It’s almost four months ago that I ‘downed pen’ and closed my blog.  I didn’t make a conscious decision to do so.  After my last entry which I now see was about the American election, I just never came back.  A web of misery wound itself around me as the winter approached and I couldn’t find the spark that had illuminated my writing.  Life has been very hard on me over the last few months for all sorts of reasons leaving me devoid of the will to write anything at all.  Days, then weeks and then months went by and the longer I was a away from the blog, the more courage I needed to return to it.  Several times I have thought about opening it up but I couldn’t quite make myself.

Today, while sorting out bits and bobs on my laptop, I found myself clicking on WordPress and here I am!  I was heartened by the comments left for me, especially yours Rudi, thank you and to Dave and Lynette and AA.  Seeing that people care about me is heartening and so I’m writing today to say I am alive!  I shall collect my thoughts and will be back with a proper post and some updates very soon!!  Best wishes to you:)

Picture www.visi.com

So, the American people have cast their votes and made history, voting in an African American president.  It has been an incredible campaign that seems to have gone on for an age.  I couldn’t wait to hear the results this morning and it seems that this particular election has got the people of the world completely inspired.  The very fact that an African American was in the running has had a unique effect on everyone as the people of the world saw the possibility that a black man could become the most powerful man in the world.

I can’t imagine that Martin Luther King ever imagined that his dream would come to fruition so soon.  “I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  I’m not sure that this is exactly the case in this instance and in these enlightened days, it was possibly the fact that Barack is black, that made the difference.  But, “with this hope, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope”, is perhaps the case for many minority groups in the country and the world over.  Barack Obama is well aware of this, “those who’ve been told…to be cynical and fearful.. put their hand on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day”.  Not bad.  I wonder who wrote that part of his acceptance speech.  It was lovely, really poetic. 

“An end to slavery and racial prejudice” reported an ITV newscaster though I thought racial prejudice had been banned a long time ago.

The thorn in the side for me, is the enormous war chest Barack had at his disposal.  Some $600 million dollars bought him this election against a paltry amount that McCain had to fight his own campaign.  I think that’s wrong.  The media have been totally biased in Obama’ss favour for so long, especially here in England.  It almost seemed it was a done deal a very long time ago and that must have had an effect on Americans.

No one can fault John McCain’s behaviour as he conceded the election.  He was gracious in defeat which must have been a bitter moment for him.  Socialism is on the way for Americans but then we too have a socialist style government here.  It’s the poplular thing these days.  Take from the haves and give to the have nots and so on, and bail out the banks.

America has indeed shifted on its axis but no one can deny the ‘vitality of American democracy’, as President Bush said, if you forget about the difference in the money to fight the respective campaigns, it’s refreshing to see when compared with our own country.

Good luck America.  Good luck Barack – you’re going to need it.

I’ve been catching up a bit today with other people’s blogs having been too miserable to read any lately.  I was especially inspired by Dave over at Teach my children well.  He writes of a moment of clarity, an epiphany almost, following a scrape in his car when he lost his patience with his children and generally had a melt down.  He realised that he had to make some changes in his life, that he was overwhelmed by his work and young children and had made some bad decisions culminating in the car crash.

It was his ability to pick himself up, take himself in hand, get a realistic perspective on his work and home life and make adjustments to improve himself that struck such a chord with me.  I recognise myself in his descriptions and my biggest fear is that if I don’t take his lead and turn myself around, I will look back with regret and despair that I didn’t take action when I still could.

I recognise that I’ve been dragged down by depression and despair for far too long but equally I know that if I had the same courage as Dave and pull myself up, I would feel a lot better.  I’ve allowed too many things to get the better of me for too long.  Perhaps I’ve let myself become the victim, have looked always on the negative, let the ligitamate difficulties be an endless excuse for lack of determination instead of daring to look over the edge at other, better possibilities; looked at the glass half empty rather than half full.

I’ve been probing my strength over the last few days.  On the one hand, I am pathetically pleased to have secured two tiny jobs but on the other I feel annoyed that I can be so pleased about so little.  I went to see the man that needed a cleaner yesterday.  I summoned all my strength, had a bath, put on make up, found some reasonably decent clothes (ie, without holes in) and suddenly had a moment of panic.  What if this man was after something other than a cleaner.  He had rung in response to my ‘Lady seeking local work’ card I’d put up around town.  I suddenly felt that the wording I had used sounded like those ‘girl seeking man, man seeking girl, man seeking man’ type of ads.  I was about to go to a complete strangers house on the basis of a short phone call.  I ran a few scenarios through my mind.  He could suddenly pounce and not let me out of the house.  He could be a psyco with a knife.  Or, he could be an older man needing some cleaning done.  That’s the trouble with having an over active imagination.

I left the address and phone number with The Other with instructions to call the police if I didn’t return and drove off.  He was absolutely charming.  He worried that I might feel cleaning was beneath me, he assured me that he felt we were equals, he had no illusions of grandeur, master and servant attitude, that perhaps it was the start of a good relationship between us, then he took that back fearing I might take the comment the wrong way.  He offered me more money than I asked for too.  All in all, for a first walk into uncharted territory, it could not have gone better.  I don’t have the same expectation of my other tiny job, shopping for an elderly lady.  I may be wrong but she sounded as though she could be quite a challenge and has offered a pittance for my service.  I will only have to spend a very short time with her though, and as I need to take on whatever I can, I have agreed to collect her shopping list at the weekend.  So I have mixed feelings about it all, swinging from delight that someone actually wants me, to feeling that I really ought to have better standards for myself.  I shall see it through though, if for no other reason than that man deserves my best efforts.

It didn’t help that not only, after all this time, did I walk past my old colleague that stabbed me in the back  but that my friend who also worked with me there for a while rang to ask if I’d seen that he was advertising for an Operations Manager in our local paper.  If you’ve read my post about it, you may remember that I was out of a job in the blink of an eye when the company was supposedly bankrupt and was closing down immediately.  I’ve resisted in the meantime looking to see if it is still going.  I have stopped myself looking to see if the website is still up.  I couldn’t face the huge betrayal of that vile man.  The company provides a winter service and when we had such a mild winter last year, I felt sure that he had gone out of business even if he had misled me and carried on behind my back.  To see him yesterday, our eyes meeting so fleetingly that in a minute we had walked by each other and then to see for myself later, the advertisement, brought all the bad feeling well up in me again. 

Since I left the company, I have wished many horrid things to happen to him.  I’ve wondered why I didn’t sue him and wondered if I should now.  I’ve analysed my feelings and realised that what that I most resent is how much the whole episode dented my self confidence.  The effects are still feel raw and the hurt still hurts.  I know I didn’t deserve to be treated like that and that is some consolation.  I also take comfort in the sure knowledge, that the company won’t succeed, I know this because of global warming.  I know he is ultimately in the wrong business.  I also beleive in Karma to some extent.  What goes around comes around.  I must be patient.

I wanted to thank Dave and Lynette and all the people who have bothered to try and cheer me up lately and left kind and helpful comments for me here.  And to say, that I am going to try and turn things around as Dave has done.

One day at a time.