All The Voices

Strange to be back after such a long time – August last year was the previous occasion for the dumping of brain sludge here.

And it’s not from a lack of thoughts, ideas, impressions; but more that there were too many. Too many voices, too much noise, too much anger and frustration.

I started this because I was told to stop dumping my tirades on Facebook, although I do still link this through, and for a while it was a useful vent.

But last year it got harder to filter all the voices sufficiently so that something vaguely coherent could get put onto the screen.

And I don’t mean the silent voices that have been constant companions for most of my life. They are easy to deal with; Radio 4 as a background also serves as a deadening of that silent noise.

However, Radio 4 has it’s own listening penalties, as it presents all those people, and actions, and decisions by those in power, that add pain, and strife, and suffering, to too many lives.

The one thing that has become even clearer is that there is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who votes Tory. The swamp – nuzzling antics of those are driving this country away from democracy and decency at breakneck speed have maintained my level of anger.

Putting the ‘political’ world to one side, the majority of the voices have been the internal arguments with myself – looking for a clarity to who I am, who I want to be, and where the hell am I going.

I know, 66 is perhaps a little late to start internal examination, definition and redirection, but up to this point there has been enough on a daily basis to keep the mind away from making those choices.

Then work finished, and people began to move, and the regular became more irregular, and the future became a very silently noisy blank.

Other things and acquired responsibilities emerged to fill time, and add frustrations and angers, but by then the door to the blank had been opened. Although the one slightly of the wall positive was becoming a sort of parent to an 83 year old!

But the one thing I have had is some new voices, and they have made all the difference.

I do not want, in any way, to give the the impression that those who were there consistently were not important. If it wasn’t for my son, and my soul sister, I would never have made it through, and they continue to give me so much strength through their acceptance of whatever I am.

But I have gained three new voices that have clarified, and demonstrated, and lived the moments, that have changed how I see the road forward.

All three have been enlightening, and challenging, and supportive. Each in their own way, and each as a very different person.

An astonishingly intelligent young woman, with so much understanding and strength in her frailties. A ridiculously good looking man, with an endless capacity for clear and empathetic analysis. And the best of all hobbits, with the capacity to see beauty and joy in all of life.

And all adding to my being, accepting me into the most glorious neuro-divergent gang ever!

And it doesn’t mean that the silent shouts are gone, because they aren’t. And sometimes they crowd in and the light gets duller, and the blank ahead looks bleaker.

What it does mean is that, with them, and my son, and his beloved, and his mother, and with a couple of other strong, and distinctly singular women, I am never going to without a hand, and a shoulder, and a hug, and a walk, and a home for my heart.

And that is all that I need. Because if my heart has a home, then bleak can be dissipated, and I can, to steal a phrase, be kind to myself.