Tag: Reflections

I walked home from work the other day. It takes about an hour at a reasonable pace, but that day I was in no rush at all. The sun was darting in and out between fluffy clouds and there was a gentle breeze in the air. There were flowers everywhere, vibrant green hues in the branches overhead, and the recent rains had swollen the river enough to give it a pleasing burble as it meandered its way downstream.

There is something very soothing about walking with no real purpose, letting your body find its own pace, feeling the connection your foot makes with the ground and how your body reacts to that. A simple way to stay, literally, grounded and able to take in the world around you in all its beautiful detail, a simple way to feel alive as your skin reacts to the wind brushing past and the warmth of the sun on your face.

I’ll typically listen to a podcast as I walk, sometimes losing myself in the conversations (and it’s always conversations that fascinate me the most). Sometimes I’ll laugh out loud, sometimes I’ll realise I’m on the verge of crying at as a tear rolls down my cheek, sometimes I’ll be so lost in thought that I don’t even realise I’ve stopped listening to the podcast as my brain has veered off on a tangent.

It’s such a simple pleasure afforded to me thanks to some fabulous weather recently and one I should take more often. It’s time that is completely free of pressure or expectation – one benefit of being single and living alone as there isn’t anyone waiting for me – and I can let my brain relax and let the stresses of the day slowly fade to nothing. No matter how hard I try, I can’t achieve this feeling sitting at home. There are too many reminders of chores that need done, tasks that need completed.

This isn’t the first time I’ve walked home, and the walks have become meditative in quality. Sometimes they can be melancholy (which is no bad thing), sometimes they can be energetic and uplifting, and most times they leave me with a sense of calm, a happiness that descends and highlights how lucky I am and how good my life is.

It’s not something I write about all that often, after all no-one likes the humble brag but I think it’s important to find a balance so if you’ll forgive me, let me count my blessings.

1. A loving family

We’ve been through wonderful highs and soul destroying lows together and I realise more and more just how lucky I am to have a family who love me, who support me, and who put up with me! My parents brought me up to be a considerate person, a curious person, and without them I would not be the person I am today. Equally, my little sister continues to inspire me to be kinder and better, and I could not be happier or prouder seeing her become a Mummy.

2. Close/old friends

There aren’t that many of them but what my closest group of friends lack in number they more than make up for in every other way. If I’m ever a bit flat, or ever too full of myself, these are the folk to keep me grounded and balanced. We pick up where we left off, old jokes are mercilessly recycled year on year. These are the people who’d help me hide a dead body.

3. Friends and acquaintances

The biggest group by far, and I’ve already written about how many of them are connected. From the bloggers to the gym goers, the Yelpers and the ex-colleagues I try and keep in touch with as many of them as I can. It’s not always easy, and definitely not something I’m good at but they are all good people so it’s never a chore.

4. Other life stuff

I have a job. I have a roof over my head and food in my cupboards. It’s easy to take that for granted, just as it’s easy to take my (mostly) good health as just the way things are. I’ve worked on both my mental and physical health a lot these past couple of years, and will continue to do so, and that is a blessing in and of itself as well.

Of course there is much more to all of this.

The bottom line here, one that I don’t state all that often, is that I am happy. I have a good life, even on the crappiest of crap days, all of the above hold true. There is always a new day on the horizon. I am happy, and for once I really wanted to show it.

Say yes more than no (it can lead to amazing things).

Whilst not quite a mantra, this is definitely something I’ve been trying to be better at in an effort to be more spontaneous and social. Sometimes it can be a battle to get out of the door at all, but I find if I have plans with other people I’m more likely to make the effort to get my lazy arse up off the sofa as I don’t like letting people down (which I realise is heading into the ‘I JUST WANT TO BE LOVED, LOVE ME!!!!’ territory but that, as ever, is for an entirely other post or, you know, the entire subtext of this blog. Whatever.)

Here’s the thing. I’m a middle-aged man, fighting off looming old age as best I can using a variety of methods; I try and be good to my body by feeding it well and moving it often, I try and be good (better at least) to my brain by letting it pause now and then, I try and keep my soul active and connected to the wider world by reading and listening and learning from people who are smarter than me but still speak my language in terms of sensibilities and world views, and I take note of opposing views and artefacts as best I can.

