write.as/jonbeckett

You know the one where you start the year disconnecting yourself from social media, blogging, instant messaging, and everything else – swearing that you’re done with it – but then slowly find yourself returning ? That.

At least I didn’t delete any accounts this time. I’m learning. Slowly. Maybe we’ll call it a rest. A vacation from the shit-storm.

I’m re-visiting old haunts, but consciously not looking up too many old acquaintances. I want to take things slowly – let others find me serendipitously, rather than go on any ridiculous fishing expeditions.

You’re probably wondering where on earth I’m talking about – given that I rarely cross the streams. I use the same username at Wordpress, Tumblr, and LiveJournal. Before you start, I know it’s madness.

How do you go about writing a blog post when utter mayhem surrounds you ? While writing this Miss 12 is playing “Bomberman” next to me at full volume, the radio is blaring away in the kitchen, my other half is watching some forgettable detective series on TV in the lounge, and the other children are in their rooms, no doubt watching YouTube videos until their eyes fall out.

In a few moments I will be called into the kitchen to help prepare dinner. I just finished clearing the washing up from this morning – we had a cooked breakfast before heading out to cheer on the younger girls in rugby matches this afternoon. We arrived home a little earlier this afternoon.

Where has the weekend gone?

The repetitive assault of sound from Bomberman is slowly driving me round the bend. I wonder how much noise cancelling headphones cost ? Thinking about it, there’s no way I would ever get away with wearing them – for the same reason I could never win with a mobile phone. If I have notifications switched on, I get ranted at for the phone vibrating or beeping all the time – and if I have the phone on silent, I get ranted at for not answering it. I can’t win.

Not winning seems to be a theme at the moment – which I suppose is why I seek out the internet rabbit hole so often. If you know I read your blog, you have no idea how valuable an escape you have become for me.

This afternoon found us an hour from home watching our younger daughters play rugby. I think – for our household at least – rugby is going to end up winning over football. The children invariably have more fun playing rugby – it’s very much more a team game, and the kind of people that play it don’t seem to blame each other in the same way that football players do. Also, parents are far more involved in rugby – they turn up to watch, for one thing. I’ve lost count of the number of football matches I’ve stood on the sidelines where perhaps two parents have turned out to watch the entire damn team.

We won’t even get started about the fact that rugby clubs invariably have a club-house, hot food, hot drinks, certified coaches, first aiders, referees, and everything else you would expect of an organised sports club. In my experience, football teams rarely have any of that (even though they should).

Perhaps predictably, Miss 14 has asked us if we can write to the local football team coach, and tell him that she’s not going to be playing for them any more. The rot set in several weeks ago when several of her team described her performance in goal as “shit” to her face – followed by one of them posting on social media that the team were looking for a new goalie.

We just wish the local rugby club had a girls team. We have to travel for training and matches about half an hour each way, instead of walking ten minutes down the road to the local club. It’s kind of stunning really, because the local club is huge, and very well established – just not for girls. We suspect it has a lot to do with the kind of girls we typically see around town (and yes, this is going to be a “chip firmly on shoulder” comment) – trophy makeup plastered daughters of wealthy parents who wouldn’t be seen dead getting muddy under any circumstances, but will of course plaster Facebook with their latest ski holiday photos.

It’s just a guess of course.

Anyway. Dinner. I need to go help with dinner. After that washing up, and after that, perhaps watch a movie with Miss 17 to take her mind off her drama. I’m deliberately trying to avoid thinking about tomorrow, and work. If you see me commenting on your blog in the early hours of the morning, at least you’ll know why.

It’s all over again. Miss 17 called an end to the relationship that has caused her so much frustration and heartache in recent weeks. We’re trying not to say “I told you so”. I spent much of yesterday evening watching TV with her curled up next to me, and this morning standing on the touchline of her younger sister’s football game, arm in arm.

As much as it’s nice to have her back again, I feel sorry for her having to learn the hard way again and again about the behavior of others. I imagine this evening will turn into a late night movie marathon while I try to put her back together again.

