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[jemany]

I was trying to write a big long post about work and how I've been close to resigning lately. I wasn't really getting anywhere though as part of the problem is that I'm finding it difficult to express what is wrong or what needs to change to make it work properly. So I abandoned that. Suffice it to say, I will be kind of surprised if I'm still in

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[jemany]

Hey.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I was reading voraciously. That has kind of stalled after I finished the latest/last Raymond E Feist book though. I have a few books but finding it hard to get into anything really. It might not help that the book I've been facing is a big thick three book omnibus of quite hard SF. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exiles-Uplift-Storm-Trilogy-Omnibus/dp/1841494909 Possibly I just need to try something easier instead. A while ago I was obsessed with Civilisation: Revolution, a strategy game on my Xbox. Currently I'm watching a couple of episodes of Arrow http://www.cwtv.com/shows/arrow each night on Amazon Prime Instant Video. It's based on a DC comic, same universe as Batman and Superman. I just watched the first episode or two cos I have a little free time when Uli is putting D to sleep and also she's started watching the new Outlander tv series which I don't have much interest in.

If I had a penny for every time someone told me they hate medicines I'd be a frigging billionaire. It doesn't bother me particularly much. To be completely honest, I don't do all that much pharmacisting these days. It's one of my current bugbears. If people enjoyed taking essential meds then there wouldn't be as much need for the pharmacy profession in general. We could put everything in vending machines and avoid an awful lot of hassle.

I might try to organise some sort of counselling or psychotherapy or something at some stage. I think I'd probably enjoy it too much to be honest. I went to a single session back in Bantry once upon a time but the cost was prohibitive so it wasn't really an option to continue. The whole thing felt kind of weird anyway and I probably wouldn't necessarily have stuck with the guy I went to that time but it might be more of an option up here. I think there is some limited cover on the NHS. Scheduling is kind of an issue but I am mostly off on Mondays and work Saturdays so that might be an option. I have CBT for Dummies but can't get the motivation to look at it (kind of ironic I know).

The thing with kids is, if you're only seeing them rarely then the change between times is always gonna be pretty dramatic. They see my parents and sister every couple of weeks or so and even at that they exclaim at how much bigger they've gotten every time. It's much harder to notice when you're around them all the time. Still catches me by surprise every time they do something new that I haven't seen before though.

I had in my head that I was 14 years younger than you but I guess I was a bit off. That's quite a milestone alright but sure it's only a number! Seems like you're probably enjoying this second life of yours too much to be sitting around marking days off the calendar. Unfortunately marking hours and days is kind of what I'm stuck at these days.

[julival]

So what do they have you doing at work now? Just management stuff? No patient contact?

I don't see that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy would be a great answer for depression and frustration. Isn't that better for anxieties and phobias and that sort of thing that you can modify your behaviour to adjust? I think the benefit of a counselor is not so much the advice as it is the sounding board. I think it can be very helpful to have an objective person to listen to what is bothering you. Talking things out instead of just letting them turn over and over in your own head. Find a female counselor. You like talking to women ;-)

Aren't we more like 16-17 years apart? I seem to recall you being just short of the legal drinking age of 21 when you and Uli came to visit the first time in 2002. I would have been 37 at the time.

Did I tell you that Rob is doing a play this fall called Dancing at Lughnasa? It takes place in Ireland and is a 'memory' play, told from the point of view of an adult narrator (Rob's part) about his childhood with his mother and her sisters. He's very excited about it. He is still obsessed with all things Irish and is very pleased with his accent, which he has tried to get as regionally dialect specific as possible by listening to You Tube speeches from people from the area.

And today, I went to my mobile phone store to make some adjustments to my plan and the guy helping me started telling me he had always wanted to travel to Ireland and to learn Gaelic because he is 33% Irish *lol* and prefers that to the German side of his family.

And I am enjoying 'this second life' quite a bit. I don't particularly mark days other than in anticipation of fun things. But the 50th birthday is sort of looming out there and, honestly, counting time is something I have done my whole life. I've always been very time aware - I think much more so than most people I know. I'm not really distressed about turning 50. It's just sort of a significant number in the timeline of things. Like 100. Which I could very likely see, since my Granny is quickly approaching her 97th birthday and doing astonishingly well healthwise. *g*

Keep pushing forward, hon. Keep reaching out. Don't wallow. *hugs* You aren't really Louie De Pointe du Lac. You have a lot more of Lestat's cleverness and practicality, you know.

