The Weight Of The World

 Is the world a more dangerous and frightening place?  Is it worse now than it was when I was younger?  Well, yes and no.  I have time to reflect on the barrage of information both true, false, made up, downright propaganda and so on.  I probably took little notice when I was younger but recall only really Saturday and Sunday picking up a newspaper and reading it cover to cover.

Weekends were busy with working on the house and garden and doing all the things that were needed.  Now, not so much as retirement brings the weekend every day!

It matters to me all the ills and woes in the world, the utter stupidity and hypocrisy and the varied nonsense you read and listen to.  Things that make me angry include the loss of our impartiality and fairness our sense of good manners and fair play.  They've gone and then there's the utter blind reliance on "science" excess deaths in the heatwave were caused by, climate change, of course they were!  When the climate actually changes you'll know about it and weather variability, which is what this is, isn't to do with carbon FFS they don't even know what "carbon" they are talking about and that is where it all goes horribly wrong as they knee jerk changes in the name of the great God Carbon and not adapt to it, if indeed the 400 parts per million of CO2 has any direct affect on it.  They tell you  "The Oceans are boiling" have you ever seen that happening?  Given around 90% of planet is water what science have you got for that.  It has a lot to do with the climate but really, boiling??

Anyway this post is about how all this stuff drags me down and the continuous negative news and views is eating away at me so I have to give it up and do other things that isolate me from this constant day on day onslaught of bad news.  

The trouble is, it makes me lethargic and just makes it difficult to do anything useful.  The heat doesn't help and is a good excuse not to exert myself.  It's a difficult head fight at the moment as I think I know what the problem is but it is more than that it is the move from having an interest and a business to not having that anymore.  No purpose, nothing to look forward to (or moan about) and a future that doesn't show a blank canvas to me rather than age and death and that's not right.  

Enjoying my retirement is actually not at all enjoyable at the moment.  I need to get a grip on it and reset things.  It cannot go on like this and in little patches it doesn't.  I enjoyed going to my granddaughter's party yesterday but it was short-lived.  

It is a case of working through this stage, not easy I have to say but I am determined to do it.  

Here We Are, It's Monday Again

 Monday again, no work to go too and it's hot as you like still but nowhere near the heat of last week.  A reasonable night's sleep with just the two interruptions although not sure what the 3:40 awakening was about but it did give me the high speed thoughts about anything and everything but I managed to stop them and awoke just 10 minutes before the alarm.

I hope to go to see my mother in a weeks time - planning today to see if that can happen.  My daughter and the grand-kids will be going up to see her so I can tag along with that and save them transporting her from her flat to the farm where they like to go.

I just hope it isn't as hot wherever I am staying!  

Bonkers Day - Typical For Me Though

 My delivery did not arrive on Friday so I arranged to have it delivered Tuesday as I was going out on Saturday.  It was my granddaughter's birthday party and so I got myself all organized and cleaned the windscreen on my car and set off.  Well that was until I noticed that the butcher said they were on their way so I called and left a message stating that we had already agreed to deliver Tuesday.  With me so far?

I decided to set off a little earlier than planned and so left the house at 9:10 or thereabouts.   The Butcher arrived at 9:16!!!  Had I stayed behind and not set off I'd have my food and you never know I might have noticed something significant too......  The party is today not yesterday so I had driven all the way to the party location and hour away and wondered why it was not that busy there.  Interesting couple of hours driving which I will need to repeat shortly. 

As for the Butcher a few tetchy emails later and we are back on track for a Tuesday delivery rather than me having to go and collect it.

It was slightly less warm overnight and I managed to sleep until 6:45 so not too bad.  Still got these thoughts in my head but I am managing them.  They sweep in and out of my day and night and as long as I can identify them, I can control them a bit but it isn't easy.  Better than last week and gradually improving - working on it.  

Early Rising - It's All In Your Head Mr. Tweedy

 Chicken Run, a brilliant film and poor old Mr. Tweedy, the farmer, nagged by his wife and harassed by the Chickens.  His wife tells him "It's all in your head!" yet we know that the Chickens really are up to something.

My current problems are all in my head so to speak and with this heatwave making doing anything uncomfortable it doesn't help that my head is Catastrophising things going on around me.  Everywhere does appear gloom and doom and once again I find myself reflecting on such things.  The state of the economy and what on Earth these losers are going to come up with next and just the state of the world at the moment but I cannot fix them and worrying about them probably isn't helping either.

I was up early again this morning not massively so but just before 6 but it was a hot night again and suddenly I was awake.  We'd had some locals disturb us as they sat out and were being overly loud in conversation - it is surprising how far noise travels at night in the country but I don't imagine they realised.

