The Week Ahead

We are still embargoed from my main news.  The week ahead will be interesting I feel and whilst I have no idea what it will hold for me at this moment, I've had a number of things come together in the last few days which is good.

The best thing is honestly to now be clear (mostly) of the damaging baggage I've been hauling around with me these past years.  I can't tell you what a relief it is to be able to control this stuff, get rid of it, stop it in its tracks.

I didn't get to meet the hirers for the job - well that's OK too.  I feel fine about that too and no doubt they will find someone far more suitable.

Once I found out that, I thought I'll write an action plan, a page of things to do, a project plan a mindmap and work out what I will do next.  Here it is:














Yes, that's it :-)  All my life I've written plans and lists and things and suddenly, yesterday, nothing would come out at all because there isn't anything there anymore.  I tore it all down last week when I removed the past I also realised that all the stuff I plan and scheme about never happens in the way I want it to and so it isn't necessary to do this - it leads to disappointment and it is not productive either.

So an interesting week coming up and who knows what's coming down the line... :-) 

Peace? Well for me maybe at last

It isn't going to be an overnight change, whatever is?  I still notice I carry around "stuff" in my head but what is different is the way I'm dealing with it now.  I haven't thought about bladder cancer in days - it just happens this blog reminded me.  I don't feel the same way about that now either.  I've got rid of all of the Monkeys on my back and the little voice, when it says anything is firmly put back in its place.  I've no idea what my purpose is yet - I guess that will come eventually as will being more in the now than reliving the past, fantasising about the future and making plans and schemes that are all a bit Walter Mitty.

Early signs are good here.  I wake up at peace and whilst I get the odd nagging and bitching from my head I realise what it is, stop and get rid of it and dismiss it for it isn't reality, it isn't helpful and so it can be dispatched back to whence it came and be forgotten about.  

I've now got rid of the "poor me" had cancer stuff.  The voice in my head is banished and the evil words that put me down for years and undermined me are now gone.  I've stopped, apart from real dreams, dreaming about a future in all these places (by the sea, in the lakes and mountains, abroad dah de dah) because it will be what it will be - they are dreams and not reality and whilst it might be nice to think about doing such things is it real, is it helpful and do I need the distraction?  I found them unhelpful and if you are unable to fulfil them it adds to the distraction and the feeling of not succeeding in the long run which is what the little voices say all the time.

It all sounds a bit bizarre I know, especially coming from me, but I have to say that - what?  13 weeks ago or so - it was certainly around that sort of time, I started on this journey and wasn't sure what I'd find at the end (it isn't the end by the way) and along the way major change has happened to me (still embargoed folks).   Today, this morning, I feel content with my lot at last.  I'm happy with who I am.  In many ways I'm happy with who you are and who everyone else is too.  I've got clear space in my head and my body - I no longer feel the stress of having no more room inside me to hold on to all the "baggage" that I had.  I feel maybe that I've turned a corner and can no longer see anything in the rear view and in front of me is clear, bright but not defined - it isn't frightening that it is not defined, in fact that's good.  Up the road there will be junctions and decisions to come but now those won't be difficult decisions any longer.

Finally I feel able to control my emotions, my brain is calm and no longer scheming all the time.  I've pulled back from the madness or dysfunction of an overactive mind and entered a different, calmer place altogether.  That's not to say life is not going to get stormy but that I know how I am going to deal with it in the future.  I've come along way in a short time since I said enough was enough, I do feel I was heading for some sort of breakdown at the time and I knew - just knew - I had to do something about it.  So many things set off back then all at once - not through my design all of them I have to say - it became a rush to get here too quickly in the beginning and yet I doubt it could have been any other way.  Hunter S Thompson said "Buy the ticket, take the ride" I believe.  What a ride and you still only know half of it :-)

So I'll leave you with the possibility that you can find some peace in this troubled world, you can actually accept what is going on around you and you can find that you can get rid of the voices and also stop the past haunting you.  I'd recommend the book a New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and (if you can cope with Oprah - bless her she does grate on me a bit) you can catch the web casts on Youtube of her and Eckhart there are 10 of them 1 - 9 are 1.5 hours long and No 10 is 2 hours.  Now it's best to have read the book first or read the chapter before you see the web cast.  I read the book in about 3 days flat and I've watched the webcasts at one or two a day - sorry Oprah :-)  It may be that I find our cousins in the USA a little too nasally or self righteous (that's an over generalisation) but if you can cut through all the ego (that isn't meant to be there and the pontificating) then the actual stuff that Eckhart Tolle discusses and shares may resonate with you.

It has totally restored the balance in me about religion and its place in society and there are some useful techniques to just be still, calm down, get rid of all the negativity in you and so on.  Worth 15 1/2 hours of your life - but do concentrate on the book and the videos.

So here I am, I said Peace? Well maybe for me at last and I actually do think that now.  I am so different now, so calm.  Sure I get angry or upset as we all do but I can recognise it, stop it and do something about it, that's the difference now, I have the ability to see it and do something about it quite quickly.  I have yet to give it the "idiot test" but let's see.  I have no seething anger anymore, I'm not off on some wild fantasy filled scheme  I'm not reverting to the past and I'm not beating myself up all the time.  I'm not worried anymore about the future, where I will work, what I will do and how I will live.  I can't do anything about it.

So I can't undo the past neither should I regret it or fret about it - what good is that?
I can't live in a future fantasy as it doesn't exist and doesn't happen and also I shouldn't be worried about it as it hasn't happened?
I need to live now, today and concentrate on that.

So - finally - after 7 years or more - some sort of closure and some sort of coming to terms with it all.  Long may that continue because finally I am at peace with myself and finally I am empowered to move forward positively and to cast off all the emotional baggage I've accumulated all these years. :-) 

Breaking The Cycle

Here's the thing.  We all do it, we all have egos and we all have something called (in Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth) a "pain body" it is where bad news accumulates and sucks out your energy, it keeps you down when you should be up it makes a victim of you (in my case) and it thrives on anger and pain and it never really lets you go.  Your ego too has a built up fictional version of who you are.  Your name, date of birth, school days, jobs and career, wife and family.

Yesterday I had a long chat and then watched that part of the Oprah / Eckhart Tolle webcast about the pain body and I realised that I wasn't going to suffer it any more.  In addition I wasn't going to push to make stuff happen anymore, I'm not going to be sitting here waiting for stuff to happen, people to call and so on.  If it makes me feel bad why should I?  This morning I woke up and I actually felt refreshed for once.  Felt like I had a good night's sleep, felt like lots of the pack of troubles I carry around with me day to day had disappeared - not all of them - but a lot of them.

Today would be about changing the approach and it's already lunchtime and I have no idea where the morning has gone.  Better than that I don't really care where it has gone, I don't care about what is going to happen this afternoon because it is just going to happen whether I worry about it or not.  

