Tommy

I have utterly indulged myself in BBC4 music documentaries that remind of what was fifteen and twenty years ago. Hearing even the first notes of particular songs transports me back to my school leaving, art college self. And I wonder what's changed, which bits are the same?


Music so powerfully part of the young adult, that memories and emotions and identity are right there with me as I listen to a snoring dachshund in my reasonably civilised surroundings, so very far from the infinitie possibilities and exploration of those days.

I'm lucky, many of those folk still travel with me, and it's good to remember where we came from, why I love those friends. I wonder why I let go of others or how we drifted.

I had a friend called Tommy. The joker, the philosopher, the musician, the pusher of boundaries. He could be found in the middle of it all, wondering if he belonged and carrying on regardless. He had a wonderful giggle and did the things I wouldn't dare to. He was also serious sometimes, exploring the world to find his place, and irreverant. A wearer of hats, and purveyor of late night conversation who always scraped through.

I was twenty when he died.

The news came in dribs and drabs. No mobile phones then, landlines engaged, local TV reports about the climbing accident and the night he spent clinging to life at the end of a rope whilst the rescue helicopter tried to reach him, his death in hospital, phone calls coming with uncertain news, no one really sure if it were true, or just too stunned to believe it, a visit to one of his close friends with no phone to deliver the news.

We were a big, broad group of friends who'd spent our holidays and weekends together at outdoor camps. They were my alternative family, still are.

We huddled together, shaken by this unimaginable loss. Suddenly life was big, and real, and scary.

It changed us.

Reclaiming

I'm still utterly baffled by this last week's encounter. But, what has done is remind me of what I need. Talking with a near stranger holds a mirror up to your beliefs and wants.

I've been very slowly learning that my life is mine. Dad dying has given me some space to start to rebuild and figure out what it is that I, and no one else, want for me.

The tides have been turning for a while now. Like most big things in my life, I'll happen upon a decision almost by accident after digesting for a while or even the smallest of doors opening. Catharsis will come.

A couple of months ago an email from a recruitment consultant in Sydney strengthened an idea in my head – I could leave. I could do, or be, something different.

I have no idea what the future looks like but I do know change is afoot. It's in my gut.

These past years, the only big part of my life I could really (or felt able to) influence was work, and I made it happen. I'm at a point in my career when I've done enough. If I don't climb any further up the ladder, then that's just fine. I've got a good balance of success, satisfaction and experience without pushing it further for now. Often, I just want to stop and do something practical instead.

I can feel my real life shifting, and it's not about loss. I have the opportunity to dare to dream about my future again, rather than fighting very hard to make the present as good as it can be and watching the past dim through sickness. Although letting myself imagine is a little scary – like I'm tempting fate - but it's time I do.

I don't know what's going to give, but I know something will.

I no longer feel duty bound and tied.

I deserve to be happy and to embrace the world in my way. Who knows if I'll stay put in this city and have a change of house or routine or whatever, or whether I'll jump on a plane and have an adventure. For the first time since leaving university I feel like my life is mine and that there's a world of possibility to grab hold of.

I know who I am, what I don't want and, somewhere, somehow, the rest will emerge. I must not, will not, let myself get stuck. I want beauty and risk and happiness and pain and challenge and love and freedom of my own making. 

Our virtual universe and TED

The internet is a world that is so vast that I'm sometimes baffled by the possibility of so much information, thinking, humour, personality or connection that it creates. It's like trying to quantify or understand where the universe starts and stops.

I love that there's so much out there, and occasionally lose hours to a brief question following whatever Google throws at me. There also times where there's just too much choice and I find myself simply browsing those handful of websites I visit daily.

I've recently added a new site to the places I visit often - http://www.ted.com/. I'm sure many of you will have encountered the site before, but if you haven't TED is a not for profit organisation founded on 'ideas worth sharing'. They are, and I'm sharing them here too. The site is simple, attractive and a world of thinking, laughing, challenging talks. Each talk is posted as a video, so you can see the person behind the words too.

