Bad Days / Good Days

 Today is one of the bad days. It is pay day. It should be a good day. However, paying mortgage on a house you no longer live in as well as rent for a flat where you do live is exhausting. I am exhausted. I am once again on the verge of giving up. But that is not an option. It would be so much easier to just quit, but that would mean art unmade, words unwritten and life unlived. It is not an option, no matter how tempting it may be.

I am drowning under a mountain of debt. A mountain built high upon so many past mistakes and bad choices. Mistakes and choices I could easily forget existed back when I was perma-baked. But as I am no longer smoking cannabis, it is a lot more difficult to pretend those errors were not made, those decisions were not taken and that the debt did not exist.

Denial is so much easier when you are stoned. Confronting reality is one incredibly difficult task.

A task made that much more difficult by the turning of the season. The gloom is powerful today, inside and out. Rain is threatening, yet fails to fall. It is a perfect metaphor for my internal turmoil. 

I have to confront what drove me to this place and all of it is my responsibility.  I cannot outsource my responsibility, not any more. I need to own my choices and the paths that I have taken that have led me to where I find myself. 40 years old and for all intents and purposes, an objective failure.

Failure in my marriage. Failure in my art. Failure in my life.  Failure in my finances. I have taken all the privilege that life can give a person and I have fully squandered it. Whether that has been substance abuse, ignorance, stupidity, video games or choosing to marry the wrong woman, all of it is on me.

I need to own that in order to move forward.

I need to own that in order to squeeze out the poison in my mind that may still influence poor choices in the future.

She is not a bad person. I want her to be. She simply isn't. It would be easier if she was. That is certainly true. But, given the fact I still love her, calling her names, screaming, shouting and raging or even simply weeping, won't help move forward and beyond bad days like this.

Once more, however, I have no clue how to move forward and beyond other than through hard work, discipline, exercise and the continued mantra of: "out with the negative and in with the positive". Words I repeat again and again as I walk to work, haunted by her memories, as I walk home from work, to an empty bed, absent her memory and her fragrance.

I want to be alone to find myself, but I also want companionship to forget. It is an awful knife edge on which I walk away from misery and towards mental health. And I really want to give and just curl into a ball, smoke fat joints, drink whisky, and forget. But that helps no one. It in no way aids the creation of art.

And that, to my mind, is the purpose of this awful purposelessness. 

Art.

There is no meaning here apart from the meaning we create. This in turn places heavy responsibility on all of our shoulders to make certain that the meaning we create is worth it. And not just shallow consumable rubbish that merely exists to fill the vacuum of meaning which predates us all, us ponderous primates plodding through infinity towards an impossible destination of hope. 

So, today has been a bad day. I had to speak to her. I got angry and said things I only half mean. Any thoughts of her are so entangled in her choice to choose another.

"I chose me" she says.

I disagree. 

But, that is her path, not mine. At one stage, it was our path, as we were a we. A team of two. Us against the world. And that meaning was so comforting and useful. Now, set against its failure and collapse, I need to find a new path, a new meaning. By myself and for myself. Even when on bad days such as this, days which will inevitably occur, all I want is to quit and stagnate, it is on these days when hands need to be raised, shoulders squared and backbone firmed, raise head up and say to the universe:

"out with the negative and in with the positive"

Again and again until no breath is left with which to speak and repeat.

Today was a bad day. A reminder of my failures. But it was also a good day, because it also reminded me just how much work I still have to do to be worthy of this life and to pay back the privilege that I so thoughtlessly have squandered. 

Train Tracks

 

On the other side

of the tracks,

row on disorganized row,

orange trees grow,

shadowed by rain threatening clouds,

silver chain linked fingers

reaching for the dark against the sky.

I thought to capture it with a photo,

a quick snap,

to store in time,

the finite and temporary moment

of Now,

0.5 seconds ago.

Too late it is gone,

a mere disintegrating and

degenerating memory, particle by

memory particle.

Decomposed into neurological

dust blown fading into

nothing.

Would a picture have been any different?

Warm Autumn Sun

 The warm autumn sun

mixes winter's memories

with summer's hope.