And lastly, as some of you may have noticed, I can be quite the little social butterfly(*). That said, sometimes I say yes a little too readily (PLEASE LIKE ME AND LET ME BE YOUR FRIEND!) and sometimes I’ve said yes then changed my mind later to make sure I’m not overdoing things… what a funny thing our minds can be; BE BUSY! OK I will! WHOA, not THAT busy, now go lie down in a dark room!!

I recently had occasion to say yes, I swithered but that little voice in my head perked up and delivered it’s usual reasoned thinking; Say yes but have a plan to cut things short if you need to. This is not a new thing, and it’s part and parcel of being me, sometimes I just timeout and have to leave. I’m never sure why or when it’ll hit but I tend to plan for it.

I digress. I said yes when a friend invited me out for drinks. Big whoop, right?

It was a Sunday (before the last bank holiday) and I swithered a bit but ultimately decided to push myself to get up off of the sofa and I’m so glad I did! If I hadn’t have said yes to the offer of going for a few beers with a couple of people from the gym, then I wouldn’t have ended up goinging for a curry with them that evening, during which we agreed to go walking up a hill the following day in the same company, plus two adorable staffies.

All in all it was a lovely, random, unplanned couple of days and in one of those little quirks of life, it turns out that one of said lovely couple grew up in my hometown of Dumbarton. I only found this fact out the following weekend as they invited me for a barbeque just because it was sunny (did I mention that they are lovely?). Anyway, it was fun to have someone from my old school to chat to about things from back in the day, even though there is a few years between us (I’d left secondary school a couple of years before she entered). Given I have virtually no contact of note (Facebook doesn’t count) with people I went to school with and haven’t ever really had the need or desire to think back to my school days, it was a bit surreal to actually be chatting about some of the teachers and classrooms of my youth.

From saying a simple ‘yes’ to meeting some (new) friends I met at the gym, to chatting about my old school with someone who happens to come from Dumbarton as well just proves that the world really isn’t all that big.

Mind you, given some of the coincidences that have occurred to me over the past few years I’m starting to wonder whether it’s the world that’s shrinking or somehow I’m just starting to occupy more connected space in it? Is this really just that whole six degrees of separation thing at play? Perhaps it is, and I only really need to dig in to some of the connections I’ve made in the wonderful Venn diagram that is my life.

It all starts with a small knitting cafe/shop in the West End of Glasgow called the Yarn Cake (go for the knitting, stay for the cakes!)…

I was in Reading, I think, speaking at a conference and I attended a talk by a woman by the name of Chris Atherton. Her talk was fascinating and I was lucky enough to chat to her later on (my ability to converse semi-coherently whilst fairly drunk is my key networking skill!). She mentioned she was visiting Glasgow in a few weeks to help paint a friends new shop, a fact which fell out of my brain until she mentioned it on Twitter a few weeks later, stating ‘anyone I know in Glasgow’ that she’d be around for a drink. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it along to meet her and replied, via public Twitter, as such.

My reply tweet prompted another friend of mine, Ann (of the wonderful daily quote emails that you really should subscribe to), to message me to ask how I knew about the Yarn Cake? Ann knew of the Yarn Cake as she is a knitter and hails from north of the border (like all good people), and when I said I’d only heard about it via Chris, well it turned out Ann knows Chris too. Not a massive coincidence perhaps, as our professional careers have a bit of an overlap but still… given I only know Ann via blogging, it’s a lucky connection if nothing else, right?

Venn circles : Work, Blogging.

Ohhh and the owner of the Yarn Cake, the wonderful Antse, I later I got to meet at an event (more on these in a bit). I chatted to her for a while before I asked what she did, and lo and behold… the circle was complete. Well, one of them.

Now let’s fast forward a few months, my (now ex)girlriend was getting into knitting and I mentioned the Yarn Cake to her. The shop ran social evenings for knitters to get together and hang out (and chat and knit and eat cake). She went along and met someone named Sara who I also got to know when the three of us went to the Scottish Tattoo Convention later that year. Sara also invited us along to watch Roller Derby as she was involved with the local Glasgow team (which we was loads of fun).

Venn circle : Roller Derby.

