Leaving Europe was a bad idea, no matter how you looked at it – from above and from below, from in front and from behind, from the far left and the far right… There was simply this mess, this pile of broken promises, tainted and chipped: the story of a country unravelling.

Inside, her heart ached, bleeding from new places. Disappointment clouded her vision. She was in shock: at how people were suddenly behaving towards one another, towards other people’s children. There was violence on the streets, shouting in the schools, hate all over the newspapers and television. She couldn’t bare to look. She didn’t. She only knew what other people told her, and simply sitting in their energy as it span itself onto the floor was enough.

Nausea dogged her every step. Having only just dragged her head out of the darkness of the recent past, a past she preferred not to talk about too much, she now let it slump back, electing to wear her country’s apology on their behalf, hoping to balance out the deficit.

Yet how could she, not when it went on and on and when everyone in charge who was supposed to know what to do seemed to be absconding, upping sticks and setting sail in order to escape the consequences of what they had, only a week earlier, had both hands comfortably immersed in.

She watched as the pound plummeted and the price of everyday things like rent and food rose. She watched as the value of her house fell. She watched as her savings lost value and the pitiful amount of interest they earned stopped so that her bank account was reduced to no more than a convenient holding box with no further purpose beyond that.

She wondered if the country would ever truly recover and what would happen to Europe and the rest of the world. She wondered how it would effect relations amongst people. She wondered how she and those she loved would fare and where they would all end up.

It was hard to shun darkness, to seek to walk only in the light, when all around you there was chaos and madness and people being given far too much. It was hard to forgive when even those in your inner circle were idiots.

Her heart full of compassion, her head full of tears, her stomach soaking up all that she could, she walked the streets with open palms, sending out love.

by Rebecca L. Atherton

To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.