Ummmmm.

I'm lost for a title but eager to get my thoughts down. So "Ummmmm" fits the bill in more ways than one. Mondays blog has left me thinking. Could my failure with and at work be the core of my bout of the misery's or is it just the last problem to tackle? I'm guessing it's the latter but as I'm thinking about what to write as I write I could be wrong.

On Monday I mentioned how I no longer take the opportunity to let people know how miserable I am or was. Partly because that particular need has gone and partly because I feel I'm not miserable anymore. Now I'm not inflicting myself on my friends anymore I'm starting to hear them and their misery now. Then again knowing some of my friends I wouldn't put it past them to make it up, just so they could get their own back.

I had a bit of a wobble today. I wondered if I'd made any progress at all. The fact is however I've made huge progress and in no particular order, I'm loved and in love with MissG, I eat better, sleep better, accept that some things will take a while to sort themselves out, smile more and I'm starting to rediscover some of the things I was good at and enjoyed a long time ago. Crap! well there's still room in my life for crap but it's not as if it falls just on me. We all get it, it's how we deal with it that gets us through the day.

As always, onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

Clean Slate.

Well, not exactly. I have to get the flat straight and tidy. Just in case somebody comes to view the place and to be honest things have slipped on that front abit. My van is a tip as well. Nothing in the right place just tools piled on top of tools. No doubt this extends to my thinking of late, too much crammed in there and getting lost and forgotten.

As other areas of my life start to take shape and I find some contentment and joy there. It's becoming clear that work or more precisely some facet of it, is holding things up. I could take a stab at what it is now but I'll sleep on it.

What has changed though and I'll share this with you. Is, in the past and up till very recently if someone close asked me how things were, I'd happily tell them. All the trivial rubbish. Even if I tried to stop myself I couldn't. Well these last few days the opportunities have been there for me but I'm not interested in sharing it anymore. I don't need to tell anyone anymore. There's good stuff to talk about now. The crap, I feel I can cope with and deal with. But don't worry, I'll continue to share it with you. So you can gauge how I'm doing.

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

Austerity measures.

I've had a happy weekend with MissG. We went to a show at a local theatre and then a drink with one of her friends, on Saturday. A lazy start to Sunday. With a visit in the afternoon to a "National Trust" house, just up the road from her, in the afternoon. We spoke alot about the future. The flat I rent is going to be sold. So I'm going to be looking for somewhere else to live. Which coincides with her plans to move at the beginning of next year. Well you can see where this is going. Because of her job the move will be towards her. So Tonbridge, Kent here I come.

The move will mean a big change work wise, for me. I'm self employed and establishing myself in a new area will no doubt be a slow process. Especially given the current economic climate.

However, as I said before. Work currently isn't great so a move now won't be such a disruption. I thought things through as I drove back from Kent and have decided to adopt some tough cost cutting exercises to try and reduce my debt as much as possible before the move. I'm not extravagant by any means but I don't keep a regular eye on my spending either. So attention to detail, tackling things early and making good use of what I have needs to be the order of the day.

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

Belief

Reading Meds blog on luck ( http://mehdibayjou.blogspot.com/ ) got me thinking about belief and it's effects. We all seem to believe in something and that something is taken on trust. Religion, in all it's guises, the New Age Movement, pantheism etc etc. My beliefs I guess are broadly Christian I've been decluttering my "belief cupboard" of late. Keeping what makes sense and making room for, well I'm not sure as yet but it will be something simple (like me). There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to beliefs. If it works for you, particularly when times are tough. Then that's fine. I've accompanied MissG to church recently and was taken with the general sense of joy there. She sighed me up for a daily email of "word of the day" (http://www.ucb.co.uk/word_for_today ) It's basically common sense stories taken from the Bible and I was surprised how often it was relevant to me. Then I realized that's because the kind of hurdles I face daily are the same ones faced by most of us, it's how we deal with them that sets us apart. So I gained a kind of odd comfort from that. Regardless of how I feel, there is no giving up for me. I've known success and failure and I guess I'll continue to meet both along the way. So be it. At least I'll have something to write about, lol.

Work is a bit of a mess at the moment. I am not doing very well at planning this out or motivating myself. There's a balance to be struck. I need the work but I need the time to deal with it properly, price, do the work and invoice. As there is no separation between work and personal life, each affects the other. I need to sort this out as quickly as possible. I have a little time over the next day or two. So need to make the same effort I made when MissG and I split. It's as important. I have to stop wasting opportunities, which to be frank I am. It's costing me and has to stop now.

My personal life on the other hand is going fine at the moment. I've reach the bottom of that particular hole and am well on my way out of it . I'm not taking anything for granted and working on my relationships with various friends and family. I've managed to strike a better balance, where I don't allow people to take advantage, knowningly or not. I'm much better at making my feelings known and not giving in for an easier life short term.


So, the little pills, clear thinking (at times) and a growing inner strength are enabling me to cope better than before and dare I say, move forwards.

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

And now the boring stuff!

Well not quite. Getting the basics right isn't going to be that exiting to be honest but I need to remember that the misery and emptiness I've just left was in part due to the fact, that I didn't really take care of the basics.