I'm training myself to recognise stuff reemerging from the past and stopping it - it's in the past.  I'm forgetting about lots of things like that - letting go of them they aren't doing me any good.  Things that drain my energy (normally people) will no longer do that.  I can't do anything about the past, I can't do much about the future that will happen I can do stuff now, in the present, in the now.  That's what I'm doing.

It's difficult I grant you not to be off on some fool's errand or to be sulking and upset over something that happened some time ago.  It's difficult not to try and plan a future but planning and doing if I consider it never have become reality - no, never.  You can risk manage and mitigate of course, you can save for a rainy day by all means but to think and dream (although I enjoy my dreams) they aren't reality.

I also realise that I'm trying to force things to happen and I've stopped that as well.  If things are going to happen they will and there is nothing I can do to force the situation and I've been working far too hard at relationships these past 3 months or so now.  I've drained my energy and I'm flat and out of gas.  That sounds bad but actually it shows how hard I've been working and once again I realise that I've had to do that but it is time now, I've come far enough along this road that I don't need to work hard at it, I need to work smart not harder...

Still embargoed - will let you know when it isn't.

Walking in the woods

They say is good for the soul and so it seems it is.  I do versions of my circular walk around the village and it is great it helps me to do some of the repair work I know is necessary.  There was just one or two people on the whole of the walk and the sun was out warming and pleasant.  I was able to spend time in some of the larger fields just on my own just eyes closed and listening to the environment.  

I'm no tree hugger but I do find that this getting out of the house and into the country which is easy for me being 5 minutes away, allows me to just get some perspective.  For yet again this urgent requirement for people has now lasted 4 weeks - so how urgent is it really (although most of Europe appears to have been away on holiday).  I chased it this morning as a matter of courtesy and they say there is no news and will keep me informed.  Oh well let's see what happens there.  I have a plan B - I will just need to instigate it but would rather get a job like this one and just move it on from there.  Life is complicated enough at the moment as it is.

Oh well - my choice :-)  

So get yourself into the woods, listen to yourself breathing and listen to whats around you then take it all in without thinking about it - see what that does to you.  So look but don't theorise or name things, don't judge, just be still - see what happens.  

More Delays

I'm afraid that the Embargo stays and at least another week I think.  

In the interim I leave you with the consideration about how you see people.  I've been thinking about the people I know and after reading a A New Earth have been able to relate to some of the areas of that book.  But one thing struck me about a couple of people I know and that is that their - I'll use the word beauty - shines out of them.  When I think about them, I realise that they have a sort of aura about them, a glow of goodness if you will.  They appear to be quite normal human beings in the normal run of things but when you look deeper and longer and begin to think about these people and in some ways study them it is obvious that they have something very special about them.

I find myself now more interested in them.  i know already that they are good people.  They "care" for me and that's nice, they care for others too and their lives appear to be ones where they willingly give of their time and help others along.  In some ways I like to think that I am similar to that.  Not sure I have the presence or charisma that they have though.  

I'm wrestling with my emotions at the moment as I react to the changes in me in these past 11 (or is it 12) or so weeks.  It sure is a roller coaster of a ride up and down and bigs highs and massive disappointments as I struggle to bring myself out of 7 years (or more) of what I think can only be considered to be Depression.  I don't think I qualify for full breakdown as I've not actually had the incapacity piece - I've had long periods of inaction but have been able to get on with things albeit not always great constructive things.

The hardest thing is to actually get around to "loving yourself" or perhaps accepting yourself and who you are.  It's not at all easy to do that and that is exactly where my problem lies.  I've been particularly hard on myself and not accepted who I am, what I am and all those good things.  More so now, I want to go beat myself up for all the things I did and that didn't work out or the way I approached my life especially these past 7 years and as another very good friend oftens says to me (after the Budweiser Frog Advert...) "Let it go Louie!"  And so I am doing so, in many ways I'm not built to "Non, je ne regrette rien" I regret nothing but actually that's EXACTLY what I have to do.  It's all happened, it's all history.  The stuff I just typed is in the past now, it's happened, you've read it, it's happened.

Training myself to be in the NOW is very difficult.  I am a man of plans and schemes, stratagems and tactics, theorems and reviews.  I play hundreds of scenarios all the time in my head, that's what I do and how I'm built.  It pleases me that I do these things but it has a down side which is that I operate outside of the NOW I tend to be working for things in the future and more and more they weren't being fulfilled.  My plans and ideas weren't working like they used to and that's a bit disturbing.  I am normally so confident and assured and yet in the last 7 years not much has gone right.  As some people will realise - how on earth you can plan anything when you have cancer is beyond them and of course how on earth I thought I could do anything like that too was arrogant in the extreme (although not to my mind it wasn't).

So here I am - I'm actually in a good places and most of the time I'm very happy - with occasional slides into a sort of mini sulk or depression if you like.  It isn't ever going to be easy to change yourself but the good thing is I'm out of the rut.  I actually am getting on and doing things now and beginning to operate as a human being again.  That's good in itself.   Things are getting better and I hope that the progress I am making will continue.  As usual I want it all to have happened and be effective now.  In reality it will take me a few years I think but of course my head wants it changed now.  Because it doesn't always work out my head doesn't always get it :-)  One day it will I just have to keep working at it.

Reflections On A New Earth

Good grief - that was an strange and interesting book.  I can barely even tell you what it was about as it is so complex and yet so simple at the same time.  

Here is a link to Amazon and I'll let you read the reviews.  Mumbo Jumbo?  I don't think so - it's where I've been heading these past 7 years and perhaps for longer than that.  It has started to make me question and more importantly recognise what the hell has been going on in my head all this time.  It isn't an "easy read" I'd have said but in three or four days I've now read through and variously identified much in this book with my own experiences and there are some areas that I just need to go and work on.  

I'd say you need to keep an open mind to read through this and be going through some of the processes would certainly help you understand what he is driving at.

It is strange how you can relate religion and consciousness so clearly, it also answers some of the karma like stuff that has been going on in my life (still embargoed folks - sorry).  But I've got plenty to think about and discuss with my mate now I've read this.  

I've read plenty of "self help" books and yet this isn't self help as such but does give some pointers.  I've lots to think about now :-) More later! 

Careful of what you eat

It's interesting that at the moment my weight loss has stalled and I'm around 15 stone down from 18 1/2 in 7 months now - but I've been hovering around 15 for a while.  Interestingly this is quite common and one thing is strange is that I'm still losing weight around my stomach (it's tightening up) but it is possible that muscle mass is replacing the fat.  So that's OK and apparently it is quite normal.  I'd like to be a lot lighter than I am but at the moment I'm not as disciplined either and cheat day no longer exists as it used to.  I just occasionally have a chocolate biscuit or a Latte or Cappuccino or perhaps a bit of bread.  However, it is often small and rare.  A beer every now and then as well.

However, none of the above are in any major quantity nor at any great frequency and I still take care what I eat when I'm out etc.

