A catalogue of the unexpected

I haven't blogged for a while. To those of you who follow I apologise.  I have moved house and started a new job.  Followers will recall that much medical advice counseled against this move but my employers insisted and so it happened - simple as that.

I have to report that whilst the move was fairly traumatic (aren't they all) it has been completed minus a few boxes and electrical items that need wiring/connecting etc.  Oh yes, by the way, 'careful movers' is an oxymoron!

The people I work with on a daily basis have made me so welcome I have been quite overwhelmed. There are many challenges ahead but a challenge in my new work environment is beginning to feel a maybe rather than an impossible.  I didn't think I would be able to record such an analysis only 4 days in but I have to be honest and I will continue to be so.

What has been unexpectedly difficult is the treatment I have received from someone whom I would have thought was best placed and most willing to help and support me - apart from myself that is, for I am the main player in my continuing recovery.  I can't really say too much about this so I will have to put up the famous 19th Century social novelist umbrella and say 'let the reader understand'.  What should the reader understand?  That it is unreasonable, uncharitable and downright cruel to dismiss the heartfelt words of someone who was a mental health patient on the grounds that their judgment is, by definition, flawed.  My judgment is sometimes inaccurate and inappropriate, I am still getting better.  But, dear friends, let me tell you something - this is an occasional occurrence not a routine one and it is simply wrong, plain wrong, to disregard someone's feelings using their perceived mental health as an automatic and instant nullification of those feelings.  After all, I am awake now but that doesn't make me an insomniac!  All attempts at discussion and debate are stymied and this is distressing.

However, God does move in a mysterious way and this move has curiously enabled me to lean on someone whose judgment I trust, whose closeness I tresaure and who treats me like the human being I am.  Am I getting maudlin?  Not at all but I am going to make two observations.  First, the initial difficulties with my new job (and the personalities I would meet) which I feared have not materialised, quite the reverse.  Yes I have the same old anxieties about financial security, especially for my sons, but I am hoping to take heart from recent positive experiences and feed them into this long standing issue to reassure myself a little.  Second, love is often found not where you expect it but it's no less real for that; even if it's geographically distant.

In a nutshell, I have done better than I expected.  My old anxieties remain prevalent and distressing and whilst comfort and support ought to have come from a particular source, even though it has not, I am moved and privileged to have been blessed with a closeness to a person who neither judges nor discourages but who has the innate gift to love and nurture me as I am, sometimes holding my hand along the way, even from a distance.  God Bless you, you know who you are.