A spring with which to move forward

and away

from the dark nights,

prisoner to memory,

captive to the past.

Progress comes,

like a cloud bank of pain,

unpredicted, yet inevitable.

Like life.

The cold air wrapping around

form, 

like clothes made by remembering,

chills skin and flesh.

Bites at neck,

freezes exposed ears.

Yet through the harsh edges,

emerges liquid and spilling sun,

through the biting morning air,

to warm what is left,

reminding us that endings,

are ever there.

And for now, 

experience the warmth,

for this too,

will pass.

And fade,

into just another memory

of what once was now.

I hate, but do not want to.

 

I hate that I still love you.

I wish I didn't.

But I do.

I hate that I cannot bring myself

to hate you.

You are still so much of a part

of me.

And here you rest, forever,

inside of my deepest parts.

I hate how much I miss you,

I wish you were near.

In my bed, next to me,

sleeping. Calm.

But you are not. You chose someone else.

Not me.

But here you are.

Deep inside the heart of me.

Forever beating an off rhythm

drum pound of heartache

and loss.

I hate myself for loving you still

despite what you did.

I wish I didn't.

I wish I could move on

and leave you behind.

But I cannot.

You are still here. Inside of me,

driving continued bad choices

and poor decisions.

So much a part of me that I don't know

where I end and you begin.

I hate that it is over between us

when it shouldn't be.

When it doesn't need to be,

but is.

I wish I was there, next to you,

holding you.

But I am not.

And I cannot, because it is done.

Final finality of termination of contract.

Brutal efficiency in the death of us.

The death of trust.

I hate that I cannot love again.

That part of my heart

has been soldered shut

by the awful ending of us.

Severed nerve endings spark pain

and torment.

A never ending cycle of what if

and maybe.

I hate that I continue to hate.

It was my anger and disappointment in failure

that drove you into his heart

and drove me out of yours.

I can see that now.

I want to move on from that

bitter

angry

and toxic person

that drove you away.

I want to be free of hate

open to love

open to living

open to new heartache.

But still,

here you are,

not here,

but here.

And I hate that.

Alcohol and Tobacco (part 2)

I went out again last night. I met people. They were fun. We had fun. They laughed. I laughed. It was... fun. I made the mistake of buying tobacco. And beer. Now I am pretty much broke until Monday night. This is a fairly not ideal place to find yourself in financially at the age of 40. But, hey, it was fun, so it was worth it, right?

The thing is, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I have been married for nearly ten years, together since 2004 or 2005 (it was a bit of a blur). Then in January 2021 I discovered firm evidence of infidelity. This kinda sucked. A whole fucking shit tonne if I am perfectly honest. When confronted with this evidence, my wife (I have no idea what to refer to her as: ex / estranged. Who fucking knows? I sure as shit do not) kindly explained to me that her action of betrayal was in large part my fault. I am a difficult man, to put it lightly. Fair enough. I own my problems.

However, having gained distance from her through moving to a new city and leaving her and our four dogs (whom I miss tremendously, both her and the dogs, but mostly the dogs), I have been inspecting myself and interrogating who I am. This is what these writings are for, an open and honest engagement with self to discover self and to heal self. I want to be healthy inside and out. I want to be positive and good. These things are far from easy. In fact, it is possibly the hardest thing I have ever done.

In so doing, I have stopped smoking cannabis. Again, one of the hardest things I have done. But, my great fear now is that I am merely replacing one vice with two: alcohol and tobacco. As such I guess now is as good a time as any to get into my relationship with Mary Jane.

We First met when I was 14 or 15. Again, a bit of a blur.

I was / am a massive nerd. And I was a nerd before it was cool. Seriously. Johannesburg in the 90's was not the place for nerddom. There were no comicons, no gatherings of like minded nerds, no acceptance and despite recently getting over a fairly intolerant legal system, there was very little tolerance of "other". We were social pariahs and outcasts. Add to that the fact that I was a fairly chunky youngster, a kid who had lived in England, so I sounded different and then there is my name: Garrick. It is an odd name. In Johannesburg odd and different made you a target for bullying. And bullied I was . It was not the most fun. One such example that still sticks with me was the transformation of my name: "Gay Rick is a brain dead blowfish." Yes, very witty and intelligent burn. I was fat, and acted stupid to try to fit in as a stranger trying simply to make friends. That is all I ever wanted. To fit in.

