Locked in?
OK, this is going to be a personal one....
Conservatism is a killer - I'm not talking politics here, but the inability to throw off the dead weight of the past, to shed junk, to break out of habits, get out of ruts, escape from self-created traps... The traps are padded & comfortable, you see? Change takes you into the unknown, & fear of the unknown is a powerful brake.
My immediate environment. None of it is mine. None of the people whose it is, have the time or the will to do anything about it. But it's symptomatic of how I live. There is hardly room for me in this house - physically, but some days it feels emotionally as well. Conservatism keeps me here: it's my home & my family & my life, so it's me & you don't throw yourself away, do you?
It's much more than the untidy mess, of course. Spent part of tonight trawling through year-old emails, simply because I can't let them go. There was one batch of mail printouts I burned, in an attempt to heal hurts, only to be told it was too little too late. Tonight's are unrelated, but it's still the same old circles I'm going round in.
I'm stuck in the music too, listening to what I can connect with good times gone by. Tonight it's Oasis. In the 90s I woke up again to music, but now I'm hanging on to what worked then. Their latest single's lyric "I can't get a life, if my heart's not in it" seems particularly appropriate.
Oh, here's another quote:
"Nous ne sommes pas libres, nous sommes attachés au passé. Nous écoutons ce qui a été fait toujours, nous le refaisons et c'est la guerre et l'injustice" (Henri BARBUSSE) [We are not free, we're attached to the past. We listen to what has always been done, & do it again, & it's war & injustice] Works at the level of a single life as well as a nation!
But even this is a QED, because the quote wasn't randomly discovered. It's the title of an essay I wrote on my degree course. In 1972. It encapsulates a kind of fatalism that struck a chord then, & continues to resonate. I'd tried several times to find the quote again, & felt a strange elation when I finally hit on the right permutation of words to feed into Google. Got a bit of my past back!
Yeah, I'm p*ssed. Wouldn't you be?
Conservatism is a killer - I'm not talking politics here, but the inability to throw off the dead weight of the past, to shed junk, to break out of habits, get out of ruts, escape from self-created traps... The traps are padded & comfortable, you see? Change takes you into the unknown, & fear of the unknown is a powerful brake.
My immediate environment. None of it is mine. None of the people whose it is, have the time or the will to do anything about it. But it's symptomatic of how I live. There is hardly room for me in this house - physically, but some days it feels emotionally as well. Conservatism keeps me here: it's my home & my family & my life, so it's me & you don't throw yourself away, do you?
It's much more than the untidy mess, of course. Spent part of tonight trawling through year-old emails, simply because I can't let them go. There was one batch of mail printouts I burned, in an attempt to heal hurts, only to be told it was too little too late. Tonight's are unrelated, but it's still the same old circles I'm going round in.
I'm stuck in the music too, listening to what I can connect with good times gone by. Tonight it's Oasis. In the 90s I woke up again to music, but now I'm hanging on to what worked then. Their latest single's lyric "I can't get a life, if my heart's not in it" seems particularly appropriate.
Oh, here's another quote:
"Nous ne sommes pas libres, nous sommes attachés au passé. Nous écoutons ce qui a été fait toujours, nous le refaisons et c'est la guerre et l'injustice" (Henri BARBUSSE) [We are not free, we're attached to the past. We listen to what has always been done, & do it again, & it's war & injustice] Works at the level of a single life as well as a nation!
But even this is a QED, because the quote wasn't randomly discovered. It's the title of an essay I wrote on my degree course. In 1972. It encapsulates a kind of fatalism that struck a chord then, & continues to resonate. I'd tried several times to find the quote again, & felt a strange elation when I finally hit on the right permutation of words to feed into Google. Got a bit of my past back!
Yeah, I'm p*ssed. Wouldn't you be?
posted by bluefluff @ 4:29 AM
6 Comments:
At 04 September, 2005 13:47,
kat said…
Change takes you into the unknown, & fear of the unknown is a powerful brake.
I have made a lot of big changes within myself and within my life during the past 5 years but I have still to make the really big one. Making the small steps towards something is relatively easy but the big jump seems very scary. Is there ever a right time to escape from a rut? I've got to find that time and the courage.
By the way, my home is a mess. I haven't the will to sort it.
At 05 September, 2005 01:28,
bluefluff said…
Thanks, Kat :-)
Realistically, I'm pretty sure I'll never make "the really big one". I won't find grass green enough to tempt me away from my own little patch, for all its weeds. I just have to rant against myself from time to time!
If you find the time, courage & will, I wish you well :-)
At 06 September, 2005 01:26,
Pykspeeks Rides Again said…
I was visiting a homeopathist for flushes and ended up going fortnightly for all sorts of stuff I didn' know I had. The only thing that seemed to get cured was a stuffed up nose (with onion tincture) and when I went to her in a state of high (or low?) distress, she gave me 'bereavement' tablets which could have been a placibo but I scoffed 'em and felt better :) and didn't go back and am the richer for that.
She was sorta psychoanalysing me at the same time and came up with "Why are you carrying someone else's name around?".
Well, I know some women do change their names when they are no longer to married to the guy whose name they took, but I came about my name legally, at the time I wanted his name and people know me for who I am now and I still get a small charge seeing it in print. I figure I've had this name 30+ years now and I've earned it and if I changed it, I'd look and wonder who it was and maybe have to develop a whole new personality to go with it.
I quite like the one I've got now ... regarless of what others think :)
I have to confess that living alone now I've got plenty of space and wonder how a family could possibly have lived in my 'shoebox' .. I think the ideal living situation would be next door to a lover, with an interconnecting door, to which I hold the key ! yayy
The messy home thing must be catching. My back bedroom is an 'open the door and chuck it in' room. I think people should hold house tidying parties.
Chin up chuckie x
At 07 September, 2005 07:47,
Buggles Balham High Road said…
So very eloquent in a 'with wine' situation Lynne.
I love that line from Oasis' latest track too.
Always loved the idea of an interconnecting door too and a bathroom each.
As for names and identity. I've been married twice so have had three name changes. My husband died fourteen years ago and I have very strong urges to return to my single surname but get put off by all the legalities and all that form filling in and the inevitable messing up of important stuff.
As for my cottage! Again - I wish somebody would turn up and clear out all the junk that doesn't really matter. I seem to have done this myself many times over the years but it keeps creeping back.
Reckon I could manage life living in a hotel room with a bed, chair, computer, radio, television, PC, mobile, kettle, fridge and room service! Oh! And a balcony with a pot plant.
At 08 September, 2005 04:30,
bluefluff said…
OK, we need a four-way house-clearing party! I'll bring the brandy :-)
At 08 September, 2005 07:21,
Buggles Balham High Road said…
I'll bring the Polish Cherry Vodka and some shot glasses.
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