CGI reality

I have always been good at writing things, then stopping with the realisation of just how true my words are. As though I had just read someone else’s words, and suddenly felt an affinity to them. I can’t remember my words from yesterday, but the feeling, as though I were a deer caught in the headlights is still as clear, as the second I felt it. It’s now 9 years since I last left the house without being carried out, which of course means my knowledge of the outside world, is only what I see on the TV, combined with my memories. Which means the truth of my life, is that I’m live in a bubble, and in many ways, it is for me, as though time stopped 9 years ago. What I wrote yesterday was something along those lines, and their truth felt a bit like a bullet hitting me between the eyes. I already knew from the odd trip I have made by ambulance, that the world has moved on. There was one more than others that brought that message home at the time, the discovery of the M74 flyover that crosses a large swath of Glasgow’s southside, it had quite simply not existed the last time I went to work by Taxi. At that point, they had started the demolition, that would allow it’s construction, but I had never seen or even thought about what the finished item would look like. I had even missed somehow the fact that it is now long open and carrying traffic and yesterday’s written words, made me think of it and much else that I must have missed in those years.

I remember on Jeffery’s 21st birthday, Adam and I travelled to Aberdeen to put flowers on his grave. I hadn’t been to Aberdeen for about 10 years, as quite simply, I had never been in a position to afford the train travel or the time off work. The city had changed so much in that time, yes, I still recognised it as the place I grew up, but it was different from even my last visit. That didn’t surprise me, cities are always changing, evolving and moving with the times. You accept those things when you haven’t been somewhere for a long time, as that’s life. Even the idea that if I stepped outside my front door and walked up the main street, that I wouldn’t recognise my own neighbourhood, somehow doesn’t seem that odd now either. I guess my glimpses of the world from an Ambulance, has made that point known, but, there is more to the world than just buildings, things that are more subtle, but just as important.

What prompted my words, was a conversation about incontinence wear. I was trying to explain, that although I was aware of the fact that things had changed dramatically in the past 9 years, the simple fact that I hadn’t been into a chemist or a supermarket, that I hadn’t seen or picked up a pack, meant that in reality, I had no idea, how things had really changed. It is all very well sitting here, seeing things on the TV screen or online, but quite often there are items, that you have to hold in your hand before, you know just what they are like. Even though something might be inside a plastic pack, you can still get a really good idea, by squeezing that pack, just how bulky or thick, how heavy or how dense things are. By touch and the size of the pack, you can build up a fairly good image, even before you buy or open it. My memory, and, therefore, my knowledge, and not just of sanitary products stopped 9 years ago, I am locked in a time bubble. Without a doubt, the majority of your modern world is totally unknown to me. I may be aware of things, but being aware of and actually seeing, feeling and using something, is a million miles of a difference.

It is a bit like knowing the world through a picture book. Yes, I will recognise nearly everything that you use daily, but personally, I have no concept of size, when it comes to anything that isn’t pictured with a human holding it or beside it. Of course, I can apply logic, a chocolate bar is never going to be the size of a car, but my logic, includes a huge dose of knowledge from a time, that no longer exists. It is a little like being locked in a CGI world. What I mean by that, is that a skilful programmer can create something these days so well, that our eyes are finding it harder and harder to work out what really exists, or if it only exists on the screen. I have little to no perspective on your world. I guess a perfect example of my isolation, is that you will daily use touch screen technology. The closest I have got to this was having to learn, how to turn off the alarm on Adams smartphone. I knew the screen was the key, but my natural reaction was to tap at it, which did nothing. Adam had to show me how to sweep my finger across the screen. In a few short years, I had gone from the go-to person at work, when a problem appeared with anything that contained a computer chip, to having to be shown what I bet, almost every three-year-old knows how to do.