This lead me to Dungeons and Dragons. Fantasy novels. Video games. Escapism. Good times if I am honest. I loved DnD. It was a world I could escape into where I defined myself. A dark and brooding mercenary who always fought for the good guys who were too weak to fight for themselves. Totally not an expression of my own situation. Not. At. All. The problem being the fact that my family is deeply religious. An Irish Catholic family with strong roots and connections to the Catholic church. Now, in the mid 90's the Satanic Panic that started in the 80's in the USA came late to South Africa. Much like a lot of things because of the political, social and cultural isolation of South Africa because of this thing, I don't know if you've heard of it, called Apartheid.

I remember quite distinctly, my father coming home from one of his church meetings in which he had discovered how DnD was a gateway to Satan worship. This sounds pretty cool. In reality, DnD was just a group of losers that gathered at one or the other's home over the weekend to escape the reality of being losers. Rolling dice and pretending they were something they weren't. I loved it. But then it was banned. And when things were banned in my house, it meant a complete and utter banning, no half measures in my family.

This did not make me happy. I was an obedient young man at that point so I fully intended to listen to my father.

However, that first weekend, I went to my friend's home to tell the group I could no longer play DnD with them. They didn't really care much. That was in large part due to the fact that one of them had been given some of this green stuff called "weed" by a friend at his school. I think this must have been my first year of high school. I remember the night quite clearly. We had no idea what we were doing. I think we rolled our first joint in Mad Money (from the board game). We smoked it as best as we could. We made pizzas. I think. It all gets a bit hazy after that.

And then we played DnD stoned. Well, we tried to at least. This was my first act of disobedience and more would follow after this point and after this joint.

I instantly fell in love with Mary Jane. She offered me the best form of escape. With Mary Jane in my life, the name calling, the bullying, the occasional beatings could all easily be escaped with a puff or two of that wonderful stuff.

Everything in my life took a very significant second place to her. As a result, shortly after this point my entire life revolved around her. I started smoking every single day from the age of 16 to 40, with only perhaps a month or two in between without.

Here is the problem with making a substance illegal: when you want to buy alcohol for example, the shop only sells alcohol, when you want to buy an illegal substance, the dealer is likely to sell more than one. And this was certainly true in the case of cannabis in Johannesburg. So at 16, I very quickly went from cannabis to other substances. For the purpose of this entry I will not go into specifics. These may be raised at a later time. Within a year, I had experienced the loss of my first of many friends due to this very rapid escalation of drug use.

Mary Jane took me from DnD, to a variety of different substances, then after many years of blurred stupidity, she take me off of those other substances, she even introduced me to the woman who would later become my wife (or whatever definition is suitable given the current state of... affairs). 

From the age of 16-40 Mary Jane was my everything. So, in order to be objective, it wasn't my wife that had the first extra marital affair. It was me and Mary Jane.

Now for the conclusion. I have ended my relationship with her after all these years. She still lives on the periphery and certain new people in my life are in a committed relationship with her and we still bump into each other from time to time. Despite this, she is not in my bed, in my thoughts and motivator to my actions. She is just someone that happens to be there. Again, quitting her has been one of the hardest things I have done, and I have quit quite a few things more addictive than her.

Then there is alcohol and tobacco. I am finding them even more difficult to leave behind for the sake of my health, both mental and physical. They are both ubiquitous with socializing. You cannot go out and meet people without the two of them being there. And for a person who has such an addictive personality as mine, that is problematic to say the very least. I need to leave them both behind in order to take me that little bit further down the path away from depression and towards awesomeness instead.

I just don't know how to be sober. I don't know how to not want to escape reality into a world of make believe. I do not know how to confront the reality of all of the awful blurred memory mistakes I have made that have lead me to this place, here and now, where I find myself. Nonetheless, nothing will stop me from trying.

For one simple fact: I will never stop trying to not be shit and striving to be awesome instead.

Complicated Airflow

 complicated airflow

with vibration attached , intonation fixed rhythm clusters.

there is no meaning here

apart from what we bring to the

table.

