Did any of you listen to The The – I keep having the track ‘This is the day, your life will surely change’ running around my head…

Lots of those days really. Thank fuck actually. My life has always been eventful, to put it mildly, and I was thinking about those events, for lack of a better word a lot recently. In a positive sense – yes, many have been traumatic, but all have led to amazing outcomes. Eventually.

• Number of marriages: 2
• Number of divorces: 1.5 ( Last divorce been on my ‘to do’ list for 7 years, then left to ex to sort out, hence the .5 as amazingly, not done yet)
• Number of children: 3
• Number of pregnancies: 5
• Number of times walked out of  house shared/owned with plastic bag of belongings and child(ren) on hip: 3
• Number of times homeless/jobless/broke as a result of above: 2
• Number of times having a gun shoved in my mouth: 1 (once  was enough)
• Number of times I had sex with a one legged soldier, who fell asleep half way through: 1 (as per above, once was enough…not sure which was more traumatic…)
• Number of life threatening illnesses: 2 ( 1 cured, second one on its way to being cured :))
• Number of times I have worn a hijab and managed to fit it properly: none
• Number of times I have built up my life from scratch: 5
• Number of times sharing a room in a hostel for 9 months with a pregnant 17 year old, and her boyfriend sneaking in most nights: 1
• Number of incredible people I have met along the way: countless
• Number of countries lived in: 7 (counted England twice – when growing up and returning 27 years later)
• Number of times I was told ‘its up to you to run a $60 million famine response in Somalia’: once.
• Number of times I wondered professionally ‘what the fuck am I doing – I don’t know if I can do this’: 64 (OK, don’t know the real number but you get the point)
• Number of times sitting in a bombed out basement in Mostar with music getting turned up to drown out sound of shelling: countless
• Number of times moving house: average once a year for 30 years
• Number of years spent getting fucked up: 20
• Number of years in various therapies ‘fixing’ the fuck up: 20
• Number of insane therapists I had the joy of sitting in front of: 5 (two incredible ones as well)
• Number of times I have soul laughed: almost daily
• Number of times friends have carried me through unbelievably dark times, asking nothing in return: countless
• Number of times I have (accidentally) locked my CEO in his guesthouse bedroom in Mogadishu for 2 hours: 1
• Number of times I have, figuratively, jumped of cliffs with no parachute: ummm, is there any other way?

Have to go and wake up the kids for last day of school this term now…nothing like the school run to bring one back down to earth!