I don’t want your freedom

 

When i was young i read a historically controversial book called 1984. I remember being fascinated yet horrified by the draconian society portrayed yet remained absently detached as this was so far removed from the world of my then existence. Literature portraying dystopian society has always fascinated us, perhaps by its very contrast of the world we live in.

Or is it?

Fast forward to 2020 and events of recent years lead me to wonder if perhaps this book was somewhat prophetic in nature and if perhaps the society within were not some kind of pending possibility.

I find it hard to equate modern society with our history of fighting for freedom of word, thought, deed and intention. In past times those subjugated were not just of colour but of gender, intelligence, belief, physicality and opportunity. Gradually years of rebellion have strived and continue to strive to free all of those who might normally have been relegated to being ‘less’.

So how then have we come to be so intolerant despite all of our hard won victories. How do we live in a society where freedom of speech is a crime, for there will be sure to be someone who will take offence if their opinion differs to your own. We endorse this. We validate it and we give people permission to take offence, even when there was none of this in its intent.  We are a people offended. We seek it. We find it where it doesn’t exist. Because we need it to make us feel better about who we are. We need to create our imaginary purpose.

The written word, once so enlightening is now the most guilty of criminals for it fails endlessly to express its intended meaning. Have 1000 people read the same sentence and you will get 1000 different interpretations of it, yet who of us is to decide which interpretation is correct. Perhaps only that person who wrote the sentence in the first place, yet there are many who will claim that they know better than the writer , the meaning and intent behind it. Have we become so determined to be offended by everything we see and hear that we are guilty of becoming Orwellian thought police after all.

Perhaps we need to be more tolerant and celebratory of each other and respect that individuality for which we fought for so long. Perhaps we need to respect that not everyone will agree with what we think but be open to the views of others whilst staying true to our own.

This is true diversity.

There will always be those people who take their own personal views to the extreme and seek to deliberately to give offence where perhaps in the past none would have been taken. These are the people that need to learn that views are personal and we need to allow others to have opinions of their own rather than those forced upon us.

BE that tolerant society.

Accept that everyone is different and that is what makes us unique. That is what makes us so diverse, so challenging and so interesting as people. Not everyone will agree with every opinion but it does not make anyone’s ideals any less valid than your own. One of the biggest dangers to this free world is bandwagonning. We run to jump aboard, whether we agree with what we are signing up for or not. Because we don’t want to be seen not to. We don’t want to be that person who doesn’t and by our very failure to conform, become the focus of the hatred and the backlash purported by the once so fantasised thought police.

Perhaps Orwell had some vision of the future that the rest of us had not. Perhaps he saw where society was heading if we did not cling more tightly to that which makes us individual.  Me, i prefer not to ride on the bandwagon but prefer to walk steadily at my own pace to the tune of my own marching band.

My name is Amanda and my thoughts are my own.

Don’t forget to wipe your feet!!

It’s been a long time since i blogged anything.

That’s not to say that my brain stopped thinking any less or that i didn’t have it in me to write, but i forgot how to be me. I guess that sounds stupid right? But i’m sure some of you will get what i mean.

Reality has a horrible way of crashing in when you really don’t expect it.

It started with the crying. Not the odd tear that trickles slowly down your face and drips off the end of you nose. No i’m talking real crying. The kind where you almost forget why you’re crying in the first place and it seems to be about everything. The kind of crying where you sob and sob until you almost want to throw up and yet still you can’t stop. It’s all bottled up you see, people like me we don’t cry. We’re strong, we’re warriors and we’re there for everyone else like some storm weathered rock that just keeps on standing. But even rock wears away eventually because the truth is we just forgot to be there for ourselves. Then we crumble.

The crying? It was all over a shoe. Yes, you heard right, a shoe.

As usual i was late, as usual i was tired and as usual everything hurt. i just couldn’t reach down far enough to tie that darned shoe and that was the start of it all. I screamed, i cried, i raged and i threw that hated shoe clean across the room. That day i went to work in trainers and i lied to my boss. I told her my shoe broke and i didn’t have time to get a new pair. I lied to myself and told myself the shoe broke. So i went and bought a new pair that didn’t have laces.

Now i guess at this point most people would have faced up to the fact that they couldn’t tie their shoe because their weight was stopping them from doing it. Weight that made it hard to bend down but that also made every joint hurt so that you literally cannot make natural movement. Most people would’ve faced up to the fact that this was also about more than just a shoe.

Not me.

I think perhaps i was so used to feeling so bad about myself, no matter what size i was, that this was just normal for me. I dismissed the pain in my knee as a sign of getting older, i ate donuts for lunch to make myself feel better and i pushed it way, way down back where it belonged. How ironic that the thing that is your biggest enemy should be the one thing that can make you feel better. Food. Food was my best friend of all. It didn’t judge, it didn’t let me down and it was always there when i needed it.

Day’s rolled by and i did what i do best. I smiled, i put myself out for others and i put everybody else before myself. Perhaps i’m losing some of you here, it’s hard to get you to understand what it’s like to be overweight, to have such a lifelong ingrained hatred for yourself that it turns you into somebody that you really aren’t. To a point where you focus your whole world on everything and everyone else just to avoid having to face up to the truth. You just hate yourself so badly that nothing and nobody can do anything to change it. A hatred that doesn’t go away with weight loss or makeup or a nice new outfit.

But you’d never know.

I’ve learned to hide it so well. I don’t want to seem weak, i don’t want to be an object of anyone’s pity. I don’t need any more negative validation that i already have right now. I do that just fine all by myself. If you know me i’m sure you’re very surprised by this. I hide it well don’t i? I’m sure you’d never guess.

You’ll never guess because I’ve learned to be outwardly everything i want to be inside. Happy, accepting,valued. You look desperately for some small sign of something from people in your life to make you feel like you really are worth something, yet all the while the overwhelming hatred burns away in the back of your brain. So you lose yourself in other peoples lives, overcompensating for everything that is lacking in your own. All the while you just want somebody to say ‘Hey, let me help you carry that for a while, lean on me, together we got this’

I call myself names you know. I look in the mirror and hiss ‘stupid fat ugly cow’ at myself several times a day. Just in case i forget to remember.