I find myself unable to put together

the monstrosity of thought made real

through meaning.

But now deceiving,

deliberately misleading.

This rocket ship launch of possibility

turned inward in an insidious awfulness of

certainty.

Certain these self defined thoughts and meanings are

Real, are

True.

But yours are not.

And as such I have to beat you,

break you down to the pulpy fleshy inners

re-write your code until you are me.

Until all are me due to my certainty.

And upon such moment to occur,

I will tear myself in two in order

to have more murder.

For that is what I crave, even though I deny it,

I've tried fighting it

all to no avail,

without fail.

This is my destination, my journey

my awful and awe filled

tremendous undertaking.

Out to greener pastures,

a phalanx fortified position to exterminate

all except for myself.

And then I shall will myself to ill health.

Death included.

Free without fail, the numerical advantage

in this self defined

self advertised and self constructed

self catastrophe.

"It's hard coming home to an empty house"

 I am trying really hard to maintain my positive outlook. I have turned over a new leaf, yet still, my darkness shines through. Work is the hardest place to stay upbeat, shiny and happy. Take today for example. It was a colleague's birthday, he had bought chocolates for the staff to share. Sweet, I know. But, I am starting the path to awesome with my body. I want my body to be as healthy as my mental health. The beer and smokes do not fucking help, that much is for certain. Two days ago, I pushed my training a bit too far and tweaked my right leg, so today I had to skip training. That sucked! Which brings me to the wonderful gesture of the chocolates. I said no due to the fact that I want my rippedness to shine through baggy clothes even. One of the teachers I went out and had a few beers with told me that is the reason I'm such a depressed fellow, because all I do is work and exercise. 

I told him, I am not depressed! I am a shiny and happy effervescent sort of chap. 

He laughed.

This was challenging to say the least!!! I thought I was was putting my best foot forward, yet no matter how far forward said foot is placed, my darkness seems to get there first. I honestly thought I was doing a better job at healthily processing it, through writing and exercising than I am in fact doing.

It was quite a firm reminder that I have so much more work to do!

Then I had a private lesson with one of the most amazing students I have had the good fortune of being able to work with. An artist who is beautiful inside and out. She makes me feel good about myself and I make her laugh. A joyful laugh free from darkness. It feels so good. She makes me feel good. An hour feels like a minute in her presence!

But then that joy filled hour ends and I have to go home. This means a ten minute walk through life filled happy streets of couples, families and beauty. And I am confronted by this painful truth: all I can do is think of her and her radiant beauty and then I know, she is not thinking of me. 

No one is.

I am walking to an empty apartment of me, myself and my dark edged thoughts.

No one really cares. Why should they? Am I worthy of being thought of in any way?

Probably. But how do you find that person who thinks of you when you are not around? It was so much easier in youth, but post 40, it becomes increasingly challenging. Impossible? No. Hopefully.

This is my journey which I am documenting, from a place of bleak self loathing towards a place where I can define my value, where I can define myself, where I can love myself and maybe someone else.

I want that very much. I want to love and I want to be loved. However, I am concerned that my hard edged survival defined persona is a stumbling block to letting anyone close or in. It is an awful tightrope upon which I find myself. On either side of me, there are dizzying depths of darkness waiting to swallow me and there I am, refusing to fall, refusing to quit and refusing to give up my quest to find myself outside of the certainty of a twenty yearlong relationship that I was responsible for ending because of my darkness, my anger and my hard edges.

Now that I have said it, now that I have expressed it, it is no more or less difficult to move forward. Stagnation is not an option. Loneliness is my companion for now and hopefully I can find myself to be my guide out. And once out, hopefully I can find a place where that someone who thinks of me when I am not around can be found. But I cannot use that person as a compass. There are no compasses. There are no randomly aligned stars in the sky to guide me home.

I am my compass. 

I just hope I am not so far gone that my internal compass is of no use at all.

To conclude, even in the face of clearly confronted challenges to growth, I cannot give up. Not now. I am not as close to being internally happy enough for it to show on the outside, but that cannot stop me from trying to get to that place. I just kinda wish I knew how to get there and be happy. 

