Work/colleagues

Hyper or Creative?

In order to be successful, do we need to be static, rigid and keep going in the same direction, or can we deviate, over and over and enjoy the success of it all?

When I was a girl in school my art teacher told me that I was rubbish at paining. I had no reason to doubt her. I certainly was no picasso! I did like art class though. I’m not sure if it was because there was no real academia involved and it was more like a place to express rather than to ‘retain information’.

I actually really enjoyed school (until I was 15) which I know, is unusual for most. I wasn’t the most academic, I was middle of the road, average, but I enjoyed learning and seeing my friends.

Art and P.E were my favourite subjects. I quite liked English too because of the story telling more then the command and structure of the English language. I was a bit of a day dreamer when it came to other topics, like history, Geography or Maths. I did enough to get by and pass exams, but my interest in them was minimal.

There was a certain freedom in sports, art and English. A freedom to explore and do. It was practical, and allowed me to construct things in my own way. Everything we do, I guess, is down to effort, but also motivation.

Fast forward 40 0dd years and I find I still like to express myself or lose myself through art and writing. The only Physical exercise I do now is walking, but I love to do that, especially down at my local beach.

When I paint, I can get lost for hours just trying out new things. My art teacher would probably still tell me I am rubbish, but it is all subjective really. I am still no picasso, but I bet I get about as much enjoyment out of it as he did.

When we start out in our working lives, we are supposed to have a career in mind of what we would like to do/be. I certainly have had many jobs since leaving school. From bar maid to office worker. From paralegal to Beauty therapist and from volunteer to Social Care Worker. I changed ‘career’ many times.

The success of it all for me, was more about the getting there, rather than staying there. My personality is that I get bored easily. I have always enjoyed learning and I have always enjoyed ‘doing’. It is the ‘staying’ that I find hard to do.

The only thing I have ever stayed at long term is being a parent. It’s the hardest job in the world, but I have been a mother to 16 children over the last 32 years (not all of them were my biological children – I am also a foster carer)!

I am a flitter. I flit from this to that and I like it. I think it makes life interesting. So for the last couple of years I started to paint. I have done a few things that I even surprised myself, in that they were actually quite good. Good enough to hang on walls.

I have now moved onto painting furniture too and I am loving it, out in my workshop I paint. As I wait for a layer of paint to dry on a piece of furniture, I take a canvas and I paint a layer of paint of that and see what transpires. I flit between the two until I am happy that they are ‘ready’.

My friend jokes and tells me I am hyper. She is a mental health professional….. I laugh and tell her I am creative. It makes me wonder though, about how we view people. There are the great artists in the world, but can they keep house, boil an egg and hands on raise a family….. In order for them to be so brilliant it takes time and talent. Just look at Michelangelo, sculpter, painter, poet and architect. He had to dedicate all his time and efforts into those crafts to be so magnificent. He certainly was a genius with a talent.

The joe bloggs such as me, has neither the genius nor the talent or even the dedication to pursue a ‘career’ as an artist, but I do have the motivation to be creative in my own little way for as long as the joy of it allows, before the boredom sets in. I, nor God only knows how long it will last.

I also have another new creation which I am embarking on. I have married my photographs with names (Irish/gaelic) and made beautiful cards. You can find them at @taylormadecardcreations. I will post an example below.

Again, this is me being creative and going off in another direction. Am I hyper? I don’t think so, I think I am just not static. When I have ideas, I like to try them out. Whether they are good, bad or indifferent. Whether they are objective or subjective, the point is, I give it a go and while I am enjoying the journey of it, I keep going.

I say, it is OK to take a career and do it all of your life, if you enjoy it and it fulfills and satisfies your needs. I also say it is OK to deviate, move away, branch out, try something new, so long as you enjoy it and it satisfies and fulfills your needs….. and is legal!

I have met so many creative people who didn’t think they were creative or good enough. I am at the top of the queue, but then I realised, it is not about being good enough for other people to enjoy your work, it is about being good enough for you to enjoy your work first and if others like it, then that is a bonus.

So whether you are hyper or creative….. keep going and keep ‘doing’.

want to break free ?

from early on we strive to build friendships, work, build networks and build a home, but during all this ‘building’, do we ever feel overwhelmed, overburdened, overshadowed and then feel the need to break free?

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We are conditioned by nature to seek out relationships. We are engineered by our environment as to the types of relationships we build, based on what and whom we are exposed to. Some of us are born to our families and remain with them all of our formative years and maintain good relationships when we flee the nest. Others do not get to stay with their family of origin but may still have some form of contact, or none whatsoever, depending on the circumstances and the circumstances can be many and varied. We are shaped by the people around us, parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers, friends. We learn from each other. We build and we adapt, depending on whom we are with and what we are doing. We often ‘go along with things’ so as not to stick out, be the odd one out, rock the boat. To keep the peace is often the easier option. We may surpress what we really feel and deny ourselves the opportunity to be honest and open. To do so could offend, incite an argument, evoke scrutiny that we may not wish to recall or simply we may think it is kinder to not be honest in certain situations. After all, we all have different tastes, ideas, ideals, opinions, beliefs and perspectives, and that is fine.

