Up and down, up and down

It really is getting worse with age I'm sure of it.  I shouldn't be surprised about this.  My father suffered from these depressed moments for much of his life and I shouldn't be surprised that I do to.  Additionally, I forget that I've been through a bit of a trauma with Bladder Cancer and it takes away huge amounts of your self confidence and strips you of your inner self belief and the bullet proof, indestructible, brush off and start again resilient you is laid bare and exposed for all the see and you're as vulnerable and exposed as a new born.  

It's far more than being seriously ill, there's the edge of the seat stuff, there's the six monthly check ups which despite so far all being good, might just one day realise your fears and there you are with a recurrence.  You see other people around you not as fortunate who are diagnosed and fall by the wayside and that reminds you, whether you need it or not, just how fortunate you are.  Then there's the experience of seeing someone going through the throes of terminal cancer, someone close to you, and then it hits home.

I find myself berating my current ineptitude, my procrastination, my inability to work out what to do next and I give myself a hard time and for what?  Currently I'm lacking direction and I'm putting off facing the future.  So presently I have up and down days and whilst I'm pushing myself to get going (Monza, Southampton and Scotland trips) it still isn't building the head of steam I want in terms of deciding what to do next.  Kipling's six honest serving men:


"I keep six honest serving-men
 (They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When 
 And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
 I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
 I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
 For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
 For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views; 
I know a person small—
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
 From the second she opens her eyes—
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!"


The Elephant's Child - Rudyard Kipling

So What, Why, When, How, Where and Who are rattling around in my head and not getting answered or only partly answered.  I can find one answer but not every question gets an affirmative.  It's like a life game of Rubik's Cube just when you think you've got the answer and it will all work out, you get to a position as bad as when you started :-) 

For someone who was massively confident (and needed to project that) Cancer tore that down and left a façade remaining, someone who could still present themselves as such when needed but it's a veneer, tissue thin and easy to rip and tear down.  I suppose I can't really compare it with what used to be any more, it is in the past after all.  This is what I've got now but it is hard to deal with as you go out of your way to protect yourself from things that might puncture and deflate what little confidence you have left.  By that I mean that where I could easily get a job would actually be the worst place for me.  The cut and thrust of what I used to do would leave me drained emotionally and physically and I have no doubt that living that lifestyle invariably had a direct impact on my health.  Indeed, having escaped once, why would I go back into the Lion's den and try for a second go?  It doesn't make sense.

Of course, I've talked about "my" feelings and the problem is that I'm concious of what other people think about me too.  I know that it doesn't have much to do with them but there is some unseen pressure here I feel to get back to "normal" whatever that may be.  If you've not had cancer or a serious illness - a life threatening one - that could kill you - perhaps it doesn't make sense that there would be some "brain damage" some rewiring of the synapses that makes you think in a totally different way to the way you used to think years ago.

Today is a down day, tomorrow will be up as I'm going out, winter's coming and the dark mornings and evenings don't help.  A year ago we were working flat out to get the business investor ready and come November it will be a year since that milestone.  It's been just 4 months since we closed the business down and in those 4 months I've not really got that far although I've "done things" I haven't made much progress in terms of decisions but I've got lots of research and I've ruled a number of avenues out altogether.  The break coming up later this week might just help me get somewhere.  A week by the sea might help me calm down and rationalise things.