I am a Fog, a blackened smoke of nothingness
Light passes through me like pointed steel
Shattering my floating haze
Gripped with plights of stinging pain
I rise, with head heavy like lead
Chances of survival diminish with every breath
A sense of being robbed of time
Or a deserving chance to carry on
If only this aching would stop,
Long enough for my dreams to reign absolute
How I would gladly close my eyes then
And rest with a heart light in weight and light in reflection.  

Note

I am an extraordinary being

I am God’s instilled greatness,

I am a fortune promised, a treasure fulfilled

I am imperfect perfectly

Life’s light on a dim day

On the days my mind is filled with noise

When my courage is little and darkness surrounds me

I look for the crack of light in the gloom and let the glow guide me

Deep breaths and a step, there I am back at my joy and confidence

So once again I can marvel at the existence and person that is me

Wants V Needs

How good are you at differentiating what you need from what you want? Anyone who's ever had to deal with disappointments in life knows there's a difference. We all want a lot of things and we all need a lot. Just how do you decide which is best for you. You can easily say you as a person (grown or otherwise) know what you want, but very rarely do we know what we need.

Have you ever had something go wrong but meant that you got something you actually needed? Does missing the bus and have to walk meant that you met an old friend who presents you with an opportunity that ends you being what you need. Maybe getting dumped and going on holiday alone, lead you to a place where so many opportunities awaited you?

We all have an ideal, a picture in our head that we are trying to replicate in real life. We go through so much to make that picture whole. Work 9-5 jobs, put money in our pension pot, have savings, start college funds for our kids and so on. However sometimes, regardless of how hard we try, we just never seem to be able to portray the exact same picture.
You would expect this would mean the final drawing would come out skewed; I mean if things haven’t gone the way you planned, surely the end point will be completely different from what you envisioned. And life would cease to be what you know it to be. Only that doesn’t seem to be the case, in spite of getting something different from what we expected, we end up getting what we needed. In comparing our ideal to what life has presented us, we end up at exactly where we needed to be.

At what point do we stop striving for what we want and start aiming for what we need. When through all of this do we stop drawing our ideal picture and start drawing a realistic one? Can you tell the difference between what you want and what you need? Do you know what you need? Is it different from what you want? Are you striving for what you what or what you need?

I personally find, that sometimes I can answer this question with confidence and other times I’m confused as to which is which.

Death to Chain Mail

Do you ever get those annoying chain mails that are well written or has some supposedly powerful message and at the end of it, says of you don’t send it to 99.9 people you will see worms in your food or some crap like that.  

I really wonder if anyone believes messages like that, I mean think about it. It says if you don’t send it to your whole inbox you don’t get a blessing or you have 3.5 years of bad luck (I just divided the years of breaking a mirror bad luck by 2, surely that’s much worse?), if you send it to only half of you inbox you get a wish but it comes true in less years, however if you send it to your full inbox you get your wish in 10mins. How is the number of bad luck years calculated? Does the email have spyware attached to calculate the percentage of your inbox you sent it too? How long do you think it took for the average person to figure out there is no correlation?

Seriously can you tell me that in the list of 62 emails you have to read, if you don’t drop everything and send this threatening email to all your contacts so that they too can forward the threatening email to their contacts your left pinkie toe will grow a fungal nail. And what are the rules if you get the mail more than once, if you don’t send it again does the previous good luck cease to be or will you get a pardon? 

I really try not to take my frustration out on the people that send me emails like that; I just block any future emails from them. Sometimes I forward it to only that person just to see if they’ll send it back to all their contacts (only happens on the rare occasion I have time).  Other times I just send them an imaginary middle finger (doesn’t hurt them but makes me feel better). 

What dim-witted horrific person sat down and came up with this stupid concept. I really would like to meet them, I could write at the end of this what I would to do the person, but I unlike them believe in the surprises, however I can say whatever it is will not be the threat of a fungal nails (will probably involve a baseball bat and their computer making a physical connection).

Existing World

In this world here, we each exist

In this life, we all persist

Though often difficult this road we travel 

Bare feet on path of gravel 

We saunter on, often with earthly cargo  

Not immune to faltering

Frequently hesitant of unseen twists and turns

In figure we grow, in figure we diminish

Weary though humankind; live we must

Awaiting earth’s stillness

When all alive ceases to exist

500 Miles Plus

Few weeks into my new job at Aberdeen, I decide to drive my car down (or rather up) to Aberdeen in Scotland. I'd tried unsuccessfully to commute by public transport or use taxi's but I have to say my work place in Aberdeen is unfortunately placed in a village in disguise, in disguise you say? Well it an industrial area with houses built nearby and 10mins drive from the airport, however it has terrible transport links and being a Londoner, I was not a happy camper. Hence I decided to take my car with me to commute within Aberdeen.

I headed out on my trusted 1 litre engine Yaris at about 10am in the morning, from my flat in east London, with a full tank of petrol, an extra keg just in case I run out miles from the nearest station, my sat nav and my iPod as companion. I'd promised to keep my siblings in London updated of my progress as I was driving alone (either that or they send out the national guard if 30mins go by without contact, they actually would do that; they'd just wait 30 more mins).

Listening to LBC 97.3 has I drove, I tried to take in some of the sites, so I could regale my readers about my journey. I drove past the sign for a town called Stilton (Yes, the Cheese).  I made my first stop 3 hours into my drive at the North Yorkshire/County Durham border. Had a moderately manageable sandwich and got a starbucks coffee on ice and stocked up on red bull, water and gum. I IM'ed my siblings to update, refuelled my car and headed back out.

After driving another hour or so, my radio stopped picking up LBC, I plugged in my iPod and sang along to the songs (with a wonderful voice, if I do say so myself) ok my singing voice is atrocious (don't judge me). I crossed the Scottish border at 15.01pm. By this point I’d made a 10mins stop and consumed my coffee and half of my red bull/water/ice mixture.

I got lost at this point because I took a wrong turn for the services, ended up in a town called Tranet, where fortunately I was able to find local services; I rested up for another 30mins, ate and continued on my journey. Back on the motorway, I passed a sign for a town called Dollar (wonder if they spend pounds there?). Had to drive past Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Fife and such, because of the big cities in Scotland and Aberdeenshire is one of the furthest. At this point I had switched off my iPod and started having a conversation with myself (not that I hear voices in my head or anything). I reached Aberdeenshire at 19.10pm and Aberdeen city at 19.36 (drive like the wind, vroom).

Pulled up at my rented place at 20.18, to say I was worn out would be a crime against me. I’d driven a manual car for 10 hours (granted I was in 5th gear most of the time), although the sights where lovely I couldn't enjoy it as my options where watch the road or look at the sites, doing the drive alone was not ideal and I would definitely advice against it. However that is one experience I will not be forgetting soon.

Me In My Old Age

I often wonder in my old age, if I would be hunted by my memories

Memories of loved ones gone and love lost

Memories of life un-lived and life I missed

Will I question choices I made and choices unmade?

Question things left undone and things I have done

If I look back on my life, will I feel I lived every moment completely?

In my old age, will I smile with wrinkles all over my face?

Each line representing a decision unmade, a love I’d lost, a path not taken.

I see a picture of me in my old age, an old woman with a life wholly lived.
Will what i see, be a true reflection of the life i will live.
Of me in my old age.