Remembrance Day- Everlasting....

So I have just finished a bit of a hectic day at work, the store wasn't too busy but I seemed quite busy myself. Throughout today I have been thinking about what I could write for day 9 of the National Blogging Month challenge. Yesterday I managed to write a poem and today, well today I have been quite frankly stuck for ideas. Well until about 5 minutes ago so I thought I better write something now before my sudden burst of motivation goes. It sort of carries on from the theme of poetry I started yesterday and as it is Remembrance Sunday tomorrow it is kind of topical. A little background the poem is called Everlasting by Cindy Zhao who was amazingly only 14 when she wrote this and it won the Royal British Legion's War

Poetry Competition. I think you will agree how the style is simple yet effective and just sort of dances along. 

Everlasting...

His Version

The long, dark sky looms up ahead

As 2000 soldiers are not properly fed.

We fight and we hurt, to save others lives

But we go down like a bullet, there’s evil in knives

Blood pours out quickly across the sand

There’s nobody there to give a helping hand

We moan through the pain and we cry and we cry

And we say our prayers until we die

Trumpets ring true when the leaders arrive

We all stand up straight, we need to survive

My men surround me, all full of hope

But thinking back now, how would we have coped?

We hear news of survivors in our troupe

But it’s just a rumour going round a loop

We dress in black and mourn for the best

Even though it’s the one we all detest

Flashbacks appear when Christmas comes

And everyone is huddled together, we weigh tonnes

Tears drip down men’s cheeks, we weren’t born to cry

But sometimes it just ends up falling out of my eye

We say bye to loved ones as our happiness fades

We realise it was just a charade

And off once again to fight for rights

To fight for life in the starry nights.

Her Version

Huddled by myself, besides the warm fire

Makes my aching heart fill with desire

To see the man I truly love

As sweet as summer, as pure as a dove

His pictures sit on windowsills

Grinning, Laughing, giving me chills

As I can’t bear to think anymore

For he may be lost in the dreadful war

My heart doesn’t stop pounding, never skips a beat

I look out of the window, the bluebirds tweet

They sing their song, so happy inside

But I feel okay, I’m full of pride

Watching the TV screen with wide, open eyes

To see what’s really beyond the bright blue sky

As my best friend fights to save people’s lives

I just hope that he survives

A tear drips slowly from my eye

If he doesn’t come back I’m going to die

A newsflash breaks across the screen

It’s making a huge scene

The reporter says the war has ended

I scream and shout, it is intended

My wish, my dream, my hopes have come true

And someday they will for you…

My Version

She was waiting anxiously for him to arrive

But unfortunately he didn’t survive

The world had ended, their lives apart

But their souls forever connected, joined with their heart.

When I first heard this poem it was recited on Remembrance in Sheffield a few years ago, I haven't really read the poem that much since my second year when I used it for part of an Emotional Intelligence module. I was in a very sad and sombre state when I first heard this poem. Remembering people who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country is one thing but when you are there and it is the faces of some of your friends, their laugh, their voice, their smell that is the worst feeling in the world. It is sadness, guilt, despair all mixed in together. As I heard this poem I could really relate to the man in it, I was taken into the poem and that man was me. Although a feeling of depressiveness often occurs when I read this, the poem also gives me a sense of pride, of joy, of hope that there is something better out there. 

        

National Blog posting month

Admittedly I am a little late to the party but thats the cool thing to do right? If I am being honest I didn't even know this existed until I read about it in a friends blog Textbooks and Cliches. Seriously check her out, shes cool and aiming for a whole novel this month. Although I would love to try and do that one day, for now I am just aiming for a blog a day. I am fairly new to blogging so thought it would be a good way to just get into the habit of writing on a more consistent basis than I have in the past. It is not that I haven't had a fleeting thought for a blog post, a lot of it was just having the motivation to sit down and write something without others thinking it was stupid and pointless. I posted 6 times last month and had lots more ideas to write about so I know this everyday blog will be much more of a challenge. I aim to write the full 30 posts even though I am starting 5 days late. There is lots of tips and helpful hints from the blogging community on the NaBloPoMo website to hopefully see me through to the end. The good thing about blogging is that the topics can be as varied as you want. You only have to check out my other posts to see that :). 