Today I found that Ham and Salami both of which I'd always taken for granted were OK to consume are in fact not.  I tend to have a light lunch these days or Ham and/or salami or other meat cuts, a few Olives, a little cheese and a little salad with some Olive Oil and Balsamic vinegar.  I looked at the packs today.  Salami has Glucose Syrup in it and Ham has Dextrose.  This is where the food industry needs to get a grip surely.  They know that sugar is addictive and they add it into our everyday foods.  So it looks as if I need to re-think that strategy and just go back to basics again on my lunch.  Breakfast still tends to be egg based in the main with mushrooms and every now and then bacon and occasionally a tomato.  

Just thought I'd warn you about things you never thought you'd find in basic foods.  It's frightening what is in these packages.  It's like Fructose in pickles which I used to enjoy.  Someone ought to be held accountable for making us fat and introducing all these carbs and sugars into our food and saying it's good for us!  

Letting Go Of The Past

I think it was Dale Carnegie and he sort of said something about the past has happened - you can't do anything about, the future isn't here yet so why worry about it and live in the day as you can control that everything else is beyond your ability to control - I feel that is a pretty awful paraphrasing but hopefully you get the gist?

So here's the point, the past, the stuff that haunts me sometimes is the past, it's history, it's happened, I can't do anything about it.  That is a fact.  I may regret some things but I can't go and undo them, they have happened.  There is no need to worry and no regrets about them.  Let go, leave alone, move along (nothing to see here).  

Where I find myself now, today, in the present is due to the past but that's it, there's nothing I can do about it but to deal with it today and just get on with things.  It's not meant to be enigmatic but perhaps you can see that finally, at last I'm drawing a line under the past and saying enough is enough. You, Cancer, have taken your payment and I don't owe you anything anymore.  I don't owe you my life, my attention or my reflection.  I am what I am today and that's where I've got to start from.  I can't bemoan the fact that I was a different person back then as it isn't particularly productive.

I'm beginning to find an inner peace with myself and a contentment with who I am.  I realise how bad things were only by the fact that I have reawakened interests and feelings long buried.  I am starting to enjoy reading again and music.  Long may this continue and expand.

I've got the now to deal with and whilst I have an eye to the future I will not forget the other Dale Carnegie saying (or something like this) "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday!" damn right why worry...   

A New Earth? A New Me?

We are still embargoed folks so hang on to your hats for a while yet - I thought by now it would be OK but not quite.  The title?  Well A New Earth was a book recommended by a very very good friend of mine and we have both had very similar experiences.  We've both done the heavy depression and The Black Dog has been a visitor to both of us in our time.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose is a self-help book by Eckhart Tolle and it looks at Ego - " it encourages its readers to live their lives in each present moment and to create happiness for themselves without emphasizing material possessions. Tolle's intent is to change the way human beings think, and he envisions a world population that is increasingly more humble, enlightened and pure." 

Now, even for me this is a little "way out there" but in fact it is not really as there are pieces of this book that I've already met and not quite understood, areas of recovery from cancer that touch on some of the very subjects that this book presents.  

I said some time ago that possessions don't mean anything to me anymore, I would be sad to lose the sentimental connection but the material value and the purpose of owning anything doesn't seem to do it for me anymore.  In some items I am a custodian and in others they will disappear and are of no use to me once I'm dead.  There's a phrase I use that I get in trouble for from some people and it is this:

"He who dies with the most toys is still, however, dead"

To me that sort of says it all.  Perhaps I can pass certain stuff on to my kids but just looking at the "value" of things that I have now (Vinyl record collection and so on) they aren't worth anything.  At present we are clearing the garage.  I have a set of Golf Clubs and a Golf Cart - and they are worth?  Nothing, I will give them away as I will with loads of my stuff.  I just don't need it or want it anymore - I have mechanics stuff when I used to (and you could) maintain your own car - these days you need a computer and be able to replace components :-).  

The book is beginning to produce more questions for me and to answer some very interesting parts of my life and my journey.  I've felt for a long time that all the "stuff" we have isn't really necessary and that we place too much emphasis on materialistic things.  I have 2 watches I don't wear them at the same time.  One is my day to day watch the other is my father's watch and is the one thing that I have that was his that I treasure as in a small way when I go out and wear smart clothes he comes along with me and yet it really isn't "that" important in the overall scheme of things, surely I should carry his memory where it belongs in my head?

My recent journey is still only 10 or maybe 11 weeks old and I've come a long long way in that short space of time.  I've tried to let go of the Mr. Spock (Star Trek) logical world I created and went more with my emotions and tried to reassess my life in terms of what I really want.  In some ways I've become quite a dreamer and have started to consider seriously some of my earlier plans to get away from it all, live somewhere else, be someone different.  

Deep down inside I want to finally be at peace with myself and to be happy with who I am and what I am now.  I said that cancer had ripped me apart and reassembled me differently and it has without doubt changed me to my core.  I just haven't accepted that who I am now is different and I've fought against it and baulked at it until finally it cannot be ignored anymore.  I have to accept that I am who I am, I'm not who I used to be and the struggle has been that I've tried to be that person I was all that time ago.  You can't go back and be who you were before cancer (well not in my case) it alters you right down inside.  In the book A New Earth it talks about this Ego, The "I" the "Me", "Myself" and how it is built and how it works and how disruptive it is.  The point is to blot out the Ego if at all possible or to somehow make it ineffective.

In addition the book talks about "thought" the little voice in the back of your head - constantly there constantly talking and in my case analysing and plotting.  I've been able to start to fight back and find myself more alive to my music, I've started reading again, I've done all those chores I should have done months or years back and I've started creative writing and poetry again.  I haven't picked up my musical instruments and painting yet but they are also on the list of things I ought to do.  All the things that used to be outlets for my creativity were suppressed and stopped.  In many ways, I became a prisoner of my own mind and was locked into a self imposed jail bounded by my Ego which made me a victim. 

So no more will that happen and whilst there is even more news, embargoed as it is, life has taken on a different meaning and a different purpose.  Finally the veils are slowly lifting but enough for things to begin to change - some things slowly and some things are more dramatic.  I hope to be able to say something soon on that front but until then this will have to suffice.  

Occasional Update

I like writing it gets stuff out of my head and onto (electronic) and real paper.  You can't believe the amount of writing I do in a day I carry around a notepad all the time and I need to write things down to get them out of the recycle bin that is my head.  People find it funny that I dispose of knowledge - so at the end of a project I just defragment my brain and throw away any stuff I have cluttering up my head and go get on with the next thing.  It's a bit like that bit in the Matrix where Neo gets fighting programmes loaded into his brain - "I know Kung Fu" say Neo in only the way Keanu Reeves can utter without one wasted bit of breath.  So it is with me.  I need to learn something to do the next job, let's say it is customer research (polls) then I will very quickly research this and will have a very good handle on it.  If I need to remember my languages, French, Italian and bit of German perhaps, I will just need to immerse myself for a day or two and can refresh my brain on it.  I know that in reality these things are still inside your head but it is the way that I work.

