Questions on my mind

I have many questions on my mind and not too many answers right now.  Maybe it will help if I put them all somewhere (like on here...)

Why aren't I getting any support from head office at work?
What do I have to do to get noticed for a promotion?
Why do I feel like I have just been sidelined as a "safe pair of hands" for my current role.
Will I ever find someone to accept me with all my problems and settle down with me?
Will I ever start a family?
Is it wrong to want love more than anything that I already have?
Why is the whole family thing suddenly back on my mind when I thought I had put it away for now?
Why can't I get a certain someone out of my head when I know that it's not a good thing to be thinking about?
What does God make out of all these questions that I have?
Am I being ungrateful for wanting more?
Does having dreams and ambitions make you ungrateful for what you already have?
Is this really what He wants me to be doing with my life?
Why can't I loose weight?
Am I really over the past and what happened back then?
If I am not over it (and I don't feel like I fully am) then what do I have to do to move on?
Why cant I find the strength to be the person I want to be, the person that I can feel trapped inside and can't quite set free?
What would Mum think about all this, what would she say to me if she was alive now?
Why couldn't I have been less of a little shit and actually opened up about everything that was happening instead of bottling it up and taking it out on everyone?
HOw much of what I'm feeling right now is about either regretting the past or living in the past instead of looking to the future?
Why can't I break the cycle of living on past upsets and past glories?

Frankly I don't know the answer to a lot of these, some I do know answers to but it doesn't seem t o get me any further.  I don't know what to make of any of it any more.  I think sometimes all I really need is for someone to give me a cuddle and tell me that it's all going to be alright.

Messengers

Sometimes the Lord seems to choose the strangest messengers.  Sometimes the message isn't quite what you were expecting!  I went to see an old friend yesterday - I haven't seen them for nearly a year, last time was at their wedding.  Anyway, besides the realisation that I need to make an effort to see them more often, comes the the strangest of experiences.

Firstly, their wife, who I have to admit that I don't really know that well yet as I have only met her a couple of times, starts having a whole heart to heart with me about finding the right person and how I still have time to have a family etc.  That really is a strange conversation to have with someone that you don't really know but it felt like a natural conversation.  I think it's fair to say that I really wasn't expecting that kind of message.  More to the point, I am really happy with the sentiment of it.  I mean. it's what I really wanted to hear.  Somehow I just have to believe that it will happen.  The only thing that might cause a set back is the 'problem'.  I guess I have to believe that for the right person, it wont be a problem any more and that there will be a way around things.

Secondly, having spent the day around their two little ones I suddenly realise that looking after children is not as hard as I though it was going to be.  Ok, yes I know that it was only one day but both of them were feeling under the weather and playing up a bit and I felt absolutely fine dealing with it all.  In the afternoon we went out for a bit and I ended up looking after one of them for a while and dealing with what they were throwing at me.  I think that I coped pretty well.  Yes I'm sure that there is much that I have to learn and at some point in the future if I have kids they will have me pulling my hair out and ready to scream blue murder - but the first work of not being able to do it has gone.  Also, despite being a majorly big kid at heart, I've always found it difficult to know what to say to kids when they are too young to have an adult level conversation.  I think I learned a fair amount on that front too, not perfected the technique yet but I learned so much in the space of 12 hours that I honestly believe that if I need to learn 'on the job' in the future, I can do it.

So there we go, an unexpected message, a very strange choice of messenger - but thank you none the less.  Maybe when I fasted a while back, it took a little time for the answer to be given.  I really feel like  so much of what was on my mind has had an answer given.  Not all of it, there was a question over my career too, but the idea of having a family and finding someone to settle down with is far more important and frankly something that I would rather focus on, God willing.

Trés Difficile

Title says it all.  For what is going on in my head right now is a bit of a mess.  WHat I think and feel don't seem to count, in as much as they are completely unobtainable feelings and thoughts.  Best left alone - pretty much like the rest of me!  I wish I didn't have these thoughts, and I have tried to put a positive spin on them from a certain angle.  I have to be careful what I say here, this blog could be read by the people concerned - it's no secret and whilst I don't think they pass this way, you never know.  Plausible deniability is everything (just ask the US government!).

