youngkeiffy

I normally like to post upbeat topics, but today I had a little reminder as to our mortality.  My day began in a pretty standard sort of a way.  I woke up with aching legs and a possibly broken finger following my horribly inept, calamitous and maybe even foolhardy return to five-a-side football the previous evening.  I showered, ate and made my way to work.  The sun was shining, and barring my disappointment at the memory of what went on the night before, it was a glorious day and I couldn't help but be in a happy mood.

I proceeded to have a pleasant and not too busy morning, but still worked hard enough to defer the onset of boredom.  I continued to enjoy the day as it progressed (a novel and strangely recurring element to my life now...), performed well, chatted with some interesting customers and made it home before six.  I strolled out to meet Anna at the bus stop, and having walked her home I left her to rest as she is not well, and took young (17 months today!) Claudia out for a stroll to the local supermarket.  As in the morning, the weather was again beautiful, and Claudia was entertainingly yammering away as only she can, a little bundle of joy waving at all and sundry that passed us by, people, dogs, cars, the works.  Just as I was blissfully pondering my happy lot, we rounded a corner on a quiet residential street, and happened upon the conclusion to a funeral at one of our local churches.  The congregation had gathered outside of the church after the service, and the coffin had only just been placed back into the hearse.  Everybody was stood, suitably sombre, suited and respectful.  We passed by across the road, Claudia quietened, me with my head bowed and acting the sign of the cross.  At that moment the church bells rang out, a beautiful, dulcit, and poignant sound.  In those few moments as they peeled out into the spring night air I reflected on the beautiful baby sat before me, my wife, my loved and loving family and friends, and I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude and yet an innate sadness at the scene and of life in general.

However happy, contented and fulfilled I may have been feeling, it was yet another reminder that the bell will toll for us all one day.

Though I do seem to be having a good many of them of late...

Greedy or lucky...

So good to know that the sun doesn't have to be out for me to feel this way too...

For the first time in what seems like an eternity I had a lie in this morning.  A whopping nine hours of peaceful and (almost) uninterrupted sleep and I feel like a new man.  Reinvigorated, re-energised and ready to be reintegrated into society, "...and it didn't take no 30 years like yo honour thought it would!" *

Ahem...

There we go, the brain box is ticking over nicely again, which leads me to several musings that have been circulating my cranium over the last few days...

I have been the epitome of calm and happiness of late.  Work is going ok, I feel healthy and I am starting to feel at home as a husband and father, roles which although come naturally to me, really do take a good bit of time to get fully used to.
I think it finally dawned on me on sunday morning.  There we were, once again as is now the norm, awoken at 6.30am by the cries of our 16 month old child.  Once I had made the milk and fed her (there is never any confusion over what is on her agenda first thing in the morning), I then proceeded to witness her one-baby-crazy-show, a sure sign that sleep has gone to the devil for all of us.  I sighed as I lay there, accepting my fate, and the realisation came that I wouldn't have it any other way.

I then thought back to the previous days events, a day known to every football loving person as Semi-Final Saturday.  Now football has become something of a lost and hazy past time for me.  Anna does not understand but accepts my love of the sport.  Though this is the case, due to familial commitments, I have been demoted from the role of dyed in the wool hardcore Gooner, trekking the country and to some extent the continent following my beloved Arsenal whilst spending liberal amounts of cash on this erstwhile hobby, to now fulfilling the role of armchair supporter who possibly watches Match of the Day and catches a glimpse of a live game maybe once every week or two.  I am also lucky if I make it out with the lads for an afternoon's footballing entertainment even once or twice a year.

These ramblings lead me back to my original point...

My F.A. Cup Semi Final Saturday consisted of thus:

1)     Waking up at 10am with a beer and poker induced hangover (a belated birthday related anomally, I assure you.  Such events are now far from par for the course...)
2)     Steadying myself with some breakfast and coffee before cracking on with cleaning the bathroom and hoovering the house.
3)     After a spot of lunch and some web-based house hunting we took Crazy Baby Claudi to a local park and purchased for her a realistically tweeting fluffy toy birdy.
4)     Visiting my best friend and his Fiancee.
5)     Shopping at Asda.
6)     Back home to put Claudia to bed.

