Weariness

Thanks for all the comments, my dear readers.
I suppose I'm feeling reflective.

I guess it's that time of year - when you notice Christmas decorations
in the stores and loose ends are all being tied up and you think "Gaah
- it's October already!!" and you start wondering where the year went
and what you actually acheived during the year and what you were
*meant* to get done this year and it hits you, yet again, that time
just flies and you're *not* getting any younger and you just wish you
could stand still for a minute but there's an *infinite* number of
things to get done, but your calender is starting to fill with dinner
plans with those you just *have* to catch up with before the year's
end and there's *so* much to do and there's *just* so much to do.

Yeah, it's *that* time of year.

Anyway, one thing I *have* noticed is that I feel older.

I know, everyone feels older every year, but the last 12 months have
just pushed me about so much that I *feel* older, tired...and weary.

It's strange, this weariness.

I don't know how to describe it, but this year I've really started
recognising it in other people.

It's in the way they look, the way they smile (that "I'm a bit sad,
but it's okay" smile), the manner in which they respond to things, the
way they react to situations. There's just something about them. You
can feel it. You know they just want to sigh...

I can pick it up the first time I meet someone - the weary ones -
there's an edge to them. You know they they've dealt with some bad
situations and yet they're still standing.

But it's more than that.

Everyone has bad things happen to them all the time. Life can be
stressful right from the cradle to the grave. It's stressful when you
get told off for colouring the sun with an orange crayon instead of
yellow one, it's stressful when you forget your library bag and aren't
allowed to take books home that week, it's stressful when all the kids
tease you but you're painfully shy and can't fight back, it's
stressful when your parents can't afford the brandname clothing that
your friends all wear, it's stressful when you're deciding what Uni to
apply for and you have no idea what you want to be when you grow up,
it's stressful when your boyfriend lives on the other side of the
world and you don't know when you'll see him next, it's stressful when
you've just gotten married and you find out that your mother-in-law is
having an affair with a member of your family, it's stressful when
you're writing up your PhD thesis while starting a new job and taking
care of your husband while he goes through radiotherapy for cancer all
at the same time, it's stressful buying a new house while juggling a
few absolutely enormous risk-taking investments with your finances and
realising that it wont be over for a long time, it's stressful when
you're waiting to see if your husband regains his fertility or if
you'll have to resort to using his stored sperm to have a baby, it's
stressful when you keep thinking his cancer will return, it's
stressful when you wonder how on earth you'll cope financially if he
*does* get sick again, it's stressful when you realise that life just
gets harder and harder and there will only be more and more things to
worry about. It's stressful when you realise that you'll never have
what you used to have - that lack of real worry, the peace of the
young and carefree.

Certain situations just kick the absolute breath out of us. They rip
us apart while we find the strength and patience to sew the pieces
back into some semblance of ourselves. That - the re-building of
ourselves - is what makes us weary. But it's also what makes us
stronger.

If you haven't experienced that kind of weariness yet, it shows.
But if you *have* experienced it, it really shows too.

I find myself attracted to the weariness in others.

I know that it's a strange way to feel about people, but I *do* feel
drawn to people when they talk about the way they cope and the way
they struggle on the inside and the way they pick themselves up after
they fall time and time again.

I think the different ways in which people respond to life's slings
and arrows is particularly compelling. I find it really brave when
people allow themselves to open up and admit that it's bloody hard
work to stay focused and positive. It's brave to admit that we have to
struggle through our paces and that sometimes it's *not* all okay and
sometimes we're scared and can't see the way out.

I find it interesting the way people use their blogs to talk
themselves into action, or pep-talk themselves into realising that
they *can* cope and that they're stronger than they know.

Anyway, to my readers - most of you who are world-weary people - a
toast. May you use your weariness for good and not for evil.

Well, any excuse for a drink.

*chink*