Tuesday 28 September 2010

in the sunshine and in the shade

I was told recently that my blog has a somber tone to it, that it makes me seem like I am unhappy. I responded that it is not the case, that I am perfectly happy, and that it's just that it's hard not to sound cheesy. However, if that is the perception people have of my blog, I would like to remedy it, because sometimes people can be very happy, and because sometimes things work out.

I have an address book, and the image on the cover is of a 1950s housing estate, likely American, where the houses are all similar (though not identical), the gardens are all well kept and there are a few figures at the front chatting. It reminds me of a small part of a housing estate in Biggar where you go in and can go left or right and both ways are basically the same and mirror each other. On the back of the address book the image is exactly the same only mirrored, yet somehow it looks completely different. It's the same as looking in the mirror at your surroundings. When I was young my room had these big sliding door mirrors that concealed a wardrobe. I would sometimes sit and look in the mirrors and my room through those mirrors looked so different. And even though I knew that it was exactly the same with the same objects and the same colours, I wished I could step through the mirror into this idealised room where things were familiar yet somehow more desirable. It would seem the grass was always greener.

The point is that I've not done that for a long time. When I was ill I used to go and stay with my Mum at home and I would envy her and her house. I would envy it not in a jealous hateful way, just with such longing for home and to feel safe and as though everything was just so. It's a funny concept, that of 'home', where there is no greatly determined route to get there, it just happens and you don't even realise it has sometimes. You can work it out if you go on holiday and feel home when you get back, those rare times when you actually get to smell the aroma of your own house as normally you cant see the wood for the trees.

But now I have found home. I have found home and everything else is perfect. I have Stuart, husband, and I don't know if I have ever described that in my blog before for fear of being to soppy or making him feel odd. To be honest I can't describe Stuart and all he means to me without describing myself as we are the same. Stuart is the only person in the world who isn't at least part stranger to me. I refer to him as the other half of a two piece jigsaw puzzle, literally the friendship necklace you would get when you were young with two necklaces each containing pieces that fit together. I remember having one when I was young, I had "friends", she had "best". I haven't spoken to her in probably ten years and I don't think I ever really knew her. I gave Stuart half of a 2 pieces jigsaw necklace set on the morning of our wedding. I don't know how I ever got so lucky to find myself fall into a person like this.

I feel like I have a real family. Not just inasmuch as there are people who I am related to and they live close. A lot of people have family, a lot of people see their family everyday, but that does not make them close. Some people spend time with their family because they feel they have to, I don't feel this with mine. Now we are married Stuart and I have our family, the two of us, and two little beasts who are more human and more loyal than anyone out there cares to be. Recently I have been awoken to the true nature of friends and friendship and I have accepted it for what it is, which I am not going into just now. The key thing is that it has shown me for sure that blood is rope and water is the deadly fall onto rocks over the cliff.

What is more in terms of happiness I am succeeding where others are not. I don't like to brag. Stuart tells me off for not outwardly expressing pride in my achievements. I will succumb to cheese and do it. I got a first class honours at university. I won all the history prizes. I am getting given money to stay at university, they want me that much. I've been conscripted. I sit with the phd students. I am doing an Mres in history - in four years I should be Dr Findlay. I get called Janet. I'm earning. I pick up a cheque on Friday. All the students Allan has supervised for phd now have university teaching jobs. So will I.

Basically I am very happy. I have been unhappy in the past. I will be unhappy in the future. But for right now everything is perfect. Do you believe in Karma? It's dumb, right? I think so, but somehow it seems to be applicable. I was thinking of it yesterday as I trudged like 8 books up a hill with a pulled back muscle on the first day of semester 1. Eric and Robbie sang it to me:

Further on up the road someone's gonna hurt you like you hurt me. Further on up the road, baby, just you wait and see. You gotta reap just what you sow; that old saying is true. Just like you mistreat someone, someone's gonna mistreat you. You been laughing, pretty baby, someday you're gonna be crying. Further on up the road you'll find out I wasn't lying.

Sometimes it feels as though you catch a break. It's not the universe, it's not your friends or your family. It is you, being a good person, being a hard worker, putting in what you want out of it. Getting it. I really believe that. I know people who put in nothing but bad feelings and ill-intentions, and they get that back out. I'm not saying this is the case totally. I mean, there are things such as diseases, poor luck and bad timing which can hurt the good people and I'm not trying to diminish the unfairness of that. But, on the whole, you do reap what you sow, and some people sow shit.

Sometimes things are bad. Sometimes you hate the world and it seems to hate you back. Sometimes it's time to moan or whine or cry. Sometimes it seems as though the sun will never return. Then spring comes, and sometimes things work out.

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