Tag: Reflections

Life continues apace and that suits me just fine.

Still making changes (tweaks) to how I live, replaced cheap TV unit with a better, cleaner, solution (before/after), and I’ve been going through ALL of my belongings to declutter as much as I can.

I’m finding some neat parallels along the way too.

My tastes for interior design are typically minimalist (Oriental/Scandinavian inspired) but I also have a soft spot for quirky ornaments. Marrying the two isn’t always easy but I’m finding the balance.

Elsewhere in my life I’m starting to understand more and more about myself, unearthing and discovering little quirks that have been hidden (needfully) beneath a protective veneer. It helps that I have an understanding and amazing woman to listen to me waffle on.

Of course, that’s all against a backdrop of busy weekends with many nights out, and following the trip to London at the start of the month, we’ve still got Manchester (PEARL JAM BABY!!) and Edinburgh (TG BABY!) to go. I’ve recognised that I may need to recover from all the debauchery so I’ve actually got a calendar entry for the weekend at the of June that says DO NOTHING WEEKEND! (admittedly it also says “Buy a suit” but needs must).

Somehow, amidst the chaos, I’m also losing weight. Steadily, healthily, gradually and on Monday morning I creeped past the 100kg mark (99.9kg). My approach is counter to my usual desires (I’m very goal oriented, and want things to happen immediately) but it’s not been a struggle, and I’m not overly conscious of watching every tiny little thing I eat, in fact I had a DELICIOUS slice of backed New York Cheesecake at the weekend… 😀

The title of this post is a little misleading though as, right now, life is moving forward. We’re levelling up, kicking ass and the word OSSUM is being used frequently.

TRUFAX!!

Last year I flew to America (visiting Boston and Chicago) and this year I’ll be flying to London (twice) and to Singapore later in the year. I’m travelling much more than I used to so I guess it’s only natural that I’m pondering how to rebalance my carbon emissions.

This definitely played into my decision making when I recently changed cars and whilst it wasn’t my main focus, I was pleased to get a hybrid engined car (petrol/battery). It’s also a nice side-effect of getting fit and cycling to work now and then (not as often as I should mind you) that I don’t run my car as often either.

However, to properly rebalance things I need to do more. Recycling at home is one thing but given the air miles I’m clocking up I’ve been looking at other options.

On the face of it, it looks quite straightforward, carbon offsetting through something like carbon credits seems to be the right thing to do but, as ever, when you start to dig a little into the motivations behind some of these things and part of me does agree that all I’m really doing is ‘buying absolution’.

So what to do? Stop flying to far away places? Having not travelled much beyond Europe until recently (one trip to San Franscisco 11 years ago this feels a little bit harsh but no, I’m not suggesting I’m in ‘carbon credit’ already. Perhaps the bike thing is what to focus on first and foremost?

Anyone else got any ideas/suggestions/thoughts?

I have four tattoos at the moment and I’m scheduled in to get my 5th, and largest, on Wednesday. What would be my sixth just needs a design… and there may be a seventh starting to wander around in my head too; it’s fair to say it can be quite addictive.

Number 6 will also be a cover up of the second tattoo I got about 20 years ago. Back then it was, if I’m honest, more for shock value and the desire to be different and so I wasn’t really thinking about it terms of design or meaning, just something that (at the time) I thought looked ok.

I’ve been lucky in finding, via a recommendation, an excellent tattoo studio that only does custom work. They don’t have flash art on the walls, there are no Yosemite Sam tattoos available, so there is already a sense of something a bit more thoughtful. Any time I’ve been in there whilst other people are talking through a design, it’s usual based on some personal reason, even if that’s just a ‘I like this style of tattoo because’.

Bar my first two tattoos, the first I got when I was 18, the second when I was 19, the others all have some meaning.

Number three, my ampersand, I’ve discussed here already.

Number four was to mark the start of a new ‘life’ and driven largely by my divorce and a desire to re-learn who I am (again, discussed here).

Number five is part of that continued learning and discovery process. It is loosely based on a shape that ‘represents the nature of experience and the intricacies of both the enlightened and confused mind, or “a microcosm representing various divine powers at work in the universe’ with the inner design symbolising the ‘different stages in the process of the realisation of the truth’.

Photos will follow, of course, and I’m properly excited to get this one done!

Number six… well it will be Japanese themed, a style I love and which is definitely influenced by growing up admiring a print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa and two embroideries that my Mum did of Japanese Geisha (must get a photo of those!). It’s likely to be a bigger piece again so I might need to save the pennies before getting that one!

Update: Here it is.

In the past couple of years I’ve spent a fair amount of time in my own head, analysing some fairly basic questions. Who am I? What do I want from life? That kind of thing.

I’ve been lucky enough to find a woman with a similar outlook, and many similar desires, and we’ve talked and talked and talked and now find ourselves in a very good place indeed.

One of the key things that is underpinning everything is honesty. Real honesty, which can be brutal at times but if applied towards the good things and bad things in equal measure can be (has been) life changing.

