The Slow Song to Bethany

The sea echoes forth with its weary tide

slowing to lick precious salt from my toes.

Its beating wings build to a crescendo

in spray of white and wind.

The sea sings of carrying me away,

its retreat beckons me forward, to the

watery depths where Poseidon reigns

and justice hangs on a trident.

Cool ripples of watery hands clinging

to my warm flesh, their slippery fingers

struggling to find purchase whilst the ground

holds fast, planting my roots

in the yielding sand. The spray scurries back

to the jaws of the sea, relinquishing

its grasp in mock fear, gathering

reinforcements. To uproot me.

JC

I wrote this a while ago and found it again today. Thought this was the time to post it.

The State of Things

It was said of Van Gogh that life weighed too heavily on him. This seems a very apt statement at the moment. Everywhere I look life is weighing heavily on the people I care about. I continually feel like I am on the brink of buckling, that at any minute my knees will give way and I'll be face down in the pavement too weak to get back up.

Everyone around me seems to be feeling the same. Just as they feel they can't take any more another load is dumped on them and somehow they have to survive. There is an element of guilt over not being able to share each others' load. But in this time we are all floundering under the pressure unable to look to our left or our right, unable to really see those struggling around us.

We are together in this terrible time, but I've never felt so alone. The only thing we have to share is our own despair, which is something we feel selfish for doing. The world is shuffling along, crippled by the weight of our choices, forced to look down at our feet.

I guess we have lived through the lazy days where we could take in the sky, looking at the clouds. Basking in the metaphorical sunshine. We didn't see where our feet were headed, we didn't comprehend the true price of our leisure.

We pay for it now. And paybacks a bitch!

Where the Spectacles Fade

Travelling monkeys and circus shows.

They have nothing on the spectacle

where our love grows

with spine-tingling hope.

we wait for the façade to fade

to a duller, less faceted

version of the truth, where love is

expressed in the mundane.

To days of urbanities and chores,

the trudging steps of the everyday

to which the brave succumb.

Sentiment filed away

for special occasions

and passion a lukewarm memory.

That is not us, in this tangle

of sweat and earthiness, grounded

and in flight, simultaneously,

an intricate performance too real,

desperately clinging,

whilst inwardly fleeing

to the safety of the mundane.

Thought Season

An errant thought wanders around my mind

gathering dust, trying to find a friend

in the wide expanse of open field.

It is thought season.

All the errant thoughts have been scared out

of the undergrowth to fly for a brief glorious moment,

soaring through the azure skies

not sullied by cloud or rainstorm.

These clear effervescent strands of ideas

sparkled in the crisp, fresh air and were shot down.

They were gathered up and carried away,

limp and devoid of life, by the jaws of Doubt.

Now one errant thought remains

huddling in the corner as the night draws in.

Loss

I thought I had hit my my low for now. I thought packing up my things and leaving a course that I had always thought was my vocational path was the low point of this year.

I was wrong.

On Easter Monday my cat died. It may sound like a small thing to most people, but this was completely unexpected and I was away from home when it happened. This has affected me more than anything has for quite some time.

I tried for a long time to think why it had had such an impact. Yes I loved her and yes, she meant an awful lot, but so have others and their loss did not hit me this hard. After the initial shock I was able to look back at the time I had her and I realised she had symbolized much more than a pet for me.

I had got her 3 years ago, just before I went off sick from my job, which I never returned to, due to ME. I have lost so much to this illness over the years, missed out on a lot and for me my cat was the one thing it could not take from me. It sounds silly and irrational, but there it is. There have been many moments in my life where I have had to make sacrifices because of my illness, where I have given up personal relationships (probably wrongly) as too hard or overwhelming to cope with alongside everyday life. For me it was so important to maintain this facade of being able to manage the everyday things that relationships and personal connections became peripheral to my life.

Only in the last few years have I realised I have this the wrong way round. During the long months of my illness where I could have slid very easily into disability, quietly surrendering to the illness that constantly tests my mental strength, I got up every morning because there was a little soul that was depending on me. The simple task of getting up and feeding her was the difference between persevering and drifting into obscurity.

In return I received so much love and affection. She kept me company when I could not leave the house, she stopped me going mad in that pokey little flat all on my own. And now she is dead and it is difficult to sum this up to people. I had not realised how much of a unit we had become in my mind. I may not ever get the chance to have a family, I don't even have a home right now, but at least I had my Hattie. Well now I don't even have that.

This loss has magnified a gaping hole in my life and I don't even know how to start to fill it.

