Dear Diary,
What a few months it’s been! I’ve been absent and abandoned you somewhat, Dear Diary, whilst ill-health, tests and investigations temporarily interrupted my writing flow and I apologise for that. But that time is gone now and here we somehow find ourselves in a brand new year…it seems to come around so quickly doesn’t it? Although many would point out that, due to ‘that-C-19 thing-I-try-to-avoid-writing-about’, 2020 was the year that seemed to go on forever.
For many years of my life (most of them in fact) I’ve hated New Years Day and the whole month of January, in truth. The feeling of waking up on New Years Day knowing that you’re starting that familiar slog all over again, but under dull skies and harsh, cold winds. Urghhh…The beauty of Autumn packed its bags and left us with barren, lifeless trees, a colour palette of smudged greys and browns and our countryside transformed into flooded, swamp-like mud baths. All the joy and energy of Christmas cheer drained dry. It seems to make such a hasty retreat with the fun, the twinkling lights and festive decorations deserting us almost immediately after the midnight chink of our glasses.
But in these last few years, my feelings have changed. I’ve learnt to embrace and most importantly, seize the New Year and the changes it brings, with hope and with optimism. I’ve finally grabbed January and told it I’m in charge! I’ve learnt to look beyond its initial bleak impression and appreciate the true beauty of what January actually beholds;
A New start
New challenges
New adventures
Another chance…How lucky are we to receive another chance? This year more so than any!
Another chance to start again, fresh from the beginning, but this time, with an added years’ worth of wisdom under our belts. Now, I use January to plan. To me, January is a shiny new, unspoilt diary and a crisp, blank page in a brand new notebook. I write down all the things I’d like to do or achieve this coming year, however big or small. I set my goals, although I hate that phrase, I much prefer to approach it as planning my dreams, living my life! And why not? Life is for living after all!
Once I’ve created my lists, I assign each thing to a month or timeframe that I want to do them or have achieved them by. Before my eyes, my year begins to unfold and it makes me feel excited! It makes me feel motivated! Straight away, I want to jump onboard January’s slow-moving train, aligning myself to its momentum as it begins to build and gather pace towards the beautiful Springtime.
Over the Christmas period, I watched a film, well I watched a few films actually, but the one that stuck with me, is Cast Away, staring Tom Hanks. I’d seen it before. I knew it was a film that I’d enjoyed it the first time I saw it, albeit many years ago.
It’s a ‘survival drama’ film which was first released in December 2000. The main character Chuck, (Hanks) works for FedEx and is onboard a FedEx Cargo plane when it crashes into the South Pacific. By some (Hollywood inspired) miracle, Chuck survives the crash and finds himself washed up, as the only survivor, on a small, uninhabited island in the back-end of nowhere within the Pacific Ocean, with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, a punctured lifeboat, oh and a pocket watch containing a photo of his girlfriend.
Have you seen it? If not, I’ll warn you now, this blog contains spoilers! The first time I watched that film, I remember just taking it at face value. With all its intensity, drama and devastation, I travelled on the emotional rollercoaster that the films’ director intended and felt everything I was supposed to feel including satisfied, relieved and hopeful once the end credits rolled. I rated the film in the archives of my mind as one I’d enjoyed and then moved on with my everyday life, thinking no more of it, just as watching a film is intended.
However, this time it was different. This time I watched the film, vaguely remembering parts of it as it unfolded (and this time with the added relief that I knew he survived) but I watched with more than just my eyes, taking the messages of his journey to survival deeper than face value. The films directors/writers aims for this film were to simply explore what could happen during four years of hopelessness, without life’s essential components of food and water, warmth, shelter and companionship. Throughout the film, we see each of these elements addressed. You see, when Chuck found himself washed up on that island, sure, he was alive and he was now on dry land. But it was a false sense of security. That wasn’t the end of the catastrophe he’d miraculously survived, it was really only the beginning of the immense journey that lay ahead.
It occurred to me, that had Chuck allowed his mind to race too far ahead of him and realise the extent of the overwhelming challenge that lay before him, he probably would’ve curled up in a ball or taken himself back out to sea wishing he’d never survived! I think I would’ve. But I guess he believed that before long, he’d be rescued. So, we watch as Chuck uses the only two things he now has in the whole world, to his advantage.
He made a simple shelter from his now, dilapidated lifeboat and took comfort and reassurance from his girlfriend’s photograph. That got him through his first night on the island. At each point throughout this journey, just as we thought he was clearly doomed, he was presented with a chance or an opportunity, if he really looked hard enough, which enabled him to survive another day.
The dead body of a colleague, washed up on the shore line, provides Chuck with shoes to protect his feet and a torch with which to further explore his surroundings, finding the safety of a cave. At the point of dehydration, coconuts fell from surrounding palm trees, providing its milk to rehydrate him. Nearing the point of starvation and the brink of giving up, FedEx packages from the crash, washed up on the islands’ shoreline with, albeit on first impression, useless items. However, with some calm contemplation, thinking outside of the box, ice skates provided sharp blades with which he could carve a stick into a spear. Sharpened and carved sticks would provide enough friction when rubbed together to make fire. Laces provided ties. A ballroom gown provided netting with which to catch fish and a simple volleyball, with some desperate imagination and a blood stained handprint, provided a companion with a face. Chuck continued to use his intelligence along with sheer, stubborn-minded determination to continue to survive. Once he had made fire, he could cook the fish that he caught in his net, he could keep warm, provide light to allow a better shelter inside a cave. Fresh rainwater now expertly gathered in cupped leaves, provided clean drinking water. How far he had come from that first day when he washed up on the island.
Finally, as he begins to succumb to the realisation that nobody is ever going to find him as they would no longer even be looking, his patience and ingenuity pays off, as an old wrecked piece bit of port-a-loo container washes up on the shore in front of him. However, he didn’t see a chunk of metal as we viewers did, he saw a substantial and solid sail for a raft. He saw his chance, he recognised it and he seized it!
For the whole time that he was on the island, he identified the indications presented to him. He didn’t dwell on what he didn’t have, but he embraced all that he did. Each small step was crucially important. He turned what he had into what he needed….and he trusted. He believed. In what? Himself? Others? God? Life? Fate? The angels? Coincidence? It doesn’t matter what, it just matters that he trusted, he believed. It took four years of hard work, imagination, a huge amount of strength of character and continued patience to survive and then get off that island and because he simply refused give up, refused to be beaten, he got to where he wanted to be.
This time, watching this film made me reflect on myself. Sometimes our hearts desires and where we want to be can seem so far away that they’re impossible and in today’s impatient world, it’s easier to simply give up. But if we focus on just the next step of our journey, the next rung on the ladder, trust that what we need will arrive, if we believe, we will move forward, a step at a time toward to our dreams. I truly believe that our chances become available as and when they are intended, we just have have to be open enough to recognise them. They’re not always (in fact, rarely) obvious (why would somebody stranded on a dessert island need a ballgown?), sometimes we need to look harder.
The film reminded me; look for the signs, recognise the opportunities, allow my imagination the freedom it was designed for and never stop believing, no matter what. You cannot reach the top of a ladder without climbing each of the rungs and that ladder will always be easier to climb if we ensure those rungs are closer together.
I used to feel ‘owned’ by the desert island that is January. Captured by its confines, often despondent and blue, far away from where I’d want to be. But not anymore, these days, I take control. January doesn’t own me, January is my platform. It’s my quiet space, my blank canvas. It’s my time to breathe, to re-evaluate. It’s time to plan…step by step!
January is a gift, an opportunity.
It’s how you use it that counts!
Happy New Year!
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