Saturday

It is strange how things are. People are very kind and you soon realise that you have friends. I have had some very kind offers of support from all places. Throughout the time that I dealt with my mother's death I remained numb and somewhat unmoved by things. Now the slightest offer of support seems to move me quite deeply. I've always been able to shut off my emotions and find some strength to stop myself feeling whatever it is that should pierce through the walls of my emotional defenses. I don't know how to stop this happening at the moment. They appear to have been breached and I am powerless to stop this, or its consequences overwhelming me at the silghtest opportunity. This doesn't feel like the end of the fall.



The interview promised yesterday has not materialised so I wait to see what, if anything, I will get from this. I may have been a little too honest with the agency. The job asks for people to be available for 6 months and I was upfront about the fact that I would be looking for other work. That said, the students who were there would surely only be around for three, maybe four, months at a maximum. After that they could resume their studies and get back on with their lives. As for me, I'd be watching them get away from a life no one seriously wants.



I met with a friend yesterday who explained that he'd ended up in his line of work by accident. He's also a trainer. I don't think anyone consciously sets out to go into this field and yet now there are courses you can do to obtain pieces of paper to say that you know how to train people. These days without these pieces of paper the door is closing. The opportunities are less. I personally feel that they teach you common sense and ask for thousands of pounds for the privilage. Yet I don't have the piece of paper and so I face the sound of a thousand slamming doors. My experience isn't enough to warrant the intrest of most of the people I would like to employ me. People seem to think I have many talents and lots to offer, if this is the case why am I finding it impossible to get a foot in the door. All I recieve is the soul destroying spectre of the automated response.



I think I came close to writing out the final chapter on Thursday night. I wrote the previous blog and felt a mixture of relief and frustration at the fact I didn't have something to wipe out the sadness I felt. I'm sure if I had had a bottle of sleeping tablets I probably would have taken enough to wipe away the problems that I'm facing. If I'd had them I probably wouldn't actually have done it, but it felt like a very sensible option at the time.



When I'd finished at the employment agency on Thursday I walked back along The Strand and looked at the statue of Oscar Wilde opposite Charing Cross station. Behind the statue a group of people were filing into a homeless shelter and I stood and watched them filing in. I wondered how they got there. Anyone watching those people probably looks at them as failed people, second class citizens. I watched them thinking how close to their situation I suddenly found myself.



That said I can ask for help from my father. I do know that I have someone I can rely on - if the worst comes to the worst. I don't want to have to do this but I don't suppose I will have a choice. I do have some financial reserves so I'm not going to be completely helpless. Yet the future really seems like it could be very bleak, at least in the short term. I wish I had more energy to fight this but at the moment I'm not finding it. I'm in the middle of something which will move forward. Experience is beginning to tell me that this might not be the bottom. It could be that I have reached it but I can't be sure and I want to try and make sure that I'm prepared for any further falls.