But life has changed a little lately. I found out the hard way that in the end you just have to be there for yourself. The only person that is going to help you pick yourself up from the floor is you. So i’m trying. I’m working so hard on fixing all of the things that i see wrong with me and trying to be somebody i can accept even if that person is somebody i will never love. I’m trying hard to look in the mirror and accept that i’m really an okay person. I can’t promise that i will ever be happy but at least i can be sure that the only thing looking back at me from the mirror is me.

It’s not about the weight loss. It’s not even really about the shoe. It’s about being able to crumble when you need to and accept that it’s okay not to be okay. It’s about not hiding behind excuses and about learning to be happy with who you are. It’s about not always having to be strong.

Life is actually horrifyingly short. You don’t get a do over, there is no rewind button or collect $200 and go back to the start. You just have to do the best you can with what you have and learn to value the important things and learn from your mistakes. Me, i’m on a journey. A journey to learn to like myself and to learn to accept help when it’s given. I’m learning that nobody can be really that strong if the foundations are weak and i need to build on that. I’m learning that it’s okay to let somebody else help you to carry your burden.

Best of all i can tie my shoelaces again. I walk around grinning like an idiot because i can feel my jeans falling down and i know that i can get where i’m going. So if one day you see a slightly overweight girl hitching up her jeans, don’t judge, just laugh with her and help her feel good about her goals.

Maybe one day i’ll feel beautiful.

Maybe.

I don’t like Mondays

Sunday evening and the last vestiges of a gloriously sunny weekend disappear below the horizon signalling an end to relaxation and fun.  I try to avoid looking at the clock on Sunday evenings and no matter how tired i get i refuse to go to bed as though doing so will halt the death knell march of an impending Monday.  I am confident that i am far from alone in my loathing of the first day of the week although i find myself amused that it is only this particular day i have such distaste for.  Tuesday, for the most part, is much the same as Monday, yet  strangely i find i do not mind a Tuesday so much.

Casting back to younger years and Sunday night would ring to the shouts of ”Get in the bath, you’ve got school tomorrow”  Back to the present and i still find myself following the same ritual as though i never had a bath at any other time. I must hasten to add that i am very clean and actually bathe every day, yet never on a Monday evening would i say ”I’ve got to have a bath, I’ve got work tomorrow”

No there’s just something about an advancing Mondays that seems to hold such importance, enough to taint the evening before.

Tomorrow morning, as always, a very tired me will grope blearily for an unwelcome alarm, emerging looking for all the world like a disgruntled hedgehog. Snooze button on repeat as my sleep deprived brain tries desperately to cling to the last fog of sleep. ‘In a minute’ is my favorite saying on a Monday morning, invariably leading to my being dreadfully late and rushing for the bus to the sounds of the fastest beat song i can find on my ipod. If it is a good morning i may have actually buttoned my shirt up straight.

I just hate Mondays. I cannot decide if it is merely having to do something not of my choosing that makes me hate it so or whether it is the whole total groundhog week that makes it so unwelcome. Perhaps it is the lazy side of me that resents the ritual of a work day, being held to account through every minute of the day and only returning when it is too late to find time for myself. Monday heralds forced company rather than sought and uniform as a pose to comfy jeans and personality reflecting clothing.

Darkness is falling now and i stifle a yawn, trying desperately to pretend that the evening is not advancing at a furious pace. How odd that a Sunday seems to go by far faster than any other day of the week. Whilst i am well aware that it is merely my perception of time i cannot help but imagine Father Time in some act of devilment, gleefully putting my Sunday on fast forward. Oh for an extra few hours, some little bit of extra time to hold the evening at bay, a chance to rewind and luxuriate in the remnants of a day to myself.

Reality bites as a glance to my right sees uniform hanging ready for tomorrow.  I fear if i yawn much harder my mouth will stay permanently open.

Sunday marches on and no matter my distaste of Mondays it’s clear i have little say in the matter. Uniform and running for the bus to the strains of Linkin Park it is then.

Sweet dreams all.

 

 

Love is not love….

Love.

There’s no getting away from it.  It really is all around, everywhere you look and a subject more often talked about than most. We all want love yet ask anyone to describe what it is and why they want it and you will get so many replies as to leave you confused.

I have to admit as a young child i was very much of the happily ever after brigade. Brought up on tales of princes and princesses and happily ever after. Truly believing that one day my eyes would meet those of the man i was destined to be with and he would sweep me off my feet, just like in the movies. Beating hearts and breathlessness and a passion leading you to want to be together forever. How rude an awakening when i found that life really isn’t like that at all.

Love, i have decided, is very like any other addiction. There is the initial excitement, loss of inhibition and the buzz that comes with any new drug. A newly discovered euphoria leaves you craving more and slowly the addiction takes hold. Love takes over, blurring the fringes of your reality until it is all you can think about. How much better your life seems with a dose of love to boost you along. You cannot deny that there are those fortunate enough to sail on this happy tide for the whole of their lives never knowing the ill effects that often creep in over time. For others the toxic effects begin to take hold and yet still you continue even knowing that this is bad for you. Addiction is hard to let go of and so often we cling to its safe familiarity. Better to be in bad love than not in love at all right?

Wrong!

Recently i have been talking to a friend about the breakdown of her relationship and whilst i should never divulge the confidences of another, safe it to say that i puzzled greatly over the reasons for its sad demise.

Change. Or rather refusal to accept any change which comes along. I have to admit i pondered a long time over this. My own relationship, whilst being far from the fairy tales of my childhood, is a very good one simply because i had been willing to compromise my expectations. My partner will be the first to admit he is not the flowery, gushy demonstrative type and perhaps he would not be the man for any woman seeking open and obvious affection such as my friend. But i find our relationship has a solid foundation and affection comes in an endearing way unique to only him. I think if perhaps i were less sure about myself and our relationship i should be unsettled by what may seem  to others an unloving man. Yet to me in all my familiarity of him, i find him affectionate and loving in a way nobody else can see. Hard won but worth it when it appears.

