Category Archives: Real life

Sadness

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At times in my life when I’ve experienced loss, grief and sadness I have often found it greatly cathartic to write about it. I suspect many other writers find that being melancholy is more conducive to being prolific in their craft than being happy, perhaps because it makes for more heartfelt and genuine content that the reader can not only engage with but also empathise with.

But sometimes when something is so recent and raw it’s hard to write about it, and that’s where I am right now. It takes time to process a tragic event and whilst you’re doing it there’s little space for anything else, which is why I’m finding it hard to carry on as normal with my daily blog posts-and indeed why I missed posting yesterday’s despite having written it on time.

Your brain closes down a bit to process grief, ignoring all non-essential things and effectively hibernating until the pain has lessened. I am only on the periphery of this terrible situation and yet I have been deeply and profoundly affected by it, and I feel an enormous amount of sympathy and sadness for those involved. I can’t say any more for now, it wouldn’t be fair. I just wanted to explain why I’m not quite myself, and why my daily musings are temporarily distracted.

Giving thanks

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This morning at work we had an informal staff meeting, during which everyone (there were about twenty of us present) was asked to ‘check in’ – a technique used in the psychology practice that underpins the work the charity does. When you check in, you simply tell the other members of the group how you are feeling, and any other information that you wish to share. Today, for example, we all talked about our experience of the summer, where we’d gone on our various holidays and how we generally felt the season had gone. We also talked about our work, sharing our successes and any challenges we had faced. At the end of the meeting one of our facilitators and two of our young people turned up and joined in, which felt really lovely and inclusive.

I must be honest and admit that I usually begin sharing sessions like these with an attitude more befitting of a petulant teenager than a grown adult. I feel a bit awkward and embarrassed, and I can’t concentrate for worrying about my ever increasing to do list and how the gathering is delaying me actually getting any work done. But as soon as the sessions begin I start to relax. And today, as I listened to all the positive things my colleagues said I felt a warm glow and a real sense of pride at being part of such a fantastic and inspiring team.

It strikes me as I write this how sad it is that few people take the time to really get to know the people they work with and spend what is, let’s face it, the majority of their waking lives in close proximity to. When work builds up and you’re feeling the pressure it’s far easier to fire off an email than pick up the phone or meet face to face. It’s also easy to let small niggles about another person build up so that, before you know it, your whole relationship has deteriorated beyond all repair, with you treating one another at best like automatons and at worst with ill-disguised contempt rather than as fellow human beings with feelings, wants and needs.

Key to the checking in process is the act of congratulation – praising people for the things they have done well, and saying it from the heart. It really means so much to be recognised for your achievements, not in a generic appraisal email but in person and in front of your co-workers. This is why, despite the inevitable frustrations that arise in any workplace, I’m so thankful to work in an environment where people genuinely care. Don’t get me wrong, we’re hardly the Waltons of the work world – far from it – but it’s certainly a world away from the hard, corporate environments I’ve worked in before. And you know what? At this stage in my life, that’s more than enough for me.

How could I not be inspired working alongside these fab young people?

Travelling in miniature (and I don’t mean the toiletries)

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Anyone who has ever travelled far from home will be familiar with the warm and fuzzy feeling that you get when you come back. They will also, I suspect, be familiar with the sense of longing that creeps up once you’ve been back for a while, and the tingly anticipation that accompanies the planning of new travels and the promise of fresh adventure. The travelling bug is cyclical, you see, and it is only by leaving and then returning to your place of comfort that you can appreciate both what you left behind and what you discovered while you were away. Or is it? If we were always free to roam the world at will and on a whim, would we become complacent about our situation? Or would we simply wake each day beneath a swaying palm, curl our toes into the sand as the sea softly lapped over them and appreciate each lazy second that ticked by and how fortunate we were to have such an existence?

