I have always been content with being alone.\u00a0 Being alone and doing nothing.\u00a0 I think this is hard for a lot of people but for me it’s easy.\u00a0 I don’t know where it comes from, it may be a disfunction for all I know.\u00a0 Some buddhists say we are human being not human doing! \u00a0 My schooling was an unmitigated disaster.\u00a0 I don’t remember much from that long ago but I do remember sitting in the woods smoking, one of the schools big taboos.\u00a0 I was with a few other guys.\u00a0 We were talking about classes, exams and stuff.\u00a0 I listened but didn’t take much notice, and don’t recall anything of what was said.\u00a0 I just remember saying that I wasn’t going to do any work, I can get along without qualifications!\u00a0 So I didn’t, work that is.\u00a0 Not a stroke!\u00a0 I messed around, broke the rules.\u00a0 It was only because I was good at sports that I even survived without being expelled.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So I started my life after school as a complete failure on an academic level.\u00a0 The lack of incentive or ambition stayed with me and after school whenever I went to work for a company, my efforts were half-hearted at best.\u00a0 I played, that’s all I wanted to do. When I was 17 years old I spent the time I should have been taking my o-levels, sitting in a Wimpy Bar or wandering the streets of London.\u00a0 I didn’t even attend the various locations where my exams took place.\u00a0 My parents never found out.\u00a0 I think I probably let them down a bit.\u00a0 My Dad got my whole education completely wrong.\u00a0 In his fervor to give my brother and I the same opportunities he tried to send us to the same schools.\u00a0 Needless to say I failed the entrance exams miserably and ended up at a new, so-called all-boys “Public” boarding school in Hampshire.\u00a0 There was a spark in me.\u00a0 I loved music and art and English Language and excelled in these subjects, but this school added a new me into the mix, a rebel, a recalcitrant troublemaker! <\/p>\n My brother Chris went to university and on his first return home he introduced me to cannabis.\u00a0 This was the real beginning of a consolidated career of work and responsibility avoidance.\u00a0 My total focus was on escape and play through alcohol and drugs, well dope mainly and later some cocaine.\u00a0 I tried heroine once, acid and mushrooms a few times.\u00a0 They were amazing, but not for me as I really didn’t like the feeling of being out of control.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now I am 70 years old.\u00a0 I haven’t done drugs for years and very little alcohol.\u00a0 I tire easily, my once endless stamina has all but gone.\u00a0\u00a0 I have no regrets except perhaps one.\u00a0 That I didn’t stay on the property ladder.\u00a0 I owned one flat and sold it and from then on rented.\u00a0 So now at the beginning of my advanced years, I feel a little vulnerable that the house I call my home is entirely at the disposal of a landlord. So when I heard about a couple that had rented their home for thirty seven years and were given 8 weeks notice to get out it kind of shook the ground beneath me!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I still have dreams, of building my own log home, living near the sea.\u00a0 Travelling in a motorhome.\u00a0 But these dreams are fading.\u00a0 I know I no longer have the energy to build my own log home but I could still have it done for me given a lottery win!\u00a0 But I see these dreams as if through a window now.\u00a0 A window that is seized up, stuck closed with paint and years.\u00a0 Those dreams are beyond reality now and I watch them fade into oblivion, just as I fade into oblivion, unseen or unobserved by people or remaining family.\u00a0 Unless I get some substantial windfall then I will live out my days with Shelley here in this beautiful backwater that will always belong to someone else.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I love my family and I’ve never missed them more than now.\u00a0 Chris most of all.\u00a0 You always remember the way someone looks from when you last saw them.\u00a0 Chris never really had a chance to age.\u00a0 Nor did my Dad.\u00a0 There is no up side to getting old, it just sucks!\u00a0 Even the small things get harder.\u00a0 Bending down.\u00a0 Getting down on the knees to tie a shoe lace or throw another log on the stove.\u00a0 Pain that will never go away, like arthritis.\u00a0 Not being able to run, ever again!\u00a0 Not even having the energy to concentrate on learning to play the piano!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Work slowed down significantly when Annie died prematurely. She was my contact in London and fed a lot of clients to me over the years. She was a friend and I will miss her always. My work creating websites has all but dried up.\u00a0 All that’s left are a few accounts to maintain.