I'm OK, You're OK

'I'm OK, You're OK'.  This was the title of a book by Thomas Harris I read years ago - I understood the principle of it, that you should live and let live (a vastly simplified summary, sorry) but I still find it hard to apply in practice.  I enjoy anaylsing people and situations, and it has become a habit over the years that is hard to drop. 

I think it is ok to analyse, as long as you can do it without judging.  I am making headway on this habit - I have always judged myself harder than anyone else, and so I am trying to be kinder and more understanding of other people's foibles and of my own. 

I have had a rough couple of days, health-wise.  I have had a sore neck and shoulder for a couple of weeks, and yesterday it took a turn for the worse - I had to give in and take painkillers, and I still didn't feel much better.  Plus, I got an eye infection, so have had to wear my glasses instead of my contact lenses for the last two days.

I used to be so vain that I would never wear my glasses, even though without them I couldn't see a thing (as those of you who have read my memoir will know).  I don't suffer from vanity now - but I still don't like wearing my glasses.  I am used to the better vision that comes with contact lenses and I find it annoying to have something perched on my face all day.  And because I usually only wear my glasses for an hour or two in the morning and evening, when I am just about to sleep or have just woken up, I feel oddly tired when I have to wear them all day.  I don't quite feel myself, as if I am at one remove from the real world. 

Anyway, on the bright side, although I retired to the bedroom to nurse my misery yesterday afternoon (once we had done the family trip to the nature reserve, dog on her new extendable lead) and I was upset since I couldn't write because my shoulder hurt so much, I got a lot of reading done.  I finished this month's book group book 'Restless' by William Boyd, which I really enjoyed.  So I will write up the review on Amazon this evening.

I surprised my elder son, who came in to see what I was up to, when I told him I was reading a spy book.  I think I went up a notch or two in his estimation for that...  Spies are his terrain, and of course that of Toddler, who copies everything his big brother does.

I made lunch for ten today (not as much of a big deal as it may sound, as I cook for six every day).  After lunch we had an egg hunt for the kids, which was over in about five minutes flat.  Every year they insist that I hide the eggs and write clues - it has become something of a tradition.  Later in the week we are having another hunt for cousins - I am hoping to buy the eggs reduced after Easter, skinflint that I am.

Not much is happening for me in the wide world just now.  I was excited last month when a film company declared interest in consulting me about a project they had on - but that seemed to fizzle out.  The peer support work that I was due to start at the end of this month appears to be on a go-slow.   The person who has commissioned me to ghost-write his memoir wants to start in early May.  Which is all fine - I am not in a hurry to have all my free time taken up with other projects, but it does feel like an anti-climax after the excitement of my day in London with the Schizophrenia Commission.

The lack of activity elsewhere does present an opportunity to get on with my recovery book, of course, which I shall grab with both hands, as soon as the school holidays are over.  Not that I want them to be over - two weeks never seems like enough at this time of year.  We could do with an extra week now and one less in the summer perhaps...

Anyhow, ciao for now.