It’s amazing what a difference in perspective a life-threatening illness can make. This seems the most appropriate place to jot this down. Trying not to repeat myself too much but if you’re new to this blog, I was hospitalised with bacterial meningitis earlier in the year. I’ll not go on about the experience here but for more details have a gander at the posts from my main blog here and here.

I only mention it here as one of the things I’ve noticed in recovering is how it has refreshed my outlook on life. Now before you think “uh oh, he’s going to get all hippy on us” just hear me out. You hear about it all the time but don’t really understand it unless you’ve gone through it. I’ll admit I may have got a bit jaded with having to say goodbye to a fair few friends and family over the last couple of years (more than I’d have liked, and sooner than I’d have liked obviously) but in that process you tend to develop a cushion against bad news. A way to cope that means you might just get on with everyday things and not really soak them in. Well, being fortunate enough to have stuck the middle finger up and get back to normality helps swap out some of the greys of mundaneness and appreciate the variety that life’s little things can bring.

One of the biggest things I took for granted before but am starting to realise now is the joy of conversation. I’ve had some great chat’s with friends, family and more recently random people I get talking to through work since my recovery. The frustration of struggling through conversations when I was fresh out of hospital means that now that I can hold one again, its refreshing how such a simple thing can often feel so rewarding.

Off the back of that is laughter. Before all this polava, cracking a one-liner here or telling a daft anecdote there were commonplace. Take that ability away and you definitely miss the hilarity. I know that seems like such an obvious thing to say but when you get that overwhelming sense of humour back, its such a good feeling. It leaves you upbeat and inspired to do more. Which is why I thought I’d mention it here.

Where it’s always good to draw inspiration from your peers, your idols and your favourite things like: movies; games; music; art; all of these come from a storytellers interpretation of life. And if you can draw inspiration from even the little things in life like: helping someone who’s fallen; seeing a kid get excited cos you let them play the computer game they wanted; or something as simple as having a limitless conversation into the wee hours, then I’m thankful for the perspective that the meningitis has given me.

I mentioned to someone recently as well that one of the several constant things that cheered me up throughout getting better was writing. Whether that was writing a blog post or a script or even just playing wordsmith on writing a report for uni it felt like a creative outlet I could get my head around. You’ll notice that most of my posts on my other blogs tend to be text heavy, like this one is now, but I’ve heard from a couple of people that they’re a good read. Must be doing something right. You can be the judge, either way, I’m just venting.