Walking in Memphis

I moved out of home when I was 17. I had finished my A-levels and got myself a job. My parents helped me find somewhere to live and then one day they took me there, helped me unload all my things and left. It must have been hard for them. For me it was bittersweet. I had been looking forward to moving out but here I was in a strange town, in a strange house with no one I knew anywhere near by. I put on a tape and the first song that came on summed it up completely for me, bittersweet, sadness mixed with hope. Walking in Memphis.

Today has been a negative energy day. It has been swirling round work like smoke so thick you can almost hold it. I have almost coped but as the day went on it slowly brought me lower and lower. It started early on with a request to do overtime on the one day of the fortnight that I get F all to myself with no S. The answer from me was unsurprisingly, no but I can do it at these other times. Stress continued to flow as the amount of work I had was given as a reason justifying overtime for the group. Given I hadn't particularly thought my pile was getting too large....

The second time Walking in Memphis appeared at an important time in my life, it was a soothing sign that I was walking in the right direction although it felt hard right then. I had come to Cornwall intending to move here. I had never been here before. I was again in a strange town where I knew nobody and was feeling somewhat fearful of the future. I was looking for somewhere to eat and I eventually found somewhere. I nervously went in and sat down as that song came on the radio.

So today the stress continued to flow as issues arose and had to be traced to their source. The initial place to look always seemed to my pile of work or the work I had done previously. My response to all this was just to work even harder and try and get through even more and focus really, really well so I wouldn't do anything wrong. And I did. So now I feel completely and utterly drained. I went to the toilet at one point to ground myself and sort out all the energy swirling through me. This worked well, for a while.

As I was sat there feeling stressed, working as if glued to my computer as if I was some sort of bizarre cyborg creation, a song came on the radio. This song is quite an old song and not one commonly played really, semi-forgotten. But to me the meaning it holds is huge. It is as if the world is saying, hold on, it will all be fine, just keep going, you are doing just fine.

I have a theory about stress. It is negative energy. Someone starts to get themselves into a situation and their bodies response is to generate extra energy. Only thing is these days we don't fight or run away. Where does this energy go? The energy gets passed around and around with no one knowing what to do with it. It slowly dissipates with each time it passes from one to another. It is contagious. Grounding out the energy helps but then you can feel like you are just sucking up all the energy around. The person who produced the energy in the first place keeps pumping out the energy because their body still thinks they need. How do I stop myself being a hoover for the seemingly infinite amounts of negative energy? I can keep grounding but is this the answer?

Truth is, I don't know.

I also right now, don't care.

I am off to listen to this song and recapture it's meaning for me...