Boundaries

Over the last few years I've been discovering my abilities in each new limitation. Health problems make new fences around me in new places and designs, and each time I've become like a typical life form, adapting to try and make the best of my small environment and on the second level (which is actually harder) not to feel inadequate having any boundaries at all. My research tells me most people's boundaries barely exist. My friends and family (besides my mother who I took after) can face a day's trip anywhere, a meeting lasting from an hour to a day, long parties in remote locations and to top it all fall time work (even my mother did this with ease).

Quality has to be balanced against quantity though. My quantity is limited by lack of energy and interest. Even if I had the energy to do something awful, my autonomic nervous system would usually make sure if it was that bad I wouldn't do it. This came with age. Less and less would be tolerated over the years as I realised I did most to please other people, usually family members I never saw except for these dismal gatherings, and didn't really care if I lived or died, especially the one who robbed us of thousands. Thank goodness on the plus side I know even when I'm forced indoors for days or more I can sit inside and create. I have a recording studio here which could be used for reasonable recordings if I got everything together, but of all my hobbies is the hardest when using 4 or more tracks as each instrument has to sound right and make the right harmonies with no mistakes. Almost an impossibility as it's a standard cassette recorder with no option to edit. If it's crap you have to do the whole track again.

But the point is, simply through being an only child with working parents I was forced to make my house work for me from birth or soon afterwards. The few times I've had someone my own generation staying with me for a week or more it was so much fun as I was part of a group. One was a total stranger until she arrived, more or less, from where I did my voluntary work. We just happened to get on and she was gone after a few days when offered a job 200 miles away. But the rest of the time although friends come and go even now 99% of the time it's me and the cat and I make my own arrangements. At least by feeling guilty for incapacities I overcompensate by not wasting a moment of possible talent, making timetables of ideas I can carry out and always compulsory courses and reading to stay qualified.

The overlap now is I need a person to fit in with any of my newly gained incapacities, and not care. I certainly never do. Just imagine any of your best friends. Once they were active, maybe even more than you, and then they grew older and gradually slowed down. In the end for whatever reason they may have to stay in and around home. Who are they? The same friend they were before. What would you do? Trade them in for a replacement? I certainly wouldn't, I have maybe had 10 close friends all my life and am still in touch with two here and one's abroad. Of the two here one isn't local and the other is one whose wife gradually ate into any friendship until it was almost down to zero. Even after she left it was too ingrained to revive I suspect. The new life had become set and I was the old. So the bottom line is unless someone turns against you, there's no reason to drop them if they lose any faculties. It's no different to having a cat and a dog and complaining only the dog goes to the park with you. With people we have aspects of all animals, but it's when your dog-like friend starts becoming a cat the trouble starts. Who are they now? Are they an inferior version of who they were? What about the opposite way round? I've come across men who had submissive wives who started to become independent and go out a lot and they certainly didn't like it much either. But at the end it's whether the person is valuable or not to you. I don't trust many very far as it's the first time I've had to test any of them. Spending 2 hours on Hampstead Heath doing Frank Spencer impersonations was well criticised openly but didn't lose me any friends. But when I refused to attend a part of same person's wedding (a traffic jam away the opposite side of London, where I travelled happily for the remainder of it) I was admittedly not dropped, but clearly not popular. The same person missed at least one of my parties without even telling me (I think he forgot one) and the disappointment lasted a few hours.

My theory I don't care who comes to my parties was sorely tested this year when I only asked about 6 people for my birthday, made it a Saturday as it was the only day anyone would come, and none arrived. That was a bit too much but I didn't mark any names. I just missed the gym as if I'd known I could have gone there instead. I stray from my point though. I judge no one for what they can or can't do, but who they are. If someone can share a room and hold a decent conversation then they pass. It's really not more complicated than that. Whether or not they will come to my friends/family/football/etc means nothing. Now if one, two or more close friends (besides the one who is unavailable who never cared what I did) are the same as I am in that respect I don't know. Especially my wife. If I have a wife she'd have no option. Whatever I can do when she meets me is it. Any more is a bonus in the future and not to be expected as I can't expect it myself. Business wise I doubt it'll affect me as I had no work when I was up to it, and I can sit here and create forever, and if anyone wants to pay me for it then it'll have shown I can earn from any situation. But I no longer need any non-physical boundaries to see what I can do in tight situations so the time has come for them to release me again. Just because I can operate within 4 walls shouldn't mean I'll have to for the rest of my life. God forbid.