Life is short

 

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I won't go into the specifics but in a lot of pain this week with a recurring problem but thankful life occurring nowadays. I'm convinced its anxiety related but wife is more swayed to inactivity. It doesn't really matter which. As my activity has increased my anxiety has lessened and these problems with them. This week though I am downed in a lot of pain to the point I can hardly walk. Or could hardly walk I should say. The pic above is from today where things have eased a little enough to walk down the park. Life is short but I am in no mood or state to thrash it. I feel delicate this week and trying to fly below the radar. 

Melancholy has been the biggest problem by far over the pain and maybe even a result of it. Its just a horrible thing. No words can describe it. Inside I am screaming for it to stop. It won't. And there is nowhere to escape to. Just horrible. I think it came as a result of thinking about finances. I have been putting off looking at my account because I fear there is nothing in it and that I am not being paid ESA. I will have to look at some point soon, just not today. Its deep dread. I just needed to bury again and move on for a week or so. The prospect of looking today was enough to make the day a write off. I cannot keep putting it off. It was so bad today that the book I planned to read was binned. In fact just typing this out is taking my mind back to that dark place again so I will leave it there for now.

Black and gold

I feel like I am going to burst out crying and I have no idea why. She said. My wife, tonight.What I wanted to say was: Don't worry because I get this all the time and today for some reason I have been plagued with it and feel like I am in some mad depression and probably teetering on a total breakdown but I also have to say that the stuff I have been reading says this is a ruse and its actually fear being fuelled by cycles of adrenaline rushes and sometimes when I sit mindfully I can see it is actually raw fear so calm down dear, its only a ruse. What I said was nothing. No point. When I talk about such things I see the light in my wife's eyes go out and her mind wonder off out of her head into Lala Land and soaps and mediocrity. Why bother?

On that I have had a shitload of that melancholic feeling today and it really does get to me. It is a foolery but trying to establish that even after all that time is difficult because all the senses and nerves and sensations and thoughts all work against you- take a lot of convincing. Shit its really horrid at times, words can't describe. And trying to hold on to the truth, the knowledge, that it always passes when I start to see it for what it is holds no comfort in the long hours of proper torment.

Anyway, back to the wife: "...I have no idea why". Well I do. I took all the jigsaw puzzle pieces and put them together. I have been reading, oh yes I have! My understanding seems to work better on other subjects and practically useless at time on my self. But anyway. At this point in the evening it was unbearably hot and the kids were playing up and unusually for the normally laid back wife she was losing the plot and not helped by an itch on the bridge of her nose, anxiety, constantly needing a scratch. That was the final straw but only the a straw. The truth is she wanted to be out not in during the heat and she wanted the kids out too rather than in. So why not? Because we have a doormat sized garden and no fence. We seem to be a magnet for every waif and stray on the passing and they all come like the "Field of Dreams" but we never built it. We didn't want it. We are stuck with it. Why? That rubber ball comes bouncing back to me. The mental one can't work so we can't afford a house so don't have a fenced garden to keep all the plebs out or drowning in the moat. Raise the bridge!

Things add and pathways are built. She'd had a call from her sister earlier. Her and her husband are financially sound. She had a health scare. Something I didn't know existed but the health insurance for a scare paid out a fortune and enough to wipe out the mortgage so they have debt free times ahead. Conversation turned to my sister and her untold apparent wealth all of a sudden- again a couple not on the bread line like ourselves. Then it turned to her friend who is very wealthy and who attended a man who died and left her £80k on top of the wealth she already has in her marriage. I could see it on my wife's face. Not greed. Money to money. She doesn't want much. If she was on "Who wants to be a millionaire?" and was asked how much she wanted to win she would genuinely say enough to buy 3 new windows, get a new sofa, new carpets and floor the loft- though now this summer add a garden to the list. Not greed. She just sees everyone else in comfort and wants to cry about her situation and to be honest I don't blame her even though I know who she blames for it.

I could talk about hand outs. I am on benefits. I know many would look down their nose at that and say I don't have a proper illness- get a job! Jeez, I have tried. The Job centre have called me twice since I was made redundant and both times I have said the same thing. I have told them how it is but said I have skills, have a computer, have the Internet so any work from home employment that encompasses those things I would do gladly. Both times they redirect me back to the web where there are only pay up front scams. I can work. I will say again: I can work. I just can't travel to a work place. Give me 10,000 of written pages you need typed up and I'll do it . No probs. If you need a database and/or a web front end I will do it as long as you don't need me to leave the house for more than 10 minutes.

