I
do my 'festive' birthday less too, including the recent 4-0. Four nil
to me. Four decades knocked flat. Four decades that were nothing to
write home about; home's just down the road anyway so why write them
a letter, an e-letter? Four decades where nothing really stands out.
I was there; I'm still here. I grew from this big to this big. I did
this, I did that. I went there, I returned. I tried, I gave up. I
gave up, it seems to me, a lot and in some cases too soon. But you
know what you know and you don't what you don't. And in others, well,
you just know when it's not right, so the effort is not worth it
because it will cost. Who will it cost? You. Just you.
But
I gave too; and gave and gave, and drew back, when I had nothing left
to give, everything had been, or was about to be, squeezed out of me,
and when that was the last, the only, the best solution. The more you
give and the more you take on the more you'll be taken advantage of.
All lay load on the willing horse. I learned that the hard way and
chose not, in spite of my birth sign, to continue being that willing
horse. It wasn't winning whatever race this was that's for sure. The
race to the knacker's yard? If it was I threw the jockey off and
cleared a fence and still startled by this revelation galloped away.
Into the sunset, to a better brighter future.
Did
I ? Did I heck! No. In human terms, I hid, I avoided, I placed
obstacles in the way. If I did this, if I did that, the old patterns
would resume. The work would come home with me. Or I would go to it,
to an empty but quiet office. Just me and humming technology. Too
easy when you live on top of work and feel bound to complete, to
tackle what you hadn't been able to because there just wasn't enough
time in the average working day, the average working week when other
demands were constantly being made. It was little like daylight
robbery except I was the thief and not the victim, though of course I
wasn't stealing anything; or a trespasser, on the premises when I
shouldn't have been in spite of having keys and the entry codes. The
only person I was stealing from was myself: I was stealing time, but
anything to get ahead of the game and stop worrisome thoughts. That,
I told myself, was the aim. That and to make my life, the new week,
easier.
But
there are limits to all that giving and I found them. A train wreck,
a car crash. Yeah. Almost, almost. Nearly.
Life
was too rushed, life was too busy, life and work couldn't be kept up
with. I couldn't bluff. The mask kept falling, and falling, then it
fell off and after that would only stay on for short periods; periods
so short that anything lengthier was a battle of will and
personality. I will get through this. I can do this, I can do this, I
can do this. It will be fine. The heart will pump, the legs will run,
the arms and hands will lift and carry, the brain will compute some
things, not others, but it will do its best. It will cause the mouth
to say stupid things or will make the mouth dumb and dry, so dry the
tongue sticks to its roof. The body at fever pitch. The day divided
into parcels of time: nearly there, nearly there, nearly home-time.
Yes,
there is some good in selfishness, if you can find a pleasing way to
frame it so as not to affront others or confound others with it. They
wouldn't understand, if you were honest, the price paid for being
responsible, dutiful, helpful, loyal. They couldn't be brought, if
you tried, to see the chariot of the mind overturned and the horses
yoked to it bolting.
So,
cloak what you feel will be misunderstood, and be steadfast.
Picture credit: The Death of Hippolytus, 1860, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (source: WikiArt).
This post was written November 2019.
