Monday, 19 June 2023
Another poor nights sleep due to the heat and having too many lagers yesterday. I woke at 2:00am and went downstairs to check I had turned the over off from yesterday, and to my relief I had. I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, only getting back to sleep when the sun came through the curtains and having another weird dream about running with people who don’t run anymore around streets I’ve never run on. I wonder if I’ll get the answers to my dreams when I pass over to the other side, or will the other side be one of my weird dreams!
After my breakfast, the morning has been spent checking emails, organising my new running group, adding people to groups, checking my ever-decreasing bank balance, and discovering I’ve been overcharged, and hoping it was a simple error and not someone thinking I’m a bit daft and won’t check my bank balance and find the error. When you’re as useless as me you check your bank balance at least three times a day if not more to see when you are going to go overdrawn and prepare yourself for it.
I am feeling good though. I feel calm and mature and good in myself. I’ve done everything I need to do this morning, know that I need to get a grip on my spending and cut down on alcohol intake and food intake, which have got out of hand recently, and start to formulate a plan for my return to university. It will be interesting to see if the university and myself are in tune with each other on what I need to do to facilitate my return to university, or if we are miles apart. I know that creating a plan will be good for me, as it will show that I am ready to return to university and I am not relying on the university to do everything for me.
It’s a good start to the day and week though. I’ve got done what I needed to do, and I know what I’ve got to do and why. It’s now up to me to put everything into action and see what the results are.
I’m back from a walk. I had planned a longer route, but after looking at the weather forecast, I decided to stay local just in case it rains, and I get caught in the middle of nowhere and drenched in rain. I don’t have a route in mind, I just go where my legs take me, and today they take me to a place I go to reflect and contemplate life, on a hillside looking over Halifax and Calderdale. It’s a beautiful spot, just far enough off the track so no-one goes to it. The view is beautiful and far reaching, taking in so much of the land I love. I talk to my mum and dad, and others who have passed on, tell them what is happening in my life and asking them to continue to help me as I carry on with my own journey in life.
I spend around ten minutes at what I call ‘my spot, talking, reflecting, and contemplating. I find it therapeutic for my mind and soul, although I’m quite sure that if anything caught me talking to the sky they would think I’ve gone insane! Usually, I go straight home when I’ve finished at ‘my spot’ but today I decide to walk down to the bottom of the hill in search of somewhere else, that offers peace and solitude away from the increasingly mad world we all live in. I find it too. At the bottom, there are some small ponds and I find a place where I can sit in comfort and watch the world go by and think about what I need to do and what I want to do with my life. I think about what I need to do to make sure my return to university goes as smoothly as possible, and I think about the memoir I’ve been wanting to write for so many years now, and although I’ve started it many, may times, I’ve never finished it. I’m sure it’s the way I’m writing it, and I think of a different way I could write it that I haven’t tried before. Nothing else I’ve tried has worked, so it’s worth trying to see if this works and I can get past all the barriers I feel I’ve come up against and been unable to get over so far.
I feel a drop of rain on my forehead, and looking at the pond I can see ripples in the water as the rain begins to fall. I leave my newfound place of tranquillity and head back up hill, the warm rain, cooling my skin, the air still balmy and humid. As I get further up the hill, the rain intensifies, until at the top it is more than just a few drops on my forehead, my body is now wet but warm from a steady fall of rain. I look behind me and the view I treasure so much had disappeared in a cloud of rain, Halifax has gone for now, consumed by a cloud of rain.
I increase my pace as the intensity of the rain increases, knowing I must be a sight walking home in a wet vest. I past one guy, taking refuge under a tree, who smiles at the madman in a vest, going past him in the rain, while he tries to find some refuge. Home and a change of clothes before I have something to eat. My little cat wants feeding and to play, so I have no time to go to bed for a nap, and instead watch TV from the 90s, which, is for me, pretty up to date! I look at a post a friend has posted about a house and land for sale in Todmorden for £2,000,000! I have found my dream home at last! Now I just need to win the lottery, so I can afford it!
I’ve just watched a very interesting programme about the side effects of antidepressants on the BBC. I found it very interesting and very relevant because it answered questions I’ve been asking about myself, after years and years on antidepressants, and the side effects they have on you, that, they, the drug companies, don’t tell you about. It’s good to have a reason as to why, in some respects, I am the way I am, even if there’s very little hope of reversing what has happened to me. It’s certainly given me a lot of ‘food for thought’ and added another chapter to my mundane life story. It’s well worth a watch if you can catch it.
And so another day draws to a close, another day of constant back ache, intermittent hip ache, but still a good day, when I got a lot done, had a nice walk, and will, hopefully, have a good night’s sleep for once.
The Autistic FellRunner 