Tinkerbell

Now there's an irony: it came to me that it might be a good idea to talk to you about my old friend Tinkerbell, you know, the fairy who needed the constant reassurance of applause to affirm that she existed, when I realised I hadn't been here for just over two weeks. Obviously, the applause must have died down to the extent that I felt I had ceased to exist. I do exist and, as it happens, and as I think you know, I very much enjoy writing, communicating, via this blogspot. So, please, keep the comments coming and the SiteMaster clocking up and this particular Tinkerbell need have no fears of fading in to non-existence. You may say the whole Peter Pan thing is implicit in a blog called 75going0n40, but I don't really think so because 40, in itself, is mature enough. The predicament, as I see it, is not in the emotional discrepancy so much as in the physical. Eventually, it risks losing its funny sense when the Guru says he'll just go down the road and buy a parking ticket while I get out of the car.

The inspiration for Tinkerbell thoughts was actually my computer, or, anyway, its mouse. You will have noticed that the computer and I have, at best, an uneasy relationship. This very morning something locked so that I couldn't move the little arrow at all, in any direction and very often it is floating wilfully about, totally unresponsive to my attempts to give it direction. The Guru routinely insists I must have done something and I have determined to buy a video camera to record my time - and movements - while I am communing with the Wizard of Cyberspace, because, NO, I have done NOTHING. Things just happen. I have tried shortening its cable. I have tried lengthening its cable. I have tried picking the mouse up and starting again. I have tried setting The Cat on its trail. Nothing works. It does its Tinkerbell thing and vanishes off the margin of the screen up, no doubt, in to Cyberspace where it carves another notch on the bar of the Wizard's wand. At its most benevolent, it wanders off the line to one above. If, like me, you don't touch-type, you can, unwittingly, type a whole phrase bang in to the middle of a previous one without noticing. Example: uneasyCyberspeace becauserelationshipCat.

Now, I need to confess, that, as it happens, I do have a soft spot for Tinkerbell. Hers is a phenomenon I am familiar with, as are all of you, I suspect. It is to do with the difficulty of establishing, in such a way that there is never going to be any room for doubt, that you are a person capable of being loved. There is any number of reasons why this belief fails to gell. You may just have learned to trust that you are the centre of the universe when a little sibling arrives. How many people do you know whose search for perfect love and therefore security leads them in to serial relationships and permanent disatisfaction? Family, in the love and support sense, may never have occured for you. An early 'mistake' may have left you feeling worthless. You don't really need me to go on with the obvious, but, clearly, there is a way in which we all need reassurance from time to time that we are loved, therefore we exist and Tinkerbell's insistence that, for her, only the applause will provide that assurance and reassurance, is perfectly justified. Perhaps my little arrow does have a life of its own, or, perhaps it just knows that I cannot love it unequivocally...yet.