I had planned to write a New Years blog but as you can see I totally didn't, and it's not because of any New Year resolution guilt or anything like that - I didn't make any resolutions this year, because I have already set my course and that has not changed.
I did however do a lot of soul searching during the time I've been not writing this blog - not sure whether it was due to the last vestiges of my need to control causing it or my struggle with change. But I did decide in the end that my instincts are correct and the choices I made are the right ones, and the past belongs right where it is. And change is my new mantra...
I've also been immersed in an English course and I've been plunged into the deep end of grammar. Of course I know all the rules of grammar - I apply them automatically and have no difficulty with it any more than any native speaker would. I did, however, find that the actual names of the rules and the various parts of speech had basically slipped out of my mind. Gone, not hiding in any deep crevices of the brain but gone as though they had never been.
So, me being me, I have been completely engrossed in the parts of speech and rules of grammar. The result is that now the script in my head comes complete with parts in italics and underlined parts and the abbreviations of nouns and verbs etc. in brackets behind the relevant words. And because I second guess myself all the time I find that I am googling some of the words from the script in my head to be sure I am correct. I dream about grammar, and because I haven't been writing it's confusing dreams with the werewolf pushing in reminding me that I need to write. There just aren't enough hours in the day!
In the midst of this grammar immersion and soul searching life has been going on, my life changes have been continuing and I am walking my forward path. Granted, some days it has felt like three steps forward and two steps back, but I am still going forward. I have the occasional dive into the well of lost hope and despair, but on the whole I believe I am getting better at positive thinking and I really do believe that I will reach my goal and my life will never be the same.
I also had something of an epiphany while pulling stubborn nut grass from my garden beds early one morning. This may not be news to many of you but it was a point of view I had never thought of before so I'm going to share it with you. If you roll your eyes and think I'm an idiot, well that's fine, I probably am :)
I was thinking vaguely about how life experiences are different for all of us, even when we share the same experience. I then started to think about that, things like siblings going to the same event, or friends going on holiday together. People have similar and yet at the same time such different views of the same moments in time.
So I was wondering why that is so. I know all of our experiences are affected by what we have gone through before; our perception is altered by past events in our lives. This led me to thinking about seeing things from different sets of eyes which of course are not in exactly the same physical space even though they might be side by side. That was when I had my epiphany.
Not only do we see the same places through different sets of eyes connected to different brains that have been wired up by different experiences, we also literally have memories of different people. Because when we experience something with another person the memories - the pictures in our minds - contain the person we are with. I have memories of places and I have memories of the person I was with. I have pictures in my head of places and people and the things people said. So a person I was with will have memories of things I said, pictures of me and where we were together.
For all of us this is true. Siblings, friends, lovers - whoever you have shared an experience with, they have inside their memories pictures of you and words that you said. So if you want those siblings, friends, lovers, whoever, to have good memories you have to contribute to those by trying to make the experience or event a good one from your input. I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are grumpy, sad, irritable or annoyed then the person you are with will not have good memories. If you are the opposite then that person will have good memories (unless of course they are grumpy in which case they are giving you bad memories!).
Obviously I am generalising here greatly, but the general theme I was thinking about was that to make the world a better place, we can all start simply by being nicer to the people we are with at any time or place. And if that spreads, if everyone starts to do that, can you imagine how much brighter the world will be :)
Short and simple today, grammar and werewolves are calling...
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