Addressing the Elephant

I am no longer going to be a teacher.

2 weeks ago something clicked in my brain and it finally said enough was enough. I got up that morning, like most mornings, tired but okay. My heart protested, told me I should not go in to the school where I have been placed for my teacher training. I tried to ignore feelings inside me as I got dressed. I cried as I gathered up my things and then I forced myself to stop with all my will so that I could go out in public.

I battled myself as I walked to the train station, reasoning out that it was too late to call in sick and that I could not possibly turn back. I battled hard to stem the waves of tears my heart battered me with, after all my mind is stronger than my heart. I got to the train station and rushed onto the waiting train, finding a seat easily.

Then it hit me. I had had this feeling before. This exact feeling is how I felt heading into my old call centre job when I was really ill. That is when my brain clicked.

I had to get out.

What had been building for the last few months suddenly flattened out like an enormous vista where I could see exactly how I had got here, to this point and what I had to do. I had not been happy for quite some time, but I stored it away, because happiness is not useful for me during these 2 training years. I knew they would be tough and I would have to 'Man up' and push through them, but it should have been different.

My brain might be stronger than my heart, but it doesn't always know best. I listened to my intuition, something I had been afraid to do, and every fiber of my being told me my situation was toxic and I had to get out. My brain took the hint.

It was right about 1 thing though, it was too late to call in sick. I went into work, worked the full day and then left knowing I would not be going back tomorrow.

I have gone against the judgement of all my friends and family who had spent the last few months urging me on, telling me I was doing the right thing carrying on. But they are not me. They cannot know what is best for me. If they do not like my decisions they can f**k off.

So what am I going to do now? I'm going to keep working on being happy. I know certain things make me happy so I am going to do those things. I am looking for a job, just something part time to stave off the unemployment blues I suffered from last year. I am not looking for a big career anymore. I do not need one. I need writing, crafts and artwork and so that is what I am going to do. I don't care whether it's any good or whether I pen a publishable novel. It's not about that for me, it never has been.

If that makes me an arse or pretentious or anything else you wanna call it then that's fine. I believe doing things for the sole purpose of being happy is becoming a crime these days. If it is, lock me up now because I'm not changing.

rant

So I reread the poem I posted and was going to put a comment on there but decided to just post on here instead. It's funny how things creep up on you before you realize it. I have had some good news this week, I received the highest mark I have ever got for an essay I handed in before christmas. This is a big deal and I should be really happy about it but I'm not. I got a little embarrassed and then tried to forget it.

I'm a little flat. I want to be positive and enjoy what I am doing but I am not. Low. I guess I am low. I'm just whining and need to pull my finger out of my butt and get on with things.

There are things I want. There are are things I thought I wanted and am now indifferent about and there are things I know I don't want. Hmmm...

Poem

I promised a poem to Mog, but I couldn't bring myself to post the silly little Haiku she wanted me to. Here's something else instead:

Everybody knows.

They hear in your prayers

silent voices that stop

you, right where you stand,

staring out to sea.

Everybody sees

the scars that bare your soul

in the light of morning

and touch eyes so full

of Sorrow’s darkness.

Everybody knows

the words you softly speak,

eyes closed tightly against

black that caresses

all atrocities.

Everybody sees

your broken body lie

disassembled by your

thoughts, scouring a pit

of mournful anguish.

Certainties

So been a long time yet again. My life is a little overwhelming I guess at the moment.

This whole teaching lark is somehow exactly what I thought it would be and also disappointing at the same time. Teaching seems to be as I expected but I am not how I expected. I don't mean that I'm not as good as I thought I'd be (I'm pretty average for where I am) I guess I thought I'd feel differently about it than I do.

It is something that I could do for the rest of my life but I'm not satisfied. I guess there isn't such a thing as too busy to think of the dreams you're missing out on. I know without any doubt that what I should be doing with my life is writing. For the first time in my life I know that. I don't just think it would be fun if I could get my bum in gear as a hobby to write a book in spare time from a real job, which is how I felt before.

I'm not satisfied playing at it anymore. The trouble is there is no practical way to do this so I must keep on the path I'm on and hope that one day I'll find my way back.

It is so weird for me at the moment, not sure how to talk about it. What is the phrase? Different day, same old sh*t.

I changed my life completely in the hope that my baggage might not follow me. Surprise, surprise it did. Only here I have none of the support I had back home. It's strange, I spent so many years dealing with the whole ME thing on my own and now I really don't know how I did it.

