Mending holes in my home

Now it was the pens

Here I was wanting to write down details as I began to give attention to my test lab, a neglected computer test lab because of the distractions of the year past. There were three pens on my desk, and none were ready to give their ink.

On one of my visits to a bookshop in Cape Town, I bought quirky pens with different writing widths like you would have with pencils and a wooden pencil case. I looked up on the shelf and retrieved the pencil case, there was only one pen left in the pencil case. There should be at least six pens in that pencil case.

What is so irksome is over two months of reclaiming full access to my place by taking the keys off my friend and I am the one at fault for first being a poor judge of character in making acquaintances with people who I thought valued friendship beyond benefits they gained from having access to me and my place, I am still finding vestiges of his carelessness and abuses of my things without remorse.

His mittens ruin all

Each time I have had him housesit on my visits to Cape Town, I have returned to a house that is not my home through the way he has rearranged things, misplaced things, or damaged things without a second thought to fix them. The last time, he bested himself, how I restrained myself from blurting out in apoplexy even when I asked for my keys escapes me.

Soon after, when I thought a phone charging unit or a power extension tower had been damaged, I painstakingly when through assessing each element of the connections, and can you believe it was the USB C cable that was damaged? Let us not get into when he thought the USB cables, because of their colours, could be adornments like neck chains, bullet chains, or belts that he wore about his person.

The number of times he invaded my privacy was innumerable, but I just worked on the assumption, I was not the only occupant of my home. I’ll be in bed and hear scurrying about the apartment, the keenest of my hearing would register the key in the lock as he entered, and the rest was left to my imagination, what he could be up to and that might include a litany of misdeeds and mishaps. I rarely let these bother me.

The translation of a wallet

On the eve of my penultimate visit to Cape Town just after the prostate cancer diagnosis and the one occasion he was able to attend the hospital with me, so he knew the seriousness of the condition, I emptied a brown wallet of things I needed for my travel and placed the wallet on my desk.

A week into my visit, I got a message from my neighbour, they found my wallet on a windowsill in the courtyard behind the apartment block. How it got there, no one could explain, the CCTV recording saw a resident runner pick it up and place it there, it had rained some days prior, and I know I had not been in the courtyard for more than a week before my travel. There was one other logical explanation.

I should have taken back my keys on my return, however, I am wont to forgive than to show resolve. My neighbour was of the good mind of kicking him out of my apartment, it would have served me well.

He just does not care

Even though I wrote a long email to him explaining why I had to take back my keys without accusing him of anything apart from remonstrating the unnecessary rearrangement of my apartment including finding my bathroom scale in the wine rack, his response acknowledged nothing, he just did not and could not care, that is fine.

Fundamentally, he had progressively taken away my enjoyment of my home by the things he had unwittingly done whether in thinking he was cleaning up the place by rearrangement or the simple things damaged that he had grown accustomed to me not saying anything about.

I have my place back to myself, I should just enjoy it despite the fact I still find rat droppings somewhere in the house, not so literally, but signs that my friend, if he still qualifies as one has been there, a tormenting daily reminder of associations I should have long abandoned before they hurt me much.

Writing a miracle story

An odyssey at close

Ten years ago, I left the Netherlands to return to the UK with nothing more than a suitcase and a bag of hope. It was the end of my 13-year odyssey, everything I had enjoyed in life and means – a memory; as I had reached a turning point, to start all over again.

In the three years before my departure, my whole life had taken a big hit, what looked like Athlete’s foot in early 2009 was in fact, AIDS-defining cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma which at the complete diagnosis presented a dilemma of truth my consultant frankly shared, that if I did not respond to the treatment they knew worked, I only had 5 weeks left.

In the aftermath of what I call the long tail of cancer, for those who have a story after surviving it, everything I owned, I had lost, including my home of ten and a half years which I sold at a loss. All attempts to restart my life in the Netherlands fell through, I was in a prodigal spiral in need of a change.

A trial of the times

Making the decision to return to the UK, which to me was my home country was met with opposition and against other counsel, I knew for my own sake, it was time to close that chapter. I wrote to six of my closest friends who I envisioned in my mind would be my pallbearers, I just did not know what time I had left.

In the last paragraph, I wrote, “I am hopeful that things will turn however without intending to sound morbid, if anything does happen to me by reason of the circumstances I have encountered, I will want to be seen by friends and be rested in the land of my birth.” I was not giving up; I was being as realistic as I could be without making assumptions about my future. [My eyes welled up as I read that letter again, I have come a long way, indeed.]

