In hindsight, that most perfect vision, I may have had a touch of ADHD or one of those combination of letters associated with it. My younger sister was smarter and my older brother was always there to be compared to. True I was ill a lot of the time but it doesn't change the outcome.
I started work in a supermarket when I left school, then went to work as an invoice clerk. Then I went to work in an insurance company office dealing with premises fire and theft. I wasn't much good at that and after three months went to work in an aviation underwriting room as an underwriters clerk. I stayed there for a number of years and went to work as a deputy aviation claims adjuster.
I moved internally to become "Superintendent Technical Services", essentially a deputy back office manager. In between all this I developed the habit of going to the pub for a beer with some mates and , well to not overstate it "lost my edge" a bit. I came back to the office one day and couldn't use my computer terminal ( pre PC days ) properly. Not falling down stupid drunk just slow and not focused on the tasks to do.
Well I got a rollicking big time. And boy did I deserve it. From that day on no more wine bar lunches, it was a sandwich at my desk and a sharpness in my eye for me. A little while later I moved to an small IT company ( with company car ) which went bust six months later due to the two partners and a young female employee and a lack of personal discipline.
Into aviation and I had to drive and be "IT Superintendent" then IT Manager 24 hours a day. Now my systems were very good but occasionally I would get a call in the middle of the night and I used to go from sleep to 100% alert by the second ring of the telephone. The phone was next to my side of the bed but Menshaib still hated it.
So far twenty years I have not drunk and genuinely love lemonade and lime. There is no "holiness" about me not drinking, it just like rice pudding. . . I don't like it. . . so I don't do it.
So its a bit disturbing when "Him with Attitude" gets pissed in the middle of the night and makes a commotion because the power to his shed goes out. It was not a very nice scene and he was loud and mouthy, slamming doors and very loud and mouthy.
To be honest at six foot seven inches tall he frightened me. If he ever hit me I'd be in real trouble, my joint problems would mean I would need help to get up and he has sudden and frightening bouts of anger.
He has a manual job in a kitchen despite having an IQ of 157. Yes, that's true, an IQ that puts him in the top 1% of the top 1%. I guess all fathers want their son to be what the couldn't be themselves.
What does that say about me. I would like Him-with-Attitude to be OK in life, to be comfortable and stable and happy. But he drinks too much, doesn't save and seems to have none of my values. Hmmm. . . values I didn't discover till my late teens / early twenties.
I guess because its the middle of the night that I feel down and worried. Its been a poor year, John passing away, my job finishing, getting work here and there, an uncertain future, poor health. I wouldn't mind a slight ray of sunshine at this moment.
But then I think there are many many people who have it a lot worse off than I. I shouldn't feel down. The woman in the pharmacy in front of me asked the pharmacist which product was best as her husband was starting chemo-therapy. . . well that puts it in perspective for sure.
I have some good things in my life, some really good friends who are sound and true. I'm thinking of one in particular, rarely phased and solid as a rock I think, one who copes because that's what she does. She nearly rang me one night. . . maybe she just wanted to say Hello or maybe to say nothing, just to have a telephone line to hold for a while. That would have been fine, its the thought that counts. If I could be like her.
That's all Folks
Simple of Sussex
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