Writing stuff to clear my head

Eeek! (Not my normal posting topic)

2012-02-16T22:15:00.002Z

I've been in my current job for 4 years now. It's what I refer to as a "specialist administrator job". Filing and typing and stuff is minimal and much of my time is spent either setting up and auditing parts of our database or else providing helpdesk-type support for our users. It doesn't stretch me any more (and hasn't done for some time now) but it pays much more than anywhere else locally would pay me for a similar level of ability. I also happen to work in a fairly unique field and working anywhere else which actually needs my expertise would require a 50 mile round-trip commute every day just to get to the office. I do quite like my job though; it also pays the bills and the people I work with are amazing so it's really much better than it sounds. Coming up for two years ago, I went on secondment to another team but ended up returning earlier than expected to my normal role. With hindsight, it was a very silly idea to start a new job while Gav was still in ICU and only two weeks after my nan had passed away. I could have done with staying put in my normal job that summer! Anyway, stuff happened that I couldn't cope with, I was making mistakes left, right and centre and became convinced that I was a complete failure. After Gav got discharged from hospital and then promptly readmitted with an infection only a week or two later, I ended up going on sick leave with "low mood" for 3 1/2 weeks and HR recommended that I go back to my old job. People were surprised that I was willing to go back at the busiest time of year but I'd started in the office as a temp at that time 3 years earlier and the chaos was what I was used to! I knew that I could do all those dull and repetitive admin jobs (like alphabetising 12,000 labelled envelopes) without a problem. I've tried my hardest to work on my confidence since then but it hasn't always been easy. One of the biggest helps has been to completely ignore things like Failblog and all the other places on the internet where the word "fail" is horribly misused. I've decided that failure should only be used of measurable outcomes. I could fail an exam; I could fail to pot the red in pool and instead pot the black; I could fail to cook the meat enough. Putting cheese in the omelette that I'm cooking for myself instead of the ham that I wanted isn't a failure. It might not be a ham omelette but is it still a tasty dinner? If the answer's yes then I've succeeded, not failed.

So, we've established what happened the last time I tried to apply for a new job. I've also been told by our section leader that I "could go far". I think the rough idea was that my secondment would go amazingly well and it'd allow me to start zigzagging up our job ladder and the one where I did my secondment and I'd eventually end up pretty much at her level. A fantastic idea, had everything worked out as we expected! But I came back sorely lacking in confidence and with far too much going on at home to cope with more than the normal routine of audits and set-up. Recently though, I've been starting to get bored with my usual work, particularly when I found out that the requested promotion to a senior administrator wasn't going to happen. I fully admit to having kept an eye out for other jobs locally but those that I could do didn't pay me enough and those that I could afford to do required a completely different skill set.

There's been a draft job advert sat in our printing tray for most of the week so far but I hadn't really read it. It looked halfway interesting but the pay grade was "TBC" as was the duration of the contract. I happened to check our intranet this afternoon and saw that the jobs page had just been updated. Oddly enough, I scrolled through the whole list today. Normally, I just scroll through the ones at the top until I find one I remember being posted earlier on in the week as I've always assumed that they're sorted by date posted. It turns out that they've changed the system and now sort them by closing date and one of the jobs in the middle of the list was for this post where I'd seen the draft advert. Unlike the others posted today which all have a month until the closing date, this one only has 1 1/2 weeks so appears in the middle of the list. Essentially, it's for a data analyst post. It's got a complicated job title to it but that's perfectly standard with public sector posts. It's two grades up from where I am now but everything listed in the job description and person specification is all stuff that I've done before. Perhaps I haven't worked on some of the stuff listed for nearly 10 years but, even so, it's something that I've always been pretty good at and it shouldn't take me to long to get back in the swing of things. It's not going to be easy to work out which examples I'm going to be using to prove that I meet the person specification as they're all going to be scattered between just about every single job or voluntary position I've ever held in my entire adult life. The other good thing about the job is that it's internal applicants only. Certainly from our office, there's only likely to be one other applicant and, should I lose out to him, I'd consider that perfectly fair. I suspect that I'd win in comparison to him on the intrapersonal stuff although he'd easily win on database queries. The only trouble is that I have absolutely no idea who else across our entire organisation would also be interested in applying for it. I think that everyone I know who'd be a likely suspect is already grade 5 or above but I have no idea whether there's anyone else out there. I can't be the only person who's working in a completely different area at the moment who wants to change so I haven't got a chance of guessing who else I might be up against. That is, if anyone else noticed that it was on the jobs page!

