I just struggled to walk back from taking the dog out for a walk, my feet were hurting like mad I was wheezing away and I was very slow! I hate this business of getting old!
Reminded me that I will be 66 in a couple of weeks, scary thought, but I guess the alternative is scarier!
I don’t know where that time has gone, but I do know one thing about time, and that is how precious it is!
One of my lovely friends David, who I know is a very very busy chap, offered a while ago to help me with a Survivors Voice Europe project.I was a bit worried about it, knowing how much in demand he is for many other things.His girlfriend Annie, equally lovely, said to me “he thinks it is worth his time”.
And that’s the thing isn’t it, what I do needs to be “worth my time”
Is it worth my time to banging my head against a brick wall trying to convince the church that they are narcissistic? Narcissists don’t care!
Is it worth my time to enter into dialogue with people who are just using it for their own ends? Furnishing them with yet another delaying tactic .Only wherever I can add a word or two that won’t be wasted, then that is it worth my time.
Is it worth my time to stand in front of churches with photographs of my destroyed childhood? They just see it as an irritant! But it is worth my time to take my hat off to those that do it.
Is it worth my time to collect endless data about pedophile priests?? If people don’t know yet that they are a corrupt bunch of criminals I guess they never will! But It is worth my time to recognise that some people are hell bent on this quest.
My time is finite and so I have to have a rule of thumb
“Will I achieve anything?”
“Will it help anyone”
“What exactly is my agenda?”
If you are like me and you believe that this life is all you get, no second chances, no afterlife or vengeful fat old beardy bloke in the sky meting out punishments and rewards, then this time is really really precious.
Which is why I choose not to spend too much of it on that ridiculous bunch of bigots in Rome, they have had far too much of my time already!
If it is true that even a reasonably long life consists of only 450,000 hours, and I have already had about 350,000, and considering that I will probably sleep for a third of the ones that are left, it puts the whole thing into some sort of perspective.
How many hours have I spent overwhelmed with the miseries caused by my abuses at the hands of a priest, how many hours crying, throwing up, getting drunk, wasted, how many hours of fear filled indoctrination, how many wasted on lies and ignorance, how many struggling with the results of poor choices, of unskilled behaviour. How many hours filled with guilt for being human, waiting for a thunderbolt to get me, feeling lower than a snakes belly in the grass.
Missing out on the wonder of the Universe, because I was told that the here and now was of no significance and I should sacrifice it for the hereafter!
The hours that they took from my life I can never get back.
My family and friends are worth my time
Connections with other survivors are worth my time
Sharing skills and supporting others is worth my time
The truth is worth my time.
It is worth my time to add my name to calls for public enquiries and political interventions to bring these criminals to justice.
It is worth my time to open my eyes to other injustices around me too.
It is worth my time to try and share what I have learned .
Making the most of what the bastards have left me is worth my time!
Living a simple and joyful life is worth my time
(With maybe taking a few minutes of indulgence to stick two fingers up to the power hungry self inflated bigots that are still getting away with murder!)