Alcohol and Tobacco

Alcohol and tobacco

fun times and friendly friends,

sounds like this is it,

where I do not want to be.

But to see truth for truth

means so much more

than invisible ink scratching

words never meant.

Messages never sent

intended to but lost in the scent

the smell of you

so clearly cleansed.

Clean bed sheets and memories

gradually and grudgingly 

given over to new

memories formed.

But there is no one here

with whom to share

and no one to care

just loneliness tugging on strings.

Drawing closed and pain filled

thoughts and reminders

of you

and all that has been lost.

No matter the cost.

Here Comes The Missing

 Here comes the missing stage, the stage in which I miss her.

I cannot stop thinking about what it was like: the comfort, the contentment and the closeness. I very much miss her and our dogs. All four of them. I even miss having to sleep in the tiniest corner of the bed, fighting for even the smallest bit of space as we all did our best to fit. 

I miss that connection. That contact. 

Friends and friendliness are one thing, but that close connection of two humans bonded together is a truly remarkable thing. I am fully aware that all of that is over, but I cannot help myself from dwelling on how good yesterday once was. Even with the infidelity.

I know it was not always bad times. In fact, the vast majority of it was good times. Even amazing times at times. I know it was the complacency that killed us. The fatal assumption that it would be this way for ever. And no work was really needed in order to maintain the good times. That was incredibly foolish on my behalf. This lesson should have been learned without the collapse of us. I really do wish I had learned it prior to this moment in time.

Unfortunately, I am the sort of idiot that can only learn through burn. I was always the child that had to touch the hot plate to know it was hot. I could never learn through lesson. 

None of that matters. 

What matters is the fact that there is no back on this linear perception of time. Only forwards. Forwards into something less certain, less defined, less predictable. And again, that does not change the fact that as the sun sets a little earlier and rises again a little bit later, as the air turns a little bit more biting cold, I think more and more of that bed and how it fit, her, myself, Boni the Amstaff, Clyde the Podenco, Bella the Ratonero and Biggles the Mixed.

I have tried to erase everything about her from my mind and memory. I have removed her from all social media and filed away all the photos and memories into deep files so as not to trigger memory. But what of my dogs? I can never file them away, yet nor can I dwell. Dwelling leads to stagnation which leads to death.

So here I am, in the middle of missing. It is a good season to feel the missing. It is cold in my bed for one without the warming comfort of contact, connection and contentment. I want that again, but I do not want to ever have it again for fear of it being taken away again. As a result, I find myself walking this emotional tightrope between wanting to move forward and wanting to go back to what is familiar, warm and comfortable.

And I have no idea where to go.

Which leaves me with one choice really. Raise my fists and take on life. Work harder on my body, my mind and my emotions. For me. I have no one else to do it for now.

I just wish I could write this and then share my bed with someone close and someone warm.

Write More

You need to write more

to write for

all the good it will do you.

See through you

into the heart of you

and beyond.

And beyond, beyond

and further still,

as that is where writing takes us,

You and me,

free from the limiting confines

of physical reality.

The endlessness of imaginary space,

in time, all will be recorded,

reordered, shaped and defined,

by your mind or mine.

And that is fine.

As it cuts into the fine-

Ite construction of infinite possibility.

And that is why

you need to write more.

The Confusion Between Body and Brain

I went out last night, into the crowded, buzzing and full of life Friday of Seville. As is so often the case, it was meant to be a quick one, an early night, just one or two and then back to the flat to kick back. Maybe a cheeky whisky to finish the night with a naughty hand roll cigarette.

That was my 100% honest intention. 

It did not work out that way. A four in the morning stumble to bed is not what the doctor ordered.  It was too many beers, too many people, too many smokes, too many whiskys. It was all too much to be honest. But when surrounded by so much beauty, it truly is quite difficult to say no. To say no to the beautiful buildings that beckon you out, to say no to the beautiful weather, so mild and warm halfway through October. To say to the beautiful people, perfectly dressed, polished and manicured.

And it is that last one that is the biggest challenge. Friends, friendliness and loneliness are an odd combination.