The next circle of this little Venn diagram was first formed when I moved into Glasgow. Recently divorced, I started looking around for some other ways to expand my social circle and stumbled across the Yelp community. I had been using the app to find places to eat and drink, and things to do as I ‘rediscovered’ Glasgow for myself and saw that there was a “Pakora night” happening and, after a sip or three of Dutch courage, I ventured along to one of Glasgow’s beloved curry houses and, there in the basement of Mother India, was another suggestion that my world was shrinking.

Before turning up at the Yelp event I had messaged the community manager and she had warmly invited me to come along. So as I opened the door and ventured inside I was hoping to bump into her first so there would be at least one person I ‘knew’. Lo and behold the first person I spotted was a guy I worked with! Excellent, I thought, I know someone here. What I didn’t know at that point was that the guy I knew, was the husband of the community manager.

That was the first of many wonderful Yelp events through which I was lucky enough to get to know a lot of amazing, vibrant, lovely people, many of which I consider to be good friends. And through those early events, as I started to get to know more people I realised that quite a few of the women were also involved in the local Roller derby team and knew Sara .. and the world shrunk a little more.

Venn circle : Yelp.

Zip forward a few years, the Yelp community is no more (booooo!) and I’m now a regular at a gym that I originally found via Yelp. It’s a progressive type of place that is very protective of its inclusive atmosphere, it’s no real surprise that the majority of attendees are people who don’t identify as male. Equally, given the crossover of Yelp and Roller Derby it’s not really a surprise that quite a few of the attendees all play/played roller derby together… so I already knew a fair portion of the people at the gym before I started going.

Venn circle : Gym.

Now let’s go back to the start. When I wandered down to Byres Road that day, the day I said yes, and met my friends from the gym? Well that lovely couple also occupy a couple of Venn circles as they too were involved in Roller Derby. This is all getting a bit ridiculous now. But wait! As I arrived they were sitting with a guy that they knew, and that I knew from a completely OTHER group of friends! And at this point I’m about ready to concede defeat and just presume that everyone in Glasgow knows everyone else.

But was it always this way? The Yelp/Roller Derby/Gym links wouldn’t have been available to me without the internet and social media, which makes me wonder if I would know even half of the amazing people I do today without it?

Many (many) years ago when I started this blog, there was only a handful of other people in the UK who were also partaking of this new online publishing nonsense. They were all, without exception, far more accomplished writers, thinkers, and all round human beings than I, but because they were so few us around they couldn’t get rid of me. I commented, linked, and emailed back and forth and started to build some friendships*. I was lucky enough to get to meet several of them in real life, coaxing them out to the pub on a couple of my visits to London. Yup, we were doing ‘meet ups’ before MeetUp existed, that’s how old skool we are!

I’m still lucky to be able to call many of those same people my friends, I’ve met them a few more times, been invited to their weddings, even spoke did a reading at one of them (which was a surprise for me as she hadn’t actually told me about it so I only found out when they announced “and next, Gordon will read an excerpt from My Love is like a red red rose”).

I’ve probably fallen out of touch with more than my fair share of these people as well much to my shame, I really must do something about that…

This, for me, is the HUGE upside of social media; the ability to make connections with like-minded people regardless of where they are. Some of the people from the early blogging days now live outside of the UK but I still have a tiny portal through which to watch their lives unfold and expand, and it makes me so happy to see so many of them prosper (did I mention how talented and downright amazing they all are?!).

Closer to home the effects are even greater. It’s safe to say that I’m pretty busy most weeks and that’s entirely because I’m reaping the fruit borne of all these connections (as those with access to my Facebook Events page can testify). From gigs, to theatre visits, to gin festivals, to hill walking, to barbeques, to fancy dress parties, to weddings, there is so much love and laughter in my life I feel very blessed.

Saying yes more than no is a nice phrase but can be hard to achieve at times. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to go along to an event where you don’t know anyone is scary, and can be emotionally tiring and I know I’m very lucky, not everyone is able to do what I do. Equally there is a lot to be said for saying no, for taking time for and by yourself.

Regular readers of this blog (both of you) will not be surprised that this is something that, despite my calendar showing otherwise, I’m quite careful to keep in balance. Sure I may be out every night of a given week but I protect my gym nights, it’s all I do that night and sometimes even that can be a struggle. No, not the gym part but the being around other people part.

