Love thy neighbour?

Automatic #writing
is the writer's version
of talk therapy. Discuss.
https://t.co/aLd6cfIhUM https://t.co/Rz30vI1iEB

I'm always seeing, hearing, looking, learning. What else would I do? The man next door, my antagonist, seems to think that a perfect lawn is the meaning of life. He overcame cancer and seems a very practical fellow. I think he should follow his dreams and keep his boat floated.

Where he falls very short, in my book, is the bit where he derides and attempts to belittle your artist.

He despises me for hiring a gardener. He'd rather spend his weekend doing his home improvement projects, whilst his wife runs around at the bottom of the ladder, supplying cups of tea and home-baked cookies, that sort of thing.

Even while I'm writing, the drilling has begun, and the hammering. He retired in January and they bought him a golf bag, which was nice. He was boasting one day on the driveway that he was a General Manager. His dear wife, a slight woman in both stature and demeanour, spoke up in order to rectify his hyperbole. She sweetly explained that the company he managed was very small.

I didn't care, and I still don't.

He does give me pause to recall my own grandparents' lives. They lived through 2 world wars and always had an atmosphere of problem solving and innovation. If something broke, they fixed it. They always had a project or two to keep them going, in retirement.

My grandfather had a sterness about him which I never liked, or talk about, as he still remains in memorium my own mother's father. He had a strict nobility, which would likely serve his community well during the na2zi bombing raids as they sat all night in the corrugated metal shelters they'd constructed at the bottom of their gardens.

His problem was he was judgemental, and directed much of his disdain towards the 7 year old me, because I was unlikely to meet his high expectations of what a man should be. No doubt he meant well, in his own way.

So I never really engaged with him, a pattern that evolved into anger as I grew older. He hit the ground dead, one day. Too many pork-fat sandwiches, aren't good for the heart, I learned.

The fixed, old mindset-judgement continues now with my quirky, sad neighbour. Like many people who live in a different age, they like to have the occasional dinner-party. Why spend all your spare time earning accolades from others for all your clever, hard work, if you're not going to invite an audience to applaud you?

It was last summer when I was walking in my own garden at the sunset of the day, that I heard him loudly talking to his dinner guests on the patio about my own struggles with mental illness.

When my Dad died, I was with him, as my Mum and sister slept. I told him, as his hands grew cold, and his body gave up, that it was okay to go now and live with the Lord in paradise, which my Dad did.

The effect of this situation collapsed the life I'd been living up until then. I'd had a swanky University job, which I didn't really like, but I was forced to quit because my mind fell apart.

The mother of my beautiful daughter declared that she could not stand things at home anymore with me, and that either I sorted myself out, or she was leaving.

I jumped into the fire of a job that fell well below my qualifications and abilities and just wrapped myself in cotton wool and tried to heal.

Even though I wasn't drinking anymore, and hadn't been for a decade, I went back to the rooms and began a newcomer's journey with a sponsor.

It was a year or two of being triggered, that made me realise I was suffering from PTSD as a result of situations surrounding my Father's passing.

I remember one day, talking to a friend who was also my boss, when I felt some darkness leave me. That's all I can say, but I realised my mental recovery had begun.

I hobbled, and inventoried, painted and poemed my way to the light. I now realise many who create do this and it becomes the foundations of better things.

So I'm there, in my garden, many years later, listening to the knowledgeless lecture of an amateur elite, who's discussing with strangers his diagnosis of my struggles.

"He's got mental health problems" he asserted.
"But he's well now," his wife defended.
"No he isn't," he corrected.

Well, I am better, one day at a time. Gratitude is the antidote to self pity. I've overcome clinical depression, alcoholism and a variety of other ailments that were driving me to madness.

Mr Controller has apparently sold his house for a song, which won't help his smugness, but it will push up the value of my house, and finally rid me of the only person in my life, with whom I still have a problem.

A reminder of whom I once could be, and I say "good morning" as I cross my driveway. I'm working on myself and also my problem with him.

Take care of each other.