write.as/jonbeckett

I'm not sure I can really be bothered with trying too hard at this whole blogging escapade any more. Years ago I used to write long meandering posts about this, that and the other – things I felt strongly about – things I had been thinking about. Now all I ever seem to do is jot a few words down about the mundane day I have just survived.

Sometimes I read posts by others and see myself in years gone by – standing on a soapbox, extolling virtues to anybody that might chance upon them. Sometimes I read stories about life and adventure – stories filled with discovery and excitement – and remember that my life too was once new, brave, and full of hope too.

It's not that my life is devoid of any of these things of course – just that the ticking clock has now blessed me with a considerable amount of baggage to tow along my path. In time knowledge and experience seem to breed cynicism and apathy – you've seen situations unfold before – you know how things might go. You debate with yourself about volunteering your thoughts to the river of conversations flowing around you, knowing that it may be dismissed with an “OK Boomer” – so you volunteer nothing. You watch, content that you were right, and nobody knew.

The old quote “there is none so blind as those that refuse to see” has come to mind recently. I think perhaps there should be a corollary to it – “there are none so silent as those that refuse to contribute”.

This post isn't really going anywhere. It doesn't have a point. I suppose this is one of those “exhale” posts that people talk about. A mental health pill of sorts. Untangling that which shouldn't perhaps be untangled.

The rest of the family have gone to the cinema to watch the new Frozen movie. I'm staying at home in the warm (and will be tomorrow too). I've now been sick for a month, on and off. It's not funny any more. I don't actually feel too bad – I just start coughing as soon as I do anything. I'm guessing that's something to do with a chest infection, and will just take time.

I have plans to binge watch the new BBC version of “His Dark Materials” tonight – or at least as many episodes as they have made so far. I've heard good things about it.

I think a cup of tea might be needed first.

The heavens opened on me during my cycle to work this morning. Despite wearing waterproof over-trousers, and a supposedly waterproof top, I got soaked through to my underwear. I've been sitting in it all day, feeling pretty wonderful about myself (sarcasm fully intended). I imagine a second soaking session will happen a little later when I return home.

Maybe the rain is because I don't believe in anything up there pulling the strings – a kind of “ok, if we don't exist, lets give you one cold and cough after another for a month, then start pelting you with rain – to see if we can break you”.

It won't work of course. I'm far too stubborn. A bit like the Republican senators who know damn well their boss absolutely did everything he's being accused of, but are not about to drop the party line now. They know how ridiculous their arguments have become. They're not stupid.

Just like I'm not stupid. Short of a giant Monty Python hand coming from the sky firing lightning bolts at me, I'm not about to start believing in any sort of creator figure. That said, the Greek and Roman gods are quite appealing – they got it on with each other, betrayed each other, loved each other, hated each other – they were quite interesting.

I wonder. If there is a sliding scale – from good, through bad, to “I've made a terrible mistake”, “I'm an idiot”, and so on – what's at the far end of that scale? I can't help feeling the entire world is on an exploratory mission at the moment – to find the true meaning and boundaries of “stupid”.

Anyway. Enough. I'm waiting for some code to run. Most of my blog posts recently have happened while waiting for code to run.

After finishing work early this evening I wandered into town with Miss 19, met up with my other half, and joined the growing crowd in the high street awaiting the annual “switching on of the Christmas lights”.

Years ago this spectacle was performed by the mayor, or some other local person of note – but then somebody decided it would be a good idea to get one of the various celebrities that live nearby to do the honors – to press the pretend plunger while somebody else flicks a power switch nearby. We've had Steve Redgrave (multiple Olympic champion), Russell Brand (multiple swear-box filler), and Mary Berry (cake making Bake-Off double-entendre champion) switch on the lights in recent years. Tonight's celebrity was Ross Kemp – “Grant Mitchell” from stalwart UK soap opera “Eastenders”, and host of a number of investigative journalism type TV shows in recent years.