Writing a miracle story

I have been exceedingly blessed because goodness, mercy, and favour followed me. I got a UK mobile number, updated my CV, and started looking for jobs. Within 6 days of my return to the UK, I had secured a contract and a rate hike during negotiations to travel around Europe as an implementation lead. It was to last 6 months, but due to issues with the company in the US, it was canned within 6 weeks, maybe a misfortune of sorts, but I was getting back in my stride.

Looking back 10 years, I have lived a miracle, for with the condition I had, apparently, some medical studies suggested survivors did not live beyond a decade after the disease and we are in the baker’s dozen years, I am here, doing well, keeping well, living well, full of hope and prospects, truly, deeply, and madly in love with the most extraordinary man who swept into my life in December 2018, Brian is my joy.

There is so much to write about, but I want to celebrate life, the power of hope, the showers of blessing, the mercy of God, the love of the heart, the pursuit of happiness, the support and candour of friends, my wonderful parents who have travelled incredibly unimaginable journeys of my experiences, my siblings, siblings (nieces and nephews), and cousins, sadly departed uncles and friends, and the spirit that never gives up.

Thank you all for being part of my story.

Though Picnic: On the home I lost and the life I gained

Telling it again

It is with a sense of gratitude and good fortune that I have enjoyed and do continue to enjoy many of the good things in life.

In one way of another, experience, education, example, and explanation has given me the capacity to view life as a story, one that probably never gets told to the depth of the feeling that inspired the need to tell the tale.

However, counting one’s blessings leaves one very much on the side of happy, fulfilled and content. Things may not be perfect, but what is a story if everything is as predictable as to become unexciting and pretty boring?

The long tail of cancer

Yesterday, I found myself combing the archives of the Internet for a piece of my history. I once had an apartment overlooking two harbours from the 7^th in Amsterdam. I spent a wonderful ten and a half years there until I had to sell it at a loss following the long tail of cancer.

I say the long tail of cancer because, for the few of us who have been granted the second life of living beyond the ravages of cancer, once health is sorted out, you begin to realise that you have no new excuses for not going back into the world to live, that requires either going back to where you left life before cancer or having to start all over again.

Taking pills doesn’t pay the bills

As you ingest the pills to make you better whilst being too incapacitated to do any reasonable work to earn a living, the bills pile up and have to be paid. In my case, all my creditors, the bank, the mortgage company, the utility company were sympathetic apart from one credit card company – American Express – I guess they are not in the amelioration and respite business. C’est la vie!

Invariably, I had to sell my house, my illness, the credit crunch, comatose property market all united into a perfect storm that I sold the house at a just under a 10% loss after paying almost half of the value of the apartment in interest over 126 months or thereabouts.

Letting go of the thing

It was an investment I had to walk away from with sadness, but also with a sense of freedom to attempt to build from scratch again, because in the three years after cancer, the long tail of cancer that I talked of earlier, I lost everything.

So, I found out yesterday that the young couple I sold the place to just over 4 years ago had now sold it again and walked away with a cool profit of 38.5%, such luck and I am happy for them.

I bought the place at the height of the market and basically the value never really appreciated over the time that I lived there, but it was my home, so it did not matter until circumstances necessitated drastic action.

Concentrating on the pursuit of happiness

Then again, one cannot live a life full of improbables and regrets, the gift of life alone is one for which I would always be grateful. The story of life which might be punctuated with profits and losses is diminished if that is the only account one has of living. In mine, I have suffered loss, obtained gain, been sad, been happy, gone on many adventures and have continued to fulfil my dreams in ways many others cannot begin to conjure the imagination for.

The bigger lesson in all this is about things, being able to let go of things regardless of the cost to be able to go onto other things. In that, I am blessed with the force of hope and the reality of achievement, I am grateful for the opportunity to tell this story in good health.

Let the pursuit of happiness continue. Happy New Year!

Thought Picnic: Picking up the rice where the wedding has been

We are social animals

I was watching a nature programme probably on the BBC about an ape colony. The alpha male had just been beaten in a fight with an upstart and the social rules within such colonies required the vanquished leave that community.

What was so profound was how in the space of weeks the vanquished had acquired deathly pallor as he wasted away without care in loneliness and dejection.

