Wannabefree’s Friday night Blog…

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi dear friends… I forgot!!!! It has been so busy this week. I have a terrible cold, and if anything is going to drag me down, a cold is the very thing… It has been terribly stressful, church has been crap, so I  have left.  They really didn’t want me there… To be honest, it was more of a theatre than church, and all the starring roles were going to the same people. The loud ones!

Tomorrow I have one last place to try…

Anyway… This weeks blog is all about the joy of sharing. One of the most satisfying things in life, that can literally cost nothi g, like a smile for instance… The financial  cost is irrelevant,  in fact, the less money involved, the more valuable the outcome.

The thing is, it is totally impossible to ‘share’ anything you don’t truly own or hold true deep emotional attachment to. In other words, it is impossible to share forward something that really belongs to someone else, or that you haven’t actually bought yourself.

If a business person, on their way home from work, say, calls at a petrol station for fuel, and gets it on their expense account, also picks up chocolates and flowers for their partner, on that same account, it does not constitute a gift. At all… The businesshas got them on the cheap, ie for nothing. The recipient on the other hand, through their payment of taxes etc, has actually bought their own gift… Not very romantic is it?

Consider another option… Have you seen the chocolate advert of the little girl buying a birthday present for her Mum. The reaction by the shopkeeper is priceless.

We can do that…

A nine year old boy saves his pocket money, to buy a packet of chocolate biscuits… (You may have noticed by this point, that I have a bit of a thing about chocolate!).  He finds a plate, and lays the biscuits out in a nice pattern, and takes them to people he knows. It is only a few biscuits, but the joy of sharing is totally priceless,  totally immense. He is sharing something he truly owns. He feels really appreciated and special. That is how things need to happen, if society is to survive and move on.

But in my case, that didn’t happen this last three years or so, with the church I tried so hard to be part of. My gift is an ability to play the organ, both hands and feet, and entirely by ear, I  cannot read music notation.  They don’t like organ,  I don’t dress posh, and so on…

Three years ago, I  invited someone to come to my home… I offered them a chance to play my musical equipment,  and have a coffee… They came just once… I kind of assumed they would return the favour… No chance. Not only that, the equipment in the church building was totally off-limits to me. And they made sure I knew it.  So I  built my own, rinning up an absolute fortune on credit cards, in a futile attempt to get into their clique.

So, My next question  is…

What do you do, when you try to share something when no one else wants it? They literally refused to hypotheticacally ‘eat any of the biscuits I offered them’. They effectively rejected me… still that nineyearold boy, holding back the tears. Cos boys aren’t supposed to cry…

So I have now done what the boy did, taken my biscuits home, never to return to those horrible uncaring people.

A church really shouldn’t  be like that… I  guess they were there to perform and be seen, rather than worship.

Could this be the reason that churches have fewer people in them these days?

I am now out of that toxic relationship. I  have set up my instruments at home. I am very choosy about who I  invite now.

So, seeking out nice people to share just a smile with, is the order of this week… It costs nothing to sit in a library and smile at others around me. Just as for me, it may be the only smile they recieve all day… And we all understand  the importance of solving that one.

If no one appears to be interested in you, then you be interested in you. Give a friendly look at yourself in the mirror. Treat yourself to a packet of chocolate biscuits (or even wagonwheels!)

In the words of the carpenters song, ‘Don’t  worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear, Just sing, sing your song…’

Mamas and papas, and paloma faith,  ‘Make your own kind 9f music, sing your own special song, even if nobody else sings along.

And finally; Desiderata, by Les Crane. Check them all out on YouTube. Sing along to them, make the words your own. I’m off to do that right now.

Until next week dear friends… Hopefully Friday,  at about 6pm, right here.

Wannabe

 

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi dear friends.. Well, I  don’t know about you, but for me, this week has been a real struggle. I have the flu… Now if there is anything guaranteed to drive me to despair, it is the symptoms of flu. We all know how awful it is, I don’t  need to remind you or me.

This week, there has been a major breakcown in communication at my local church/social circle.

How often do you send say, an email, only for it not get answered for days, if ever…  You have reached out, but if others don respond, how can you work out where you stand?

Some years ago, I  enrolled on a project 2000 nursing course. I figured that, if I  could learn how to help others, I would be better quipped to help myself too… Except that, we usually didn’t have enough resources to help those in our care, and became far too exhausted to do much but collapse at the end of a shift, assuming of course, that the next shift team came in to relieve us… If not, we stayed until we dropped.

I was on an rmn course, a mental health nurse. One of the key things in nursing, is engaging eye contact with patients. A large proportion of commu icating, is through the eyes. On one tv programme, the charge nurse, an rmn, virtually never looked anyone else in the eyes. Not a very accurate portrayal at all.

A good measure of why this approach failed, is to watch someone talking on the telephone. Just look at the body language! The person at the other end  cannot  see any of the hand waving and head shaking!

