It’s been a while, yes. Have I been that busy that I haven’t had time to write anything, no.

The problem is that my mind and my life are a mirror image of my storage room – a mess. No, my life isn’t really ‘a mess’, as such, not in that sense of the word, but it’s just a little bit chaotic. Like my storage room. I say storage room – large cupboard is a more accurate description. And my mind is a mirror image of it.

I look at it almost every day and say to myself “I really must tidy this place up”, before depositing yet more junk in there, on top of everything else, then closing the door. As many other people do, I’m quite sure. It’s not until I have the luxury of a week or more of free time (whenever that might occur in the distant future) that I actually bite the bullet and sort it all out. In the meantime, however, more junk gets deposited, and it remains a mess. Like in my mind. Lots of things swimming around without a place to be put or time dedicated to them, so many things going on that nothing actually gets done, at all.

I wrote the above at the end of October, but never got around to finishing it, somewhat proving my own point (to myself anyway). I’d largely forgotten about it, but it now takes on a greater significance. I was going to post something quick about how stupid I’ve been (yet again) with my asthma medication, but that’s going to be a mere addition as it turns out. So, here it is –

Stupid is as stupid does. Yet again I’ve decided that I know more about medicine than my doctor, found that I’ve not really been suffering with my asthma, and stopped taking my preventative medication. Over the past few weeks I’ve been having attacks, but done nothing about renewing my prescription, taking my ventolin whenever needed. Of course, it has a finite amount of salbutamol in it. Last night it ran out, leaving me wheezing and unable to sleep. Luckily, although of course my doctor’s surgery is closed for the holidays, the NHS was still there to save me this morning.

So, I’m back on my preventative inhaler, will be making an appointment on Tuesday to get my repeat prescription sorted out again, and all will be well once more. I just feel really stupid, again. As my Mum quite accurately pointed out this morning, if this was something to with Scouting, I’d be on top of it, and it would be organised; as it only affects me, it’s forgotten about. But wait, and, bear with me on this – I’m trying to think of ways to make myself feel guilty enough not to make the same mistake (yet) again. It doesn’t only affect me, my health, that is. I have friends and family who care about me. I have other people who rely on me – although we obviously have other leaders on camps, if I have to be taken to hospital because I can’t breathe, where does that leave the young people in my care?

The same goes for over-eating, over-drinking, and not getting enough exercise. I forced myself to do some exercise today (though, without enough of the preventative inhaler in my system, I predictably didn’t manage much before I was wheezing again), and weighed myself. I’ve put on a frightening amount of weight since I finished my two hundred miles in August. What good am I to those who rely on me if I’m a heart attack waiting to happen?

Time to do something about this. I’m still young (yes, I am, really… relatively speaking), no time like the present, so on and so forth. I just have very little will power though, this is the problem. But, I’ve got to try, I’ve got to do something.

The ‘Wars’ part of the title was going to be a critique of Star Wars, but that can wait. I think perhaps I need to watch it again before passing serious judgement.

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