Someone asked me about something I did 10 years back - I said that I don't remember the detail but I'd be able to talk knowledgeably about it by the next morning - all I need do is read it up and it should all come flooding back.

So why tell you this?  I'm not sure really other than I had a pre-interview conversation and I realised just how much experience I have and how "valuable" I am to a business - it was striking once I started to recall all the things I can do - it was also startling that I have such a wide and varied experience across all industries - just luck or something I have unconsciously striven to do?  I'm also lucky to have grown up with technology from the earliest days of microprocessors, through early home computing right up to today.  

So if they like my CV then hopefully I might get an opportunity to go work with this company who are well respected - I kind of hope so as the knowledge and experience I have gives me a really useful toolkit to go and take to a customer.

So that's one good thing, perhaps something may come of that.  On the other front well news is still embargoed - not for too much longer I hope.  

I'm feeling quite good but as always (given that you don't know what is going on) with these things there are doubts and difficulties and ups and downs.  My friend is coming over today and we will go out to lunch and have a chat as he too is feeling up and then down.  It is pretty strange how we are both very similar - in fact there is only a very slight difference in our personality types I am INTJ and he is INFJ and both are sought after in our line of business.  He and I both had Cancer at the same time and we've been pretty close since then and built the business together and lived and breathed that.  At the moment we both find ourselves frustrated that the "market" doesn't see our full potential, we are both senior people, with stacks of business knowledge but our ex-colleagues still see us as how we used to be 15 years ago.  It's also that the market has Agents who don't actually match people up to jobs (I know that's what they say they do).  They use key word searches and yo almost have to do an SEO exercise on your CV to get it past the gatekeepers (computer) and past a bunch of sales kids to the customer.  It is money for old rope really and it competes with Estate Agents and Solicitors as the lowest form of life in my book.  

Anyway - we will be very supportive and be able to tell each other our stories today and at least we will feel OK once we've done that :-)  A minor purge of the soul.  It is though mind numbingly annoying that we can't seem to get anywhere and yet have so much to give.  The other problem is that we are also a lot different to your average exec and that may also be difficult for people to come to terms with.

So all is OK, I'm OK with the world at the moment.  Massive changes going on but coping OK and getting on day to day - doing lots of chores around the house and finally getting around to fixing stuff that I should have fixed years ago :-)  At least I am out of my major malaise and back on a road to recovery.  I have tests at the GPs on Friday - a Spirography (not Spirograph) test to check out my lung function (especially as an ex-smoker) and we will see how that goes.  Next week the dentist which I hope, now I hardly have any carbs will require no work.  A Bank Holiday weekend coming up - plenty of things to do and hope to keep busy.

Cancer Robbed Me!

I've been recording loads of my old music and listening to it - stuff from the late 1970s and the 80s - you know when we had so much great music around.  

I was listening to a track just a moment ago and it struck me how much I've been looking back to those days - carefree and exciting, days of my youth, free and just enjoying everything - or is that just how I remember it?

I then thought back on the last 7 years and thought - when in the last 7 years did I spend time enjoying myself, relaxing, enjoying life and being free and finding things exciting?  Well i don't recall my life being like that at all these past 7 years.  I feel that a huge lump of my life was ripped up and thrown away and everything went "on hold" and now I feel very bitter about that and another reason that I'm not overly using the blog is that resentment that anger that frustration and just hatred is all boiling up and much has been released (I'm glad to say) but I just felt maybe I ought to put this on the blog today.

7 years....  Makes you angry and want to do something about it and that's what is happening.  

I am nostalgically looking back at the 70s and 80s and realising I can't go there and the music I listen to isn't actually making me feel uplifted it's rubbing my nose in it - and yet I'm drawn back to the soundtrack of my life.  All the music seems to do is pull at my emotions good and bad and I've got to snap out of that and into the present.  I've had enough of my time stolen from me and I've got to get up, move on and start to rebuild my life that was torn down and left in rubble on the floor.  I have to accept that when I rebuild it, it won't look the same or work the same as it did 8 years ago before all this kicked off.  I hope that Mark II version of me is better, happier and can walk away and leave the last 7 years behind me and get on with my life, cancer and it's pernicious claws have had their hold of me far too long, life is yelling at me to come and get it and I have a foot in each camp unable to let one go and not quite in reach to grasp the new.

Well there we are - part of what's going on inside this crazy orb I call my head :-)  

Taking Stock

Still under an embargo here but I'm doing a stock take of my life and resisting the part where you go back and wonder why you did something and also apportioning no blame to any of the decisions that were made and indeed any of the outcomes.  I'm not sure if I "blame" myself for getting Cancer or not - the jury is still out.  I think it was unfortunate and like many of my generation, we were the last heavy smokers who still lived in a time when smoking in teh workplace was OK.  It is only as recently as 2007 that it was banned in public places and in Restaurants and Pubs etc.

In very many ways I'm at a point in my life now of great change and big significance.  The Government have just informed me that my pension will now commence when I am 66 not 65  so I have just under 10 years to run until I am retired and drawing that.  

10 years.  I hope to live for 20 or 25 years, I know that whilst I'm pretty healthy at the moment, I may not get a long retirement and so I plan to do something about that.  

So at the moment, the blackout continues but I'm fine in myself, I have a new freedom of thought and outlook on life, I'm healthy and feel well, I look good in the new slimmer body and I'm out of the malaise of the past 7 years (post cancer years) and indeed the past 10 or more years too which is also good.  The big cloud of depression is lifting away and a new optimistic attitude is growing.  It's fighting with my inner self but the can be no omlette without breaking eggs as they say.

In a good place at last although the odd day here and there screaming in my head "What do you think you are doing??!!" I can live with that.

More later.

Update - Still Here

Just to reassure you this isn't fun for me not saying much but there you go - needs must.  It won't be a release for a get rich scheme either :-)  No just waiting for the right time probably sometime in September I guess.

In the interim - I'm doing fine, feeling good, keeping well, done loads of work on the house (finally) and finally sorting stuff out that's been hovering around for years.  I put me record collection up for sale - someone phoned from abroad who wanted it and sent around one of their colleagues who missed the really good stuff - picked out the obvious 20 LPs that would sell well and offered me £220 for the lot (I have close to 1000 LPs and Singles).  I know for a fact that 200 of them are worth at least £5 each and 40 are in the £25 area and 2 are £100...  So let them go away and kick their heels - I've left it open to other dealers to come back.  I will email these guys and "show" them the albums and singles they missed and see what they make of it then....  

Other than that not a lot is happening to me I am on an emotional roller coaster but not in a bad way anymore - I'm actually in a good place at last - perhaps more so that for 10 or maybe 15 years!  

More when I'm allowed to say :-)

Still Here

I'm OK - getting on fine and happy enough with my lot.  Embargo should end soon and I can move on.  At present though I'm moving on day-to-day and getting one with life and just keeping a low profile for the moment.  More when I find something interesting to say.