After my travels in 2011 I remember vividly being in a taxi travelling over Vauxhall Bridge after a night out. The sun was beginning to rise, bathing all of London in a gorgeous sleepy morning haze, and I felt a rush of warmth towards this city I call home. It was a particularly lovely moment because it could so directly be contrasted with a rather less enjoyable moment several months before when, unable to bear the sweaty morning commute for a second longer, I snapped at someone on the tube, and subsequently realised that for my sanity and the safety and wellbeing of those around me it would be best if I went away for a while. And you know what? It worked a treat, and since returning almost two years ago I can honestly say I haven’t exchanged a cross word with a fellow commuter.

Unfortunately the opportunity to just take off for months at a time is not something the majority of people are able to do, and now I’m back in full time (well, as good as full time) employment I’m trying to find a way to satisfy my travelling cravings without actually going on a full blown travelling excursion. I had thought the answer was to plan a travelling trip in miniature. That is, to pick a far flung place, book a flight there and then spend two weeks travelling around. The problem, as I’m coming to find, is that when visiting far flung locations the flight alone costs the earth. But a bigger problem still is that half the joy of travelling is the ability to drift around without a firm plan, changing your mind and direction at the drop of a hat when the winds of adventure change. If you only have two weeks it’s not as easy to go where the wind takes you. You have to have some idea of where you’re going or you might just find you’ve wasted your whole trip queuing for bus tickets in some dead end town. In short, if you don’t plan, you risk spoiling the short time you have, and if you do, the experience will likely feel more like a package holiday tour than a genuine travelling experience. First world dilemma I know, but a dilemma nonetheless.

Maybe it’s just not feasible to travel in miniature, and the whole concept was just a pipe dream I constructed to make me feel less confined within the boundaries of my current situation. Perhaps I should admit defeat and book a package holiday to some nondescript Spanish resort, where the all you can eat buffet and watered down cocktails are included in the price and there’s a talent show each night for all the families. Or perhaps I should keep thinking until I find a solution, because otherwise I fear London won’t be this agreeable forever…

Nurturing the garden of the soul

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Discipline with writing (amongst other things) is something I’ve struggled with throughout my life, which is the very reason for my setting up this daily blog nine months ago. I’ll admit the quality of the posts has varied wildly depending on my state of mind and situation but, irrespective of that and in spite of some close calls, I’m proud to be more than two thirds of the way through the year and to have, thus far at least, fulfilled my challenge of posting something every day.

Whilst I can’t say I feel all that different, per se, as a result of my writing challenge to date, I am starting to notice a quiet confidence building inside me, a sense of inevitability as, dare I say it, I inch closer to fulfilling my writing ambition. I’m not sure I can even now surmise what the depths of that ‘ambition’ might be. All I know is that the need to write is as much a part of me as my limbs, my synapses and my brain cells, and even if I never reach the heady heights of success as a published author I will at least have always stayed true to what I am.

I still have moments of gross and almost paralysing self-doubt, and I still kick myself daily for not trying harder, writing smarter, being better. But the fact is this: I DO write every day, and that’s more than many self-proclaimed writers can claim. And, slowly but surely, I’m beginning to understand the importance of nurturing the seed of potential with self-belief, rather than letting it wither and die among the weeds of doubt and disappointment.

All in the mind

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Yesterday I was berating myself for falling off the exercise wagon by neglecting to complete my weekly half marathon training with a planned nine mile run. My guilt was compounded by the fact Friday night had gone from ‘one quiet drink’ to a jagermeister-fuelled 4am finish, which meant the traditional post-booze self-loathing kicked in at about the same time as the lack of exercise self-loathing i.e. a double whammy of shame.

Fortunately, however, I managed to redress the balance of yin and yang by completing the missed nine mile (well, eight point nine nine miles, to be precise) run this afternoon – which is bordering on a miracle considering that I’d spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon and evening drinking punch at a tropical themed birthday party.