At one point I was introduced to a new group of people. It must have been some time after midnight, the times when you should know better and be better. However, after a few too many whiskys, it is difficult to be the mature person and the healthy person that I am very much trying very hard to be. Bad decision juice. So there I am, oldest guy at the table by at least a decade and a half, good mood juice flowing through my veins, and then introduced to a group of lively, beautiful, happy and well adjusted young women. Early twenties in all likelihood, I never asked out of pure politeness.

It was fun. It was enjoyable, but then came the silence, the objective mind inside the booze befuddled mind was able, just for a second, to see clearly. And what I saw was not pretty. What I saw was me, trying to be the me of my youth. That me no longer exists. I don't want to be the man who fools himself into being Mr Fun Times Man. No.

I want something more than just fun times and fun people. I need more than just fun. 

I have no idea what exactly that is. I don't just want to replace her with a new her. But I really want her out of my head. Most people that I have spoken to just tell me to get over myself and just have random sex with young and beautiful women. Even my ex has told me as much. Something I consider to be one of the coldest things she has said to me. Like, seriously, how does she think that it is that easy for me, just go forth and fuck?! No thanks. 

Again, that young man who would have easily tried the old fuck and bounce is not a person I will entertain.

So now I am stuck between a tug of war between brain and body and I have no idea where emotions lie in such a conflict. Are they dragging me towards my penis and its desire or are they dragging me to health and hopefully contentment. I have given up on happiness, I know too much now to fall for such childish pursuits of happiness. I have seen what lies on the other side of commitment: hard work, loss of love, resentment, betrayal, and if you're lucky, maybe the occasional Romcom on the couch.

But all things become mechanical unless you are truly lucky. And even in your good luck, one of you has to watch the one you love most, die and leave forever. There are no winners in this fucked up human race. Just those that did their best to compete like champs. And that is what I want, to raise my fists and give as good as I get from the opponent that is life.

Here I am, sitting at my desk, typing away and remembering that quickening of the pulse as I speak to a beautiful young lady, a person who is quick to laugh at my jokes, and beautiful enough to make me forget the loneliness and hardship of my current situation. The flush of  rapidly beating heart, as new stands tall and beautiful with eyes that hold invitation of something I have not had in years. But then, it's over. I go to my bed, alone, with no one to share the despair of the meaninglessness of life and this endless universe, no one to share the art that is born of such conscious awareness of that awful and endless meaninglessness.

Here I am, sifting through thought and memory in hope that in some way, it will help me to heal.

What If....

 I have reached the what ifs.... 

I think back on the last twenty years and wonder at which point I should have gotten out had I known where these twenty years would ultimately lead. This is an incredibly difficult thought to ponder. Two decades is a long time to spend with a person. Ten of those years were completely by choice, maybe they could be defined as the pre-contract years. Then came marriage, or shall we say the post-contract years.

I make this division for a reason. When you are with a person by choice and not by obligation, it really defines the relationship in a different light. Fun and happiness are best friends in such a relationship. It is easier to work to keep both of them healthy. You do so out of choice and there is no fear of complacency. Then there is marriage. The post-contract years. Marriage today is quite different to what it was in the past. What is the reason for it, especially if you have got the fuck out of the way.

In my parent's generation, people married to fuck. I mean, not only, obviously, theoretically there should have been romance and of course there was also social, cultural, and religious motivation.

But for me, I am South African. What is my culture? Apartheid? Racism? Post Apartheid? Post Racism? My culture is mine by choice, not by force. Then there is religion. Again, by choice, I choose not too have one. I am not a person to believe in things purely because they have been believed in previously. That doesn't really work for me. In my view, belief is for children, knowledge for the dead, and if you are in any way between childhood and death, the best you can hope for is to think and try to understand.

So why get married?

To be brutal here, it was contractual. I have an Irish passport, my wife (ex? estranged? I have no clue how to define her!) did not. We wanted to work and live in Europe so marriage made sense. Romantic as fuck, I know. But, having been together for 10 years, it worked. I loved her in the least romantic way imaginable and in an entirely open eyed consciousness. Yes, I am not in any way metaphysical, I am certainly a brutal materialist in that sense. And she knew that. I am not a hand holdy, red rosy, shiny pink hearts on valentines day kinda person. I am a partner, a team mate, the sort of house dog there to tear intruders apart in 100% service to my team mate.