I’ve mentioned it here before and, if I’m honest (see what I did there), it’s been a bit of a rough ride but it continues to be something I’m striving for. Between us laid out our thoughts and fears, and whilst we may still have the odd little hiccup that’s usually just bad comms getting in the way (and hey, nobody is perfect and neither should they be!).

Being honest, completely honest, is hard. Telling someone you love that they are pissing you off, and being explicit in why and what you’d like to change is not an easy thing. You don’t want to hurt feelings, or cause unnecessary conflict, but the more you do it, the more you tackle these things, the easier it becomes.

It also has a nice side effect of helping you learn more about yourself which is never a bad thing, providing you are prepared to act on that information. For example, I get easily stressed when people are late. Or so I thought, turns out I’m applying MY time/goal focused mindset to their timescales and rarely in any reasonable manner.

So, yes I do have a point, it turns out that what I need to be is be properly honest with everyone.

That doesn’t start with YOU lot though. Not quite yet.

Bearing in mind that this blog has never been 100% open on all aspects of my life I am expecting that the content may change as I start to write about things more honestly. I’d imagine a few people might stop reading but as I’ve always stated I write here for ME, for my own reasons and I need to be true to those.

What will I be talking about?

Not sure really, the most obvious thing, something I’m still exploring and trying to understand, would be my polyamorous relationship.

And for more on that topic, I highly suggest you read (and continuing read, they ain’t finished yet) this series of posts by women living in such a relationship.

Anyway, enough about me.

How the hell are you?

I’ll happily admit to being a bit of a day dreamer. I quite like disappearing off into my own little fantasy world head for what I guess is now known as a ‘JD moment‘ (except I don’t tilt my head).

Mostly these day dreams take the form of ‘what ifs’ and play out in a world where I’ve won the lottery, no longer have to work, and am considerably more erudite and handsome than in real life (I know, it’s hard to believe right?).

Few of these day dreams have any connection, they are a simple means of escapism and whilst there is an element of common theme, for the most part they are an indulgence.

This is not true of my night dreams. I don’t recall many of them, but there is one theme that always comes back. In one way or another. I’m trying to remember when it first started, when that first instance happened but I can’t. It feels like I’ve always had this dream.

The premise is simple. In this dream I am asleep, lying in my own bed. I hear a noise. Someone is trying to get into my flat.

And that’s about it really, no big revelation, just a simple ‘every man’s home is his castle’ type scenario. Right?

The dreams all take different slants, sometimes it’s someone trying to attack me, other times it’s a burglar, but they all end the same way. I wake up suddenly, convinced it’s real, my heart thumping in my chest, fear pulsing through my body as I lie and try and quieten my breathing, desperate to hear where the person is, did they make it in?

This dream can spill over into the day as well. Right now I’m sitting at my computer, back to the door. What was that noise? Is someone at the door? Or behind me?

You can see why I don’t watch scary movies…

Last night I had the dream again. Except this time they made it into my flat. I chased them, they ran, I shouted at them asking how they managed to get in, do they have a key? No response.

Weird.

I lied. I know I wrote previously about not having resolutions but (as Blue Witch points out in the comments) I did have resolution. I am determined to make this year a good one.

However I’m very goal oriented so I did, quietly, set myself the following goals:

• Read one book a month.
• Take a photo everyday.
• Lose at least 8kg (aiming for 95kg, just under 15stone).

Progress so far:

• I’ve read one book (Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy), and halfway through a second (Oryx and Crake).
• I’ve almost managed this one (the day I missed I remember but then forgot again! gah!)
• I’m cheating a little, but over the course of last year, I’ve gone from 111kg to 103kg.

I’m quite happy with my progress and here’s the thing, I realised recently that I am prepared to fail at the first two; If I don’t read a book every month, that’s OK, so long as I’m making the effort to read more (which is actually about taking a small amount of time here and there for myself). If I don’t take a photo everyday that’s OK too, it was more aimed at getting me to slow down and look at the world around me.

Losing weight is, unfortunately, not something I can ‘fail’ at. However as that’s more about eating healthily and being more active, it too is something I’m learning to accept small failures in. If I put on 1kg over a weekend, then that’s ok, I just need to adjust over the following few weeks.

I’m enjoying eating more fruit and veg, enjoying the after effects of exercise although it can still be a struggle to get moving, and slowly the weight is dropping. And yes, I bought Withings scales (and the blood pressure monitor too as that’s the main driver behind my weight loss).

All of this is helping me be better at taking time for me, and that has in turn lead to some other discoveries about myself. Things that have always been there but have lain dormant, things that I am now starting to explore and question, everything from my sexuality, through religious beliefs and on to politics.

I am also much more confident in being honest. That will include here in time (it’s still one thing to tell family and friends, quite another to spill with you lot), but by now the people who need to know already know.

One thing I am carrying over from last year is removing as much negativity from my life as I can. I wasn’t the happiest person (particularly at work) in the latter half of 2011, but I’m rectifying that. I have so little to complain about I really should just get on with living my life.