All the best people arrive to the party late so why don't you get involved. You can sign up here NaBloPoMo Blogroll and don't worry if you don't already have a blogging site set up Wordpress  makes things really easy for you or if you already have a gmail account Blogger is useful and easy to use. What are you waiting for? Dive in and get blogging :). 

The Value of Love....

It has just gone 1 am and my brain won't switch off,  I have been thinking about a few things I wanted to write about while I was at work tonight but just kept dismissing them in turn but now I have just decided to write anyway and see where this takes me. If you have read my other posts, you can see by now I don't really have any logical order about the way I discuss things and just say what I am feeling or thinking about. 

 If you are a twitter user like me (@Stewart_Martin1) maybe you follow UberFacts. Well, according to one post I saw recently, love can be valued at $263,158 or £164,000 to those of us who like to keep things nice and British :). Now, I don't really agree that something like love can have a monetary value on it. People are worth lots more than any amount of money, whether it is friends, family or partners. They are all unique to us and part of our life stories in different ways. In the last 16 months or so I have lost 4 people who I loved all in unique ways that have disappeared out of my life story.

We all wonder that inevitable question "What If?" at various points of our lives. What if I had spent more time with someone?... What if I had said yes ... or even no? What if I had uttered I love you or told someone I loved them more?... What if I had shown more compassion... or even anger?  What if I did it all differently? Would this have changed anything? Perhaps, maybe I would feel less guilty about just little things I could've done differently before people died or simply walked out of my life for good. But the thing about the past is that it can not be changed, although I sometimes wish I had a time machine. We are all going to make mistakes in our lives, because that is what makes each of our lives unique, there was nobody like you on this earth before you and never will be again.

 If you are ever wondering What if? and are in a position to do something about it, than do it. Because life is to short for regrets. Say yes more, make contact with your old friends, don't be afraid to say I miss you, If you care about somebody than show them, always try to smile, tell people you love them and spend time with the people you treasure in your life.  I wish that I had lost £656,000 in the last year, that would have been so much easier to take away from me than the value of those people. Love is unique to each and every person which is what makes it so special I guess. No value should ever be given to the importance of love, it is priceless.  

What shall I do now?

I finished university in May and since then I have had plans to start a postgraduate course which fell through and so I find myself here. But where is here exactly? Well throughout my time at university studying I was lucky enough to have a job. For the past 3 years I have worked at my local DIY store, mainly at the weekends until recently. Now I find myself working full time hours there which obviously means more responsibility and more time spent there. I have always tried to do my best at work, especially when it comes to helping the customer. But since I have started full time I have been noticed more in doing a good job at work and appreciated by more colleagues. I have even been chosen along with 6 others to go to a trade show in Lille at the end of this week. But thats for a different blog. 
At the end of the summer in Malia, I did some soul searching and decided that I want to help people. The problem is I don't know where that is going to take me. I have a degree in International Business & Philosophy with an interest in just about everything. The choice that appealed to me the most at first was to be a teacher and help change the lives of young people. But whilst studying my degree I really liked the HR modules I did and helping people progress their career and  development seems also very interesting to me. The dreamer in me wants to change the world, so maybe a job in the Civil Service as a Diplomat is the right step to take? My current job is advertising for an "Aspire" programme to become a trading manager after an intensive 6 month course. I am currently applying for it, because strangely enough I actually enjoy my job. Its different everyday & I get to help people. Most of the people I have worked with over the past few years have made me have more passion for home improvement and our little store. Many graduates I know don't have a job at all so I know I am in a fortunate position to be able to apply for something like this. I am still not changing the world, but I've got the rest of my life to do that, right?  

                                      

Family Portrait

As I sit here listening to Prince on Spotify while trying to find the motivation to tidy my room up I glance at an old family photograph. It is from just over 3 years ago on my dad’s 60^th Birthday. All 6 of us happy and together enjoying a family occasion, I smile at the picture and then tears begin to roll down my cheeks. I only spoke to my youngest brother this morning yet I miss every single person in the picture & wish we were all living in our little house on Dryden Street all over again before everything fell apart. I focus on my dad wearing his favourite Liverpool shirt and his happy face. Before he died I have never worn a Liverpool shirt in my life, but after we all wore one for his funeral I find myself wearing it more and more often to remind me of my dad. A lot has happened in 3 years and that was truly the last time all my family were happy together.