Short Update

I'm fine, I'm in a good place and feel quite well both mentally and physically despite major stuff going on in my life.  I'm happy and whilst I am having a real roller coaster of emotions daily it is all going in the right way, I'm keeping very positive (because I'm doing the right thing) and that light at the end of the tunnel isn't an oncoming train it's a big wide world but I'm not quite outside blinking in the sunshine just yet. 

Major steps taken this week to get back on my feet after a number of years pursuing different avenues.  Thanks to G (you know who you are), Flocky Bicep (we will both be Caffeine addicts by the end of this my friend!), and K who have all been very supportive.  

Anyway, that will do as an update - no need to worry and all is OK and going well but because occasionally I get  these almost paranoid episodes of self-doubt I'm going to be posting infrequently so as not to use the blog as a Flame Out, I've got another way of letting off steam using private documents.  They are pretty disturbing reading but at least I can get it off my chest and then after I've written it down I realise just how "stupid" these little episodes are - it's all that little voice in the back of your head, the little worm burrowing in and casting doubts.  It isn't going to win but I hate the negativity of it hence - it won't be appearing on the blog until I get past that phase.  

Just a note - imagine someone criticising your every move, someone taking the p1ss out of you all the time (not in a nice way), sarcasm, spite and abuse.  It's like having a bully implanted in your head and its only job is to put you down, to point out your failures and so on.  That's what is going on all the time.  It's a combination of many things including guilt but it won't win but occasionally it just stops me in my tracks because it is so hurtful and this is my own brain but obviously that other side playing Devil's Advocate I guess :-)  Anyway that's what is holding back the posts because sometimes the bully writes the post....

Will go dark again for a while but all is good with me which is the main thing. 

Summer Break

Unless I've got something stunning to say I'm going to give the blog a rest - I noticed it was getting a little ugly and so I've pulled a few posts and I don't want to burden you or me with stuff that I am saying in the heat of the moment and may regret.

I guess though that the important thing right now is that I've moved out of the phase of being the victim and have started to get a grip on myself, my emotions and my life.  It's a huge step - enormous one really and it's been about 6 weeks I think since I instigated it - so far so good.   Bound to be some problems along the way but at last my my mind is clearing out the garbage and detritus that has built up there for too many years.  Time to go and live and enjoy life again.  

Moving On

This is good, my mind is clearing and getting rid of all the cr@p that was in there, I walked past the Hospital and thought to myself - that I'd walked this road many times but today it didn't matter - I knew I'd have to still walk this path after my cystoscopies but it doesn't matter anymore it doesn't make my heart sink and whilst it - of course - must hold some fears about recurrence - it can go to a lower place in my mind from now on, it doesn't need to be at the forefront of my mind anymore.  Move along nothing to see here.  

As the problems that dogged my mind these past 7 years start to melt away and become background noise and as I take more steps to free myself up I realise that I should have done this years and years ago.  For all the right reasons I didn't and I wonder whether I should have but of course, that is in the past and it didn't happen and I didn't do it so not much to say other than You must learn from history and not repeat the past (unless it was good of course).

I said sometime ago that I felt a big piece of me died way back in July 2006.  It was like another sort of cancer took over in my head then and filled the dead areas.  Look back at my 2206/07 blogs and I talk about the voices, the evil voices which just gnawed away at your self confidence and took you apart and ridiculed you and made you feel small and worthless.  I always felt that cancer strips you of everything like that it takes away self belief, self esteem, confidence (like you can't believe) and it takes you to the lowest ebb sometimes.  And yet, I tried to keep cheerful throughout it all but it did affect me.  It ground me down and even today there has to be the uncertainty of it coming back or that you are somehow more susceptible to other cancers having already got one.

The battle inside your head is as big a battle as you have under the surgeon's knife and the treatments to ensure it doesn't come back.  

Then you survive and wonder why, or what purpose there may be and then off you go and try and search for what that might be.  My belief is not strong and I spoke to people who talked through much of that with me.  I tried different things and worked around my illness and maybe I should just have gone back to working in that corporate jungle I'd come from?  Probably not....  Still not sure unless needs must.

Right now, I am relieved of so many of the burdens I've just spoken of.  I don't actually know where I'm heading at the moment but I know that I have cast off many of these past burdens and millstones.  Freed of most of these and others fading and becoming less important, it feels great to have my mind back - or at least it is coming back.  All the anger and frustration has now gone and whilst not everything is there yet - it is like someone has just vacuumed my head out and take all the cobwebs away and I can rebuild my confidence, my belief and my life.  Not good "stuff" still lies ahead for me to tackle but I've finally addressed the Elephant in the Room and as my mate is often heard to say I've had to eat the Frog.  Or eat your own dog food as I once also heard it.  I hesitate to say it took 7 years, more likely 5 years I suppose.  Everything comes to he who waits unless someone gets there first of course? :-)

It's great to walk into the light and blink at it's beauty and wonder just what the hell have you been doing for the past 5 or 6 years?  The Prodigal Brain has returned :-)   

Breaking the rut

I finally sorted out the bath side panel - after a year!!!!  A year...  This is the problem with me that there were all these jobs to do - granted it wasn't a 5 minute job (about 2 hours) and I just never got around to fixing it.  I set to today and despite it being quite hot and humid got stuck in and had it fixed.

I have a list of other things around the house I must do and I just needed to sort myself out and set my mind to it.  Things like getting the car MOT'd, have some rendering to do outside some gutters to fix and a few other things like that.  All of which take little time but I can do them it isn't difficult and it just needed me to be in the right frame of mind and be motivated to do them. I am now motivated to do these things and now I'm back in my office and have some ideas that I can work on to move things on.  

Finally I feel free in mind and spirit which is great.  I can concentrate on sorting out business and moving forward, tidying this office up and getting back on top of things and back in control once again.  It's a mind over matter thing.

Cheat Day

I suppose Saturday and Sunday were both minor cheat days for me.  I had beer and some Vodka and a little chocolate and a few Lattes so that counts.  I didn't have too much other than that though and so today I'm OK but still decided to skip breakfast after the slight excesses and also that I don't actually feel hungry.  That's a combination of how I feel at the moment and also that I don't tend to feel hungry these days anyway as this diet/lifestyle tend to satiate you naturally and I find I just don't hanker after food anymore - or perhaps I should say carbs which are addictive.  .

My brother has lost 1 3/4 stone on the diet so far and is doing really well. I think that is in less than a month but he did need to lose some and I'm guessing that it is falling off him until he gets towards his goal.  It is good to see that and he is feeling good too.  I'm delighted that it is working for him and hopefully he realises not to go back onto carbs and he will be fine.

I have to say that it is quite easy to stay on this diet and I fully intend to although I have stalled recently I have to say.  The thing is to keep the faith and it will soon kick off again.  I can imagine that all the stress of the past few weeks hasn't helped me much but I am where I am now and that's where I wanted to be when I kicked all this off about 5 or 6 weeks ago now.

