Changes...

Finally, I have some time to write! I have just completed my first full week back at work and my first full week with the new guy and a different atmosphere. All that I can say with any certainty is that it has been a week of change. To me it feels like everything has changed. I know that it has not, but it is a feeling deep in my gut that cannot be shifted with any amount of logic or rationalising. The new guy is alright; indeed we share a lot of the same taste in music and computer games. However that represents a greater danger to me than if we were completely unalike: I need to keep my work and home life absolutely separate and that just makes it harder. I worry constantly that he will try and involve me outside of work, which I can understand is normal for NT’s, but undesirable to me. The moment work and ‘play’ bleed together, as they did back when I was at school, then I cannot cope.  

A large part of me mourns the loss of the life I have lost. Just under two years with little major change in my life represents something of a golden age. No matter what I do, I cannot go back to what once was; I can only remember it fondly. That in a way helps me to deal with the change. It is a point in time that I can use as an anchor; a way to almost instantly calm my nerves, even if it is at the cost of a little depression. Mindfulness too helps. Focusing on the moment rather than the wider world helps me a great deal. I now have to focus upon enjoying the little things when I can. For me that usually involves bushcraft and nature. They embody something of a mental escape route when things start to get a little too much. The kind of calm and sense of peace that I can achieve when using mindfulness in times of change is greater than when everything is stable. Whilst I am less in control of my life, I am more in control of my mind and body. 

                                                 The key to my mindfulness technique.  

                                                 © Stephen Horncastle (SC: google images)

I still miss being away, though I think that it may be down to my perceiving it as a simpler time, before the changes occurred rather than my catching wanderlust. Who knows though, I might be wrong. Perhaps more self-analysis will reveal more.