At the back of my mind all day long was that the match was due to kick off at 5.15pm.  Throughout the day I harboured wishes, nay dreams that I would be able to sneak away from family time saturday and catch at least some of the match.  As can already be gleaned from this story, family duty had the stronger pull and football was forgotten.  I did however ingeneously manage to avoid the real time result and watch the late evening highlights "as live", which did of course only serve to postpone my disappointment at the poor result.  Just because I was a good husband and father did not mean Arsenal were going to win, did it?  If only life were so simple.

All of this is a rather laborious and circuitous way of getting back to my central theme.

My life has changed now...

                            ....I am comfortable in my skin and in my shoes....

                                                                                                 ....And I would not have it any other way.

* Partially remembered quote from Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way.

I think that the premise of this problem has been oversimplified.  As with anything, there is not one definitive answer.  Of course for starters there is the small issue that no two people are the same, and therefore it is not as if everyone will react in the same way to adversity.

A further complication arrives when you consider that a singular person will not necessarily react consistently to negative issues.  On one day he or she may deal with a problem quite confidently and competently, without the need to divulge it to a third person.  On another day, due to a hormonal imbalance, lack of sugar, or seasonal adjustment (the latter two factors often blighting my own characters consistency) the problem may shake that same person to their very core, arousing the need to at the very least solicit an outside opinion.

Okay, critiquing the concept of the question aside and attempting an answer....

My conclusion is that the person you choose to unload on comes down to a third variable.  Not just that we are all different, not just that we do not react consistently to issues, but instead I believe that it most heavily depends on what stage of life the person suffering the crisis is at. 

When I was a young lad, approaching 18 say, it would have probably been most regularly one of my parents or my elder brother that I relied upon to unburden my racing mind whenever I was enduring some sort of catastrophe.  If said catastrophe was of a somewhat delicate or personal nature, then possibly an extremely close friend would be the source of my solace.

As I traversed the minefield of my formative and young adult years then my group of close friends would be my greatest resource, all of whom to a man experiencing similar if not exactly the same problems, triumphs and failures, with once again one close friend being the most frequent go to guy.

Now that I am a family man, married with a young baby/toddler, I have little or no time to see my close circle of friends, it being a constant battle to keep contact and see each other maybe three or four times a year.  Naturally once unbreakable bonds become loosened, and these explicit and intimate confidences sadly dry up.  My wife has become my best friend now (and for those for whom this is not the case I am quite sure this may lead to trouble in the long run) and as such she is now my almost sole outlet for my outpourings.  Sadly now, my previous routes to peace and equilibrium are more reported to then conferred with.

So on to the next phase of my life.  Who will I be turning to in the future?  For a good while I don't see anything changing, but as life does have a habit of coming full circle I am sure there are one or two changes and surprises in store for me yet!

I guess you could say that perception is what it is all about...

Thinking wistfully back to my (relatively) uncomplicated youth (the innocent ages of 6-10) I can remember what my understanding of finance and business consisted of.  Queues in banks and post offices, staring at peoples posteriors as I impatiently waited for my mum to shuffle her books around and have them stamped before whisking me off to the next queue of naive and uncomprehending oggling.

When pressing my mum as to the nature of what she had conducted and what was the meaning of all this funny little printed books, I was left with the notion that this was a world that I would never fully understand, and one that I would be completely incapable of operating in or contributing to.

Fast forward ten years or so and I find myself at university with a wildly varying bank balance, little care for the stream of charges that I allowed to come my way, and little or no interest in knowing any more about what seemed a grey and disinteresting world to me.  My concept (or rather my hazy, dusty and romantic notion) of banking came from Dickens, whether it was David Copperfield, Great Expectations or Hard Times I cannot quite remeber, and I found myself fairly captivated and rapt by the premise of banking as it was described on these pages.  My developing picture of what it would be to work in banking was then naturally hoiked from these wonderful pages, a trusty if slightly outdated reflection of a world still unknown to me.

Jump to the present, almost 10 years further down the line now as I break the 30 barrier, and I find myself in my third year with a major bank, bouncing between feeling depressed at being a low on the ladder though still an intensely pressurised cog in the mechanics of an unyielding selling machine, and at other times really enjoying the social aspect of my work and the chance it provides me to excel whilst really helping people.  And pretty much no grey area in between...