My head's clearer today

2012-02-13T23:49:00.000Z

Despite saying that the mood had lifted just by talking about it, it pretty much settled for the rest of the weekend. There were some random and scattered good moments and I've discovered that one of the ladies from church is actually worse than I am at having days where dealing with People is just plain impossible. I was supposed to sit with her at lunch yesterday but, by the time I came back to sit at the table with her, another family who I don't know so well were also there and I just couldn't face putting on a any sort of mask, even though I know that they're all lovely people. Instead, I ended up sitting with our placement student and one of his friends who's in my home group and listened to a highly improvised little ditty in praise of Mississippi mud pie and then joined in a highly geeky conversation about measuring the speed of light by taking the turntable out of a microwave and putting a large block of chocolate in there instead. Much more fun to talk about nothing in particular than to have polite conversation and people asking how I'm doing. According to some random scale of conversation topics, technically, speed-of-light and chocolate would be a Level 0 conversation and "How are you coping with stuff?" would be something like a Level 3. Lower level conversations aren't supposed to be any good for useful human interaction (I may be wildly over-simplifying things here though). However, I honestly feel that, in terms of "team" bonding and stuff, random conversations like that are just as important in their own way as anything supposedly more meaningful.

So yeah, spent much of the weekend feeling crap. The birthday party on Saturday was good but I do need to explaing to my mum to stop pestering me with questions at times! I'm both shy and an introvert at heart (although the world should probably be forgiven for thinking that I'm neither of these things!) and it can take me a little while to assemble the right mask to use at each individual social event. Unfortunately, Mum can generally see straight through the mask-building process, pesters me with questions that I'm trying not to think about the answers to and generally, winds me up so much that it takes me forever to be able to reassemble the mask again. I knew enough people there that I didn't need much of a mask and didn't need to wear it for that long but I still needed time to work that out. "Normal" people would probably just use alcohol but a) I couldn't because I was driving and b) I wouldn't because of the promise to myself that I'm sure I've mentioned earlier.

And so to the evening service on Sunday. I went because I knew that I needed prayer which I hadn't been able to receive in the morning because it was a big baptism service which was being run with people from our sister church. Worship and communion were both okay and then it came to the talk. The focus for the past three weeks has been on healing. Part of me has been really quite impressed that I'd kept going through all the services so far without a problem but last night was different. The woman who was speaking used an example of a miraculous healing that involved someone who was in ICU and was brain-dead. I'm guessing that the story turned out well but I didn't get to hear that bit of the talk. I got to the point where the husband and random-friend-who-happened-to-work-at-the-hospital were praying for her and stuff happened at which point, I just couldn't sit there any more and ran out of the room in complete and utter floods of tears and shouting, "It doesn't work like that!". I'm not entirely sure if I went cannoning through the double doors into the foyer or whether my friend who was on the sound desk opened them for me. I'm not sure that I could see properly at that point. I know I sank to the floor sobbing for ages (by my standards) and there were three people sat with me, praying, when I "surfaced". It had just all hit far too close to home. I've stood in ICU with my hand on a leg because it was the only part without any tubes or wires attached. I've both stood and sat in ICU praying that mad, desperate prayer, "Just heal him, Lord". I know that feeling of nothing whatsoever happening. I really didn't need to hear a story where the prayer was answered. Our minister had said something about giving all our burdens to the Lord at the start of the service and I realised that my heart was too heavy to lift everything to the Lord so I told Him that He'd have to pick them up from where they were. In doing so, it looks like He made me deal with some of them at the same time.

Anyway, the main outcome of the biggest sobbing fit that I've had in ages is that I feel quite a bit better for it. I'm still going to keep an eye on how I'm feeling generally, just in case, but I think I really will be all right.

(ps. For those who may be mildly curious as to why I only seem to cry at church. It feels safe. There's always someone around to help me and throw boxes of tissues my way. There's always someone to dispense hugs as required. The flat frequently lacks all of those (although it does contain a bearded dragon who's clearly been put on this Earth for comedy purposes only). I've spent too long in previous lives crying by myself in my bedroom and outright avoiding walking into my room if at all possible because all that will greet me is tears and insomnia. I'm not at uni now though so I can't sleep late and struggle to get up in the same way that I did back then. I still do both of those but I generally still make it into work before 9am whereas in my uni days, I'd have been skipping lectures left, right and centre at various points by now!)

(pps. Ow! Tension headache approaching! Right, I'm definitely calling it a night now. Redbush tea, paracetamol, ibuprofen and a Bagpuss heatpack on my shoulder and I'll hopefully feel fine in the morning.)

(ppps. There was something else I was going to say, now what was it???? Ah yes! I can't remember what the last update was on friend-who-I-have-an-unsuitable-crush-on but everything seems to be a lot more ... suitable at the moment. Hugs are in pure friendship, there's no warning signs flashing wildly any more. I think we might be okay there now.)

