Taking Time Away

It's been a tough few weeks for me. There have been a lot of things happening and all of them can be grouped under the heading "Life".

In no particular order:

• I've been made redundant
• I returned to a working life I thought I'd left behind and it unsettled me
• A close relative died

Mixed among all of these quite crucial life events was all the other detritus of modern living: silly things like the busyness of traffic and the management of a household and getting exercise and organising teenagers to bigger picture thinking like worrying about the world at large and what that means for my kids and what does it all mean?

I felt crowded out. I felt like there were a lot of things that were out of my control and that I was floundering. I saw a clip of something on social media which showed someone who had been swept away in a current in a gorge but had managed to scramble out onto a fallen tree. The torrent raged under him as he sat, his clothes stuck to him, shaping his torso so that you could see the pink of his cold, hypothermic skin. He shivered, his head lowered, his body hunched. He looked lost, scared, and in need of rescuing. His static weariness made me fear for him.

It also resonated with me. That torrent was life for me. It had taken me and I was completely at its mercy. So many things that had been normal for me were now being displaced: losing my job which had been my routine for almost three years; returning to a place of work, a school, where I had once been confident and competent, and confronting the fact that I might be returning to a life that I was not that sorry to leave behind; and then, a dear relative dying and all that that presents: the loss, the mourning, the emotion, the space left, the dynamic shift it presents in other relationships.

And with all of that, you have to try and keep your head above water. You have to keep on keeping on. I don't have the means to stop - I have too many people depending on me to be what I am to them and I don't want to let anyone down. I am lucky that this is a driver for me rather than a burden otherwise life's torrent would still be tossing me about, careering me into rocks and boulders and ducking my head under the rapids until my lungs creaked.

I managed to scramble out but I was that kid sitting on the fallen tree. In shock. Still functioning but in a bit of a state.

When I feel like this, I have to pare my life down, make it manageable. Experience has taught me this. When things are out of my control, I look at what I can control. Turns out, not a lot. But it doesn't have to be a lot in order for me to feel better. It just has to be enough. So what gives?

Family matters to me and so, whilst it may also be a stressor in some ways, it can't be compromised. I must be there.

I had to go to work. I'm getting paid until the end of the month and despite my feelings about the whole thing, I feel a sense of duty to do the job well. It's not just me who's been dispatched: my colleagues are also having to find other work so it's not a reflection on my ability. However, it still smarts.

And a funeral? Well, you just have to get through them, whatever they present.

I needed head space. I needed to sit and just be. I needed the bombardment of life to stop, or at least to lessen.

The world is getting me down at the moment. I know that there is a lot of good out there but the internet has not been feeding me enough of it to keep me sustained. I have been avoiding the news and social media. I feel better for this.

And Vocal. I love this place in so many ways. It is, for me, a bonus that I never thought that I would have available to me. Write and launch. It's so easy to get my words out there for people to read! I can type, save, submit and within moments it's live. What a wonderful world we live in! I genuinely mean that - Vocal is great.

I bought some typesetting blocks on one of my shopping excursions and the thought of having to set these up to print something...can you imagine? I mean, that line alone would take what? A mass of minutes as opposed to the quickness of my fingers dancing over the keys. Never mind, ink and paper and multiple copies to bind...

But as is often the case with these things, with convenience comes inconvenience. The lurkers. The bots. The annoyances of the sly.

Vocal was getting me down. I never thought I'd say it but it was. It was bots; it was AI. I hated the thought that someone was benefitting from my words. I hated the fakery of it. I felt like I was dealing less with a creative space and more a place where words make money and it doesn't matter if those words are crafted, plagiarised or generated.

But it wasn't just AI. Vocal was also, at a time when I needed a boost to my ego, when I was feeling low, a little of a disappointment. The last challenge I entered, I wrote an entry of which I was inordinately proud and had some really wonderful comments from readers who had taken time to engage with it. But it never placed and I felt engulfed by the cold mist of neglect generated in having been overlooked.

Normally, I have a shield which protects me from the succubus that tries to feed on my self-worth. But not this time. Not being noticed hurt. I cried. I'm upset now as I'm writing. Remembering how low I felt is still vivid. I'm not trying to take away anything from the other challenge winners. I've had my fair share of victories and I've often been chosen.

However, at a time when I needed a boost, not being chosen left me cold and dejected. I was already being rejected by employers; I was experiencing grief from a death; the world was (is) going to hell in a hand basket and my phone delighted in telling me this every time I picked it up.

Fuck.

Black cloud all around.

What's it all for? Why bother to try? Am I good enough?

I was tired, weary. I needed a rest and shared that fact here:

I knew what I had to do. I looked for things that would help.

I sat. I knitted. I read. I detached myself from the virtual world. I walked. I planted things. I listened to music. I wrote with a pen on paper. I reached out to the local community. I visited church (architectural reverence rather than spiritual but there's something about them...).

You see, I'm not defeatist. I wouldn't say I'm a fighter because I'm not aggressive but my spirit is strong. I've had a good life on the whole but I've been through some challenging times and gained a lot of knowledge about myself as a result. Fundamentally, I've learnt resilience and I am confident about who I am and of what I am capable. Sometimes, it gets cast into doubt but I rarely stay there in that shadow. Multiple knocks brought me to this point of weakness and the wound was felt but it will heal, I know that and I'll carry it with me as I move beyond, conscious of its mark but no longer hindered by it.

Taking time has brought me to somewhere new and I like its stillness and its softness. So, I am going to limit my time on the internet. I don't need the noise. I am going to limit my time on Vocal. I may not publish as much although I will still write.

However, there are fellow writers here who I deem friends and I will continue to support them because they have been there for me and that means such a lot - I can't really express how much.

Why the disconnection with Vocal? Vocal - it's not you, it's me. Taking this time has made me realise that writing needs to be my thing and at the moment, I need to reconnect with me and my voice and why I do it, rather than contemplating why my words are not chosen. I feel out of balance and I need to feel that external validation is nice but not needed. I'm not really sure who me is now. All is in flux and Vocal and how I sit here is part of that.

These moments are good. Even though they're demanding and send tremors through your very foundations, they are good. And they need to be approached as such: not feared but seen as an opportunity, new vistas, all of those meme poster clichés. It's like a button has been pressed to reset. I don't like the shake up that severe life events present but what living has taught me is that they are transitory and that these dark days will pass. I have the tools to deal with it and I am sincerely grateful for that as I am the ability to express it and share it with you.