F.I.N.E

I’m having one of those days.  I call them my Italian Job days.  Not because I am going around stealing safes, but for the scene where Donald Sutherland explains to Mark Wahlberg what fine means

 

Freaked Out

Insecure

Neurotic

Emotional

 

These days normally occur when I have too much going on, thoughts swirl madly round in my head and I start to panic.  I’ve learnt to see the warning signs now so I know what to do.  I have a plan that I go through that usually works.

I always start with that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know that something is wrong, but you don’t know what.  The breathing gets heavier and a panicked feeling starts.  You reach the point where you feel like you are going to cry.

Before, I would let that emotion take over and meltdown, now I can stop myself. 

1. Breathe.  Just breathe.  In and out, slowly and calmly.  Nothing can happen if you just breathe.
2. What’s wrong?
3. Yes, you do know what’s wrong, say it.
4. Breathe.
5. Everything is fixable, make a plan, step by step, find the fix.

 My “fine” moment may sound stupid to some.  But what I say is that if something is important to you, it is never stupid. My moment today was worrying about my assignment, worrying that I wasn’t clever enough to be doing a degree, worrying I was doing everything wrong, worrying myself into sheer panic. 

 I feel better now.  I’m calm.  I’m back on plan.  I can do this, of course I can; I just need to remember that I can.

Sometimes, you just forget to breathe.

Stepping Backwards - Mini Rant

Over the centuries wars have been fought, campaigns have been launched and banners have been waved; all in the name of our rights.

Our right to be free, the women's right to vote; freedom of speech; decriminalisation of homosexuality; the woman's rights to her own body; the list is endless.  Although some issues are still being argued and there are rights that are still to be won, we have been taking steps in the right direction over recent decades.

 

I look around now though in 2012 and in some areas, we seem to be taking steps back.  The Big Brother society that George Orwell wrote about in 1984 is not a merely a figment of imagination, it is in some respects, peeking around the corner. 

Freedom of speech for example, which day by day seems to turning into freedom of speech, but only for nice people, or people who agree with your point of view.  But then, we are plebs aren't we?  What do we know?

Then we have religion and it's interference with the State.  I don't dispute anyone's right to have religious beliefs, but I would argue against any one religion having influence over the running of the country.  Although I'm an atheist, I'm sure that Muslims, Sikhs etc would also wholly disagree with the Church having any influence or capacity over laws and how the country is run. 

I saw the story of a 10 year old boy recently who, 10 months after joining, was removed from the Scouts on the basis that he wouldn't swear the Scout Promise of "doing their duty by God".  It seems that in order to learn to tie knots that you need religion.

Be who you want to be and say what you think is slowly but surely turning into "Say the right thing, have the right opinion, know your position as a pleb and be religious or else".

Personally, I say what I think and if "they" don't like it, they can shove it.  If that makes me guilty of hate crime, well then so be it.

 

 

I Do Believe in Fairies!

Without wishing to sound about a hundred years old (I’m 33); my childhood was in the time before computers and IPhones, before the X-Box and Nintendo DS.  My childhood was made up of story books and playing in the garden, of making up stories and watching Peter Pan.  I was convinced that fairies were real and that if I believed hard enough, they would magically appear. 

I’m not sure if I ever really believed in Father Christmas or anything along those lines (baby atheist in the making?) but I wholehearted believed that magic was real, if I could only find it. 

You are allowed to think like that when you are a young child.  I wish we still did.  I miss that feeling of absolute certainty in my heart that anything was possible, if you only believed it, even fairies.

Something happened this weekend that took me right back to my old five year old self, and it was nothing short of magical.  I went to the park this weekend with my dogs and whilst walking along a leaf covered pathway, with trees on each side of me I suddenly stopped.  Right in front of my eyes was a leaf, immobile in mid air, floating as if by magic.

Although my logical brain soon explained it as hanging from an unseen spider thread, for those fifteen seconds before I just gazed upon that leaf in total wonderment and happiness.  The five year old little girl that was once me was shouting inside me “It’s real, it’s real!” and jumping up and down. 

When I realised that it must be hanging from a spider’s threat a small part of me was gutted.  I didn’t want the logical explanation.  That tiny part of me that believed in fairies at five years old wanted it to be real.  But, of course, it wasn’t.

Now at 33 of course I don’t still believe that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden or that leaves can magically float in the air.  I’m far too cynical.  But you know what?  Part of me wishes I still did.  Life was far less complicated then.

So, just this once, as a salute to the five year old me,

 

There, that feels much better.