Can't give it away

You'd think I was offering some kind of suspicious freeware, not something to read or make, but I can't seem to even drum up a download of a free short story or cross stitch chart.  It's a most isolating feeling.  There is no catch.  I can tell when something's been downloaded, but I can't tell by whom.  If I'm lucky, my website stats will show me which country you're in.

Yes, I am ready to go back to work, and yes that's patently obvious from what I've been doing lately.  I've been told to wait until occupational health is in place among other things.  I've tried to get back and am now filling my time.  I'm slightly (if slightly means very) frustrated on that front.  I said some time ago I was ready and yet that was missed, so on Friday when I received an email saying I had to with the doctor's advice, I replied and said no, my GP is waiting to sign me off when you say so.  I have the emails here that state that.  That you replied to at the time, in fact.  The letters to OH hadn't even been sent yet.  I'm not blaming anyone or holding anyone personally responsible.  I just wish  things could be even a little bit less frustrating.  I'm sat here filling my days and testing my abilities and I can only imagine what my colleagues must think.  I'm trying to get back.  By the time I'm given the go ahead, I'll not have enough money to get there, so it could be interesting.

The return to work plan we'd devised so I build up in gradual steps hinges on my Mum giving me a lift there.  That she no longer can is the least devastating part of losing her.  It's weird.  I can't think of travelling in without thinking of her bright green Fiesta and every time I see that car in my mind's eye, I break down and cry.  Yes, I'm in tears now and trying to shift my attention to some other aspect of what I'm saying.

I've had to apply for state help to travel in when I get back to the office.  Working from home is still but a dream, even on days when I have little strength to travel in.  The thing is, as long as I have access to a computer and an Internet connection, I can do my job.  I could have been doing it at least part time for months now.  But working from home, even with doctor's recommendations looks highly unlikely.  It's not a case of having the strength to sit and work.  The early start, the getting ready, the travelling in - they take a lot out of me before I even start to do any work. 

I still have vertigo.  That's unlikely to ever go away.  Imagine your head is already spinning and you have to travel at motorway speed for sometimes forty-five minutes to an hour then walk to the building and then get in a lift and make your way to your desk over patterned carpet with strip-lighting overhead.  Just imagine it for a minute and ask yourself how that would set you up for a day of reading and writing on a screen where the background noise messes with your confused hearing so that you keep looking up because it seems like someone is yelling right in your ear even though they're on the other side of the room or you can't tell the person next to you from the humming office noise.  Now imagine what it would do for you if you could do your job without putting yourself through that.  You'd turn out three and four times as much work.  But the option isn't there.  Are you frustrated now?

Yet I'm willing to put myself through that every day and I'm told I have to wait when for so long I've been asked when I anticipate getting back.  So not only can I not give free downloads away, I also can't seem to give my gainfully employed skills and services away.  How did this happen to me?  When did the angel/demon of destiny look in and decide that I should be always kept in this little box?  It might have written or phoned first and saved me a whole lot of bother.