Losing Confidence

So here I am – again.

It’s been a strange year, not altogether pleasant either. The times that I have been the happiest have been when I’ve been away from home. That’s not right, surely. In my working life, I mean when I got paid for working for others, my home was my refuge, my haven, and I loved it. I used to work in an area that had me assisting the homeless, dysfunctional, sick and unemployed so at times it was somewhat testing if not scary even. So to come home at night was an absolute dream.

I’ve been outside of the paid workforce now for three years and I feel like I’ve lost touch with the world. I was confident in the work that I used to do and quite happily voiced my opinions when required. I usually had a funny story relating to the workplace that I could tell (never breaking confidentiality) and friends would ask for advise or just be happy to use me as a sounding board. But I also believed that I had such a lot to learn about living sustainably with gardening, cooking from scratch, baking bread and everything else that once retired I would be fulfilled. Hmmm.

Now all I can tell people is how high the broad beans are growing or that my sourdough bread is coming along nicely or that spinning wool is not for me. Not exactly exciting for most. Somehow I have become a recluse, silent and nervous with people I don’t know. Staring at the computer screen, wondering why I bother. Nobody reads boring blogs and I don’t seem to have anything interesting to say. But here I am. I keep trying and I plan to go back and read some of my early posts to see how far I have come in my plan to live more sustainably. I know I have improved in some areas but lost out in others such as my personal belief in WHO I AM. I don’t know anymore and some days I just don’t want to be here – anywhere – it’s all too hard. But let’s stop there before I begin to wallow!

One really, really good thing is that I haven’t had a cigarette now for six weeks and I have no plans to have any more. I knew it would be hard so I took advantage of the prescription available from the doctor which blocks the receptors in the brain with regards to nicotine. The drug itself has a bit of a dodgy reputation so I have continued to visit the psychologist and warned friends and family to tell me of any drastic personality changes. So far, so good. But then as I am a bit of a recluse that could be cheating. If only they could make a drug that blocks the receptors in the brain that encourage eating too much!

                  

Yes, the Tulip Festival in Wynyard, Tasmania was last weekend, 13th October and my friend Sue and I drove up for a couple of days as neither of us had been before.  The flowers were stunning and we were both impressed with the town and its use of tulips in the verges and town centre. There seems to be a great pride in the town and after the Saturday morning foreshore market had been dismantled and removed there was not one item of litter to be seen! Very impressive I must say, as it had been very busy when we stopped for a mooch around. It was a lovely market, with a huge selection of items for sale at “real” market prices. It wasn’t full of cheap and nasty either. I even saw kitchen tools that my mother used in her kitchen that I remember, they looked as old as my mothers too but were still going strong. (My mother would have turned 100 years old this year). I was able to pick up a couple of cake baking pans and a small radio for M’s workshop, none of which was over $2. My friend Sue surprised me with an early Christmas present. She had spotted the perfect baking bowl for my sourdough bread. Once again it was similar to the bowl that my mother used so many years ago and is the perfect size and not too heavy.

After the market and a visit to the tulip fields we went to the nearby Table Cape Lighthouse and climbed the 70 steps to the top for these magnificent views:-

                       

The weather wasn’t the kindest on the Saturday, being a bit cool and the occasional shower of rain but it didn’t manage to diminish our enjoyment. The day ended with a spectacular fireworks show and we had the best view from the pub (the meals there are pretty good too).

So, that was last weekend.  Let’s see if I can think of things to write closer to home……  Next time.

Jan