Things play in my head and that needs to stop.  It used to happen many years ago and I got rid of it, just one night and I cleared all my past which was haunting me and I stopped all the analysis and self doubt.  In a way, that's back now but nowhere near as severe as before.  It's just unsettling and it isn't particularly good for me, I know.  So I am going to work on that and try to detach myself from social media as well as unsubscribing to all these emails.

I am going to have to work on it and sort it out.  

No Wonder There's Problems

 I am trying to give up my phone and PC/Tablet and switch my attention away.  It is only when you realise the way that your attention is being sought all the time that you realise how, for example, ADHD and similar problems manifest themselves.

My phone goes 'bing' and I look at the little screen to see what it is? It commands my attention and requires my feedback and interaction.   My emails demand attention and action (or do they) and I find myself using phone and PC to get things done but there is little or no substance to those things.

So I've been working slowly, to unsubscribe from emails - I think that it will help.  I try to (and fail miserably) to look at Facebook only once a day - this needs more practice as does glancing at Instagram albeit that might be the only way I might know where one of my daughters is in the world and what she might be up to.  She's on a year out going around the world bless her.

It's been hot by any standards and I managed to sleep with one (possibly two) interruptions overnight and slept past 7.  I have an early morning delivery arriving so I needed to be up but 7 is great.  I cleaned the air cooler which has meant it operates better and it certainly did work better as all the filters and the evaporation screen were cleaned out.  It is going to be a hot day again today and it really precludes me from sitting here doing anything on the PC.  It is too hot to do anything in the garden and so there's been a lot of sitting around doing little - that has and hasn't helped my head space.

I am feeling a lot better but my head drifts in and out of strange places - without over doing it I didn't want to be here (no not the suicide question for you SAMS out there) but I wasn't certain where I wanted to be.  I am still having the death and getting old stuff and it's because my purpose disappeared and I wasn't ready for it.  I had a plan if the business was successful and one if it wasn't which it turned out to be and there problem was that I'd got the exit plan sorted out and there was suddenly a vacuum in my day to day life and purpose and unlike me, I hadn't given any thought to the missing part.  I say unlike me as I am usually well planned but of course, this is now about me, not someone else or anything else and I didn't think that this would be something I'd need to consider as it is emotional and people orientated and as an INTJ I swear I'm more Vulcan than human :-) 

Another restful day with deliveries of food incoming and time to try and reflect on the good side of retirement.

That Was Hot One!

It feels like the hottest day this week already.  I got up at 5:45 mainly as I'd managed to make my hand numb by lying on it awkwardly and something woke me from outside the house.  A car, lorry or sheep/ As I say that the Dustmen have just arrived so it might be the previous ones who do the food caddy :-)

So I'm just working out how to get cool and sort myself out for today - it is so warm here in my office that I will probably end up elsewhere in the house or in the shade outside seeking relief.  It's a sit it out day today for sure.

But at least, I am not sitting in the strange head space I was in last week and indeed for many weeks.  There's a little going on in there but not as bad, not as self-destructive I'd say.  Without wishing my life away it will be good when the weather breaks a bit and I can get on and do some work or make some plans that don't involve keeping cool, making and using ice and running fans most of the day!

Despite The Heat - I Managed A Good Night

 Progress of sorts and that's something I suppose.  I asked for Crossword and Puzzle books for my Birthday and an Adult Colouring Book and that's to allow me to unwind and concentrate on something else rather than my head space.  It has been ridiculously hot in the late 20s early 30s but without the humidity which feels more bearable.  My chiller has been working overtime and it does the job allowing us to sleep under our pitched roof bedroom.

In many ways things are very gradually getting better.  The business cessation and dissolution is under way and the letters should arrive latest today to the shareholders.  They have the right to object once the notice has been published but quite what they can object to is a moot point as all the Statutory duties required of the business have been followed.

There's one potential objection that can be made but he would have to prove his assertion and no paperwork exists to back it up in fact I have paperwork that refutes it.  

Anyway, given that this is now underway and should be over in a few months, I doubt that there can be anything to hold it up but I've been wrong before and when people act out of emotion rather than logic these things can arise and it is one of the worries I am dealing with but of course it hasn't happened and so I need to check my fearful egoistic brain on that, which, as most of you realise, is the biggest part of my current and past problems!  

Coming to terms with retirement is taking a while longer than I expected I have to say.  I hadn't planned that the business would crash dive quite the way it did, or so quickly but I did everything I could to sort it out.  Anyway, the bottom line of it is that I was expecting to be doing a couple of hours a day and then do "retirement stuff" I just hadn't worked out what that "stuff" comprised of!

