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Thursday 22 April 2021

The agony of a new decision

 Don't get me wrong, I am learning to love my new life after covid-19 locked us all in, but there has to be changes if I am to live my life the way I would wish and being stuck in the house has not been the option I would choose for myself especially as I grow older.

Watching a You Tube video of someone I follow, I remember saying to him in the comments section it was "time to look after yourself now you have stopped looking after everyone else", and that comment comes back in my direction loud and clear. 

Yes, I have spent a large chunk of my life putting others first, both in my career and in my social life. I have cared for animals and placed their welfare above my own, I have done my best to please others and make them happy, quite often to the detriment of myself, but have found pleasure in seeing them happy. I have worked with children who have a disadvantage of some description and shown them these can work in their favour not their disfavour and I have helped those who have been too frightened to try, to get past that fear and become the whole of what they wanted to achieve.

Don't get me wrong, I have been pleased to serve others but now its my time and I am attempting to turn the bus which appears to have no power steering to help me.

My last post listed pretty much everything I have completed during the latest three month lock down and I managed to complete a whole bunch of stuff in the previous two sessions as well, so I know I have reached a point in the house and garden, where I am running out of jobs to do. I have a decent front door on order to replace the one I have and also have two replacement glass units to replace blown glazing units in two of the rooms, so that's done as well.

I have gone on the list for solar panels on the roof which, should have been fitted by the end of May. Somehow I can't see that happening with the covid situation putting everything off as it did, and the rain! Boy did we get rain for a month solid. Being a council led project though, the prices were far lower because the volume is so great for the fitting companies. The down-side is the potential waiting list and not really knowing where I am in the queue.

So two jobs outstanding but in the pipeline.

But, and this is the big but, its not directly for me, it's around me if you get what I mean?

Yes, it will impact on my life in a good way but has it fulfilled me mentally? Has it given me the adrenaline highs I get when on the high seas? When I enter an orchid house and smell the heady perfume? Or satisfy my sense of touch with the hot, soft sands moving beneath my feet as I walk toward the waves of the ocean?

No.

But I have booked holidays away and hopefully the first one is in August and takes me around the UK. Will I feel better when I come back? I do hope so.

I had plans to get on trains and travel around with a suitcase and a train ticket but covid still has the hotel industry closed as tight as a drum and as yet even a train journey is out of reach. Given the second injection and with the summer months approaching, I will feel more confident to travel, but there again, its a commodity sorely knocked over the past year.

Yes, step one in my mental rehabilitation to this new reality is to regain my confidence and feel safe to step outside the confines of a very narrow field of view.

I look at my car and wonder why it is I still have one. Four seats, four seat belts, what for? There's only one person in there and that's me.

Take out the back seats? Be interesting to see what space is left but can I take out the seats? What about the MOT? Does that effect it in some way? And the DVLC, do they need to be informed?

There's lots of doubt in my head and being on my own there isn't anyone to bounce these thoughts off and work through as most couples would. 

I'm stuck and the decisions are hard. I'm scared to look for the answers just in case there's paperwork at the end of it and I am terrified by anything official at the best of times (an aspect of my autism I'm sure). A van would be easiest, no seats, no hassle and the decision is made for me.

But, and here's the next one, but what happens in a few years time when I am too old to have a license by right and have to go cap in hand to find out if I'm allowed to drive any more? 

This is the biggest 'but' which just won't go away.