Better I Suppose

 Still fighting my brain at night but not as much - I'd almost fallen asleep when my head decided to remind me of the awful video that had been published on the murder of young Henry Nowak and if you've seen it, it is pretty disturbing indeed.  I managed to switch off the horrific scene and got a few hours sleep and then a few more and around 5 my brain was wanting to start looking at all the projects to do in and around the house.  A short work out on breathing and I got another hour and half sleep.

I have some work to do in terms of accounts which are dependent on the weather - we finally had some rain last night with a bit of thunder and lightning and we might have more - no one can accurately say, like the storm in the late afternoon yesterday we had two hours notice.

I think that I can spend a bit of time sorting out finances too which will be good.  Mundane stuff but I need to build on these tasks and climb back to being normal (yes I know that's subjective) me!!

Better Night's Sleep

 OK that was a little better - it is much cooler and the rain woke me up a couple of times but I fell back to sleep well enough.  Only at around 5 did I hit the mind alive again which is me all over once I am awake my mind goes into some sort of parallel computing mode.  This time though I did my breathing exercises and was rewarded with another 2 hours sleep and and a strange dream escaping a volcano somewhere abroad and getting everyone together and out of the building!  

Today is finance day so I am sorting out bills, credit cards and so on.  Once that is done I will move on to getting some accounts moving.  I see that I have done some of the account but there are a few gaps so that is the next thing then cross referencing checks.

I feel OK ish today albeit a friend has passed away who has been ill for a long time.  My mind is sort of preoccupied with mortality at the moment after seeing my mum and then completing my LPAs and so on.  

At least I am not in the very low place I was in a few weeks ago or that I was in last year.  Adjusting to this aimless retirement is taking some getting used to. 

Early Rising - Habit Forming

 I had an excuse as Grandson is on an inset day (we used to call it a Baker Day) and so he arrives early.  I was awake and so 5:40 didn't seem too bad I'd normally be up at 6 anyway for him coming.

I have no idea what I have done to my knee but it needed Deep Heat on it this morning and I've now taken off the brace and it feels sort of OK.  It happens occasionally, a cricket accident from 30+ years ago!  both knees but it is infrequent.  The heat has died down a bit now and whilst I still ran the cooler overnight hopefully that can be turned down or off if the temperature drops a bit more.  It is much nicer now - warm but without the humid hit that we seem to get in the UK.  

I have some things to do which will occupy me for a few days now.  These are mainly accounts and they can be completed and be sent off for auditing.  I've got other things to do as well and so I am feeling OK and not so lost.  Tomorrow can be an accounts sort of day and I can clear up my own accounts and those of the Lodge in one hit.

I hope that I can end the habit of early rising though.  I find it difficult to sleep still and so I just need to get away from the habit and away from my mind wanting to nag me all the time.  Knowing that my mind is commenting all the time is part of the trick but the ultimate thing is to make it stop.  That is the most difficult part of it all.  Ignoring the babble and nonsense arising and dismissing it and not joining in with it's narcissistic pain body self talk.  Easier said that done but I am trying. 

Up Early Again

 Well that was strange as I woke early (twice) and got back to sleep albeit it didn't feel like I did the second time.  My OH was awake and so I sat up and the dark thoughts came and the tearful feeling and sadness too.  So I got up and I am here at 6 am,  I suppose that's not so bad.

The heat is subsiding now which is OK I suppose and means that sleep isn't as fitful as it has been.  I could certainly do without the nagging head stuff for sure.

A combination of many things and based around retirement and loss of purpose, seeing my mum ageing and all that combined.  I'd like to move on from it all but that is proving a little difficult.

It's really too hot to do much outside - I managed to shore up the gates and sort out the braces and uprights where they'd started to come apart.  It feels good to accomplish things but in this weather it really is difficult to do anything too exerting. Hopefully the weather will break and we can get rid of the high temperatures, humidity and Saharan sand! 

What's to be done?  I don't know really.  I am a lot better than I was last week and these thought bombs only come in short waves but they are powerful and upsetting.  When you consider that it is you own brain doing this to you - you'd have thought it was an easy fix but it isn't.  Trying to counter argue yourself is also a bit strange.   After a while you can just disappear the thoughts and I just need to work hard on doing that.  