Good days and bad days

2012-02-11T11:44:00.000Z

And that's all that there really is to the matter.

Last weekend was a good weekend, this one isn't shaping up to be so yet. The answer is to go out and be sociable but when I feel like this, it's the last thing that I want to do.

Don't even want to write a blog post at the moment even though I'm sure that it'll help me sort my brain out.

I'm fed up of always ending up on my own again. Our icebreaker at home group was to think of one memory that we would like to preserve forever. Most of mine have turned bittersweet over the years as life has moved on and relationships have ended and stuff. I had to go back to when I broke my leg to find one that time could never turn bittersweet. (God, please don't ever put me in a situation where even that one could turn bittersweet!). I'm fed up of having to grab moments of happiness where I find them. I'm fed up of always having to look for the silver lining in every storm cloud because it's the only way I can stay sane. Is it really too much to ask for my life to stay stable and sane for more than three years at a time?

I feel better now I've said all of that! :o)

Wednesday evening was when I started feeling rough like this and I put it down to having done far too much work during my week "off". Given that it seems to be lingering for much longer than I expected, I'm going to give myself a deadline of Wednesday 22nd February. If I'm still feeling particularly bleugh by then with no major let-up in between, then first thing on Thursday morning, I'll be ringing up either my doctor's surgery or the local self-referral mental health team. I strongly suspect that I'll be okay in the end and won't need any extra help of any shape or form but I also remember from that first summer & autumn that it's very easy to not realise just how bad you've been feeling and for just how long you've been feeling that way. Setting myself a deadline in public like this is probably going to be the only way that works for me at the moment. If you're wondering why I've given myself a fortnight before doing anything, it's because this sort of feeling rough only starts counting as a problem when it's lasted for more than 2 weeks. As it hasn't yet, but I can see that I wouldn't be aware of how long it'd dragged on for, I'm trying to be proactive about making sure I sort myself out properly if I need to.

With all that said and a plan in place, I already feel distinctly less bleugh about things and can already cope with the idea of going out to my friends' mum's birthday tonight. (That was a difficult sentence to write, it had too many apostrophes to keep track of! :o) ) Earlier on this morning, I was all ready to wuss out and hide at home. I really am my own worst enemy at times.

Living in your home after a death | Offbeat Home

2012-01-13T21:13:00.000Z

Oh look, I have a guest post! :oD

Living in your home after a death | Offbeat Home

Slowly starting to feel more normal

2012-01-11T22:58:00.000Z

Well, that's pretty much it at the moment. I'm slowly getting back to a normal that I'd forgotten was my normal state. I'm not feeling constantly worn out. I have energy to do stuff in the evenings. I have the brain power to be creative at work even when I'm bored stiff and working on audits. I can go out socialising 4 nights in a row. I will confess to having a completely switched off day on the Sunday immediately after all this but that's not bad given that it wasn't that long ago when I struggled to leave the house to be sociable more than once a week!

At least, that's what today's been like. I don't know what tomorrow may bring. I have even less idea what I might think of life in the next few weeks when I start getting thoroughly fed up of January and darkness and stuff. Quite what it's going to be like by the time I get to February and then March, I really don't have a clue. I've booked lots of time off work around then so I've got plenty of space to do my own thing, whatever that may be. It won't all be time for wallowing either as I've volunteered to help at the church kids' week before Easter so there will be lots of stuff going on as well.

I want to say that time's making everything look brighter but I might be horribly wrong. I'm really not sure yet where I've currently got to in the whole grieving process. I'm pretty sure I'm through with anger which is a very good thing. I don't think I'm depressed although that might have much more to do with me trying my hardest not to be completely flattened by the normal greyness and darkness of January. Meh, I'm just in a fairly bland sort of mood. Life is blissfully normal in most ways and what more could I ask for?

(Yes, if you read this post last night, it did end completely differently. In the cold light of day, I decided to edit it all!)

Ramblings about drama and stuff

2011-12-31T02:01:00.000Z

I have come to the conclusion that there are far too many emotions tied up into one show for me to deal with at once.

To start with, you have the buzz of the show that amplifies everything in the first place.

- I met Gav at one theatre group

- He founded another

- Being at a show thus feels weird because show + Gav = normality

- I really miss being able to do drama. I don't sing so well and although they're currently doing a play, rehearsal clashes with my home group night.
- I really miss the atmosphere backstage during a show.

- I really, really miss Gav if I go and watch a show. It just feels wrong without his commentary on what's going on technicals/back-stage-wise.

