I hate running. Just thought id put it out there, I HATE RUNNING, very shouty capitals if you please. So why the hell I’m always in such a rush to get to places I do not know. I could blame my obsession for time, I hate being late. This is to be blamed on my Dads love of Sherpa vans that had two rear doors and a passenger door, don’t worry if the driver door fell off, he liked fresh air anyway and a year round tan. My Dad was like the Sherpa whisperer, he would coax it, whisper sweet things into its dash board and eventually it would start up, screech, shake, blow stinking clouds of black diesel out its exhaust but “stop moaning Larn it’s moving now”. So I’m eleven, late for school, my brand new school, my brand new grammar school that was scary as hell, there was no carpet area to go and sit and read on like at junior school, there was just fierce faces, freezing classrooms and amazing chocolate lumps of cake that were obviously called shitcakes. Sherpa whisperer was not so successful that day so I was so so late pulling up to the front of the school and I have to I run in (I hate running). Eleven year old me is timid, is shy, is scared as hell at being late and is now stood in front of the class being shouted down for being late, to the rest of the 31 students who made it on time in their vehicles with all doors attached. And Im dying in shame, I want the world to swallow me up, I swear to never be late again! What I really swore to is give myself full on anxiety and sweaty upper lip for the rest of my life if I am ever less than 20 minutes early for anything ever again. Before I move on to where this blog is actually going I have to give you one more Dad van story because I think the Sherpa story hasn’t given justice to my dad and his ability to make something out of nothing, always finding a way around things and making sure his family are looked after. On a family trip back from Spain once again in a van (insert sound of groan) the windscreen shattered from a stone, the whole bloody windscreen, years before we were all spoilt with shatterproof glass. Did we pull over and call the AA? Nope. We unpacked the suitcase so dad could wear the scuba mask to protect his eyes and then carry on driving after he kicked the shattered windscreen out of the surrounding. The Sherpa whisperer completed the rest of the journey in the dark with no windscreen wearing a scuba mask. That man didn’t moan, he just did. I miss that man.
Then I found the cure to my time anxiety. When they tell you the cancer you have is incurable, can’t tell you how long you have to live, no idea when time is up. At that point my clock skipped a minute or a million, not sure how many minutes I had. Time became a whole different thing.
I used time to have a think about things, I sat and did a lot of thinking, and thinking. I looked back at all the things I wished I did different, or should have don’t sooner. Everything was about time I had wasted and I blamed myself for it. Suddenly I had wasted so much time in the past I was running and running so fast into the future and what ifs? And that’s just the mental issues. Then there was the physical. I could hardly walk at the point of diagnosis and after a few months of muscle atrophy due to sepsis I was in a wheelchair. How was I going to get back to how I was? I was trying to travel back to a time that I had fictionalised, where I was so happy and physically fit. Wasting time thinking of where I had been and lying to myself. Then I sat thinking of a future I didn’t know, where I wanted to ride the bike I would buy to motivate myself. I sat for 3 days looking at bikes I wouldn’t buy because I was in no place to even be able to sit on one. All just wasting time. Just waiting to fall off to sit staring at a broken bike wondering how to get to somewhere I didn’t know if id reach.
Im not going to say Ive had a boom moment where this becomes so inspirational your going to come away from reading this knowing the answer to the meaning of life, but what I can say is that I’m learning that what’s gone is gone and sitting trying to figure out what was wrong with the past is just wasting the now. The only time I was wasting was Now, the time that has no past or future. We are all guilty of wasting Now time, so while you sit thinking how you can mend a broken wheel, you are not moving forward. All you are doing is staring at a broken wheel, know when its time to walk instead. None of us know how long we have so don’t feel pity for me, don’t feel pity full stop. We have to get our arses up off the pavement, stop staring at the wheel and get walking and see where it takes you and just because we can’t go the speed we used to doesn’t mean we give in, it just means it might take a bit longer. But at least you’re moving within your living time, not the past time, but the Now time. Also, be your own Sherpa Whisperer and don’t let anything get in your way, kick that windscreen. Wear that scuba mask and ride like there’s no tomorrow!
Namastay safe my friends 🙏🏻
Allana x