The problem is I'm struggling and it's really starting to worry me, but I can't really talk to anybody back home. This was the thing they worried about before I went and as soon as it is mentioned they will panic.

I am committed to this course of action and I will follow it through. I thought I'd be happier than this but I am probably more unhappy now. I keep telling myself this is temporary, that it is only a year.

But after that year I will still have the baggage. Every year my life gets smaller and I feel more unsatisfied.

Crying

I am crying out,

but can you hear me,

floating out here

past the drift.

I am crying out,

not sure the reason,

but here I am

all the same.

I am alright

I know that for certain

but what if alright

is not good enough?

I am fighting,

but can't see what I'm fighting,

something hidden

beyond my grip.

Is there a problem

behind no problems

something that I

have maybe missed?

I am crying,

crying out from the water

no direction

to head in.

I am crying out,

filling my lungs to shout

out to the darkness

to know I am here.

I posted this on my other blog about a month ago and it seems appropriate for today so thought I would post it here.

Moving On

So I'm off to Wales tomorrow and everybody keeps asking if I'm excited. The truth is I am not. I'm not dreading it either. There was so much to get done before I went that I was overwhelmed with the details. Now that I have slowly ticked my way through that list and I am sitting in my sister's house, now officially homeless, I feel a little numb.

It seems the only thing that has really made an impact is shipping my cat off to my parents. I had to take her to them as I cannot have her in my temporary accommodation. I knew that I would miss her but I wasn't prepared for the overwhelming grief I felt on not having her there.

But I am headed down a path and I must see it through. It is the right right path even though I have no idea where it leads. I guess I will have to see.

Wobble

I have no skill for certainty. It is something that has always eluded me, like a ghost of an idea skittering in the depths of my mind. Just when I think I know what I am about a distraction arrives to send me spinning in the opposite direction.

Of some things I am certain, for now, before the doubt sets in and I ask myself, if I got what I want would I really be happy? And then I start to doubt, doubt whether I'm up to it, whether I should save myself the embarrassment of defeat and shut myself away. Whether I am in fact happier as I am, in my cave by myself. Safe.

This is all pretty silly and I will press on regardless. Certain in my uncertainty, hoping that where I'm headed is better than where I've been. Hope is a funny and unexpected beast.

Definitely going to Wales

I am now officially going to Wales for my teacher training. I have jumped through the hoops required of me and the powers that be have given me the nod. Now starts the sorting of the practical things that come with moving house.

So much to do and only 7 weeks do it in.

Last Night

I was a little harsh last night. The night was good. I reconnected with somebody who had at one point been a good friend. N is so supportive and encouraging. I had forgotten how good it was to be around her and I felt inspired by her attitude.

I'm glad I went.

Tonight

I did not know what to do. That threw me. I couldn’t bring myself to look. That surprised me. Why couldn’t I look? I had no idea what I would feel when I did and that freaked me out. I did a runner. It’s not the first time. I’m just so disappointed in myself. What is wrong with me?

Part of me wanted to face it. I think I like the idea of it but not the reality. I cannot handle reality. It all looks so much better in my head. But I can’t live there anymore.

I failed.

Damn

Obsessing

What is with me that I can’t seem to sustain this whole happiness thing? I have been feeling pretty good lately. Spirits up, so to speak. I have plenty going on and plenty to look forward to. It’s a fresh start for me and I’ve really been feeling it in a good way.

Yesterday I slipped. I had a really down day for no apparent reason whatsoever. Of course there must be a reason, there is always a reason, but I could not pinpoint it. In the afternoon I fell off the ‘obsessing’ wagon. I became so completely bogged down with working out what was wrong with me that I made myself worse.

At this point I got out my tarot cards, which turned out to be a monumental mistake. I was not in the right frame of mind to interpret them properly and they only served to confuse me more. Then I spiralled down a line of questioning that I’m pretty sure is not healthy.

It seems when I fall off the wagon I do it in some style! One thing it has shown me though is how useless and unsettling this over-analytical obsessing really is. It makes no real positive difference, only negative.

I end up worrying about things that I shouldn’t be thinking about yet that may never happen. I know I have issues with paralysing fear and this impulse heightens that.

I have a very animal ‘freeze or retreat’ mechanism when it comes to fear. The first sign of the unknown has me either hightailing it in the opposite direction or being so frozen by fear that I cannot do anything.

The scariest part of this is that I know my fear stops me from being happy a lot of the time. Occasionally I will surprise myself and plough on regardless but not often. I am risk averse and it is costing me more than I am prepared to lose.

Heaven?

