138 views and counting

I refer to my film, "Old Git Goes Green", now appearing on You Tube at a computer near you. It hasn't gone viral just yet, but my wife informs me that that can take some time, so I'll be patient. I'm already delighted so many people have seen it. I put its success down largely to my friend Pat's skill at having put together a beautifully tight little six minutes from the 50 minutes of digital "rushes" he had available to him.
Interestingly, he didn't include my little confession that my recycling initiative is in part expiation for the thousands of cigarette butts I have tossed in the gutter or thrown from my car window in the nearly 50 years I have been a smoker.

Regarding that, I do have 1 thing in my favour: cigarettes bio-degrade, even the filters, in about 2 years; so, within 2 years of my death (or my giving up smoking, if that ever happens), all trace of my smoking will have re-entered the carbon cycle, unlike the glass, plastic and aluminium I've been collecting, which will take hundreds, or even thousands of years to re-incorporate into the environment, causing lasting damage to living things in the process.

Yesterday saw asignificant little marker in my life. I saw my psychiatrist for the last time. I have felt for some time now that I have reached an emotional plateau, where I am reasonably stable and even passably happy some of the time. This, I sense, is as good as it's going to get and that things are unlikely to change now, unless of course something unforeseen happens, which is always possible in a human life.

So I have cast out on my own, no longer believing I need his help to get through. I just hope I'm right. He did, bless him, offer his services at any time in the future should I think I need them, and when I thanked him for all his help over the past 5 years, he, in return, wanted me to know that I had "taught him many valuable things over the years".
Ain't that cute?