A few kilometres in I had serious doubts about completing the full distance, but then I remembered a conversation I was having with someone at the party yesterday. We were discussing sporting challenges and how mental strength is as important if not more so than physical strength when it comes to both training for and completing a race. If you don’t believe you can do it then in all likelihood you won’t – not because you can’t, but rather because in failing to believe you can do it you are, whether consciously or unconsciously, making the decision to fail. As I ran today and remembered the conversation I felt physically as well as mentally lighter, and the remainder of my run, despite my initial lethargy, was actually enjoyable.

Of course, the concept of believing you can do anything you set your mind to should not be limited to sporting challenges. It’s something each and every one of us should try to incorporate into our daily lives. Positive mental attitude isn’t just a state of mind, it’s a state of being, and if you can achieve it then you really can achieve anything.

This was me metres from the finish line after the Blenheim sprint distance triathlon in 2010. You could say positive mental attitude is written all over my face – or maybe just relief it’s nearly over!

The lapsed athlete

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Just when you think the Great British Summer is drawing to an end it pulls out all the stops for one last week to show you exactly what you’ll be missing for the next nine months. It’s somewhat appropriate, then, that I should today be attending a friend’s tropical-themed birthday party to make the most of this final hoorah. Without wanting to be selfish, however, I must admit I’d rather like the temperature to be a fraction on the cooler side for next Sunday’s half marathon. The closer the event has got the more my training seems to have tailed off, so I need all the help I can get to avoid keeling over half way through.

I was reminiscing yesterday (over my second pint of cider) about how seriously I took training for my first sprint distance triathlon in 2009. So terrified was I of being unable to complete the race that I went cold turkey for a month beforehand, giving up booze and fags (these were in the days of my being a dirty smoker) completely. With the second sprint I was a little more relaxed with my regime, though when the Olympic distance triathlon came around I really knuckled down with the training to avoid full scale cardiac arrest half way around the course.

My first long distance run was the Whole Foods Market run in Kingston in March this year. At sixteen miles it was a serious challenge for someone who had previously never run further than ten kilometres. I trained hard and, fortunately, it paid off, as I don’t think I would have managed to get around the course in the freak weather conditions (zero degrees and snowing at the end of March? Really?) had I not been at the peak of my physical fitness.

This time around, however, I seem to have adopted a rather more laissez faire attitude. I’ve put the time in and roughly followed the same schedule as for the March run, but if circumstances (read: social commitments / pub) have made it difficult to fulfil every running obligation then I (literally) haven’t sweated over it. The only big run I’ve missed to date is the nine miler I was planning for today (see previous comment about ciders in the pub to understand why that hasn’t happened), but there’s always tomorrow, right? Or maybe the day after…?

athlete

Brain freeze

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Do you ever have days when your brain runs so slowly it feels like someone’s lopped the top off your head and poured in a truck load of cement? In my twenties such days could usually be attributed to hangovers and/or extreme lack of sleep, but now they seem to happen irrespective of my alcohol consumption and the quality of my nocturnal slumber the night before (which sometimes makes me wonder whether I might as well just get hammered and go to bed late anyway, but I digress…). The hypochondriac in me worries that this apparent decline in brain activity might actually be some form of early onset dementia, and that ten years from now I’ll be dribbling on myself in the corner of some nondescript nursing home, but the rational part of me says its most likely down to the typical state I seem to exist in that’s commonly known as TRYING TO DO TOO MANY THINGS AT THE SAME TIME.

Multi-tasking is not and never has been my friend, but that hasn’t stopped me trailing after it like some desperate, try-hard, hanger-on in the school playground. I should have accepted long ago that doing one thing at a time, in a linear fashion, is far more conducive to effectiveness – both in the work place and outside it – than trying to divide my attention across many. But the problem is that even when I try my hardest to focus on one thing, the others inevitably creep back into my peripheral consciousness – whether via emails, phone calls or people talking at me as I try my best to ignore them – and scupper the plan completely. Even writing today’s post has been a struggle, but now I have I think it’s time to accept the working week is over and have a well-earned drink.

frazzled

Letter to A.Chugger

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Dear A.Chugger,

Though it breaks my heart to trample your enthusiasm (for which, I must admit, I do admire you) beneath the giant foot of my disinterest, I do believe it’s in your best interest in the long term. I’m guessing by your bright eyes and earnest expression this is new to you and you’ve yet to experience the crushing blow of multiple defeats. But soon I fear this house of cards you’ve built will come crashing down around you and the grim reality will wash over you like a tidal wave, drowning your hopes and aspirations in the torrent.

