Where does the time go?
No really. I'm serious!
I flip the page of the calendar to realise we are at the start of the eighth month of the year and I never really started the year yet. Obviously I am being a little melodramatic, but I have been carried along on a tidal wave of 'stuff', with a few 'things' and expectations thrown in along the way for good measure.
I never actively chose to do, or more importantly to 'be', anything.
I am sure there have been rare moments of temporal lucidity that allowed me some illusion of a modicum of control here and there, but to all intents and purposes, I have just, 'rolled with it', keeping my head just above the surface, (to mix the metaphor).
A couple of weeks back after a whole raft of jobs being completed in our home, plastering, media wall, flooring throughout the whole of downstairs and my daughter moving back home from the city of Manchester with an entire apartment's worth of stuff to fit in to our modest sized home (read small), and the painful decision to have our beloved 16 year old, springer spaniel, Holly put to sleep... I felt MASSIVELY out of control of everything.
So, I made some decisions.
The main one being, that I am going to take back control.
I am going to be in control of my life.
I am almost 53, so that may cause me to sound like a bit of a pathetic specimen, but I own it. It is where I am. There is little point of lying about it and after all, who would I REALLY be lying to, if not myself?
It is now 18 months since I almost died in hospital from an infected pancreas, that subsequently saw part of it die off and then had another brutal, 'close call', fight with sepsis and another lengthy stay in hospital.
Those two incidents caused me to change massively how I saw my life and very much altered my impression of what is and is not important.
I could barely walk and it took a long, long time to start to feel anything like who I was. I will never be fully the me that was, but I have long since made peace with that, and resolved to be the best version of me I can possibly be with a few life changes and some new complications to consider.
There will be bumps in the road, welcome to life, what else is new?
At the end of all the work in our home, it was like a bomb site. It was affecting me big time but seemed such a huge, daunting job to put it back in order. So I resolved to undertake one pitifully small task at a time and not pressure myself to do anything major.
It was indeed a long drawn out process. BUT... I finished! Not as fast as I would have liked, not with the burst of energy I wish I could have summoned. but I did indeed finish, today as it happens. Even with the allowances I had made for my reduced capacity taken in to account I had set a finish date of July 31st...
Today is indeed August 1st but I didn't deduct myself any points for missing my goal as I was just so happy to reach the finish line, albeit a day late.
I view this as practice for being able to re-join the world of work, I have set a date of January 1st to be in a position to do this, and if it takes slighter longer, I will adapt. This will be a tougher goal and may require an employer able to make some slight allowances for some of my health challenges and sudden onset of fatigue although I am learning to manage this better, but I am confident that where there is a will...
I am currently experimenting with putting my body under a little stress, sometimes I have badly misjudged and overdone it with some reasonably serious side effects but I am learning where I am at. and trying to 'hopefully', control this better and get stronger and develop a little resilience and endurance in the process.
This is feeling a little self indulgent now, so I should move on but maybe it is like, I am putting it down here, to keep myself on track, kinda like, 'well I said it now, so I need to follow through'.
The goal for the beginning of next week is to start taking walks, short at the start, I imagine, and getting further and further over time. I yearn to feel strong again, not that I was ever exactly an athlete, but I could walk for hours and had a seriously manual job, the type of job that I now fully accept is behind me, but there will be a new me at the end of it...
Not that there is ever really an end ...
Until there is of course, I am sure ya know what I mean...
So as we approach the final month of the second third of the year, I feel optimistic and grateful that I am still here, both Hive and indeed this little planet we all share.
I sincerely hope, the best is yet to come, even if it is not my old best and for you Dear Reader, I sincerely hope, the best is yet come too.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read my, often disjointed ramblings and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!
Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated!
Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here and in the 'so-called' real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know...
I am an incredibly proud member of #TeamUK I love the global community immensely, but it is nice to have a home-team banner to add to my posts. The banner was made by the inimitable RoastMaster General himself @c0ff33a If you are an active UK member and would like to be added to the teamUK community on Discord, just let me know 😎
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Good to see you posting again. Glad you were able to do some work on your house. Sorry to hear about your dog. Hopefully you can find a part time job. A 20 hour per week job would be a lot less draining than 40 hours. And certainly no night shifts like before at the food factory.
My year has gone by quickly as well. A lot of unexpected stuff has happened. So most of my time and energy has gone into putting out fires.
Hey man, always great to catch up 😎
Hope the firefighting hasn't taken too much of a toll and you are good, one thing is for sure, there's always another fire in our near future, some fizzle out and some rapidly become an inferno, we muddle through as best we can.
I am going to try my hand at a few online things between now and year's end, it doesn't hurt to try something new, but yeah less hours would be great but I reckon if I can strengthen up a bit and choose a less manual job, I will get used to it.