I’m sitting at my desk at work, struggling to find the enthusiasm to drag the thing I’m working on over the finish line. There isn’t a finish line as such though – more “the next finish line”. Next week there will be another one, and another the follow week. The pattern will continue throughout the year. The clock in the corner of the computer monitor says it’s half past two in the afternoon. I’m pretty sure the clock is slowing down to spite me.

While sitting here, avoiding getting on with anything, it occurs to me that if I had kept going with a “smart” phone I would have any number of supposedly social apps at my fingertips, filled with people ready and waiting to jump down the internet rabbit hole with me. Oh who am I kidding – I’ve chatted with about four people in the last year.

I’ve always preferred email over instant messaging, and have tried to keep in touch with distant friends through either writing random emails, or reading their blogs and commenting. Spending the last hour of the day catching up with people that ask nothing of me is a wonderful escape. I will admit to looking at the price of smart phones against recently though – if only so I can text message a little faster than a sloth covered in molasses.

I seem to spend most of my time at the moment avoiding things – work, people, conversation, conflict. Am I avoiding conflict? It’s hard to tell sometimes.

The predicted conflict with Miss 17 didn’t happen. I got in from work last night and ducked my head into her bedroom – asking if she had noticed the absence of the video games, or huge-ass monitor. She didn’t seem to care. I closed the bedroom door, and audibly exhaled. Of course now I’m wondering – is her relative calm the portent of a bigger storm to come?

While preparing for dinner yesterday evening, we received a text message from our eldest daughter, asking if it would be alright to stay at her friends house overnight. She was already there, after leaving college on the same bus as her friend. We immediately kind of lost the plot. I’m not going to get into the nightmare that unfolded after that, but I’m fully expecting an explosion of nuclear proportions when she returns home.

Why?

Because I have removed many of the things from her room that she had been loaned in return for doing well in recent months. The games machine has gone. The big monitor on the computer is gone. The collection of Anime movies has gone.

If you see a mushroom cloud in the distance, at least you’ll know she’s home.

The whole episode has caused me to wonder if this is straight out of the usual teenage girl play-book? The slash-and-burn version of growing up – destroying relationships in order to begin the metamorphoses between being a dependent teenager to an independent person making their own decisions?

It opens pandoras box, doesn’t it – teenagers badly want to make their own decisions, to have independence, and to stand on their own two feet – but they don’t want any of the responsibilities and expectations that go with it.

I wonder how Miss 17 will react to being told she can have her independence, but her pocket-money is going to be cut in half, and she will have to wash her own clothes ?

Today has been a day to forget so far.

Miss 17 is apparently not talking to me today. I’m not really sure why. After calling her repeatedly over the course of an hour this morning, she emerged from her room with moments to spare in order to catch her bus to college. I asked if she had taken her medicine, which elicited a grunted “haven’t got time”, before storming out of the house and slamming the door behind her. I imagine reminding her again this evening will further enhance our current relationship.

Miss 14 put on an oscar-winning amateur dramatics performance in bed this morning – claiming she was at death’s door, and would under no circumstances be able to attend school. She didn’t factor on me going to work, picking up my laptop, and retuning home with it to “ruin her life” (her words). She now has no phone, no tablet, no computer, and no TV. While talking to a co-worker on the phone this morning I heard laughter drifting through the house, and discovered she had silently slipped downstairs while I was on the phone. I confiscated the television controllers, and ordered her back to bed. Cue nuclear-level ranting on the stairs (apparently I am “very, very mean”), and her bedroom door being slammed hard enough to rip the frame from the wall.

Miss 12 hid in the study until her school transport arrived, mostly to avoid my other half who was understandably upset that she would have to call the school yet again about Miss 14.

After clearing up behind everybody else, I suddenly remembered about a mechanical issue with my bike – so headed out into the garden with tools. Five minutes later the back wheel had been removed, re-attached, everything oiled, and tested – fingers crossed.

Of course having a working bicycle is only one part of the cycling equation. You also depend on the world around you to cooperate a little. I had no such luck this morning. Within two hundred yards a dog had walked out in front of me between parked cars, a pedestrian had walked into my path without looking, a van had reversed directly at me without looking, and a group of runners had run along the middle of a quiet road with no regard to my existence right behind them at all – apparently their conversation was far more important than their own self-preservation.

