A speed bump, not a whole in the ground

To sum up:

I didn’t loose my job this time, maybe later…(!)
I am loosing two good colleagues in a company that is making lots of money, they are being made redundant.
I gave in to my neck/head pain yesterday and got sick leave from my GP, who said I should have come two weeks ago.
My psychiatrist worries about my parasomni, and thinks I might do something stupid in my sleep, I have been sleepwalking… (feels stupid).
I have restocked on pain meds, sleep meds, sleep cycle meds and deep-sleep-relaxing meds. Feels reassuring.
It rained too much today for cycling, (which I shouldn’t do anyway because of the pain). But I will tomorrow!

I turned up the music and danced, as I cooked dinner for me and my husband.

I love to dance. Soon I will be happy again.

🙂

Ground lost under my feet?

Well… I did not loose my job. Not in this round anyway. I got hired as the fourth of eight in my department, and the one hired before me, and the one hired as number six lost their jobs last week.

I did not get the job I applied for at my former employee either. So I have applied for a couple others.

There are quite a few things I don’t understand about this, and I see that I am naive, and have had a rather easy career.

I have a few new things to think about. It disturbs my balance, I have lost my sleep. I find that old patterns of thinking and feeling are coming back, and all my strategies for coping sort of escaped out the window.

It is temporary. There are more important things.

 

Happy! Dancing! Singing!

I guess my popularity in the office is rapidly dropping. I lost my great big office, which I shared with another person, because on of the bosses needed all the space, (perhaps to store his ego…). So we had to move to an open landscape solution thing. I got to keep my desk, which I can raise and lower, and I usually stand quite much during the day.

And since there are quite a bit of noise, I listen to music! And dance.

And sometimes I forget about where I am, and sing. Oooops!

Sometimes I sense people looking at me, and wonder how long they have been standing there. Then I just laugh. They should try dancing a bit too, maybe they’ll fell better.

It shouldn’t really be like this now. I might loose my job, several hundred will, in my company. This is a stressing situation, for all, me too.

We never think about the decision we take to be sad, mad, angry, we just get into that mood. Did you know you can decide this yourself? I decide to be happy. The things I cannot change can be left somewhere else.

I might as well dance. And sing. I have this one in my head, from Pharrell Williams.

Here come bad news talking this and that, yeah,
Well, give me all you got, and don’t hold back, yeah,
Well, I should probably warn you I’ll be just fine, yeah,
No offense to you, don’t waste your time
Here’s why
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

It CAN work out well?

It struck me here one of these mornings. I cycle to work, and I live in a country with lots of weather. Most of it is rain, some is below zero. At 0530 in the morning, I found that the rain had turned to ice. When there are snow, you know it can be dangerous. Ice is a bit more tricky…
Well, it happens, and there has been a few slippery mornings lately.  As my trip to work is 30 kilometers, I cannot just change my mind and take the car, the way cycling home again can easily be quite long. And I have no one to call, my husband takes the plane to another city every Monday morning.

The last morning with icy road, it struck me how easy it is to expect for the worst to happen. Me sliding on the ice ending in a ditch where no one ever finds me. It makes my shoulders raise and level with my ears, all those muscles I need for the ride to go well are as tight as never before. I loose the cool control I need pass the icy bits.

The experience that I should remember, is that I actually have made it, quite a few mornings this year. I’ve never ended in the ditch.

I have not learned to trust my ability to get through the tough spots.

The same goes for the situation at work. I expect that it will be crap, that some of us are going to leave. Even though there are four people hired in after I started, I expect to be made redundant. (Not sure how this affect my muscles, but it does affect my head).

Could those of you who have found the anti negativity button, please tell me where it is? 😉

Saturday is fun day :)

I hate being serious. I really do. At work, everyone is trying to impress, thinking only into the correct box. The one that gets attention from management.
What a boring life!
For me, laughs and fun stuff is an important part of every day at work. (And of course after working hours). That way, I hardly ever get stressed out or feel bad. However looking at my colleagues sometimes make me feel a bit sad.
I had the yearly talk with my boss a few weeks back. She is great:) We get along very well, and she always appreciates what I do. And says so. We talked, about tasks, responsibility, birthday cakes (I have taken the responsibility for our department’s celebrations, of course) and about thinking in patterns. I said I know I am usually less serious and always sort of thinking out of the box. She said: ‘No. You are not thinking out of the box, you have a totally different set of boxes than anyone else’.
That made my day. I work in a creative department in an international company. With enough room for colours and craziness. 🙂
But today, no work, just fun. What to do?

(btw: I shall try to return here more often!)

Just to let you know

I am still here.
Still me.
Life’s good!

When I stopped blogging here, it felt finished. I can’t imagine ever writing about all this stuff again, I can’t even read. It is like when you travel away from somewhere, go on a plane, and never plan to return. I remember places I have lived, things I have seen or done… I remember all bad things that happened to me. But I have left that place where only those things were present. Moved out.

Keeping on being happy

New Year Fireworks, Athens (Photo credit: RobW_)

I am basically happy. I used to be:

• sad
• unmotivated
• stressed out
• desperate
• impatient
• worried

Those feelings used to own me. It is not like that anymore. I don’t go around all day with a big smile or anything, well, maybe some days. 🙂 And I feel good and calm. What used to cause real anxiety, worry, and upset me, doesn’t make me drill down into chaos anymore. I am more like “oh well, how do I solve this?”