Also there's a balance to be struck. Most of the time effort does get it's reward. So I'll knuckle down. I've spent long enough "talking the talk" regarding the basics now it's "walk the walk" time :-)

I'm cat sitting at a friends house. The place is full of pictures antiques and lots of cut glass. Not really my thing but very nice and cosy all the same. However the best part of the stay is the bed in the spare room.
It's comfortable and I drift off to sleep within minutes. When you wake the sun's shining through the window the birds are singing away and the cat, who has crept in at some point in the early hours, is fast asleep at the end of the bed. I'm looking forward to Sunday and a lay in, listening to the radio and catching up on a bit of reading.

Well that's it for the moment.

Onwards and upwards, in the pursuit of happyness :-)

Direction.

During my brief split from MissG. I decided that I really must get my work/career sorted. As any prelude to having a relationship with anyone in the future.

Fortunately for me, we're back together but I've yet to sort the work/career thing out. Strange thing is the relationship and it's continuing strength is pulling my career along. It's making the will to sort it out quite compelling and focused.

I have a long way to go but things don't appear so woolly or complicated as they did. Now the only thing that's changed is me. I haven't had a sudden influx of work. Neither has there been any let up in outside pressures (bills and the constant search for another £10 to put abit more diesel in the van) My outlook has changed from "how and when will this happen" to "keep going, keep moving forward."

I've always had a positive streak. Although it's been somewhat diminished over the last few years. I guess letting go of things (Letting Go 3/9/11) has giving it a little space to fill out and be heard again.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. As much as it's cathartic to get my feelings and thoughts down. Having a quick look at the stats and seeing someones had a look does good things for the ego. I might change my tune however if I had any idea what goes through your mind as you read it however. Ignorance is pure bliss.

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

A little too forgiving!

I'm freeing myself up from the past at the moment but in doing so am being a bit too lenient. The whole idea is to free up my thoughts from my faults and thereby just concentrating on the positives. With the intention of propelling myself forwards. However I'm excusing myself from anything I don't want to do. It's early days so I'm not about to fill my shoes with tiny sharp stones and beat my body with thorny branches but the clocks ticking.

The weekends almost upon us and I have a few days of MissG to myself. She's taking care of things from Friday evening through to Sunday lunchtime then it's my turn to look after her till Tuesday morning. I have nothing planned, except a trip to watch Fulham play on Sunday afternoon. She's not a big sports fan with the exception of Rugby, which she knows next to nothing about but just likes watch men with big thighs chasing each other around and trying to inflict as much pain on each other as possible. I guess it the male equivalent of men watching women mud wrestling. As soon as I feel confident enough with our relationship I might accuse her of being a sexist pig. Making sure there are no breakables or sharp objects within easy reach and at least two escape routes and somewhere to overnight if things go badly.

Yesterday she planned a day of surprises for me. It started with a quick detour to work, where someone needed some keys. it was nice to see where she works and some of the people she works with. now I know a few names, so can ask about so and so. Understanding what we do at work is to me, an important part of getting to know someone.

Anyway back to my mystery day out. We drove down to Chartwell, Winston Churchill's home from the early 1920's till his death. I'm a bit of a Winston fan. Put aside how he galvanised the country in it's darkest hour. He did so much with his life. Was a solider during the Boar War, wrote many books, painted and built things. He joined the Bricklayers Union after there was a "minor outcry" about a picture of him building a wall at Chartwell. A future Conservative Prime minister and a union member?
It's a wonderfully calm house, I can understand why he was so happy there. The gardens are beautiful too.
Then on to Quebec House the home of Major General James Wolfe (1727-1759) He beat the French at the battle of Quebec which ultimately lead to the French losing control of Canada. Which I guess is one of the reasons they loath us soooo much. It's much smaller and older but I learned several things I didn't know. Chiefly when I order coffee and ask MissG whether she wants a slice of cake and she answers "no." That doesn't mean she doesn't want cake, it just means she's going to eat most of mine. A Mars and Venus moment :-)
Then on to our favorite pub, where she brought me supper  

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

Putting things into words.

I'm not usually lost for something to write but this last week has been difficult. Not because I'm feeling down, quite the opposite in fact. It just seems as if my life is now not being driven solely by me. Starting to let go of the past and not setting too many goals seems to be reaping benefits.

I'm cat sitting for some friends at the moment and yesterday I was on call. So I combined the two. I went over, fed the cat,  stretched out on their sofa and watch repeats on their TV while I waited for the phone to ring. Which it didn't. So after a very lazy (and I did feel a little guilty) day I came home and made something to eat. Then the phone rang and it didn't stop till 4am this morning. So my lazy day turned out to be a profitable day financially and maybe spiritually as well.

That's not to say I intend to just sit back and expect work to come in. However I will take a more relaxed view to some of my day and prioritise the more important aspects of my work.

It's changing from a journey out of misery into a journey of discovery.

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

 

The beginning of a new week.

So today is the start of a new week. The plan is not to carry any of the negative thoughts from the past with me. My first small problem is guilt! I'm feeling a bit guilty about letting go of past mistakes and errors. I can't really put it into words why but well I'm just going to have to get on with it (maybe later I can either get it down on paper or just let it go) and see where that takes me.

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)

Letting go.

As time passes and I get to feel stronger and balanced. Thoughts and questions pop into my head. The latest is "letting go." I've always spent too much time thinking about why I do this and that but maybe a lot of that thinking may well have been a waste of time. It's a bit like walking backwards. You can see where you've been (but can do nothing about it) whilst paying no attention to the opportunities available to you on the route ahead. Lao Tzu said it far better than I ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi )

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happyness :-)