\u00a0 I spend my days sitting in front of a 10 year old computer as if waiting for something to happen, a genuine email (among the junk).\u00a0 A response to a facebook post that never comes.\u00a0 So I fall asleep and for a while there is nothing except that blissful lack of consciousness until I wake up and all the aches and pains and heavy fatigue and woeful ageing and worry hit me again, and only an hour has passed!\u00a0 FreeCell, Solitaire, Minesweeper, around and around ad infinitum.\u00a0 And, so one day rolls into the next and the next and the next, and the names of the days become irrelevant and forgotten.\u00a0 My saving grace is Shelley, my doggy Beau, my horses and the beauty all around me.\u00a0 But I’m not sure this is enough any more!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My lovely daughter Emily, who came back into my life a few years ago lives far away so we communicate via text mostly.\u00a0 Emotionally abused by her mother who remains as twisted and screwed up today as she ever was.\u00a0 She (Emily) weathered the abuse and is a lovely person, but damaged and a little scattered.\u00a0 Thanks to her mother she doesn’t even carry part of my name.\u00a0 I have asked her to remedy this but I fear it is too much to ask as time has a way of entrenching most things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Though I am happy to some extent I feel stupid, forgetful, powerless and alone!\u00a0 Sometimes frustrated and angry.\u00a0 Sometimes I just want it all to end.\u00a0 But when this comes to mind I think immediately of Shelley, and how hard it will be for her without me.\u00a0 She too has retained her good nature against all odds.\u00a0 An emotionally abused and oppressed upbringing., she feels outcast still.\u00a0 Hiding from society.\u00a0 Oddly, she is wonderful with people but there is little or no trust.\u00a0 Sometimes she’ll make a new friend and she puts too much store in it.\u00a0 And she gets let down and hurt.\u00a0 That’s hard for her to take but in a strange sort of way she sets herself up for it and comes to expect it.\u00a0 This invocation will be hard to break and at her age probably beyond a fix.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Susan, my dear cousin that I was so close to when we were young.\u00a0 She feels distant now.\u00a0 Her daughter Zoe got married, had a huge wedding, invited Teresa and not me.\u00a0 I was heartbroken when I found out. I brought it up on Facebook public posts.\u00a0 Got a bad reaction.\u00a0 Zoe saw it.\u00a0 I’m glad she did.\u00a0 I thought our family was always so close.\u00a0 In later years the only time we would see each other was weddings and funerals.\u00a0 She invited Teresa who came all the way from America, why couldn’t she (Zoe) add me to the guest list.\u00a0 A chance to see my sister if nothing else.\u00a0 What difference would one more person make to an already burgeoning guest list.\u00a0 It put me in the place of the least wanted person.\u00a0 I loved our family gatherings with a passion.\u00a0 This was and still is hard to process!\u00a0 I feel angry, upset, disappointed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have Shelley and I love her with all my heart, but I feel on a downward trajectory, physically mainly, but I suppose I will never again in my life experience the kind of caring love my mother gave me.\u00a0 I try to live in her example.\u00a0 She cared so much.\u00a0 I try to do the same.\u00a0 I suppose we all have our vulnerabilities, shortcomings, emotional challenges, but in this day of social media the world has never been more fragmented, broken, and separated.\u00a0 People with a sense of entitlement or self-importance that will never be recognized.\u00a0 With little empathy we\u00a0hurt each other consciously and unconsciously with impunity, hurting animals and nature for our own fleeting pleasure.\u00a0 I’ll be glad when my time comes.\u00a0 Truly.\u00a0 But not yet.\u00a0 I need to take care of some things first.\u00a0 Most of all Shelley.\u00a0 I want to leave her safe, secure and comfortable.\u00a0 This is my one single priority and my remaining life-long focus.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reaching 70 years of age, I feel like I’ve taken a step into a twilight world! A parallel dimension faded from view. Suddenly, there are new rules just for me, like, having to renew my driving license every two or three years! Can’t wait for 75, I get to be exempt for a TV licence!! 70 is an age even I called “old”!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have always been content with being alone.\u00a0 Being alone and doing nothing.\u00a0 I think this is hard for a lot of people but for me it’s easy.\u00a0 I don’t know where it comes from, it may be a disfunction for all I know.\u00a0 Some buddhists say we are human being not human doing! \u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1844,"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innerpieces.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span><\/p>\n