My Everchanging Plot of Life

Exhausted I am, positively exhausted, but it's no use taking myself off to bed yet, I'm too wound up.

Been taking a lot of flack from an even more exhausted and over-stressed out friend... hopefully things have sorted a bit now, but there's a nasty pattern developing, of flaring up at me, regardless of who the anger really should be directed at, and I really, really don't like it. I do want to be supportive, but I don't want to encourage this either, and at some point soon, need to tackle her about it all. I know why it's me, and I know, on the whole, I handle her when she's like this better than most people, but even so, enough is enough.

Still, hopefully, I really have got a decent break from it all now! The phone's been quiet... I think I can relax and switch off now!

Of course, I didn't help myself by staying up late last night, then waking at an unreasonable hour, unable to get back to sleep, mostly because I was nervous! I was preaching somewhere different. The priest of the parish is an now a friend of many years standing, though we first met via youth work when he was one of the younger leaders in something I was responsible for running.

His church has two services in the morning, a more traditional formal one, and a more informal one afterwards. I stayed on for the second service - it was definitely what I needed! For lots of reasons.

Tomorrow, or rather later today, now I see the time, has got to be an accounts day... woe. I'd rather be doing lots of other things.

And now, I need to sleep! Goodnight.

Dear me, I appear to be having a weepy day, in between piano practice, writing tomorrow's sermon, cleaning my desk (I was so horrified by the last cleaning, I have resolved to clean it properly much more regularly) hoovering and restoring order to the knickers and socks drawer, yet again.

I'm sure I'm not making matters any better by continuing to listen to the CD that's setting it all off. It's work-related, though, and I've got to do it. I need to have several things from this clear in my brain before I'm very much older.

There are huge numbers of memories attached to this particular musical for me. Learning it at 6th Form, then not being allowed by my parents to be in the performances for reasons I never saw as logical. (No-one could persuade them that it wasn't going to be too much for me being in the performance that night, then going off to France the next day.) Which then led me down memories of being in seriously in love for the first time, and what it was that caused that to flounder two years afterwards.

Then, when I was working as a classroom assistant and played it for performances that year's Year Six did... It was a job I really loved, and am seriously wondering about getting back into. It also contains one of the songs I used with one of the children with whom I worked most closely whenever he hit a really bad patch, and it helped calm him! Bizarre, but true... I'd play it and sing, and he'd bang whatever instruments I'd drag out of the percussion box for him, and it usually did the trick. I got to really, really hate the song, but could appreciate it made my job easier!

Now, there's a new bunch of memories to be attached.

But, what also seems to be kicking into my system is a deeper understanding of the story, a well-known Old Testament story. One of the ones I tend to groan at every time it comes up in the course of the readings, as I mistakenly think I know everything there is to know about it.

How weird... but I'm going with it, it seems to be right for now.

Now, where's that hankie box again!! And isn't it a good job I've got some yummy chocolates.

....discovering something really yummy (a box of very nice chocolates!!)in the bargain section of the supermarket, something I wouldn't dream of buying otherwise. Then eating it all in one go, because it would be a sin to let it go past the Best Before date on Monday.

....the realisation that one area of difficulty is going to be eased very soon.

....a weekend ahead of pleasant activities.

....settling into new routines and finding they are working. To my great surprise.

....having solved the jeans conundrum for the time being.

....spending book tokens on books I want, not books I need.

Mostly, it's been pretty quiet here today. I've been keeping my head down and keeping me out of mischief. (OK, OK, I can hear all the sniggers.)

It was even a very quiet singing practice tonight, only a few turned up, rather than the usual 20 or so.

I might even go and have the early night I've been threatening for days, and never managed!!

I’m recovering from various events and very deep discussions, and an Official Occasion last night was enough to finish me off… so, I overslept this morning. Tomorrow would’ve been better, as I’m usually somewhere else on a Wednesday, but as my presence is not essential, they kindly accepted my profuse apologies, and let me take the morning off!

