Crippling Purpose

I slept well last night, I know that because I woke up able to get out of bed without too much of a struggle. I wish I knew what causes that terrible stiffness that settles in over night, but not waking feeling as though there isn’t a joint or muscle in my body that can actually most, was great. I have noticed that stiffness settles in quickly these days, I don’t get it during the day when I am sat here typing as I suppose I don’t stay totally still, other parts of you shift about as your fingers do the work, but in the evening when I am sat on the settee, I freeze up. As little as an hour of sitting watching TV and standing is a struggle as are the first few steps. Walking across your living room like a centenarian isn’t exactly the image that I want my husband to have of me, but he sees it daily. My mobility varies all the way through the day but it is the evenings that I always seem to be the worst. My legs are heavy and stiff, they insist on trying to move without bending and my left foot always drags just a little, but often constantly. I have also noticed that if my stress levels rise as they do when going somewhere like a hospital, everything falls apart, but most noticeably if I am asked to walk or talk. All understandable but why I turn into a total cripple every night, is just annoying, OK I’m tired, but that varies, the level of immobility doesn’t and all I can blame it on, is my settee.

With so many different sites on-line to keep going I seem once again to have put myself to the limit of what I have time and energy to do. It is almost as though I’m not happy unless I am being stretched to my limit all the time. I know that that is something that I have always been good at when it came to any job I had, but you would think that now I am free of such things that I would slow down and just relax a bit, but I really can’t. I guess it is all part of a need that we all have to feel useful, there is so little that I can do that finding a way to pass on my life experiences and to amuse others with pictures and so on, has given me a purpose, something that I would recommend to anyone who is no longer working whether that is because of illness or through retirement. In many ways my day is spent on what some would call my ‘hobby’, sorry I hate that word. To me a hobby is something you dabble at, not something that you commit time and real effort to. I used to do a lot of handy-crafts many that people over the years had suggested I did to earn money, which was something I just didn’t want to do at the time, if I had the dexterity and eyesight now I would, but they weren’t hobbies, I did everything to the highest level I could. I have seen handy work from so many others that is totally beautiful and above the level of dabbling, the word hobby would be an insult.

Having a feeling of a purpose seems to be something really important to the human psyche, and I totally believe that without it we all fade quickly. There is though something that I think is missed when it comes to all the therapy groups and classes that I have seen that are available to OAPS and the ill, and it is an important thing. It has to be something the person actually enjoys doing and wants to do! Years ago I was unlucky enough to spend a couple of months in hospital and they insisted that I had a go at weaving the top of a small stool in gaudy colours and cheep looking string. I hated it and the therapy angle was lost as that hour each day didn’t help, it made me angry and depressed at that thought I had to do it. Even recently I saw a program were OAP’s were collected up by bus taken to a Church hall and sat a desks doing really bad handy craft and most looked as miserable as sin. Those that looked happy were the ones that were chatting loudly and producing little at all, for them it was company, for the rest I could seen nothing positive at all, to me it showed do-gooders doing no good at all, but still patting themselves on their backs.

Finding purpose is so individual, there isn’t a book filled with suggestions for a very good reason, for most people, not one of the suggestions would fit totally their requirements. Having said that though I really think it is an area that if more work was put into it, it would save the NHS and social services a fortune. Having a purpose hasn’t made the pain or anything else go away, but it has stopped me slipping into a depressive state and vegetating with nothing but what is wrong with me to think about. In turn that has meant that I don’t need drugs and visits to a psychologist and all the costs attached to that.

Inspiration

I know that I don’t often have photo’s in this blog, well between “Touching Space” and “Just to Share” I think I have enough, but this picture is special. First it is titled “October Morning Mist” and at last it is October, so the first real time for it’s use, but there is far more to why it is here than just what it is called or the fact I actually found and saved this picture in October last year when I had no use for it, well I haven’t been blogging that long yet. It is now one year since I last did a full days paid work. When I found this picture I saved it because I felt like I was wondering around a forest filled with fog, I really couldn’t unusually for me, see where I was going or how to get there. I think I spent nearly the whole of October feeling that way, I was doing all the right things but not getting the right response, lots of nice words, but no job. I found myself looking at this picture a lot when I was at a lose and then feeling determined again to clear that mist and get to the other side. So it inspired me by being there at the right time. It is strange how things like that happen, you stumble across a quote or a picture, or even turn the TV on to find that there is a program on which matches exactly what you have been thinking about, life is weird like that. So would say it is fate other coincidence, and I just simply don’t know but accept it as interesting.