I tried to explain this to my friend. People change but sometimes we have to change with them and relationships cannot always stay the same. Just because love settles into a familar comfortableness does not mean that it is no longer love. Very like a new pair of shoes, all shiny and taking time to break in,  but once done so they settle and mould into a comfortable fit. Well worn and often much loved but different from the new shoes you first bought.

My friend just cannot accept the changes in their relationship and has chosen to end this since it does not meet the idea that she has of how it should be. I feel sad for her that the love she has is no longer the love she wants and perhaps she is right not to compromise her expectations. I asked her if she loved her partner and she said yes but he’s not like he used to be. Perhaps, i pointed out gently, you are in love with who he was and not who he is now.

We are very different she and i and whilst i should find it hard to let go of love for the sake of change i cannot fault her for doing so. I find i am with Shakespeare when i say…

”Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds”

I find i myself have changed a lot over the years, very different from the girl i was in my younger years. I have had my share of that sweeping all encompassing love and found that it did not end well. It is not to say that i should never be open to that kind of feelings again but i find now i have learned to expect differently from before. Perhaps age has made me less idealistic or perhaps i have simply learned to heed the lessons of experience and compromise where once i should demand.

Love.

You cant always live with it but it seems we definitely cannot live without it. I think all any of us can hope for is someone to notice when we are not around. Someone to care and to love us  in whatever way they can and perhaps if for some this is not as bright and shiny as for others then no matter. We all want to feel loved and wanted and id like to hope that for most we find what we are looking for.

Sometimes you just need to look that little bit more closely.

 

 

 

Who’s that girl?

 

 

People change. We bend, we move, we alter with time. Buffed and worn with the experiences of life, how few of us can say we are still who we used to be. Life has a way of altering who we are, without us ever even noticing, until one day we look back and find ourselves so changed as to almost be a different person.

I know i have.

I admit to being by nature quite insular. Not that anyone would notice for i have become quite adept at giving all the appearance of someone quite the opposite, being open ,warm and friendly in public. Partly due to my job i admit but also due to the fact i find society  clearly expects me to be this way, an automated response in the presence of someone else.  I live in a world of extroverts who like nothing better than to spend vast amounts of time with each other whilst, introvert that i am, i just want to retreat to a place and persons of my choosing. In social situations i still want to be invited to whatever events and get togethers that are planned by my peers but i want to be accepted for the fact i will rarely attend.

Perhaps i am an alien. I often wonder if my body was taken over by some other being so stealthily that i never even noticed. Looking back down the years i regretfully admit i have changed in myself perhaps more than is usual for anyone to do. Gone is the extrovert, friend loving me with a head full of dreams and a whimsical wish to meet prince charming and be wed. Happily ever after turned into happily never at all. Whilst i admit to being much more of a realist than ever i was before, i still find buried remnants of the person i used to be. Yet cynicism clouds my reality, not in a way as to make me grim and dour but certainly enough to change my expectations from life.

”Do you Amanda take……..to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Yes once that was me. Even after one bad experience i still clung hopefully to the thought that prince charming was out there. Waited, confident that any day soon i’d be swept off my feet, that all the storms in my ocean had been worth the weathering and for a while i was. But somehow fate decided that shipwrecks and sinking were on the cards for me until one day my  battered little boat was bobbing the horizons alone. I determined, however, that i should be the kind of person to never carry my baggage along with me.Weighing me down as i plodded my way doggedly through life, smiling despite it all. Yet for all my determination i find perhaps i carried more with me than i realised, coloured by lies and mistrust into a person who suddenly didn’t need anyone. Strong, independent and solitary yet in contrast still upbeat in spirit.

So there you have me. Independent, strong minded and decidedly cynical with a touch of ironic and at times self deprecating humour. I do not like to need people, a fact which has frustrated male friends and partners alike.  Men i have found in general like to feel needed and i admit i have a touch of this myself, yet i find myself unable to need in return.  I am careful to surround myself with those people i want to have around me but i am careful not to let myself need them.

Needed but not needy.

Yet over all this a gilding that makes me acceptable to society. I’m branded a nice girl, helpful, kind and thoughtful and for the most part i am. But hidden beneath is whats really left of the sum total of my years. However hard we try we cannot escape some elements of life experience that we shall always carry with us.  Miserly with trust my circle is small in some unconscious  attempt at self preservation.  Perhaps life will change me some time in the future, perhaps i shall not always be as i am or perhaps this is how i am destined always to be.

Turning my attention back to the screen i wistfully sigh as Jane Austen’s Emma comes to a tearful realisation that she does indeed love Mr Knightly and i muse upon the fact that perhaps all is not lost of me after all. However unwanted i still seem to have that softness inside that keeps me human.

People change. We bend, we move, we alter with time. Buffed and worn with the experiences of life yet perhaps more of this is under our control than we realise. Trust may not always be as misplaced as sometimes it may seem and damaged inflicted over turbulent years can often be repaired leaving the way clear to finding ourselves again.

I know i’ve changed. Have you?

 

 

Into thin air

 

Sometimes i wonder what it would be like to disappear. Not in a magical sense where i vanish in a puff of smoke to goodness knows where, but really disappear from life in general. Suddenly just to drop everything and keep on walking without ever looking back, shedding responsibilities like layers of oversized clothing, each step making me lighter as i get further and further away.

Ah responsibilities, the bane of every persons life. Those persistent blighters that keep us running like rats on a wheel, getting nowhere yet not knowing what else to do but run. Strange how akin to a rat i have felt of late,working, eating , sleeping and running ,running, running on my wheel. Eyes firmly focused on the bars as if i could reach them if i ran hard enough. Hope trained firmly on the space beyond waiting for some monotony breaking piece of cheese to dangle on the outside. Run ,run ,run…keep on running.

There has to be more to life than this, oh that eternal cry of the overworked and underlived and surely i expect there must be if i only had the time. Tick tock, i’m late, i’m late. A white rabbit skips around in my mind relentlessly urging haste that i have somewhere to be. Responsibility again, stabbing endlessly whenever i should pause to take a minute. No time No TIME!! You have to go. Keep on running, run run run.