So what it  comes down to is this.  This week I have been on holiday from work.  I haven't really done much, just pottered around at home and been lazy - exactly what I needed to do to get some passion back for work.  Its a job I enjoy but when you do it every day without time off you go stale.  So this time off, I've been thinking, not deliberately mid you, but thinking anyway.  And the same though comes back into my mind again and again.  Its not a great though from the point of view that its never going to happen, but the fact that I can even think about it gives me hope that all might not be lost.  It would be so easy just to start off... "I wish..."  "I want...", the difficult thing is not doing that and realising that I am to be strong and stick with it.  Its impractical and not right, Indeed not what is intended for me I am sure.

Despite the many heavenly blessings and the feeling that this could be a gift, I am pretty sure it is little more then the Devil tempting me.  Little more than a cheap offer for my soul.  It is an offer that is appealing to think of  but it cannot and will not be.  I must be strong in the face of this temptation, true to what I believe and hope that I can find what I am thinking of in another time and place when it is from the Lord and not the Devil.

Instead of "I wish..." , "I hope..."

"Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."
           - Tim Robbins, as Andy Dufrense - The Shawshank Redemption

Reflection

Well, I've fasted, and cleared my head as best as I could do.  It got pretty hard towards the end - I ended up feeling very light headed and had a headache too.  Not that I haven't fasted for a long while and I went longer than I initially planned to.  I went 48hrs in then end.  It wasn't initially intentional  but after I fell asleep at the end of day one and then woke up into day two, it seemed right ti continue.

So what did I hear? Indeed, did I hear anything?  That said, was I asking the right questions and was I asking hard enough?  The one thing that does seem to have made a bit of headway was a question that G put on her Facebook profile, about risking everything to travel to Mars one way, leaving everything else behind.  In that sort of situation I have to say that I would.  I'd leave everything in order to pursue  a means of getting away.  Suddenly this gets me thinking, this isnt really an answer to the questions that I have been asking, but it is an answer.  I hadn't really taken the time to conclude that I would actually be prepared to up ends and leave things.

Maybe a realisation then its not such  a  bad thing and that I should be ready to go with the flow on a change of direction.

I don't feel like this is the answer that I was hoping for - but who am I to decide what the right answer is?  One thing it has made me thin about is some kind of longer term fast.  Having done a bit of reading about fasting and how it was done in the time of Jesus, one theme keeps cropping up - that of fasting during daylight hours.  It seems logical, one could fast for a much longer period of time on such a method of fasting.  As we're only just past the autumn equinox, there's a fair balance between daylight and dark still.  If I was to do this, over what period of time? How?  If I was going to do this I would want to be able to go to church and pray - not necessarily in services but just to be able to go and sit quietly and meditate on the thoughts and questions that I have.

Many thoughts, and I'm out of time here as my break at work is over and i have to go back to the day job again.

16 Hours in

I began at midnight and on the whole I feel pretty good.  Its something to focus on and focus my thoughts around.  I think Ive been tested a bit this morning though, things going wrong, not in a big way but many little things.

I don't feel too hungry but I am aware of it.  Im supposed to be on lunch break right now and it does feel a little strange not eating but at the same time, the unfamiliarity of it makes me conscious of it and able to focus my thoughts around it.  Im pretty confident on making it to midnight without breaking.

Answers? , now that's another matter entirely.  Maybe I will have some kind of spontaneous realisation in one of the areas that I am focussing on.  Most probably I won't and I'll have to look and listen for any answers when they come.

I was working on some lyrics last night as well, sounding like a preacher as an MC.  I think it might work quite well if I can produce it right.

I'll check back in later on...

Insert witty title here

Feeling a bit tired at the moment.  Not helped by being up late last night working on a remix.  Work was pretty uninspiring today, nothing really bad but nothing to get excited about either.

I'm thinking of doing a fast.  It's popped in and out of my mind for a few days now.  Its something that I used to do periodically if I wanted to focus a prayer on one area or another.  A sort of self sacrifice for a short period of time.  I think I will do it.  Maybe aim for 24 hours from midnight tonight.

O know that tomorrow will be a busy day so it will be difficult, I'm bound to be really hungry by the end of it, but maybe that is the point.  Becuase I have not done it for a while, if it was an easy option it would hardly be a sacrifice would it?

Its going to be a difficult thing to try and hide from people, and I need to find some kind of focus point for everything.

