In Sickness and in Health: A lack of resolutions - apart from one

In 2014, Rebecca's husband Nick was hit by a car and seriously injured. Here, in one of a series of columns, she writes about the aftermath of his accident

Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you inferior without your consent" (Getty)

I don’t do resolutions. January is bleak enough without giving up drink, which would make me a danger to myself and others, and so dark and horrible that just surviving it is something of which to be proud. I do think that having a motto to live by, though, is a nice idea. One that has tickled my fancy of late comes from an unlikely source. Sifting through a pile of discarded books at work some months ago, I came across a book about yoga written by the kind of blonde-haired, raw-food-eating Scandi goddess who would usually make my skin rear up in rebellion. I was ready to hate her and her lifestyle manual. And yet I read the book cover to cover, did some of the yoga and admired the phrase by which she lived her life: “do no harm, but take no s***”.

It’s not right for me, but I like it. I’d like to have a pithy Dorothy Parker witticism as my mission statement. “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy” (true). Or, “I hate writing but I love having written”. Both are apt for moments in my life, but they don’t cover the whole gamut. Eleanor Roosevelt’s “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent” is wise, but a bit of a downer.

In fact, the phrase that sums up how I am, and how I live, is one that I learnt more than 25 years ago in a drafty church hall. “I promise that I will do my best”. The Brownies have, to my surprise, left their mark on me. I wouldn’t know how to do blanket stitch without my time labouring over a Piglet-from-Winnie-the-Pooh made from felt. I wouldn’t know that orange squash could also be a hot drink. I wouldn’t know that some people actually believe in God and the Queen (in my day, the Brownie promise was: “I promise that I will do my best, to love God, To serve my Queen and Country, To help other people”. In my house, God and the Queen were equally hazy concepts).

Brownies taught me about the great joy that is to be found in weaseling out of things (I was eventually struck off for non-attendance), and I learnt that sometimes, the imaginary spider that you think is climbing up the wall behind you camp bed isn’t actually imaginary. And that there are people in the world - shout out to Brown Owl - courageous enough to pick up spiders in their bare hands.

I’m not brave enough to do that - I’m a squasher. And I often do incredibly stupid things. I snap at Nick. I shout at his wheelchair when it’s being recalcitrant. I drink too much. I swear with such fluency that I make people flinch. I’m sometimes horrible to call-centre workers. I don’t make tea nearly enough for my colleagues. I moan, I cry and I’m irritable. I screw things up. I make bad decisions. But I do my best. I do my best to look after Nick. I do my best to be a good daughter and stepmother. I do my best in trying to stay patient when everything in my life is different to how it used to be. This year, like last, all I can do is promise to do my best.