Then I wondered about us human-beings as social animals who may decide we need our space, but we cannot be totally bereft of interaction and that to the extent of companionship, relationship and even love.

The fear of loneliness

The fear that threatens the sanity of lonely people who for all sorts of reasons live in cities and yet are hermits, secluded from the vitality of fun and banter than comes for well-developed friendships.

Many single people by choice or by situation exist sometimes without an inkling as to how to change things to develop a social life. The answer is not just getting out, there is more to getting that expression of engagement than just being out there as I noted in my last blog.

Even those of us who appear to be extroverted are probably only so when the setting is familiar, I have been at parties where until someone comes to chat to me, I probably would not do much more than try to be inconspicuous.

Change is not easy

My voice in probably stronger in my writing, it is also asynchronous, yet, in a business setting as at work, I might well have a more assertive persona, at least, and that must be why none of my managers ever recommended me for an assertiveness course.

Assertiveness however does not make up for handling the more social element of cultivating relationships of the heart. In essence, we all desire to a point, someone to be near us, to share with, to care for and to dare with, that someone I lost 5 years ago, yet, the need for someone still matters, not to forget the lost, but to appreciate again the gift of someone who can touch the heart.

If we had the choice, may we never become another Eleanor Rigby; the haunting words of a song that tells a very sad story of loneliness.

Eleanor Rigby

(John Lennon, Paul McCartney)
AZLyrics

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?

Picnic Thought: I stand forever blessed

When great adversity strikes

“My son asked me if I missed work and I replied that I missed the respect.” Jo Harris [Story]

These were the words of a judge who lost her voice to motor neurone disease, first found ways to cope through technology and sadly lost her life to the disease.

I heard her story on BBC Radio 4 and decided to search for information about her because there is something about the stories of people whose lives have been changed so radically by debilitating disease that more than basic adjustments need to made, that resonates with me.

Times of my life

In certain times I remember that my life now has a timeframe, BC and AC, Before Cancer and After Cancer, the man I was before illness and the man I became after the illness came and the radical way it changed my life.

As I have written in many blogs before, as I lost my health, I lost position, status, possession, things and in some ways respect.

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Much as I have had a semblance of stoicism and maintained a sense of dignity, I might have even been an object of sympathy towards pity, even to a point of ridicule bordering on reproach, yet like a child rebuked, I could not talk, and like a rascal disciplined, I could not fight back.

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Standing misunderstood

Buffeted on many sides by adversity and perversity, I stood, maybe cried, but was never bowed, the spirit in said said, the indignities to the point of gross disrespect from rejections on the flimsiest excuses at interviews to having no place to lay my head for the night, but for the grace of God and the amazing kindness and humanity of many, it shall all pass.

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There was a distinction in the prayers my father and my mother prayed when I called to chat to them. She almost swore me to secrecy that the happenings in my life would not be shared with him, but whatever animus they had between themselves I have striven not to allow affect the relationship with my parents.

She prayed for recovery, he prayed for restoration, the prayers are being answered, the speed varying from miraculous to meandering, as a story of life unfolds in the experiences that have defined the existence I have lived, survived and thrived in.

No guilt would hold sway

I lost much, missed much but regretted little as I told my clinical psychologist when she finally accepted my case on being persuaded that I needed someone to chat to because I did not exhibit any of the classic psychological or mental illness issues that I should have presented considering my circumstances, I could not live in regret when there were many blessings to count, little and large.

Maybe fundamentally I refused to condemn myself in the things I allowed whilst the process of handling guilt is still a process, if I cry over how much I have beat up myself, eventually I must get to a point where this vicious circle of the inflicting pain in the hope that some gain would arrive in recognition of my many stupidities has lost its power to assuage my iniquities must stop.

I stand blessed

That is what has won through, despite the external battles that seemed to have the upper hand presaging defeat, internally in my spirit and in my mind, I decided, I would not be overcome or overrun, and I would rise like a phoenix from the ashes of a life and a lifestyle destroyed by illness because that is the core essence of our God-given humanity.

Yes, I missed the respect, sometimes the honour, but I remained respectful, honourable, presentable, optimistic, striving, bettering, working, expecting, trying and most of all living. In the process change has come with renewal, ability, opportunity, recognition, some respect, some acknowledgement and some honour.

I am blessed and with that every other care simply fades into insignificance.