Sometimes though, it can all become too much. We are but one person. In order to survive we NEED others, we NEED relationships. We need to love and be loved, to feel value and give another person a sense of value. We need relationships on some level, for us to feel full and complete. This can lead us to feeling good, yet overwhelmed. As the saying goes, ‘we cannot please all of the people all of the time’. One person, whether a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, a grandparent, a child, we must ‘interact’. It is in the interacting with all of the people in our circle and indeed outside of our circle that can lead us to feeling overwhelmed, overburdened, overshadowed. We can deny ourselves so much and so often, that we don’t even realise that we are denying ourselves. It can become a way of life, a habit, and habits are easy to form yet difficult to break.

Like an animal, taken from the wild and placed in a zoo, it can adapt to his new surroundings. He will be fed, exposed to company, given somewhere to live, given the basic things needed to survive, but, will he be happy, all of the time or for that matter, any of the time. Yet he stays, no option but to stay, he is so tightly monitored and guarded that his existence is secured. He learns to adapt to his new way of life, but may still yearn for his former life, for his independence. His offspring born in this new habitat will no nothing of the wild as they would have been born to this habitat and will not know any different….. but what is their instinct. They may not know how to hunt, how to take care of themselves, how to survive in the wild, but perhaps they have a desire to find out. Perhaps they have a desire to break free, perhaps their instinct is engrained in their DNA.

We are the same. We were born into our surroundings, guided, nurtured, ensuring or needs were met. We conform to the rules of our environment and of our society. We built friendships, relationships, homes and families of our own. Some of it is easy, some of it is difficult, but still we strive. However, there comes a time, often more than once, that we may want to’ break free’. Not necessarily forever, maybe just for a day or a week or even a few hours. We need to break free for our sanity, for us to be us, the person we were born to be, not the person someone expects us to be. For a short time we need to take care of us, we need to take the time to be free, to recharge, re-energise, reflect and reconnect, if we so choose. We have to NOT deny ourselves of what we want or need. We need to practice self care, in order that we can fulfill and continue to be part of all the other relationships that we encounter and are party to. We need to go and find something, a place, a thing, a journey, whatever it takes, but we need to find our joy, our peace, our inner calm and ourselves. If that means you need to break free, then break free, just do it – you need to love and have a relationship with you!

Picture authors own taken at Fota Wildlife Park.

Hey You !

You don’t know it yet, but you are in for quite a ride and are going to hit a few bumps but…..

I remember it well and to be honest, I wouldn’t want to be there again, it was an awful place to be, for me personally I mean. You have no choice, you have to go there too and you have to experience it for yourself to know how it will be for you, but let me tell you this. You will survive it, with the right set of skills, support, resources, stamina and true grit, you will get beyond it!

The first thing you will notice when you get there are the changes in your body, hairs sprouting out of places where they have no business being, spots appearing like they are in competition with the chicken pox, not to mention hair as greasy as fried chicken. The real killer, the mood swings. Anything ranging from sweet Shirley Temple to Cruella Deville in 0 to 60 seconds and to add insult to injury you will have no idea of who you are and will irrationally and radically search for your identity. A smooth ride it WILL NOT be. Attitude, Identity theft, extreme expression through clothes, music, rebellious behaviour, dieting, bingeing, smoking, drinking, sex and drugs, all there for the taking and risking. ‘Lead me not into temptation’ not for all of them anyway! It will get messy, it will noisy, it will get confusing, it will get depressing, it will be fun, it will be a complete contradiction and you will think you are IT at some stage and at some stage you will wish you could be a child again, or an adult and want to skip IT. IT is exhausting……. IT is THE TEENAGE YEARS….AHHHHH

Sure, there will be twists and turns, there will be bumps in the road, there will be times of pure exhilaration, there will be LOVE, there will be HEARTACHE, there will be moments of madness and moments of stillness, but you will have to go through it, so that you can come out the other side of it and find out who you are and what you are made of. The skills you will learn will be mind boggling. The skills your parents will learn will be eye opening…. who knew they could be so mean, strict, sarcastic, fierce BRAVE!

They have been there, seen it, done it, got the T Shirt. They rocked it. It was better in their day, simpler, kinder, cooler. The trouble now is, while they are battling with you and your tantrums, and your mood swings and your cheek and your pushing and prodding of their boundaries, they are most probably fighting their own battle and their own identity crises. The MENOPAUSE, (male and female). The changes in their body, the sweats, the forgetfulness – “sorry, who are you” they ask ” I have no idea” you reply. Mum’s boobs begin to droop causing her distress. Dads boobs begin to develop in a cruel twist to make mum feel less distressed. Muscle turns to flab and dad’s six pack inflates so he resembles buddha and mum has an uncanny resemblance to the michelin man.

While you are on the crest of the wave splishing and splashing and tumbling and flying to a newer fitter more confident version of you, they are well and truly slam dunked into the ocean of ‘What the hell is going on’. The dawning of realisation that ‘youth’ is soon to be leaving you and ‘youthfulness’ has well and truly over spilleth from them and they are heading towards a newer disturbing version of them!

