This Messy Happy!
Life is a fickle mistress really. I don’t think it ever pans out how you expect it to. But you know what? That’s ok. The big lesson we’ve learnt about life is that while you’re waiting for it to happen, you forget to live it!
That has been a bit of an epiphany for us recently. We need to go back just over 10 years to 2007 in order to explain …
Our names are Mary and Ben and we met in 2007 when Ben started as a trainee teacher at Hillview School in Tonbridge, where Mary was already working. Ben is originally from Tunbridge Wells and Mary from Cheshire, but was living in Brighton at the time. It’s an enormous cliché to say it was love at first sight! But it was. So, two short weeks later we were “together” whatever that means, planning holidays and feeling excited about the future.
Between 2007-2010 we travelled the world, both turned 30, lived together in various areas of Tunbridge Wells and eventually tied the knot in both Las Vegas and France (because we’re greedy). And that, essentially, is where the “fun” started!!
A large part of our vision for our future was that we would have a lovely family, live in a great house with a beautiful dog, have fulfilling jobs and generally bask in our own smug glory. Little did we know what was around the corner for us. At first, we struggled to get pregnant and sought help from the NHS. We tried a few different medications and were sent for the usual tests to determine what might be the problem. Eventually, when that didn’t work, we were advised down the IVF route. And so, we embarked on that journey with both trepidation and nervous excitement.
During the ensuing 7 years we went through 5 IVF cycles and endured 4 miscarriages (1 from a surprise natural pregnancy). It was a really tough time. A little light in those harder times was getting our beautiful dog Winnie, in 2014, who kept us going when the going was tough. Still determined, we even began the process of overseas adoption from Ethiopia. We visited the country, formed links with orphanages and facilitators. We were good to go. We’d all but finished our social worker interviews and paperwork when the Ethiopian government banned all international adoption. And, once again, a route to parenthood closed on us.
And that leads us to here. Our default setting has always been relentless positivity because we chose it. Instead of breaking us, this process has made us stronger. Stronger in our commitment to each other but also stronger in the belief that we have, and have always had, a message worth spreading. Like most people, we have our faults but the one thing we both feel passionate about, and that we’re good at, is making other people happier. We believe it’s how we were drawn to each other.
So, from the moment the adoption fell through we felt, ok maybe that’s not our route. Maybe we need to get out there and tell our story in the hope it can help others. We don’t believe we’ve had a harder time than anyone else. We know everyone has their own troubles they have to work through in life. But what we also know is that life is messy, and happiness is a choice in the mess. Not some unnatainable end point. Our mantra is that you only have one real choice in life. You can be a radiator or you can be a drain. Bring warmth, energy and positivity to any situation, or not. Everything else takes care of itself after that choice is made.
So now that’s what we’ve decided to work on. It’s our new focus. We want to spread our message of positivity and happiness. And hope that others, in turn, will be inspired to do the same, and so on. The potential is limitless and we feel we have the experiences to start writing about the ‘how’. That’s what will make us happy.
You can find us at www.thismessyhappy.com and on facebook, Instagram and twitter. We’re looking to build a community of like-minded people to change the world (if your dreams don’t scare you they’re not big enough!!). We hope to see you soon. Either in the cyber world or the real world….