On the way back from the office – after picking up the laptop – I came upon a couple walking along the quiet lane I was cycling along. I got within two feet of them before either of them heard or noticed me – one person eventually jumped out of their skin, grabbed the other by their arm, and yanked them out of the way. They both shouted “Sorry” repeatedly as I stood on the pedals to accelerate past them. I decided to smile, rather than shake my head.

After dealing with Miss 14 mid-morning, I noticed a card on the doormat. The postman had pretended to deliver a letter than needed signing for – it was at the sorting office. I pulled my coat on, and set off on foot.

Like I said. A day to forget.

I nearly fainted this afternoon. I had been working flat out all day on a technical problem. I didn’t get up from my desk from the moment I arrived in the morning until the moment I left in the evening. There must be a rule deep in the workings of the universe that undiscovered problems will show themselves at the most unexpected moments. I’m reminded of the infinite improbability drive in Douglas Adams book “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe”. Who would have guessed he would predict the nature of modern software development so many years before we all started headbutting laptops and thumping desks.

The children went back to school today.

Miss Twelve is asking to have her hair dyed, because somebody in her class has green hair. When told she will be doing nothing of the sort until her body stops growing (for very valid reasons that any hair salon should have told the girl with green hair), she threw herself face-first into the sofa.

Miss Fourteen woke up and complained of her shoulder hurting. Her appearance at the foot of the stairs a few minutes later was somewhat miraculous, given her record for (not) going to school on Mondays this year. I wonder just how stupid teenagers think their parents are?

Miss Seventeen scraped herself out of bed with five minutes to spare to avoid being late, and wandered off to her work placement looking annoyingly neat and tidy for somebody that was very probably up until the early hours chatting with friends on her mobile phone. Oh to be young again, and not care about anybody except yourself. Of course she doesn’t realise we see this in her at the moment – the selfishness, thoughtlessness, and carelessness. We can’t wait for it to pass.

It’s just gone 9pm, and I’m sitting in the junk room once again – half an hour out to empty my head into the keyboard. Half an hour to avoid a descent into complete insanity. Some would argue I’m already there.

I received word from my Mum this afternoon that an old family friend has died. He was a fixture at family parties while growing up – a member of the tug-of-war team my Dad competed with throughout my early childhood. My memories of him will always be of the towering, seemingly indestructible mountain of a man that could drink like a fish, and would grin quietly in the corner of a bar while everybody else made fools of themselves. For the generation that never knew him, he will be the man in the background of countless holiday photos cherished by their parents, and in stories told my their parents friends.

It’s a sobering thought really – my parents friends are passing away, one by one. The families I grew up knowing so well will soon be no more. Of course just as quickly as the older generation pass away, new generations are being born – children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. The generation I knew as a child are starting to disappear though, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Perhaps I should be paying more attention to the here and now – because we don’t get another go at this, do we.

At the beginning of the year I walked away from much of my “presence” on social media. For several years I had been posting into Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal, Flickr, Snapchat – the slew of popular platforms that exist across the internet. I didn’t use them all at the same time – that really would be madness. I wandered from here to there, and often back to here again.

Then one day I stopped. Just like that.

I talked at the time about giving my phone to my other half (who had dropped her iPhone), but that was really just an excuse – I had been thinking about doing it for some time. In the days between Christmas and New Year I happened to wander into town, and dodged several people who were consumed by their mobile phones. In some ways they were the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Over the last few weeks I have looked in on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram – slowly cutting ties with vague acquaintances, and whittling down those I’m willing to invest time in – making each place a little more manageable. But why would I want to make Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram more manageable? Perhaps because I’m thinking of returning.

Now the title of this post makes some sense, doesn’t it.

Sunday has been remarkably quiet so far. The girls went to rugby practice first thing while I got on with chores around the house. They arrived home early this afternoon, accompanied by a car full of groceries. We have food again!

