Thought Picnic: Je ne regrette rien

I did

I used to care, I used to care a lot, give allowances and give due consideration. Whilst much of my actions might not have shown as much as I would have wanted to show, I kept my handicaps to myself and presented a façade of normalcy in the midst of turmoil.

Away, distant and almost estranged, I wandered into a wilderness of stark reality as my life flashed before me, there was too much pain to even think of the sentence that was upon me, no opportunity to close the books if the end came swiftly, I listened, prayed, hoped and persevered.

I lived

Persevered in a foreign land, away from all but friend and neighbour that stuck closer than blood to nurse me back to health and wellbeing.

To health and wellbeing I did get, but everything else I lost, yet I neither quibbled nor complained, I thought and strove, hungered and struggled, my confidence at its lowest, my knowledge and skill falling behind the times, I attended interview after interview with no luck but the refrain that I was no more good enough for what I was once best at.

I gave

Allowances I have made without encumbrance, much respect I have offered to many after me because as individuals they have grown and in my absence I believed I had no right to order or command, I just advised. Many times, my seemingly good advice fell on deaf ears because in their eyes I was probably inconsequential except in special cases where means made me amenable.

I opened my hands and opened my heart, yet in my singular existence I thought the thoughts of all, cried in my loneliness and saddened by my infirmity and my inadequacies, I was almost forlorn.

I’m done

In the midst of this, truculence, recalcitrance, obduracy and intransigence came to the point where it will no more be condoned. I withdrew contact and communication, in that I also withdrew support and this is a decision I have made because it was the only one left to be made.

Can I be cold-blooded? Yes, I can, not by default but by situation and circumstance within which I have lost the emotion and the last hold that anyone can use to rein me in – Blackmail!

I have found self and selfishness, most of all, I have reached a point of rationalisation, the actions I have taken, I will not regret.