In the last couple of weeks I have been having problems with the internet, the download speed has dropped to a ridicules 3.7 and I had simply had enough of it. I hadn’t even been on our providers web site for years, so of course I had forgotten my password and there was only one choice to reset, once that was done, I logged in with two things in mind, firstly to find out if we still were in contract to them and second who to complain to. Much to my surprise I had just clicked on the complaints tab, when it took over and ran a speed test, telling me we should have a down load speed or 12.5, it was our router that is causing the problems. I hadn’t even really considered the router as a possibility, although I did rebooted it just the other day, just in case and when there was no improvement or change, I put it firmly back in the “Talk Talks” domain and therefore fault. It is strange how disappointing it can be once you have prepared for dealing with a company who I have had run ins with in the past, where I was always proved correct in the end, to find that there was going to be no satisfaction of getting them to do as I instructed, highly disappointing, especially when the fault was squarely in my court.

Our router has to be over 10 years old so the possibility of it dying is highly likely. “Talk Talk” also instantly on screen offered me a free replacement, one that on checking it out only had one LAN connection and I know we need 4. We don’t use wifi, I just don’t trust it, so I have now bought and am waiting for an updated version of the one we already have, to arrive. The down side, simple, I remember that setting it up was a nightmare, as I had to apply access codes and select an array of settings to get it to work, none of course do I have any memory of at all. I know I can access the router from my PC, but this isn’t the PC I set it up from and I have no memory at all of the passwords or anything else. So this is going to be fun! With my brain having degraded along with the router, I have no idea how long it will take to set up the new one. It was the kind of job that I would have relished the idea of just a few years ago, having to work it all out and play about until I had it doing exactly what I wanted it to, but now I am actually feeling almost totally the opposite about the whole thing, this feels like a nightmare waiting to happen. I guess I will have to do a bit of Googleing before I even start, forewarned and all that, makes a lot of sense when you are talking about my precious internet access!

So much has change in those 10 years that that router has been in our home, it’s really strange to think back to the time when I bought it and I was so proud of having what at the time was the best of the best. I can look round our home and tell you almost how long we have owned any individual object, but so many of them still feel so new, until I try to think about what they have been witness to. I know that sounds like an odd way of looking at belongings, but it really does put into perspective their place in my life timeline. I have a cabinet in the corner of the living-room which has glass doors on it, something that is actually a really stupid way of displaying anything, as unless you stand right in front of it, you can’t really see what it holds. What it holds are some of the oldest of my memories, a collection of dragons, from tiny to quite sizeable and chunky, a collection that started with my previous boyfriend before I met Adam. At one point they were my proudest possessions, they were placed around the house where everyone could see them, not hidden away, where only I and Adam know they are. As much as I still love them, my taste changed slightly and somehow like all past relationships, they just didn’t fit in my life any longer, so they found their way into a visible box, holding their memories in one place, not forgotten just sidelined, like so much of all our pasts. I suppose we all do that, if not with real object but with out past, somehow as we move on with a new partner we push all those years spent with other people into a box, where they live in our memory, not really spoken about, almost as though there is a rule that says that what you did in those years was wrong, as you weren’t with the person who shares your life now. Why is it for example I can talk about my past as much as I like if I am talking about my health, but it is not the done thing to talk about the people who were important to us at that time? We all have history, but life says we have to be selective about how we talk about it, almost as though it would be an insult to where we are now, to even admit there was once something else in it’s place.

I wish it was so easy to pack up my health and stick it away, unfortunately no matter how hard I have tired it is the one constant through out my life, that I have never been able to sideline in anyway. 10 years ago I had an active and sharp mind that could deal with anything that I threw at it, now I have a brain that is scared of just undoing something that has to be replaces. 10 years ago, I could get in and out of this house with ease, well with a walking stick, but I could still walk. 10 years ago I was still working and with this being April I would be starting my Spring cleaning, washing walls and ceilings, emptying cupboards and sorting out my entire home for the rest of the year. 10 years ago, I was still me, I had MS, I was in pain, but I was still active, still slim and still part of the outside world. The years all past and all seen by many things in our home, 10 years ago we were shifting out the old and buying new, making our home ours, replacing the items that came with us, to items that were us and ours, rather than his and mine. When I think about it, the time that router arrived was a time of huge change and when I think about it, it’s a piece of plastic that for now I just can’t get out of my head.

02/04/12 – Rounding off yesterdays pain. > http://bit.ly/1lBAi1u