Reply To: Wannabefree’s Friday night Blog…

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone…

Something that I have been thinking about this week, is the amount of stuff being pushed on the radio about getting help… Apparently there are phone lines being set up… I don’t know where though…

I can remember wanting to be trained in how to help people with our difficulties. But they wanted academic people, because the ‘qualification’ was so high… Of course, I’m not academic at all. So I failed halfway through the course. In the late 1990’s it was known as project 2000 (P2000) nursing training, linked between a hospital and a university. The course itself got scrapped before it got to the year 2000 anyway. It trained managers, not carers.

Having had a lifetime of mental health difficulties, I instantly ‘gelled’ with patients. We had a shared appreciation of how we felt. But the study was horrendous, and ‘learning outcomes’ totally unattainable.

I’d figured that, If I was trained how to help others, I would help myself at the same time… But it didn’t work out like that at all.

In my late sixties, I still wonder what my purpose, is on this planet, assuming there is one of course. (Purpose!).

I have been through industries long gone now, despite the predictions of my careers officers at school.

I wonder how my grandchildren will fare… What will industry look like in say, twenty years time.

Today I have some free time, which makes a nice change. I go to my doctors for a checkup today, something to do with possibly becoming an epelleptic person. (How do we spell that word?!)  I look out of my kitchen window at the frost on the roofs. On the lawn too. It makes my garden look as well-kept as my neighbours!.  When I was a professional gardener, I would be outside in it… Really cold. But now, I just get to look at it from indoors, and sip at a nice cup of coffee, and even a chocolate biscuit today!

I know that, due to the new  concept of ‘Bontamination’, that everything I come into contact with today, will be fine… In the supermarket to get milk… I have never, ever washed a plastic milk bottle before opening it. Nor any other screwtop bottle for that matter. And yet, Years ago, the checkout operator would always check that the tops were on tight, before placing them into those old paper carrier bags… Even from the milkman… And we have survived. Well we have, Haven’t we?

One thought has come to mind this week for the first time… When I eat a cake, I use my fingers, even lick the cream off to clean them before wiping them dry on my trousers… No problem with that at all. BUT, if you use the antibac gel on your fingers before eating the cake, your fingers, though clean, taste absolutely foul! So that is one to think about when we go into our favourite burger cafe. Incidentally, I have never noticed anyone else clean their hands before having a burger. After all, where could you do that? We’ve all heard about the terrors of toilet room doors… Maybe it’s not that dangerous anyway… Kids don’t usually give a second thought to things like that, they just want the fries, and quickly!!

And we use touch screens to order the food… Bank cards to pay… It is a good thing we have our own immune systems. It is the disinfectant companies trying to sell us this stuff in the main. Ordinary living is by it’s very nature, Never sterile. Our largest ‘organ’, the skin, is protecting our internal structures 24/7   every day and night of the years of our lives. We occasionally get ill, but we usually get better again. And that is how natural balance works.

So… A little bit less cleaning… Just a little bit less…  We are part of nature, not the other way around. Let’s look at ways this week of how we can relax into things a little. A favourite chair… Without spraying it first. Wear that favourite item of clothing we have only worn once since it went in the machine…

A favourite CD to listen to, without wondering how many people have handled it before me. If it is clean enough to put in the machine to play, then it is certainly okay to handle. Just remember for a moment the ‘old’ days of gramophone records at birthday parties. Anyone remember the ‘autochanger’ system with maybe eight records stacked together? 1 slightly heat-warped record would send the music into total dissarray!

Okay… Time to prepare a meal… Toasted crumpets with cheese on… I have never, ever, washed a pack of cheese before opening it… I just get at the cheese and enjoy! I don’t even think about the checkouts at whatever shop where I will have bought it from…

I am protected… We all are… By the very nature we are all a very small part of.

Can I do this for maybe the next ten minutes… An hour perhaps… Just maybe, the chair on which I sit is okay… That I really don’t have to check my shoes… I can eat that food with my fingers… After all… If it’s okay for other people, then  Whyever should it not be okay for little old me?

Next week we will have got through another week, just as we have this past week, right now. It will be the 26th of January… Nearly into February, and beyond that, A promise of Springtime when new growth starts all around us. The bulbs will come through… The lawn will need mowing! (Groan!) But the sun will shine gently warm again, lighting up our evenings and mornings, and hopefully a bit of joyfulness. (I may have to work on that last bit…)

So, let’s all be good to ourselves out there. one day at a time… Even one breath at a time. The human heart does it all, One beat at a time. And it actually rests between beats!

Until next week then,  Friday 26/01/24.  At about 6pm. Right here.

Wannabe