Having the strength to cope with what life throws at you

Yesterday morning I had a horrid shock. I went outside and where my bike and my boyfriend's should have been there was instead an empty bike-stand. The planned quiet Saturday-morning ride to the gym followed by some food shopping was suddenly postponed for what felt like hours of wandering round looking hopelessly for bikes or clues, digging out old receipts, ringing the police... We were plagued by the usual feelings of anger (with ourselves and the thieves and by extension the rest of humanity) and sadness at the seclusion of the marina having been violated, and at the loss of the two lovely bicycles - his a present from me, mine a present from my mother. It was all a depressing shock that left us exhausted by teatime, but I compared my reactions, and my ability to deal with them, throughout the day and now, in retrospect, with how it would have been when I was ill.

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