Cheat Day Comes Early

Decided as we are out for a Curry and it would be rude, nay churlish of me,  not to imbibe in that great, ancient and noble activity of consuming alcohol lovingly made by artisans for thousands of years and taxed mercilessly by thieving successive Governments.   So be it, I SHALL stand up, take one for the team and have at least one pint of Cask Conditioned (yes OK US friends, warm) true English Ale :-)

Then go and stuff my face full of what they call Indian food which is actually nothing like true Indian food but made for the Western taste.  Not that after 8 pints of lager your average punter can taste anything but the hottest chillies anyway!

So cheat day is well underway already.  I finished off some sweets left over from Father's Day and even had a Skinny Cappuccino with Flocky Bicep :-)  

Today I'm beginning to feel a lot better about myself, have been really struggling with an inner battle over what to do now and in the future and what I really want to do.  The struggle is that there's the sensible thing to do, there's the logical thing to do, there's the stupid thing to do, there's the thing that you'd like to do but you're not sure it's the right thing to do because it isn't clear if it is right or it is wrong.  There's all the other things too like whether it hurts other people, whether they'd mind anyway and loads of other stuff to sift through.

The problem lies here, do I please myself and myself only and sod the consequences and just look after numero uno?  That's not me is it?  Anyone who knows me would know that I take a while to come to a decision and it normally involves everyone and sometimes to my exclusion or to my detriment.  It's not me to leave a trail of damage lying behind me through paths of devastation that I've caused.  It doesn't happen I normally leave the ground undisturbed.  

I fear that what's going through my mind will cause some pain to other people and that's what holds me back and what is halting my ability to choose.  I've not given you all the facts, I alone should know these, I just present the problems that lie in choosing the right course, the right thing to do and a reasonable way forward.  

It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario.  There's arguments for and against but to be truly happy in yourself you may have to hurt people around you.  Or the other side may be to keep everyone happy and be hurt for the rest of my own life?  

Whoa - heavy stuff :-)  Like Neo in the Matrix, "This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I'm offering is the truth - nothing more."

So do I have a choice or has fate made it for me? Do I injure people myself or is that through my actions or my inactions? Do I make a choice now, wait, spend time and evaluate, analyse and then decide?  What on earth do I do now?

It all looks very strange and life's full of uncertainty and it is full of things that happen to you that impact on your course down it's road.  Bladder Cancer smashed into my life in 2006 and whilst I knew things would be different, I didn't expect them to be quite like they turned out to be, how could I, none of us know the future.   From a planned life I went off on some huge wind driven tacks which have added knowledge and experience but haven't brought me anywhere near to being happy with myself and who I am.  It robbed me of my self confidence, my self esteem and when down and low it kicked ten bells of crap out of me whilst I was there.

Only now, 7 years later am I finally getting out of the dark place it put me and only now do I see that perhaps I can finally put this all behind me, rebuild, move on, get some purpose in life and get the hell away from where I was.  "It is better to light one candle than to curse the dark" the saying goes and there are plenty of examples like that but few people take the advice, me included.

I'm finally fed up of being down and gloomy, having been beaten up and poorly, having stuff stuck into me and what is it 11 operations in 7 years and 36 shots of BCG Immunotherapy.  Sure it has saved my life and I'm here to tell the tale but the down side is how rubbish you feel about yourself and everything around you.  It's time for a change, it's time to take charge and it's time to make decisions and what's holding me back?  How I'd impact other people's lives - at once my greatest asset and my greatest downfall.  I rarely, if ever, make a decision based on what I want to happen without assessing the impact on others and how I'd make them feel.  

That's the struggle going on in me and I'll struggle with it, as I must, on my own, as I must, until I reach a conclusion and act on it.  It's never going to be the right decision whatever I do so in some ways I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.   

There's one huge benefit from all this internal wrangling and that is at last, through recent fascinating and quite wonderful events my self belief, confidence and esteem are coming back.  I am beginning to believe in myself again and I hope that continues as I will need all my strength in the coming months to take big decisions and carry them through.