Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 October 2008 10:57:02
For a few days my flat is filled with silence, until I choose what to put onto the tv or stereo and I don't have to consider anybody else regarding how much time I spend out of the house or in what to cook. The thought of it is always nice, but when it arrives it generally tends to be a mixed blessing. Within that space is also the opportunity to fall apart without anybody else seeing, and the lack of background noise gives too much time to think and reflect. Additionally, the treats that you stock the house with because you treat it as a holiday at home when you get a break can act as something to induldge in to unhealthy excess. Thus, it has been over the last few days which have in equal measure seen me reach highs and lows of emotion. As I found when I was doing the research for my MA this is not unusual amongst lone parents.
One of the things that has been going on, in part because I also need to get a serious chunk of work to my supervisor by the end of the week, is I have been reflecting on the reality of the move. I realised that being one of the few English people living in an international community and being the only lone parent I am aware of in the building, (or indeed what is developing as my circle), is something I'm taking some time to adjust to. I'm aware that I am making few contacts with people in their thirties and forties, the group who have formally made up the majority of my close friendshp group, due to their proximity to my own age. I'm aware that come Christmas we reach a vaccation when alot of the people I'm getting to know outside of the building where I live will be going home but that Durham is now my home and in some ways through making this choice I have made myself rootless. I am also increasingly aware of how the location of my college is an ickle bit of an issue in terms of being the wrong direction out of the town centre. Add to that the feelings, that I was warned would come, about thinking why did they let me in - I'm not bright enough to be here and I have had a few hours worth of being glad I had got the comfort food and drink in for the weekend. (As an aside here because I know the way this one can go I never buy full size bottles of wine, rather just the ickle two glass bottles - a tip I'd heartily pass on to others who want to be able to control what they have available when they go on a downer).
However, last night something happened and I realised that my attack of the "poor me's" was not quite what it appeared to be. I got chatting to a few other people about stuff generally and found out from what they were saying that many of my feelings are ones that others in the city experience to, not neccessarily in relation to single parenting, but in relation to similar, related issues.
Then we had a bit of a "hippy spirituality" session at Methsoc which made me wake up to what I haven't been doing in my spiritual life much since we moved. Alot of the more Celticie, medative stuff works in a similar way to relaxation techniques. I know this stuff does me loads of good and last night it was just what I needed. Part of the benefit of this stuff for me is that whilst it does have a real community aspect to it there is also a place for being alone in it. Thus, the lonliness I can sometimes feel, particularly when Third Party is away, moves from being lonliness to being space to both relax and connect with God in, using a range of techniques which require silence and space.
The other community based side of this spirituality is something else I had been leaving out of my thinking aswell, though, since I got here. With this type of spirituality the fact that I am currently journeying predominantly with people younger than myself is not such an issue. Whilst they are happy to have my company and I am sensitive to their journeying there is stuff we will be unconsciously learning from each other. Similarly, in being placed in my current accomodation I have in some ways been given a gift. If I stop having the "poor me's" and rather start engaging with my neighbours, through things like the Halloween party I will be using an amazing opportunity, which many in my culture don't have. Equally in learning to "do" young children and couples more I will be developing in community, rather than wanting only a journey that involves people like me. That's not to say I don't want to find more people with similar interests to myself, but it is to say I need to recognise that the nature of the spiritual life is often that we grow through what we struggle with, even though we can't recognise this until later.
Apologies to anybody who is still here and has realised that today I have basically been writing to myself. I hope you have also been able to get something positive from my rambling, basically the message for the day is summed up in advising you to go explore some hippy spirituality - it's good for you :D