After all my troubles in the past years and weeks, I finally did something about it and now I feel calm and in control again at last.  I have taken some huge leaps this weekend and whilst not everything is far from ideal, I do have a platform to move forward and I do have some purpose back and some direction although I will need to set that in a week or two when I have had a chance to fully understand where things are.

Today I ship all my stuff back into my office and begin to plan out a strategy for moving forwards.  This involves many things of course but the main one being getting a job or starting my businesses up.  I must decide what to do and get down to sorting it out as I've put it on the back burner awaiting this very moment and a decision needs to be arrived at.  

The Balloon Joke

Once upon a time there 3 balloons, mummy balloon, daddy balloon, and baby balloon.

Tired of baby balloon creeping into their bed every night, "Tonight you must stay in your own bed" said mummy. 

When he was sure his mummy and daddy were asleep baby balloon crept into their room and tried to squeeze into their bed.

But try as he might he just couldn't fit in, so he undid the bottom of his mummy and let tiny bit air out of her. But to his dismay he still couldn't fit in, so he crept round to his daddy's side of the bed and undid his daddy's knot and let a little bit of air out. Again he tried to squeeze in but still couldn't quite fit. So he undid himself and let a little bit of air out. Then he fitted in nice and snuggly and fell sound asleep.

When his mum woke up she was furious!  "Get into your own room at once and think of what you have done young man!" she shouted 

"I am so disappointed in you! Not only have you let me down you've let your father down, and you've let yourself down too!"

So why tell this joke?  Well - I just hope no one dares say that I let anyone down or they'll get my fist in their face - that's all.  No really they will :-) 

Well not too much booze but a new day dawns

The embargo won't be lifted for at least 3 weeks so you will have to speculate what is going on. Only Mrs. F. and I and a few people know, not even my Mum so please say nothing for now, all will be revealed around mid to late August.  At 3am I went to bed and was up sort of OK at 8 this morning.  I keep saying to myself that the answer is not to be found in the bottom of a booze bottle and so it proved to be.  However, it could have been worse and I could have completely overdone it.  As it was, I didn't but I need to keep off the booze all together I feel as it would be an easy thing to just go there at the moment.  The trouble is - I know myself quite well and I have these occasional extremes it's part of who I am and I just go off and into some sort of mini self destruct mode - only for a short while - a matter of hours.  

In reality, yesterday was a pretty bad day - in fact the whole weekend was pretty bad but there you go.  I'd say it was the worst few days of my life after having had cancer, yes, that bad.  However, I sound up beat and that is the flip side of having a bad few days.  I'd feel a lot worse if I hadn't of had a bad weekend.  I know - sorry - it doesn't make sense yet... in a few weeks it will.  BUT PLEASE, if you do know, say nothing.

I think I might have finally worked out what I need to do - a list of priorities if you will.  I need to clear my head which is a tiny bit fuzzy this morning - not surprisingly - and focus on completing this project I am on - which is mainly a case of quality checks and then packing stuff away.

I can then get my head into gear to get some outstanding chores completed.  I think I might have a way forward at last but need to discuss with some friends and see if it all makes sense.  

Two in the morning

I've been thumping music through my Sony MP3 Walkman at 30 volume and drinking Vodka and dodging the showers outside :-) you may think strange behaviour for me but those who know me know that this is one of my "releases" - I need to let off steam and the bad thing is I tend to overdo the booze and engage in excesses of some kind or another.  

After my walk we all met up at the local pub so I had a few beers - nice.  Then when we got back home I just fancied listening to music, looking up at the stars and thumping some music into my head at the same time.

Mission accomplished as I managed to do all of that :-)  These excesses are probably bang on character at the moment.  More on that later but for now I need to do many things including being within myself at the moment so loud music, booze and solitude are the order of the day.  More when the embargo is lifted :-)

Sunday - A Day of Rest.

I think it may not quite be that.  I'm going to take myself off for another long walk (did this yesterday) in the lovely countryside around here.  Was wonderful walking over the hills, past cornfields and through the woods yesterday.  I really enjoy the peace and solitude and the beauty of the English countryside.  I can stroll along at my own speed past the Pilot's grave in the woods - we are near Biggin Hill the WW2 airfield - and then through a covered arch of trees over a wide path, along a bridle path and then back up over the hills past outcrops of woods and back to the Village.

After the overnight rain it is a blowy day out there but still warm enough to go in tee shirt order.

Life is never quite going to be the same again and my Bladder Cancer Journey takes yet another fork in the road or another unexpected turn on the Roller Coaster.  I say unexpected - but in reality that's not so.  In reality what's just happened was inevitable.

Anyway - a new chapter begins - more when the embargo is lifted.  

I know you love me to be enigmatic :-)   

Can't Say

For the moment things remain frozen and I can't say what is going on here.  So you'll have to await further announcements.  Not my rules I'm afraid. 

I spent most of the day sorting out the computer and have finally - I think - sorted it all out by steam having to do most of the transfer by old fashioned drag and drop on a folder by folder basis.  As luck would have it - I only missed a few folders out on the original pass so doing this again made sure I picked most of it up.  What an arse that it didn't work like it says on the Microsoft Web site.

I've a lot of decisions to make coming up based on what has just happened and I'm in a strange place as I am happy and sad all at the same time.  I've done what I set out to do a few weeks back and it's been pretty difficult I have to say - perhaps the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.  

Because I haven't done too much analysis and thinking I'm actually in a strange place now because I don't know what to do next for the best.  Particularly when it comes to work.  I'd like to think I ought to go start my own business and was part way down that avenue when I got severely sidelined by what's just happened.  So now, consequence of that decision actually need me to go and rethink it all - and so in some ways I've got a lot more problems than I started with.  

Oh well - that is what happens when you just go with your instincts and your gut feelings I suppose.  A lot of people live by the seat of their pants - I hate it - but I am beginning to see the attractions.  

Post too enigmatic for you?  I hope to explain more at some point when the embargo is lifted. 

Wide Awake - Never Trust Computers

I am doing some work that involves migrating an email system across from an old to a new Laptop.  My customer has one of the most complex filing systems I have ever seen which when screen shots are made runs to some 17 pages of A4 and more if you take the sub folders into account.

I ran a test where I managed to get the emails off of his machine and onto mine. Everything ran exactly as it should have done and so tested and assured it worked I set to work transferring.  I hadn't banked on a new OS and new Software which somehow screwed up the transfer of a vast majority of the emails.  I did a second check and still the same - files and structures were all broken.  I've therefore spent a long time offloading thousands of emails and their appropriate folder structure to a hard drive and now I am converting them back to way they were...

It is also - now close to 3 am - fair to say that there are other reasons keeping me up at night at the moment and I'll come to those when I can over the weekend.  For the moment, suffice it to say, I'm running on fumes :-) More later

The Lifting Of The Great Weight

Dear reader, it can hardly have escaped your notice that my head has been in some pretty awful places not just of late but also these past 7 years.  I have no doubt that different people deal with things different ways and I have been trying to approach my particular problems in every way from scientific to complete scattergun :-)

Problems build up in you - or they do in me - but they build slowly and like a Volcano the Magma Chamber slowly fills, small Earthquakes are registered and after a while, all hell breaks loose as the Volcano erupts.  So in many ways it has been a long journey towards this day.  