Oh to be able to just walk away. Just to find space to exist outside my own head and my own life. To be me but not to be me in any encumbering, self shackled way. To spread my arms wide and gaze up at the sky and just BREATHE.

Responsibility again and this time it has brought a friend. Each have an arm and pull me in opposite directions. You need to do this, you need to do this, no time no time like some distorted mantra in my brain. No time, no time, who are you anyway?

Sometimes i wish i could just disappear.

You hear it all of the time in the media, people just vanish, never to be seen again. How strong the yearing for freedom, for some flicker of differentiality to the never ending tedium and sheer encompassing exhaustion that is my life. Oh to be able to sleep until i am not tired any more, to walk at a pace that is not a run. To look around instead of rushing blinkered headlong through the day. Stress begone and leave me to my day.

Sometimes i wish i could just disappear….. and i could, couldnt I?

 

Blowing out the candle.

I’ve grudgingly decided that I think too much. Generally I mean.

Not in any way specific to one particular topic but my mind in general wanders and then I think. A lot. I overthink and I obsess. Then I think some more.

Today I was reluctantly babysitting the remnants of some international flu virus whilst dragging my protesting body around the house, trying to raise some semblance of order to its mildly neglected state. I like everything just so and often cast loving glances around my belongings, drinking in the feeling of home they give me. Today, however, my mind started to wander to the realms of mortality and I began to imagine what on earth would happen to all of this if there were no me to need it. I blame it entirely on Doctor G you see. My son is horrified that I avidly watch TV shows about autopsies..”even while you’re eating! YUK!!!”  For my own part I find it tragically fascinating, although it does make one extremely aware of how limited an existence we can have.

Around the room my glance went as my overactive brain stripped away everything that was me. Footsteps in an empty room before a voice says ”Last tenant passed away, rather tragic it was too”   NO!! Snatching up a teddy bear I hugged it comfortingly before assuring it I wouldn’t abandon it any time soon. Of course then I HAD to think about it for it was stuck in my brain and would not be quiet no matter how hard I tried to make it. I wonder just how long I DO have left? Oh, what if I should get run over by a bus tomorrow, should I write letters, for everyone might think I didn’t ever love them! Those that I didn’t might think that I do and that’s even worse!! What about the cat??

As I said I think too much. But on a serious side I couldn’t help but wonder how easily our lives are discarded and packed away like it never existed at all. Belongings that we so carefully hoard over many a year vanish leaving no trace of our personality behind. Those of us lucky enough to leave someone to mourn us eventually fade to a few photographs and disjointed memories before evaporating into nonexistence like we had never been. Cherished items mouldering in some back street charity shop, forgotten and unwanted.

Perhaps it is something that comes with age. Never before did I think about dying or not being here, yet all too often recently I am aware of how every year is a bonus. I think it would be arrogant of me to assume that I should get to live out as many years as I would like. Yes, if I am honest , I am a little afraid. Not of dying, but of dying before I am ready to go. So many places I want to go and so many things I want to do. I wonder if fate will give me the time I feel that I need. I wonder if I shall leave someone behind to care that I am gone.

Sometimes lately I feel afraid to go to sleep, terrified that this may be the last time I close my eyes. So irrational a fear yet so few of us get warning and I should not want to close my eyes so early for the final time. Yet I am so very aware that if this the case I should never even know that this was the end. I would not be here to know that I did not wake up.  Blown out like the flame on a candle.

I wish I could choose a point in time and say ”That’s it. That’s when I want to go”. Be able to live free of the worry that my time might be shorter than I’d like. Sadly it just doesn’t work that way. So each night I close my eyes and fight the temptation to try and stay awake and pray as hard as I can that I get to open my eyes in the morning just the same as I did yesterday.

 

 

The memory box

Folding the letter she gently smoothed the sheet of paper under her fingers feeling beneath them dryness of age that had affected it. Eyes too poor to read it now, nevertheless she knew every word by heart having devoured it so often over the years, now carefully stored with so many others and only now seeing light of day.

HARRY!

Closing her eyes his face flashed into her mind, hazy now as she struggled after so long to keep his features sharp and clear, she was losing him to time she knew that and the thought made her smile sadly. So long ago yet brief moments of clarity would invade her thoughts, his smile cutting through the fog and making it seem like only yesterday and then he was gone again leaving her with only these tangible memories. 

Sighing softly she replaced the pages into the large carved wooden box, fingers brushing a small packet as she did so drawing it slowly towards her before cupping it gently in her wrinkled palms and clasping it to her chest.  ‘Not long my love’ she thought to herself ‘Soon, it shall be soon’

Leaving the packet unopened she returned it quickly to the box, thrusting it inside as guilt burned and she slightly afraid of being discovered although she knew she would not be, nobody came any more. A splash of bright colour caught her eye and she reached towards a garish painted picture of a child’s hand with crude scrawl underneath depicting the artist’s name.

Ella.

Another smile, eyes warming briefly before the light quickly faded, no Ella was long gone and this just yet another memory of things come and gone in her many years of being. Sadness less sharp as each year went by panged momentarily before she dismissed it and returned the picture to lie back along its fellow inhabitants of the cluttered old box. 

Her worn gaze swept over the small grizzled teddy bear and the beribboned letters, oh she had been so popular in her day with her many suitors all begging for a smile, a glance, some sign of recognition from her but almost from the first she had only had eyes for him. Sweeping an errant lock of hair from her forehead she leaned further over the box disturbing the contents in her hunt for the one thing she sought. She needed to find it, to bring him close again before her failing mind refused to remember what she was looking for and left her in that absent place where nothing mattered any more. 

There! There it was.  Her heart leapt as she found the one thing she wanted and fingers rapidly cleared the dust from the front of the small framed picture. Lovingly she gazed at the sun bleached photograph, yellow with age, showing a young couple smiling shyly at each other.He resplendent in some bygone uniform showing duty to his country and she delicately pretty in florals and lace, bonnet trailing from fingers gently clasped between his.

Harry.

Even as she gazed the fog came and eyes clouded over, picture already forgotten falling into her lap and memories of him vanishing like mist in the sun. In the shadows of the room a figure waited, brass buttons shining on a uniform of old, boyish face echoing the love reflected earlier on hers. He could wait, he’d waited such a long time that a little longer would not hurt. 