It is not going to be an overnight thing either, I need to spend a little time working out what it might be.  I'm living through the shock (we'll call it) of staring at the last phase of my life and I don't like it at all.  It isn't what I expected and I haven't come to terms with it.  That's my assessment of where I am right now.  I am trying to figure out life's new meaning and I am failing miserably at that.  I will get there by my usual dogged manner.  For the moment it is eluding me and there's a lot of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) clouding my judgement, what little there is left of the old INTJ Manager me.  Logic seems to have walked out and taken a break for the moment, perhaps it will return when I ground myself as I go forward.

At least I am sleeping a little better and I am not having so many bad and vicious thoughts.  Slow and very gradual progress though.   

A Different Dawn

 Up around 20 minutes earlier than normal pleasantly surprised considering how hot it was overnight.  My cooler was on low all night which must have helped - it's hot already this morning and going to go over 30C today again.  It's not so humid so that's good (I guess)?

I felt much better and was able to get up, prep breakfast for us and so I am pleased with that.  It makes a big difference and I feel better in myself and it's nice not to have the head sh1t going on.  

I am not sure what it might be but perhaps because the shareholder letters went out yesterday and are on their way and so that's a weight off and I sat down and did some art based activities in the afternoon - it was far too hot to do much else and that calmed me down too.  I even watched a bit of football last night which I rarely do just to do something. 

Thankfully I don't have problems going to sleep and last night getting up and going back to sleep.  I often struggle to go back to sleep as my senses get heightened and then the thoughts flood in.  I can manage that with some breathing and backwards counting that seems to work.

So maybe the end of the business, now official, now informed to all shareholders is kicked off.  I suppose he can object although I am not sure whether he can do anything about it.  His assertions that his investment is a loan would have to be argued with Companies House (not me) and I've already put on record the business' position on this.  So that's all that can really put the fly in the ointment I guess.  Let's wait and see - this is the only thing that's left really and I suppose it all depends on how vindictive he feels.  Hopefully now I've returned everything to him he will go away?  It still plays on my mind how nasty he has been and I imagine that is part of my current head wobble.

Anyway, take each day as it comes and today is a much better day than the past weeks so that's a bonus.  Let's hope I can build on that. 

Early Again - Not Too Bad Despite

 Hearing of two acquaintance's prognoses.  One is a bit of a shocker as it's now "manage" the outcome, the other is in Hospital and it's not looking good.  

I am up early about 5:30 and I'm not sure what woke me up really?  I was awake earlier than that but drifted back to sleep once I'd calmed my mind down a bit so I'm up 2 hours earlier than planned but it is warm again, perhaps late teens and sleeping isn't that comfortable.

I have to say though that my head is clear writing this and that's great, I enjoyed a day of motor racing yesterday and I didn't stay up for the England Vs Mexico match that kicked off around 1 am. I see we won and maybe that woke me though I doubt it, I don't really do football as such.

I hope that I can continue to work my way through this awful patch and get myself back on an even keel.  The letters to shareholders should have gone out on Saturday but the postman didn't bring the label and it was only that I caught him that I'd have even found out about it.  Hopefully today that will be sorted and the whole of that episode, close to 10 years will come to an end unless, I suppose, the bloke who kicked off wants to somehow kick off again although I am not sure how he can?  Mind you people aren't logical when it comes to being vindictive.

There's this strange thing of getting rid of the baggage that I have and working on where I go next and what I do.  I do feel that there is a whole area I need to work on as this retirement living was never planned or thought about, it just happened and that's a shock and a barrier to work through.  My "purpose" has gone and I need to adjust to this situation - I am just not doing that as fast as I wanted to really.

Fluctuating Moods Swings

 Up just gone 6 with just 2 overnight wakes.  It's warm again and the chiller fan is on which helps.  Strange dreams but not overly so - not disturbing but I wonder who the lady was I met as she was interesting and darkly mysterious :-)

I digress though.  My birthday was OK and the British Grand Prix was live so there was plenty to do.  I want to work out what is going on but the swings between how I feel are confusing I suppose, in that I cannot make sense of what is happening anyway let alone when I am alright one minute and almost in tears the next.  

As I type now I am OK but aware that I am not quite right.  There's a lingering under the surface anxiety that tests my thoughts and limits my actions.  It really is annoying that I cannot break away from it.

Well, It's My Birthday

 I don't want to celebrate or do anything and I still have this heavy heart, anxiety about me and I don't seem to be able to shake it off at the moment but I must somehow do that and move on.