I love that the content is searchable by categories beyond an academic topic; where you can visit those that are 'inspiring' or 'ingenious'. I've found myself listening to talk of physics or global challenges or love. Often these are things that I'd never pick a paper or book to seek ideas on, not even realising I was interested. It is a place of joy and debate, of power and honesty.

In the past day TED talks have made me wonder, smile and cry.

This talk on letter writing below made me think of my father: what do I keep of him?

It also makes me glad of the letters my Grandpa wrote to me every week whilst I was at boarding school, never expecting a response. They arrived every Friday, with two second class stamps so I could write back if I found a quite moment and write to someone else too. I still read these letters from time to time. And he is back with me, in his careful copperplate script. Written with effort as his eyesight faded in his late eighties. I treasure those envelopes and the love contained in them.

This one from Neil Pasricha is a gentle and funny reminder that, no matter what, there are things in our lives that are joyful and worth stopping still for a moment to observe and appreciate.

And one final one from Chris Jordan, whose profile quotes this simple thought;

"As you walk up close, you can see that the collective is only made up of lots and lots of individuals. There is no bad consumer over there somewhere who needs to be educated. There is no public out there who needs to change. It's each one of us." Chris Jordan on Bill Moyers Journal

I can only encourage you to take virtual wander, and lose yourself in this beautiful, funny, courageous place.

Time passes

It is seven years this month since my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I remember so clearly the moment when my life turned on its head, when child became parent. Very shortly after my father's dementia was diagnosed.


Since then it has been series of hospitals, pain, fear, caring and loss. My routine is ruled by their illnesses. My mother was given two short years to live, but battled through it all and is still here. But she is damaged. She has one breast, constant pain, and scars that cannot be seen.

My father simply exists, we have no way of knowing if he is happy, sad or aware. He just is.

I \am sad for them both, but I sad for me too.

I have given up a lot to care for them, and I am tired. I also - and I hate admitting this - resent much of it. No-one is to blame. Illness is.

I have lost relationships and friendships which couldn't stand the trails that have come with it all. I have turned my life and its geography upside down. Somehow all these years have passed, and I am still sitting here alone having missed much of the years I was so looking forward to. My parents have been denied their retirement.

I wish it were otherwise. I wish I had the generosity of spirit not to be angry about what their illnesses have put me through, not to hate that I stopped being able cope with the burden for a while.

It is what it is, and all I can do is carry on.

Child as parent.

Lodger

I have a new lodger, a friend of a friend, and I don't quite know what to make of him. In his early to mid forties, he's an intense sort of a guy. A former psychotherapist who's decided to give up the rat race.


He's suspicious of government, systems, taxes and the like. If you don't pay tax, who pays for your medical care or for the roads to be fixed? Surely we're all in this together? I don't doubt that many systems in our world are corrupt, but rejecting them all seems impractical to me. Surely we have a collective responsibility?

I digress....

He's got ME, and I can sympathise with that having had an oft named and unresolved fatigue type illness/condition/whatever in my very early twenties. He doesn't work and has just sold his house in the south, with an ambition to move abroad and live a self sustaining life.

He seems to be a believer in the alternative medicine sphere. And, why not? If something helps you feel better, whatever it is, then we must all do what is right for us.

I just don't know what to make of him. My previous lodgers have been friends or weekday residents. But, he'll be here full time for the next two to six months. The extra cash is nice, although losing my space will be a challenge.

I am a broad minded person, whose life and career are not founded on the material or selfish. Part of me admires his goals of an alternative life, but the other part of me values the society and community I am part of and recognises her need of some home comforts and frivolity. I try not to judge the choices of others.

I think it's good for me to have someone else around. Living alone is a very self indulgent way to exist and really rather too nice! Reminding myself how to share my space and compromise can only be good practice for when the time comes when I finally find someone to rub along with permanently.

In the meantime my flat feels like a health food shop. There are aromatherapy oils and weird food supplements in the fridge whose names I cannot pronounce.