‘Soon my love’ he smiled ‘ i shall see you soon’ 

goodbye my friend

From the time we are small we will encounter many other people whose lives will interact with our own. Some of them will linger for a time before passing along their own path whilst others may stay with us forever. No matter the length of time each leaves behind some tiny little footprints in our memories and often our hearts. 

It is with great sadness today that i learned of the passing of a very old friend. A friend lost in the distant past but despite the different paths our lives had taken still a friend for all that. Mingled with sadness is an overwhelming guilt that perhaps i should have tried harder to hold on to the friendship instead of letting it go,. Perhaps my presence could have made some difference to her as it did in the past. Could i have saved her?

She was fragile you see and i knew it. A total contrast to my own mulish strength and i often was the support for her failing life. She did not cope well with the downsides of life and sought solace often in the bottom of a glass. I know it was not my choice and she lived the way she wanted but memories of old remind me that i could have stopped her or at least led her to moderation as i had in the past.  But maybe i failed her by not being there. 

It is all too easy to become wrapped up in our own lives and i am the first to admit i am very solitary. My friendships are few by choice even if my acquaintances are many. Yet we found each other she and i, in a time when we were both at our most vulnerable and formed a firm kind of limping friendship that i like to hope mattered at least a little. That she was only slightly older than i is a painful jab at just how short life really is and perhaps makes me more aware than ever of my own mortality. Yet i like to believe that once a friendship is formed then it will always be so whether the years steer you in different directions or not and i think that perhaps she would have agreed with that. 

Wherever she is i hope she is in a better place for i know that for her life was not an easy experience. Perhaps now she will find the happiness that for so long eluded her and finally find herself some peace.

Goodbye my friend, 

There is a happy land

In the course of my work i encounter many many people. All walks of life, all ages, races and religions. Some of these are your average pleasant examples whilst more often they are sadly the opposite. Whatever the person you meet there are occasionally those who for some reason or another stay firmly lodged in your memory. Up until now it has been my misfortune for all of those of my experience to be of a negative nature rather than a pleasantly positive.

Recently all of that changed when i had a conversation with an elderly man. To begin with he won me over with his lovely chirpy greeting and after a morning of exceptionally rude people he was definitely a balm to my downcast mood. They say that you can hear in the voice when a person is smiling and of this gentleman this was certainly true. Smiling he most definitely was. 

Faintly Welsh with that singsong lilt to his voice he replied that as the sun was shining he was very well indeed and asked after myself in return.  ‘My Lovely’ he called me and that in itself made me smile for it was nice to hear after a particularly harsh day. I explained the purpose of my call and he listened intently before pausing for a moment after i finished speaking. then he began to chuckle and i was taken aback as he announced that he would be glad to help but he really did not see the point for he was not long for this world. ”I’m dying you see” he told me quite nonchalantly.  Like any empathetic person i was horrified and apologised profusely, condolences rushing forth although i wasn’t really sure any of them were enough to befit the situation. Startlingly he dismissed my words with another chuckle and told me that he was ready to go.

”I’ve lived my life you see” he told me ”I’ve lived a very happy life, had a wonderful wife who is waiting up there for me to join her”

Then he began to talk. He told me of his life and his time in the second world war. That he found in me a willing audience there seemed to please him greatly and we talked for some time as he told me of his time as ground crew personnel. Scoffing genially at me as i enthused my love of the B-17, telling me firmly that there was nothing to hold a candle to the good old Spitfire. As he talked he never changed, that same chirpy happy nature shone through and despite his bombshell i found myself smiling too, very much warming to this old man i had never met and he did seem to be genuinely happy. 

Smiling still he told me of his wife, clearly from the gentle affectionate way he spoke of her it seemed he really did love her. That he was looking forward to seeing her again in whatever place exists after passing touched me and made me smile. No clearly this lovely old man had lived a happy life, this much was evident from the way he spoke. He stuck in my memory for his charm and his friendly nature and his gentle acceptance of his lot and i wondered if in my own turn i should feel the same. 

I have always been a big believer in trying to do the best we can with the life we have for we really do only get one try at it. There is no ‘return to go’ for those who make mistakes and get it wrong no matter how much we should wish it. Although many years hopefully yet to go i couldnt help but hope that i should be able to say the same as this lovely man, that my mistakes however many were still nothing compared to the happy parts of the life i managed to have. I have to admit a relief that my time is not yet up for i have not yet reached that place where i can look back and say i have led a happy life. My mistakes are many and i am not so very good at getting things right. Yet there are those things, however few, that definitely make all of the difference and i can truly say i feel i got right. It is so very hard to realise just when something is worth counting and when it is of no consequence at all but just sometimes there are things you just know you have to count. Regrets will follow when you realise you should have counted something that you didnt or in hindsight put too much stock in that mattered not at all.

It is all a question of balance and doing for yourself those things that will make you look back and say you led a happy life. Perhaps you may not have started out that way but the world is full of choices and it is up to us to choose the path to the right memories. For myself i shall remember that lovely old man whom i met only briefly but who made me smile on a very bad day and who gave me faith that if you stay true to yourself and what you believe you really do have the potential to be happy. 

Wherever you are sir i wish you and your wife a most happy ever after. 

The weight of desperation…

                                

As you go about your daily life it is highly unlikely that you will fail to see the obesity crisis rocking the western world in more recent times. Whether it be the huge increase of overweight people in general  or simply the ever increasing adverts screaming ‘LOSE WEIGHT FAST’ you would have to be blinkered indeed not to notice. We are a self indulgent society, there is no escaping from it and sadly it seems we only consider the consequences after the fact. Very far after the fact it seems for many and i myself have been no exception.

