Its been a while

Ok, so I haven't posted anything on here for a while. To be honest, there's not much going on.  The Christmas run up is not going as well as it could be - the fact that of the main products that people want, one is permanently out of stock and one is not even release yet, it really doesn't help the situation.  It's just getting a little wearing not having the stuff in stock and some customers are starting to get aggressive over it.

I've been off today - rostered day off to recover a bit!  I don't know why but I feel really depressed, I have the same feeling inside as a few years ago when I was in between previous and current employers.  I can only assume that it's a lack of sunlight or something.  That said, it was sunny today and I went out to the shops for a while so I did get a decent level of 'exposure'.  I don't know - things just feel strange right now.

I don't seem to have any enthusiasm, I feel lethargic and almost frustrated - but I don't know what with.

Not a good couple of days

There's plenty that's going right at them moment but it just seems to be one of those time that, just as you think you are in control of things, something comes along to prove that you have no control at all.  As Christmas comes nearer, I am starting to feel a positive uplift fro that.  Work is definitely getting busier, the weekend was the busiest for a very long time.  Along side that events that have been out of my control at work have come back to kick me in the gentlemans' area.  One way or another the finances on Sunday came up noticeably short.  After exploration there is no obvious reason for this, otherwise known as 'the busk will stop with me'.  I'm not sure what that means in reality - I've never been here before.  I have a suspicion that it could end up coming out of my wages.

There's other stuff as well, stuff that isn't related to this.  I don't know why but I'm really confused right now.  I have thoughts and feelings that I don't really want to have - not in the literal sense, just not now and just not in the way that I do.  Its all a mess, and I feel a little bit like a moth to the flame.  Its like I am bound to repeat history and almost as if I have something to prove to myself.

There is still 'the issue' that means that it is a totally impractical thing to do.  I mean, this is the problem of all problems when it comes to this sort of thing.  It's not like I can do anything about it and it's not like it can be overlooked or worked around.  Its such a fundamental thing, I don't know how to deal with it.  Head in the sand type stuff is what draws me into the flame and seems to bind me to this course.  The reality is that, even if I manage to get to the point where it has to be dealt with, there is such an issue that I just cant comprehend acceptance.

(It's all cryptic isn't it!  I cant even admit it to myself.  I cant even bear to put it into words, yet it defines everything I do, everything I feel and the very reason that I hold myself in contempt of my own basic feelings)

The person / personality that I try to hide behind simply isn't me.  It's convenient to hide behind it and try to embrace it but the truth is 'I am what I am'.  There's nothing dramatic in that.  It's not like it's a secret really - I've probably done a bad job of hiding it in times of challenge and shown it to enough people when I have felt safe - and despite my best efforts I have always worm my heart on my sleeve.

The honest truth is that I want 2 things more than I have ever really let on, more than I think I even realise myself.  The truth it creates, when one stops to think about it, is that  I am pretty screwed up.

A little bit of history repeating

Why does history repeat itself?  I really want to break the cycle but I just can't  I feel fed up to the back teeth after today, I kinda feel like certain people are taking advantage of my good nature and the fact that I will put others first.

Work was a seriously busy day today, the weeks new products launches combines with just a little hint of Christmas fever gave us a petty large turn out and a huge number of people to serve.  Along side that I cant help but feel that certain people are not pulling their weight, certainly they are not doing the level of work that I need the to in order for me not to have to carry them.  In all the chaos I din't get a lunch break, seems everyone apart from me managed to get one but somehow I end up getting shafted and missing out, basically because people know that I prefer a later lunch break so they take theirs and add on a few minutes here and there.  When the place is busy I cant keep an eye on where everyone is at every split second so it all comes off the rails.

Now because I am stressed out I can feel myself rushing head long into my major weakness again, the self control just peels away again.  I was meant to be going over to a friends house for a firework display this evening, I really wanted to go too - but I cant be around people when that don't know me and don't understand me when I feel like this.  There was only one person who ever truly got this feeling, indeed who I could ever fully express it to, and now they are gone from my life and I have to deal with it as best as I can on my own.

I can feel something coming on, which will be my way of dealing with it, it was how I used to deal with this feeling.  I hate myself for the fact that I am going down this route, but it is just inevitable that it will happen, the longer I try to fight it off, the worse it will be when I do go there.  Like a moth to the flame.

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.