- The last time I walked into a full auditorium that had the proper pre-"show"-type of buzz, I walked straight back out again, out through the main doors and down to the beach to watch the waves for 10 minutes by myself. I found it all more upsetting than I expected. The fact that I was desperately lacking in sleep and had been working 50 hour weeks during the lead-in would also have been a contributory factor.

- Being almost on tenterhooks because I'm trying to process all of the above means that my idiot filter has a hair trigger.

- My mum is capable of setting my idiot filter off without even being aware of it if I'm not concentrating.

- My mum also appears to insist on asking stupid-sounding questions (in the name of polite conversation and small talk) that would be just as easily answered by reading the programme properly or sitting and watching the show for 5 minutes.

- I mean, for fuck's sake, NO I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH ANY SUBSTITUTIONS, YOU READ THAT FACEBOOK UPDATE THE SAME AS ME, THAT'S ALL I KNOW!!!!! I NO LONGER HAVE ANY FUCKING LINK TO THE INSIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE SHOW!!!!!

(and breathe!)

(all caps was deliberate then, as was swearing and bold and the five exclamation marks, clearly the sign of a deranged mind ;o) )

So, yeah, that's why I was watching tonight's show from the corridor rather than from my seat.

Feeling better tonight

2011-12-21T22:32:00.000Z

I ended up taking today off of work and did my usual trick of going to the cafe/deli on the local high street for lunch where the food is amazing. Freshly cooked, local ham, egg and chips is a pretty good medicine for heartache it appears.

I've realised that I need to learn to tell the difference between what seems to be making me upset and what's really making me upset. I thought I was getting into a confusion because of the-friend-who-I-have-an-unsuitable-crush-on but I wasn't. That was an easy thing to focus on and prevented me from realising that, actually, I just really miss Gav and there's a part of me that's not looking forwards to Christmas because he won't be around. I don't have an enormously large crush on the-friend-who-I-have-an-unsuitable-crush-on, just a tiny one and I've dealt with that before, in the past, so I can do it again. As far as I can tell, my relationship and the way I act around him never goes into inappropriate territory; I'm the one pulling back from a hug if it feels wrong. His relationship with me isn't really my problem, that's something he needs to sort out himself.

I've also decided that it would be a good use of my time to randomly take a day off midweek every couple of months or so. While I probably appear quite articulate (if longwinded) on this blog, in real life, it can take me a really long time to work out what I really think or feel about something. Sometimes, I can come up with answers instantly. Sometimes, I don't even realise that part of my brain is telling me that something is wrong until I end up over-reacting to something completely unrelated. Taking the occasional day off here and there to do nothing but try to get my head around wherever I've got to at that point can only be a good thing.

First thing to do tomorrow at work - check the annual leave chart and work out when my next random day off will be! :o)

Full of large amounts of melancholy right now

2011-12-20T23:47:00.001Z

Not for any particular reason that I can think of, just "cuzfor" (Family variant of "because" when asked "why?" ofsomething)

Today is obviouslya day for using long and archaic words

(on an unrelatednote, wasn't there some indie-ish band in the mid/early 90s which had a namealong the lines of X and the Melancholic Ys or was there an album calledMelancholia or something, Melon Kolly? I think it was probably during my TakeThat-hating, Let Loose-loving days of early teenagerhood (why yes, my iPod doeshave untold seams of cheesy, apparently crap pop music that I stilllove anyway ;o) )) {too many brackets again!}

Ah, said iPod hasjust started playing the song that has probably caused my melancholy thisevening. Lana del Rey's Video Games. The strange thing is, itreminds me much more of my relationship with an ex-boyfriend than it does minewith Gav. (Apart from that line about "he holds me in his big arms"which makes me think of the-friend-who-I-have-an-unsuitable-crush-on!). In all fairness, Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People probably hasn'toverly helped either. Xfm is currently radio station of choice when I'vegot access to either internet or a DAB radio.

I find myselflistening to a lot more music now than I used to. And, and this isthe impressive bit, I've finally stopped turning my music right down so that noone can hear and comment on whatever I'm listening to. I realised that Igot into this habit way, way back, probably when I was still in 6th form,when my then-best-friend-and-guy-I'd-fancied-for-far-too-long was a completeand utter music "snob". It wasn't worth listening to unless itwas played by, ideally, John Peel or, at a push, Steve Lamacq. On theother hand, he was also first to ask to borrow "Performance andCocktails" when that came out. Part of me still misses how simple6th Form was, even if it really didn't feel it at the time. I don't missthe stress of having a mum who seemed to believe that an "A" stoodfor Average instead of being the top grade, but then-best-friend-etc had a mumwho was just as bad.