So, hey you, be kind, be good, be healthy and wise, gather those skills, they are worth more than any money buys.

Be kind to your daughters, sons, mum’s and dad’s. The changes you’re all facing, is just a fad.

A phase, a lapse of time in space, try get through it, with dignity and grace. But if you can’t, that’s OK too, after all, it’s just the rebel in you!

© carrie sherbourne and Relay shun sips – itsjustnoteasy.com Blog, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Carrie sherbourne and itsjustnoteasy.com Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

Fixing my hair, as I walk across the car park, wiggling my neat pencil skirt down and shimmying off any remnants of ‘knackared mother approaching’, I burst through the main door of the building as if i’m about to sing ‘the hills are alive with the sound of music.

‘Good morning Mandy, I beam, as I pass by the receptionist, noting how fabulous she looks and smells. No trace of baby fumes emitting from her. She being a young, single, stunning glamour puss!

Whisking past the pool of secretaries, nodding politely as I go, i head to my desk. It’s an open plan office where I work. The building is almost circular, like a gold fish bowl in appearance. Legal Eagles on the outer rim by the windows and secretaries in the middle, near the lift and toilets. I take my seat, by the ‘window’ and chat to my rather dashing colleague, who has just passed his uni exam and and doing his Articles with us. Nice bit of eye candy for a 30 something married mother of 3 feeling like she has been ran over by a bus most days.

I didn’t used to ‘sit by the window’. Oh no, I was one of the girls by the lift and the toilets, busily typing away and being a secretary too. I started as a temp and was to be there for 3 days which then turned into 3 weeks and finally 3 years. My ‘boss’ was great. We got on like a house on fire. Well me being an Aries and him being a red head, it was inevitable really – both fiery!

I was so nervous when I first met him. Oh I had plenty of experience being a secretary, I had done it B.C (before children). I was nervous because he looked, how can I put it, a bit weird actually. he was tall and thin, some might say gangly, and when he spoke his arms would flail, all over the place. I had to duck out of the way a few times for fear of being knocked over. He mumbled he was working on a big custody battle and had to have all the paperwork ready for the brief by end of day, so could I stay late!

Well, that was going to go down well with the hubby, first day at work and I am working late. Good job it’s his day off today and not costing me a fortune paying a childminder. So, I am running around like a headless chicken that got lost and is trying to find its way home. I try to get to grips with the fact that three other secretaries are sending their typing to the one SHARED photocopier in the building. I go to retrieve my documents only to find they are not there. No paper, the machine is empty and I have no clue where the stationary cupboard is to refill it. Panicking that he is going to think I am incompetent and slow, I hurry back to the other girls for some guidance as to where I might find the paper, knowing I am irritating the hell out of them as its probably the 100th time I have interrupted them today, what with it being my first day and I don’t have a clue where everything is. I am after all, just a secretary not bloody Mystic Meg!

‘Have you got those documents yet’ he asks, peeping his head into the office, whilst looking at his watch and giving me a look as if to say I probably wont last the contracted 3 days the temp agency had promised me. He kept tut tutting, going this way and that way, checking his watch, scratching his head, muttering God knows what to himself, making me feel more and more anxious. I thought at one stage brown bear was going to come out, you know, like Mr Bean’s bear. That is who my boss reminded me of, dear old Mr Bean!

Could I actually feel any worse? Could I feel any lower. Didn’t he realise, the sacrifice, torment and guilt I was going through at leaving my 9 month old twins to be there. How many times had I stopped myself from crying just thinking about them, especially when my boobs were throbbing and I had to just ignore and smile through the pain. I felt like a highland cow at milking time, full and ready to burst! I was a professional, I was not a defeatist, I wouldn’t five up or give in to it, even though every fibre of my being was aching to be home with my babies, cuddling them, kissing them, being thrown up on by them, feeding them. The sacrifice I made, turning up ALL CLEAN, shit, vomit and food stain free, to be given THAT look. How dare he!

To add insult to injury, when I FINALLY had all the paper work typed up and retrieved from the now, full of paper printer, it was time to get all that shit collated together. The usual place would of course be a nice tidy desk. There was no room on mine, it had a typewriter (electric)(posh) on it and all other manner of stuff a secretary needs on her desk. His desk, no correction, his office had the look of, shall we say, that it had been burgled – papers, files, ring binders EVERYWHERE. The only available space that I could utilise was the floor. So there I was , on my knees, in his burgled office, in a nice neat pencil skirt, boobs throbbing and slightly worried there would be wet patches any minute, due to leakage. Conscious and worried my stocking tops would be exposed every time I leaned over to drop a document in the correct pile of rather lengthy rows of paperwork. How very lady like indeed!

The look on my husband’s face was priceless, when I explained my rather hectic first day. He particularly raised an eyebrow and my being on the floor with my boss, after everyone else had left the building. Still it’s a bit more exciting than looking after buttons in the control room!….