Sunday April 15th - Back Home

Wednesday 11th

Spent most of the day picking up the pieces from my wallet loss - going through the mobile phone bill, collecting and activating my new cards, applying for replacement driving license and Oyster card etc. I also wrote formal letters of complaint to Virgin and HSBC.

All was going great until I went to post the letters. Being in a hurry I took the car to drive to the Horsham sorting office in Hurst Road, even though it's only 10 minutes walk away. As I drove into the slip road I saw there was someone parked and then a gap before another vehicle. I drove up to the gap, turned the wheel to the left, and then....scrape..scrape !! Oh no ! For the first time in my life I'd hit another vehicle. I was horrified, and apologised profusely to the lady. She was very reasonable about it, so I drove back and rang up Direct Line who were very good. I still felt really bad, so I wrote and posted a note to the lady as I had ruined her day. I subsequently learned that if you admit liability your insurance company can wash their hands of the claim, leaving you to pick up the bill. While I didn't use the words "I admit liability", I obviously acknowledged that it was my fault and apologised profusely. My main concern is to ensure that the poor lady whose lovely car I'd hit isn't inconvenienced more than necessary. If Direct Line try and exploit my honesty to get out of paying the claim I will make that very well known to the best of my ability. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Why did I do this after nearly 40 years of a spotless driving record ? It was a combination of a) being in a hurry through setting myself loads of tasks to complete before I could look at my holiday photos, and b) jet-lag. I must become less obsessive about my own plans and not push myself so much. My problem is that I either want to get things "ticked off" or do nothing at all. I struggle to do just a few things, then relax, then do a bit more. I cannot "switch modes" - I'm either in highly-driven "task mode" or I do nothing at all !

Thursday 12th / Friday 13th

Back at work. I'm really lucky to have interesting colleagues and an enjoyable job. The people at Worthing have been an amazing support to me during the tough times last year. I'm hoping that the re-organisation will give me a more demanding role - preferably in Delivery as I've done Enterprise Architecture for too long - with a bit more money ! I will need it if the divorce settlement pans out the way I anticipate.

Still finding it difficult to sleep. On Friday evening I "crashed" a bit and had a "flashback" to the feelings of depression I experienced last year. This always happens after a US trip - last time I had a really rough ride in November and had to go back on anti-depressants. This time, however, the feeling soon wore off as I'm so deeply in love with Shelagh.

Saturday 14th    

Shelagh is being treated to a Spa weekend by her friend, so I'm having a totally lazy weekend ! Read in bed until 10:00 AM, then had a long bath. My great friend Nicky has introduced me to the joys of Radox; I am so lucky to have such good women friends (plus of course an amazing new partner) who can educate me out of my barbarous batchelor ways !

Watched Liverpool v Everton (albeit distracted initially by having to call Direct Line). I have a feeling for both these clubs as I worked a lot in Liverpool during the late 90s / early 00s and really loved the place. The people up there will talk to you ! I actually wanted to apply for jobs in Liverpool after the 1996 Royal / Sun Alliance merger, but my wife wouldn't move up there. A great thing about my situation now is that I've had a lot of time to work out what I really want to do in life. Going through such a traumatic divorce really makes you dig inside yourself and discover why you're on the planet. I feel a lot more "sorted" now than I have in decades, and am so glad that I got a reasonable perspective on my marriage before I met Shelagh. This new relationship is very, very precious and I don't want to be carrying "baggage" into it.

Had a lovely long chat with Nicky and we talked through our respective faith positions in some depth. My spiritual life is changing and broadening out at quite a rate, and it's all very exciting. I've struggled for a couple of years with the rigid dogma of orthodox Christianity - especially a) the insistence that only Christians have found the true path and everything else is wrong b) the (totally unbiblical) paranoia about sex and it only being permissable within marriage, c) the stance that everything in the Bible is literally true, leading to absurd theories such as Creationism etc., and d) homophobia. I've now come to a place that says that Jesus (when on earth) was an exceptionally spiritual man who led people to God and continues to do so now that He is pure spirit. However this same pure spirit (or the "universal spirit" if you like) is accessible via other paths too. There's a wonderful synthesis going on involving Religion / Science / Psychology / Mysticism and it's all very exciting. Yes folks, I've gone a bit "new age" ! Fundamentally I believe in the goodness of mankind and our potential to overcome evil - Christian pessimism holds that mankind is fallen and can only be saved through the blood of Jesus, and I cannot subscribe to that view.          

Sunday 15th

Given the comments above, it is strange that I woke up with a strong desire to go back to my old church (Life Community Baptist Church) for the first time in a year. I was a member at one time, and continued to go there sporadically until after my wife left it became intolerable. So I looked round a few other churches, but none of them held much for me. This isn't surprising as I was unconsciously searching for a whole new spiritual outlook which embraced the Truths of Christianity without excluding the rest of the world.

So today I cycled along and it was really good to see some old friends. The service too was good, and it gave me a great measure of just how far I've come in a year. Near the beginning the Worship Leader went into a rap celebrating long marriages. People in the congregation who have been married a long time were asked to put their hands up and were applauded. If this had happened a few months ago I would have had to leave, but now I was able to join in (I do think this was a bit insensitive though as there are many single christians around who wish they weren't). Even though I don't believe in quite a bit of what was being said (the stuff about how we must go out and tell everyone about Jesus because that's the only way they'll be saved, for example), both the sermon and the worship was very good-hearted and I felt at home. I think I can go back there occasionally now and take the good things from it, filtering out the "Jesus is the only way" stuff, creationism, sexual paranoia, and homophobia.

I am now on a thrilling voyage of discovery with my lovely Shelagh by my side !