Feeling Better

 First of all a big thank you to my friends who sent me messages and talked to me (or rather listened to me moan!), also to the people who left comments on here.  I'm deeply grateful to all of you.  It's so easy to get stuck in my own head, following the same script, the same negative thinking.  Hearing different ideas, and different points of view really helps.  I can stop, slow down and think things through.  This helps a lot.  

A few things have happened that have made me see things in a new light. One was a documentary that I came across the other night about the housing crisis in England.  I know that documentaries pick up the worst cases and then milk it for emotional effect but if these cases are the reality then England is really in a bad way.  The one that hit home was of a 52-year-old lady who was fighting breast cancer.  Her husband had left her but she had a job so she could keep up with the mortgage payments.  But then cancer hit and she had to quit her job because of ongoing treatments.  She spoke to the bank, explaining her situation, and asked if she could pay less until she could get a job.  The bank refused and evicted her.  I get that banks have to make money and the interest on the loans is one way but what happened to compassion?  Couldn't the bank say that she could have 6 months and then revisit the situation?  She was put in a share house but felt unsafe and left so she is now sofa surfing.  She went back to see her house and it's sitting empty!!  We've been asked to leave this house but we've been given 2 years (just over one year now) which helps a lot! 

We went to the house today and got a big shock.  The house behind us has been empty for over 20 years.  The yard was overgrown with bamboo trees, that was the reason the toilet tank broke!  Everything has gone!!

Behind the house

Looks like they are going to build houses.  I'm hoping that they will have city sewage put in and that we can use it too!!  The fact that the bamboo has been taken down is a big relief.  We could have done it ourselves but the fact that it was on somebody else's property would mean a lot of trips to the city hall to find the owner to get permission.  

Managed to throw a lot of stuff today.  I was talking to one of my students, and she told me it took her two weeks to clean out her mother's house, I've been working on this for three years.  I realized that I was spending too much time thinking about how I could use things, that I didn't want to waste stuff.  No more, there is nothing there that I really like, one chest of drawers, maybe one kitchen cabinet but everything else is not my taste.  So I'm being ruthless, it's all going.  My plan is to get everything out of the house then hire a truck to take everything to the trash place.  Metal we can sell for a few thousand yen, the rest is to be burnt or sent to the trash place.

I talked to the house and told it I was going to bring it back to life, that we would make it a happy place.  My dream is to have BBQs and invite friends, to hear laughter in that place, maybe to hear children shouting and running around.  I'm sure I'll get hit by negative thoughts again, that I'll feel overwhelmed and broken by all this but for today I feel good.  It's not going to be easy but I've got this. And I have wonderful friends who care enough to give me a kick up the backside when I need it!!