Thoughts

Lights out

Dark,
No power,
Servers, PCs all down,
Users all bewildered milling around Looking to me.

Panic,
Fuse box,
Check breakers are closed,
Looking outside half the street lights are out.

Plan,
Seek help,
Call for the electrician,
It will be half and hour – which one?

Wait,
He arrives,
His keys don’t fit,
We wait yet longer for the right keys.

Suddenly!
Lights on,
In the server room,
Plaintiff electronic alarms cry out my worst fear.

Dead,
Power returned,
Revealing servers in disarray,
Now the work begins repairing the cut’s work.

Finally,
They live!
The steady working hum,
Settles over my small domain, my children safe.

Inspiration

I can’t do it…
I’m here.
I don’t think I can…
I’ll support you.
Perhaps I can consider…
I am with you.

I can.

The thought terrifies,
Your words calm.
The prospect is too daunting,
Your voice relaxes.

A future of challenges,
Of pledges and changes,
The road is rough, narrow and hard,
And long, so long.

You support and console,
You soothe and unwind,
The thoughts I can’t cope with,
Just melt to your touch.

You motivate and spur,
To the next threat confronted,
The peril diminished,
At the sight of your face.

And when the day is done,
All foes subdued,
I can say with no doubt,
That you inspired me.

Always being there…

“How can you do it?” I’m asked, “You are the one who needs help, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, someone to be your friend. How can you always be there for everyone else?”

It’s simple of course, being there for someone takes so little, a short time, a few minutes on the phone, a short drive. It’s no real effort. And the results, the effect it has, can, sometimes, be so profound, not to just never occurs to me!

Being there for yourself, on the other hand, is very hard. When you’ve had all you can take, when life hands you another spoonful of hateful, hurtful, painful, just plain life… It seems like nothing could overcome your pain, your troubles, your hurt.

By comparison, from your perspective, other peoples problems are such a relief from your own thoughts, and if you can help someone, perhaps, just maybe, you can get some respite, an all too brief moment of calm, peace, tranquility. Perhaps even the chance to sleep? Well, lets not over-reach…

“How can I do it?” My answer, “How can I not? Someone needs me, it’s the one thing I can do, and do well. Everything else around me is crumbling to dust. This I can do, I can make a difference, and reduce the world’s pain, even if only a little. And perhaps the universe will notice that I’ve got more than my share at the same time…”

Leaves drifting on by

As the year draws to its inevitable close, so comes a time for thinking about what the last 12 months have held, and what awaits in the next 12. Work, love, friendship, parting and loss… There’s a list (see earlier posts for the highlights).

It is also, however, a time for quite planning, hoping and (insofar as makes any difference) deciding. This is the basis of the “New Years Resolution” tradition, and it’s not a bad idea.

The past only has value, and the future only holds promise, if you learn from both your successes and failures and use this to shape your actions in the present.

So what have I learnt?

* Don’t assume that all you feel is felt in return. Ask! If you can’t talk about everything, you can’t really talk about anything.
* Reach for what you want. It may seem distant, unattainable. It may just be a twinkle in the eye of a dreamer, but those dreams can come true.
* Love with all your heart, live with all your life, but also learn with all your brain.

It’s been a mixed year, with lots of opportunities to learn not to repeat one course of action or another but as the year comes to an end I see a bright star, a possibility, and I’m feeling happier than I’ve been in a long time. Will the outcome be what I’m hoping for? I don’t know, but that’s part of the ride!

It’s time to embrace those possibilities, meet them head on and strive for what I most want.

Bring it on 2016! I’m ready, are you?

When it all ends

Marriage is great, so I’m reliably informed by a number of my friends and I’m quite sure they firmly believe that.

I, however, have found it to be a less than ideal experience.

Betrayal, dishonesty, violence, bad faith, separation and divorce are the memories that stand out most clearly from my recent (and not so recent) past.

Of course I’ve been divorced (this time) for close to a couple of years and separated nearly three, so what’s bugging me now?

A few weeks ago my ex-wife was rushed into hospital, I couldn’t visit because she’d moved to America but she was in the best hospital in the state, so while I was concerned I was sure she’d be OK…

Wait a minute… I was concerned? This was the woman who’d slapped me around on numerous occasions. Beaten the crap out of me more than once. About whom I’d had calls from the police in the middle of the night. The reason I’d installed high security locks and CCTV. Where was the concern coming from? Beats the hell out of me (again!).

That bothered me.

Her daughter was dealing with everything and was getting run through the mill in the process but, through the miracle of the internet, I could be there to support her and that made me at least feel useful, like I could do something to help, not much perhaps, but something.

It didn’t go well and after two agonizing weeks, my ex-wife passed away, without regaining consciousness. For that I was at least grateful. Had she come round and realised what her illness had done to her brain, it would have been worse for her and most especially for her daughter.

I came to realise that part of what was bothering me was the knowledge that I would never find out why. What had I done that was so terrible that the only answer was to beat me up, to terrorise me physically and psychologically.

Is that really so important? Is that what this is about? Perhaps and perhaps not. Truth be told I’ll probably never work that one out.

What worried me more was the relief I felt, or rather, not the relief itself but the guilt about that relief. I was beating myself up for feeling good about the fact that someone was no longer in a position to do so herself.

In the end though I suppose it always comes to this: we don’t choose who touches our lives, why, or even how their absence or passing will affect us. We move through life, interacting with others, affecting them in ways neither we nor they can understand, or even realize.

