Personal

After many years of having thoroughly enjoyed the annual parade of opinions of books over at The Millions, I decided to have a go myself this year. Far from being a celebration of a year in which I read deeply and widely, it is a light reflection on all the things I managed to read this year. Enjoy! --- Of the myriad of things I most deeply wanted to achieve this year, two loomed large in the personal development domain; to read more and write more, which was why I entered the year clutching my copy of Patty Dann’s The Butterfly Hours close to my chest. In my head, writing more - and by extension, better - required tools for tuning my craft, which was why this book, with its promise of personal memoir married to prompts, seemed the perfect fit. It helped that all nineteen reviews on Amazon were 5*. I did enjoy the book, albeit more an an example of easy reading memoir than a collection of prompts. I suspect that had a lot more to do with me than the book. If it is any consolation, I returned to it several times over the course of the year, it along with Dinty Moore’s Crafting The Personal Essay being fine examples of the sort of creative non-fiction I would like to churn out. ...

The first bits of Cyprus we glimpsed as our flight began the descent towards Paphos were wind turbines slowly turning in what must have been a slight evening breeze, and houses which from the height looked like small, matchboxes pressed into the sides of the hilly terrain below us. Although it was only 5.20pm local time, it was quickly growing dark, which at first seemed odd until I realised just how much closer to the equator we were here than in England from where we were arriving. This trip to Cyprus was at the instance of S, ten days in Paphos being her idea of a honeymoon. The hope was to get the chance to catch our breaths after what had been a whirlwind three weeks in which we had managed to get hitched without losing our minds; the pressure of a large Nigerian wedding notwithstanding. ...

Between work and visits to family, I travel quite a fair bit by air each year. Already though, 2017 is on course to be my most airborne yet - love-hate relationship with flying notwithstanding. The thing with S has been a big part of that, more so over the last few weeks, five of the last six of which have been spent down south. In times like this, even I have to admit- however grudgingly - the usefulness of being able to just fly. I shudder to think of how many hours I would have spent on trains or coaches over the last few days if flying was not an option. ...

The morphing of what began as an interesting way to spend my summer Fridays last year into full scale wedding planning has left me feeling ragged and in need of a time out; the colours, people and costs involved being mind boggling for a bloke who has built the last few years of his life around his me time. Far from feeling like chickening out, I’m more grateful than miffed, seeing as becoming a husband and a father are key components of my life plan. ...

It feels intuitively like the last year was my shittiest one yet - pardon my french - the sense being that all of the metrics which I have typically measured myself by are well south of where they should be. Most obvious is the flab around my waist, undeniable evidence that the 92kg reading on my scale is as factual as can be. There are other things of course, not least the sense of listlessness, the feeling of drifting and the increasingly dispassionate nature of my spiritual practice . A year ago I was certain that the year of being thirty seven would be my best one; the S bounce being a big part of that assessment. Reality though has been a less certain, more topsy turvy version of what I wanted it to be. ...

For the prompt, reflecting; which brings to mind the chill of a late (post Christmas) walk in Verulamium Park, a precursor to a splendid evening in St Albans spent with S. Of course, there were waffles and hot mugs of chocolate to warm us up afterwards. #Reflecting.

St Albans Cathedral, one December day. For the prompt, Wish: For fulfilled desires, For the Loved Ones to return Again in peace. Wish.

I decided that for Lent this year I would give up caffeine, if starting almost a week after the properly faithful and switching to tea, topped up by the odd cup of decaf coffee count as giving up. No longer being part of any of the Orthodox traditions meant I failed to get the prompt I took for granted growing up, the ash crosses on foreheads that signalled Ash Wednesday, and the start of Lent. The point of Lent is spiritual - which giving up caffeine is not, at least on the surface - but I think there is a spiritual point in trying to best what has become a costly, insidious habit; proving to myself that coffee is not my master. Given how much my morning routine at work is related to taking time out to reflect at the start of the day with a cup of coffee in hand, it should be an interesting thirty-seven forty days. Hopefully it translates to better sleep - the data from my Fitbit will be the judge of that. ...

The following are what I consider my main focus areas and objectives for 2017, derived from the Life Plan. A number of these are long running things I have failed to resolve over the years. Here’s hoping 2017 is a much better year. The Life Goals Restated for visibility: 1. Be the best husband, father, brother, son and friend that I can be 2. Excel in the Corrosion, Materials and Asset Integrity Engineering Discipline 3. Live in, and contribute to life in, a great church and a great city ...

I am big on putting together grand plans, ones which go to a great level of details to spell out the things I want to do and achieve. Where things have fallen down over the past few years has been in the application; the hard, long slog that is the doing needed to bring the plans to fruition. It would appear that in this regard I am like most people, particularly as this relates to New Year’s resolutions. This gap - this disconnect between what I want to do and what actually happens - is most obvious in the area of my spiritual practice. As an example, getting to a place where a daily time of prayer and bible study is embedded in my daily routine is one of the key things I have wished for over the course of the last few years. This has tended to be more a source of frustration than inspiration in my case, especially as these failings drive a sense of cognitive dissonance. ...