Starting again, again

I fell off again. I've been wallowing in the misery again. As a result, I have to start again, again. I know this is to be expected. It is never easy to start again, again. I won't give up. I will use the 3 W's as guidance towards happiness.

Music and art.

I miss the intimacy of my marriage. I miss the hours on the catch watching nothing together, with our dogs each competing to be the closest. I miss the mornings waking up  with her, and I miss the nights, as our bodies would warm the bed in winter. I miss her childish screams of fear every time she would see a cockroach.

But that is all gone. I do not think I will ever have a home like that again. I do not think I will ever be able to trust like that again. 

What's left: music and art.

I think back to when we started, my friend and myself were making music. We were taking it seriously. We were good. Weird as fuck, but good. But then came the choice: her or the art.

I chose poorly.

Now I've been given a second chance.

The thing is this: women are a time consuming endeavour. If she is the right one, then it is well worth it. Choose your time investments wisely. 

Freed from the obligations of a wife, a family, a home, I have time again. This is a sword with two edges and both of them cut. One edge, is the time to think, to wallow, to stagnate.

The other is time to work, to produce, to create.

So now I fill my time with art, music and writing.

Do I want to earn from these pursuits?

Yes.

But I honestly just don't give a fuck.

I just want to create. Even if it feels like shouting full voiced in a room of coke heads all screaming, "what about me! ME! ME! ME!"

Alright, cool. Fuck it, life goes on until it doesn't and then, fuck it anyway.

I am not happy, but happiness is a distraction. All that is left is to create. To burn the fuel of my life's tragedy and turn it into a artwork to mystify, confuse, confound, confront some viewer's future vision.

Until then, hands up, fists clenched, Work Workout Write and let's keep struggling down that path to awesomeness.

The Torment of a Broken Heart

Starting over again at the age of 40 is far from ideal. Most people my age are either settled and content or just as broken as I am. Young people carry little to no baggage. Fun is the objective. I don't really get fun. I am not exactly a fun person. "Would you want to be with you?". I want to be authentic and being that fun guy with the witty retorts and the ready smile don't really align with the weight I carry inside.

I don't really know how to make friends or even how to maintain friendships. In my youth, it was so much easier. There was no double thinking. No second guessing and self doubt. Trust doesn't come easily to me now. I doubt the authenticity of everyone's intentions. Starting with my own. Despite all this, I have been feeling a little bit more optimistic about all things. I have had the feeling that the worst of it has passed.

Then she called.

Does she have some sense of me forgetting her and then she calls?

That cold hand grip on my heart has returned. Lead heavy, I shuffle my feet rather than wasting the effort of lifting. That destination of happiness seems so much more distant and not really worth the effort. I am struggling with one simple concept: how to move on from the only person you have ever loved? How do you stop loving them? How do you take control back over your life?

She has so much power over me, still. If she hurts, then I hurt. If she is happy, well, then, fuck. I guess I should be happy too.

It's all come crashing back. One year ago, the collapse began. Now one year later, I am still at the very beginning of the rebuild. But now that I know, I'm not even sure what to build. Or if I even care.

the sun no longer warms

ice cold finger tip distance

from here to here to here

but never getting anywhere.

So long such cold extremities

an extension of more than just body and form.

Baggage holding down a repressed

and beaten spirit,

floating and tattered rag, 

filled by the wind,

to be placed

and forgotten 

in an elsewhere universe.

Ever those whispered thoughts

plague ears of no concern,

desiring nothing more simple than silence

a mono tone of endless repetition.

Endless on and on and over again,

till all words are but buzzes and clicks

void and null.

Over.

Humps and Happiness

The new year is here. I think this is the first time a new year has held so much significance for me. Already something feels different. Perhaps it is the very early onset of Spring. Maybe it is the biological sensing of shorter nights and longer days. I have no clue to be honest. What I do know is this: that solid ball of core deadening dread seems to have dissipated somewhat. It is still there, but it no longer holds the reins quite so much. The desire to just curl up into a ball and weep seems to have left. I tell you what, it feels fucking great.

I am still carrying a huge amount of hurt, but it no longer feels like at any moment it will spill over into uncontrolled tears and graceless mucus.

Now comes the search for happiness. Whatever the fuck that means. So lets go for it.

To start, I need to engage with something that has been floating around my head. On Christmas day I phoned my ex. I know, dumb dumb shit. Still, in a moment of weakness I wanted to speak to her. So I called. It did not go well. Somehow the entire conversation made me feel so much worse. Bottom line is this, she asked me if I was someone else, would I want to be with me.

It was a powerful question. One that has been weighing heavily on my mind.

To answer truthfully: no. I would not want to date myself. Which leads to the next question, how many people do consider themselves positively in light of such a question?

I have never been my own biggest fan. I am highly critical of myself, of my thoughts and my actions. It drives my on my journey, maybe that is unhealthy, maybe not, I have no idea.

