Marsden is Here

Little Black Tailless Cat Gytha (ne Winnie), aka Twitchy-butt, Bunny-butt and so on, entered my life somewhen before I adopted her when another friend homed her for a while but ultimately had to return her to cat rescue. I had been doing the "at some point another cat will enter my life" thing since Racky's death and this seemed as good a time as any. She became part of my family in July 2014, a little under 10 years ago.

Gytha was one of the most people-friendly and social cats one could ever hope to meet / be the person of and brought great joy not only to myself and my family, but also to many visitors. When I was hosting (often loud) student parties she would often venture forth to meet people and keep company.

10 years worth of cat photos and video


( declining health and the end )

She was a trusting, loving, affectionate cat right up to the end and we are going to miss her so much. I have buried her up on the bank at the rear of the property, in a spot where the morning sun will brush over her even though she is no longer sitting in a window for it.

Depending on how E feels We may look into getting a new cuddle-cat when we move in a few months, that way it and Ellie can come terms with each other and a new house together without any pre-existing territory issues.

It is the last few hours of 2022. There is no KAOS party this year, and as D has come down with something flu-like we are also not venturing out to either of the drinkies we have been invited to.

I am not feeling positive going into the New Year, even less so than going into this year. Hanging over me or settled in my gut is something like generalised anxiety, but not exactly. I suspect it may be some type of self loathing, born of having given more than I intended or wanted to over this year physically, emotionally, financially with nothing to show for it myself and precious little to show for anyone else.

Let's take a look back in bullet points
( snip )

I have been fortunate in life. Got through school on intelligence, flip side never properly learned to study. Worked hard for things - causes really - I cared about, but through the support and generosity of my parents I never had to work hard just to make ends meet ... and now I find I am too broken to do so. I've never had to deal with choosing to leave home and family behind to make my own way in the world, or with being left behind. Mostly content - complacent even - with being been carried along by events, I've never really had to make any hard decisions, they've always been more-or-less made for me by (generally fortunate) circumstance.

So an easy life, but it has left me ill prepared me for my present situation. Sometime in the next 18 months I am going to have to make, or at least commit to and step forward on choices which in consequence are going to negatively affect or even drastically change some other peoples lives, people I care about, in order to properly support others.

I have never faced a clashing of commitments and wants on this scale before. It ... for lack of a better word ... scares me. And I have been hiding from it. Waiting on this bit of information or that, doing a bit of research and leaving the tab group open until the time is right to act. But that time could now be as early as the end of next month.

This is only one of the things which has been taking a toll on my mental health, but I suspect it is one of the bigger ones (hard to tell since I still shy away from examining it to closely) and it has been doing so unseen. It was only yesterday that it seeped through to me that the great amount of the past four weekends I have spent in bed has not been just about trying to feel rested enough to make it through the next week, or hiding from the world because I just couldn't cope with any more input right now, but also about avoiding facing up to my own discomfort and the cause of that discomfort.

After all, pushing my (perceived?) negative feelings away and paying them no mind is something I have done so much for so long that it is reflexive now. And there are so many more obvious and immediate concerns in just making it through the day or week without breaking down.

~~~

I am having phone appointments with a counsellor referred to by my GP, we get five hours on the public health dollar an I've had two so far. The first was basically a backgrounder. The second I talked about things which are currently bothering me a bit more. The aim, mine anyway, is to have an idea what sort of ongoing counselling to seek out at the end of the process.

I'm supposed to be looking for the little things which make me feel good. There are few.

- The feeling of having solved a problem or written good code, rarer these days than it used to be and usually tempered by previous experiences of finding out something is terribly wrong with it 6 months later.
- Time spent with D which doesn't feel like part of the chores. Usually at present that is listening to her current audiobook with her.
- Time spent with the cat when she is just being companionable rather than demanding.
- a small amount of reading for pleasure I have managed recently, (mostly in conjunction with trying to cut down my screen time before bed).

I don't really have any hobbies any more - the one game I am in happens erratically and I do not have the time to be working on one of my own. I usually manage to set aside a few hours for playing Path of Exile at the weekends. The rest of the time I am either

- at work (which is a great struggle at present),
- trying to keep up with the world mostly as it pertains to work and my immediate life,
- attending to household chores (practically all of which fall to me since D injured her "on" shoulder before lockdown and it still hasn't come right so she can't lift or even reach without pain, but at least we found out this week what the actual problem is) although that workload is really no different to before D moved in
- attempting to be a good husband and make sure my wife is as comfortable as I can make her and has what she needs to feel productive and cared for
- attempting to rest (I have not been waking feeling rested). Or being forced to retreat from the world into bed.

I've been trying to find the time and energy to write a journal post for three of the four weeks I mentioned earlier.

~~~

#fuckcancer We are between the anniversary of my father's diagnosis and his death a few short weeks later. It's not weighing on my mind but it is ... present. Another good acquaintance whom I have known for many years (and who is younger than I) is currently in the end stages of a breast cancer which spread to her brain; she leaves behind a young son :( And the young niece of another dear friend also died of cancer earlier this year, with all the attendant grief :(

On July 18th my father passed away from cancer, ~6 weeks after we got the diagnosis.

He didn't want a funeral, but today there was a memorial service for him. He didn't want that either, he would have been embarrassed to think that ~160 people plus apologies would take time out of their lives to remember him.

