Cymru/Wales: Bipolar Nation

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Tuesday 31 December 2019

Mae 'na rywbeth i ddweud dros farwolaeth


Mae 'na rywbeth i ddweud dros farwolaeth

Y ras wedi ei rhedeg

Ydy e yn deg i strugglo mlaen?

Gorwedd yn y fynwent does dim dod yn nol.

Y tywyllwch wedi cae o'n gwmpas neu'r goleuni ym mhobman?

Does neb wedi dod 'nôl i ddweud wrthon ni sut le sydd yna yn y fan?

Ond beth tasa rhai yn ei'n blith yn ddi wybod i ni, yn dawel ei 

ysbryd oherwydd maent yn gwybod taw marwolaeth di nyth.

Mae'n bwysig peidio ei ofni oherwydd digwydd fe wnaeth e ta waeth.

Fydd rhai yn mynd cyn ac ar ôl ni, dos ots yn y pen draw pryd na lle.

Mi dyle fe helpu ni canolbwyntio i anelu am y Copa syth bin.

Ond druan mae'r hen natur ddynol yn anaml cweit mor chwim.

Mae oedi a thin droi yn ail natur
'Whillibowan' fel gem yn y ffair.

O am gyfnod o weithgarwch,

o weld yn glir ac o roi y mae'n i'r wal.

Yn y cyfnodau rheina rhwng y gwynt ar glaw,

dyna'r amser i ni beidio ofni

Mi ddaeth y perlau yn rhydd rhag y baw.

Monday 30 December 2019

New Staff



New staff are not the old staff
New staff won't put up with your shit, 
your games, your manipulations.
This is the day shift and we are watching you through our cameras.
The day shift are not the night shift.
We have had our rest and we see your weak smiled humility,
 your apology.
You are an apology of a human being.
We have the power behind this desk
a little higher than you
looking down
looking down on you
You don't like being judged do you?
So that's what we'll do
Judge you.
Are you worthy to stay here?
You may have the funds but....
If we can charge you any more we will.
A deposit is a lost deposit with us.
When you checked in last night you didn't think that you would be faced with the Waffen SS of hotel & catering staff trained in some of the coldest hearted lobbies of Kensington and New York 
Did you?
Listen punk, this may be a youth hostel but even I can tell that you are over 50 without cutting you in half and counting the rings so I don't want to listen to your whining and complaining.
"HAVE A NICE DAY"

Sunday 15 December 2019

Congenitally Clumsy


Congenitally Clumsy

I'd like to say at the outset that I love my father dearly
but he is congenitally clumsy.
A centenarian wrecking ball of a man.
Poor eyesight combined with sausage fingers
 leads to overturned lamps and angry splinters.
He stands on cats, he frightens bats.
This man is an absolute nightmare in different hats.
3 in the morning when most men sleep
 he is stalking aardvark in stockinged feet
 or at least that's what it sounds like.
At dead of night a lightly tossed walking stick.
As I march up the hallway I point at the mirror
 "you fucking prick"
As a Bipolar Bastard if I don't get my sleep 
I'm liable to murder
if I hear so much as a bleep.
My name is called, I'm ready to scald.
Oblivious to the nuisance caused
 he proceeds to interrogate me with a bit of bite.
When I return to my room I'm a bit of a sight.
With the wind rattling the letterbox
And Johnson stalking the streets in his 
"Get Brexit done" Christmas socks 
it doesn't take much to set me off.
The Dawn Chorus. 
Oh please for fuck's sake, please don't bore us.
I feel sick, everything and everybody is getting on my wick.
I turn out the light in the hope of a little respite
 then crash, bang wallop
 I hear the saintly, patient man having a fight.
I venture out to find that he's only gone and decided to fly a kite
 in the middle of the night 
or at least that's what it sounds like. 
Shite.
He must be clumsy because he sired me.



Wednesday 4 December 2019

Anticipatory Grief


We are all going to experience it but not many of us write about it, let alone talk about it, but as you know, they broke the mould when they made me. The two that broke that mould, 'Mam a Dad' are still alive but for how much longer?

Dad turned 101 two weeks ago and Mam will be 92 in two weeks time. Both have lived longer than the average UK life expectancy, 79.2 for men and 82.9 for women so I should be celebrating their longevity but I am grieving their loss even though they are still alive. 

I am perhaps more emotionally invested than most because I have been ostensibly their full time carer for the last five years. I grieve their loss before they die because we have been together forever. The longer he lives and the older I get, the relationship with my father resembles that of Steptoe & Son. 

As evidenced in various blog posts and in a book I have experienced, endured, suffered, enjoyed various periods of mental and emotional illness. If it wasn't for Mam & Dad then I wouldn't be here now. I would have died in a faeces smeared and rubbish infested flat because I have never been able to sustain myself financially. So they have and continue to subsidise me as I try and help them. A 'quid pro quo' situation as Donald Trump would say.

Carer's Allowance is £66.15p a week so allowing for inflation, equal to the 50p pocket money we were given as children as a financial experiment for a few months. We never had a pocket money arrangement and I was told that if I wanted something that I was to ask but I never wanted anything so I didn't ask so I think my father was on to a winner there. 

When we all retire to bed for the evening, I always think that it is going to be their last night on earth and that I am going to find one or both of them dead in bed and then what am I going to do? Get the death certificates, arrange the funerals and then grieve my lost life.

I have anticipatory grief for my parents but also for my remaining life after they have gone. In my early to mid fifties I do not feel the vitality of life required to become a captain of industry and therefore I fear that I will have nothing left to live for once they are gone. I do not relish the prospect of falling in love with a stranger and becoming a step father. 

Since beginning this blog post I have been up and down from the chair to attend to their requests and needs. Even though I moan and groan and mutter and shout I know that I will miss the interruptions when they are gone because they are not interruptions they are reminders of mortality.   


Further Reading 

Fruity old fruit bats

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Hitler navigates the A487 from Aberaeron to Aberystwyth

Goodreads

David's books

How To Be Idle
Second Sight
Freud: The Key Ideas
The Yellow World
Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
Going Mad?: Understanding Mental Illness
Back To Sanity: Healing the Madness of Our Minds
Ham on Rye
Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Mavericks
Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
I Bought a Mountain
Hovel in the Hills: An Account of the Simple Life
Ring of Bright Water
The Thirty-Nine Steps
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The Seat of the Soul


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