REBOOT !!

What can I say..
“I took a 9-year break from it all..”? Nope. Life. Life is what happened to me; like any other, having to work, and even enjoy working, to pay the bills. Until Auntie Corona showed her ugly mug, and the quadrillionth redundancy presented itself. Was it difficult nine years ago, to find a new job, at present, being 9 years older, it’s nigh on impossible.
Sure, finding jobs ain’t the issue, securing an Interview however, proves somewhat more tricky. And then, once they see me old scraggy mug, you can see them thinking: “Fuk.. didn’t realise you’re THAT old…” because, my dear friends, what they are after are twelve-year-olds, who have a Masters in whatever discipline, with a clean driving license, fifteen years experience and a cut-throat mentality. Needless to say, that rules me out..

Nine years ago, during one of my compulsory months’ worth of holiday, I had my first ever dabble at writing a novel. I can proudly say, I finished one, and even had several WIPs in the oven. However, as said before, bills need paying and so finding and securing a job was the highest priority. I mothballed all my writing efforts and concentrated on the new jobs – four in succession up until last year February, and came to a point where I was so convinced I was in the job I’d be doing till I’d become a pensioner from the regular workforce, that I removed the whole writing archive… Bad, bad move…

Recently, I’ve been searching my writing attributes – to no avail.. I hoped I’d have a backup of all my stuff hidden somewhere deep in the system but, nope – nothing to be found. Until, some time this morning, I came across an E-mail I sent to one of my writer friends, Greta van der Rol, which contained a copy of my ‘firstborn’, with the question to provide me with some feedback. I know now, as I did then, it’s the raw , unedited version, which could do with re-writing several parts – a lot, in fact. I did say, it was my first dabble at attempting to write something readable..

So, with another rejection having dropped in the Inbox, I’ll have to buckle up and have a long, renewed, corrective look at the project and see if I can find any remnants of the sequel and hopefully the other bits ‘n pieces I started writing, all those years ago. If not, this is the perfect moment to rewrite them and see if we can actually get the momentum back.

With that, it might be an idea to reboot the bloggin’ thing too..
Time to put the creative thinking cap back on – time to Reboot…

The joy of finding someone dear back..

Everyone who is on Facebook, is probably a member of a Group, in any form or shape. So am I. I joined a couple of Navy related groups, in search of old mates i’ve sailed with, and am proud to say I found a couple of my old mateys back, in said Groups.

Today, I happened to come across a name I’d been looking to ‘hook up’ with for some time now. After addressing the person in a comment, he came back to me, stating he had no recollection of me whatsoever. He even thought I was a woman purely for the fact my partner’s name is Jan (which is a male name in Holland) but after some explanation, it all came back to him, and we got entangled in a conversation, well over 3 hours.

Whilst I was repairing a laptop, and prepping a salad for lovey, my buddy and me nattered away about all and everything. And, as the saying goes (roughly):

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“When True mates don’t speak for a period, they don’t doubt their Friendship.

Real Buddies just pick up the thread where they left, how ever long ago this might be.

Those Mates understand that Life can be a busy thing but know you love them no less, regardless.”

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Having dealt with the compulsory introductions, or rather,  recollection period, we headed into a convo, filled with Navy recollection and where we stand in Life nowadays. As I didn’t doubt for a minute, my mate hadn’t changed a bit, and I can only hope he felt the same way about me. He still made me cry with laughter, the way he used to when we sailed the Seven Seas.

In all fairness, whilst repairing a laptop, and preparing tea, I had a bit of a party going on, all by myself, with the best part of two bottles of wine and an online conversation with an old Buddy..

What’s the lesson learned here? Even though Facebook is constantly under fire for “breaking privacy laws/regulations”, a lot of people forget what it has actually brought us: a way to connect, or reconnect, with our past and lost friendships.

Needless to say, I also have my own Group, completely dedicated to reconnecting with my Family, many of whom I haven’t seen in 30 or more years but successfully reconnected with through the Group.

So what about Facebook using our pics? Admitted, if said pics aren’t fit for distribution to third parties, they shouldn’t use them. On the other side, why put them on a public social platform when they’re so dear to you..?

I for one applaud Mark Zuckerberg and all who are Facebook, as they’re reconnecting the world..

The Buddy mentioned above, he knows who he is! And the broken laptop got repaired, despite of the wine troubling my brain..