There is a flip side to this as well. If you are the person inviting others, and they say no, it’s worth keeping in mind that maybe they wanted to say yes but couldn’t. Don’t stop inviting them no matter what it feels like to you, they aren’t saying no because they don’t want to spend time with you, but because they want to spend time with themselves. Invite them again, and maybe ask if it’s ok to keep inviting them in the future. You’d be surprised how many people get stressed when an invite arrives, even for something minor.

Looking back over the past few years it’s easy for me to see that the larger my little weird Venn diagram gets the better I feel about my life, the more connected I am to people the more grounded I feel. These connections are a subtle form of self-care at times, a massively overwhelming one at others, but it is something I know I need. I’m a sociable person, an extroverted introvert, and I’ll continue to say yes as often as I can. After all, who knows what might happen tomorrow?

• Somewhere in my brain I gently categorising people I have relationships with; my family, my closest dearest loved ones, my friends, and general acquaintances. I’m very lucky.

The house I grew up wasn’t far from a large roundabout, you could see it from where I sat at my desk in front of the bedroom window. I used to sit there in the evenings and watch the cars driving up and down the hill, round and round that roundabout.

Of course I wasn’t sitting there with the express purpose of watching cars; I was supposed to be there to do my homework or study for exams but I think it was an important time for me to properly learn the art of procrastination, and I would like to point out just how well that particular skill has served me over the years!

Evening after evening I’d sit there and pretty soon I could recognise a car from the shape of the headlights as they came down the hill towards me, or the rear light cluster as they disappeared from view.

Sierra, Granada, Golf, Escort, Astra, Fiesta, Corsa, Fiesta, Astra, Corsa, Civic, Peugeot 306…

It was a simple distraction yet it was so totally engrossing that I could lose a whole hour just sitting watching cars drive round and round the roundabout, a gentle way to relax whilst completely avoiding what I should’ve been doing and one of a few ways I’d spend my ‘me time’.

Due to the age gap between me and my sister, I spent a lot of my younger years as essentially an only child. I was 7 1/2 when she was born and that difference in our ages always meant we were at different schools, different stages of our lives as we grew up. As such, I was used to spending time on my own, lost in my imagination, creating my own worlds. It’s fair to say I was, and still can be, a bit of a daydreamer.

As I got older those moments moved from my own imagination to the imagination of others as I discovered the joy of books and the wonder of the silver screen. Pivotal moments in each revolve around the same story; the novel written by Arthur C. Clarke that was then adaptated for film by Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I read the novel when I was 12 and it was a step up from anything I’d ever read before. I’d already started into Sc-fi with Nicholas Fisks Trillions, a book aimed at children, and descending into the hyper-described world that Arthur C. Clarke created was like walking through the door of the Tardis. It lead me to start exploring ‘older’ books and I was lucky that my father was a voracious reader so there were plenty of books to choose from. Next up was an author called Richard Bachman who also has had some of his stories adapt into movies (The Running Man the most prominent under that pseudonym, but you know him better as Stephen King…).

As for 2001 the movie, I can’t remember exactly when I first saw it but it feels like it was only a couple of years later. I used to watch old movies with my Mum, the old Hollywood Classics with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, the MGM musicals and the like. My Dad took me to the cinema to see E.T. when I was 9, a rare outing, and I have vague memories of being taken to see The Empire Strikes Back around the same time. Both movies are classics but are very mainstream, 2001 was an entirely other type of thing and my first glimpse into the real power of cinematography to present something beautiful, esoteric, and challenging.

In the intervening years, as more and more ways to distract myself became available – hello internet, hello social media, hello smartphone! – I managed to lose the ability to sit quietly by myself and just let time pass. The ability to be ‘always on’ and ‘always busy and productive’ meant I didn’t really notice this slow change of how I spend my time evolving; I guess it’s hard to notice the absence of something you weren’t really aware of in the first place, at least I certainly wasn’t aware of the value of such ‘me time’ activities.

In more recent years and as a direct result of all that decluttering and simplifying stuff I’ve been harping on about here for the last few months, I have more time available and that in turn has started me thinking about how I spend it, what values I attach to both the time/space and the activities I fill them with.