So, I’ve unpacked the rucksack and I think the words that had been deserting me since about last Friday have now emerged as well…

Whilst I’m still very, very tired – I’m feeling a lot more positive about whatever the future is going to hold, and a lot more content to be in the present, thinking and praying, and then be ready to make the decisions that need to be made at the right time.. There are several layers to my life that have major decision making processes going on … and I’ve just added another layer. it might all lead to even further chaos, it might not.

But, for the first time in 20 years, it seems like I’m ready to look at a great deal that needs to be sorted, acknowledged and accepted for what it really is, and I’ve found a safe place and person to do it all with.

It’s scary – it’s a bit annoying, because I though I’d done most of the work a long while ago, and it seems there loads more to do, but it’s right.

I can't think why, but recently, there has been much in the way of disbelief on the part of people who know me very well, fairly well and not so well, as to my ability to behave correctly.

More to the point, there has been much giggling at me on the part of most of them.

Pah. I say.

Been an action packed few days, and I’m a little weary now…

Lots to think about and lots to follow up! I’ve been making the lists.

It’s a year, almost since I moved here. Can’t quite believe that.

It won't unpack itself, either.

I'm all worded out for the time being!!

Back later.

And wondering why it won’t pack itself.

To more interesting matters…

We started practising the songs again last night, after a couple of weeks break. The person most in need of extra work is me!! Luckily, we now have two months grace, and can make a much better job of it all. We’d’ve done absolutely fine for the original purpose of doing these songs, but now we’ve got a chance to practice more, we are all keen to do them well. I need not to watch or listen to the asides that have worked their way in to this – I’ve been getting the giggles in some very daft places, and when I’m concentrating on counting 7 beats to a bar, or frantically trying to keep to a calypso beat, instead of a simple 4/4 this is unhelpful!!

My stomach is churning wildly. Three months worth of thinking about some pretty major stuff is about to be discussed very thoroughly, and I’m not looking forwards to it at all. It needs to be done and I need to say it all, and not chicken out. There is potential for a huge glaring competition!!

Wedding Number Three of the month is tomorrow. And I’m not playing for it!!! In fact, all I need to do is turn up, wearing official outfit, and try to behave myself. There is huge potential for me not to, despite the fact that for a large number of the guests I have been an Important and Responsible Grown-up in their past. I am inclined to forget I am no longer responsible for their behaviour en masse any more.

No – that rucksack’s still not packed itself, so I’d better do it and go and catch that train.

Back in a couple of days…

As a reward for completing this mornings work faster than I thought I might, I decided to be brave and try the new Design Wizard.

The button says "Convert Me".

I prayed very hard before I clicked the button.

Then I panicked, and wondered if I really wanted to be converted.

I'm sure this is deeply, deeply significant.

Now I know I don't have to go out for a nebulous something or other at 11 or 11.30, but 12.45 instead, I can do some work.

Oh dear... I'd devised all kinds of procrastination devices, and none of them are going to work now.

Chase me back to the accounts if I'm seen lurking here too much.

 

Just cleaned my desk.

The cloth turned black.

The desk is a different colour.

No wonder I've been having a germ laden few days!!

All the official questions I’ve got to think about appear to have addled my other thinking processes! Still, I have a clear desk and organised paperwork.

Then, I did a bit of a mental sidetrack this morning about how I tend to assume if something’s gone wrong it’s got to be All My Fault.

I grew up with strong ideas that come back to haunt me… Like –

·         it didn’t matter what I did, I was never going to be good enough,

·         but – contrarily, I wasn’t to make it obvious I was good at things….

·         I was awkward and difficult.

·         that my thoughts and opinions were bound to be wrong.

·         I should be content with the tight boundaries of who I could interact with, and not need anyone beyond the immediate family.

·         That I should be the person I was wanted to be, not the person I was.

But, fundamentally, the idea it was All My Fault, even if it wasn’t, was deeply imbedded in me at a pretty young age.

There are loads of other contributing factors – but I recently met, at a social occasion, someone who spent four years in the 1990s drumming further into me that which went wrong was automatically my fault. We coped, were even polite to each other, but I was shaking inside by the end of the evening.

