Moving on....

Well, life is full of ups and downs, isn't it?
And what matters is how we react to them.

The horse I went to see on Sunday, the horse I was making plans to buy, the horse whose owner hugged me and told me I'd be perfect for him and I could have first refusal...
She sold him to someone else.
Just like that.

Of course I was furious, and upset, to put it mildly, I was devastated. For the afternoon and evening I was, once again, that little pony-mad kid who had been told that she couldn't have her pony. It was a huge disappointment. To be honest, I cried myself to sleep.

This morning I woke and it is June 6th.
Twenty eight years ago today I sat on the floor of a crematorium, unable to stand, and wept through my father's funeral service.
Twenty eight years ago today, as were leaving to follow the hearse I took a phone call from The Ex's sister. My mother in law had just died of breast cancer.
Two years ago today I started on a course of chemotherapy for my own breast cancer.

June 6th is a day that challenges my family.

This morning I sat in bed with a cup of tea and thought back to those other June 6ths.
And then I deleted the messages from the owner of the horse and blocked any future ones she may try to send me. It was evidently not meant to be and that is that. There may be another horse, there may not, What will be will be. All we can do is go with the flow and keep on moving on...

N'est-ce pas?
Here's to being alive xxx



  

Neutralising the negative...

The books are disappearing into boxes...

I find it interesting to note the order in which I am addressing the packing this time:

First the bone chine tea set, rarely used, saved for best, in France I will drink my morning tea from one of the cups perhaps with a little home-baked ginger biscuit in the saucer because it is, after all, the little things that make a good life.

Then the two very expensive crystal glasses, bought for me by a friend over forty years ago, to be used during romantic dinners, I have never used them. Is this becoming a metaphor for my life? The little luxuries I never felt good enough to use?

Then the books. Ah, the books. So many books. Many I'd forgotten I'd bought and have not read. When did my life become so busy that I have dozens of unread books? I sorted them into piles, some to donate to the hospital in Oxford, some for a friend to take to her local pub where they will be sold for another good cause... It's hard to part with books, hard but necessary. It's the holding on to old books that I have already read that keeps me from opening new ones, I think. Perhaps. Well, it's a state of mind that I wish to change.

But it is taking me a long time to pack for this move.
And I don;t know if that indicates a reluctance? A fear of the future? A desire to cling to that which is familiar? Nostalgia? Idleness? Perhaps I just have too much time on my hands, Having too much time is another problem for another post. Remind me sometime, please.

Back to the books.
Do I take all of the books on cyber security?
I have spent hundreds of pounds on books, books on programming, reverse engineering, hacking, internet forensics, operating systems internals...
Do I pack them and take them to Brittany? Or do I give them away? Would anyone want them? Do I want them? Do I, more to the point, need them? It was an interesting job, protecting cyber space, stopping spammers and scammers from stealing from people, occasionally reporting the image of a terrified abused child to the IWF, writing complex code to counter the Bad Guys' evil intentions. It was interesting and worthwhile and it almost broke me.

Do I want to hang on to the books?
Do I want to let go?

I am smiling because I imagine them in the dog's crate, behind bars, padlocked, safely out of harm's way. Perhaps I'll do that with all of these books that remind me of the dark side of the Internet. After all, that's what moving forward is all about, neutralising the toxic emotions, disarming that which harmed us, mentally reducing it to an amusing image, and letting it go.

N'est-ce pas?

    

On being Stormur...

Do you recall that Icelandic horse that I rode last November?
The one that started something...
How to explain that last sentence?

It was cancer that taught me a lesson I really should have learned eleven years ago when I first went to France but that I obviously did not learn because I came back.

Why did I return and walk willingly, enthusiastically into the Corporate Cage?

Fear, of the future
Forgetfulness, of the past
Failure, to put my own well-being first

Having cancer showed me how far I had drifted from the feisty seven year-old pony-mad tomboy that I once was, and how much of myself I had allowed to be smothered and suffocated by the insane struggle to survive in a society that I neither understand, nor support, nor care to continue to contribute to.

Having cancer stripped me bare of the layers that I had built around myself thinking they would protect me, layers that were as brittle as the thinnest shell and as protective as gossamer.

I went to Iceland to rediscover that feisty little kid, and while I certainly did not return a Viking Warrior, at least I started on the path to becoming one.

For the last few months I have been engaged in negotiations with The Corporation as we seek to find a moderately satisfactory way to end our relationship. This has actually been going on since December 2015 when I realised that It Would Not Do and I resigned, which act stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble and resulted in some serious stuff. I am not permitted, contractually, to discuss that, nor the settlement that may finally be signed this coming week.

Happily it will soon be done and dusted.

When I went to Iceland I rode a horse called Stormur, Icelandic for Storm.
Now, six months later I am learning Icelandic, on the brink of buying an Icelandic horse whose name means Fire, and preparing to go back to Brittany.

Everything happens for a reason
N'est-ce pas?
 

Letting go...

They cut the grass on the green yesterday, which means that at 08.00 am, as I sit here with the doors wide open to let in the sunlight and the sounds of a blackbird singing, the delicious scent of freshly-mowed grass fills my lungs and my heart.

It is delicious, this summer morning freshness with its promise of a hot day to come.   

And I am, once again, in the process of letting go.
Letting go and packing my possessions for another move.

It's something I am good at, being the child of nomadic parents and the product of seven junior and five senior schools, I live like a camel train, ready to up and leave with each new dawn, although not quite as frequently, but it's that mentality.

Home is where the heart is, or, in my case, the dog and the books and soon, I sincerely hope, the horse, but that is another story to be saved for another day.

And though I sometimes miss the places where I've been, the village green I've walked on thrice daily for almost seven years, the lanes where I've wandered, the untidy flower-filled corners that seem to grow around me wherever I put down my short roots...

And even though it means leaving behind the bush that I have dutifully pruned and tended so that this year it has more blossoms than ever before...

Even so,  nothing lasts forever and life is one long, slow-moving river that runs, eventually, to the sea.

So, this is me today...
Contemplative, a little nostalgic, noting all that I will miss...
And knowing that forwards is really the only way to go.