I am not one to take much stock of some aspects of social media yet i am amazed at how many people, my friends included, live their whole lives on facebook or its like. There is nothing too personal nor too private that they do not feel ready to announce to the world and i am ceaselessly amazed at some of the things i see and read. As a blogger i am happy to share certain opinions and amusing anecdotes relating to my life but i like the option of privacy and am selective about whom i share my intimacies of life with. Still i am not above browsing interestedly at the public announcements of my friends cringing or chuckling as the status may warrant. Today however, as i idly browsed i was struck by the number of weight loss adverts peppering many of the pages i viewed. Although all different brands and methods they all nonetheless screamed out the same message ‘LOSE WEIGHT FAST’  Perhaps the most alarming thing of all was not the presence of the adverts themselves but the sheer number of people flocking to them wanting that quick fix to their excess weight.

                      

For me it was a definite trip down memory lane and an almost Christmas Carol like visit to my former unhappy self. To say i was overweight would definitely be no understatement for the disgrace that i had become was almost double the person i am now. Yet it was all of my own doing and to a certain extent a deliberate attempt to obliterate the unhappy shadow that i had become. Never in truth did i consider the consequences of my actions nor did i have the foresightedness to realise that being big would not change the problems that had forced me there, it would only serve to be lessened slightly by the momentary comfort of some sugary treat. It is hard for anyone who has not experienced it to understand the comfort and solace that can be found in the arms of a bar of chocolate. If only the feeling lasted as long as the unhappiness but alas it does not and with it comes the crashing low of reality.

IM FAT!! 

                          

There may be those rare few who genuinely are happy being bigger and who do not feel the need to conform to a society ideal in order to feel attractive and loved. Sadly i like many was not once of those and longed to undo the damage that i had inflicted upon myself and be once again the slim person i had been before. But again like many i was daunted by the long road ahead and i failed to see the reality of the situation, it had taken years to become this large and it was going to take equally as long to take it away.

I wanted it now! 

                 

Therein we find the problem of many a dieter, once the decision has been made and the excess weight confronted we want suddenly to be slim overnight. This does not happen and even when the weight loss is rapid the effects upon the body cosmetically are not appealing as the skin fails to keep up with the speed of the weight lost. I have seen many a person embark upon some extreme weight loss programme only to be devastated by the resulting swathes of excess flesh where they had imagined some bikini body. Yet still they flock to these adverts willing to part with hard earned money for the illusion that this will be an overnight fix. I did it the hard way. I dieted, i failed, i cried, i sweated at the gym and i got right back on the wagon after every cheat and tried again. I threw many a tantrum and hurled many an abusive name at my reflection in the mirror but i kept on trying until i finally saw the results. In hindsight i think the stuggle in itself taught me more of a lesson than any quick fix ever could and even today i still carry on fighting the battle to keep from obesity. 

                                  

I cannot help but feel a sadness for those who clamour around the quick fix for i was them once and i remember well the hopelessness and the desperation. The need to conform and the desire to be accepted and loved. Once you have been overweight you are never free from a diet for it is your curse to be susceptible to temptation and weaknesses that led you to where you were in the first place.Yet you learn in a way you never have before and you find a way to ignore the little voice reverberating in your brain urging you to give in and indulge.

I am quite sure i drive my boyfriend mad with my constant self criticism and shattering insecurities and that is my cross to bear. Yet thankfully he understands me and knows from whence it comes. He listens without complaint yet sometimes will reprimand me for slamming down any comforting compliment he may make. Perhaps the latter rather frustratedly for he knows at times that no matter what he says i shall not hear it.  But hear it i do although it maybe sometime later when it penetrates the sometimes self loathing i feel. It is a battle i shall continue to fight maybe forever but i’m winning…at least i am winning. Still i cannot help but feel sad when i see the girls i used to be, cannot help a wave of memories crash in, followed by the relief that i made it. Almost.

There simply is no quick fix. It is something you come to learn as you make the journey yourself, for the battle is as much inside as it is out. I made it on the outside, i was lucky and i do look good i grudgingly can admit this but it took someone else to open my eyes. The inside is something else and i shall carry on along the road with a supporting hand in mine.

                                                             

The weight of desperation.  

Ain’t no mountain high enough

Pick up any newspaper, turn on the television news and you cannot fail to see the constant doom and gloom predictions of the current economic climate. As we read daily of hardships and hurdles, of food banks and homelessness you cannot help but see the downturn of life in general for so many. There is surprisingly an odd detachment in society  however, with the true realities of a life of hardship being a most alien concept to those more fortunate and favoured. Perhaps it is true that unless you have had to live a reality then why should it even exist for you and this definitely seems to be the case today. Not for the first time i have witnessed people shocked by the genuine realities of life for the less privileged and the admittance of a total unawareness of such existence. Media it seems has much to answer for in its portrayal of modern human lives.

Personally i cannot deny that things have been somewhat of a downward spiral in some elements of my life and, control freak that i am , i find being hemmed into very tight corners a most unpalatable situation indeed. I have likened the situation very much to running a hurdle race and finding that some imp of fate is gleefully adding extra hurdles only in my lane, leaving me running far behind my fellow competitors. 

I have in the past often imagined my life as like that of a rat in a maze, constantly searching for that one door exit whilst fate peers interestedly at my struggles to succeed. I guess here though is where my quirky sense of humour kicks in and i send up thanks that i am not growing an extra ear upon my back. Yes the life of a lab rat would definitely not be one of my choosing and i am more than a little thankful that i am not so far down the species ladder as to genuinely be of the rodent variety.

Despite normally being of such a positive nature it is very difficult after some time not to allow those glimmers of disillusionment and negativity to creep in. It is easy then to self doubt and wonder perhaps if it is not society at all but yourself that is lacking and failing on an epic scale. Looking in the mirror you cease to smile and focus instead on those imaginary flaws and inflate them to fantastical proportions until they dominate your life. I have to my shame done this and i freely admit it. 

”Stupid ugly cow” i have hissed at myself in the mirror. 

I have never been the type of person to outwardly direct my frustrations and self doubt, instead choosing to direct it inwardly at the person i consider to blame. 

Myself.

Perhaps this is more than a little unfair as most of my obstacles have come as the result of outside influences that i genuinely had litte control over and whilst hindsight is a wonderful thing it would have been very hard to erase any of them as each sprang out of an at the time necessity.  Frustrating in the present though when any present efforts are hampered by the chains of the past. But the whole point of running a race is to get to the finish line and often those most remembered are not the ones who came first in blazing glory but those who fell and yet got back up and finished despite coming far behind everyone else. 