Have I let the right person into my home?

A Journey

Somehow two weeks have slipped by without me writing a word here, and as I now sit in front of my laptop, I still don't know what is is I have to say. But, I do feel like typing.


It's been an odd couple of weeks which culminated in a very unplanned day out. A morning coffee turned into a day of confessions, sharing of heartaches and much fun.

I have a friend whose heart is broken. We found him on his own in the pub on Saturday afternoon in a pitiful state. He was brave and tired.

He met a girl in the US a few months ago. A relationship and anticipation began. He's just returned from her. When he set off he never doubted that a plan would be made, that he'd found he girl of his dreams. His 'one'.

He told us his story of days at the zoo and walking in new places, of promise and the future. Tears so close we couldn't hug him, he had to just keep talking without interference.

This vision was quickly robbed from him as it all started to fall to pieces. The girl sounds unsettled, insecure. The reasons why of the tale don't really matter.

What matters is that he tried. He believed in the dream and travelled thousands of miles to find out if she would share it with him. He still believes that one day he will be loved in the way he so much wants. Despite the failed relationships of his past, he's moving towards that person.

I admire him. He is scared and still keeps trying. He is braver than me, who hides from the very risks that are worth taking and doesn't really believe that she will ever be loved.
 
We ended the evening a group of single frineds, relying on each other for solace and companionship - an alternative family - laughing.

Onwards and Upwards

So, some of you have asked how life's going, particularly since giving up the lovely world of self employment for a new opportunity. The past couple of months have been good and awful.

The Canadian disappeared on me. After a lovely three months with him, he just vanished. It was enjoyable but not really going anywhere. I left him in my bed one morning, kissed him goodbye and he posted my keys back through the letter box - as had become the habit - and I never heard from him again.

We'd been taking things slow, so at least I wasn't invested in it enough for it to hurt too much. The thing that galls me is the rudeness of it. I am shocked that he could walk away without so much as call or an email to say that our relationship, if you can call it that, wasn't for him. It's bad mannered and cowardly. I suppose it's been a lucky escape, would I really want to be more involved with a man who behaves like that?

I miss having someone around though. I miss having someone to ask how my day's been and put a protective arm around me.

The same week as I started my new job, my mother had a fall whilst in hospital. It's a long story of negligence and bad practice but she's finally able to walk a bit, and has been downstairs in her own house this week for the first time in two months. What it's meant for me and my sister is that we've had two hospitals to visit, two parents' needs to attend to and half as much time of our own. It can only be described as a slog, and my poor sister has borne more of it than me because of the job. I am grateful that she is there and patient with it.

Work is the shining light though. I'm now a senior manager in major charity whose purpose I am passionate about. I'm not sure I'd ever have applied if I'd known about the seniority of the post. But retrospectively, I am glad. It's an opportunity that I didn't know I wanted and would perhaps have shied away from. I've got a once in a lifetime project to work on with a great team of people. They're happy with me, and I'm happy with them. I don't think I'd quite understood how much my professional confidence had been eroded by my last boss, and finally I am accepting that I'm good at what I do. I'd forgotten in amongst the bullying. I was undermined to the core.

Freelancing was the first step back to regaining myself and I will return to the consultancy at some point. It's a lifestyle I loved. I loved the freedom it gave me, and the variety. But for now, I am enjoying beingrelatively well paid (well, 'well' for my sector!), working hard and being properly supported and valued to deliver a project that will changes lives of those most in need. I am humbled by it also.

In amongst it all, I've done my best to try and maintain a little of my own life. I make sure that I see my friends and find some light heartedness along the way. However, apart from a week of being sick, I haven't had a week off since Christmas and I am exhausted.

To sum it all up: I guess I'm currently a very tired single girl, with a great job, relieved that the parental front is improving and much in need of a hug from someone who needs nothing from me in return.

I've got the week after this booked off, with no plans other than to try find fresh air, sleep, good conversation and some space. All suggestions welcome!