Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Lucky

In some ways I am lucky.  I am, always have been, naturally self-reliant, happy with my own company, solitary, a listener, not a talker.  

These days, when I'm not feeling up to much, I am happy pottering around at home, with painkillers and the fire for company, while H dashes about, sorting everything out.  She says sorry if anything is less than perfect, and I repeat, over and over, stop apologising, you're doing a brilliant job.  

It is lucky that I like my own company,  which for better or worse over the years has manifested itself in many different ways.  I've never been much of a drinker either, and on nights out would often be the first to leave, happy to drift home before the serious drinking started - I can still see the uncomprehending faces now - Tim, Andy B, Gav.  But we're just getting warmed up, they'd say, while I was slowly turning white in the corner, patting my pockets to see where my tube pass was.  

And these characteristics allow me to cope now.  It's important to talk, I get that, and I don't bottle anything - or at least, I try not too.  Sometimes, right out of nowhere, something sets me off, and I'm suddenly overwhelmed, and there is nothing to do but let it out.  I'm pretty sure this is normal.  And while the knowledge of my condition never leaves me, not for more than a few seconds, I can cope because I often get absorbed by something else - a favourite old book, the football on the radio.  And because I have thought it through, and accepted what is going on.  Yes it's unfair, yes, it's not right, but it is what it is.  And the light it has shone on many of my relationships is something extraordinary to behold.  My wife, I run out of superlatives for.  But there are many other little acts of kindness, none of which go unnoticed, toward us.  And it is these that make me amazed that, solitary as I am, I've somehow managed to collect an awful lot of friends along the way.