The world hasn't ended (so far... it's only 9am!)

The end of the Mayan long count calendar is today (unless you believe all the pedants out there who have claimed that no-one ever took into account variations in the Gregorian calendar, in which case it has already been and gone without a hitch.) I woke up to find that the world had not ended and that it was just Friday.

Good. I kinda like the world being un-destroyed, thanks.

I don't want to bang on about silly apocalypse theories, so instead I'd like to focus on something I read from someone else, which is that there is a very strong likelihood that Mayans would have only perceived this as a new beginning; much the same way we do every year on December 31st. It doesn't actually mean anything to anyone, except humans.

What I will be focusing on, in many ways over the next few weeks, is new beginnings. I have, as you can see from the sporadic nature of my blogging, found inspiration hard to come by. There are many reasons for this, but none of them is of the slightest use to me as an excuse.

I will be far more prolific, proactive and creative from now on and have even formulated something of a plan to help achieve this. I have a new and far more powerful computer, which I am going to use to retrain myself in the field of graphic design/digital art, but am also going to keep writing both my blog and my novel(s).

On a slight tangent - I managed to quit smoking after 21 years because of a shift in my mindset towards it. This feels very much the same sort of shift. I realise that I am now middle-aged and have yet to achieve even a fraction of what I am truly capable.

It's not just a case of a Shawshank-esque "Get busy living or get busy dying"... no, it's much more of a Top Gun-esque "It's bottom of the 9th; the score is tied. It's time for the big one!" Although, I am prepared to admit that there will be a smattering of urgency in what I am planning.

There is never a shortage of those who tell themselves and others "This is my/your year!"
2013 will be my year. And so will every other year after it.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and the first of many more positively wonderful and inspiring New Years!

Here's where I'm at...

Welcome back!

I know it's been a long time, but life has kind of... got in the way... shall we say?

It has taken a long time for the creative side of me to revert back to writing, but I got here eventually.

So much has happened since I last updated the blog, so I shall attempt to summarise what has happened in the last couple of years...

Remember the panic attacks (from earlier posts)? Well, they were still happening up until a couple of months ago, along with chest pains and a constant fear of heart attack, stroke and, ultimately, death. Fortunately, a mere five and a bit years after they started, I seem to be over them.

A lot of this has probably to do with major lifestyle changes. I quit smoking in October 2010, after 21 and a half years of it. I had to use nicotine patches, but I did it! I know for definite that I've cracked it, since I am able to go out and get absolutely hammered and not smoke at all (this was always where I fell down during previous attempts). It has made a huge difference to my general well-being and I have (as you obviously expect) noticed all the little improvements that come along with it, such as whiter teeth and no more constant coughing.

The patches were a help but they weren't the main reason for me being able to quit.

I am very sad to say that in October last year my Mum died. She had a massive heart attack that left her brain starved of oxygen for too long before my Dad found her. Although he valiantly got her heart started again, there was too much brain damage and she never recovered. She died only five hours after the doctors turned off the respirator. She was 55 years old.

Me and my Mum in Edinburgh, 2003

She had been diagnosed with throat cancer in April of 2010 and had undergone an awful surgery known as a laryngectomy. This was to completely remove her vocal chords, which the cancer was thoroughly entwined in, making any other treatment almost certainly ineffective.

My Mum defined herself by her articulate and verbose nature, which made this the cruelest of forms of cancer for her to contract, but it wasn't without its warning. She had had to have her vocal chords scraped free of calcium deposits a few years prior to this and had been told, in no uncertain terms, to quit smoking immediately. Sadly, she did not have the willpower to manage this.

The surgery was a success, but the stoma (the £2-coin-sized hole in her neck) did not heal properly and she remained in hospital to undergo further surgery for a muscle graft from her breast to her neck. This proved extremely painful to her for the rest of her life, but she battled on regardless.

Once she was finally free of the hospital, almost 3 months later, she had been fitted with a speech valve that, at least, gave her a way of communicating that didn't involve lip-reading or notepad & pen. Bizarrely, when she used it, my family and I agreed that she still sounded as though she had a Scottish accent, which shouldn't have been possible, but, nevertheless, she did!