Maybe it is time to switch...

Originally written wednesday 20th august

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I am worrying that the potency of my jibber-jabberish may be on the wane.  I am on the verge of committing the next three months of my souls health back unto the vagries of financial sales.  For those unversed in the field, it consists of thus...

1)  A varied hotch potch of misapplied charm.

2)  Personal intrusion

3)  Creative fabrication.

Throw in a veritable sea of paperwork and you've got yourself a partay...  Sadly, needs must.

Whatever your level of spirituality, please keep me in your prayers...

Originally written wednesday 20th August...

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It's as good a place as any to start I suppose, a place of intimate reflection and repose, a place where a good deal of innovative and imaginative thoughts are born (plus one or two stinkers...) but as I sat there on my temporarily hired honeymoon throne, my brain slowly awakening to the challenge of the day, a novel thought descended upon me.

Maybe life isn't so complicated after all?  As with anyone else, I am prone to erratic mood swings which can consist of varying lengths.  The longer ones the more troubling as they are normally due to some major part of my life being ever so slightly out of shape... work, family and physical well being are amongst the most telling and angst inducing.

Skipping to the end...

Now I play the lottery, and at the moment due to being in happy country and at peace with myself, my lot, and those around me, I honestly couldn't give a flying feck were I to never win another tenner.

Flip the coin as I drag my heavy and decomposing body through a slough of despond, half empty pint of beer in hand, then a multi-million pound filip seems to be my only route to salvation.

This might be a long way around to what it a minor, trivial and unoriginal musing, but I thought it were worth a mention.

I wonder which of me will show up today?

Ever since I was a young slip of a lad, I have always enjoyed writing.  He-Man and Robin Hood stories, crudely written poems and limericks, anything would be fair game.  This same passion has followed me into my adult life, but as my youthful energy and vivacity slowly ebbed away, to be replaced by soul sapping work, wonderful but wearying and time consuming familial responsibilities and a million and one half hearted/arsed/started projects and past-times, it has sadly fallen by the wayside, flickered and almost died, rearing it's mostly forgotten head for only the briefest of intermittent appearances.

Recently, I decided that things have to change.

What I have always loved about writing is it's ability to move people.  No more and no less.  This coupled with the fact that I express myself with far greater assurity through written than through spoken word.  Eloquent orator I am not.

A la the crazy janitor from scrubs, I found my epiphany toilet.  Quite a diversion I know but please bear with me.  I was experiencing what I can say in all honesty has been the happiest period of my life.  Not 10 days married, and embarking on the first full day of a honeymoon I didn't think we would be lucky enough to experience, and I was enjoying my traditional post breakfast ritual.  One you are all probably quite familiar with (your own that is...) though possibly more reticent to express to other free thinking adults than I.  At least in your first Live Journal entry, anyway.  A novel thought or concept flashed through my mind as I sat and strained, one which made me smile, though one which ordinarily would have left my brain box at the same speed with which it entered, and would in turn be long forgotten about come flushing time.  This time I told myself I would not let this happen again.  Once done and feeling refreshed and much lighter on my feet, I left the bathroom with renewed vigour, my cranium still harbouring this errant anecdote, and sitting on the edge of my honeymoon bed, I began to furiously scribble away, my new wife watching with increased perplexity.  I guess any previously hidden behaviour in your new husband could be quite disconcerting, but at least I wasn't parading around in her lingerie calling myself Susan.  Give me a couple of years at least.
I explained that I would have to be like this from now on, evolving and recording my thoughts and feelings, and happily she ceded to my novel little quirk.

So that's where it started.  I now have a notepad or two which go wherever I do, and I am threatening to get organised and take this little hobby seriously.  This is only a hobby to me, something that relaxes the stress of everyday life, but I am interested to get peoples reactions to my crazy thoughts and ponderings.  Life as ever gets in the way, and as a result this is my first entry whilst I have various reams committed to paper in many different notebooks.  This then means that it is bound to get a bit confusing as my first few posts will be quite a long way after the event, but I intend for them all to follow some sort of chronological order.  I am aware that I am now absolutely writing for myself, thinking out loud as it were, and for this I apologise.

I can only promise that further posts will (mostly) not run to such lengths....