Well, I emailed someone importamt, and asked their opinion on something, an issue close to my heart, that had bedn concsring me for sevdral years, to the point where I  had basically decided to leave, and go somewhere instead. My partner actually attended an unrelated meeting, but the someone important, had been already sorting out something for me. But they hadn’t e mailed me back, and as a result, I had almost actually transferred across. I had effectively left., made the break. I had been waiting for years…

I’m a bit confised and stressed at the moment… I honesbelieved that nobody there cared… The blank stares I got were testament to that…

They needed to let me know a lot earlier what they were looking at doing for me…

In past I was often badly let down… I am a wounded spirit, still needing fime to recover. This drives my smile grabbing…

Let’s see if we can ourselves take the initiative, push to get our own needs met, Only then can we possible raise the strengh to be able to uelp someone else…

Let’s  work on our communication this week. Be really brave and try eye contact with others… Say a cheery thankyou when someone helps us, like the till operator wherever you go, and feel the eventual lift in spirit. A little bit at a time, a day at a time, even a breath at a time, and then lets compare notes next week hypothetically, and see how we get on… It just might be fantastic…

Until next week dear friends….  Friday evening 26 April, at about 6pm, right here…

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi everyone…

‘Be the reason to make someone smile today…’

On a poster in a shop. Mmmmm, sounds like a good idea to me. If someone  smiles back at us, intentionally or not, it can give us a massive lift… In fact is genuinely does give us a massive lift. A big return for a relatively small outlay. The more we do it, the easier it gets. And the better it gets… Give it a week, this week, starting tomorrow…

One of the things people do in informal church gatherings, is give testimonies… Little snippets of wisdom, that are actually 99% positive… We emphasise on the nice things about our day, instead of focussing on the not so nice things. They may be difficult to find sometimes, but they are usually there somewhere.

I’m in my late sixties now, but one of the things I have taken to doing recently, is giving myself pocket money. It is only a few quid a week, but it is there, as small change. I then go into charity shops and buy what I  affectionately call ‘cuddlies’. Teddies, if you like. There is a vast array of them available these days, and surprisingly inexpensive… And oh so lovely to hold… wonderful colours… some fit in a jacket pocket… I get away with it by beinga grandad, but they are most definitely for me. I have them on chairs and shelves at home… Rows and rows of smiling faces… And you don’t feel so alone… And when there isn’t always someone around to cuddle us for real…

I finally gave in today, and went to my gp… I have been swallowing cattarh for about seven months… blocked/runny nose, burning eyes and throat etc. And very disturbed sleep. And that is guaranteed to make me feel crap… I have been prescribed a course of medicines… It is still only a few hours in, but just maybe, things are easing. We will have to see how it goes…

Have you noticed how expensive interior decorating materials are getting! I only want to mood up my bedroom, not Windsor Castle! Nowadays it costs more to paint a wall, than it used to actually build the wall! We have to be fairly sympathetic about colour, as it is a rented house.

One of the things I do now, is charge up my laptop pc, and go out to do a bit of writing…

I write letters to the people I hate! They don’t a tually get sent of course, but  I have them in my mind’s eye as I write! No one gets on with absolutely everyone of course, but I  guess we all will occassionally come face to face with a bully… One of the problems in my own church, is that some people have specific roles. And some go way over the top, get very judgemental,  vindictive, critical. I avoid them like the plague. Some faith groups have specific dress, that can become  more like a theatrical costume on a metaphorical stage…

These people destroy togetherness and friendships… I wonder if that is the reason there are so many denominations?

Tomorrow,  I  go to the park with the grandchildren… Assuming I can come close to keeping up with them…

One thought to consider till next week… ‘For the first eleven years or so of a childs life, we are constantly trying to get them to stop, sit still, and behave in some way… At thirteen, they don’t want to do anything but laze around and do very little… Who stopped them?!!!

Okay… Let’s be good to ourselves this coming week… Maybe buy that special pack pf biscuits, or tiny cuddly toy from the charity shop… And don’t forget to ‘grab a smile’. That other person will need it just as much as you and me.

To finish for this week right where we began then…

Let’s be the reason to make someone else smile today…

Until next week then, dear friends, same time, same place, right here.

Wannabe

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Typing late tonight!!!

[wannabefreeParticipantParticipant]

Hi dear friends… Running a little late today, trying to sort out computer printer problems…

Okay, today, it is the subject of being taken advantage of… As ocders, we are often the sensitive caring ones… If someone needs help, we can be generous to be well thought of. But, unfortunately, that leaves us very vulnerable.  People get upset with me cos I  don’t  like to borrow. They say that I am ungrateful of their offer.

The thing is, in my experience, I  would borrow something , maybe a tool, in the past, from them, it would invariably  break, meaning that I  would feel indebted to replace it, at my own cost, do their job for them, then give them the tool I had bought, often with no thanks for anything. And cos I  was family, I  recieved no payment for the job either. So I  ended up keeping my distance, where people thought I  was being selfish and idle…

Why is it, that, the more generous we try to be, the more and more they want off us?

They are really being greedy…

So nowadays, I try to have my own, even an if basic, as long as it works… My own printer will have me paying for my own ink… Not getting moaned at for using theirs… And these people, who do exist, are seen as respectable people in my community!

We are sensitive, but we don’t  get lifted to bring our own unique qualities to light. We are deliberately knocked down to keep others in the limelight.

In some churches, it is more like a theatre than a place of worship… The same people there to be seen… Celebrities,  people who think they should be admired and celebrated,  emphasis on the word ‘think’.

I want to feel loved, it is a basic human need… I will deliberately  walk through streets knowing that others will be coming towards me, that way I usually get a response when smiling and saying ‘hi’ It’s adictive, you try it. A quick walk around the block… Others  need it just as much as we do… it is a basic human need, as natural as we are.

I often go into charity shops to buy cuddly toys… Especially brightly coloured smiling ones…

I would much rather be a nice person,  than a rich arrogant one…

Last week, in church, we were asked to write a sticker on a name badge for ourselves… some had lots  of stickers, some that others had put on their jerseys too…

I had just one… ‘Grandad’.

Until next friday dear friends, hopefully I  will be a bit further with getting obsolete computers to work… They are the only ones I can afford right now…

Until Next Friday, 10, May, about 6pm. Right here.

Wannabe

 

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