Hello again. My brain's just come back from a tangent where I was contemplating myfavourite memories of then-best-friend-etc (who, for simplicity, I shall referto as Tim, that having been his name!). They are good memories. Hewas a complete sweetie when he wasn't being an arrogant git. The goodthing about writing all this down, is that you aren't aware of the huge gaps inmy writing while I go off into another reverie as another memory floats into mybrain. I can't believe how young I really was at 17 either. I wasstill a complete kid in some ways. But, then again, it's stuff like thatthat has shaped the me that's sat on the sofa now. [Cheesy pop alert! OneDirection - What makes you beautiful, I am no longer to be ashamed by suchcrap!]

When I startedthis blog, I was full of anger at God. That's not there so much at themoment. In all honesty, I haven't been thinking of Him so much recently,I've been generally distracted and can't connect with God at all. Thatprobably, almost certainly in fact, means that I need to make a concertedeffort to sit down for some prayer time by myself. Hmmm.

Oh how I wish thatmy life was easy and simple at the moment. I really don't want to bewondering about the-friend-who-I-have-an-unsuitable-crush-on and how hedidn't appear to speak to his wife all night at a group Christmas dinner but hesearched me out and came up at the end to give me a hug and said either"Happy Christmas, gorgeous" or "Happy Christmas, you lookgorgeous". I can't really remember which it was that he said, I wasmore floored by being called gorgeous. I admit, I was looking good, forreasons that I explained last night, but I hadn't dressed up to go fishing forcompliments, well, not beyond the normal, girly, preening compliments that allwomen share when they're more than usually dressed up! Random thought, atleast I've grown well out of the stage of memorising every single thing that acrush says to me so that I can replay the conversation later and extract everysingle (imagined) nuance. If I hadn't, I'd have perfect recall of what hesaid.

Complete detour,it turns out that, by the end of that previous paragraph, I'd got to 749 words. What are the chances of managing to continue wittering onwards until Ihit 1000 words?

Oh yeah,Christmas. That's what I think I originally meant to blog about in thefirst place, but I got distracted by memories of standing out on the terrace atschool before A-levels and thinking that I'd never feel so connected to anotherhuman in my entire life.

...

There is going tobe such a fucking hole in this house over Christmas, it's untrue!

And, in essence,that's all that I really want to say or think about the matter.

No one to wake upnext to in the morning

No one to co-hostChristmas lunch with.

No one to tellsilly, exaggerated stories that no one is quite sure whether or not to believebut there's always the chance that it really did happen just like that (ifyou've ever seen Big Fish, you'll know precisely the sort of thing that Imean!)

No one to enjoythat companionable silence with after everyone's gone and you can finally getaway with sprawling on the sofa and enjoying all the new books you got.

No one to drag tothe midnight service.

No one to cause meto remember to watch the Dr Who Christmas special (I'm assuming that, asnormal, there'll be one this Christmas. I really don't know though, as Inever normally bother to watch the TV. Books or the internet will alwayswin in my opinion.)

I'm now trying tosecond-guess myself. Do I want a glass of Bailey's because it tastes goodor because a shot will stop my brain caring about all this stuff I've justtyped out. You, my imaginary reader, may well be telling me that I surelydeserve a glass of Baileys after all of this but, after a break-up with myfirst proper boyfriend while I was at uni in London (a city which I really dohate living in), I realised how easy it would be to turn to alcohol to fixeverything and I promised myself that I would never drink alcohol when I was ina bad mood. In the past 11 years, I've broken that promise to myself onlyonce and that was shortly after being told that my contract at work would notbe up for renewal and later finding out that they'd taken someone else who wasbarely more qualified than me on at twice whatI'd been on. I think I was only allowed one single vodka/orange juice before myfriends decided that I was in a thoroughly out of character mood and was notallowed to drink any more alcohol and certainly not at that speed.

In conclusion, I'mgoing to have hot chocolate without Baileys as I think I'm after the alcoholpurely to calm my brain down enough to get to sleep quickly and that is a badreason to drink if there's no one else around to keep an eye on you.

(1268 words, if you're curious, not including this final line)

And a carer I was, too.

2011-12-19T18:37:00.001Z

29 years old is far too young to be changing your fiancé's dressings and being complimented on your bandaging skills by the district nurses because none of them are quite as good as you.

That "in sickness and in health" bit - I would have meant every word if I'd have had chance to say it properly in the church.

(Okay, no more Twitter style updates unless I manage to plug Twitter into this blog! :o) )

That previous post feels very disloyal

2011-12-19T18:34:00.001Z

But, screw it, that's where my head is at the moment. There's a part of me that wants to celebrate being free and not being a carer any more. And that's important too.

