There are very few stories that are new. I am one of 7 billion or whatever people and my story is repeated so very many times.
I don't go seeking out articles but, from time to time, some resonate when I come across them.
I’m 70 and so full of regret about my husband and career | Marriage | The Guardian - I always say that I do not want to end up where my father and mother did at 90 and 80 respectively; full of anger and resentment. This lady's issues were different because she has clearly had a career, whereas my mother's regret was about not working and not using her skills. But the regret may come from not leaving an unloving situation - and I fully admit that it is now me who is unable to love.
Confidant: 169: My Mother (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) In her autobiography, she rails against her mother and her husband.
Confidant: 122: My Father 1 (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) I don't know whether he was loving or not - for sure he was married to his work - but he was dutiful and hard working. And where she bemoaned opportunities lost, so he felt unappreciated and 'like a servant in his own home.'
Absolutely not where I want to end up.
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What being a hospice volunteer taught me about death and life | Death and dying | The Guardian - just a very beautiful article. 'Now, when a new day breaks, I try to see it from their perspective and cherish the humdrum as a gift. And when I finish a hospice shift, I want to take back into the outside world that sense of life stripped back to its essentials, where what ultimately matters is love.' A slightly lazy last sentence but the 'essentials' are what matter.
'I’m discovering that it’s essential to recognise that we can’t control life in the way we assume. The existence we take for granted is as frail as dreams and it can dissolve in a heartbeat.' So very true.
In all our troubles - virtually from day one - I have tried to focus on the fundamentals and how lucky we are Confidant: 164: The Day the Music Died 2 (!) (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) Confidant: Entry 21: All Gone to Pot (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)
And when I think that I am just being a baby and immature, that I should simply 'get over' myself, the writer was putting down life stories and, 'Each interview would start the same way: with an apology. The patients apologised for having led boring lives that were not worth recording. Then, as they rewound the years, I realised they were discovering for the first time that they were a pivotal part of a story; that they had made an imprint on the world.' Yes, each one of us is one in eight billion or whatever, but each story counts and each life is important.
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Think yourself better: 10 rules of philosophy to live by | Philosophy books | The Guardian - a pleasant article.
And ends with what I am reputed to have learnt from my maternal grandfather when he quoted that 'virtue lies in the golden mean'! Admittedly, that was to excuse not the greatest exam results! But has held to be true in most of my life. 'Are you a Head of or just a Manager...?' she asked me once!!
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Glennon Doyle: ‘So many women feel caged by gender, sexuality, religion’ | Life and style | The Guardian “I’d been conditioned to believe that a good mother never hurts her children and she certainly doesn’t break up her family,” Doyle writes in her new book, Get Untamed. “I decided to quit showing my children how to slowly die and instead show them how to bravely live. I became their model, not their martyr.”
A bit of a reach this but interesting enough about taking the leap. And most of the reason I didn't leave, once I had gotten over my 'duty' shtick with my wife who is perfectly capable of holding down a job and being independent but chooses not to, is that I could not contemplate living apart from our son. Not for what I could do for him but the life that he gave me.
'“The braver we are, the luckier we get,” she writes. Surely, I ask, the truth is more likely to be the other way round: the luckier we are, the braver we can be. To my surprise she agrees straight away'. And it is true that, even I had been of a mind to be able to leave, we would not have had the resources to maintain our son's lifestyle (private school, nice house) - he would have had to give up much, through no fault of his, and I was not prepared to do that.
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About a guy who lost a best friend to an accident and upped at 25 to walk around the world for seven years to find some truths.
“You end up realising so little is down to willpower, because there are much smarter, much kinder people than me all over the world who don’t have my opportunities.” Absolutely. The accident of birth gives us such a push or a barrier. Confidant: 71: What I really think but cannot say (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)
"Has it made him more confident in himself? That’s a difficult question to answer, he says. “It’s a kind of Dunning-Kruger. You know, the psychological study where the dumbest person in the room is the most confident? The more you know, the less confident you are. I think I was pretty confident at the beginning, but I was an idiot. Once you know you don’t know everything, you lose some of the confidence and become less sure about things.” Oh yes - though she is not at all dumb, she lives in a world of complete certainty.
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'Best of all, being 60 and embracing my age gives me the licence to be young again. The 30s, 40s and 50s are all about dreary responsibility, caution and not upsetting the apple cart. Being a bloody grownup. Now I’ve hit the big six-oh and am officially an old fart, the pressure’s off. At 60, I have the freedom to be as immature as I want. Game on.'
Am not 60 yet but the sentiments resonate. What will the next two years bring? If I am to make a break then our son finishing his A Levels and moving into the world of university is the time to do it - leave till later and much time will have been wasted.
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