Life Is Very Very Beautiful

I am a huge fan of the SHARE-YOUR-WORLD posts that Melanie the creator of sparksfromacombustiblemind prepares. I love answering her weekly questions and I love reading the replies from other bloggers. We are all different, yet we have things in common. It is very interesting to me to see how different bloggers share a little of their world. Have a look at Melanie’s post below to find out the rules and please feel free to create a post yourself sharing some of your world with the rest of us:

https://sparksfromacombustiblemind.com/2018/11/05/share-your-world-11-5-18/

QUESTIONS FOR THIS WEEK:

Is there one post on your site that is really special to you?  

Yes there is actually. I am not a poet, however I am very attached to a poem on my site named:

• River

I wrote River a short time after I left school, so we are talking twenty years ago. I really struggled with poetry at school and still do to be honest. I have shared it with friends and family over the years and they thought it pretty…but I don’t know whether they realized how much of a relief it was to me to express something that was eating away at me inside. I have had some lovely feedback from other bloggers who have read this one special poem to me, and I am thrilled with the response.

---

How Do You Deal With Negative People?  

It depends. I have some friends who suffer from depression. They might at times seem negative. They are only going to get empathy and patience and loyal love from me. It must be horrible to be encaged mentally by a fog that will not lift.

Now, I do understand those who feel frustrated with the injustices and corruption that are rife in this world. I am very confident that things will change. I am sure the damage that has been done to mankind and this earth will be undone. But if someone does not see any reason to have a hopeful outlook, I sympathise greatly for how deeply troubled and frustrated they may be.

But there are others whom I don’t think necessarily do suffer with depression so much and they are not being negative about real issues like corruption and abuse. I mean the type that always seem at the ready to express cynicism or pessimism or a critical fault-finding spin on everything and everyone!

I have a great sense of humour (brought up in Liverpool where you have a lorra lorra laughs) and a very sunny outlook on life myself. I don’t let anyone burst my bubble. But some people prefer to be pessimistic so as to avoid disappointment (that is alright for them). I have always just felt that if someone is so negative that they suck all the joy out of other people – they are going to end up rather lonely and isolated at some point. I am attracted to people who make me feel good about being alive…I would like to be that myself! That doesn’t mean you will never hear me complain about a rainy day. But I do not let negative things dominate my mind or my conversations.

What I won’t tolerate is a negative critical spirit about other imperfect people for petty reasons. So I have options. Sometimes I shock a friend or workmate by suggesting something ten times more negative than what they have just said. For example…if someone is being unkind about a friend, suggesting she has some dubious motive (jealousy, rivalry or something else) I might respond by throwing in something absurd like “I would watch what you say about her, she might turn out to be a serial killer.” In other words, I try to shut down negative conversations. I will not tolerate malicious gossip or backbiting. I have been the victim of it and I know the horrendous damage it can cause. If there is a genuine cause for concern, then there are better ways to deal with it than gossiping.

What Is The First Thing You Think Of When You Wake In The Morning?

Coffee!…Ibuprofen!

When I wake up each morning, I have intense pain in the right side of my head. Always the right side of my head, which is where I received most of the blows to my head that night in the park almost three and a half years ago.

It takes me a little while to get myself together so I can get to the cupboard and take some kind of pain-killer to help ease that pain. For a long time I have been very fortunate to only have to take pain-killers first thing in the morning. Once I am vertical and am hydrating myself and distracting myself by being occupied the pain fades.

It is frustrating to both me and doctors that I still have this intensity of pain after being horizontal all night. But all of my CT scans have just shown “unusual” swelling, but nothing they can do anything about yet. There is something not 100% happy in that brain of mine, but nobody knows quite what is troubled. I still have to attend appointments and have scans because of some of the other symptoms I encounter that should not be happening. If the pain is overly intense and pain-killers do not remove it, I have been told to go straight to the nearest accident and emergency unit.

The first half an hour of each day is tough, but then the day gets better and better! And look at me…I am doing really well. It’s just a little worry that there may be trouble ahead. Oh my goodness….what a wonderful excuse for a song!

---

Would You Rather Be Able To Talk With The Animals Or Speak All Foreign Languages?

Oh definitely the foreign languages option. I love animals very much. But humans are my brothers and sisters, and I have known the frustration of wanting to talk freely with someone whose language I did not speak, and they did not speak English.

There was one moment I will never forget.

When we were in the north of Sweden, our friend totally surprised us by arranging for us to go sledging with husky dogs – that was an incredible experience. I keep meaning to write a post about it because there were a couple of very funny things that happened that day.

But the moment that stands out in my mind as spectacular, was when the sun started to rise at around 10am. It is hard to explain how dazzlingly and breath-takingly beautiful the scenery became. Can you use your imagination to picture the snowy landscape starting to sparkle with gold and glitter, and then every colour of the rainbow? I have never seen anything so magnificent in all my life.

I was sitting on the sledge with the sister of our friend who organized our trip. She did not speak English and I did not speak Swedish. But the incredible coincidence that at the same moment we both started to sing in our own language the same song. It is a beautiful song that my mum used to sing to me, about how the skies full of stars and the sun and moon bring glory to the one that made them and reveal His incredible mind. It came into my head, and I sang the words in English because the melody is so lovely. She knew the same melody, but she was singing the words in Swedish. We both started to cry, because although we could not speak with one another, we had the most extraordinary glimpse into each other’s heart at that moment. We hugged each other tightly.

The language barrier causes so many divisions, but if we could see what was going on in the hearts of other people who do not speak the same language as us, I am sure many of those divisions would melt away.

---

What small thing happened today (or in the past few days) that you were grateful for?

I am grateful today for my landlady.

I think I am very fortunate to have such a good landlady. Especially when I hear some of the horror stories of my friends who have miserly landlords, who are reluctant to address needed repairs.

She has very kindly bought me a brand new microwave for the little kitchen. I have not had a microwave for many years, so I am used to just using the hobs and the oven. But there are some really hectic days in my week when I just don’t have time to prepare some food except a sandwich. Normally, I cook in bulk when I have a day off and fill up the freezer, but often, it still takes more time than I have to heat up a hot meal in my oven. So on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I just end up having sandwiches because I don’t have time for a hot meal.

So my landlady thought the microwave would help me because she knows how much running round I do. Isn’t she a sweetie! She does lots of kind things like that. In turn, I keep the little nest immaculate and help her with a few practical tasks and look after her home when she is away on holiday.