Really looking forward to going out tonight

2011-12-19T18:31:00.000Z

This time last year, I was nagging and chivvying and chiding and being bossy and generally overriding Gav's protestations that he really didn't want to go to his youth group's Christmas do. Seriously?!?!?? This was the man who, before the spell in ICU, would choose to do stuff with them and would completely forget that we hadn't actually seen each other for more than 5 minutes straight for well over a week! He was going to go to his Christmas party and he was going to enjoy it if it was the only thing I achieved all day :o) As a result, I never had time to get ready for my own party, elsewhere that night. One year later, and it's my own choice by posting this, that I'm going to be late this year!

p.s. - he did enjoy his party in the end last year. I knew he would.

There are times that I forget stuff...

2011-12-08T21:33:00.001Z

...and one of those times is now.

I keep on forgetting that my nan passed away at the same time as Gavin was in ICU the first time around. I'm starting to think that I just didn't process it at all at the time as I had absolutely no brain power to spare by that point. I'm only just realising this now as some friends are dealing with their own gran having had a bad stroke. I was trying to work out why my reactions were so strong when we were talking about it and then I remembered that I don't think I'd been able to react at all when it was my nan.

Perhaps the past 18 months have messed me up more than I thought. Much more likely though is that it's just called being a human. The brain can't have unlimited processing power and so it chooses to deal with stuff whenever it can; even if that means hitting you round the head with some really random memories at really bad/inappropriate times.

On another note, I've decided to write down the story of the past 18 months so I don't need to feel that I have to remember everything (this is obviously the curse of being known to have a good memory for when stuff happened and where it happened and who was there and what everyone was wearing {I don't exaggerate there!}, I feel bad when my memory isn't up to my usual standards).

(Apologies for crap grammar and bracket usage up there. I know what I mean to say but really can't work out how to phrase it properly. Blame it on being bunged up with a cold!)

In general, I'm actually doing a lot better than this post would suggest. I'm tired and have a head full of cold but everything's okay apart from that.

A month later again

2011-12-05T21:24:00.001Z

Strangely enough, the whole world looks a lot better now that I'm not working 50 hour weeks in the run up to a major deadline at work. It's still not perfect but it's a lot better than I thought it'd be. I've just found and posted the beginnings of several posts that were floating around in draft form, even if I can't remember where they were going because they are still important thoughts that I was having at the time.

The hardest thing over the past week has to have been Sunday afternoon. I actually miss half-heartedly trying to do housework while distracting Gav from whatever he was attempting in the way of writing or playing obsessively on Facebook and deciding to talk to the lizards instead.

At some point over the next few weeks, I'm going to have to sit down and work out what I really want to do with my life. What do I want to do with my spare time? Where do I see church stuff going? Am I really going to become a handicrafts whizz or should I stick to baking? What about decorating the flat? What about that OU course I started in a fit of enthusiasm back in the summer. What about work? Am I happy in the team that I'm in? How can I adjust my work to make me happier without the prospect of going up a grade? I think I might take a day off work and go and spend the entire afternoon in one of the local coffee shops with my iPod and a large stack of paper and do one of those stop/start analysis things on my entire life.

Church is variable at the moment. It all seems so easy and then, all of a sudden, it isn't. Admittedly, last night, the fit of bad temper and tears was almost certainly directly due to having asked God to let any excess pain out rather than me wallpapering over it because everything was "going well". So, I spent the next few minutes (silently) screaming and shouting at God and swearing lots. I felt much better with it all out of my system and without shouting accidentally at someone for no apparent reason.

I've been doing the Lay Pastoral Assistant training at church over the past few months. I'd love to get involved in youth work again (I think) but I discovered the other night that the other two people running the group this time are a pair that I find very difficult to work with. Yes, Welcome is as important in it's way as Word, Worship and Witness, but it's very difficult to feel part of the team when Welcome sometimes takes up nearly an hour of an hour and a half long session and they're all talking about school stuff. Particularly activity days when I have no idea what the activity day was all about in the first place, let alone who Mrs So-and-so is and why it was so amazing/awful that she did x, y and z. The closest I've ever got to their school (where one woman worked and the other had both her daughters attend) is outside the gates to drop my goddaughter off one morning. I'm more than willing to try to keep up and remember teachers and class/house/whatever names and the major events that are coming up but it's not easy when the conversation just keeps flowing on as though you're not even there!

Oh yes, reading back on one of my previous posts, I mentioned a while back, that I thought my relationship with God was shrinking. It wasn't until I was rolling out some marzipan to decorate Christmas cakes with that I realised that my relationship with God isn't shrinking at all. It's all being pulled in together to be rolled out again into a different shape. It's just not obvious to me as I can't see in the same dimensions as God can. It's amazing how philosophical you can get about stuff while in a sticky, marzipanny, apricot jammy, crumby mess and dancing and singing along badly to "Rumour Has It" by Adele.

