To Do Is To Be

Hello dear readers!

Wouldn’t it be lovely not to have to work for a living?

I think it’s a dream we’ve all entertained at one point or another. Perhaps it was on a day like today when the sun is beating down and the smell of freshly mown grass is mingling with the more delicious odours of someone burning meat in their back garden.

Yes. I think we’ve all dreamed that dream. Trouble is... when you start living it.

Drain Brain

Now, before you get the wrong idea this is not some ‘woe is me’ post, rubbing my less than work oriented existence in the faces of all you hard working, upstanding, pillars of society. Well, maybe, a bit. I don’t mean it to be though.

You see, since last year’s rather momentous health issues, I have been one of what I believe is commonly referred to as the great unwashed (I do wash, honest. Sometimes more than once a month too!). That is I am a man of leisure, a work-shy, aimless drifter of a man, and quite probably a drain on the national purse, although probably not as much as, say, a royal wedding. Maybe I’m more of leaky stopcock on the national purse.

Rise And Shine
To get back to what might have been a point, this transition from twenty odd years of working to a sudden and complete cessation of the same has proven trickier that I might have first thought.

The first month or two was novel, I’ll grant you that. It might have had the shine taken off it by coming to terms with my MS and figuring out how to get enough money scraped together to put food on the table and clothes on both my and my lovely wife Tina’s backs, but it was, well, in a way, kind of nice.

Not having to get up at some ungodly hour. Not having to brave the rush hour traffic twice a day, five days a week. These are definite advantages. Having the time and occasionally, the energy, to do what one wants when one wants to. Well that’s good too. After a while though the shine wears off.

It Doesn't Grow On Trees
It might have been the lack of variety that was partly caused by my moving on to benefits. This has meant that money is a bit of an issue and that dream of being able to do what you want, when you want, well it has to be curtailed somewhat. In fact as the benefits were sorted out we went through a period of being as financially embarrassed as a particularly poor church mouse who’s just lost his wallet. These were not fun times.

We’re starting to get a handle on things now. The money is still tight but we are cutting our cloth accordingly. I can occasionally spend some of it on doing something. The thing is that that seems to not be the answer.

That, I think, was presented to me this week. As I mentioned in a post here, the garden had become something of an issue. One that needed attention on a scale I did not feel confident stepping up to. This last week though we decided to at least make a start, to do what we could and perhaps cut down any bill we might be presented with by a professional gardener.

Achievement Unlocked
Now, I have no green fingers. They are decidedly a grubby shade of pink. Having borrowed a pair of loppers from the next door neighbours though both myself and the Mrs threw ourselves into the task of cutting back some of the foliage threatening to swallow us whole. It was hard work, especially in the unremitting heat of the first part of the week. Truth be told though it was work I enjoyed.

The task was one that needed doing and it was one that yielded immediate and very noticeable results. It made a difference. We made a difference. I made a difference; and as I looked on at the half hacked garden, a cold drink of water in hand I got a real sense of achievement. I realised then that this is something I’ve been missing.

A Useful Idiot
Being useful, contributing, being part of something. All of these things are important to some degree to all of us, I think. This definitely rings true for me. That small amount of manual labour, the fact that it made such a big difference, and the immediacy of the results all combined to give me a feeling of contented usefulness.

I might have complained about work, as I think a lot of people do from time to time. I might have wished I didn’t need to get out of bed on a Monday morn and dig at the corporate coalface for eight hours a day, but it did provide a structure to existence and it did give me that feeling of having done something worthwhile with my time. I think going forward I’m going to need to find something to give me that same feeling. I’m not sure what, but I am sure, more than ever, that it’s important to me.

Until next time...