I was chatting to a friend the other day and she mentioned that she’d considered seeing if I was free last Sunday afternoon but she didn’t ask because “you are always busy”. I responded to that honestly and said that she was always welcome to ask but that sometimes I might say yes, or sometimes I might say no even if I’ve nothing really planned.

I didn’t really think about what I saying to her at the time, it just came tumbling out but I realised that I’ve started to be more protective of ‘me time’ as I now see how valuable and needed it is. This isn’t about not wanting to spend time with my friend, but about making sure that the next time we hang out I’ll be in a better, happier place (and hopefully a better friend because of it).

I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t feel like I was failing to meet her expectation of me. I didn’t feel bad for saying it. It was factual, honest and open, and was the right thing to say at that time.

I think a lot of us can give ourselves far too hard a time if we choose to be alone for a while, or turn down an invitation because you’ve already got a lot going on. I love socialising, I love going out, but I also know that sometimes I need to say no and just stay in and let my spoons* recharge.

Despite the gigs and events that litter my calendar, regardless of evenings spent catching up with friends, meals out, family visits and the like, I’m much more conscious to carve out time for me. It’s not always easy as it means saying no, and the flipside is that having TOO much time on my own isn’t all that great either. The real kicker is trying to figure out when I will need more or less of either, as that changes week to week (day to day at times!).

I’m also trying to use my ‘me time’ better, and I’ve been returning to those activities that I now see have additional benefits. Sure I could put on the TV and watch some mind numbingly dull soap whilst endlessly checking social media but I know that I’ll just get bored. More and more these days I’ll use that time to read a book, or watch a movie or documentary, and in the last few weeks it’s also meant time to re-learn how to play piano (which is going much better than I expected).

It’s not always been this way of course, looking back I know I have a tendency to put others first to my own detriment, and it’s taken me some time to get to where I am today, it

Telling someone in your life that ‘I need some me time’ is not selfish, not a bad thing, and definitely should be viewed (by all parties if possible) as a positive choice. As the cliche says ‘those that matter won’t mind, and those that mind don’t matter’**. I am very lucky to have friends and family that know and respect that decision. I don’t use it often because I am careful to keep a day or so here and there to myself anyway – the benefit of being old is that I know I have to do that now – and I never use ‘me time’ as an excuse NOT to go out and have fun with all my awesome friends and acquaintances (and those random strangers, except for that guy that said he might stab me…) no matter how tempting it can be after a long week.

Some days you need to push yourself – Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead? – and some days you need to take care of yourself. Thankfully the taboo that is mental health is starting to shrink, it’s getting easier to be honest and most importantly unashamed when you are making decisions that are good for you and you alone.

* very aware I am abusing the notion of spoons being transferable but they kinda are for me, but only because I’m lucky enough to currently be living without any major mental or physical health issues or disabilities.

** Full quote is “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” Bernard M. Baruch

I’ve only ever taken one shower with my clothes on.

I was alone at the time and can still remember the sensations as my t-shirt started clinging to me, my jeans growing heavy and cold on my legs. I was drunk, had just thrown up then crawled into the bath and turned the shower tap on. I lay there as the water fell on me and I cried. My wife had (rightly) just left me and gone back to Scotland, I was alone and in the early grips of the darkest days of my depression.

I’m not sure why I turned the shower on, perhaps a memory from a movie scene was my inspiration, yet looking back it all seems a bit emo-angsty and overly dramatic. At the time I think I was just hoping to feel something other than emptiness but it’s a hazy memory at best but I don’t think that should detract from the reason why I just shared that story in the first place.

I’ve shared a lot of things about me on this blog. Some would say too much at times but, as I’ve said before, this blog is not all of me. Even the most personal posts exclude some details; sometimes that is due to embarassment, sometimes to protect others, sometimes because it just didn’t feel right to share (or it would’ve detracted from what I was trying to write), sometimes because it’s can be hard to share things with complete honesty, and sometimes because I don’t really know the people reading it and, to be blunt, you haven’t earned my trust.