What did I do wrong in this person’s eyes? Well, this could range from dinner being five minutes late, to the fact I occasionally needed time out, to being good at what I did, to the weather being wrong, to the fact the working relationship had broken down to such an extent that I was seriously considering suicide as the only way I could see out, to the fact I knew Boyzone was spelt that way, to the fact my mum died at an incredibly inconvenient time and I was phoned every day for seven days with demands for my return as I was being selfish by staying away.  

My main faults, as far as I could see, were not being able to be a “Yes” person, and that when I’ve lost respect for and trust in someone, it’s enormously difficult for me to rebuild that respect and trust.

It was also one of those awful situations where I’d been saying things were wrong for years, and not been listened to – I was told I needed to work harder at it, I needed to ask myself what I was doing to make things worse… and the harder I tried to explain, the more it was brushed under the carpet. Not until the same things were happening to other people, and to people who were, on the whole, taken more seriously than me, did anything begin to happen.

A year or so after I was moved out, things came to a head – she moved on, and I stayed. The after-effects rumbled on and still do occasionally.

I grew very, very wary. I leapt at the opportunity to get out of an all female environment… and for five years, was away from it all. Could be I was avoiding the issues though I had developed better skills at coping with women who I found really difficult. Could be I was just happier in what I was doing. Could be I was in an environment where I felt totally accepted for being myself, and no pressure on me to be something different.

The three or four people who I’ve clashed with spectacularly do remind me very strongly of parental traits I hated, or sides of myself I’d rather not acknowledge. I mostly know that, and work with it!! I try not to blame them for that. I sometimes wonder, however, if the fact I know this hinders rather than helps. It helps when my reactions seem all out of proportion. It hinders when I’m inclined to avoid sorting something out because I’m convinced it’s not going to work out, because I know it’ll All Be My Fault. 

Yet – I know it’s not!! In all these circumstances, there have been more than me involved; they have had their part to play.

I also need to remind myself I get on well with a large number of people, and can work well in situations others find horrendously difficult. When I was apologising to someone recently for a mis-understanding, her take was she was only so taken aback because she’d never, in all the years she’d known me ever known me to storm out and not to take a few moments to try and understand what was going on.

The friends who know me best all remind me I’ve lived in circumstances that would’ve driven them to giving up, moving on or out.

The friends I have who do remember my mum also remind me it wasn’t just me who found her difficult.

An official batch of papers arrived this morning. It included questions to think about and yet another long drawn out timetable for a particular process.

I am not inspired.

I am so not inspired.

I have the serious brain ache.

I know I don’t react well to these kinds of “Review” processes. I don’t do dreams and visions, I have good reason not to. I think this will be the end of the line for the one dream I’ve held onto for a long time now. Realistically, it’s just not possible.

I really don’t react well to being told everyone’s thoughts and ideas are valued and need to be voiced. It’s not been my experience in this kind of process in this setting before now. I dared to say what I was really thinking in the last official conversation I had to partake in, and was blasted from here to eternity, and left feeling a complete failure. Again.

I know this process has to happen, I know things can’t go on as they are. I just don't have the energy or enthusiasm for it.

Like I said, I’ve got the serious brain ache.

What am I doing up so early on a Saturday?

I did go to bed uncharacteristically early last night. I do have to go and feed the cat I’m in charge of until Monday… I’m better with animals than plants, but not much! Luckily, I get left an essay length list of instructions, including a phone number for the vet if need be! Unlike with the plants, where I’m told just to water them – and no amount of me saying I don’t have a clue what I’m doing will get me a simple list! Mind you, after the debacle of spending all day Monday hunting for £24.73 that I was never going to find, it’s probably asking a bit much of someone who doesn’t do words. (Or only does words in matters that interest her! My observation is I get absolutely no communication what so ever, weird looks if I ask questions, or non-stop monologue on matters way over my head.)

