Growing up

It has been good to meet up with various friends recently.  We have had a lot to catch up on, but end up looking back at the times when we lived in the same place - and whether that was 5 or 15 years ago it is a reminder how much time passes when you are not looking.

My friends seem to have grown up, dealing with teenagers, settling down, having families and that is just those around my age.  They all seem so grown up and responsible whilst I am having duvet days and not managing to feed myself properly without reminders on my phone. I don't feel very grown up a lot of the time.  And yet if I were to look at my life from the outside I would think differently - I have a role as a church minister, and even if I say so myself I have done more than tread water in that role.  I may do that around my duvet times, and too often relying on winging things than hours of deep study, but what is needed gets done.  The other week someone even called me an inspiration!

Home alone you don't notice time passing as much as when there are children around growing through clothes and school years. After a fairly peripatetic life from 18 until I landed here I got used to dating events by where I was living at the time - it must have been in 2006 that X happened because I was in North Wales then....

The years that I have been here in one place and one role all merge together in my appalling memory, so I have not really noticed how much time has passed. But soon it will be time to go through the process to prepare to move on. I am also looking back at patterns of my depressions and other moods since the Big Crash at minister training college and even before - I have an appointment with a psychiatrist in a few weeks in a search for something that will tackle the resistant lows.

It all reminds me that I am in my 5th yr here and am 6 and half yrs since the Crash - and whether fully grown up or not I have certainly done a lot of growing in that time.

Now where's that passport?

Actually I will be due a new one, didn't bother to renew it when it ran out a couple of years ago - not until I knew I would need it, and now I do.  I will be spending the summer in North Carolina in the US of A!

I had thought about applying to the Methodist exchange programme a year or so ago, then shelved the idea when I adopted Gabi - no way would I put her in kennels for 6 weeks when the last time she was in them she was being sent away for good from her last home.  But back in Sept the plan bounced back, and I realised there were other options for dogcare, and so I got the permissions and applied to swap my home and churches with those of a Methodist minister elsewhere.  Then it all went quiet... until this week when I heard about my match.

So for the summer I will be temporary minister to  2 churches on the edge of the town of Asheville at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina, its a hard gig but someone has to do it eh?  Meanwhile their minister and his wife will live here and look after my 6 little chapels - not too tough a gig for him either in this beautiful corner of Britain.

Reeves Chapel, Ashville NC

It is good to have something new and interesting to focus on as the winter blues are bad this year and I am having a lot of duvet time.  But in other news I have had the letter from my referral so Monday morning I will ring them and get an appointment date, I'm ready for new ideas having worn out the GPs options.

For now, the rain has paused so time for Gabi and I to head out for a bit.

New Year resolution - first big decision of 2014

I didn't intend to make any new year resolutions, but then I had to face a decision - and the resolution has come from that.  Three years ago I began a research degree, part-time and at a distance, to look at depression and faith.  Some said I shouldn't and couldn't, I felt and I could and I should.

I still feel the subject is vitally important, and that academically respected voices and findings have a valuable clout.  I also know and have had others confirm that I have the intellectual potential to wrestle with this.  But my depression has been less stable than I imagined and whether from that or the meds that keep it in check my concentration span and energy is simply not up to it, even when I set aside chunks of dedicated time.

So I have decided to withdraw.


Time to shelve the books for a bit


And the resolution?  

That 2014 be the year when I learn to say 'no' to my stubborn pride that doesn't like the idea of losing face or have others say 'we were right'.  Not that either of these is guaranteed except in my own mind.

I  have been helped in this by people in the ecommunity  managed by BPUK (Bipolar UK) - whether or not I have bipolar elements in my depression the people there have shown me that you don't have to stick with the things you decided when you were feeling up and able to conquer the world, and being able to walk away is a sign of strength.

After all the only place where 'I've started so I'll finish' is a rule is on Mastermind, not in real life.