Thought Picnic: In the open and broad light of day

I know I did

The last thing I did was send a message via WhatsApp and I shut down the phone to conserve battery power. Soon after, rather than put the mobile phone in my belt holster, I put it in my bag, I also switched off my Samsung Galaxy Tab and my mobile wireless dongle– I vividly remember all that, in that order.

Whenever I put my mobile phone in my bag, it always goes into the upper zippered compartment in the bag, it is the same place where my pill box and dongle goes.

But it’s not there

As I left one place for another close to midnight, I looked in my bag and somehow, I could not find my mobile phone, my mind raced ahead of my reality – I had lost it, and with that, it defined what I could see and what I could not – I earnestly believed I had lost my phone on the second and third time of checking. I was literally driven to distraction, well almost.

Now, impulsively, I could have returned to where I was to ask if anyone had handed in my phone, but I decided it could wait, but that wait almost made the night look like it would never end.

Wait for the morning

I knew there was nothing I could do until the morning, but I had to have a plan of action, return to the venue to ask about my phone, report it lost, engage the remote control antitheft facility to locate it if it gets switched on, have a picture taken of the person using it and send a message that I be contacted immediately before performing a remote wipe of the data.

Then again, I was ahead of myself, there is too much data on that phone for me to scrub it just like that, besides, it is my most reliable point of contact in these times of transition apart from the second interview I have scheduled for Thursday – mitigation, contingency, recovery and near panic – well, not really.

I tried to scheme what I needed to do and after having made out my plan to go out first thing in the morning to ask about my phone, I did everything to switch off from the bother and got on with other activities using my handy gadget that harbours the demons that haunt me constantly – the self-destruct button – a rational fatalism and much else.

Your spirit speaks

As the dawn broke, just as I reached for my bag, a voice in my head said, your phone is with you whilst another jocularly said, Fat Chance!

In the open light of day, as I considered unpacking my bag for one last time, the first thing I picked out of the upper zippered compartment was my mobile phone.

This clearly illustrates how our minds can becloud our reality leading us to believe something completely different from the truth despite the fact that the recollection of past events were as vivid as anyone could have them, I knew I put the phone in the bag, I could not think of how it could have slipped out – but there.

A switch for the mind

Besides, whilst this was another test of how I handle situations, I have been informed by experience again that I should trust my judgement a bit more, especially where I can recollect to minute detail what I did before.

More importantly, what you just need to time, maybe a clear head, maybe just absence from the situation or a wait until the dawn – usually that means you are tackling the problem with a fresh mind and all that exacting preoccupation of the mind and plans – We need a switch for that thing called the mind.

Thought Picnic: Appreciating The Need For Therapy

Knowing yourself to others

It has taken quite a while for me to begin to realise to any appreciable extent the consequences of serious illness.

I am 3 years away from a life-threatening diagnosis that I survived and have continued to recover from in other aspects of my life.

Somehow, the force of my personality was not helpful for the additional support I should have received from the outset. It transpired that people who had suffered as I once did are usually offered therapy as part of the holistic treatment regimen just to ensure that other issues do not complicate the medical situation.

Demand help either way

Apparently, I seemed to project the idea that all was fine, especially because I was not exhibiting any of the classic signs of depression that professionals could easily address.

There was no doubt in my mind that things had changed about my personality and confidence but those were difficult to assess using any of the conventional measures that all I ever got was the opportunity to chat to a stranger after struggling for 3 sessions to convince them I needed help.

Losses and keeps

Meanwhile, what I have termed the long tail of illness was waging war against my ability to get a job and I was losing things like my confidence, my purpose, my possessions and literally all that I had acquired in a lifetime

I could not explain the feeling that hit me when I realised that literally all my worldly possessions were given away when I thought something will be obtained in exchange for the stuff, I had trusted people with a responsibility they did not assume properly you just had to walk away and be thankful for life.

I gained my health whilst everything else was lost except the will to live and hope that change for the better was on its way.

Keeping sane

My lesson is with the onset of serious illness, get treatment for the body and well as for the mind, for the greater battle is always in the mind and it will determine how well you come out at the end of that experience.

Therapy is good for the soul and it is not about going mad, it is about keeping sane.

Thought Picnic: Resumenda vox mea

Fiducia mea frangitur (Latin)

Of all the things I lost to illness and there are many things to which I cannot begin to put a quantifiable monetary value on, what has been most difficult to recover has been my confidence.