What can I say? We stood in the cold for twenty minutes and waited for him to stand on top of a double-decker bus in the middle of the high-street while some idiot fired pretend snow (read:soap) over everybody nearby, and the local radio played the cheesiest Christmas tunes they could come up with.

He eventually appeared, rambled on for a minute or two about how lovely the town and it's people are, and then pressed the pretend plunger. And ONLY HALF THE LIGHTS CAME ON. I don't know how I didn't burst out laughing. I wanted to.

On the plus side, we stopped at the supermarket on the way home, and I bought myself a pizza for dinner. Go me.

On the way to work yesterday morning a four wheel drive monstrosity driven by a trophy mum forced be into the hedgerow alongside the road. She had just passed a passing place, but I was just a bicycle – so she carried on. I didn't think much of it at the time, so carried on to work. When I came out of work yesterday evening I discovered a bike with very flat tyres.

After a panicked call home – because I was supposed to be arriving at the running club an hour later with Miss 19 for our weekly club run – my other half drove out to fetch me.

Arriving home in a blizzard of waterproofs, backpacks, coats, and bicycle helmets, I discovered Miss 19 in the dark of the study, waiting for me – wearing her running kit.

“I don't want to go”

I didn't hear her at first. She had such a small voice.

“What?”

“I don't want to go.”

My shoulders sank, while pulling up my socks and slipping running shoes on. While my other half tried to talk her around, I watched the clock tick inexorably past the time we would need to leave the house, and then began washing up, taking rubbish out – all the usual chores.

We ended up running on our own. It's worth noting that I'm still sick, and the cold has gone to my chest now – so any doctor worth their salt would have told me not to run under any circumstances. Balancing that against a daughter that would probably stop running altogether if I didn't go, I decided to risk it.

I'm still paying the price now. I have not been able to get my breath back properly for the last 24 hours. On top of that, just as I was about to leave work this evening the phone rang.

“You're not going to make it to the exam meeting at school are you?”

“What meeting?”

“The one I've been telling you about for months.”

(nobody has said anything to me)

“I'm leaving now”.

And that's how I found myself cycling home through the darkness, coughing like an idiot, before dumping my bag, spraying half a can of deodorant over myself, and setting off for the school on foot.

I'm home now. The meeting was attended by perhaps 25% of the parents. I really didn't need to be there. I still can't catch my breath properly – or at least, if I try to, I explode into a fit of coughing.

When will the world give me a break?

You know the funny thing about emptying your head? When you expose your thoughts for others to read, judge, and react to, you have to be damn careful.

Tonight I decided to try and give somebody I have followed for years a different perspective on the situation they find themselves in. Call it sitting on the fence – call it being an idiot. I should not have done it.

Sometimes we think we can imagine what it might be like to stand in somebody else's shoes. We can't. We really can't. It's so easy to imagine – to read the little somebody chooses to share on the internet, and to construct a picture of their life in our minds eye, and to think we might know the world they live in.

I'm sitting at my desk at work, watching the clock. Everything I wanted to get done today is done – ticked off – complete. There is still an hour left. Before I fall back into the darkness that seems to have envoloped me in recent weeks, let's try and look at the positives.

I made it out of bed today. I had a shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed, went through the morning routine at home, cycled to work... I didn't have a shave. Yes, I look a bit like a scruffy caveman now.

I cooked dinner for everybody yesterday evening while my other half took the younger children out to both rugby and hockey. We had roast – with chicken, potatoes, carrots, and cauliflower. It was kind of basic, but tasted good. I somehow drew the washing up short-straw too – it's funny how that happens. As soon as you mention any sort of help to the children, they magic homework out of their arse instantaneaously.

I didn't go running last night. Miss 19 did – with her sister. I suggested they go together, otherwise the entire running escapade might founder completely. The unexpected result? Following their return, Miss 19 quietly tiptoed into the study with the biggest grin on her face – at about the 3 kilometre mark she realised she felt good – proof that training WORKS, and that she is now fitter than her little sister (who had thus far run circles around us all).