I try to do good where I can, and where I can’t, at least to do no harm. I sometimes fail, we all do but I try. I’m proud of this (justifiably, I believe) but it also makes me sensitive to the feelings of others (or perhaps I have that backwards, I don’t know) and that makes me vulnerable.

Would I trade my nature for the security of not caring or feeling?

No, never. Of course not, though I often suspect it would make life easier…

Low

The journey to work is no different from normal, the faces I work with are no different from previous days and weeks, the PC on my desk is the same as yesterday. Yet it’s all just a little changed. Everything feels a little more threatening. I’m on edge, waiting, worrying, watching, listening for the other shoe to drop.

I can’t get started this morning, the challenge that a few days or a week ago seemed so welcoming has turned on me and is sat in the screens in front of me, stalking me, looking for the slightest weakness to pounce on me. The trip to the coffee machine seems further today, did someone move my desk?

What’s going on in my head? Why is everything so hard? Why can’t I solve this simple challenge? If one more person tells me to cheer up…

It’s actually ok, I’ve been lower in the past, and I’ll be there again. Everyone goes through periods of their lives where they find their mind is no longer their best friend, and I’ll be ok in a day or so. I always am. But what of those who aren’t?

I have a few friends, not many to be sure, but a close knit group. Of them only two don’t suffer from depression (so far as I’m aware), and suffer far worse than my little downer.

To look at them, or me for that matter, you wouldn’t know anything was wrong. It’s known, by some, as the hidden disease. It’s not an accurate monika, but it’ll do for now, and it makes the point I’m talking about quite well.

You look at probably 100’s of people every day, at the station, in the supermarket, on the street, and unlike a broken leg, or a sprained wrist, there is no indication they are suffering. They put on the best face they can, and try to blend in, because the last thing they (or I) want when they feel like that is to talk about it, and yet that’s the most helpful, effective thing you can do to help. Not “pull yourself together” or “cheer up” but ask them how they are, engage them in conversation, show you care, and that you want to help carry even some small part of their load.

It’s never the big things that bring me down, I can deal with them, it’s the preponderance of small issues, tiny, almost insignificant niggles, that leave me unable to cope for a while. I need to hide for a while, I tend to get accused of not caring, of not pulling my weight, of ignoring others. What’s really happening is that I’m overwhelmed, seemingly by thousands of ants, each a tiny problem I need to deal with, but I can’t because all the others get in the way and stop me thinking clearly enough to solve it.

A simple offer, “can I help”, while often the answer may be “no”, is all that’s needed for me, and I suspect many others, to provide a ladder out of the deep hole we feel ourselves in. It doesn’t “cure” me, but it helps me think clearly, to see that I can put the problems to one side for a moment, and talk about what’s happening between my ears, and that, in a way, is a cure of sorts…

Thank you to all those who’ve been there (and still are), you are a lifeline.

Do what makes you happy…

Do what makes you happy, but don’t trade the happiness of others to achieve it.

Simple words, fairly wise. Most of us can see that it’s better to be happy than not, and most will agree that our happiness shouldn’t be at the cost of other peoples unhappiness.

What about those who, themselves, will only be happy if they can make you miserable? My ex-wife is an example that leaps to mind, and those of you who know her will, I’m sure, agree that if I achieve happiness she will be completely miserable, she will feel she has, in some way, failed in a mission. Of course the common sense answer is “so what?” or words to that effect. Isn’t it?

Well, while it appears to be common sense, those who truly believe in, and try to live by the opening statement of this post (as I try to, for all my failings) all too often allow those, who have in recent years become known as “haters” or even (incorrectly) “trolls”, to deny us happiness just for the shear hell of it. We try to help those who wouldn’t (and don’t) help us in return. We go without so that others can have, but when we are hurting, lacking, sad, lonely, depressed, or just short of beer money, suddenly we aren’t interesting any more…

It is an important lesson to learn, and it’s tremendously nuanced. Those who are determined to cause your unhappiness, or those who can only be happy if you are not, shouldn’t have a baring on your own decision making, and those who don’t really seem determined to MAKE you unhappy, but just only care when it suits them? Well have a long, hard think about it… How do you suppose that treatment is going to make you feel? Is there any reason that it might make you anything other than unhappy. When it comes down to it, they may not THINK they are deliberately making you unhappy, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are doing exactly that.

Not saying I have the answers here, you understand, I’m just writing a blog post, trying to get it straight in my own mind… And I’m not sure it’s working… I care, too much perhaps, that others are happy, and that all too often leads to complete misery on my part…

Flowers Instead

He longed to visit,
to stay, to share,
But it couldn’t happen,
he gave flowers instead.

Not a substitute, not nearly,
but at least something of him,
Leaving the house he knew they were there,
Reminding her that he really cared.

But in the dark,
sleeping alone,
He though of those flowers,
they just weren’t enough.

A hundred gifts straight from the heart,
Couldn’t fill the void in his arms,
The scent of her skin, the warmth of her breath,
Her arms holding him tight, her voice, her kiss,
All held in his mind, as he drifted to sleep,
He dreamt of a time when she might be with him,
A walk, a visit, somewhere quiet and warm,
A cuddle, with thoughts shared,
No words, none were needed,
Hands held was enough.

As he woke, no companion by his side,
He though of those flowers, his proxy,
I may not be with her, she may wake alone,
But they will be there to witness and remind.