I think the best description is paraphrasing something my mother said last weekend

"He never saw himself as anyone special, just an ordinary man making his way through life as best he could. But while there may not have been many who loved him, there are a lot who he helped along the way and who respected him."

As the eldest son of course I spoke, in truth bits of what I wrote have been floating around in my head since he had a minor heart attack last year.

One of my father's lesser-known pastimes was writing poetry. I don't know if he did it often, and it wasn't something he shared with me. But when the mood struck him he was quite the wordsmith, and I imagine he set about it with the same quiet determination to turn out something worthwhile that he demonstrated in every other area of his life.

This, this is rough.

~~~
I might not say I am my fathers son.
Different hair, different nose, very different life.

But children have come into that life and I have found
that reflexively I speak as he did. Same words, same tone.
So it is I come to reflect, what other considered virtues
might have been seeded and set by that quiet example.

You and I Dad, we never bonded over stories of your youth.
And my sisters got the farming genes, I became a townie.
Yet you were a constant presence, just a call away.

Supportive even when we differed,
Providing considered advice when asked.
Prepared to let us make our own way in life
But supporting us any way you could.

Willing to help anyone when the opportunity arose,
I believe you showed me that there are
two sides to every story.
That life requires those with different abilities
working together to make our worlds go around.
How to listen to points of view outside my own.
And to leave things better than I found them.
Not to be afraid of new ways of doing things,
To focus on getting the job done,
And to be steady in the face of a crisis,
Not being concerned with recognition for these achievements.

It's not possible to talk about you for long Dad
without bringing Mum into it as well.
How deeply you cared for her and she for you has become more obvious
as time has passed, and perhaps as I have grown to understand
That a person could not have greater examples
of two people who worked
to support each other through thick and thin.
I know life wasn't easy on the farm, you and she (and the grandparents before)
Have worked harder than I ever have or will.
And I know the fruits of your labour given freely, have shaped my course more than anything else.

Although much of your time was spent managing the generations of sheep and deer
Our family was your true life's work.

And I know you felt that maybe you didn't spend enough time with us when we were young.
But you made up for that with your grandchildren, the photos have captured
Just how much of a bond you had with the young. Even three then not yet officially part of the family
Quickly adored and respected you when you met.

I've said it before and I'll say it again,
the more I learn of other peoples parents
the more grateful I am for my own.

You weren't big on emotion Dad, not in front of us anyway. I can count on one hand the times I recall you visibly upset.
And I was responsible for some of that. But I never recall you holding onto anger.

So although the time has come when we can no longer sit and chat
and the end came too quickly, I never got to say these words to him.

Today I stand here and say, I am proud to be the son of my father.

~~~

Thank you Dad. I miss you.

Embedding doesn't seem to be working, but there is a memories slideshow here

It is ANZAC day here in New Zealand, the annual public "holiday" to commemorate and honor those who died fighting in "our" name in military service. In practice this means primarily World Wars I and II with in recent years the occasional nod creeping in to Vietnam or more recent actions in the Middle East.

There are links I have shared on FB over the past few years that this year I am going to round up here before putting down more of my thoughts

#lestweforget
~~~

Cliffs of Gallipoli [Sabaton]
"There is no enemy, there is no victory
Only boys who lost their lives in the sand
Young men were sacrificed their name are carved in stone and kept alive
And forever we will honour the memory of them""


19 things you need to know about ANZAC Day (that we should not be proud of)
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/04/25/19-things-you-need-to-know-about-anzac-day/

The Pencilsword remembers the Maori Land Wars - arguably more important to NZs history and identity but often forgotten
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-lest-we-forget

The Making of Gallipoli into a Marketable Memory
http://werewolf.co.nz/2015/04/whats-to-commemorate/

I was only 19 [Redgum]
"And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep?
And night time's just a jungle dark and a barking M.16?
And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me - I was only nineteen"


~~~
"Lest we forget" means different things to different people. For some it is about the family who went to war whether by choice or otherwise and didn't come back. For some it is about the need to be prepared to go to war "for the right reasons" (these reasons vary).

For me it means
a. Being aware that
-- wars past and present are not times of glory and righteousness as presented by the media and spin doctors, but of horror and death

-- that the amounts spent on military adventurism by western economies would go a long way to giving the oft-struggling citizens of those countries(arguably the losers and casualties of a form of civil /economic/ warfare which has taken place of the intervening decades) a decent standard of living. Food, healthcare, accommodation, the freedom to be productive rather than just trying to survive.

b. Saying #notinmyname when my government continues to choose to hire out our military "defence forces" especially in a time when modern military conflict often seems to mean
-- a technologically superior force operating on behalf of interests who are posed no significant threat by the other side
-- sowing death with machines which doe not need to have human compassion or judgement drilled out of them, dissociation of their operators enabled by a safe distance
-- inflicting civilian casualties and recording them as "enemy combatants" for simply being present

c. That the best way to not become involved in a war against a nation with a "morally bankrupt" government is for people to stand up, be critical and questioning, and prevent their government from becoming that sort of institution.

Every. Day.

~~~
War (What is it good for?) [Edwin Starr]

Arriving at work to discover that one of your same-age-group [edit: clarification: at-work] friends has died over the weekend.

I may post more info as it comes to hand, but it will be filtered.