Monday, 27 April 2015

what's it all about then? answers please



As I type this I am wondering why I am doing that Creative Path course thing. I have no idea what has possessed me in starting this. At least it is getting me out of the house and meeting people. I think “block” is an understatement for my “daily pages”
But then according to the book there is no right way/wrong way of doing these things.
But I am trying to make an effort to do the exercises and all that.
          Anyway- I digress. I am almost a month into my new lifestyle. For a number of reasons my plans have gone to pot. Think the main ones are the inclement weather tinged with a bit of procrastination and lethargy. I was really hoping I could kick start my love of reading again-but that is proving to be pretty difficult for some reason. Thankfully I am NOT sitting staring at a computer screen-although I must admit another of my plans is to learn to use Lightroom and Elements better.
            Have not bothered seeing about the voluntary work yet, because I was told that I need to get used to my new routine first-I still feel I am annual leave. In fact this afternoon it felt like Sunday (today is Monday). I actually did think I had to go to work tomorrow-although this thought only lasted for a few seconds.
              Think I said before the one thing I miss about work is the company and the craic. But when I was doing one of my many lists, the things I am glad to miss actually outnumber the things I am sorry to miss. No doubt when I do look for the voluntary thing-the team thing is most important to me.
                Did I mention about the fortune teller I went to when I was in Camden Town? I’ll just say the “usual” –now I don’t believe this sort of stuff. But she did say the usual stuff. Stuff that was rubbish and stuff that “you want to hear” It was a palm reading. Before she started she said she needed to know my name and age. She asked me my name at least 3 times. When she asked me what I did for a living I told I got out of work on an early retirement deal-she asked me why did I take it? She then told me that I had a pretty serious illness when I was 50. HUH? I never had a day off work sick in over 20 years. THEN she said that something I have a passion for will make me lots of money. Now I have a passion for helping people-how will THAT make me money. Unless she was referring to the photography-but I very much doubt that. She asked me if I was married, or was I ever married (and I thought the whole palm thing would have told her that), when I said no-she said that a woman from my past, that I have not seen in a long time was going to come back into my life and there will be a long, happy and passionate relationship-she gave me the impression it was somebody I used to work with. Must admit I have that narrowed down to about two-but one of them I would hide if I saw her coming towards me.
                In the Creative Path course we have to do “daily pages,” in which we start the day by writing three A4 pages of –basically anything. There is no right or wrong way to do it AND we are not to re-read what we write, just file it away. I was thinking, well at least it will help me improve my writing-and does it? No chance. I have noticed that as I get near the end of the last page my writing speeds up.
                The ramblers are off to the Mournes this weekend-hope the weather improves and the food in foodplace is good-and there is some music in the pub. Gonna get a map so I can do a decent write up this time.Just heard weather forecast-not a good one-ah well-early night in pub now maybe?
And STILL to lazy to spellcheck this
            

Friday, 3 April 2015

Serious page so just prepare yourselves



Well I am not even a week into my new lifestyle and here I am blathering on about it already. If anybody has seen/heard any of this before, I’m sorry. Any new readers out there, expect me to digress every once in a while a give off about something (And when I do this I change the type colour). This is a blog that I tend to give off about things, get things off my chest, In fact my very first blog here got a great many things out of my system and actually made one reader weep-I have deleted that one-think I said too much.And  I'm either too lazy or in a hurry to check over this-OH! to have time to put hidden messages in these things. Subliminal messages THAT would be great fun!
      ANY WAYS when some people heard I was going for the early exit/early retirement, call it what you want. One of the first things that was said to me was “make a bucket list.” But the first thing  that I did BEFORE I applied for what was generally a “no-brainer” was I worked out all the pros and cons of my decision. The pros outnumbered the cons, but there was actually a few cons. Now, in no particular order-well apart from maybe the first one:-
  1. I will miss the people. I was in a dam fine office. OK some people in there were not the best to work with. But I am lucky and I get on with most anybody. I go out of my way to find the good in people. Being nice is far less effort than being nasty.
(I have been in this office 15 years. I have moved around a fair bit in my work time. When I got this one I decided that this was it-no more moves.Thankfully this office was one of the best I was in. One of the reasons I decided to ask for the move was unrequited love for a woman I worked with. Bit like Jim and Pam in “The Office”-only this one did not have the happy ending that one did-ANY WAY)
  1. I will miss the unwinding. Seriously you know that sigh of relief you get on a Friday when you finish work, knowing that you have the weekend to look forward too. Even on a Monday. For me 2pm on a Monday was the downhill ride to the weekend.
  2. The routine-even though you don’t like the routine of getting up,getting ready for work and all that is a routine you get used to.
  3. The getting back into work mode at the end of a break/weekend. That one barely makes sense to me.Think it’s something to do with the looking forward to another weekend/holiday.
  4. The people-ok I know I said that before. I like being around people. The company, and audience for my terrible jokes and one-liners.

The pros on the other hand were much longer-not enough room here for that (well slight exaggeration). Main one was –maybe I’ll get my crazy fecked up life sorted out. Some people get the impression that I am this carefree/trouble less (one person I know thinks I’m very confident) . This couldn’t be further from the truth. At work I could very easily face the most awkward, rude, loud customer on the phone or face to face-ask me to go up to a woman I really like and ask her out? I would see running across a busy motorway as less risky. I’m going to see about CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) maybe sitting down and talking with a professional might get some things sorted.
(Usually I have to be drunk before I open up and talk. Last person I did this with turned out to be a prospective bunny-boiler, a psycho. Seriously- my sister in law and two of her friends warned me that my life was in danger being with her-and advised me to stop going out with her-but when we started going out I was at an all time low-was at the time of the aforementioned unrequited love incident. She (aka Barmy Brenda) suggested putting in for a transfer-although I never mentioned the unrequited bit to her. Mind you Brenda had the most gorgeous brown eyes I have ever seen-well apart form my mammy’s –f**k up you Freudians out there)
But recently I kind of did open up (not what yous think) to someone and this led me to talking to my sister.
Bucket lists can be too long and have too much pressure on you. And usually have things you know will never get done-but look nice on a list. Only realistic goals get done. Overly ambitious goals are discouraging; because they are so fecking lofty we will never reach them. And when deadlines are set in the future we feel we have all the time in the world, so we never get started.
So I’m doing my bucket list in batches of three
  1. Get my fecked up life into some sort of order.
  2. Find my smile again
  3. ? fecked if I know-think that’s enough so far.
      
      And, yes. I HAVE once or twice (that’s all) wondered if that unrequited love was actually returned-where I be or what I’d be doing now.Don't think i'd be leaving such a good office mind you.
Thanks for making it this far-comments, suggestions welcomed.