the comings and goings of life

pics to cheer up a post. taken a year ago driving through Glencoe. (feeling a need for the west coast just now)

i took out the Arshile Gorky pic quote and put it as part of the title, becuase it is something that i believe, even tho i am not very good at following it. i have another piece of writing pinned to the wall by Viktor Frankl which i read a lot to remind myself.. its about not aiming at success, or happiness.. saying just forget about those and live according to your conscience.. success and happiness happen when you arent looking (not a direct quote). i read that a lot because i am always worrying these days, and have to keep reassessing which is my responsibility to worry about and which isnt. and what is that all about? looking for happiness, looking for success - behind it is a thing i have got about 'doing' something before i die. something to make 'it all worthwhile' - all the mistakes, trials and traumas of life, to in the end somehow 'redeem' it all. so when i read what Viktor Frankl says it turns it all on its head. somehow i just have to accept it all, and then just do what i can in the present. and not try to chase any kind of redeeming or 'she managed something in the end' type thing.

i am feeling very much the fact that my sister and her family are moving to America very soon. i will have no chance to say goodbye other then by email or text or phone, maybe, even. i have been thinking quite a bit about the 'leaving' childhood mantra. how it was always traumatic because it meant that either you or your friends were leaving and you would never see each other again.. that was how life was, unless you were very lucky and your fathers got posted to the same country twice at the same time - which did happen once! but you dont see the wider circle your family had become; of the ayah, and others. or you dont know that you ever will again. i think these things get ingrained a bit - in that when a similarly traumatic situation arises in life it brings up those similar feelings one had as a child... and seems to make the thing doubly difficult. there is always the excitement of the new life ahead, new lands, new people, but then there is the realisation that you are giving things up as well. its inevitable. but maybe, in our case, there is a deep down fear of never seeing each other again because thats what kept happening in childhood. i dont know - i might be talking through a hole in my head - anyway. there it is.

and just now, while i am on-line, an email from a good pal who went to live in Argentina with her partner and child - who is thankfully blogging so we back here know how they are doing. but she is back here for a couple of weeks so we will meet up soon. nearly cried! oh its all so emotional all this leaving and coming back!

some people have what they feel is their spiritual home, a place they immediately feel at home in even though they are not from there. i have a close friend who feels that about France, and goes off over there as often as she can. but she always comes back so i have got used to that - plus if she ever moves to france i know there will be at least two of us going over to visit her! oddly enough, her mum died just after my mum died, so we are both sans parents, and she is a forty-niner like me! ha! the Big Party coming on..

unfortunately there are other issues (at work) which i am having to tackle at the same time, so life just now is certainly not that bowl of cherries, actually i gave up expecting it to be years ago. if i am to try to follow Viktor's advice then thats another thing - which is my conscience and which is another's which i am feeling responsible for.. (this is to do with work) - and then there is the house issue - should i or shouldnt i downsize. oh its complicated, but so much to loose and so much to gain on either decision. but the thing is, there is nowhere and no person to go to, no place to go where i can 'rest' for a bit, to be 'safe' for a bit, and it all gets very tiring.

still, life goes on and now the next thing is waiting for my attention! feel the need for a picture to make this blog a bit cheerier. will look for one.