The business was finally wound up yesterday and the letters are going out today.  I suppose someone could object but it would be pretty pointless to do so.  The accounts are in order, the proper process has been followed and so perhaps that is something that I can now forget but it plays on my mind and so is one of the areas that should fade away with time.

I need to do something to work through all of this - I know a lot is in my head and I just cannot clear it at the moment.  I'll have to try and work out how I deal with it.  I'm thinking one of the ways is to walk away from social media and all the things I am subscribed to.  They do nothing for my well being. 

 

Again - Not Too Bad This Morning

 Life is still presenting some sort of head conflict and I'm working on it.  Woke twice overnight, it was a slightly warm one - I hadn't cooled the room properly before bedtime but I fell asleep fast and got up after 6:15 so that's better than a few weeks ago.

I've halted drinking (beer) and I feel a bit better for that too.  It hasn't been long but it is enough and so fizzy water seems to suffice.  I do miss beer though, a lifetime of it, and so I provide my circular arguments that I can handle it well knowing that just the one or two a day probably isn't "handling it"

When you know that the stuff in your head isn't real and that it is all manufactured to get your attention to make you sad, to upset you and you let it, you do feel let down that you cannot handle the current situation.  I'm sad and annoyed, tetchy (sometimes) and cannot express myself.  I'm tearful some of the time but not all of the time and I suppose I can go on about the 20 year anniversary of finding the Bladder Cancer but that is just part of it.  

I suppose losing my "purpose" is having an effect.  That which kept me getting up, coming into the office here and working is gone never to come back.  So what's the purpose?  I lapsed my hobbies over the years and that too is a problem I find in that I have little to do now.  Maybe that's also an issue to deal with or find things to do.

Some people say that they have no time now that they are retired and I find that I don't have that, I don't have projects to deal with or rather I do but I cannot always focus on doing them.  Things seem stacked up against me when they probably aren't.  In this hot weather (3rd heatwave incoming) I have to say that I don't feel like doing that much for sure.  Enthusiasm sits and rests at the list of things I need to do.  I am gradually going through selling off all the stuff that just sits around doing nothing.  Stuff that has sat in boxes since we moved with no purpose and not being used.

That makes me happy and sad at the same time.  Not for the sentimental purpose but because I start something and don't really follow through with it.  I need to work on getting things done and achieving them but that too is proving difficult.  

So stuck in a bit of a no man's land still and it's the anniversary of my Father's death today.  July has always been awful in those terms.  Mum's birthday, my presenting with Bladder Cancer, Dad's death, my birthday all in the first 4 days and there were a couple of other things too that happened in these 4 days that I cannot recall what they were - I think some sort of problem or death etc!  

But, I shouldn't dwell on those I guess?  No, I should get on with living my pensioner retired life and just enjoy it without the dread of getting old.  It is without doubt a change in life that I had not envisaged nor had I even thought could be a problem, I had not planned for it and with the close of the business (that is finalising in the next few days) my current purpose disappeared.  The hours a day I'd spent over the past 9 years no longer exist and that activity got me up out of bed and "doing things" and it's gone in a flash.

I liked the analogy that your life is like a river and it is flowing strongly from its origins and as you work through your young and middle age and then it reaches a canyon and the narrows chop up the water making it froth and angry and then after going through that the river becomes wide and still and gentle.  I'm in the narrows and need to get through to the other side.

A Game of Two Halves

 It was our Lodge's annual BBQ and I thought the roads would be morgue quiet as England were playing in the World Cup but no, the roads were quite busy but we got there in good time.  Then the "fun" happened.  The room we were having our pre-meeting in was the smallest one which was like an oven.  I don't recall it ever being that hot before and suddenly Mr. Claustrophobia kicked in and I just couldn't stay in the room with everyone.  I needed to be there but I was really feeling bad and a little panicked so I made my apologies and didn't attend.  It was (only) half an hour but that would have been too much for me.

Things changed a bit afterwards and the England Match was on in the bar area and guests assembling in the garden.  England?  Yes they were a goal down to DR Congo.  The meeting ended and I got on doing my Treasurer's duties, collecting money, dishing out the drinks vouchers and so on.

It proved to be a nice evening and we left around 9 or so as the sun dipped down and it got quite chilly.  We drove home and I got a whole night's sleep!  Hurrah.  Woken by the alarm which was good so I feel better about things as it stands now.

It is the 20th Anniversary of me presenting with my Bladder Cancer symptoms (blood in the urine) on the day before England lost to Portugal I think?  

