay gave us both.

We went to the seaside everyday. Ramona got soaked and I had to run to the shops and find her something to wear. We went to a beach surrounded by sand dunes. We had ice cream everyday. Ramona stayed up late enough to eat dinner with us. Jack made us a packed lunch every day. We walked more or less everywhere we wanted to go. We went into rock pools at low tide and explored caves taller than our house. Just magical.

And it wasn’t magic because it meant we didn’t think about him. We saw the gap left in our lives that should have been filled by our son. It gave us the space and freedom to feel all of it without the constraints of everything and everybody we left in London. There was a huge sky and caves and beaches so wide it took minutes to get to the sea. There was room for everything we were feeling. It didn’t feel like we were stuck in the middle of it, forced to choke on it. When we thought about him, it felt like a choice. We threw stones for him, we went into caves for him. We made memories that meant the weeks around him weren’t just misery.

I know that not everybody can do what we were lucky enough to do. Travel isn’t the escape for everybody as it is for us and it’s expensive. But find the things that you can do to lift the weight of everything.

Walk. Dance. Watch a film in bed. Talk to someone on the phone. Sit on a bus or train and read or listen to music. Go somewhere where nobody knows you and there’s no risk of bumping into someone you know. Lay on a loved one’s sofa and cry, let them stroke your hair.

Self care is finding ways to escape the trauma, if only for a minute.