Controlling My Thoughts

 It's been a bad week all in all.  I'm better than I was this time last week and the disturbed nights are lessening as the temperature cools down now.  It's been very warm and so sleeping is difficult to say the least.

Up again early this morning and whilst I still have the thoughts on and off, I recognise what they are and control them.  It is destructive though and takes work to understand what is happening and then do something about it.

I spoke to my financial guy and all is well really - I can't complain and if I did, no one would listen LOL. But we did speak about coming to terms with retirement and that is indeed difficult, at least for me.  When your purpose has been about doing things for other people most of your life taking time for yourself becomes difficult and so a new way of living needs to be examined and it doesn't happen overnight - I just hadn't planned it and of course, for someone who has always planned it came as a shock.  I didn't realise that I'd be retired (even though drawing a pension etc) until a month or two back when I took the decision to shut down the business.  In many ways, it wasn't a slow process to do.  No sales = no business = shut it down.  There's no bills to pay (ish) and you just wrap it up, job done.  In the next few weeks the paperwork will go in and that's kind of that.  I'll then just grab the files stick them in a box and write a do not destroy until (7 years later) and move on.

It was the sudden shift from doing what I've always done to doing nothing that was the jolt.  At least I know what it is and can move on from there.

I Guess It Is OK Not To Do Things

It's hot for sure and I will not be getting into my car to do the little bit of fuse replacement I need to - blown 12 Volt outlet in the console - It's an easy enough fix but, at 27 C not so much :-) Likewise, I really could do with doing some garden chores but once again, it is that hot as to not be comfortable either.  So I will not actually do anything involving physical work today.  I now have the gates (the infamous bloody gates) to do a small repair on as I notice two of the bracing timbers are coming away from their supports!  Great - so parts ordered and another thing on the list to do.

But it's OK not to do things now.  I'm retired and so it can wait as I have all the time now.  When I worked it may have meant leaving it until the next free weekend to fit around my other chores! Now I can see that it doesn't matter.

The adjustment is very difficult for me - I have always "been busy" with stuff and chores, projects, work etc.  Now, not so much.  It's whether or not to do anything in the spaces in between or to just let those happen and it bothers me and I need to adjust, acclimatise and get used to it I guess? It's not easy at all.

So my next work in progress is not to feel guilty that I am not doing anything, rather embrace that and work out from there what to do after that, when I've accepted it.

Every Year I Have This Conversation (With Myself)

 Whether to invest in A/C in the house.  For the few days it is like this we work through the 30 C days and 20C nights using my cooling tower and a misting fan plus a few old fashioned office fans.  It was at 5 am this morning that I sort of had the conversation again.  We live in the pitched roof area of our house and it has angled doors and windows making it difficult to site an A/C unit or vent it more over.  So where it's needed isn't the best place to put it.  I could put it downstairs but I'd need a more powerful unit as the house is quite large and would need to cool a large area before cooling upstairs.  

So for 4 or 5 days a year of discomfort is the ROI worth it?  I'll probably still be asking myself this very same question next year!!

Life is very strange for me at the moment.  Irrational thoughts, death and illness, getting old, losing control and independence and many many more.  I'm better than I was last week but it's got so much to do with seeing my mum and her situation relating it to my situation and so on.  I am having to work through it and make various changes to things.  I go between being quite happy and content to the complete opposite and being down and despondent.

Just going to have to fight my way through it I guess. 

Ups and Downs

 No 1 Grandchild is here today which has cheered me up and I got a half decent night's sleep given it was so hot but my cooling fan leaked and so I have a puddle in the bedroom carpter now mopped up!  

I think I know what happened so I just need to check that tonight and make sure it doesn't recur.

Was a bit annoyed that my grandson told me that the world is getting hotter because humans are causing it. Why are teachers telling them this climate porn? It's disgusting as they are blaming children for nothing and oppressing them surely this dogma should be stopped.  

