Reflections on a wasted life!

In a couple of weeks time it will be my 60th Birthday.

Getting older doesn't bother me; it never has. It's just a number, after all.

What does bother me, is simply that I have done nothing with my 60 years on this planet.

I have simply existed for all these years, day after day, week after week, year after year.

I have nothing to look back on; well nothing worth looking back on.

The cancer diagnosis in 2009 that has left me with an almost zero quality of life for the past 13+ years is nothing to smile about.

I often think back to when I was 16 and about to leave school. That transition time when you go from being a schoolchild to being an adult and venturing out in the big wide world.

It was a scary time. Being expected to act like you were grown up but still feeling like a child.

It was bad enough then but I'd hate to be a 16 year old now with all the added pressure that there is around.

The thought of leaving school and going out into the big wide world was very scary. Being expected to be responsible with money, get a job etc.

I decided to enrol in college as a sort of halfway step so I did 2 years at catering college and felt a bit more mature when I left there at 18 and then entered the big wide world.

Looking back, I don't think I ever really had any ideas what I wanted to do with my life. I came from a family where it was kind of expected that, as a female, you'd just get married and have kids. There was never any talk about planning for the future or expectations of going to university or having a career.

I did want to travel though and see the world but that never happened. 

Instead, I left home at 19 and married at 20.

So as I reflect on the past 60 years, it is done so with an awful lot of regret & sadness.

I have done nothing of any major worth; I don't feel like I have accomplished anything of any significance.

I have just existed; one day after the other.

I don't normally believe in having regrets but in this instance I do regret not living my life more fully.

No-one is to blame, its just circumstances that led to other circumstances.

Now, its too late to change things.

They say that there is only one thing that is certain in life - and that is that one day you will die.

I don't fear that day at all.

When you can't prove who you really are.

Hello again, it's been a while since I last posted but things have been a bit hectic here lately.

I try to do regular scans on my laptop but over recent months it has slipped my mind somewhat however towards the end of last month I sat down early one Sunday morning with a mug of hot coffee & logged on. I set the scan in motion and when it had done I logged onto my emails and checked through them and then went to log into FB.

Thats when the problems started. 

I have 2 step verification set up (which I am told gives you that extra bit of security against scammers etc.) so this entailed FB texting me a code that I needed to enter in order to log into my account. After 5 minutes, there had been no text!!

Now you need to know that my mobile is a very basic one. It does text messages & calls; it is pay as you go; has no camera or internet connection & cost me £8. It is there for emergencies and is rarely used other than for getting text messages from FB or paypal with verification texts!!!

So, no text from FB with this all important verification code. I check the phone, battery  is charged, signal looks ok but just to be on the safe side I walk around the room, into the hallway and even out of the front door into the garden as we sometimes have signal interuptions here on our little scottish island.

Still no text message from FB. So I decide to call our home phone from the mobile. I get a message appear on the phone saying "emergency calls" only.

You may probably guess by now that I am not very techy at all. Infact I really hate technology and the way it controls our lives (but thats a whole other blog post!!)

Anyway, I decide to log onto the vodafone website & see if I can "chat" to an adviser. Turns out they use a chatbot who keeps telling me that they don't understand my question so I type "Can I speak to a human please?"

A couple of minutes later I am "talking" to Haania who, after taking me details asks me for the 1st 2 and last 2 letters of my memorable name!!!

Oh come on, you are talking to someone who can't remember what day of the week it is let alone what memorable name I used when I set up an account 15 years ago!!!!

After giving me a few prompts I finally manage to dig back into the depths of my memory and provide the correct letters.

Now, as I said earlier, my mobile is only for emergencies and rarely gets used. The last time it was topped up was with £10 when I went into hospital in Oct. 2020 and there was probably around £6 of that credit left so it came as no real surprise when the lovely Haania told me that my number had been deactivated due to not having been used for the previous 180 days!!

She said she would arrange for a new SIM card to be sent to me which would solve all my problems apparently. 

I asked if I could keep my old number and explained that it was registered with FB and other accounts and she said she needed to speak to her superviser about it and would be back in a couple of minutes.

This was my cue to dash to the loo as I was desperate after drinking a huge mug of coffee. I came back to find her typing a reply.

Her supervisor had said that when the new SIM card arrived I should log on to activate it and then they would arrange for me to transfer back to my old number.

OK, that seemed reasonable. I could go a few days without being able to log into FB.

The new SIM arrived 5 days later due to the Bank Holiday and I went back on the vodafone website to activate it only to be told by another person that it was not possible to swap back to my old number and that I should not have been told that I could and he was going to report Haania for telling me that I could.

I felt awful for the poor woman, despite me not being able to get into my FB account.

Vikram told me that old numbers go to be "recycled" & "cleaned" of all data and are then re-issued but he said he would double check to see if my old number was still available. 

Sadly it was not, and I also discovered that my unused credit had been wiped too along with all my saved messages & contacts as he said the old SIM had been wiped too so I had to put £10 credit on the new number and start all over again.

So, I had sorted out the phone issue but I was still not able to log into my FB account.

I tried to contact FB but it seems that you need to log in in order to do that so I tried to find an email address to contact them but every email I had from them had a "no reply" address so I tried reaching out to them via DM's on Twitter & Instagram but got no response.

According to FB, if you have 2 step verification and can't access your account or receive the code via text you can submit 2 documents that verify your idendity.

Thats when I hit the next problem. It says that the documents need to be in the name that appears on the FB account.

I am known to most people as Kaz but my real birth name is Karen and that is the one that is used for all offical stuff like GP records, utility bills (although most of them are done online) etc. I also do not have a driving licence or a valid passport (the old one expired over 15 years ago). They also wanted at least one document with date of birth on. 

Well, the ony document with my date of birth on is my birth certificate but that has my full maiden name on!!

Eventually after many swear words and lots of tears of stress I found a couple of documents that I thought would be enough. We currently did not have a working scanner so I had to take photos of them and upload them only to discover that FB would not accept them.

So I ended up having to order a new all in one printer which took 3 days to arrive!!

We are now up to Friday 12th May. The new printer has arrived, has all been set up (cue more swear words, broken nails & endless cups of coffee to keep me sane!!)

Documents are scanned, submitted and provisionally accepted. I get a message onscreen to say I will hear from FB in around 48 hours.

6pm on Sunday 14th I get an email saying that 1 of the documents was not suitable (but they don't say which one) and I should submit again. It's also a "no reply" email so I have no way of finding out which document is not suitable.

It is now over 2 weeks since I lost access to my FB account. Its not just my personal account that is at stake here. I run several pages including my womb cancer support organisation page - none of which I can access.

I have precious photos of my Mom on FB, messages from friends who have passed away and 15 years worth of memories. It's how I connect with friends & family.

There has been a lot in the news over recent weeks about people here in UK not being allowed to vote because of new rules bought in that require valid photo id of voters in order for them to exercise their democratic right to be able to vote.

This morning I have submitted more documents to FB in the hope that they will be accepted & I can gain access once again to my account.

If I do get back in, the first thing I will need to do is update my mobile phone details otherwise we'll be back to square one.

I hate technology.

UPDATE - I finally got back into my FB account on 19th May. 😃