This afternoon I found myself at a loose end, so have spent much of it tidying up the junk room, updating the bullet journal, and finally sorting out the old computer. I feel kind of sorry for the old computer – it gets used and abused by everybody in the family – sitting down to write emails, print things out, look things up – and gets left switched on – sometimes for days on end.

While tidying the computer up, I re-visited the archives of my old blog posts, which have lived in an online repository for the last little while. I keep flip-flopping between storing them at GitHub, or DropBox. Today I moved everything over to Dropbox, and dusted off Scrivener once again. I won’t even begin to decide the reasoning behind the change. Let’s just say I had a bit of a silent temper tantrum with Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive, because none to of them do exactly what I want.

Scrivener is a writing application – kind of a nerd nirvana for writers. I’ve owned a copy for years – since one of my many failed attempts at NaNoWriMo.

Anyway – what are my plans for the rest of the afternoon ? Maybe to write a few emails, catch up with a few distant friends, and listen to music on Spotify. I looked in on Instagram this morning for the first time in a week – posted a photo or two, and remarked that I haven’t really missed it.

When I stepped away from social media at the start of the year, it was more out of necessity than anything – my other half needed a smart-phone far more than me, and I thought I could probably get by with a much simpler phone. At first I thought walking away from Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, and so on would be difficult – but it hasn’t been at all. I haven’t really thought about them. Sure, I’ve looked in once or twice to see how people are doing – particularly at Tumblr – but then thought “look at all this regurgitated junk people are posting”, or “why are you sharing this?”.

I guess when you’re in thick of the social bubble, you lose a bit of perspective. I’m not so sure I’ve gained any perspective back by removing myself, but it has made me question why some people expend so much effort sharing so much with the world at large. And yes, I know this blog contradicts that thought. I’m just as guilty as anybody else – but at least now this is the only place I do it, rather than trying to tweet, share little square photos, update my daily status, scroll through this site and that site, clicking hearts, likes, and whatever else. Looking back, it seems exhausting.

I’m starting to realise how much happier I am writing a few words here each day, then walking away.

The radio alarm clock went off at 7am this morning. On a Saturday. I woke up, switched the radio off, and promptly fell back asleep, waking up again at 9am.

Knowing we would be heading to my in-laws for lunch, I jumped in the shower, put on some clean clothes, made a coffee, and then set about clearing washing up from the night before. I swear we have house elves that have tea parties in the middle of the night – there’s no other explanation for the washing up that appears overnight.

We finally left mid-morning and set out on the drive to my other half’s Mum’s house. It takes about three quarters of an hour, and was accompanied this morning by a never-ending stream of conversation from Miss 14. We told her to shut up more than once, which seemed to cause her to burst into song rather than talk non-stop.

My mother in law fell over while running a few weeks ago, doing quite a bit of damage to the tendons in her leg. She’s in a full-length leg brace for six weeks, and I imagine is going out of her mind with boredom. She had invited us over, which meant my brother in law would be cooking – for the five of us, and the two of them. I bought him beer on the way, and stood in the kitchen helping him drink it while he got on with the cooking.

I learned a long time ago that when somebody else knows what they are doing next in a kitchen, you’re actually a massive hindrance, rather than a help. That’s what I told myself as I chugged my way through two pints of cider anyway.

Lunch was really good – roast dinner with meat, roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and gravy. After we all finished I helped wash up in the kitchen, and then took the children into town to spend the pocket money their Nan had just given them.

After we returned – complete with colouring books, pencils, stationary sets, and whatever else teenage girls gravitate towards when pocket money is burning a hole in their pocket – I struggled to stay awake. Every time my head nodded down as I sat with the girls at the dining table, watching them colour, they shouted at me, and I opened my eyes again – smiling.

We rounded out the day by keeping my mother in law company – sitting with her watching Winter Olympics highlights – before getting back in the car to retrace our morning journey.

Several hours later, the house is silent. The girls are in bed, their older sister is at a sleepover, and I’m sitting in the junk room typing this into the old computer. After posting this to the blog I may well go collapse into bed, ready to do battle with the washing machine in the morning.