Being at home permanently since March 12th has certainly given me time to think. There has been many a lonely hour to reminisce. Its been lovely to look back and remember events that have gone by, places I’ve have visited, people that have came into my life and made an impression; left their mark.
In my 54 years of life its been happy, eventful and surrounded by a great many beautiful caring characters. From the moment I have been able to comprehend I was showered with love. As I grew up I was always shown kindness, the family philosophy was treat others as you would like treated yourself, I will never ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t do myself. Yes these days as I am getting less able and I will pay someone to clean, paint or fix something – I’m sure these tradesman appreciate the work.
Getting back to my time to think. When I was sitting putting my feed on I was thinking about when part of my job included listening to people and their problems, how they were feeling. I encouraged them to talk about their feelings. Express exactly how they felt at that particular moment and how to deal with it. I would gently persuade them to chat and through time just by talking they would soon realise what made them happy and what made them stressed and sad. We would work on the positive aspects of their everyday living and help them get back to a happy place. One thing that did happen to several people is that at some point during their journey was they would face an emotional encounter. Regardless of their gender, age or size they would talk about whatever may be bothering them, or perhaps on the contrary what has made them very happy that day and then suddenly the voice would go quieter, and that emotional encounter would take place; the real journey had begun and I would consider my work as continuing success…. Looking back at how a lot of us are feeling at the moment, frightened to show our emotions, a lot of people get told to be quiet, not talk about their feelings, not cry. If they do cry many are met with Now come on, stop that crying, pull yourself together. Stacy Solomon on Loose Women was talking on ITV and said her mum used to vacuum when she was crying, to hide the fact that she was. All very sad. We need to be allowed to show our emotions.
I still remember one particular chap when I was working, he was your average build gent, and a father of three, he felt he was failing all round, his family, his work, his health, and most importantly himself. Of course he wasn’t. When he got to his emotional encounter he quietly sniffed away the tears and continued to talk, shortly afterwards he described blurry vision and tears threatened to spill from his eyes. He wiped his eyes so much they were red and swollen. I handed him a handkerchief and said let the tears happen, please don’t be embarrassed. His lips trembled, an involuntary whimper escaped his lips as tears spilled over the sides of his eyes. He looked over at me, his face shouting out help me and please listen. His body wracked with an onslaught of sobs and tears. The tears raced down his cheeks. He cried for a few minutes. When we discussed events he explained how relieved he felt and thanked me for getting him there. We still had a way to go, however, the big lesson learnt was not to these suppress emotions; and deal with them appropriately – the basic emotions are happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, anger and disgust. The message from this experience I took was most definitely people gain from expressing their emotions, getting upset, talking about their problems; a problem shared. Big boys do cry.
I most certainly do know being home on my own and having this time to think I also have to to shed a tear and I have probably cried more in the last few weeks than I have done so for quite some time. Although I do have to say my life is made so much better by those folks that message me and ask how I am, who give me a phone and have a natter. Please drop an email or a text or give a quick call to your pal or your mum, brother or sister, etc. I have noticed there are some folk that I only get texts if I send them one first, would I get one asking how I am if I didn’t send them one? Perhaps I would, maybe I wouldn’t!!! But one thing I do know there are some folks in my address book that we send messages to each other regardless, sometimes I’m first, sometimes their first. But one thing I do know we deeply care about each other and look out for one another. You guys know who you are; I love you.