Honestly, I thought that was enough. I now know it was not, and just how much of a pompous self centered asshole I was / am. I can own that. That, however, in no way justifies infidelity to the team. Fuck that bullshit!

Let us now return to the main point. If I were to have been told in the early stages of team Us, that team Us had a fundamental flaw in it (my shittiness as a person) and this flaw would result in the complete dissolution of said partnership, would I have got out earlier?

Fuck me. I have no clue. 

I really do wish I were younger than I am now, single in the city in which I live. But, were that the case, I would be an inexperienced dumbfuck, who probably would still be treating other humans like my playthings that merely exist as NPCs in my self contained subjective video game reality.

I know now that is a fairly shitty way to live, and I needed her to teach me that.

Fuck. I guess there it is. I needed the soul centered shattering heartache of betrayal to finally wake up. The final lesson of the many lessons she has taught me. I just wish I weren't the sort of asshole that always has to learn through burn. If only I could have learned through theory instead.

You Are Gone

 Here comes the downward swing.

That brutal reminder of all my failings.

That brutal twist of the knife,

in my guts.

Deep inside my deep inside.

There is nowhere to hide when confronted

with

the confrontational reality of flaws,

floored by the truth.

Is it the drugs I abused?

Is it the truth I amused?

No matter.

No matter.

No matter.

Where is that shining light of joy

shivered body shake to music release?

Is it gone, along with the rest of the rot

that I at one stage forgot?

Pathways forward drove body in motion

emotion unable to process,

these painful regrets.

How do I escape this ever present noose around which my neck

is suffocated?

I want to be free of this

self repressed misery.

I want to be free of all of this.

But I cannot.

I have to rise my hands, my fists

and fight back,

dark anti light

that consumes me.

I have to be positive in these last few painful footsteps towards

Inevitable.

What other options are left?

None.

So break apart the entries towards self and shine acidic light into

and beyond.

Break into self and explore the exit.

You are gone, and with you

goes north guiding compass.

So much was built around the certainty that you would always be there.

But you are not.

You lied.

Which Path?

 Anger has always come so naturally to me. It has always been the first reaction to disappointment and failure. Apparently it is a very unattractive quality to have in a partner. Here is the thing though: how do you put away an emotion that has been so thoroughly entrenched in your mental toolbox?

I do not have an answer to this question, nor do I even know how to go about attempting to answer it. But I am going to try to nonetheless.

I do not want to be angry anymore. And this is incredibly fucking difficult. Because I really want to be angry at her. I gave her 20 years. Twenty fucking years. And they were my best years. My 20's and my 30's. Gone. Yes, I know, your 40's are your new 30's. Only they are not. That is a silver medal for those who have crossed the 40 line. 

I cannot get that time back. 

And, again, yes, I have learned and grown and experienced and loved. With her. But all of those memories, experiences, good times and bad times are like old photographs that someone has spilled coffee on. The most recent have been completely ruined, but even the oldest ones have been stained. I can no longer look through my shuffled memories of the past without one very recent memory shading all the rest.

And I really want to be angry. I really want to hate her for what she did.

But I cannot. I will not. And mostly, I choose not to.

Because, it achieves nothing. To be completely fair, it was all those years of her dealing with my anger and bitterness that forced her to look elsewhere for a love that I have been unable to give her. Mainly because I knew not the language of love. I still don't really. I've never been one for romance, hand holding and sweet nothing whispering.

Rather, I am Joburg City bred. I'm more of a fists up, hackle backed guard dog, ready to bite any who may step to me and mine.

But I am not in that place nor in that mental state. I have moved on, I did move on, but my psychology and mentality stayed behind. It stunted me as I refused to grow.

What about the weed, buddy?

Oh, yes. Yes, there was also that. And a fair fucking fuck load thereof. It too certainly helped with the inability to grow. With the childish choices to stay a children rather than to mature to be an adult that my partner needed me to be, And I 100% fully own my flaws and my failings.