I think inspiration comes to most of us when we aren’t looking or expecting it, I still at that time believed in my heart that I would find a company that could see past my disability and see the experience and knowledge that I had to give them, I was wrong. My life has actually always worked this way that when I am forced into making a change, without meaning to, I have landed up doing something totally different and something I totally love. So I am not surprised at where I am now at this time, so OK it is not a job and I don’t earn from it, but I love writing and love more knowing that it has a real purpose. That is why I posted this picture today, it inspired me when I needed it and led me off on a path I didn’t mean to go down, in a way this picture was the catalyst to my writing. I think more than anything when you are in my position of being housebound and knowing what the future holds to an extent, that you need things to inspire. I used to find my inspiration from the people around me, being a people watcher I always saw things in people that I bet they never saw in themselves, I no longer have people around me, so I now very much draw from the pictures I find. It even to an extent can help with the pain, I know when things are bad that sitting for a while going through picture which relax and or distract really makes a difference, probably why I have so many posted all over the place and stored in my folders.

I have said before many times that achievement and purpose are really needed to get you through being housebound and I do totally believe that, but I would also add in you need inspiration. Inspiration can drive you on through some of the toughest times and I think many give up and sit waiting for the end as nothing inspires them any longer. I think we all draw our inspiration from having people around us and in contact with us, we get it from work colleges, from friends and from family, when you loose nearly all of that due to your health, you become a little lost. I think it is essential that you find another source and not just one, we all need several, as we had several colleges and several friends. I am not a music fan really but I can see how simply that could be a huge help to some. I made sure a long time ago that my home was filled with beautiful things to look at, I knew that I would reach a point when I couldn’t leave here, I didn’t really think past beauty when I built my collection of crystal, but it inspires me everyday. I just have to sit looking at it and I feel my mood lifted, a small inspiration to keep going, to keep enjoying, but it all adds into my nest and to filling my personal inspiration needs.

Replacing the outside world is impossible but you have to build your own version, your nest and your world. The more thought you put into it, the more it gives you back. I am asked often how I stay positive, I think I am more happy than positive, although I suppose they are the same thing in a way. Well the answer is here. Be inspired, have a purpose and achieve, big thing to do, but not if you do it step by step. Build into your life the things that give back all these things and well, like the picture above, let them take you on a path you hadn’t expected, I found happiness, I see no reason why you and everyone else can’t to.

Picture Details:- “October Morning Mist” by Pearl Photo (Wikimedia.org)

The libiration of writing

Everyday I read the comments from these pages and from Twitter and I everyday am humbled first by the number of people who read and then by the number who have said that I voice not just my life but theirs. I know that not everyone believes they can write and that a lot of people feel they aren’t good at it but I would recommend to everyone in both of those set to try it. I don’t see myself as a writer, more a note taker and an observer, I tried to write years ago with mistaken belief that I needed to write a novel, a great work of literature. I tried a couple of times but found not surprisingly that when I read back my work I was always disappointed. I was breaking the first rule of writing and that is to write about what you know. Although I was trying to do that I was still sure that a novel was the only option. I didn’t have a need to write about my different jobs over the years or about marriage and child rearing, but I see now the problem was those words ‘a need to write about’. That’s why I say to all of you take a few minutes to sit and write, it doesn’t have to be a blog, it can just be on paper with pen, find the ‘need’ and write. From what I read daily I know many of you have as big and as powerful ‘need’ as I do.

My ‘need’ is clear to all, I have to sort out what is happening to me physically and emotionally, how to fit myself into a changing body, a changing role and a person who at times is reluctant to comply or overjoyed with success, or screaming out in pain. The biggest thing that writing has done for me though is very personal and it is letting me see my own reactions and thoughts. That I am sure sounds a little odd but think about it, how often do you focus for an hour a day on things that are in your own mind, not the news and weather of life but the totally singular person that is you, taking the time to order those thought and going over them to ensure others will understand. That was the starting point and it grew by itself, no forcing or effort into a the liberating and emotional pivot of my blog. My ‘need’ is understanding, my own and others. I see daily the number of people around the world who also find that understanding in my words and that is a huge bonus one that has given a new purpose, I lost that purpose when I lost my job. It doesn’t pay in cold hared cash, and it doesn’t use the skills I was educated in but writing does so many other things that I have grown very quickly to love it.

Why do I recommend you sit down and write, probably because it is a window out of and in to, a world that you and you alone can open.