Where does the time go?

No really. I'm serious!

I flip the page of the calendar to realise we are at the start of the eighth month of the year and I never really started the year yet. Obviously I am being a little melodramatic, but I have been carried along on a tidal wave of 'stuff', with a few 'things' and expectations thrown in along the way for good measure.

I never actively chose to do, or more importantly to 'be', anything.

I am sure there have been rare moments of temporal lucidity that allowed me some illusion of a modicum of control here and there, but to all intents and purposes, I have just, 'rolled with it', keeping my head just above the surface, (to mix the metaphor).

A couple of weeks back after a whole raft of jobs being completed in our home, plastering, media wall, flooring throughout the whole of downstairs and my daughter moving back home from the city of Manchester with an entire apartment's worth of stuff to fit in to our modest sized home (read small), and the painful decision to have our beloved 16 year old, springer spaniel, Holly put to sleep... I felt MASSIVELY out of control of everything.

So, I made some decisions.

The main one being, that I am going to take back control.

I am going to be in control of my life.

I am almost 53, so that may cause me to sound like a bit of a pathetic specimen, but I own it. It is where I am. There is little point of lying about it and after all, who would I REALLY be lying to, if not myself?

It is now 18 months since I almost died in hospital from an infected pancreas, that subsequently saw part of it die off and then had another brutal, 'close call', fight with sepsis and another lengthy stay in hospital.

Those two incidents caused me to change massively how I saw my life and very much altered my impression of what is and is not important.

I could barely walk and it took a long, long time to start to feel anything like who I was. I will never be fully the me that was, but I have long since made peace with that, and resolved to be the best version of me I can possibly be with a few life changes and some new complications to consider.

There will be bumps in the road, welcome to life, what else is new?

At the end of all the work in our home, it was like a bomb site. It was affecting me big time but seemed such a huge, daunting job to put it back in order. So I resolved to undertake one pitifully small task at a time and not pressure myself to do anything major.

It was indeed a long drawn out process. BUT... I finished! Not as fast as I would have liked, not with the burst of energy I wish I could have summoned. but I did indeed finish, today as it happens. Even with the allowances I had made for my reduced capacity taken in to account I had set a finish date of July 31st...

Today is indeed August 1st but I didn't deduct myself any points for missing my goal as I was just so happy to reach the finish line, albeit a day late.

I view this as practice for being able to re-join the world of work, I have set a date of January 1st to be in a position to do this, and if it takes slighter longer, I will adapt. This will be a tougher goal and may require an employer able to make some slight allowances for some of my health challenges and sudden onset of fatigue although I am learning to manage this better, but I am confident that where there is a will...

I am currently experimenting with putting my body under a little stress, sometimes I have badly misjudged and overdone it with some reasonably serious side effects but I am learning where I am at. and trying to 'hopefully', control this better and get stronger and develop a little resilience and endurance in the process.

This is feeling a little self indulgent now, so I should move on but maybe it is like, I am putting it down here, to keep myself on track, kinda like, 'well I said it now, so I need to follow through'.

The goal for the beginning of next week is to start taking walks, short at the start, I imagine, and getting further and further over time. I yearn to feel strong again, not that I was ever exactly an athlete, but I could walk for hours and had a seriously manual job, the type of job that I now fully accept is behind me, but there will be a new me at the end of it...

Not that there is ever really an end ...

Until there is of course, I am sure ya know what I mean...

So as we approach the final month of the second third of the year, I feel optimistic and grateful that I am still here, both Hive and indeed this little planet we all share.

I sincerely hope, the best is yet to come, even if it is not my old best and for you Dear Reader, I sincerely hope, the best is yet come too.

Thank YOU for taking the time to read my, often disjointed ramblings and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!

Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated!

Keep taking the time to connect with each-other both here and in the 'so-called' real world and try and look after each-other, because as you already know...

I am an incredibly proud member of #TeamUK I love the global community immensely, but it is nice to have a home-team banner to add to my posts. The banner was made by the inimitable RoastMaster General himself @c0ff33a If you are an active UK member and would like to be added to the teamUK community on Discord, just let me know 😎

Any images in my posts are either 'taken by me' or 'created in Canva by me.'