So as another monday rolls around i feel a little lightened and ashamed of myself for my negativity thanks to the words of a friend.

The strongest wood, is from trees that withstand the strongest winds, And steel, has to  go into the hottest fire/furnace to become the strongest steel. And of course a piece of coal, has to undergo the most tremendous pressures, to become a diamond

I am running my own race, i realise this and must keep on running no matter the hurdles. I may not come first but i will never fail as long as i just keep on running. The same friend pointed out to me the following quote and i realised he was right, i knew it all along i just let negativity blinker my goal. 

Behind every fear, is a person, you want to be. You face your fears, you become the person you want to be. You run from your fears, you’re not living

So following a friendly mental slap, armed with new motivation and the offer of help from that friend i am willing to walk out onto the ledge and take a small leap of faith. Not in him but finally in myself.  Perhaps after all it is not for me to judge my own strengths and weakness but someone more impartial and less biased in any direction as i am in myself. I am willing to try at least for i shall never reach my goal if i keep on standing still. Someday you may know my name, someday you may not but whatever the result i shall know i gave it all i had. Obstacles are there for a reason, to climb over but often the biggest obstacle of all is infact yourself.

It is possible, so i have been told, to climb a Panda.

Anything is possible if you only try. 

I dreamed a dream..

Love them or hate them, when we close our eyes we all dream at some time or other. Many of us will not realise that we do for they are so quickly and easily forgotten upon waking. Have you ever experienced the frustration of trying to remember a dream that despite your best efforts slips away without you even realising? I have, to the point that i resolved to keep a notepad beside my bed to pen down my imaginitive nocturnal ramblings. I have always been of the opinion that dreams are the minds way of making sense of what it either cannot or will not whilst we are awake. 

I dream a lot. I have never quite decided whether it is purely because i think too much and have a chaotic mind or whether it simply is because i have a lot of unresolved past residing in the darkest recesses of my brain. Perhaps a mix of the two although i confess i definitely do fall into the overthinkers anonymous group a lot of the time. Still given the fantastical nature of some of my sleep sodden imaginings, i should perhaps be writing them down and turning them into potentially best selling novels. 

Sometimes though a dream will recur and these i do remember. Perhap the sheer repetitiveness of it drums it into my longer term memory for me to muse over and self psychoanalyse at leisure. Lately though a dream has recurred that i do not have to particularly look at in too much depth for i know the source of it very well.

REGRET.

My dream is of my grandmother, i have news she is dying and i am trying frantically to get to her but cannot. I find myself running through a field of deep mud and getting nowhere as is often the case in a dream. As i run i pass people i know and frantically hold out my hands begging for help. One by one they shrug and turn away or just ignore me completely until i say desperately ”But i was there for you!!” Then one parody turns and laughs saying  mockingly ”That doesn’t mean that we are there for you”

The result of the dream is always the same i am so bogged down that i do not make it in time. Whatever the visual interpretation my brain put on it the facts are still the same, i have a lifelong regret that i did not make more time for her in the years leading to her death and this is something i have had to learn to live with because the clock cannot be turned back however much we wish it. Perhaps the bigger regret is the time wasted on meaningless things and on those people who deserved my time much less than she. Whilst i know she would not judge me and never would she think ill of me, still i feel that i have failed.

I have always tried my best not to regret things i cannot change for it does little good and in the end merely holds you back.  The curious thing about this dream however,  was the presence of people within it who either were not present in my life at the time or who have no relevance to the situation. I have not yet concluded what significance they have in the dream but i wonder if perhaps it is my own inner awareness warning me not to make the same mistakes again. Perhaps i am guilty of placing too much importance on things and people who do not matter and neglecting those things and people that could be a cause of regret. Maybe it helps to remember who were those who were those who were there for me when i needed someone and who were those who caused me the pain to need someone in the first place. Whatever the meaning it seems sure that this dream is determined to recur until i have taken heed and acted upon it. 

Life is full of regrets. Some we can live with and some may haunt us for the rest of our lives, emerging in our dreams as sad reminders of the mistakes we have made. I do not want to spend my life running through mud chasing regrets, especially the ones that will be the kind to haunt my dreams. It seems, at least for me, that it is time for change although much thought is needed as to what these changes will be. I cannot ignore the fact that lately i have been less than enamoured with some aspects of my life and a redress is in order. Perhaps then i can return to my fantastical dreams of the purely fantasy nature and sleep more soundly than i have of late. 

Still if one is going to be a Panda then at least one should look like a Panda and thanks to a few sleepless nights i most definitely do.

Sweet dreams everyone!! 

That which i do not know

                                  

Plans, plans plans.

It seems our society thrives on them and for many of us it is a predictability that dictates our lives. We plan every aspect of them with regimental detail and for many of us the resulting order is the only path we feel safe upon. We like to know what will happen and when, from getting up in a morning to when we go to bed. All carefully organised in a familiar routine.

I hate routine. I find it suffocating and i am one of those rare people who hates to plan. I abhorr appointments and preplanned order, partly because i am terrible at remembering to keep them but mostly because i do not like being forced to do things at a certain time. I am very much a whim person, if i want a haircut i want it done the same day or i do not bother but this works very well for me.

So with the passing of the Yuletide holidays, waving goodbye to christmas, as usual my friends are planning planning planning. Holidays, Easter, Birthdays, going to the gym, family get togethers and even those christmases yet to come. No sooner has one ended than another one is already in the planning department being drawn up for final review. However i try i just cannot seem to bring myself to think further forward than a month at the very most. Oh of course i have hopes and dreams like everyone else but i would never begin to forward think on any of them.

If i am honest i would have to admit that unlike most people i am not afraid of the unknown but more likely the complete opposite. It is the fear that what i do know will be taken away that scares me most of all. So often the unpredictable comes along to scupper any plans you have made and then perhaps it is all the more painful because you had expected things to happen or for situations to be a certain way. Instead you are left devastated when your hopes and plans are shattered because it was not as you had imagined it should be. So no i do not plan, i do not take for granted that what i have and where i am now will stand to be the same a month from today. I am too afraid to want for certain things to happen or for certain things to stay the same. So i expect for change and loss and should it not transpire then i am only left gladdened and never disappointed. Perhaps if in the back of your mind some small part of you expects to lose that which you have, it makes you value it all the more rather than taking for granted.

