Category Archives: The Bigger Picture

Freedom 90

It’s been proper mad since Thursday. I’m running on five hours sleep, with a high stress presentation under my belt, and literally only now sat and realized ‘oh yeah, you haven’t blogged anything for three days…’ except of course I have, but that was work, not personal. Anyway, the project above is why I’m not really here right now. That needs to change tomorrow coz I just booked a new Open Mic spot for Thursday. It’s all go here, chums.

A few weeks back, someone forced-unfollowed me on social media who was involved in a local arts project I really wanted to be a part of. This morning, unsurprisingly, I discovered they’d not picked my work. I make no secret of how badly people can be treated in rejection. This one was the final straw. I am not going to be beholden to such folly again. My path is mine to dictate from now on and though there may be struggle, I’m not fucking working with those people ever again.

It takes time to form habits. There is merit in failing, multiple times, in order to finally find the means by which success can be held and nurtured. This is absolutely the way now, under my own steam and on my own terms and woe betide anyone who now tries to stop the march of progress, because not only is it coming, it has already arrived. You will rue the day you decided not to include me.

I have a remarkably long memory.

Respect

Truth, let’s be honest, is often very hard to come by in the modern world. If I believe the Government over half the things they tell me, I’d be doubting myself on an almost daily basis. Being told that we have to live with Covid is, however, probably a realistic take on the next ten years of life, until at least the point when there’s a new SuperBug to contend with… by which time, one can only hope, we’ll have got our fucking act together.

Justifiably, however, a lot of people don’t want to hear this, especially those who don’t have a double vaccination. We don’t need people being gaslit either, and yet it is happening with increasing frequency. I’m really not sure how it got to the point where safety was superseded by commercialism either, but it shouldn’t surprise anybody that is where we now exist. In the months that follow, a lot of stuff is going to disintegrate for good. We don’t have a ‘Normal’ to go back to any more. That’s the problem.

There is less time to blog at present, mostly because my free time has become so precious. However, starting today there will be a proper effort to do Mondays and Fridays, if only to be able to remind myself how badly the World is on fire at any given moment. It’s also a great way to distract myself as a bunch of people destroy my home in the name of progress.

Still Alive

Yeah, one day we’ll talk about that.

I ran out of space in my Stress Bucket on Wednesday morning. Hang on, what’s a Stress Bucket?

I picked this off t’Interwebs because it’s the best example of what details will play on your bucket’s capacity. It also asks you to identify the areas where stress inhabits or comes from and how that will then ‘fill’ the container, the size of which can also change based on your vulnerability. The plan, always, is never to allow stress to overfull the bucket. If you get to that point, it’s time to step back, and I let the blog go for two scheduled days I had planned because, in the end, writing about being stressed has been identified as an unhelpful response.

A good night’s sleep and some quality de-stressing last night has pulled be back down to where coping skills are managing the stress successfully. This afternoon therefore I’m going to not worry about anything else except doing my best to completely empty the bucket, so when we start again on Monday, I possess the most space possible. That will mean lifting some weights this afternoon, and doing some cycling this evening. After all that? I just have to hope the Universe maybe cuts me a break next week.

I am at least doing all I can.

Sunny

It had to be said, I KNOW I’d said I was done, but there are still loose ends being found and tidied up. I’m also largely having to plan on the fly as it’s a Bank Holiday, and training this morning has effectively wiped me out. However, because it is all easier, that’s what’s happened. Plan B is in place. I am ready to readjust. Also, I unexpectedly got a bonus today, and am hugely grateful for it.

I’d like to think the world is changing. Let’s see.

The Gift

It took me a while to work out why I couldn’t share a Tweet from my personal account any more: it’s because I’ve locked it. It won’t exist on Monday anyway: I finally cut the chord and have decided to shut it down. I know I’ll lose over 2500 followers but honestly, when I interact with probably 150 of those on a regular basis (and nearly 100 have followed me to the new account) it’s not a loss. The people paying attention know I’m off, and I’ve messaged the rest.

It’s the necessary next step in personal evolution.

Yes, there will inevitably be casualties, but this is the moment to grasp that if this matters enough to people, they’ll come and find me. I cannot keep track of everything, and never could really with two ‘main’ accounts on the go simultaneously so, in the end, it was easier to make the choice. It’s not a personal sleight that I’ve ignored or forgotten people, and I hope they’ll understand that. Some will undoubtedly not understand why I’d trash a following on principle.

Those people I’m probably better off not following any more anyway.

Needless to say, starting on the first, an awful lot of stuff is gone for good.

The End of the World

Starting next week, we have building work. We expect it to last at least five months. This is already hugely traumatic for me, and we’ve not even started yet. However, it does explain why, in all these years, we’ve stayed in the same place. Moving would have destroyed me mentally, several times over. For now, packing stuff away is only possible in bursts, but when the urge is there, it is taken with enthusiasm. Lots has vanished this weekend. I’m selling some stuff I thought I’d end up skipping. That’s lovely.

Expect a LOT of photography in the next few months.

It’s Not Over Yet

What I am has been different for most of my adult life. I have moved around extensively, and have altered undoubtedly as a result of understanding what I really am. That journey should, theoretically, never end, until I die. The point is to not be the same person if that is having a negative impact on anything and anyone else, and I can write that and then realize some people will assume it means one thing, when really the opposite is true. The reality of existence is to find your own space and thrive within it. When you struggle to fit the norms, what is the thrive plan going forward?