But handouts. The people who would look down their nose at me would also see nothing wrong with an already rich couple being left £80k by a virtual unattached stranger because that has nothing to do with the taxes they pay- never mind that I work from 17 to 35 and paid 8 years of taxes when I could work. They wouldn't see a problem with someone getting a large sum, enough to pay off a house, for a threat that never happened. They would see nothing with a lottery win, a lucky night at the casino or a big win on the nags. But there is apparently a problem with needing help when you cannot get work because of your circumstances. I have 3 children and live is a damp infested 2 bedroom flat with virtually no garden to speak of. That is all my kids have ever known and that breaks my heart but more so because I cannot see it changing any time soon unless we are recipients of one of those more socially accepted handouts. Ah well, I guess people would prefer I ended up on the street with the 3 kids begging hand and mouth.

Get off the high horse now. Its been beautiful this week. And what am I doing to get better? Walking is going very well. I have been very excited this week. Its dragged on so long with a decline but now is turning in some respects. Yesterday I walked the most in one day that I have done since starting records mid-2009. If I go two walks over the weekend I will beat my previous 2009 best for distance over a week. All good. Some concern over single walks but I plan to tackle them now and the graduated exposure. There is new belief I will get there. I am running towards the garden. A garden for us all to lounge in during these long hot days in the future left alone. That is the dream and its always good to dream. Starting to believe for the first time I will get there.

The world on fire

Unlike most weeks I am actually happy with the results of this one. The image above I have posted only has a little processing. No Photoshop and no Lightroom. The only thing I have done is cropped it and increased 'Shadow' in Picasa to make the silhouettes blacker. It is virtually how it came out of the camera. And for that I am happy. Something kind of apocalyptic about it which is what I was looking for. The sun was setting which can make the sky look like it is burning but I wanted to add the silhouettes as if someone, or some people, were looking out at the world burning. And for me it worked considering I didn't have to fake it. Just the right time of night and ensure the focus was on the right part of the sky and bingo. I did take lots mind you but that is the best way if you want to find one that works for you- and why digital is good.

If you are wondering what was actually happening at the time my wife and kids were trying on different sunglasses to look at the sunset. Different tints in each one belonging to the kids. One set made it look blood red. And there they are at the window looking. I could of course have used one of the better packages to tidy things up and especially, my wife would be mortified, clean up the window condensation as a result of her boiling potatoes in the kitchen at the time but I like where I can to keep as much out of the camera as I can unless I am doing something specific.

On the anxiety front a lot of what I call melancholy. Others would call it anxiety related depression- not the same as clinical depression. I don't like using the word 'depression' though. Not because there is anything wrong with it but because I don't want another worrying label and more than that it is not actually depression at all. At times I have been able to see through it when I sit calmly and observe. It still catches me out though even after seeing it for what it is more than once. It feels like its a great sadness, I feel jittery, the face muscles gets tight, the chin might feel a wobbly, the eyes feel like they are water balloons ready to burst, the is an ambiguous feeling I may burst into tears and a deep fear that I will have a complete breakdown. So it is little surprise when I do see through what I see is raw fear. My eyes are always dry and tired, as told by the optician a few years back, so do self lubricate. The jittery feeling is the anxiety. The tight face muscles is tension. The feeling is a ruse, its misinformation. The fear is what is actually creating the anxiety which is creating the physical sensations.

Looking back I see this is more like an emotional overload. I remember feeling the exact same way in my boss's office over a decade ago when he told me that a line workers job was more skilled than technican's job, my own as it happened, and that is why they were getting paid more. I had been there a couple of years when a woman on the line got her son a job and within a month he was getting paid more than me. Firstly I asked him why then were they putting me through college and not the line workers. And secondly I told him that I would then be looking for a new job. By the end of that week I was on more than any of them. But I digress. In that moment I was so consumed by anger that I struggled to keep it back and felt as much as I wanted to punch that smug face in that instance by pulling back I was going to burst into tears- through anger. Also I felt the fear after having a fit of uncontrollable hysterics recently at a comment I found funny on Facebook. Even my wife said she had not seen me laugh like that in a long time but I had to curb it through fear- fear that it was manic and unnatural, unsettling. And in the moments I see this then it all washes away and I am free of it. But the problem is holding on to that. I don't see it enough so its been troubling me this week.