I could also do with getting my head straight around a situation that's accidentally come up. One of my (male) friends was told by a mutual and much respected friend that, with everything that's been going on in my life, that I need hugs and that he should not feel embarrassed, awkward or downright English about hugging me. This was A Good Thing in the beginning because I was sorely lacking in hugs and this friend gives very good hugs. You can see where this is going now, can't you? Yeah, there's a bit of a crush going on there now. Of course, he's also married with two lovely children. Urgh, I honestly believed that I'd grown out of teenage-style crushes. The normal, friendly big hugs are fine. It's the ones where, God and everyone else knows, it's been a tough time and all the support that he says he doesn't have the words to speak all goes into one great hug. These would be the same hugs that always make me think, "this man is amazing," and that is, in my eyes, a really inappropriate thought. It might be easier to deal with if it wasn't for the fact that I never ever get hugs of any shape or form from him if his wife is anywhere around. Hmmmmmm. This always makes life feel distinctly odd.

There must be a better way to end a blog post rather than just to stop writing.

Snippits of blog posts

2011-11-06T01:04:00.002Z

Yesterday I had 3 individual ideas for witterings. Today, I've had a further one. Do you think I can flesh any of them out into a fully fledged wittering? Can I hell!

Wittering the first
Cause - my boss's leaving do
Main thrust of wittering - I haven't been out properly on a Friday night in ages, last time I tried to go out, I completely failed to even dress up as I was trying to get Gav out the door to his own event at Christmas.....prior to that, it would have been well before he went into ICU last summer....even if I went, I haven't got anything to wear......I'm fat, all of my clothes make me look dowdy......I haven't even got any nice shoes!
Basis in reality - individually, all valid points, however, I really shouldn't have conflated them all together into one messy lump like that. No wonder I never made it out of the door!

A feeling-full post

2011-11-04T21:40:00.001Z

Having recently reread "Jo's Boys" by Louisa May Alcott, I've decided that some of Prof Bhaer's words are good words. Feeling-full is one of them (feeling-gull, however, is not!).

Today is very definitely a very feeling-full day

Oh look, it's 00:08am

2011-11-02T00:40:00.002Z

(Stop being pedantic! I know that should have been 0008hrs or 12:08am but 00:08am looks more dramatic)

Home group tonight was good, except for when we caught up on our Week 2 homework which was to do a "spiritual health assessment". Basically just a questionnaire with questions like "I am growing in my ability to share and show my love to others", "I have a growing relationship with God, through reading the Bible and praying", "I am faithfully attending my home group and Sunday services to worship God". All answers were from 1 to 5 with 1 being "beginning" and 5 being "well developed". To start with, I disagreed with "beginning" as that seemed to give no option for having begun, got a good way along the path and then having been knocked right back, possibly to behind where you first started the journey. I then decided that I really didn't like some of the questions (the only honest answer for the second question I mentioned up there is, basically, any negative number as I feel the relationship is shrinking rather than growing)

But then, having thought about what I've just written and what we were talking about tonight, I can't help but think that I might actually be completely wrong. I'm not sure that, in actual fact, my prayer time with God isn't more honest than it has been in the past. I'm not asking for anything or trying to praise Him, I'm just sat there saying, "I can't talk to you yet." I know I'm sat in the middle of a cocoon made from barbed wire but it shields me and prevents Him getting too close. (My analogy makes sense to me. I am, mentally and spiritually, battered and bruised right now. I'm getting better which is why I'm covered with dressings and bandages {hence why the accurate answer to "how are you?" following one really good worship and prayer session would have been "bandaged up properly for the first time"} Anyway, protecting this very battered me is a huge spiral of barbed wire to stop God reaching in to heal me. One day, I will take all this metaphorical barbed wire down and start praying and worshipping "properly" again but that's still some way off yet.

(One day, I will post before I'm ready to fall asleep at my keyboard. Zzzzzzzzzzz)

A week later

2011-11-01T00:11:00.001Z

I've survived what could well have been the world's most difficult weekend and I was doing so damned well until last night. I didn't sleep well, I kept waking up every couple of hours and then I had a really unfriendly dream. I dreamt it was my wedding day. I'm still not sure where this wedding took place. It wasn't X Church, if anything, it looked more like the Graphics room in the Technology block at my old school, possibly crossed with one of the many St P's around here. I was there for the whole day but somehow managed to bustle off to sort something out and so miss saying my own vows. It was really quite odd and upsetting in an odd way.