[jemany]

I still work in a normal run of the mill community pharmacy. It's only been on the go about 3 years or so and while it's not dead quiet like the last branch I worked in it's not mad busy either like my previous jobs before that. The problem is that we also run a wholesale operation exporting products which are cheaper in Ireland than they are in the UK and I'm essentially in charge of that as well. There's a lot of paperwork involved with that so it takes up a lot of time and doesn't leave enough to do the normal stuff properly. So, not very much patient contact and not much management either in actual fact, which causes problems too. I think I probably devote a disproportionate amount of time and effort to the wholesale and too little to running the pharmacy but it feels like two essentially completely separate full time jobs. I think my predecessor managed to split her time better but she got fed up after a year of doing it too and quit. There are plenty of other issues. My boss is tricky to deal with sometimes for instance.

I think CBT can be useful for depression too since you can catch and change unhealthy patterns of thought which are exacerbating the depression, like irrational low self esteem, suicidal ideation and restoring helpful ones like increasing motivation and such like to start a virtuous circle instead of a vicious one. Like I said though, I didn't get past the first few pages of the book, so.. You are correct of course about the benefits of counselling and maybe a female one would be the way to go. Or it would be easier to have a professional relationship with a man because it would mean less likelihood of attachment. We'll see.

Yes, it would appear that is the age gap. I'm 33 now, just a little younger than you would have been when we first got to know each other. When would you have told me about Rob's acting career? lol I know the name of that play alright. Brian Friel is pretty famous round these parts. I don't know anything about it really though as theatre isn't really my thing. I did see Philadelphia Here I Come at school though. These days, I would think the German side would be preferable to the Irish for the most part. Certainly much more prosperous anyway.

See, you think being like Lestat would be a good thing. I always hated him. Maybe that explains a thing or two though.

[julival]

I am very conflicted as to how best to respond to all of this. I am sorry I have let you down, hon. I truly am. I took some giant steps back a while ago because I knew I was going to let people down. And I know I have let a lot of people down. And it sucks. And it makes me sad. And I have to deal with that because it's totally my issue. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say about that.

And Lestat...It's been many years now since I have read any Anne Rice. I know Lestat was an asshole in Interview. But in the overall span of his mortal and immortal existence, the character is not only a 'survivor', but also someone who lives 'life' and wants to be loved. He is a learner, a doer, an experimenter, a challenger, and he really does love Louis. He just sucks (heh) at relationships because he is so self absorbed. But when I made that comparison, above, I wasn't saying you were or should be just like Lestat. No one should be just like Lestat. But I always preferred his preference for action to Louis' continual brooding. Am I Lestat?

[jemany]

Julie, I genuinely don't think I was deliberately trying to make any oblique comments directed at you. In fact I thought I was trying to be relatively superficial and innoffensive. Obviously that didn't work.

I write stuff on here at my own whim only, especially these days. I have considered turning off comments altogether a few times but never got as far as doing it. Perhaps it would have been a good idea after all. If you're conflicted because you think I was trying to make backhanded insults about something, specific or general or criticise your choices or whatever I'm sorry. That wasn't something I intended.

I'm a bit unsure how I managed to provoke such a strong reaction, especially when I wasn't trying to. First off, as I imagine is apparent from my tone and what I've written my thinking is kind of more disordered than it used to be. I'm not sure you should really place too much credit in the ravings of a self confessed crazy person if I'm honest. I genuinely am not too sure what you're on about.

I have an idea of the stuff you probably reacted to and I guess I should have been a bit more careful about that in retrospect. Some of it I didn't even think of at the time and some of it was me being too clumsy with my thoughts and with what I said.

Believe it or not, I was trying to be lighthearted in referring to the changes since the divorce and everything. It was pretty stupid, I realise, but I didn't intend to be dismissive or anything. Part of the thing is, I think, that you're giving me a bit more credit than I deserve here. Maybe I once was a quick witted, clever person who might have had somewhat oblique meanings behing what he said but that isn't me any more. I would like to think I was always more straight forward than that but it's hard for me to remember much a lot of the time. I guess you have the same issue relating to me these days as I do with you probably.

With the Lestat comment I meant that if I'm like him that might explain why I don't particularly like myself very much. I wasn't making any sort of a comment about you.

(To divert for a second to actual literary concerns, rather than literal ones.. When I read Interview I was a young teenager and very idealistic. I saw a picture of Lestat revelling in the evil he did and his own self interest while Louis was tormented by the things they did and tried to make amends in his own way. It's a while since I read it too though and as I think I've pointed out before, my perception of the later books was coloured by what I'd taken from the first one and how important it was to me. In the first book Louis was the sympathetic character while it shifted to the opposite all the way after that. I guess I just never changed my opinions. Maybe it was clever to make such a dramatic shift and I suppose maybe it's my issue that I couldn't go with it. I think it would have made a great standalone.)

