Friday 14 May 2010

Unscheduled Intermission

If Iceland can spew volcanic ash over most of Europe and black it out, I guess it can come as no surprise a few weeks later that domestic difficulties in the Gleam household can lead to writing cessation, no matter how good the intent.

In short, there have been things that have needed my attention more lately. Things that, without hopefully being too melodramatic have significant potential to impact the course of my life.

I sat in a rainbow yesterday, not a natural one, but a prismatic one formed at a bus shelter, and turned my hand in it. Let the turmoil that seethes under my skin to be forgotten properly for the first time in a week as the colours danced across my palm. It seemed too perfect, and too unlikely. This splash of unmanufactured coloured light.

It is very difficult being 28 and realising that you have chosen the lifestyle of one much older than yourself when you still feel and react like someone your own age. It is very difficult to realise that you made choices and decisions when you were little more than a child. And most difficult of all, is realising that adult decisions aren't always fun, they don't always feel good to make, but that sometimes it's not about you, and that you have to think more clearly than of the moment, and of the feeling.

My work is hard and confronting. I deal with death, I deal with families, I deal with illness and fatigue and pain. Every single day. Every single patient. I feel it with each, feel the pall of it. I find things to be joyful about, small victories to hold. And yet some days it seeps under your skin. The decay and deterioration.

It's made harder by my own experiences of death. My harsh yanking from childhood into adulthood via the death of my grandmother. The grief that I held around my heart for years, tempered only by time, still painful and bleeding if I so much as peeked at it.

The intertwined story of the relationship with my Bingley. Support and love and unquestioning kindness. Gratitude for care and touch and love. The drift into years and the way that I coped with loss physically. Touch to soothe my nerves. Joy of discovery pushing pain out of my every day consciousness. The feeling that Nana had given me Bingley. Of using that unwavering faith that she had given me him when I was unsure.

This is a big jumble of thoughts and needs unravelling. And it had come to the forefront because I let it. Not consciously, but through the pursuit of the Gleam. Of being blinded by it. And now left in confusion.

So I hope you'll forgive me the days of non-posting. I do mean to make them up, if I at all can.

4 comments:

Kirsten said...

Hope everything is ok xx

Jen said...

Nothing to forgive Jenn. I wonder if there is a need to give up a part of yourself to be able to deal with the constang pain and loss that others feel without also feeling if to? Or if if is possible to don a hat and become truly removed from the situations while also showing compassion for what they're going through? I am jog a doctor but teach disadvantaged children and have found myself over the years being deeply affected by what they're going through. At the moment I'm really struggling as one boy I work with is confiding in me and going through a very bad staff and I feel an intense need to rescue him from a situation I have no say in. I hope I haven't grabbed the wrong end of the stick with my reply...I hope you're ok...isn't evaluating your life, sometimes wondering if things should have been different and then pathing a way to be content with those things not sitting right...or braving up to change them a regular process in life? Or is that just for overthinking me? ;)

Jen said...

So sorry for the dismal typing, I couldn't review the top of the comment via the iPhone (it should have said that I'm not a doctor, I'm a teacher)

Nina said...

You carry a lot on your shoulders, and you're right, you are still so young. Have things been harder at home after having a weekend of freedom with your friends? I sometimes find it really difficult to "settle" back into normal life after travelling with work, catching up with friends etc.

Hope all is well

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...