 My Mum had a 'silent heart attack' in August of 2011, which is something I had never heard of until then. Apparently, it's possible have a heart attack so minor that you don't recognise what it is. It was only by chance that the doctors found it at all. I didn't make it up to Scotland to see her until the September, but I am very glad that I did.

During my visits, over the years, Mum and I had certain... habits. One of which was to stay up for the entire night talking. Usually while drinking stupid amounts of coffee and smoking an inordinate amount of cigarettes. My last visit to see her was minus the cigarettes, but we stayed up very late drinking coffee and chatting away (as best she could with a speech valve!)

Now, I have rare moments in my life when I can see the big picture and know exactly what to do and this was one of those times. Though I was sat with my Mum and could see she was clearly well enough to have been discharged from hospital, something compelled me to start a very particular conversation with her.

I asked her if we could talk about all the things that we would want to have said to each other after she was dead. I wanted to say to her face the things people always wish they had had the time or the foresight to say. I wanted to to leave nothing unsaid between us and I told her exactly that.

We spoke at length about how we felt about each other and, unsurprisingly, we both ended up crying. They were tears tinged with happiness, though, since all of what we were saying to each other was a huge outpouring of love between a mother and her son. We left nothing unsaid before we eventually went to bed that night. I am so extremely grateful to have had this time with her. There are so many in the world who never get the chance.

When I left to come home, it was only to be a few weeks until I was back again to celebrate my parents Silver Wedding Anniversary. She died before it happened and was buried the day after the actual anniversary itself.

I have grieved quite heavily since then. She was the single most important person in my entire life and my best friend. Although I have had many days where I have done nothing but cry, I feel that I am over the very worst of it. There will always be a huge hole in my life where this tiny wee woman ought to be.

Other big news, for me, at least, is that almost immediately upon my return from her funeral, I decided to go to the local Battersea Cat & Dog Home and get myself a kitten. I got her on Halloween and she is almost entirely black, so when I was thinking of what to name her, I chose something fitting and Gaelic. Her name is Cailleach Dubh, which means 'Black Witch'.

Unintentionally, this has been shortened to Caley, which, strangely, was my Mum's nickname (from an online user name she had).

I have only ever had family pets (other than two goldfish, but I don't count them). This is the first time I have ever had a pet that was my own. She is lovely. Very affectionate, completely mad at times and almost a year old now, which makes her 12 in cat years, apparently.

Now that my Mum has gone, I have no reason to hold back in my reapplication to join the Territorial Army. I sent in my paperwork last month and am waiting to be given a date for my medical and some sort of aptitude test. In the meantime, I have gone all out in my pursuit of physical fitness. It's only a relatively recent thing, but I am being incredibly strict about what I am eating, as well as the amount and type of training I am doing. I have never felt so dedicated to something before and am feeling the same way about food and fitness as I do about not smoking - i.e. I have started now and am doing well... I couldn't handle the feelings of disappointment if I fail to be strict enough with it now.

I was weighed a little over 3 weeks ago at the heaviest I have ever been - a whopping 248 lbs (that's 17 stone 10 pounds or 112.5 kgs). Since I started training, in earnest, I have shed 18 lbs. I have managed to cut out fat, sugar and white carbohydrates from my diet, as well as ditching booze and bread. I feel amazing and have found the website www.myfitnesspal.com to be a great help in tracking my food.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest drawbacks to stopping smoking was that everything suddenly tasted amazing! Combine that with the drinking I did after Mum died and I steadily got bigger and bigger. I'm still not guaranteed to pass the medical for the TA, but, if I fail to get in, I am damned-sure it won't be because I'm not fit enough!

My ultimate goal here is to get back into the TA and get trained up in time to get on, what is looking likely to be, the last tour of Afghanistan. I will take everything else after that as it comes, but if I get what I'm after, I could be deployed by the latter stages of 2013. Fingers crossed.

I am going to leave this for now, but I am promising myself that I will be on here more often from now on.

Hopefully, you will be too!