A Place in the Sun

 I often ask myself why I used to feel the need to numb my feelings. Did I always need to numb them, or was it a compulsion that drove me to do so. Whether highs, or lows. There are 2 schools of thought. Some say that you turn to substances because of your propensity to become an addict, something inherent in your physiology. Other schools of thought are proponents of the underlying issues being the cause for a person to turn towards substances of any sort, ranging from alcohol, to mood-altering medication, to drugs. It makes little difference what your poison is, once you are on the merry-go-round, really - you're stuck there until you find the will to get off. I have always had deeply intense emotions - the artist in me always prevailed, even if I performed brilliantly in academia. As powerful as is my brain, so is my capacity to be subject to very intense emotions, that has not always been easy to deal with. Indeed it was very, very hard. 'Was' not being exactly correct.

 A couple of weeks I was having a  chat with a friend of mine, who's an NLP Trainer. Incidentally she was my trainer but this was a chat over a meal, as friends. As we do. The subject came up, of myself participating in some voluntary activities. I mentioned that as I've grown older it's become much. much harder to commit to anything.  I'll explain. Years ago I used to sign up for things - ballet classes, voluntary groups and other activities that required time and commitment, usually on a weekly basis and sometimes more. As the years rolled by, I found that this became increasingly difficult. No matter how much I loved the activity, the intention, the idea behind it, I just could not come up with the grit. I would join for a few weeks, a few sessions, a few events but then feel unable to commit.   This made me very unhappy and gave me a sense of dissatisfaction, because I kept comparing myself with others, seeing them gain achievements through commitments and sacrifice

 Many have mused on the ability of humanity to recover, to get out of this global pandemic that has just simply changed the way we live. Not just the way we work, or the way we socialise, or the way we treat our families. Just everything we do. I don't think I have yet emerged completely from the shell I have built around myself during the time when Malta stood still, for about three months. I wasn't ready to crawl back out into the sunlight and I wanted introversion to go on. I think I felt this even after I'd found love. 2021 has been much easier on me and I welcomed the closures again in March, preferring to stay within the cocoon I'd built around myself.  Of course, it was an entirely new way of being and I still am finding my feet. Being in a loving relationship is nothing like it used to be. It used to be so simple when we were younger - if you wished to meet up you would just say so.  To express a thought was free - nowadays one is more easily led astray by conce