There is so much out there that I would now feel lost when faced with, that I would have to ask for assistance with. Things that I bet would gain the response of “Where have you been for the past ten years, living in a cave?”. Well, they wouldn’t be far off. It may be a lush one and very comfortable cave, but in many ways, it’s no better than one. I have in the past on a couple of times wondered how I would react if I were to be suddenly cured. I remember in both those posts, being more worried about how long it would take me to firstly physically recover enough to be once more part of the world. More importantly, how difficult the mental adjustment from someone who is dying, to someone who is once again going to live a normal life span. In neither, did I even consider the difficulty of simply adjusting to the modern world. I do remember musing on how hard it would be to get a job, after so long out of the job market, but now, I think I am totally unemployable. I may have well been in a coma for the last years, as I now know little of any of the things that once made me an essential part of any business that had a call center that sold any product. I fear, I might not ever be able to operate one of the phones, far less the systems behind them.

Even though a cure is an impossible dream, and a job, an even more unlikely one, I didn’t see this happening. Nor did I ever think of it as a problem, but the longer I am isolated, the more and more I will be reliant on Adam, not just for my care, but to simply to interact with a world, that I no longer have the first idea about.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 22/01/2014 – I am ill

I’m ill, a stupid thing to write on many levels but I am ill. I haven’t been feeling myself for several days now, but I don’t have the coughing and throat pain that Adam has, an illness the has prompting several people at…..

 

 

We’re lucky

There was something on TV yesterday that set me to think, just how lucky I am to be who I am and where I am, both in time and location. To some, that may sound odd, given my health and the fact I am housebound, but with a little thought, it makes a lot of sense. You don’t have to go that far back in time, to realise just how different my life might have been just 100 years ago, the further back you step, the worse it would have been. I simply can’t imagine what it would have been like in reality to have lived in any other time than the one I do now, with the state of health that I have. Actually, it is probably more truthful, to say that I don’t want to imagine. In many regards, my life is a tough one, if you look at it purely from the angle of health, but my health isn’t my life, it’s just part of it. I have a nice home and a loving husband. My health care is both free and there to help whenever I ask for it. The government supply me with an income, granted, it’s not a fraction of what I once earned, but it does keep the wolf from the door and with what Adam earns, we are comfortable. No, we can’t afford to splash out on luxuries, or pay for the latest gadgets, but we are fed and sheltered and own our own home. That is one of the things that actually goes against Adam and I. If we didn’t own our flat, if we were living in a rented home, not only would they pay for that, I would then be able to have access to a specially adapted home, at a much lower rent, which they would still pay for. When it comes to our mortgage, they won’t pay a penny of it, I get their logic, but it somehow isn’t fair. That though is, as they say, another story. As things stand at this moment, I have the means to live comfortably, in my eyes. I not only do I have the necessary, but I also have the means to remain entertained and to keep my mind active, if not my body. It isn’t a bad life. 100 years ago, without a doubt, I wouldn’t have been sitting here saying the same thing, although this very house was standing back then, we wouldn’t have afforded to own it, or rent it.

It is easy to forget, just how lucky we are, to be who we are, and where we are. It doesn’t need time travel to prove that, just travel around the world. Whether it is time or location, the possibility of being both homeless and a beggar, is high. I do quite honestly get angry at those who constantly complain that they don’t have this or that, all of us in the UK, have more than those in our position elsewhere. What we are given by the government is meant to be enough to keep us safe, fed and warm, not to supply us with iPads and caviar. There is one test that I think, I know, how everyone’s will answer, and it is a sign just how much things have changed. Think back 30 to 40 years ago, how many people did you see out and about in a wheelchair, or with a walking aid? If you did see someone, how does your memory of them compare to now? Other than the odd one or two, who always seemed to be missing a lower limb, I don’t remember any. Oddly as well, their clothing and personal hygiene states were always poor, most likely due to lack of assistance. If I go back to my childhood, I never saw a single one, outside of our minister who had had polio as a child and used calipers. Even in as recent a time as the early 70’s, the sick were still hidden away, not part of the world and often forgotten by even their families, as an embarrassment, or a sign of weak blood. I know that, as it happened to one of my aunts. She was bundled off to a seaside care home due to depression, never talked about again, and absolutely never visited. If there is such a thing as a good time to be chronically ill, this is it.