Thanks for checking in, stay awesome my friend!
D'Ya know Steven, time really is moving faster. Apparently these Monks from Mount Athos, known for their deep spiritual discipline and consistency, have noticed peculiar changes that support this. For centuries, they’ve used handmade candles designed to burn exactly 24 hours. The process of making these candles hasn't changed, yet today, the same candles burn noticeably longer.
Similarly, their daily prayers, which follow precise timing and repetition, no longer fit into the same timeframes. You're gettin' older, faster so you'd better get a wiggle on!
Well hello M'dear!
Fashionably tardy as ever here in catching up with all those comments I missed in one of life's oh-so-many (but less frequent) lulls.
I am fairly certain I have written about my slightly off the wall beliefs around the concept of time here before. I have long believed that time is one of those things that man quantified and wrapped up in a neat little package with as bow atop long since.
But much in the same vein that temperatures on this little orb are not static or linear as we would understand the concept, why should the passage of time in space, (if that is even a thing) be any different.
I am not fully on board with the concept of space, or at least spacial understanding either. I think many things have been quantified and explained with the limited amount of tools available to us and perhaps a sprinkling of flawed logic.
Take that feeling that we all have at one time or another, of time compression for want of a better description... Sometimes we have perfect recall of something that was decades ago, yet have blind spots in the memory of things that transpired, mere months ago...
Thank you for the metaphorical kick up the ass... Consider my wiggle, very much ON! 🐛😎
Cheers man! Life is for sure all about adaptations and adjustments. When something isn't quite right, we have to adjust, whether it be a lot or a little. The adjustments come at a cost of course, but overall they should eventually even out to something we can manage, or we just continue adjusting until we feel as good as it can be.
I'm glad that you got some work done on the abode and have things getting back to better. It is for sure important to do one bit at a time, instead of trying to do everything at once because then nothing gets done, so that's good!
Here's to taking some walks and getting stronger day by day. My neighbor had surgery earlier this year and he was miserable for months but I helped him in a few ways, and one was to get out walking. He's been walking every day for a few months now and is up to 5 miles! After surgery he couldn't walk up the stairs. Keep your chin up man! One foot in front of the other is all it takes, then momentum builds!
Thanks for the 'very you', encouragement dude, it is welcome and very well received.
I have indeed, totally overdone it a few times, and adapt to the new limits afterwards, I confess that the old me would have tried to do 5k from a standing start and crashed and burned. The thing is though, (in the spirit of my post), time passes so bloody fast that if you scale up daily or weekly in small increments you are far down the track much quicker than you expected.
I was talking to someone a couple of months back who had success with weight loss, gained it all back, then had success again, obviously I spoke of mindset but when they listed some MASSIVE weight loss goals, I ran the numbers if you went for something tiny like a half a pound a week with consistent results you would be 52lbs lighter in just 2 years, who wouldn't take that as a locked in guarantee?
BUT it sounds tiny and pathetic when you think of such tiny numbers, we have it wrong, I think, and of course most people would have many weeks where they dwarfed their goal and went further, faster.
I am certain your neighbour is extremely grateful to have you in his life, sometimes a few words from another can make all the difference and illuminate a path they may not have even considered or believed possible. Good on you mate 😎
Greetings @stevenwood ,
Lovely to hear from you.....Life gets in the way sometimes....does it not! ^__^
Happy to hear you are still with us...despite your physical trials.
Sounds like you are determined and have accepted doing things that want doing at a slower pace....Well done!
Kindest Regards,
Bleujay
Very much, likewise 😎
Yes indeed, still kicking around but very much lower kicks these days, it seems my can-can days may be behind me, probably best for all concerned. Life does have a way, yes. Slower pace has been frustrating for me if I am completely honest, maybe even led to some uncharacteristic anger issues, with myself of course.
Common sense prevailed in the end, thankfully and funnily enough slowing down allowed me to find my base level and start to measure incremental progress and set some 'gentler' goals and feel a sense of purpose and progress again. I'm sure there's a timeless truth there somewhere 😏
May August bring brightness, bounty and blooms to you and yours, thank you so very much for stopping by, it is more appreciated than you probably imagine 😊🌻
Sometimes the health challenges keep me away for a little while, but I always try and get back to those who are awesome enough to send happy thoughts, spread optimism and best wishes.
Thank you man!
May the better days be along the path for us all.
Be well, have a great new week! 😎
Such a powerful reminder! It’s never too late to grow and improve, but time truly waits for no one—make each moment count. ⏳💫
Yes indeed, time is like a butterfly that is impossible to catch or slow down, it runs at it's own pace and will one day be gone altogether.
But that doesn't need to be a sad thing, just a reality with an attached warning saying , 'enjoy as much as possible, don't take for granted, time limited offer'.
Thank you so much for stopping by 🌻