Believe me, I know how strange this sounds coming from someone who’s spent the last two months writing about the various different ups and downs in his live, but just now I’m finding it unbelievably hard to find the right words to describe just how happy I’m feeling.

This is one of those periods of life that just make you sit back and smile – to count your blessings and realise that the world is not really a big, evil place that intent on wearing you down, but rather that if you put yourself in the right position to be the master of your own destiny and you look at the world from the right perspective, things will sooner or later start to swing your way.

I can also appreciate how bizarre it might sound for someone who is currently waiting for someone else to die so that he can have a chance of a fresh, new tilt at life to even begin to decribe himself as the master of his own destiny.

But success or failure, good or bad, up or down is all a matter of perception.

Paul McKenna, in numerous published writings (not least Change Your Life in 7 Days, which I would recommend to anyone, even the most sceptical of self-help depreciators) cites the words of Thomas Edison when questioned as to how he felt after failing for the 700th time in his attempt to invent the electric light:

“I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated all the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”

Right now, in as much as these things matter to me, everything is going my way:

I’m back living at home in my lovely little flat with my girlfriend whom I’m very much in love with and I’m honoured to say is very much in love with me.

I’m working on 3 projects which not only motivate and excite me, but also give me aims, objectives and reasons to keep well.

My chest is behaving exactly as I expect it to.  It’s not ever going to fire on all cylinders again, but that’s why I’m on the transplant list.  All I can ask it to do now is support me as best it can until such time as God sees fit to call time on these knackered old blowers and give me a fresh set.

I’m surrounded by people whom I love and who love me back – my friends are fantastic and don’t ever make me feel bad for not being able to join in  things, nor complain when I pull out of things at the last minute; my family all go out of their way to do whatever I need of them, no matter how little or unreasonable; people I work with make huge allowances for what I can and can’t do and never bat an eyelid or make me feel like I’m stretching their patience (even when I know I must – I stretch my OWN patience with some of the last-minute turnarounds, it can’t be easy for others to deal with).

Every once in a while all the pieces in your life seem to align just so – like the planets and the sun, or the cogs of a machine – and for a moment life seems just right.  And it’s so, so, so important to seize that moment, to recognise it for what it is: fleeting perfection of it’s own kind which will last but a flicker, but if you see it and grasp it, it will last forever in the memory.

I’m under no illusions that this will continue unabated; I know there will be trouble ahead – harder times, darker times, more challenging and less fun times, but damned if I’m not going to enjoy the good stuff while it’s here.

Like the song says: while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance, I’ll be the one on the dance floor.