However, to leave me high and dry, alone, on the cusp of my 40th, because of my flaws, is a bit shitty. Just a teeny tiny bit shitty. Like a shart. What I mean by that is, we were partners, team mates, together for two decades. We were older than facebook. And to just drop me like that and move on without even having the decency to speak to me, to communicate to me for fear of my anger, does that make it justified? 

Does it make me feel like the worst person on earth? A man so angry that his wife would leave him? Ask yourself this question, because I really would like to know.

So, how to progress? How to heal, how to move on?

Fuck knows.

All I know, is that anger is not the option. No matter how easy it would be to be angry, it simply is not the healthy choice.

Is fucking an option? Just go forth and fuck my way to happiness? Again, if it is, I really don't want to do that either.

The very thought of intimacy is difficult. And even more so because of where I live and the amazing people I have met since leaving my previous home that she and I had bought together, lived in together. I could fall in love a million times over, if I were a younger and less hurt man.

But I feel my age. I feel it like I felt the extra weight of being overweight. It weighs my down and makes me fear all intimacy.

So how do I fall in love again and be open to such an intimate experience? That is the question I will be pondering as I stumble forward on this potholed path away from being shit and towards being awesome instead. 

Summer Rain

 

Some are Rain (clouds)

The warm summer rain,

falling from low speeding clouds

washes away the dusty depression

of this cold winter.

Dark depths submerged beneath

once again possibility for now

until it too is gone,

once again replaced by something else.

But for now, I walk,

my feet exposed to rain's warm

erosion of yesterday's pain.

Clean, I walk through today, for now.

My clothes grow heavy,

bearing the soaked remainder of

that warm summer rain.

The clouds are passing,

And in their place stands low

the grey. Clouds are now missed.

In their place there is something else,

a momentary departure.

Now, in the temporary forever,

I can momentarily bask.

Just for now,

I can soak it up,

inhale this three dimensional

forgetting of that

dark, endless and painful winter.

Only for now,

can I see it,

before,

just after now,

it is gone.

A memory to fortify me,

to get me through

the inevitable next.

The End of the Beginning

 Not Quite Day One

To put it simply, 2021 has been the worst year of my life. It all began in January, as most years have the habit of doing. However, it was in this particular January that I discovered the fractures that had formed that would ultimately become the fault lines  that would cause the rapid disintegration of all that was once certain in my life. My marriage, my work and my understanding of who I am and where my life was heading.

My name is Garrick, I am 40 years old, and I am a recovering love addict. I use the word addict, because having had a history with substance abuse in my life, I very much feel the similarities that exist between stopping using drugs and trying to quit the hardest drug of all, the drug of being addicted to someone else.

In this blog, I am going to express myself. For the very simple purpose of trying to be healthy. Not so much happy, for that is a complex thing in my opinion, whereas health is a little bit more definable, again, in my opinion.

So what do I mean by healthy? First of all, physically. I have a long history with body image issues, having been bullied for my weight in school, and then having powerfully negative feelings towards my weight in my 30s. Now, at the beginning of my 40s, I want to get into shape, and I feel that I am definitely on the way to that destination. More on that in later updates.

Now for the tricky one. Mental health. Here I am at a complete loss. Growing up in South Africa in the 80's and 90's, men's mental health was never a topic of conversation. I come from a family where mental health was never talked about, I lived in a society where the only emotions that were acceptable for men were anger and happiness. A man was never allowed to be sad. Sadness was weakness and weakness made you vulnerable.

All of that is absolute bollocks to be perfectly honest. And that is my starting point on this not quite day one.

So that is what I am here to do. I am going to try very hard to record my experience of being a recovering love addict and my path towards physical and mental health, and most of all, I am going to express feelings that I find nearly impossible to say out loud, I am going to write my therapy as a means of healing.

Because you know what? Fuck you 2021, you can suck a fuck. You will not win. You will not break me. All of this depression, heart ache and pain that have been placed upon me will be weights that I put on the barbells of awesomeness as I bench press the worst you can throw at me to shape muscles of flexibility and steel.

Not quite day one on my journey out of being shit and doing my absolute best to be awesome instead, awesome to myself first and that outwardly to everyone, even those that have hurt me the most.