Early on in the fictional fifties

Any diary (which is what a journal basically is) is bound to be incredibly personal and mine is no different – aging brings all sorts of new stresses and strains and the quiet realisation that what ever way consumer society at large would like to ‘spin’ it we are going towards death – I mean I was with my grand parents when they were very aged so, whilst I realise that there are innumerable lotions and potions not to mention procedures this is reality not the Cocoon style pursuit of eternal youth.

All the same it is still a lot to process – as I have been bereaved I have a concept of grief now that losing my grandparents just didn’t bring – I read some where someone saying that further loss can take grief to a ‘whole new level’. I was slightly stunned by this – I mean I was just hoping that it settles and eventually dies (pardon the pun) down.

Now I realise that is probably unlikely and really we just have to ‘walk through the valley of the shadow of death’…effectively it is a psychological battle which is probably why there is not so much talk of death (still a big taboo – along with sex and money).

In some ways I think the idea that we are now all meant to ‘talk’ about everything makes it worse as nothing is really sacrosanct and the most personal topics can be cheerily bandied about on the media, in the newspapers and any old where really. No where is safe.

Some will defend this but is it really just defending the indefensible?! To some extent I think so. Give people their space and with this their dignity, not in dying as the proponents of euthanasia naively assume. We all need time to ourselves to flourish just as we need each other but only once we are refreshed. This is why the idea of ‘community’ as understood by the government is so flawed – community emerges naturally and organically – it is an inevitable part of being human not a dumping ground for the dispossessed and the hard-to-place.