Then, it’s off into the wilds of the far outreaches of this city to play for Wedding Number Two of this month. That’s not until the afternoon, but a little meander of the humungous shopping complex next to the church might not go amiss.

Best go feed this cat before he does destructive!

But having had an exciting trip out to the far flung corners of North Lincolnshire, it's taking me a little while to unwind.

Lovely drive there, and back - with at least four opportunities to practice not saying "I told you so."

Bad, bad moment when unexpectedly coming face to face with someone who'd made my life incredibly difficult for some years, but it's better than it used to be, we can at least remain in the same room and converse civilly now. We have several mutual friends, and will keep coming across each other from time to time. if I'd engaged brain before leaving home, I'd've realised it was a strong possibility this could occur.

Day off tomorrow... with a car at my disposal for a good chunk of it!!

I am.

I’ve just suggested to a 19 year old of my acquaintance that it’s perfectly possible to travel by public transport and not expect her parents to re-arrange their lives to take her to and fro from one major city to another all over the summer. Yes, there are regular and frequent rail and coach routes to and from both these cities.

Maybe this is the result of my own particularly hard-hearted parents who outright refused to act as a chauffeuring service once I was of an age to get about by myself and if I refused to learn to drive until the mature age of 31, well, that was my look out.

Moreover, whilst they agreed to my being back in the parental dwelling over the first and second summers of my student days, I certainly had to earn my keep by doing 95% of the household chores, as well as working to provide enough money to eat whilst I was at college (very complex story about full grant awarded, but summer terms always withheld…disorganised self-employed parents are a pain.) and for anything exciting I might want to do over the summer, like take a bus ride to the next town, maybe. Or the occasional chocolate bar.

OK, I may be exaggerating a little about the amount of housework – maybe it was only 90%.

I must be getting old!

I’ve eaten today. First time properly since Saturday. No adverse reactions.

I ignored the rest of the accounts. I shall do them in peace and tranquillity another day before about 15th.

I am fascinated that a 17 year old who struggles with a stammer and education generally can hold a lucid and fluent discussion about technical musical terms and harmonic progressions. He had his first lesson on chord structures and technical names for chords today, and was immediately using all the correct terms!!!

It is lovely weather.

I lie.

I resent enormously spending a whole day trawling through accounts to answer a query, then on handing over what information I have and apologising that I couldn’t get it any more accurate than I had it, being told I wouldn’t, because I didn’t have all the information in the first place, and I need not have spent the time looking for it, because that’s not what I’d been asked to do.

Forgive me, but if I’m asked to do a report on whether or not all expenses have been reclaimed, if I can’t make the incoming and the outgoing figures match, then yes, I will spend time looking to see why.

I was convinced by 3.00 p.m. that I was going completely mad. I could not make these figures match up at all.

So, at 6.00 p.m., when I’m told I don’t even have the information in my bit of the accounts. I do what anyone feeling ill, hot and cross would do. I yelled. I stomped off out - which was a bit of a mistake; I’ve not really eaten properly since Saturday, and by the time I’d used up all the angry adrenaline, I felt like I was wading through treacle on the way home.

I’m about to go do what I should’ve spent the day doing, lying down and getting rid of this bug.

Been to church, preached, made myself cry... (but only once I'd sat down again.)

Going back to bed.

Too much emotion, little sleep, not hungry, (food isn't staying put, anyway..) verging on first migraine in 21 years, and I'd like to kill it before it emerges!

See you later.

Procrastinating!

It was a very pleasant wedding…and the bride and groom looked really, really happy! I’m ashamed of myself, I shouldn’t be so cynical. Combination of hormones, long experience of playing for weddings which have been a nightmare, and my general mood, I think.

In my defence, I find weddings boring to play for as it’s almost always the same two or three pieces of music that never get played to the end, and more and more it’s a CD that’s played during the signing of the registers. Then a couple of hymns that hardly anyone knows.

Funerals, from my point of view, have far more variety to them!! Unless, of course, I became a crematorium organist, who probably gets to play the same three or four hymns over and over and over all day! These are all banned at my own funeral.