I'm fed up with people at work who think they know me asking me how I'm doing and trying to jolly me out of answers like "Surviving" or "Not so bad". The next time someone assumes that I'm referring to the crap that's going on at work, I'm going to recount to them, in great detail, precisely why "Not so bad" is actually a pretty good summation of how I really feel.

Last night was the All Souls Eve (?? Night?? Spot the not-very-Anglican-at-all-really!) service at Gav's old church. I was sat at the back and I'm not sure that, beyond joining in with "Be thou my vision" at the end, that I actually engaged with any of the service. I spent most of it in a complete sulk with God. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted"?!? What if I want answers, not comforting? What am I supposed to do then? I can't bear to ask Him. When I had something important, He ignored it. At the moment, I can't drag any comfort from reading the Bible and finding comfort in prayer would require me to want to talk to Him in the first place. The Bible seems full of stories along the lines of "My life is shit but God is and always will be good" but I need a story where the protagonist admits that prayer seems pointless, the Bible sounds trite to their ears and that it just doesn't seem worth worshipping a God who doesn't answer the important prayers like all the stories say that he does. I'm supposed to be training as an LPA at the moment but if I ever get asked to do the classic visiting-type stuff, I'm going to be worse than useless. All I can offer at the moment is my own pain and dislike of God. There's no way that I could toe the "corporate" line on any faith-based questions.

Hmm, now I've been completely derailed from my sulk by a webcomic artist who I follow on Twitter posting a photo of his Halloween costume. And I now have a really strong urge to devour all of the Thursday Next books in one sitting, which is not ideal, given that, as normal whenever I get anywhere near Blogger, it's gone midnight.

In reply, wittering about stuff

2011-10-26T01:52:00.002+01:00

It seemed easier to resurrect one of my old blogs than to take over a comment field on another blog.

(disclaimer, this post will almost certainly involve swearing, religion/my faith, typos aplenty, more information than you might possibly want to know about me and a certain amount of the release of random thoughts that have been spluttering around my head for ages now)

Grief is (a word I'm struggling to accurately type at the moment)...WEIRD.

I've been self-censoring myself recently on Twitter which is silly, given that I started properly using Twitter as I was censoring myself too much on Facebook. It's not ideal when any status update which could indicate that you're not in the best of mental health results in an almost instantaneous phone call or text from your mother along the lines of "Are you alright dear?". Now, I try not to post to stop my friends worrying. And it turns out that they're all doing the same. Hmmmmm.

This week was due to be a difficult week. I got engaged to Gavin pretty much exactly 3 years ago, even down to the hour. We were due to get married at 2pm this coming Saturday at my home church. Unfortunately, one of the many side effects of his chronic kidney disease and heart failure and the drugs to fix said conditions was very high blood pressure. On Sunday 27th March this year, I left a smiling, sleepy Gav cuddled up in bed while I went off to church and came back to find him collapsed, unconscious on the floor. He was rushed to A&E and, thence, to ICU. He never regained consciousness and his life support was turned off in the early hours of Tuesday morning and he passed away at 4.20am on the 29th of March.

It was, quite frankly, a complete and fucking kicker that it was like this. On the Saturday (I believe, or at least, I think I believe; my sense of time passing has been a bit screwed up over the past 18 months), we went to the marriage prep course. On the Sunday, I was sat in the waiting room in ICU trying to make all the appropriate phone calls when my mobile had no battery, I was swiftly running out of change and the pay phone wouldn't phone mobiles anyway. Seriously? I know he was ill but we should still have had more time together than that!!! In an odd way, I'm glad it was something that the doctors said he wouldn't have suffered much with rather than for him to have been slowly going downhill for ages with pneumonia or 0% kidney function or something.

And this is where my world got turned upside-down.

I hate it when women define who they are in relation to everyone else, but it's a useful shorthand. I mentally screamed, "IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!" at the first official form I had to fill in that needed my marital status. I've planned half a wedding, kept watch by a hospital bed, got back home as the sun was rising, let jsut about everyone know, planned a funeral and a memorial service and the subsequent gathering at his local and the only tick-box I fit in to is still "Single, never married". That just doesn't seem fair.

Since then, I've had good days and bad days, lonely days and shite days, days when "normal" seemed possible and days when all I could do was hide from the whole wide world. They tell me it's normal and to be expected and stuff but there are still times when none of that seems to count. One of the worst things at the moment is that I can't pray properly. God as healer? I'm sorry but I can't trust those words at the moment. I asked him to heal Gav and He didn't. .I've been given a lot of His strength over the past few months and I can ask for help for other people but I struggle to pray for myself. It's horrible really.

I was going to witter on some more but it's nearly 2am and I have to be at work in the morning.

to be continued