Putting It Back Together Again
17 March

Well, the campaign to put David back together has begun. It would appear that I'm not rushing into things as I maybe have done at previous times in my life and I'm not looking for instant solutions that I have just thought through without really believing in. So, maybe there is a bit of a sea change going on.

I know I've been looking a lot at the patterns in my life (and, as an aside, I managed an interesting Freudian slip just then by originally typing partners instead of patterns).

Like there is a pattern where

• I work very hard at something over a long period of time
• I eventually become exhausted
• There is a crisis and I get into acute distress
• Someone rescues me

This is the equivalent of my birth story where the labour was over 12 hours long, the placenta came first and then the doctor had to deliver me with forceps. Please note that, if this sounds far fetched, whenever I get into a distressingly stressful state, I get this feeling that the back of my head is being squeezed.

Or another one where

• I meet someone and am attracted to them
• I find out that they had something horrible happen to them in their early years
• I work very hard to offer them comfort, support and security
• They have a crisis which I work very hard to help them get through
• They move on
• I am left with very little sense of who I am and having learnt only how to be a better carer for the next person

And this with minor tweeks can be applied to pretty much every long term relationship that I have ever had.

So, I'm obviously working through stuff but I'm choosing not to get to involved with sorting it out in my head. I'm trying more to find ways of being still and to quiet my speeding soul so that I can listen and try to hear what it is that I am telling myself that I want to do.

For example, last Monday I went off with my next door neighbour Kathy to a yoga class at the local YMCA and it was fabby. The company was many women in their middle years and it was a nicely low key atmosphere with people doing whatever they could do and not worrying about the bits that they couldn't. And I've been again this week so it's obviously going to be something I stick with for the time being.

The following day, I went to an introductory Tai Chi class. I had much higher hopes of this. I wanted something that was about movement and travelling through space rather than stretching and adopting positions but I found that, for me, the atmosphere was all wrong. The structure of the course was to marshal participants through the series of movements that make up the form within a three month period and I knew that I would just end up getting frustrated and worried about missing sessions and falling behind and letting people down. And even if that was all about material in my own head, then it still didn't stop it being my reality and a reality that I could do without at present. So, despite the two cute men on the course, I've decided to give Tai Chi a miss for the moment.

I shall also keep up the aromatherapy massage and I've had another session last Thursday after which Anita said that I have loosened up considerably so all that work with the relaxation tape is obviously having some benefits.

This Monday was back to work. I feel very wobbly about it and will only be doing short days to begin with. I feel such a clutz for running out of energy by 2pm and having to go home to go to bed for a couple of hours. But hopefully things will start getting better at some point.

One quick piece of operatic news was the attending of a concert performance of Boito's Mefistophele at the Barbican. Fabulous night. Colin and Roland were ecstatic and it's a work I've wanted to hear live for many years.

But frankly, I hadn't the energy to enjoy it completely. At this stage, I'm just glad I had enough energy to get there and sit through it.