Well, that’s relatively easy. You’ll find the people who understand and care, you’ll seek out safe spaces in which that can happen, and when it becomes necessary to live in other places which don’t ‘get’ what you are, you can become very adept at camouflage. Except that is not the way it should be. Me being bisexual should not ruin the quality of anybody’s life, but amazingly it has. It has had a negative impact, and will continue to do so, because by not being normal, I am a threat to those who see this as power they cannot control or dictate.

However, these threat levels are nothing compared with my trans mates, who would just like to be allowed to exist but who are right now being hunted, derided and attacked. It’s not fair, and it’s not acceptable, and this is the beginning of a period of our existence as human beings that will define whether we survive as a race or not. History is unblinking and unerring, and will look at this time as the one where it either began to be a societal norm, or it was when it was outlawed. I’m not happy about it, but reckon we could still go either way.

That’s why its up to me now to start making a fuss about a lot of things: disability and accessibility, allowing true freedom of expression, weaning people off commercialism and back to the days where alive meant you just did your own thing and nobody else got in your fucking business. Of course, the rich people are gonna still want your money, but if you can make better, informed choices over what that actually means, that would be helpful. Mostly this is about being true to an authentic self, which is what matters more than anything else in the end.

My daughter’s listening to a lot of songs about death right now, as I did at her age, wrestling with the reality that nobody is ever likely to remember you unless you were the one who made things either massively better or hugely worse for everybody else. I know which side of that history I intend to be on, and we’ll keep plugging away at it until people pull their heads out of their arses and stop saying ‘but I can’t do that, it’s too hard.’ Living and thriving in a World that marks you a freak is HARD, fighting your own brain every day is HARD, please don’t tell me you are struggling when the biggest issue you have is not being able to go on holiday or do ‘normal’ things.

Except they do, and that noise is stopping the real work for taking place. It’s up to me to deal with that, and I will.

I see you people, and know you are part of the problem.

Unfinished Sympathy

This was written today, because if it were tomorrow, I would have not yet moved on, and that’s what needs to happen. That’s the problem with the World now: all these time zones, so much difference between what’s not for me and then for others. I could have scheduled for Monday but, by then, this is history. It’s taken a year, give or take, to decouple myself from an online persona that effectively saved my life. Some might want to use that as fuel going forward, but after I watched a grown woman on Friday night tell me how she stopped herself from taking her own life, something fundamental altered inside.

Knowing you are not alone is great: believing it is a different concept entirely.

When all is said and done, I have always thrived when nurtured. The problem in this Existence of Noise, which it undoubtedly has become right now, remains filtering out the stuff that is harmful. An awful lot of it isn’t, far more than you might think. So many good ideas come from Social media, staggering depth and breadth of beauty, and if you’re not smart enough to understand the difference between a need and an ask, it can all get terribly difficult to rationalize. It’s why it took so long to sort the transition out properly.

I remember someone long gone from what is now my personal feed, someone I’d loved as a mutual and wished for as a friend, staging the most impressive exit from the platform. I should have gone when he did, on reflection. That moment has been thought on for the longest time, that he did it right, and I’ve spent years hanging on hoping certain people might stop thinking this was what my life was, when it became just a place I lived in and stayed part of for so long out of an obligation to others. Those who interact and give back have kept me sane, and there’s hope that many of those will come and join me on this new journey.

However, many won’t, and now I have to move on.

Undoubtedly the problem before was the thought I couldn’t cope without that presence as support. When it became apparent that it was perfectly possible to cope on my own, the requirement was redundant.

If you’re reading this from the pinned tweet on my personal account: yes, I’m still there, but its no longer where I work.

I have finally accepted that, and moved on.

Inside Out

As I was working in the Gym this morning with my PT, she remarked how I seemed to be thriving right now in my exercise goals. Except, I’m not. This is me, coping. It’s hard work, and I am always tired and progress is just the next thing I can do without having to spend all my time thinking about it, and therefore wearing myself out even further. It’s an interesting observation, that on the outside I look assured but on the inside, it’s actually a mess.

I’m also writing a selection of mental health poetry for Patreon, and this morning a poet of some note remarked how my choice of titles was far more optimistic than she herself would have considered, and now I’m absolutely positive there is a disconnect at work between how I see the world and how the world sees me. This is going to make for an interesting conversation with the mental health people on Thursday.

This week is one to watch, people.

Embarrassment

It’s good to know absolutely nothing has changed for certain people in Lockdown. I have form with the woman mentioned in this Thread, and possess a far longer memory than she clearly does. I’ll have my revenge, but for now it’s more important doing the work than it is complaining about the surroundings. You can’t have everything, after all.

Yet again, the Patreon course is the gift that keeps on giving. I wanted summat inspirational, and as non-cheesy as possible and this is perfect. Plus it’s comprehensive proof I’m not the Product. You have to turn up and do the work with me going forward. That’s the plan. Gonna be interesting to see how many more people do that, but two new Patrons this month is indeed a start.

Also, I am INSANELY proud of this idea. No, really, the best thing I’ve made for I do not know how long.

You don’t just have to have one job.