If you know me you know what I think on this non scientific mumbo jumbo and even the climate change people don't spout this bollocks - but you'd need to read their literature and reports (not the executive summary written by non scientists!).  The summaries are then inflated to sell newspapers and gain clicks.  They, politicians and climate scientists cannot tell you any ROI - Return on Investment data because it doesn't exist.  The actions they have taken have made a lot of people very rich and the greater general public, US, poorer.  In the 20 or 30 years that they've promised lowering bills the opposite has happened.  Everything is more expensive because of some hoodoo voodoo nonsense.  Here in the UK we have gone faster and further than most and our reward is the highest energy prices in the world.  And, just to be sure, they slap more taxes on to the stuff with resultant businesses going bust, even higher prices and disastrous results incoming in the future as we import fuel from adjacent oil and gas fields in the North Sea from our neighbour, Norway, for example.  The very same fields, under our feet (well under the sea).  Someone needs to wake the f*** up and stop it but, you know, Socialism.  Mind you the Conservatives weren't much better enshrining this sh1t in law.

As for me, well, I am very much up and down at the moment.  I know I am not right but with the little guy around today that will cheer me up.  The weather is a little challenging and as usual makes you want to invest in AirCon for a few days :-)  Some of the things that I find myself worrying about in short snippets include:

• Getting darker in winter!
• Claustrophobia but not in any particular setting
• Dying, suicide (no I'm not there) getting old, losing my power (physical)
• Getting stuff done, having a plan or not, procrastination

I think it is all to do with retirement, loss of day-to-day work.  A feeling that my get up and go has indeed got up and left and a general lack of motivation.

You retire and the picture is painted of all the things you can get on and do and suddenly, they no longer interest me at all or rather, I just cannot be arsed at the moment.  It sounds terrible and I worry about the loss of the time and effort but there you go.  I'm aware of all of this but I just need to tackle it and work my way through t.  I'm not as bad as I was last week so hopefully I can work through this. 

Life's A Bit Of A Struggle At The Moment

 I am having a hard time of it at the moment.  The retirement conundrum is there and the general life, the universe and all that too.  Suddenly there's no purpose, no easy way out of a trap I suppose, or that's what it feels like.

The stuff that defined me has gone and I wasn't expecting this void and this confusion.  It's not the same as the dark days of last year but it is a constant challenge and it comes and goes and fights logic, what I know, what I care about and so on.  There's a fight between wanting to be busy and doing things (not easy in this mini heat wave) and just doing nothing.  

I am working my way through it but it isn't easy.  The heat does not help - I have the fans but they aren't doing much other than blowing the air around of course.  It would be nice to have air con but where to put it is an issue.

I need to work my way through this phase as it is making me very uneasy and going to see my mum last week was both nice - good to see her - but also upsetting as she is getting old and frail which is upsetting. 

Awake Early Yet Again

 I've got to get a grip on this but the heat last night didn't help - I got my cooler / fan working and managed to wake up around 2 and just about get back to sleep but at 6 woke again, turned off the fan (it's quite noisy) and come down here for an hour or so waiting for the alarm.

My mind is full of stuff that I don't seem to be able to shift.  Seeing my mum getting older and frailer and just the news in general, the prospect of financial turmoil on its way all seem to be pressing down on me and - I think I will have to do what I did some years ago and just move away from social media for a while or maybe only do the basic things on it.

I know and understand that I cannot change things overnight but I wish I could as it is very disruptive and disturbing.  I tend to wake and be almost tearful I'd say and then within a short space of time I feel better and then I'm OK and then I feel bad again and press on through that.

Absolutely everything is "a problem" and yet it isn't really of course.  So for now, I just need to chip away at this.  Having a very hot room also doesn't help much either.  In fact noting helps much but let me see what I can do about it.  I understand where I am with it, I understand the irrationality of some of it, but not all of it.  

I've had periods of my life like this before and I have got through those and so I need to do exactly that once again.

Mixed Feelings - Confusing Emotions

 My trip to see my mother was good and also sad / bad in someways too.  I am struggling with purpose and I am in a strange place.  The problems are those of ageing, of retirement, situation and on how I am dealing with them or in fact how I am not dealing with them.  Once again, I am up early and once again I wake with this melancholy, tearful, no purpose, no direction and a sort of hopelessness that is very unlike me.

My mum looks old and frail and she's lost some of her spark.  She stays in more often and she hadn't been out for weeks until I came and we went out for lunch.  Then we went through some of her paperwork for her funeral wishes and that sort of thing.  We chatted about my situation and hers and actually I came home yesterday with some uplift in my step only to find the house empty and then I did the stupid thing of ordering myself some beers for this upcoming weekend as it is going to be warm and nice!   This is not what I planned to do and I must have a plan to get myself out of this position and into somewhere that is good and uplifting for me.