Last night I dreamed I was lying in bed. The sun danced in patterns across the crisp cotton bedding. It was early and a soft breeze crept in through the window I had opened last night. I had a memory of opening it to the night sky hoping the passage of air would break the heat of the evening. It had worked. It was the perfect temperature, warm and cosy under the covers but not oppressive. Fresh clean air circled around my cocoon tickling my nose with the faint scents of lavender mixed with the salty fragrance of the sea.

I felt safe and comforted by the warming presence at my back, his slow breath a gentle reminder I was not alone. A protective arm was draped across my stomach in sleeping disarray a weight anchoring me to the world, stopping me from getting trapped in my own head again.

I lay in the silence listening for the sounds of the coming day from outside. Somewhere in the world outside birds were cawing. There was no other sound, no cars or human disturbance to break the peace I felt and in that moment I imagined I could hear the waves braking on the shore.

I knew every inch of my small existence. I knew the informal garden beneath the window opened out into woodland to the east and that if I followed the path along the lush green field, which was slowly turning golden, to the west I would meet the sea. There the white surf skittered up the beach only to retreat towards the horizon.

All this I knew and yet it doesn’t exist, my little piece of Nirvana.

Steps

So this week has been a busy one. I have been scurrying around trying to arrange everything I need for September. I am surprised by how much I'm getting done. I am usually from the school of procrastination (why do anything today when it can be put off until tomorrow!), but without prompting or prodding I have pushed on through the 'to do' list.

The main practical hurdles I have to jump before I head to Wales are to spend some time observing in a Secondary School and learning to drive. The first easier than the second but both fairly time consuming.

I have filled in lots of forms, applied for student finance, organized some school observation, renewed my provisional driving license and sent off for my Criminal Records Bureau check.

All in all a very productive week and a positive step.

The things not said

This is a long one so please stick with it. At the end of this week I sit in a very different place to where I started it. At the beginning of the week I was at the stage where I was living just in the present. This may sound like an easy task, but for me it was a huge step forward.

My entire life I've spent living many lives simultaneously. My brain would race on ahead planning out every eventuality to a decision before it was made, whilst also playing through how they would be different if I had made a different choice before that. On the plane of my life there were so many hypothetical scenarios that I felt immobilized by them. I know from talking to others that this is linked to my ME. Quite how I'm unsure, but it is something every ME sufferer I've spoken to deals with. I have conversations that happen with people in my head that are so accurate I have trouble remembering if they really happened. I think through problems so thoroughly that by the time I voice my answers they sound like fact, when I have in fact made them up. I create whole worlds in my head where I can lose myself for hours at a time (sometimes whilst actually going about daily activities, including conversations with people!).

These are kinks in my brain that I have long since recognized as unchangeable parts of myself. Some of these I would not give up for anything as they are the source of my creativity and because I feel lonely without that constant companion in my mind. Others I have wished I could rid myself of.

Finally I achieved this. I have spent the last 3 weeks living in the now, making decisions as they arose and then moving on without any analysis. I have not obsessed about anything. This is huge progress. My not blogging for a while has helped with this. The temptation is always too strong not to dissect everything here, so I haven't.

The trouble came this week because I have news I want to share here. I have not talked about a decision I made 6 weeks ago or the events that followed because I did not want to think about it. I have waxed lyrical here about every move I've made in the last year and every time I have had to come back here and explain that it had not worked out. I didn't want to do that this time so I kept it to myself. I guess I will be telling the whole story in one go, so please bare with me on this mammoth sized posting.

At Easter I re-evaluated what I wanted and how I could get it and still enjoy myself. I knew wanted to get out of Norfolk, I wanted to teach and that one day I would like to be in a position to do my MA. I decided that I might have chosen the wrong age group to teach (there are reasons for this I may go into another time).

I applied for a teacher training course in Secondary level English in Aberystwyth (Wales). I viewed this as a long shot, thinking realistically I had no experience in that age group, and that I would need to re-apply next year.

3 weeks ago they asked me to go for an interview. It was a 6 hour drive each way. I thought the journey would be hell but it was easy compared to the interview. I left the interview feeling like I had been run over. I was not hopeful, but as soon as I left the interview I forgot about it. I figured there was nothing I could do from that point so I got on with my life.

Wednesday They offered me a place on the course. I was stunned. There are some hoops they want me to jump through before I arrive but none that are insurmountable. I have gone from not thinking ahead to having to as there is so much to do. Now though I get to concentrate on practical things not hypothetical scenarios that will never happen.