Let me paint you a picture of your typical client. A frazzled office worker, this person spends their days juggling so many metaphorical balls and treading so many deadline tightropes that they may as well be in the circus. On those rare and precious occasions that they are unshackled from their desks they like to float aloft their glorious daydreams of escape to tropical climes. When faced with the dreadlocked exuberance of youth in human form holding a clipboard, therefore, they are understandably reticent to engage in banter, no matter how jolly that banter might be.

The thing is this: We understand you’re raising money for the kids/dolphins/blind one eyed tree frogs, and it’s not that we’re cold-hearted bastards who don’t care a jot for the future of this planet we live on. It’s just that our time is short, and those of us who are of a philanthropic persuasion will mostly already be signed up to a two pound a month direct debit scheme to help our chosen cause. We are not, therefore, about to waste your time and effort by listening to you touting your cause.

I don’t mean to be cruel, you really do seem nice, but why not take that sunny disposition somewhere where it’s appreciated, before it gets ground out of you by the army of grim-faced commuters who pass by you, unseeingly, each day? Put your clipboard down, son, and get a job on the frontline of Greenpeace, if you must, or maybe in a bar in Ibiza or a theatre school in west London? The world is your Oyster, so step aside and let us Oyster card holders be.

Yours,

A.Commuter

Near miss

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I’ve just looked at the time and realised to my horror that I haven’t written my blog post today. In truth I’ve been so busy with work, popping in to a friend’s birthday drinks, running club, cooking dinner, planning an exciting holiday (more on that later) and watching Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (I know, I know, not a good reason for nearly failing my daily writing challenge after nearly nine successful months of posting every day) it clean slipped my mind. But at least I’ve remembered before all was lost. Do I redeem myself in any way by saying I’ve almost finished a 2,500 word submission to a short story competition that’s due on Friday, the content of which is of a far higher calibre than any of the rubbish I’ve been churning out on this blog for the past few days? I thought not. In which case I shall simply have to try harder over the coming days to regain your trust – consider my wrists virtually slapped.

So about this holiday…It’s taking rather a lot of my waking attention at the moment as it’s just about the most exciting thing I’ve planned for a long time, besides the amazing travels of 2011, that is. I don’t want to say much more at the moment for fear of jinxing it, but suffice to say my hope is for a mini travelling adventure that will get the creative juices flowing faster and more furiously than ever. Watch this space…

Sunday, 9am

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It’s 9am on Sunday morning and my feet are already pounding the pavement. It wasn’t easy getting out here, but now I am I’m revelling in the coolness of the air, the absence of cars and other people. I run on through the concrete jungle, noting all the signs of last night’s excesses; a used condom outside a pub, a pool of vomit by a telephone box. The perpetrators of these crimes are long gone, most likely now lying in a bed that isn’t their own beneath a blanket of self-loathing. One group of young adults are still partying on a rooftop, cans of lager clasped in their hands, teetering on the brink.

I run onto the common, relishing the green space even though it’s flanked on all sides by road. There was a festival here last night and there’s still a trace of sweat and booze and hot dogs in the air. Men in orange jackets clear the remnants as occasional dog walkers and clusters of military fitness groups pass by. Everyone is resolute and unswerving in their purpose, like worker bees. I take a lungful of damp air and look up at the grey sky overhead. My feet splash through puddles, catapulting splodges of mud onto my calves.

I run on.