Christmas already

 

It would appear its Christmas time already and maybe has been for longer than I have been aware. I have not been getting out much so cannot say I have noticed until now. I don't have the radio on but my wife assures me the Christmas songs are in full flow already and Noddy Holder can start rubbing his hands with glee again. It was only the other day when out for a walk in the dark venturing further than normal that I first noticed the Christmas lights lining the main road. As I moved over the road and along I came upon the town Christmas tree fully lit. I have no idea how long it has been this way as I used to subscribe to a local news feed on Facebook but binned it when the news became more national that local like we don't have the BBC for that. I would then have read when the tree went up but without that I was oblivious. Still mid November seems a bit premature to be. 

Do people reach saturation level by the time Christmas Eve comes around? For kids this should be a special time but I cannot help think its being diluted by the prolonging of it. Something tells me this started after COVID when people wanted an extended Christmas to make up for the wasted one the year before and it has just continued from there. Its lost something I feel. Maybe not right now but I bet in a month's time it will feel like something most people just want over and done with.

To be honest I hate this time of year. I loved it when the kids were young and they appreciated lots of boxes of cheap toys with lots of extra presents from relatives. Its different days now and has been for some time. The first signs were when the oldest hit High School and started noting what other kids were getting and more importantly what she was not. Her sister followed and every year we were made to feel more and more inadequate for not being about to spend hundreds on the latest Iphone or Ipad or Iwhatever. Social media of course is a big part of that. Rich kids use it to show off their loot on the big day and the night before they now show off Christmas boxes filled with gifts so they don't have to wait for a sleep to get gifts. It is all expense from the gimmicks employed each year to empty our pockets to the bright garish flashing lights outside people's homes as they compete to be the best at celebrating Christmas. Social media has soured Christmas for me but "progress" has not helped either. When the kids were small we could bulk up their pile with DVDs, CDs and books as well as other things- computer games as well. Now its all digital and what is left to hold in the hand is as tiny as it is expensive so there is no pile and what lies beneath the tree looks wholly inadequate.

I know there is a lot of good to Christmas and I do miss those days but maybe I just have to accept that it is part of life. It was probably like this before the kids came along. Now at Christmas there is no visiting family like we used to do mostly because of my agoraphobia and that has led to many a Christmas spent alone leading to further resentment. This year though will probably be the least Christmas of all. Usually my wife takes the kids up North to her dad's house but he is spending this year down south with her sister and her family. On top of that even if her dad was not going away it looks like my wife will be having to work over Christmas so it going to feel very strange indeed. And maybe that is why I feel a little annoyed at seeing Christmas brought forward because to be honest I don't want to think about it right now. I shouldn't have to think about it for at least another couple of weeks but alas already as I sign of I can already hear Mariah Carey calling out.  

Off the grid

 

Finally we are back on the grid after falling off for a week out of the blue. It is amazing the things you take for granted in this modern age until they are gone. I like to think I can do without technology and find ways to spend my time elsewhere but it turns out I suffer the same seperation anxiety as everyone else when I am expelled from the matrix. That is circumstances at the moment for sure. A few years ago I could easily have sat and read a book all day and enjoyed it whereas at the moment I feel constant agitation and no enjoyment in reading. It has become a chore. But my main escape was the outdoors. Having overcome the vast chunk of my agoraphobia I liked nothing better than to just head out for a few hours and get back into the outside world whatever the whether. At the moment just getting around my block is hard enough and mostly I am leaving it until quieter times so I feel more hemmed in. The day the Internet died I found the first few hours in particular very hard indeed. I am used to typing things out to deal with them and now there was no way of doing that. I forgot my Chromebook relied on an Internet connection and without one it was as good as dead to me. 

Anyway one day the Internet stopped and a few hours later it come on. Then it went off. Then it came on. Then it slowed down until it eventually stopped and just when it looked like it was gone forever it popped up about 48 hours later but at a snail's pace. Now this is the hard part and most frustrating part. Knowing that it is a bit of kit that is at fault is all well and good but trying to convince BT of that is another thing altogether. I remembered back to the time we made the switch from Sky to BT and the week without Internet trying with all my might to convince countless people in countless places that it was the line that was at fault and having to go through scripts that were futile. We had two boxed I think sent which I knew would not work and didn't. Finally they sent out an engineer and within a minute he said the line had not been patched in- something we were told over the phone had been done. Frustrating. I had no appetite for that again so my wife instead cancelled out Broadband and we went with someone else. 

Finally we are back online after what was a very long week for everyone. It should have been an opportunity to take a welcome break away from technology and find something else to do but unfortunately it wasn't. It was paying for for more 4G than normal and watching the clock. Sad really but that is the reality for most in modern life. 

Groundhog Day

I seem to have found myself in an endless loop going back to the middle of August in relation to having panic attacks at home. There is a pattern to it mostly but it does occasionally deviate depending on intensity and outside factors. At its most basic level though I wake, at some point a daily situation arises that causes panic, I go through it and then I am fine for the rest of the day. I sleep and the next day I go through it all again. Loosely that is it. I could add in more. The bit about I panic, go through and I am fine happens but more often that not that happens two times or sometimes three. Also just as a filler from waking to the first panic is apprehension over the incoming panic- anticipatory anxiety. Ironically it is this apprehension which actually causes the feared outcome and then it happens again sometimes and finally some how it stops- the body no longer fears danger so no longer sets off fight or flight. And that is how it should work for recovery. This is the process. But that should be it from start to finish and then at the end there should be no fear so no panic to come. Instead though I wake and I am back at the start again.

So it is very much like Groundhog day in that respect. It is tiring. In time it will pass but right now I feel so drained by it. And although it will pass it won't be overnight. It will take time. It will probably take months. It is not a case of overcoming it but getting used to it because it is a daily thing and when I am used to it then it holds less fear and so stops happening. That is the theory at least but from here it looks a long way off in the distance.