We're supposed to run for two lots of twenty minutes tomorrow night. I haven't told Miss 19 that the run will take her to well over five kilometres. Next week is the final run – 5K in one go.

My wonderful other half has already signed us up for a 5K “fun” run around town in a few weeks time – where all involved dress as Santa. I can't help grinning about the idea of dressing as Satan instead, and claiming I made a mistake reading the email.

It feels like I'm slowly falling away from the moving crowd. I find myself sitting, lost in my own thoughts, rather than reading and contributing to the online communities I have played a small part in for so long.

A few days ago I scrolled through the endless stream of posts at Wordpress, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr – and wondered what purpose they really serve. Why do so many people share so many moments from their lives – places they are going, places they are leaving, happy thoughts, sad thoughts, and everything in-between ?

For a little while I wondered about pulling the plug on all of it, sitting down on a comfy chair in our back room, and reading one of the books I've been promising myself to read for the last couple of years.

I'm not sure why I didn't pull the plug. I'm equally not sure why I'm still here. This is awfully existential, isn't it. The entire post is bordering on “why are we here?”, and “why do we bother?”.

Perhaps the reason I bother is because of you. Because you're reading this. And because you're reading this, you might think “I've thought that too, from time to time”, and you might reach out – and we might find out that we're not alone in this endless questioning of everything – and we might find out that part of the reason to keep going is because we know we might read each other's words.

I wonder though – at what point does writing for an imaginary audience turn into pressure? At what point, when you know a few people will read – at what point does that turn into pressure to provide something for them to read, lest they forget you?

There's probably some inspirational crap that can be spun about your voice being unique among the thousands surrounding you. I'm not sure I have the energy to counter that right now.

I'm off to make a cup of tea.

I returned home from work on Wednesday lunchtime, and went straight to bed. Actually, that's not entirely true – I cleared the kitchen, tidied the lounge and hallway, put washing in the machine, and hung damp washing out to dry before going to bed.

I worried on Wednesday night that it might be flu – I couldn't get warm, and my body started to ache. Thankfully the aches had vanished by mid-morning the next day. I briefly contemplated coming back into the office, but then thought “to hell with it”. It's rare that I get sick, and I usually just soldier on – putting one foot in front of the other.

I spent much of yesterday sitting on the couch with Miss 19. She's had a pretty tough time recently – the anxiety issues she has battled for the last several years have returned with a vengeance. We never know from one day to the next how the next day might unfold. Yesterday we were quite the pair – she fell asleep on one end of the couch, while I made endless cups of tea, and tip-toed to the bathroom to blow my nose repeatedly. We binge-watched Silicon Valley (or rather, I did).

Today I am back in the office. I'm having trouble focusing on anything. Hence taking a few minutes out to write this (in reality, I'm waiting for an installation PowerShell script to run on a virtual server – you really didn't need to know that though).

What else has been going on? Nothing really. I feel like I've fallen off the internet horse, and fallen out of the loop of those I know. I haven't emailed or chatted with anybody in days. I looked in on the various social internet sites earlier, and realised there's no way I'll ever be able to catch up.

Of course I'll spend the entire evening now holed up in front of the TV with a laptop, madly reading, commenting, liking, and all the other things – because I'm an idiot like that.

I went to the running club again this evening, and put a few more miles in the bank. I quietly got on with the run, and kept half an eye on Miss 19. I'm not sure what I expected to be honest – I thought she might struggle towards the end, and she did, but she did well, considering how many training sessions she has missed in recent weeks.

Since returning I have somehow spent three hours achieving very little. I read the news, caught up a little with the various social networks, and filled the washing machine. Oh – I also emptied my nose about twenty thousand times – the cold is STILL hanging on.

This post has so far taken well over an hour to write.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.