Sparkle

I wonder where the balance lies still all these years later. I set out blogging as a release to my anxiety problems. So long ago. At the time I have to be honest and say I did not think six and a half years later I would still be unemployed by way of being unable to work and not that far removed from where I was. I never saw it at all. I was full of positivity underneath the fear. It was just 5 months after the birth of my son and along with the fairly new arrival I had a daughter of five years old and another of three years old. Despite the situation I was confident underneath of a life ahead where I worked and came home to the elation of my children- the home welcome. A home with a garden. Detached. Somewhere decent. Definitely not still in this little flat which we outgrew a number of years ago. But that is where I find myself. The situation has improved without doubt but not as fast as I would like or expected. I forget though that I was virtually housebound back then. Now is an improvement, a big improvement really.

The balance I speak of is the need to get all this out and the duty of a blogger to try to keep things as light as possible. Entertaining is beyond me I am afraid but thankfully there are many more bloggers more suited to the job all over the blogasphere. In the early days it was very dark because that is where I was. I would like to think now its a little lighter. But with that has come more than a hint of the mundane. By that I mean I am posting about things which mean a lot to me, progress, but are the things people do every day. Its finding that balance. I mean who really wants to visit a blog to read about how someone went shopping for a loaf of bread and survived? Not me. Then again though what is more important here? To keep the reader interested or to post about what is important to the author. A balance I suppose is the answer. Finding that balance is not easy.

Looking back at some posts from earlier years I see that although they were darker they were more interesting. I had a little bit of an edge. Maybe a little bit of imagination and creative spark- at times. That seems to have gone. Even the photography where I used to experiment and spend lots of time processing and post on photography forums has gone. The irony being there that I was frustrated in those days I did not have a decent camera to do what I really wanted to do and for the last few years I have but lost all interest in it. I feel burnt out if I am honest. My days are made up of CBT and walking until I virtually drop and then the next day repeating the process. Its tiring and monotonous if I am honest and so I burn out. Then when I come to write something for the blog I find it hard to pull out any kind of joy from these days. That said though all these boring things are important to my recovery and what is helping me get to where I am now to where I once was. So it must be said. It really must.

Within all this though I must find my edge again, my sparkle even. I need more than to recover. I need something to recover for. I need something to help me along instead of getting up each morning dreading another Groundhog day. And only I can generate that. It was there once but it has gotten lost under all the pushing I have been doing and god I am tired. So that is where I now look. A sparkle. A bit of something good to reach out for. A way to become independent and re-ignite my zest for life rather than ploughing my way through it. Its another balance. Where I have pushed my agoraphobic bounderies further out by lust for life has been sucked dry. The balance is what I need to find in my life.

Anyway the reason for this reflection is that I wanted to post more of aforementioned monotony. Today I once again took the kids to school and may do for the rest of the week. My wife was working all day today so arranged for the kids to be picked up but come three o'clock I went and picked them up too. First time of dropping them off and picking them up. Slowly things are coming together and I am contemplating my next moves. Every day I walk through the train station at least once. I am thinking about it. But I am thinking too much. My head keeps filling with images of being stranded at a train station in panic and not able to get home. There is no reason for it but its actually making it harder to do. I need to work hard on the CBT and weed out this fears. Rationalise them. There was an interesting article also on the BBC web site on alternative ways to do that. It is my next challenge and I would like it done before the year is out but it feels further and further away each time.