“And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." (Mathew 6 : 16-18)

What I really need to do is try and focus all my thoughts into some kind of distilled prayer that makes some sense, rather than the rambling mess that I have at the moment.  I guess really its a lot of questions, not that I am expecting to get direct answers.  I don't think I want to put the questions here in public, although if you read the last couple of entries, you might get an idea about one of them.

I remember a phrase often shouted by the MCs when I was in my raving days - "Peace, Love and Unity, Inside the arena - the place to be!"  somehow that seems kind of fitting now in its own way.

I had a day off yesterday for the first time in ages.  Very welcome and it's allowed me to get a bit of energy back - although not as much as I need to.

Still felling a bit confused about the whole which Church thing.  Lord, if you used someone as a mouthpiece to plant the idea in my head, please use them again to give me a bit more instruction - I don't really know how to order what is in my head right now and make some sense out of it all.  I want somewhere to belong.  Somewhere that I can be myself and fell at home.  I guess what I am really asking is, Find me a Church (please).  The day-to-day life I lead is (not) fine but it's missing something again.  Its missing You.  I feel like its overhaul time, spring clean - or whatever you want to call it.  But maybe I need guidance as to what gets cleaned out.  I don't want to change who I am but I want to be a better person at the same time.  I don't think the two are mutually exclusive things.  What I do and how I do it, now those I can change with guidance.

Something Ive been working on over the last couple of days:  i wrote the first verse of lyrics a long time ago, under different circumstances, but they came back to me the other day and a whole new section flowed on from them.

White Comes The Light

White comes the light

There’s nothing to see

White comes the light

There’s nothing to say

One empty glass

And one lonely traveller

Is all that is left at the break of the day

White comes the light

There’s nothing to see

White comes the light

There’s nothing to say

One fleeting glimpse

And one distant memory

That parts when we’re done at the break of the day

White comes the light

There’s nothing to see

White comes the light

There’s nothing to say 

Searching inside

For something unspoken

These tears that i cried and you wiped them away.

White comes the light

There’s nothing to see

White comes the light

There’s nothing to say

Words of the truth, 

I’ll go where you guide me

I’ll walk in your shoes, if you show me the way.

White comes the light

There’s nothing to see

White comes the light

There’s nothing to say

Raise your hands high

For the words that are spoken

Show you the light and they show you the way.

Nihilistic self aggression

WOW - with a title like that I probably need a shrink!

Today has been a day that I'd rather forget - in fact so has last night for that matter.  Work has been pretty hard with stock taking last night and then a number of things going wrong today.  I just feel so much pent up frustration and aggression - and somehow i feel like I want to take it out on myself, like I am blaming myself for all of this.

That's crazy because 99% of what has happened is outside of my locus of control and the other 1% has been dealt with in what I hope will prove to be the correct manner.  Certainly the choices I have made in how I dealt with it seem the only logical choices, rational and correct with company procedure.  So that said, why do I feel the hurt and self aggression?  What am I going to do with it?  Am I going to do anything with it?

Well, I'm not going to do anything irrational I don't think.  that said, I have a very dear friend who had a period of time when they would self harm.. Now their reasons were fare more far reaching than mine, but they once said to me that it was a pin that took away the pain inside, by making it real and physical it masked the emotional.  I think I get just the tiniest little edge of what they mean.  I can see now how manifesting it upon yourself can have that effect.  I'm not heading down that road, but I can feel just a little bit of the self destructive side of it coming in.

Ok, and now on a different note - as in a complete 180 flip - The whole settle down and start a family thing has been going through my mind again today.  Little bits here and there, in fleeting glimpses.  this just as someone appears to show me the way back towards my faith a little bit.  Now this person is young, 19 and its not them that I'm thinking of, but it creates the thought that, somewhere out there there are women around my age that go to church, that have faith, that maybe I could meet somehow, somewhere - God willing.  Its always seemed a bit distant and far fetched but maybe it could exist.

I've come back to some lyrics that I started ages ago, when I was writing for 'G'.  They were as a religious song back then but it felt a little forced and not quite right - and never had any music to go with them anyway.  This time round, they feel a little better now that I'm rewriting them and the music seems to be coming with them as well.  So, in my own words, I offer:

White comes the light
There's nothing to see
White comes the light
There's nothing to say
One empty glass
And one lonely traveler,
Is all that is left at the break of the day.

...