It's only been just over a month since I decided that I needed to tackle an issue that has dogged me for some considerable time.  I changed my attitude, I had to, I could no longer let my personality type bottle in and suppress what was happening to me.  It didn't really help that this all coincided with the anniversary of my getting Cancer, My Father's death last year, my Anniversaries of diagnosis and operation and today it would be 7 years to the day that I would have been released from Hospital to start this long long road to recovery.  

Last night I finally, finally got around to "kick off" the process of sorting myself out once and for all.  I finally, as I termed it, Bit the Bullet.  We used to say that one had to "Eat the Frog" - an unpleasant task that had to be done.  In many ways what is about to happen is unpleasant and uncomfortable.  Many people will be upset but no one will die.  More later.

But the main thing here is that by finally starting to address this and Lord knows I've procrastinated for far too long, I feel a huge weight has come off my shoulders, I finally don't feel this sick to the pit of my stomach feeling anymore.  Whilst I know that things may become unpleasant, they need to happen.

It's the 26th July 2013.  Time to move on......

Biting the Bullet

Inevitably one must Bite The Bullet and tonight that happened and progress is beginning to be made and whilst it isn't sorted out by any means - I finally don't feel sick anymore nor do I feel bad - I've made the step that I feared take, addressed the Elephant in the Room and set things in motion.

Whilst I've not resolved the problem I've initiated the process and that means I finally feel the release of all the tension I've had over recent weeks and dare I say recent years.

More later when things take shape. 

Coffee With Flocky

Bless good old (not so much of the old) Flocky Bicep - he's a real mate and feel sorry I had to go see him for the pretence of coffee only to offload all my problems onto him.  He's been a real help to me over many years but more so at the moment when so much is going on in my life.

At least had a good long walk, got back to find my car here - which is good - so they sorted that out for me.  Still can't help but feeling very sick in my stomach and my head is so messed up at the moment.  I can't think straight and I hate being so out of control as such.  It makes me very uneasy indeed :-)

Fear and real uneasiness about what is going on with my life at the moment.  I've done the big shake up thing and got myself out of my malaise and started to turn things around when I've walked into a massive road block.  The Elephant is now in the Room and I'm ignoring it. Thinking about it is making me ill and not doing anything about it is causing me to have huge mood swings.

What is the Elephant in the Room?  I can't tell you at the moment because it is for me to deal with and me alone.  Needless to say somehow I've got to do something about it.  I've had plenty of time to think about it, I've spoken to two of my closest friends this week to make sure I'm not being over dramatic or missing the point or just not thinking straight which is my big fear on this - am I thinking correctly or am I wrong.  I think I know I'm right and I don't like the answer at all. In fact I'm pretty sure I'm right and don't like the answer :-) 

Sure I'll write more when I've sorted myself out or even when I'm trying to sort myself out.  For the moment, the Elephant remains in the room but only I can see it.  For some reason that just flashed into my mind Family Guy and Chris Griffin's Evil Monkey in the Closet that only he can see :-)  Except my Elephant is much bigger and possibly more evil...

Disturbed Night

It's bad when I go to bed thinking and so it proved - my head was it's usual computer like self and woke me every hour or so during a funny old night which didn't appear as humid as before but felt it anyway.

I'd already tried to switch off at around midnight when I stood outside and had a small glass of red wine.  It was then that I noticed strange pinpricks of light at my shed at the end of the garden.  I hadn't noticed these before and thought they might be animal's eyes in the darkness so I wander up the garden - there are no obstacles just grass and when I got there to my annoyance noticed that there were a series of lights on in the shed.  It is darkened and blackened out as a photographic darkroom for my daughter.  I would imagine the last time it was used was about a year ago (I may be wrong).  Which means I've been paying an electricity bill for lights and equipment all left switched on for about a year in my estimation.  

I didn't get angry - I don't do that - just left a curt message on the kitchen worktop.  I've now switched off the mains to the garage as a double precaution......  

Having had fitful sleep I've got up this morning and need to do some work on this computer for my friend and hopefully I can complete all of the major work today and when he returns just switch it over.   That should clear me to go make a start in the office if it has suitably cooled down - it's still pretty hot up there.

My head is still in a crazy place - said enough about it yesterday and the day before other than - I know I know the answer and I'm just not brave enough or fully committed to sorting it out so have only myself to blame for my own self pity :-)  When I build up the courage and fully understand the consequences of those actions then I need to act.  Until then I need to realise that the solution to this is in my own hands and that I need to work on that.  It's no use whining about it when I have known the answer all along and when I could sort it out but I don't because it is unpleasant, hurts people and so on.  Sometimes you have to just do it.

I Wonder If....

I wonder if some piece of me died back there - 7 years ago.  It is exactly 7 years ago to the day when I had the operation that probably saved my life.  And there's me wondering why I've been all moody and strange these days....  

But I just wonder whether something got really broken back then?  I've not been the same since really.  I lost my job, I had others but nothing really satisfied me although the Charity came close to fulfilling a need. The last business was a brilliant idea but the markets weren't ready for it and probably still aren't even now.  Gave that my best shot but prolonged the inevitable really - it meant I worked hard for two years and spent all my waking hours at it.  It was enjoyable, possibly the biggest challenge of my life but did I do it so as to put off making some important decisions in my life?

I've run all the extremes in these past 7 years, diets, exercise, work, not working, psychometric reviews, weight gains and losses the whole gamut of emotions the whole experience of coming to terms with this thing that nearly killed me.

Today, I'm physically fit and I'm healthy, probably more than I've been for years.  A few more months and I should be down to a good weight that will make me more comfortable with myself although I'm a lot better now that I'm 3 1/2 stones lighter.  There's nothing wrong with me that a new brain that hasn't been pre-programed won't sort out :-)

Mentally, I'm a bloody wreck, have been for a number of years.  If you come here or know me you'll know that it isn't unusual for me to be bouncing off the ceiling with happiness or be digging in the cellar trying to find a trap door to hell.  Either can happen within minutes of each other.

And so that got me to wondering what on earth is different from pre and post cancer me?  The blindingly obvious is that I was brutally and macabrely confronted with my own mortality.  To stare at death is frightening especially as I wasn't even 50 then and felt I was at least bullet proof :-)  Try as I might I can only see small things that changed.  In many ways all the preconceptions you have about Cancer (generally) are proved wrong.  You win and you lose some friends and some family too - it's not their fault and you trying to fix things for them doesn't help a lot. What else?  Well everyone else gets on with their lives when maybe you think they shouldn't.  You get left to go it alone pretty much - although people are "with you" and "look out" for you they don't go through what you go through they don'r actually have the treatment and have the head f**k that you get with the treatment, the operations and the post traumatic body shock afterwards.  Only you can experience these things and only you know, deep down how truly frightening it all is.  Knowing that it can come back at any time, knowing that if some treatment doesn't work then there are radical alternatives that will save your life but alter it for ever too.