I genuinely don't believe you've 'let me down', not that I'm sure what that even means. I can't speak for anyone else but you might find that whoever else you're having this guilt about feels similarly. Like I said before, I wasn't trying to make you feel bad and I'm sorry that I evidently did.

There's not an awful lot of point to me trying to analyse how you're feeling and such but I guess it might be helpful for me to try to express myself better instead. The crux of it for me, personally is that we used to be really close and now we're not any more. I have got the impression in the past that you don't really view things the same way but like I said, I'll try to focus on me. So, I regret that we grew apart and sometimes I feel bitter about it. On occasion that leaks through into some unjustified and counterproductive churlishness towards you. Uli could write a book on bearing the brunt of my frustrations and not deserving it.

[jemany]

Back when we first got to know each other we both had a lot of time on our hands for different reasons and there was a vibrant community to help sustain strong bonds. All of that has changed a lot since then obviously. People change, grow apart, friendships don't always last without there being any particular reasons or culpability. I know all this and you know all this, intellectually. It can be harder to take when it comes to the emotional side of things. Maybe I'm wrong but in these situations it has always felt to me that it affects me disproportionately because I have very few friends to begin with and unlike Lestat (and yourself in a very different way) I actually do suck at relationships. This I do take responsibility for as there are relationships I could maintain or cultivate with some effort but don't.

In your specific case, it has felt that you were happy with just maintaining minimal contact and I wasn't really satisfied with that so I haven't really tried to stay invested at all. I don't really blame you for that particularly though. It's difficult enough to maintain a normal friendship or family relationship when you're living close by and are in each other's routines and lives on a day to day basis. Something like this, with awkward timezones, massive distance and no routine connection like FFF used to provide? Very difficult.

I hope you don't regret the choices you've made as from what little I know (not a snide insinuation, just a fact) they seem pretty good ones. I know I'm guessing at your feelings and thoughts again but it seems necessary to clarify myself. If anyone feels they are entitled to judge you for doing the right thing for yourself and looking after the people closest to you I don't think you should waste too much time taking into account their opinions. If it's someone like that you're worried about 'letting down' I think you probably don't need to worry about it too much. I'm sure someone sensible would say that worry over not being able to provide whatever is it you think someone expects from you isn't necessarily the best reason to go about distancing yourself, if that's what you mean by taking giant steps back.

I better wrap this up as it's a school night for D, even if I'm off tomorrow and slept a lot today.

I guess I'll see if I can sum up although I'm not sure how well I can actually make myself understood.

Yes, it upsets me, as much as anything does, that we aren't really close any more like we once were. I miss how much we knew about each other and I think we understood each other pretty well once upon a time and were able to help each other out with some stuff.

I don't hold you responsible for the loss of that and even if I did, what right would I have to presume upon you in that way?

Even if either of us still had the time or energy or whatever else to get involved in that sort of back and forth discussion, I probably wouldn't anyway. I have had a few different people trying pretty hard over the last few years to get or stay close to me (Heaven knows why) and I haven't made it possible. I continue to keep almost everything to myself and it isn't really something I forsee changing dramatically. As you said previously, a professional of some description might be useful as it is for anyone I would think.

[jemany]

I'm sorry if some of my mixed up feelings and some other stuff I just didn't think through along with a lack of empathy got together to upset you. I won't say I had good intentions because to be honest I was barely even thinking of it as a conversation. I was pretty much just continuing my dysfunctional monologue with your replies as props.

I did consider that if we're going to tread on such quite personal territory that you might prefer not on a relatively public forum like this but I'd say the chance of anyone reading this but you and I, who are getting emails when someone replies, are pretty slim. You never know though so if you would prefer I delete the comment once you've read it or something just let me know. I have a feeling your email will have changed since last time I used it and I have a vague recollection that it might be detailed in your own one of these somewhere but I'll leave it up to you if you would prefer to get in touch more privately. I'm pretty sure it's possible to send private messages on here, my email hasn't changed and there's always facebook and stuff like that.

I hope this sets your mind at rest a bit maybe. I have this idea about myself that I am always straightforward and honest but I know I used to use sarcasm a lot and that combined with text can make it quite difficult to discern sincerity or otherwise. I don't imagine you need my approval to live your life the way you see fit but I really don't see what you would have to apologise to me for. I'd prefer if you could strike me off that particular list but I know it's not always so easy.