Is it any way to live a life, secretly fearing? Perhaps not, but as i listen to those friends making plans for many months from now i cannot help but wonder how many of them will actually get to see those plans transpire. I should like to hope they all will but experience tells me it shall not be so. I do not know where i shall be  a year from now, i will never imagine or even plan for it to be any particular way. Life has a funny way of working out exactly how it is supposed to now matter what we try and do about it.

For now that is enough.

A Mother’s Love

He sits in half silence surveying the scene around him, lips flickering with a smile now and again as some humorous interaction infringes on his somber mood. Hunched slightly forward with arms around his waist he half heartedly joins in the conversation flowing around him although i know he secretly wishes he were back at home. The woman is not fooled she knows his moods better than her own and she leans forward, gently touching his arm. 

”What’s wrong?” She says and he shakes his head, shrugging slightly ”Nothing”

She knows better than to accept his words. A brow creases with concern and fluttering hands beckon him closer and i watch as in an instant the face of the man i know becomes instantly again a small boy. Abashedly he hangs his head and he smiles somewhat ruefully but does as she asks moving instantly to her side.  Those motherly hands reach for the boy within offering comfort and he confesses some small discomfort to the woman at his side. Ever the mother she gathers him close, this man of mine, this child of hers and the caring embrace soothes and pets him and he relaxes beneath her ministrations, smiling at her words. Murmuring softly to him, words i cannot hear she seeks to make this child of hers feel better with the love only a mother can give. He makes a pretence and  shrugs away slightly.

”Mama, i’m fine”

But she knows he is not, this boy of hers and continues to mother him making him smile for despite his protests he secretly  feels better for having her caring arms around him hugging him close. Strange how sometimes all it takes is mother to make it all better again just like when he was small. 

Suddenly i feel very much an outsider. Like some small wistful child looking in a toyshop window on Christmas Eve at the toy she knows she will never get, i watch an unfamiliar scene. Strange that i should miss something that i never had in the first place but then the moment passes and i cannot help but smile at the little boy before me where before i saw a man. He has no idea how endearing he looks as he tries to pretend that he does not need the care she gives yet secretly relishes it all the same.

 A mother’s love it seems brings out the small child in all of us and no matter how old we may be we will always be someones little girl or boy. Just as he is hers and i am glad for the small easement he feels from her gentle affection. It just goes to show that no matter where we go nor how old we become, you really never are to old to be your mother’s son. 

The tides of life

Sometimes, just sometimes, life has a way of making itself felt with an almighty slap that sending you tumbling off your feet with no idea of where you will land. My philosophy has always been that sometimes fate just steps in and gives you a push into the direction you were to afraid to take for yourself. Other times perhaps it is simply because we were taking too much for granted and merely needed a sharp reminder to be just that little bit more grateful for the things that we do have. There is no doubt that most of us are guilty of complacency when it comes to our lives and often do not cope well when change upsets our little world and everything in it. 

When i was small it all seemed so easy. I had my life mapped in a fairytale way that only a child can imagine and never at so young an age did it occur to me to think any differently. I may not have liked everything nor been happy with it but since it was all i had ever known i accepted it as a given and never had the thought to even try and change any aspects of it.  As a child, even when things are not perfect, we do not really see nor really register the less than ideal but merely accept it as it is. We simply do not know any different and therefore have no reason to hope for more. Only when exposed to situations more idealistic than our own do we sometimes wonder what life may be like if we were someone else. I never imagined for myself the life that i have now. Never did i imagine going wthout nor sacrificing until you wonder if you have anything left to give. No, for me i imagined a glamorous lifestyle and a handsome husband who adored me. 

As i should have realised, life does not work out in such a fairytale way for most of us and even those we imagine living the perfect lives have their own regrets and unhappiness. Perhaps then it is not merely what you have that makes you happy but your perception of it. Is it enough to have money, esteem and material things or perhaps is it a case of the more that you have, the more you want. Whilst it is a good thing to have things to want and aspire to, to be without dreams makes life not much of a life at all, there comes a point when perhaps the wanting is not merely for ourselves but more to appear credible and successful to others. What hope of happiness when we rely on others to give us some sense of worth, yet will living our lives for others give us the feeling of success we crave? Will it make us happy?  At the end of the day when doors are closed and we are alone, there is only our own reflection looking back at you in the mirror. It is then that perhaps you realise that without a love for yourself and a sense of inner peace, the regard of others does not count for much at all. 

Life is sent to test us. Some of us more than others and whilst the instinct may be to bury our heads in the sand and ignore that which is happening, sometimes the solution is to stand up tall and weather the onslaught the best way we can. Perhaps we will emerge a little battered and we may need to pick ourselves back up from the floor, but sometimes we can rebuild a better stronger version of what was there before. It is easy to be swept along by the tide and overwhelmed the the deluge that life occasionally throws our way but if you do not swim just that little bit harder then it is so easy to be washed away and drown in the tides of life. 

I have lost my focus of late because i forgot to remember to count my blessings. I fell victim to the need to feel sorry for myself when circumstances dealt me a decline in fortunes. So focused was i on what i had lost and what i no longer had that i forgot about those things that i do. In hindsight all i have done is waste months of my life on worry, regret and upset when really i should have stuck out my chin and taken the blow. We never lose everything, there is always something left to cling to even when it seems like we have nothing left at all. It is that one thing we need to hold on to and start building upon it until we have more than we had the day before. Even as i am I am fortunate, i  somehow forgot that along the way, but there is no doubt that i AM fortunate. Whilst i could definitely have more than i do right now there is no doubt i could easily have a lot, lot less. I have been there before and i will try to remember how far i have come. 

Grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Oh yes, i am fortunate. 

On December 1, 2013December 1, 2013 By xpanda1969xIn blogging, blogs, childhood, emotions, fears, gossip, health, humour, life, love, musings, personal, philosophy, randomLeave a comment