Let me see what today brings.  I have 6 months now until my next Lodge meeting and I hope that I will have turned it all around by then.  

Good Night - Up Early But Something Still Not Quite Right

 It was a good night, up just the once and slept through to gone 6 and so a solid 7 maybe 7 1/2 hours.  That's better than it was and I don't have the high levels of anxiety of last week but still something there gnawing away. 

It is (this morning) a feeling of being trapped a slight claustrophobic feeling but, of course I can do something about that, get up, stand outside, move around the rooms etc.  It isn't always that - I have started to worry about my daughters one of whom is on her round the world trip and was flying overnight to Canada.  She's a seasoned traveller but I just have this slight on edge feeling when I think about it.  I recall seeing her photos  and videos from New Zealand leaping from an aircraft and parachuting over the Southern Alps / Fjords.  Do it whilst you are young and good luck to her but there's the background worry about such things.

My worry at the moment is this preoccupation about getting old and now I have no business to work on, what to do with myself and how to spend my time.  It's a wobble I didn't think I'd have to deal with but now I see that I was woefully unprepared for the transition.  I am not sure whether to get involved in things or walk away from the commitments that I still have and it's all playing on my mind.

I am sure I will get there but it is unnerving at the moment and just something I need to work on. 

I Know This, I've Actually Done Something About It Before

 So why oh why am I here again?  

Give this a watch it's around 10 to 15 minutes or so.  

I just needed the KITA (Kick In The Arse) to remind me of this.  I know this, I've been round and around this and I purposefully don't sit in our living room watching TV particularly as I find that propaganda but I do doom scroll my phone, Facebook but not so much Instagram and all the others.

The stuff I have been wrestling with for a while and we all know how Left Brained I am.  The INTJ bit has now lost its purpose, its meaning, it's being the boss, being the technical guru, the planner, the arbiter of all things right and wrong.  I am liking the sound of it already the omnipotent, omnipresent Project Manager LOL!!

But, back to this talk.  I follow Dr Brooks on YouTube for goodness sake and I know I know this stuff - I just need to back out of the OCD or whatever I have been doing for the past God knows how long?

So the lesson is I need to remind myself of the right hand side of my brain more often - being an INTJ that is soooooo difficult I can't even begin to tell you how hard that is.  Even when I convince myself I need to do more on the other side of my brain and know the reason for it - I wrestle with the implementation as it isn't logical or process driven.  I've been here before and so the deja vu is strong with me on this and it is all very 'The Matrix'  Now where are my blue and red pills?  

Distraction In Accidents

 I live about half a mile from the main road on an non adopted country lane. It's about a vehicle width wide with passing places and around 15 houses mainly where we are.  It is a bridleway and footpath too.  Yesterday as I was half way to the road I spied a runner, a young lady as it happens and something wasn't right about the scene and I stopped my car about 20 paces from her as she ran and started veering towards me almost running sideways into the middle of the road!  She got the shock of her life when she saw my car and veered back to the side of the road.  Luckily I had stopped as if I had been driving I would probably have hit her or had a very near miss.

Of course she had ear buds in and was looking down at her mobile phone.  She did jump quite a bit when she finally saw the front of my car.  That isn't unusual but that's the nearest one I've had this year!  I nearly had a new bonnet mascot!  LOL.

I've Been Here Before

 Twenty years ago, or thereabouts when all this began.  I do get cranky at about this time of year and of course, the flashbacks happen even if you don't want them to.  

The current state of mind is somewhat different and not quite so much deep and dark more shallow and persistent to such an extent that it's with me a lot and is there all the time whereas in the past I'd get a bout of dark mood, black thoughts for a while and then it would go and I'd move on.

This is troubling in as much as I'm not seeing a "way out" as such, feel trapped and yet I know that probably isn't the case.  I need to talk to someone other than this blog.  The issue is that in talking will I make it worse, will I get an answer that I don't want? Yes I know that sounds strange but maybe I already know the answer and cannot face it?

Small steps are required.  I am sleeping better - still up an hour or more earlier than I should or used to be but still almost 8 hours sleep.  I've stopped having a beer in the evening too.  I need to reinforce how much better I feel in the morning for doing so.  Habit is a problem.  I like the taste of a beer but I dislike the idea of making a habit of it and so let me see how that goes.

I also feel that I have nothing "to do" that I stripped myself of my hobbies and enjoyment and so that to me also needs to be brought back under control and worked through.  I both want and don't want to downsize and wrestle back from all my clutter.  It's just going to have to be a slow gradual process and I want it all to be over and perfect.