When you are locked into a world of pain, it is hard to remember things like that. To even think, that life could have been worse, or still is for others, who are in exactly the same position as we find ourselves now, is difficult. It is so easy to just see ourselves and no one else, not because we are selfish, but because that is what pain and illness does. Even if you have had nothing worse than just a cold, you know that feeling that the world has vanished and you and your misery is all that matters. I guess, it is simply our brains taking over and telling us that there is nothing, more important, than making ourselves better. Which is fine if you have a cold. When you are chronically ill, there is no getting better, this is just more of the same and far worse to still come. You can’t remain locked inside forever, as that is when life ends. Living has so many facets to it, and somehow, our health reduces it to just one, ourselves, but if you stay there, you’ve lost everything. There’s no doubt in my mind that, that, is why it’s so important to keep working until you absolutely can’t. When you have to stop working, well, you have to replace it, we have to find some way of breaking out of what our health, has forced onto us. Some way of staying part of the world that has been stolen from us, and if that’s not possible, to build a new one.

Even though I push myself to stay part of the world from inside my home, I often still feel just that bit isolated. Not because I am alone, but because I feel I am missing the normal everyday realities of life. Watching the news and keeping up with documentaries and lifestyle news can only replace so much. I miss the joy of watching things change and evolve, to watch people, see how they behave and what their lives hold. There is a joy in just seeing life written on another person, as we all show far more than we think. How we dress, do our hair, react to those around us, our body language and expression, all tells a story, a story it’s fun to unpick as they pass. It is hard to hold onto the fact, that if, I were to step outside and go for a walk, even just in my local area, that much of it, I wouldn’t even recognise. In 8 years, buildings have been erected on what was once wasteland, gardens have been landscaped or absorbed into the houses themselves. People have come and gone, faces I have never seen before, would be looking back at me and I would hear voices speaking languages, never heard around me in the past. Shops, will have gone and new ones arrived, what I would call my neighbourhood, is probably as alien to me now, as any other area, in any city, anywhere in the world. But the oddest thing, the oddest things would be accepting that it is me, who would be the alien, in their world, despite the fact, I haven’t gone anywhere. It doesn’t matter how much I try, my health has won, it has cut me off from much of normal everyday life, yet still I count myself lucky.

Just as I check my posture and my mood, I also have to check myself from not ever feeling isolated, or alone. You don’t need someone physically sharing the same space as you do, to not be alone. So no, maybe I can’t go out and sit in a cafe, to just watch people, but I can bring parts of those people to me. I can continue to learn in other ways, to be in contact mentally with those who wrote the history I love and the people who lived it. I can continue to chat when I want to with people, not next to me but around the world. I have more people now than I have ever had in my life before, who know my name, what I stand for and what I think. I may not be in touch directly with all of them, but every single person who likes, favourites or sends me a comment, makes me smile, just as if they had smiled at me in the street. I could sit here and grieve for all I have lost, or all the things I think I should have, but I don’t, I sit here enjoying everything I have. I am lucky, I am incredibly lucky to be just who I am, just where I am, and in the time I am. I don’t have to be able to get out of this flat and unlike those of the past, I’m not mistreated, hungry or facing dying in a loveless world that want me here, for only what they gain from me, money for my keep. All of us who are ill today with no possibility of that ever changing, are the luckiest who have ever been in our shoes. Admit it, life isn’t that bad, it may be painful and not perfect, but we’re still here, and on the whole, because we choose to be.

Please read my post from 2 years ago today – 23/10/2013 – The changes you don’t expect

So much for making plans and setting out on a day where I thought I knew what would happen next. I normally shower in the afternoon but I had decided that from today I am going to shower in the morning just after I had…..