If you have followed my blog from the beginning, you’d know I was quite intense and energetic. I posted almost every day, and I had a lot to say. I never really planned it, but writing turned out to be my breakthrough. Writing about all those bad things, made the symptoms disappear. It was probably not the only thing happening. I am not sure. At one point I felt finished. My deep dive into bad emotions and even worse memories was done.

I have been ok since then. Almost all the time.

I am very grateful that this happened.

I started thinking about next year today. What hopes I have, what I wish for to happen. I think I will put together some new years resolutions, not like the usual ones, but some thoughts on how to grow. How to reach my goals. How to continue having control and be at peace.

Thanks for reading everyone! 🙂

Those Tuesday when you think that Friday is just around the corner

Try to keep this image nearby all week? 🙂 (Photo credit: danidelacuesta)

It goes to show that you are not properly grounded when (if) you say and think that Friday is just around the corner.

I look so much forward to every Friday, and sometimes, Monday just need to finish, and then I see the light… I wish to be present every day, to feel, to enjoy, to experience. To be mindful. I do it too to some extent. But the coming joy of Friday, takes focus away from those very busy days that I don’t like all that much.

It is all about being present, right now. And life is to short to waste those days, waiting for the weekend! 😉

How social are you?

Social? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have some friends who are not in social media at all. Sometimes I envy them, but most of the time I am just frustrated that they are so hard to get in touch with. I actually have to call or text them…

Quite strange, that we are so dependent on social media to do so many things, and it has all happened so fast. I remember when a friend of mine got a “beeper” that could show text. And I certainly remember my first mobile phone.

Guess that is where it all started. However, I get the social fatigue.

I just want to switch off. There are so many people, so many channels, so many places you have to participate, that it is too much from time to time.

Somedays, I am not social at all…

Travel

Never sure whether I like this or not. I love to experience new things. Love to meet new people. During summer we travel for weeks, it’s kind of something I have to do. It’s fun. Relaxing.
Air travel for meetings are less fun. So many hours on airports and planes.
With all these busy people.

So I didn’t become a superstar…

superstar (Photo credit: marie-ll)

When I was a child, I dreamt of being famous. Of having everything I wanted, travel, being rich. I had to dream myself out of all the things that was happening. But doesn’t everybody dream like that? My husband dreamt of being prime minister. I don’t remember what I wanted to be, a singer, an actress, I just remember I wanted to be somewhere else. Someone else. which of course had its natural explanations.

Life has so many “if only”. It hardly ever turn out the way you wished when you were a child. If only I was grown up. If only I had a lot of money. If you still are in the “if only” way of life as an adult, you might have a problem or two. At one point, you have to take charge and decide. Didn’t life get to be what you expected? Are you still sitting there and waiting for dreams to be fulfilled?

It is probably not going to happen. And you should not waste time waiting. The big change, is when you experience that YOU are the only one that can change things in your life. When you decide. I will be happy. I will love and be loved. I will change my way of thinking, so that I am in charge of my life.

You can decide some things. Others come crashing down from nowhere. When they do, it is good to have training. So that you can say; “Oh no, I DECIDE HERE! Don’t you dare crash into my life and try to take over!”

I am very happy that I am not a superstar. I am not even a bit famous. I am me, that’s it!

Lazy Saturday morning

I started today with lighting the fireplace. I wake up very early, even when I don’t have to. Quite annoying, looking forward to sleeping in, and be wide awake at 0630. Not finished sleeping, still tired, but awake. Guess a few glasses of champagne last night didn’t help. Now I have had a long breakfast, watched alpine skiing on the telly, read a bit in a book, and done some blogging. It is freezing cold outside, so I guess I wont go out cycling, or play in the snow or any other cold activity.

Just a lazy day.

This was on my way to work yesterday.

When was the last time you could’t stop laughing?

Laughter… (Photo credit: leodelrosa…)

I love a good laugh. A few days ago we had a meeting, me and my colleagues. Usually, we are a bit formal, and also very busy. But this time, we should just check something on the web, did a search, and ended on a sick sick video on YouTube, that just got all of us laughing. And we couldn’t stop. We laughed the whole time, during the video, some four minutes. Tears and all.

It felt good.

I laugh a lot. Sometimes of no really good reasons at all.

Yesterday’s snow didn’t disappear. It is weekend, once more, and I love it! Hope YOU have a good laugh during the weekend 🙂

Snow

This could be my road home! (Photo credit: quinet)

Just yesterday, I changed to my snow tyres! We had rain and quite high temperatures, and now, my Facebook feed is full of winter things. Red wine, lit fireplaces, wool clothes. We are a bit strange here in the North!

I wish I lived in a place where there was no discussion about the weather. It is really an everyday item with us, we start every conversation with “Are you cold?” or “Did you get wet?”. I am very interested in learning other languages, and actually discovered this strange cultural difference when studying Spanish. Rain is just rain. Lluvia. I think I use at least four different expressions for rain.

One other thing though, with living where I do, is the dramatic change from the light, positive SUMMER time to depressing and dark winter time. I hate it. We are changing this weekend, so from Monday, I will not get home from work until it is dark. My head takes weeks to change to a shifted routine, even though it is only one hour. And I never get around to change the clock in my car, and so on.

Just another four months, and we are on the bright side again! 😉 Shine on, all you wonderful people. Make the world bright!

Growing up

(Photo credit: aarongilsonh

Things you need to make it:

• Parents (obviously, at least one)
• Food
• Clothes and a place to live
• Challenges and stimuli
• Trust
• Love

Easy? And before you are fully aware of the content of this simple list, you might be a parent yourself…