The ability to project myself with the extraversion that comes with knowing what I know and knowing what I can do had diminished that I had literally lost my presence in voice, in tone and in assertiveness.

It fell to just my ability to write to keep an aspect of my expression alive, that was the only kindling I had left and it never failed me.

The bearing environmental factors

However, when it came to pushing my professional abilities, I just did not have the verve and the drive, that is where I needed the most help, this, being able to rediscover myself and stand tall knowing who I am.

Something in my character had become feeble and fragile as the worlds I built around me collapsed in ruinous calamity; a tale to make strong men cry in anguish, if not in resignation.

The environment in which I had suffered great ruin was no more fertile for the regeneration of self and esteem, something radical had to be done.

Making changes

That chapter was closed by following some advice I took over 12 years ago when an occupational therapist told me I was suffering the classic symptoms of a mid-life crisis 10 years early and that I had to do something radical like change my career, change my country of residence or do something as mundane as take up a new hobby.

That was when I moved to the Netherlands and it amazingly rejuvenated my zest for life, my sense of daring and adventure along with the renewed hunger for learning that I took on a Masters course with enthusiasm I had not known for ages.

Making changes again

Just to show how the change of environment can alter perspective, focus, realities, vision and boost morale to levels that make things happen like miracles – I have only relocated six days and things are looking really exciting, I feel confident, I have found my voice and that quality of assertiveness is coming forth quite noticeably.

In due course, I will share even more about what is going on, but the power of a journey to new places to change the direction of life such that one is not left in a rut cannot be underestimated – I have lived this reality twice already – I know.

Thought Picnic: A total loss looms for restart

The threads for this yarn

When this story gets told in some book where all the threads that reach the present are twined into a rope with some pulling power, you can only wonder what it would be used to moor to the docks of history.

Many narratives exist where it all seemed to be at a dead-end, hope appeared to be lost and there was nothing in the horizon but the darkest clouds of storms that have never once before been predicted.

Somewhere in the past the seeds were sown that have become wild orchards of poisonous fruit harvested to ills that do not take to medication, the cramps being more persistent, the pain without respite and end unimaginable approaches at speed too high to manage as one.

The losses accumulate

A day so close looms with the risk of losing everything but life and a slither of hope that the rebuilding from scratch would be merciful, swift and tolerable.

Whether one likes it or not, the survival of something as life threatening as cancer when it was a battle that could be lost in a month to almost two years after suddenly seems as one of the little battles raging to claim ones sanity and many other things.

There are basically no solutions that appear to be in sight, sometimes you just want to pack a bag and walk away from life leaving behind memories of the many lives of cat lost with probably just one or two lives left.

The house that Jack lost

Looking around you remember the old nursery rhyme; “This is the house that Jack built” with everything you can see of what is in the house that Jack built and then because of so many things, situations, circumstances, hardships and probably a run of not so good fortune, you wonder if the next day will end with; “This is the house that Jack lost.”

For all the external calm, the turmoil is great and tumultuous; sometimes you happen to live and at other times life just happens to you.

Hup! Hup! Holland! You did well

Where we watched it

And so my World Cup ended with a quiet walk from the Dutch corner of Playa del Inglés – Gran Chaparral where the pub offered big screens and commentary in English.

A majority of patrons were in their orange colours with a few errant boys rooting for Spain, I watched the full 120 minutes of the game I would take nothing away from the performance and spirit of our boys – they played their hearts out and only a few minutes would have turned it into the lottery of penalties.

We’ll meet again

That part I would have been unable to watch anyhow, but that is the game of football and 2014 beckons whilst 2018 is when we host the World Cup with Belgium.

Nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of disappointment I felt for my adopted country where I have lived for 10 years only to experience their being beaten whilst holidaying in Spain by Spain.

Just as I shared the excitement of all their victories I found I was not able to celebrate their loss by loving Spain, I received commiserations and congratulated those who I knew would feel my pain but there is no point waiting to watch the presentations or much else.

Viva España

Vuvuzelas were not needed on the main streets, everyone who had a car had their horns blaring at full volume even one of the buses gave a full blast of ululation for the Spanish victory.

I kept my orange vest on and just thought about what might have been, for the third time, our little Dutch nation has just come short and not for the want of trying.

Viva España but the spirit of Dutch football shall never die, we have come this far again, only time with tell when we would lift the World Cup as victors – Hup! Hup! Holland! You did well.