When my dad died in October last year, I was the only one in the picture not by his bedside. Sometimes I feel glad that I was not there to see the pain on his face in that hospital bed, but then I feel guilty. I was the oldest child and should have been there for my other siblings and my mum. Over the last year I have tried to hold it all together though and be there for my family. Everything else clearly suffered, the friends I pushed away, the friends that ran away, the failed relationships and my degree classification show that. I listened to Churchill’s advice a lot, I was going through hell and the only way to get through it was to keep going. At times mentally I thought I was done for, but some friends have helped, especially the ones that are still around now. My family has drifted so I feel like I failed them as well. Keeping myself away from the reminders of my father everyday was my coping mechanism. Every time I went back to Burnley it hurt an awful lot after my father’s funeral. I do not mean to seem distant from friends there or my family, it just holds memories that upset me.

I haven’t visited all summer, I never took my nephew swimming like I promised or went for dinner with my siblings. I have just engrossed myself with working as much as possible and then got away to Malia at the end of the summer to have a blow out.. Recently I tried to organise some time away with my siblings but I might as well not have bothered. We are all slipping away from each other and that bothers me. It was met with much scepticism when I decided to study at university from lots of people. But 3 years later, I achieved what many people thought I could not see through to the end. I know I am not perfect and I have made lots of mistakes along the way, life is no rehearsal. I just wish I could see my father cry with pride one more time. 

Me, Adam (Youngest Brother), Mum, Dad, Kimberly and Jason

War, What is it good for?

As I sit here in Preston on a grey cloudy afternoon trying to focus on my dissertation my thoughts are 3000 miles away in the hot desert of Iraq. 10 years ago to the day since the country was invaded to fight a "war on terror”. 10 Years ago I was 15, still at school playing a silly amount of sports to keep me busy and doing well at school. By this point I had already decided that the army was going to be my future. Getting paid to play soldiers is good right?

I was bright enough to go to sixth form, my mentor and head of sixth form offered me the place there regardless of my upcoming GCSE results several times. I turned down the offer, I wanted to get away, carry on playing sport, have a good job and get paid for it. If any of you have ever been to Burnley, you might understand.

I had been 16 barely 3 months and I was walking through the gates of AFC Harrogate. 10 months I was there and to say I grew up in that time is more than an understatement. People say that coming to University is the transition from childhood to adulthood, a stint at AFC Harrogate will do that to anybody. My father died recently but the proudest day of my life thus far was seeing tears in his eyes as I marched passed him on finishing my training there. The memory is so vivid still and that was 9 years ago.  

Fast forward a few years, I am now 19 in a hot foreign land doing all the things we practised a million times in training. It might have been 35 degrees outside, but trust me that is better than -10 in the Brecon Beacons and snow. Compared to training these conditions were luxury, but the threat was very real. It wasn’t just a game anymore; people’s lives were at stake. To liberate a nation from an evil dictatorship who posed a serious threat to the world. Forget about the politics I was there to do a job and when it comes right down to very basic survival instincts what would you do? As it happens I did really believe I was fighting the good fight for a just cause.  While I was there, many things happened and sometimes the days felt like weeks and weeks felt like months. Every other day or so there would be a fire fight. I was only involved in one serious one and I know I was lucky that day. Some people were not so fortunate during my time there.

In the last year two of my closest friends have died whilst serving on operations. Both fighting the “War on terror” and both believing what they were doing was just and right. Every time I hear that a British serviceman has died I feel like a part of me has also died but for it to be somebody particularly close to me hurts beyond compare. One leaves behind a fiancée who is at a loss with the world and her career now and grieving in another continent as far away from this world as possible. She called me a hero and compared me to her dead boyfriend and one of my best friends. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I felt guilty at first and then immense pride. I don’t take compliments very well, I went to London in February and a stranger said a similar thing to me. It makes me very humble that people can hold me in that esteem. People like my friends are the real heroes though; they died fighting for a righteous cause that they believed in. Me, a hero? Pftt I am nothing but a mere man.     

I left the Army just before I was 21 after 4 and a half years, I didn’t want to leave but was medically forced to leave. Some people say that you can never let go of the army no matter how long you have been away. But it is the army that never lets go of you, it is always a part of your heart and your soul. Maybe I was the lucky one, I got away.