As an example, take that opening paragraph. There is much more to that story, much more to the before and after of that moment, but my point isn’t to lay out my life in fine detail its just to lay out the sense of a moment, just to give something to say ‘I’ve been there too’ to anyone who reads it, after all you don’t share a map when you come back from a holiday, just the best snapshots (do I win the worst analogy award for that??).

I’ve written about my depression in the past, in fact the 20 year anniversary of that post is later this year. When I wrote it I wasn’t even sure I would publish it but I’m glad I did, not just because it helped me process things but because it also helped a couple of other people who emailed me at the time to say thank you. Before that I hadn’t even thought about what I was sharing nor that it might actually be helpful to someone else.

And here’s the thing about mental health issues. Everyone has them. EVERYONE. Even if you don’t want to acknowledge it within yourself, there is probably something going on somewhere, a disquiet or unease, even just that low level feeling of ‘I’ve HAD IT with people today’. It may manifest itself in other ways, like my more recent feeling of being a bit stuck that sent me back to counselling. That wasn’t about depression, but was mostly definitely something that was affecting my mental health and I’m so glad I got some help with it. I spoke to my closest friends and family about it, and they were all supportive and, ultimately, it teased out some stories from them as well about their own mental health.

Everyone has mental health issues of some sort.

Everyone.

Many people can get through entire working days, weeks even, without anyone knowing what is really going on in their heads. Like many other kinds of illness mental health issues can be completely invisible. Ask any of the colleagues I worked with during that time in my life, 20 years ago, and I doubt they’d have known; I didn’t miss a days work and was my usual sarcastic self the entire time. They didn’t know about the lay-by on the way home I’d often stop at because I realised I was seriously considering crashing my car on purpose, they didn’t know about the late nights lying in the dark and wondering if anyone would really miss me if I was no longer around.

More recently I wrote about the loneliness of Sunday mornings and had a couple of people contact me to say I had struck a chord and that they felt that way too. They thanked me for sharing it, after all a problem shared is a problem halved (well, shared again at least) and, again, it struck me that sharing MORE is a good thing.

And that is one of the reasons I wrote about, and will continue to write about these things. The stigma around mental health is loosening but, as with most of these things, it’ll take time to change and I think the more people who share their own stories, the quicker it’ll happen.

As I get older and continue to figure out (and challenge) who I am, the further away those dark days of my depression seem. I’m lucky that these days my worst ‘down days’ are probably no more than a few hours of feeling maudlin. There is no real rhyme or reason to them, Sunday mornings excluded, but I’ve learned when to accept them and let myself wallow a little (but not too much).

Sometimes it’s ok to give in for a little bit, have a cry, eat some chocolate, hide from the world under a blanket, whatever works for you.

As I age I find my darker thoughts turning to my future. When will I be able to afford to retire? When I’m very old, if I’m still single, what happens if I fall and can’t get up? Will I find someone to share Sunday mornings with again? Do I really want to find someone to live with when I am old? Ohhh how my brain so easily picks up on the smallest thought, the tiniest concern, and quickly nurtures it until it grows large enough to block out the sun.

It turns out the black cloud is never all that far away.

Sharing these moments of my life on this blog, publically, is not something I do lightly. I’m aware they may be triggering for some people, I’m aware that some people will think less of me for doing so, but I’m also aware that sharing these thoughts, no matter how little they may relate to the lives of others means that now and then someone who does read them may feel a little less alone, a little less broken, a little more hopeful that they too can get through things.

When I started this blog I wrote about topical things, nonsense things, things that zipped by me on the ever growing internet. I spent time digging around in the Yahoo directories or reading other weblogs as I found them. I wrote about things I was doing, about events in my life, movies I’d watched. For a while it was more diary than blog, but for a long time now this is place where I write to think. I don’t publish all of it but sometimes when I’m in the midst of writing a post I’ll realise that maybe, just maybe, it might be beneficial to others to read that someone else is going through something similar.

We are all human, we all have foibles and faults. We all carry with us many demons of differing size and emotion. We are imperfect.

A few days after I took that shower I managed to summon up the courage to talk to my doctor. I told her I was feeling depressed, that my life seemed to be stuck behind a glass wall where the sounds and colours and connections were muted. A couple of weeks later I had my first counselling session.

To this day I’ve never taken another shower with my clothes on.