Back to Blogging

As you may have noticed I have not been blogging for a while. This is not due to a lack of experiences or subjects that I am formulating comments on but because I have actually become overwhelmed by the magnitude of events entering my once simple, ordinary life on a daily basis.

If I actually described how I felt right now or everything that has happened to me since the beginning of 2008 then this blog would never end and would become longer than War and Peace combined with Ulysses and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (all books which I am dying to read but need to create a clone of myself to be able to ever achieve this goal).

So I will try to be succinct. I have a lot to say as I have experience a lot in a small amount of time. However, we live in a quick fix instant gratification age where people have short attention spans (myself more than others) and so no one, not even I would bother reading through all my diverse and over complicated thoughts in just one blog  post. So I propose to commit some of my current thought to digital cyber code in a series of blog posts on specific subjects.

Compartmentalising the different aspects of our lives, thoughts, characters and experiences may be anathema to me, as I feel one loses a great deal of meaning by disconnecting various interwoven threads, but at least it will be easier to read and compose. Hopefully you will find something in there that you relate to, a conflict I am facing that you may have faced before, or are currently facing and maybe we can conjure up some useful insights by the process of transferring my thoughts and your feedback using the power of modern technology (i.e. this blog.)

To Keep this blog post short I will just list some of the various topics that I will write about as they have been a big part of my life since January 2008. That may seem an arbitrary year to begin my cyber “memoirs” but it has some significance. 2008 was the year in which my first child was born and was the year in which I was made redundant from a job I would have never left and then went to work in a modern day professional office “sweat shop” and fell ill having contracted a serious of viruses and developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, to add to my already debilitating Irritable Bowel Syndrome Diarrhoea.

2008 Was also the year I started CBT – Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, sessions, in order to combat my worsening IBS-D, and that forced me to start dissecting my thought processes and lifestyle to uncover the root causes of my various physical and pyscholigical illnesses.

In 2009 I continued with the CBT, took up Yoga, joined Weight Watchers, lost 2 stone in weight in 5 months, put back on most of that 2 stone since November 2009, honed my skills as a multi-tasking househusband, babysitter cum live at home father, dogsbody son and son-in-law (carrying out various time consuming duties for my family), was put on various trials of medication to try and combat my CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), such as Vitamin B12 injections on a weekly basis and a variety of polypharmacy solutions.

I also developed asthma and Hay fever just to add to the myriad of medical conditions attack me. I quit smoking (not because of a less stressful life – life was ever more stressful, but due to the asthma), supported my beloved wife as she completed her Doctoral thesis, whilst working and being a mother and stressed out wife and daughter all at the same time.

My father-in-law had a sudden major stroke in late October 2009, 2 days after I had booked non refundable tickets to a wedding in Houston that I couldn’t afford to go to but was a reward for my wife’s year of constant stress, struggling and no sleep. We didn’t go to Houston over Christmas but instead shuttled between hospitals and funerals through the sudden snow storms of 2009/2010 as I began to start job hunting seriously, having realised we were on a financial precipice.

I got a job interview and job offer after 30 job applications, for one of my favourite Consumer electronics companies, only to be told that they had messed up and in fact the company had a recruitment freeze so the job I had been given was taken away from me bringing back into the same frustrating, anxious, stressful place of being broke, jobless, overweight, confused, conflicted and struggling to re-train as a web designer whilst finding a temporary finance job and supporting my wife as she cares for her bed-ridden father and physically drained mother (whilst she herself is still working and raising our daughter with me).

On the plus side I got to spend a lot of time with my daughter, which taught me a lot about myself, about fatherhood, the trials and joys of parenthood and has made me re-learn many subjects and pieces of knowledge that I have forgotten over the years (such as astronomy and geography, not to mention grammar and basic maths).

I have also been forced to grow and challenge myself and my preconceptions due to marriage and my never ending crisis situations, and I have discovered that adaptability is a very under rated skill that is vital to success in life.