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy of that I;m convinced and anyone who uses it in a threat is no human being because it isn't even remotely nice.

But I can't help thinking that something in my head or my body died back then and has never come back.  A piece of me that was there before isn't there now.  I know that I am no longer the hard nosed bast**d I used to be known for in business.  People thought I'd donate my heart to medical science only so the surgeons would have something tough enough to sharpen their scalpels on!  I had a pretty neat way with words so that some said that my words could be cutting like razors and I had spittle like battery acid!  I am no longer like that, I now have a conscience which I didn't really before.  I also found that I have a very low emotional threshold which I never had before.  I've said before that if you showed me Bambi's mum getting killed it would wipe me out and anything that is sad wipes me out - it never used to.  

So I can see these sorts of changes in me but something else changed and I can't see it because I'm too close to it.  I know something happened because I feel I've done nothing but whinge about it for 7 years and yet should be grateful for being alive so I can't have it both ways can I.

Suppose I could have had the choice but I think I'd still choose alive thank you very much.  So what died?  Buggered if I actually know really.  I just know that it uncomfortable just sitting here and living with this depression in its various guises.  Most of the time I'm up but occasionally (looks like July isn't a good month) there's the recollection of this heat, was very hot the day I was operated on, the discomfort and the few years of treatment all have drilled things into my brain to be released and revisited when I least expect them.  You can't beat being alive and so I'm not complaining about that, being fit and healthy, no that's good too.  It's this missing piece of the puzzle that's so damn annoying.  If I can fix that I can get on with life rather than living in this sort of doldrum I'm in at the moment.  

And So Wednesday Dawned

And with it a new day in my return to health and my return to sanity.  Not that I was insane by any means - no today like many others presents me with - not a lot actually - nothing to really look forward to.  I've a little work to do - that will take all day but I don't need to be in attendance.

My car which was fixed last week is unfixed and needs attention so the mechanic is coming around to look at or fix it.  

There's no one in the house apart from me.  I'm happy with my own company but presently not so good in the head area with so much going on in there.  It feels like the rudder has come off my ship and I look back and feel that for the past 7 years there probably has been a screw loose at least :-)  Well I thought it was funny.

Here's my dilemma even though I can't tell you exactly what it is.  I need to make a big decision and I mean a big one.  It is the right decision for me, I'm pretty certain this is the answer.  I know it in my intuitive brain to be so.  My practical brain is pretty much certain that it is the right decision and I think that yesterday after a day of cross examination by my friend on Monday, I pretty much arrived at that decision too.  The problem then is that all actions have consequences and they affect other people.  What is right for me, may not be right for them (conversely it may be right for them - I can't see it but it may be so).  I dislike the idea of hurting anyone (OK some people on my "pay-back" list).  That's my dilemma in a nutshell   It isn't the decision itself - that's pretty much made and I know it to be the right thing to do. It is hurting and affecting other people through that decision and some of them are just passengers (if that makes sense) who are innocent bystanders in my view of the world.

I'd like to think that lots of people who know me want me to be happy, in fact I know so.  For me to be happy, am I prepared to upset people I know and care about?  Bloody tricky isn't it.  I like to think that the one thing I hold true is how I empathise with people, I very rarely do anything that I consider to be a selfish act, I wasn't brought up that way and I've lived by those rules all my working and home life.  It is very rare that I will do that but it appears that I may not have much choice in the matter and that I may need to just act.  Procrastination isn't a good thing - it makes things fester and I can't continue to do that, I need to sort it out once and for all.

I want to be out of where I am now in a pretty desperate rut because I don't really know what to do with myself in terms of the boring stuff like having to make a living earning some money and I just can't get past the first steps at the moment because there is something holding me back.  Sure, doing "something" will make me busy and keep my mind off things but I'm afraid it isn't solving the real problem I'd be addressing the symptoms and not the cause and so I go around again in a circle.  I really don't want to work in Corporate life anymore - I can't stand all the politics, nor do I want to go Contracting - it was great earning all the money and the work was good but I was hardly ever home.  I no longer want those. I can hardly get started at the moment in my own plans because I know that I need to make this decision first.

Anyway - still in the rut but know what I have to do about it.  It isn't going to be pleasant though so will just have to man up and sort it out and bite the bullet, step up to the plate and stop talking in cliches :-) 

Sort Yourself Out

I can hear myself saying it "Get a Grip!!", "Sort yourself out!" and many other phrases.

In many ways Monday was an interesting day as it exposed some raw nerve endings and actually it did what it was supposed to do.  It exposed the futility of me trying to not address many areas of my life.  It exposed the fact that I'm just not moving on, that the plans I have aren't working and aren't likely to either.  That my thought processes aren't working either and that I'm not being realistic in my review.

So not much wrong there then?  In reality I've put off some serious decisions for far too long, years in many cases and I just need to bite the bullet and go sort it out.  Bladder Cancer got in the way of my plans at the time and then the struggle to get back on my feet also meant that it was easier to put off or delay things and now - I'm at an impasse because my life had ground to a halt.  

In some ways I'm happier than I've been for years and in others possibly the saddest too.  When I look back here on the blog and in some of my other writings and deliberations I wonder if I'm not due to be admitted to an Institution but I think lots of people must be having these struggles with what is the right thing to do.  Do you follow your head or your heart, do you take a risk or not?

Life is not a rehearsal, I need to quickly sort myself out as I don't want to be in the same situation in another 6 years.

Oh Dear

I've not been on great form today and was trying to work out quite why that should be.  Mrs. F says she's worried about me - apparently I'm moody and brooding and it's quite strange because she reckons I'm like I was last year when I got really depressed and down.  The strange thing is that suddenly I realise that I am a bit down and not my goodself - writing this I can feel it and yet there's me saying on the other hand that I'm really up at the moment and enjoying the new me.  It's not schizophrenia but mood swings are pretty much happening all the time and I'm just going to have to work my way through them.

I'm pretty sure I know what is bringing this about but it's nothing I can actually control and so perhaps, being the control freak that I am, it is messing with me head.

I think too that subconsciously I've arrived at a conclusion of my deliberations and the answer isn't the one I like or am happy about.  It's logged into the back of my head and now I've got to come to that same decision myself.  Maybe that is what it is.  I recollect being like this when I had to resign from the Charity - it was a decision that I had to take and one that I didn't like or enjoy at the time.  I remember too though that I had to resign from there - I certainly couldn't have survived being there any longer.  

It's a funny old thing is life, the universe and all that.  If Mrs. F. can see me looking back in the dumps and I'm not even thinking that I am - then there's some funny old stuff going on here and I'd better arrive at the conclusion pretty damn fast.  I'm an intuitor - I already know the answer, I don't like the question and I don't like the answer.