Hit & Miss

The Stop Start ride of the unknown

Well I had got things going back on track with a few ideas to pump up the blog, with a few features which were going somewhere (slowly) before I was took ill and life kinda side swiped me with the most recent news.

However, I don’t want this to get me down or become the only fragment of my life to focus on – neither do I want to make this space an area to simply moan and pour out my heart. I enjoy the silly music quizzes and other such nonsense which more reflects my life than the doom and gloom which can get you down, if you let it.

I don’t want to let this get me down and I don’t want to become a one trick pony, so I’m going to explore a few fun topics to keep the blog alive and myself motivated – one thing I had thought of was documenting my crafts – I mean, I had always wanted to be a writer, but I’m just no good at sticking to the rules – so I adapted and Lock Down introduced me to a world of crafts that have given me the same feeling of inspiration and enjoyment that writing used too (until I studied writing and became disillusioned). Though, because I refuse totally on giving up with my passion for writing – you get this blog instead – a long pooling forth of my internal brain vomit.

So you have a mix – match of subjects, themes and ideas all munched into one page of randomness – that nicely represents my life – Random – unstructured – a little haphazard and I simply make it up as I go along!

Hold onto your pants – this is becoming a bumpy ride …

So … An Update

Discovering an uncomfortable truth

A Personal Blog: After falling so ill with my uncomfortable tummy, yet automatically falling back into old eating habits ie: avoiding food, or cooking, or food shopping – sticking instead to ‘safe’ foods – Soup or crackers, simple easy foods that I could handle. I realised that if I carry on with this cycle again, I’m going to end up ill again.

Now, please understand the irony here – I am fat, I’m overweight and although I am not uncomfortable with my weight (I’m not restricted by my weight and still very active) I am constantly hounded by my GP to loose weight. So going to my GP was not an option here – A global pandemic and general paranoia of my GP means I couldn’t/wouldn’t get an appointment anyway… So I followed a different route for some aid – via work and the services offered there.

Imagine my surprise, when the fat girl gets herself diagnosed with a chuffing eating disorder – Something I have never heard of, but just because I haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and this is ‘Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)’ – I’m still trying to get my head around this, so I’m not sure what to add at this point, but at least I have a name to put to the face (as it were) and that is a good place to start …

So….

Consequences

I have been ill, really quite ill with my tummy. This related to the post I had written about previously regarding my relationship with food. So this is quite a real wake up call and although I am back at work now (so back at a desktop) I am still feeling significantly uncomfortable at times.

So…. This is definitely the time where I need to look at this issue far more seriously than before. I have started a food journal and noted how mood affects what I eat, when I eat and what I eat. I feel like a child again, but perhaps that is the best way to deal with this, by going back to basics and taking very good care of myself.

I do not know the cause or reason behind this, only that being so ill has been a dreadful wake up call.

Mending my relationship with myself…

Food Edition

I absolutely hate food, hate cooking, hate shopping, hate eating, hate food… Yet I am still a short tubby fatty… My relationship with food is broken and after spending the last two days in real agony with my stomach and generally abused poor digestive system, this is something that I can no longer ignore.

I do not consider myself to have an eating disorder, I do not know enough about such subjects to understand or relate what I’m going through with anything significant. I just hate food.

Nothing tastes right, I did a lovely meal last Saturday (actually the last hot meal I had) figured I’d nailed this issue by cooking a single meal then reverted back to old habits again. Basically living off toast or soup.

I can’t think what has caused this, I could blame lock down, I could blame grief, I could blame anything I’ve been through… But the responsibility lays with myself and so does the responsibility of fixing this.

Which is why I am writing this, for I have legit frightened myself with the amount of pain I endured in the last 48 hours and I realise this is self inflicted as I have just given up caring for food.

I need to address this situation and create a solution to this situation for myself. Writing has always helped me process everything, so here I am, saying enough is enough, I have a problem with food and I am determined to help myself through this.

And that is my first step…

… I realise that this doesn’t flow with my usual content, please skip these posts if you want to. I’m afraid I’m writing quite selfishly to use it as a tool to heal.

My next step is to keep it simple today and to be kind to myself. I have some lovely fresh fruit as a starting block and I guess we will see just where we go from there.

Thank you for listening if you’re still here, now back to the music quiz…

Things I Pre-Date!

A look at how the world has changed throughout my lifetime.

This could be a potential series, because the more I think about this subject the more themes I can think of, so I’m going to start with a few simple everyday items and see where this idea develops from there.

Firstly – timeline – I’m the very youthful age of 47 – I’m Gen-X – The generation that never really grew up and just sit back and watch Boomers and Millennials scrap it out on social media while we just enjoy the fact that we had the best music! (A controversial claim I know, fight me) Please be aware that this post/theme is satirical, so don’t take anything too seriously!

You might need a trigger warning for Number 5

1. CD’s

It’s hard to believe that CD’s are not considered old-school when I can remember a time before CD’s, when they were once cutting edge technology.

2. Four Channels on TV.

YES! – There was a time, not so long ago when there was a mere three channels on the telly box – Then in 1982 – The UK gave birth to channel 4 and it looked something like this:

3. Mobile Phones.

Imagine, being connected by cords and cables to make a phone call? With your phone immobile, tied to the wall – or where you needed a 10p coin to use a public phone box? How we have taken for granted this little box in our pocket!

4. The Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Possibly one of the first times in my life where I felt halted in my tracks and needed to acknowledge that I was watching a historical moment play out before me. That I was witnessing a moment in time that would re-shape the world.

5 .Seatbelts!

Yes – I pre-date seatbelts and Yes this was a real TV advert from the UK in the 70’s / 80’s – I expect I need to add a Trigger Warning before you watch this – but I also pre-date trigger warnings too and this was pretty much tea time telly of the era.

Loneliness or Solitude?

A personal reflection

Eight years ago I brought my home, financially crippled myself in the process and struck out alone in the world. This is a place I have never shared with anyone and one I consider my personal sanctuary from the world. In recent months my little home and me have become constant companions and solitude has become a lifestyle that I have fully embraced.

The thought of sharing my life with someone else feels uncomfortable to me now, I used to harbor the notion that my long term partner might want to share their life with me, but this was a sad romantic delusion on my behalf, as it turned out after (nearly) six years that they never loved me anyway… Which is a long time to emotionally invert yourself into something which was in effect -nothing! All this around the same time I lost my Father and became the last in my family line.

So I withdrew, lock down happened a mere few weeks after all this kicked off and my life became my own, on my own, in my little home… And from that situation I flourished… Embraced a crafting lifestyle, made and created a wide variety of craft projects. Which I still enjoy today, even being back at work I enjoy spending my evenings alone, surrounded by glue and paints in a small cradle of mess I like to call creative chaos.

Yet, I never felt lonely – I felt a strange peace in my life as I repaired the relationship with myself, started to get to know me a little better and began to explore what I wanted in my life as an individual (within the boundaries of a global pandemic). Which is why I don’t believe I could share my life, my space, with another. I feel that I don’t need a significant other to feel whole. I can’t stand the term ‘single’ it carries with it this weight of need. I prefer to relate to myself as independent.

It has been a hard lesson to learn and one which was forced upon me due to circumstances and for that I am actually thankful.

Solitude

For a gallery of my craft work, please feel free to visit: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/TattyAyn/hand-made-crafts/