Still no Lomax...........

So tired last night that I slept right through until 07:30. Whistled and called for Lomax, and checked the log store etc. but still no sign. I have this gut feeling he’s dead, but at the same time hope he’ll be there each time I open the door and call him. I really should go down the stream to where it goes under the road, and is blocked by a set of bars across it, because the suspicion that he fell in there and drowned is nagging at me. The stream is small, but has steep sides, and is a long way down below the land surrounding it. I dread finding him in there though, and that it will be my last vision of him.

He may well be fine………. who knows, he may have picked some new people to move in with. I put loyalties in him that prolly don’t exist.

Back to sodding work today, after twelve days off on annual leave. As usual, I dread it. What a stoopid move I mad all those years ago to become a nurse, and then stuck at it, and then slid over to learning difficulties. A thankless, hen-pecked, weenie-led grind, if ever there was one.

Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid!

Lets see if I can get off the Lomax Subject, and ramble away at something else instead.

I read an awful lot, and this place is stuffed to the gunnels with books and my ‘hobby’ magazines……….. mostly mo’sickles, photography, astronomy and general science/tech stuff. I keep a book in which I copy various quotes and inspirations which catch my eye, and once in a while I browse through it. Most of them kick off a procession of thoughts as I ponder on them. Maybe I’ll start to put one a day into the blog, and maybe ramble on it.

Lets have a look here for a minute…………………

Ok………. Here’s the first one in the book.

Success
To laugh often and much.
To win the respect of intelligent people, and the affection of children.
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others.
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition.
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
---Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I wrote that down, I realised that I could say “Yup” to them all, except I haven’t sired any child (Waddya mean “Thank God!”).

(Would bringing up a little pussy cat count?…. Sorry, but he’s there every second.)

Maybe find it hard to define the redeeming of a social condition……… redeem to mean restore? A friendship as in lieu of a social condition? That could be not only a friendship of your own, but between others….. Ok, done that too. Both definitions.

Looking at it, surely it pretty much covers all bases? I mean, the ‘garden patch’ bit sure helped me breathe a sigh of relief, after realising I’ve wasted so many valiantly hopeful sperm blasted against many a welcoming womb……… at least before getting my tubes tied off that is. Then I was just pretending. :o) Paintballs, as opposed to belt-fed armour-piercing rounds.

Sorry, I digress.

Lomax intrudes everywhere.

Stalls this ramble in it’s stride.

Damn computer keeps highlighting my apostrophe use…………. Must check it out, and refresh on it. The ‘stride’ is belonging to the ‘ramble’, so surely the apostrophe is ok?????

Who gives a shit?

Life’s too damn short to worry about it, eh? :oI

If ever you want proof that I have a pretty direct brain to mouth/keyboard link, with the censure off riding around on a Bantam somewhere, and that I don’t edit a lot out, there it is. (And a Bantam is a dinky little BSA mo’sickle, ……….not a damn chicken ok?!)

I mean, who’d ever put that in a blog, unless they were pretty much knocking it straight out?

(Meeeeeow)

I should write more………. It sure helps you feel a bit better, and I know it more than most, but still don’t use it when I really need to. Why is it so hard to do what helps you in this life, and yet so easy to do what hurts you? Not for the first time have I wondered that, and maybe you have too.

I woke up this morning feeling like shit, and guilty that I’d slept right through, and not been up at the door several times calling for Lomax. I saw him everywhere, as I have done since realising he was in trouble, and thought of writing to this blog, or even just writing to get it out, to release the pressure of thoughts belting around, to let it feel better, as I knew it would. Somehow, stopping me is a 'wall' you cannot see, that blocked reaching for a keyboard or a pen.

It happens a lot to me, and it’s a kind of mental paralysis that is real hard to explain to the well-balanced, or better-balanced, amongst y’all. In case y’all haven’t guessed it, I suffer from depression……… I call it mild depression, because I haven’t thrown myself from a height only to be saved from impacting by means and method of a rope around the neck. Nor have I attempted any other imaginative means to end it all, the favourite of which for a long time has involved a powerful motorcycle, a terminal speed of around 150mph, and an immovable object just ahead. I’ve nearly died from two mo’sickle accidents, and I know it doesn’t hurt. It only hurts when you wake up again

I hope, if the worst has happened, that it was as quick for Lomax.

Stop. Don't imagine it.

Back to the rambling.

Where was I? Depression. Yup, if it gets a hold of you, it really fucks your life up. Skies aren’t a blue, nothing’s worth the bloody effort, and it’s all just too much trouble. Mine is plenty bad enough, so God knows what the curl-up-in-a-ball-for-days/weeks type is like……… or the type when you do actually attempt to flick the switch off, successfully, or unsuccessfully. In my mind, either is just as bad.

When I was nursing, we used to get ‘attempted' suicides, the inference being that the intention wasn't serious, and yes, quite often they were no more than that……… attempted. The standard approach was to not be particularly sympathetic……… not nasty, but just to politely deal with these people, but usually with a shade less friendliness than other patients coming in. there was the feeling that they were wasting time and resources that others were more deserving of.

Well, with hand on heart, I can honestly say I broke the rules………. Very subtly and quietly, because if I did otherwise trained staff would have 'counselled' me as to the correct approach. It wasn’t considered helpful to give attention seekers attention, and so reinforce their behaviour. Ok, there is logic in that, and it is sometimes the case, but I can remember, even as a young eighteen year old, believing that it was wrong to be so unfeeling. I always thought that to even half-heartedly attempt suicide, must have been an awful state of mind to be in, and they were worthy of my sympathy every bit as much as the other patients in there. I’d give a hand a squeeze, a wink, a smile, go over to make them more comfortable, and have a talk……… remind them that their tea was going cold......... whatever it was, it was at least some small comfort.

I was never depressed like I am these days, but actually was I think, to some degree, for short periods without recognising it for what it was. I’ve been diagnosed as having some degree of reactive depression….. yup……… something happens, and I react to it by getting depressed. The trouble for a long time has been there have been continual triggers, and so a continuing, underlying, depression. Living alone sure makes it worse.

Conflictingly, I do have an excellent sense of humour though…….. some would say too ‘excellent’. A psychiatrist once said it was unusual to find such a surviving sense of humour in someone who was chronically depressed. I’m sure it makes me look less than genuinely depressed, but I’m a ‘performer’ and love to make people laugh. I’ve been doing that my whole life, from as young as I can remember, and it’s a habit that is such a part of ‘me’ that it survives, and covers what’s really simmering underneath these days.

I do perk up when I’m having fun, with good company, and out on the bikes………… but, there’s little of all that surrounding me with any regularity right now, and that 'block', that invisible 'wall', that invisible restraint on my initiative, that swirling fog of cerebral paralysis, stops me from actively surrounding myself, and busying myself, with those very antidotes to the Black Dog

Like I was saying back there somewhere……….. why do we often avoid the stuff that’s good for us, and remain loyal to that which isn’t.

Beats me.

Ok, I gotta go see if Lomax is at the door, in the garden, or in the log store. The sun’s out, and he loved being out in the sun.

The photos in the blog of him in the sun were all taken a couple of Saturday’s ago, when we had a real nice day………. The first sign that spring is near, and I was out in the garden with him for most of the day.

He used to be in his Best Heaven, when the sun was out, and I was outside there with him. he'd scamper around me, as if showing off, and I guess that's just what he was doing. he used to make me laugh. It was a lovely, lovely day, and it made me look forward to the Spring and Summer when I imagined us sitting out there together, me reading in the shade, and him there on my knee, or beside me basking in the sun.

At least we did it the once, I guess.

It sure was a lovely day.

K.