Clumsy

 

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Out of frustration a little I pushed myself to hit two miles this week for the first time this month. A real good effort. I've had a dose of the old lurgy in me and with the exhaustion it totally drained me but worth it just to remind myself it can be done. Just a pity I cannot do it every day but as I said previously that will come.

The photo here is something different. Its of me. A snippet really as I am not one for getting my photo taken. Actually I was talking to my wife about this the other day. She was going through photos on her phone. Mostly they were of her mum of course but some with her dad, her sisters, the kids, work collegues and friends. None of me. In fact I don't think there are many if any photos of me about. I said to my wife if I was gone tomorrow there would be no trace of me. She just sort of shrugged which I suppose is about all you can do. I am relating to Gregor Samsa or at least wallowing in self pity- so I need to snap out of that quickly.

Anyway the photo was taken not for here but for me to check out my head. Somehow I managed to whack myself on the head with a fridge door. It was all down to timing, bad timing. I cannot even remember what I was looking for but I opened the fridge door, stuck my head in to look, closed the door and then went take my head out. Not quickly enough. Crack! I didn't expect there to be a mark but I managed to cut it a little. Silly sod. Its not the first time. I remember doing it sometime back on a walk at Strathclyde Park and cutting through woods only to cut my head on a branch I never saw coming. Its down to lack of awareness in a mind that constantly has more room for the inner dialogue than the surrounding world. I need to be more mindful I suppose.

I feel really guilty because yesterday the boy left for his school trip up north which will see him stay away until Friday. I feel guilty because for the girls I was there in the car park to wave them off. Today I had to leave him and his mum in the park because I feel so crap and agoraphobia is so strong. Furthermore on Friday when he returns I won't be able to meet him and instead will have to get someone to collect him. I remember that from high school coming back from Spain and all the parents were there but I was left to walk home alone. I remember the tear in my eye which I could not stop and that empty feeling going into an empty house. I'm motoring down that self pity road again, snap out of it. Its weird not having him here. He was upset when he left as he has never been away on his own before. I just hope he has a good time. 

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Upward

Every step feels like its uphill until the next plateau. Makes me wish wonder whether I should carry a dustbin lid and sleigh my way home in style. Except its not all uphill- just metaphorically so. It is very much downhill which at first seems good but only if you travel from A to B and I never travel from A to B, always A to B and straight back to A again. Mumbly jumbly mess I am spouting here I know but its a little complicated.

Since pushing out I have been noticing gradients more and more. They are easy to find. This is an old mining village. The land is collapsing in places. The stank outside my home has just about disappeared. So its bumpy but not in immediate degrees and instead over expanses. What I have noticed is that our home appears to have been built on the crest of something- the last support- and as a consequence no matter where I go I am walking downhill. Which I already said is good but only if, unlike me, you don't need to come immediately back.

And therein lies an answer possibly to why for so long I wondered why the walking out was not the hardest part compared to the turning around and heading home. Partly that is because I use more than 50% of what I have getting out and pushing as far as I can and have to make do with what I have left to get me back home at speed. I see now though that is not the only reason. I turned and the horizon is always upward. I never used to notice gradients yet now my thinking is ruled by it.

Still I push on. I push on and on and on to cover distances people do without thinking about but to me have taken years to achieve. Two miles for the first time since this all started. Something I thought impossible now done. No wooping and yeeha-ing or jumping up clicking my heels. Instead just a burnt out mess crashed on the couch filled with regret for pushing too hard. Physical some, mental the other. How much of one and how much of the other I don't know. It leads me to try to recall how in the past I felt walking two miles. And maybe this is the problem because I cannot remember and my head instantly visualises someone without a bead of sweat breathing regularly with a bit of fatigue. But was that the case? And even if it was I was fitter then, younger then. I forget I am talking about 7-10 years ago. A quarter of a lifetime ago at the extreme. A time before my hair greyed and my face became more drawn. A more active time. So is it right to try to compare the two?

Of course not and this is what I have to try to get into my head. It doesn't matter how it felt before anymore than it feels for others. It is about how it feels now. I see from that I am still thinking about it too much. I think about it beforehand, constantly during and for a long time after but it is the after that causes the problems because my mind is set to look for problems. So I must try to be more mindful and less introspective. I must accept and let be and just keep pushing on without worrying about consequence and without regret later because there is nothing to regret when the alternative is spending the rest of days indoors miserable.

In the past I have talked of flashbacks. Random visual images of a former life. These are still as strong as ever. Now I see their purpose. They are coming more regularly now. Not alarming just a memory projected visually and briefly. In a car down a street I forgot about or sitting in a pub I forgot about. I have to say everyone is anywhere but here. None from here. Most actually from up north before I moved here. Now for the first time I see their purpose and it is a positive one. They are a reminder of what I want and where I want to be and spur to ensure I don't slack off and I keep going and even if I am exhausted to the point of panic I keep pushing myself out time after time striving to stay out longer and go further and do things I never thought possible. Ultimately to never give up and keep trying. And they are working. Its a change in mindset as I said in the last post and churns up an appetite to do more while the mind plans little things never done that can lead to bigger things down the road and all tie together at the end to not resurrect the old life but breathe a brand new better one like a metamorphosis of sorts and the breaking free from the cocoon. 

That is how it feels at least. It feels like every step is uphill and a struggle but at the end it will be worth it. Confidence builds little by little. I am hoping this is the slow start of heading out of this. Only time will tell.