I have also had the good fortune to discover the artistic genius of TV shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos and Battlestar Galactica (re-imagined) whilst getting more involved in social media experiences like Twitter and blogging.

I also managed to buy a Nintendo Wii, using vouchers from my credit card provider, so if things get too much and I am in need of some techno salvation i can always fire off some stress with my Wii Zapper gun (so long as the wife is away, she is not a toy gun fane).

I also completed a Career Change programme with a Career coach that was a real eye opener into the way I live my life and how I can take back control and start living more of my “truth”, rather than the crowd pleasing facade I have become so accustomed to wearing almost permanently.

I managed to read some Chekhov Short Stories and finish reading Dune by Frank Hebert, which was an immensely enjoyable read, and A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway, the first Hemingway book I have ever read, which was also a revelation.

And finally, most important of all, I managed to get in game of Scrabble, which I haven’t played in years, although the joy was short lived as I was beaten by my wife. So much for my aspirations to become a short story writer and novelist!

P.S. See the next post for the promised list of topics I will blog about and put links for.

Back to Reality

This is where I need to be:

This is where I actually am:

Less escape more reality. That seems to be the order of the day.

I had a major chronic fatigue attack yesterday evening and suddenly lost all the feeling in my mind and body, falling asleep on the sofa even though I did everything to stay awake. The end result was that I did not have time to tell my wife not to cook the Omelette I was supposed to cook and instead for her to heat up her mum’s food and I would eat a ready meal. As fatigue got the better of me, and my wife’s constant rushing around meant we failed to communicate appropriately, she ended up cooking the omelette.

I was knocked out, lying on the sofa asleep in a daze, escaping in the world of dreams, and by the time I woke up she was in a right huff and dinner was ready. I felt nothing but guilt and anger, that I had not been able to tell her not to cook and that I was not healthy or energetic enough to support her. She did not hold back her true feelings and let vent how bitter she felt and how angry she was. She has had enough of the lack of routine in our lives (which is not entirely my fault).

Routine is almost impossible when you suffer from extreme IBS and CFS as you never know when you will need the toilet, have diarrhoea or fall asleep and lose your focus, concentration and alertness. I am trying everything I can to cure my psychical illnesses. All of the time that I am awake, relatively alert and not penned down by my debilitating symptoms, I devote to getting all the household chores done. I have no life of my own, but no matter how hard I work it is never enough for my wife. She badgered me about routine again. Her argument was that if she knew when she had to do chores she would not get so angry. She has a tight schedule after work as once she puts our daughter to bed she needs to focus on her never ending doctoral thesis. She does not have the time or energy to complete household chores on top of that. That is all true and fair. I know all of this and do everything I can to reduce her burdens. It would be great if someone cared about me and my won burdens as much as I do about hers.

I am forever creating new spreadsheets or word documents that try to plan our dinners, activities, lives and bring method to the uncontrolled madness that is our lives. It is not enough. So even after the success and then sudden failure of the food plan I had to waste time creating a weekly summary activity routine which set out on which days I would be expected to complete certain chores. It is irrelevant that I am usually too exhausted and ill to do the chores. If I do not do them no one else will and this will anger my wife.

I am typing these thoughts to clear my head in preparation for my impending career change programme call with my career coach, and I am also trying to gobble down my increasingly mushy and aesthetically displeasing healthy breakfast. Eating, typing, and sorting out my paperwork all at the same time, when I am still hardly awake, make for a bad mix.

Anyway I have to go now as I have just dropped diet cola al over my pants and keyboard. This is the result of the aforementioned bad mix. I should be sleeping but reality has forced me to wake up for my career change programme call. My coach berated me incessantly for not booking call 6 at least 1 month after call 5, when the calls should be weekly. I was overwhelmed by an ever growing mountain of other tasks and responsibilities, but nobody listens to you when you are too tired to shout loud enough and too fatigued to coherently explain your situation.

Times up. Once again.

Back to work.