But, I hadn’t done any back ups for a while, at all. Or cleaned my computer screen, or my mouse ball, or.... And, I needed to have something to do whilst avoiding doing something I’m annoyed I’ve been asked to do. But, I had put aside Monday for an accounts sort out day, and I can answer the question better after that. Anyway, when I’m asking for expenses back from somewhere else, I do keep a list for myself and not expect anyone else to create it.

However, I’ve got to go out and play for a wedding soon…and I’m putting off going out of the door for that, too. Actually, I could’ve been playing for three weddings this afternoon, but as I don’t tri-locate I regretfully had to say “No” to the other two. I’ve still got three weddings this month, though. Two to play for and one to attend.

It's no use, I’d better get on with it! Even if I hate weddings where I know all I’m going to do is enough of the music to get a bride into church, and husband and wife out of church… where I’m going to have to sing as well as play because no-one under the age of 50 who doesn’t go to church knows hymns anymore… where I really wonder why people want a church wedding when they don’t bother with God or matters of faith the rest of the time…

Ach, I wouldn’t listen to me – I’m getting very cynical about a lot of things!

A language of strange noises, generally associated with extreme stress, tiredness, and for those moments when all other words have failed. Indeed, for those occasions when words really aren't working. Even for the most verbally articulate in the English Language amongst us, of which the two of us communicating in Ug could normally be considered.

In this afternoons conversation, slumped around a kitchen table, we managed to convey an awful lot with very little other than "Ug", "mmmm" (at various pitches) and "More coffee?"

Mostly that we were very tired, but we had done a most excellent afternoons work, and that really was the end of a most interesting, small, but deeply significant chapter in our lives.

But the time has also come to keep consistent record of parts of my life... mood swings, eating patterns and hormones!!

I'm wondering about whether or not the surges of temper I've been experiencing in recent times are justified or not. Yes, there's been a lot of emotional stuff going on, and I've not been at my best. I'm not living in the easiest situation, the wider situation is getting horrendous, and some of my other work is also going through a really difficult patch.

And, for most of the time there isn't a problem, I'm more than practised at the art of appearing cool, calm and collected, when really I'm on the verge of blowing my top or bursting into tears but I do worry that a pattern is beginning to emerge that is worth taking seriously.

Fear not, gentle readers, I'm not going to inflict this information on you!! You are forbearing enough about the ups and downs and Lost-ness of my Plot, without taking on the over-eating/under-eating, occasionally temper tantrum-y, tearful and hormonally challenged soul that is rampaging about the Plot from time to time!! But, I do need to do it..

Yeuck.

To begin the process of making an appointment with the most phone and e-mail phobic of all the people I know. The absolute most? Well, there's stiff competition, but he's certainly in the top three. He only gets away with it because he does such a good job of what I need him to do when I eventually track him down...

To begin bringing the accounts to year end stage. Luckily it won't be difficult this year.

To sit down with the A5 ring binder that has grown like topsy since I acquired it, and do the replacing of outdated stuff with the up-to-date papers I've just been given.

To put some recent thinking into action. I was hoping some of the information I was being bombarded with yesterday might have been different. But it wasn't.

To get a teenager to teach me some of the subtleties of the mobile phone in my possession!

Via the Chocolate shop, so suffering slightly from a sugary hangover.

Bizarre Conversation with Landlord didn't actually take place, in that I left sad story as a message on answer machine, which had the entire office hysterical. But they did phone me back with a promise of prompt action! Especially when I pointed out that Elderly Gentleman was likely to do another hit and run.

I'm no longer home on my own, and I've been bombarded with information for the last three hours...

Methinks an early-ish night is called for... tomorrow brings many intriguing conundrums to solve.

Something tells me I'm not calming down at all.

My tolerance levels have just shot to rock bottom, and messing with me right now is dangerous.

I am more than tired of being the person everyone thinks they can blame for everything regardless of whether or not it's my responsibility to do something about it or not,.

I'm also tired of being a scapegoat.

I am going for a long walk!