Its the first full week back at school for the girls also. Already I can feel the tiredness accumulating. My wife keeps saying it will lift once the routine is established over the next few weeks but I know from the past that is not true, not nearly always the case. Tiredness accumulates. Mornings watching the boy has me in and out of dread. I try not to clock watch but invariably do. Its one of life's quirks that if you try not to think of something you do. And each time I look at the clock my mind automatically builds stories via calculations at links. For example I look and see 9:45. 45 minutes gone. One sixth of the way through. Do it again and that is a third. It drags by.

Nothing really and in comparison to others nothing at all but I try to get some understanding by explaining its not a holiday even if people don't believe that. I mean my wife for example says she would love to have the time alone I have. Its like life is one long party. Hey you don't have to work you lucky sod! You know the kind of thing. I have the time but its not quality time as I don't have the freedom to use it. Its full of black holes I spend most of the day trying not to be pulled into.

Not much in the way of photographic opportunities this week again like most. On a walk I went through a small park, Alton Towers (see previous post), I pass through a lot. The place is one big tip. People have no pride. And I assume that two toy smurfs lying on the ground abandoned looking almost new were once in the eyeline of that little child. Something quite sad about what they had become. Something that someone once desired enough to want to pay for now lying sodden near a puddle abandoned on a path- still with a smile on their face. Maybe even a well thought out and sought out present from a relative or friend just discarded. As I said sad but also a little disturbing because I have seen a pram to upended and it makes me wonder just what went on there?

Morbid Fascination

When I was younger I recalled having a set of murder case book magazines I used to collect with glee each week chronicling the life and gruesome murders of famous serial killers. There is no glory in their acts and really nor should the retelling of their acts be best sellers but they are. If I were related to one of the victims would I read with such relish? I doubt it very much but the truth is most disconnected people find the macabre engrossing.

I've started reading a short novel called "The Blind Owl" by Sadegh Hedayat. This is one of a number of books I bought years ago from Rebel Inc and never got around to reading- though I read a few. Some of these books have made their way from the loft down to the book case at various times and although I have 4 or 5 new books to read at the moment this one caught my eye.

There is a preamble in each book discuss its merits from various would be authors in various states and various places. In this one the discussion takes place in a Dublin pub between Scottish author of 'Morvern Callar' Alan Warner and someone named 'The Large'. Quite tedious actually but one paragraph stuck with me.

WARNER: "Have you heard of Francesco Borromini, he was a baroque sculptor, a rival of Bernini's?...This guy was something else. A not-quite-good-enough artist...he'd never created a work of art so he decided to commit suicide. The old Roman way, fall on the sword...but same we he botched up everything else in his life, he even fucked up the sword business: fell on it incorrectly and died after hours of agony. Thing was, he crawled over to his desk, as he bled to death, he wrote this incredible, blow by blow account of the thoughts and processes going through his mind. Complete work of art! Incredible!"

I had to have this account. Yes I had to read it. Seduced by this tale I had to read the dying words of this man that were regarded a work of art. Inadvertently this failure of the arts had created art accidentally by way of ending his own life. That had to be worth a read. If this fellow had decided rather than lying down to death to instead write for us then it would be ignorant not to read it.

So off I went with Google as my guide to take to the place I so desperately seeked only to find disappointment. The tale was not actually as recounted by the author. It was a different tale entirely and I was disappointed. How selfish of me.

Francesco Borromini was in fact a well respected architect in 17th century Roma. So much so that he was at one time sponsored by Pope Innocent X. But later his style became frowned upon and later in life he find all his commissions dry up. This led to a despair and worthlessness that manifested itself in melancholy- a general term used at the time and for centuries after to describe a mental illness. This was a severe case leading to him being unable to leave the house and suffering fits. It was in this state that Francesco Borromini one night committed suicide. He did, as Warner said, take time to die but in this time he did not write a great work of art but instead received his last rights and wrote out his will.

The promise of a tale of morbid fascination turns out to be just another sad anxious story. Not sure which one applies to this blog but have an inkling.