It's going to have to be small and steady steps.  I realise that but the want to get things done quickly also needs to be considered - it isn't going to happen.  I think the way out at this time is to do the small projects and get them done, achieving these will be the one step at a time Elephant Eating that I need to do.  That along with working on my own lack of confidence and being able to control what I can actually control, I worry too much about the state of the country and the world as I see my world eroded and unlike me, having gone through all the things I have gone through and the suffering of some of that I actually need to check myself and go back to living now, not in the past and certainly not in the future.

Small steps is what is needed.  Little victories, working on moving ever forward.  It's not all going to happen at once and there's no rush or anything like that.  

Off To See Mum

 Awake early as my partner disturbed me.  I was suddenly wide awake but it was around 6 so I just got up and came downstairs.  I'm off to my mum's after breakfast.  A bit of a journey but I will enjoy a few days away.  Maybe it will help get my head together which is the main thing.

I do hate this period of my life as I cannot settle and my mind is buzzing with way too much in the way of thoughts good and bad, serious and mundane.  Let's hope I get to reset when I am away.

I can also get away from this PC and my office and just enjoy chatting to my mum and enjoying her company.  

Meaning, Purpose, Getting Old

 It sort of crept up on me in a way although I've been grappling with this for some while and it probably contributes towards my current state of mind too.

The thing that gave me meaning and purpose is no longer there.  The hours spent trying to get something to work and then sell are no longer there so the routine of getting up and coming into the office and generally working (or sometimes just screen staring) are no more.  That's quite a shock to find that it is no longer there.  Finding something else to do is not without its problem I find and then there's this getting old stuff to deal with.  

I suppose I can always find something to do but I'm not always in the right frame of mind for it and then there's the additional motivational things to get over.  Trying to motivate myself to go out and do some gardening or perhaps to do some maintenance on the house knowing that I'll get it in the ear if I go up a ladder or steps on my own and so on.  I do notice that I do not have the physical strength I used to and yet my brain tells me I can do such things, my body quickly dispels that!

Coming to terms with it all is now needed and trying to work out what replaces those things that had meaning, purpose and that defined me.  I need new goals but I'm not worked out what they should be yet. 

Gosh - Hearing Aids

 I've had them for some years and yesterday decided to try them out in a Lodge meeting which actually worked quite well.  The evening meal though proved difficult and I just need to adjust the levels to get it right.  The biggest problem is the ambient noise in a dining hall or environment where there are few soft furnishings.

The echo and sheer volume of noise is quite daunting.  So I took the hearing aids out, tried the noise deadening inserts which work OK but bring the volume down to a point where I cannot hear through reduced volume.

I will try again today and see if I can adjust them to get it right.

A few bad thoughts circulating this morning but a better night's sleep which was good.  Hopefully I'll get more of that as I begin to control things.

Bringing Things Back Under Control

 My Spider senses are going off all the time but I am keeping things somewhat under control for the moment.  Sleep was better and I tried to minimise social media time before going to bed, I didn't look  at my phone but did try reading a little on my Kindle before going to sleep.  I was woken by something at around 4:30 - possibly the milkman I guess.  I managed to get back to sleep and also when I woke a few hours later also managed that too so that's good as my head wasn't full of stuff.

The current political turmoil isn't helping and of course I really cannot do anything about what is going on other than whatever way we look at it, it's disastrous for the country.  We could not be at a more precarious point in our history and our financial stability as country than to have this bunch of chancers in charge.  Hardly any of them have had a real job most having come up through the political route and none seem to realise the situation before them.  It's awful but we can do nothing about it and some of the things they are proposing are massive self harm, foot shooting stupidity.  Oh well, I need to stop worrying about it anyway  I can do little to prevent it but you really can't make up what a bunch of sh1ts these politicians truly are.  Every time they say or do something they make it worse! 

At least I was able to wander up to the shops and get out of the house for a short while and I am looking forward to a meeting tonight (and one tomorrow) so that will put me in good spirits.  I need to stick some Diesel in the car which may not be so nice given the price of the stuff.  Mind you I've not needed to fill the tank since before Easter.

I am feeling a lot more in control at the moment and can see a way through that's steady and sure rather than trying to solve all my problems at once.