I do know that this was a very difficult question to answer and it remains incredibly challenging. That is good. Why play life on easy setting?

Cool, so how do I get there? How do I become someone I would want to date? Fuck me, sounds weird to say out loud. "Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me so hard." 

Weird.

Here is the challenge I guess: how to overcome cynicism and move towards self love. These things are so alien and foreign to me. As a kid who grew up Catholic, self love was very much frowned upon, especially when done in public. In fact, generally speaking, any sense of self value often bordered an arrogance or ego that go against so much of who I am. However, given that who I am resulted in the collapse of my marriage, maybe who I am is in need of analysis and growth.

If someone had asked me this question one year ago, the answer would have been different. If someone had asked me this question 20 years ago, I was so full of self confidence that the answer would have certainly been different. But now with my self confidence at an all time low, I would have to say, no. No I would not date me. 

When self has been defined by other for so long, how do you return back to yourself? How do you find yourself? And, in a non weird way, how do you love yourself?

I was speaking to a friend about this online. She asked me if I thought I would find love and start dating in 2022. I said no to love but yes, I want to start dating myself. She laughed, not really understanding the full context of what I meant. And yes, it is funny to say, but I really do want to learn how to love myself in the scarred and shattered landscape of my post marriage reality.

And the only way I really know how to do this is through work. Being productive has had a very positive effect on my sense of self worth. Exercise is the next one. Nothing quite like a good old sweat session to get the brain to release some of them lekker brain drugs. Finally there is writing. The ultimate form of free therapy.

So here's to 2022, the year in which I finally started to crest the hump, and on the other side is a new journey. A journey towards the invisible and ever moving destination of happiness. I've always struggled with happiness. I have often mistaken drugs and sex for happiness. They are not the same. I have mistaken food for happiness. And recently I mistook contentment for happiness. Similar, but not the same. Now, with eyes no longer clouded by her, or by some other her, I am looking once again for happiness. This time, my mind is more flexible so if happiness comes in a shape I had not pre ordered or pre defined, hopefully, I will be prepared to catch it, even if it is for but a fleeting and passing moment of a temporary now.

NYE 2021 / Start of 2022

I have been in England for the last week. It was an amazing time. I got to reunite with my brother after 10 years of not talking to each other. Family is strange. You can fall out over such minor things and hold them to heart for decades and not speak to that person. Then with one simple act, it all just falls away. Revertigo. That is what my brother and I had this holiday week. Music, food, alcohol and jokes in poor taste. It was brilliant.

Now I am back in Seville. It is good to be back. As hard as it has been to be here and starting a new life, I really do like the people whose lives I have crash landed into. And here we are, finally a new year. What does it mean? I have no fucking clue. Last night I was out drinking, I know, shocking, and I was asked about my New Year's resolution. I answered that I wanted to put on 5 kilos of lean muscle. While it is true, it is also not. Top of the list is to start my new life, so very, very late into this current one. Also, I would like to stop crying at every single fucking thought and memory of all that has been lost.

I'm going to briefly detour here to go back to some writing I did whilst in England / on the plane:

25 December

New notebook

Christmas day,

new lines but no new words

and nothing new to say.

I packed my bags

and unpacked them again,

to sleep in a new bed

that is not mine,

again.

I am so lost,

so turned around

and confused without you.

And you,

you do not care,

I am merely a reflection

in your rear view

as you leave me behind,

as you move forward,

on your own path,

I am stuck here,

stationary,

static,

stagnant.

With these new lines,

how do I fill them?

What words can possibly be written?

In this empty space

free,

absent meaning,

leftwards, right words

forwards and backwards.

Still here, where I was yesterday,

today and probably tomorrow.

Here, without you,

the one I thought

would be there

for every Christmas

until the very end.

Empty space and empty time

none of it mine.

Forever in debt to some other entity

emptying me

taking what is left

in order to pay all the bills left unpaid.

Why can I not put you down?

leave you to be a distant reminder

of what was yesterday

freed to move on into tomorrow?

The above was written Christmas day, after being woken by an overly excited 8 year old nephew I had never met, after presents were shared and happiness built. I got a moment alone to reflect. My first Christmas in 20 years, alone. Without her. We stopped buying each other presents. We would do nice things for each other, but we really did just stop giving each other presents. That was a mistake. 

Fortunately, in that moment of suffering, clarity was achieved. I now know, I can no longer wallow. I need to swim from these depression darkened depths towards more manageable shallow waters.

Friday 31st December 2021

I'm really struggling to hold it together. I'm back on the move, on a plane bound for Seville, a flying steel tube filled with friends, families, strangers and me. I wonder if I'll ever find a home again.

It has been a long and brutal year, so much that once was certain has crashed down around me. I feel like a piece of driftwood floating on an endless and uncaring ocean.

I have so very many regrets about the life I have lived. This week in England with my brother's family has been thoroughly bitter sweet. Now I return to the emptiness filled with fun and attempts to forget in order to remember who I am. My highest most certain regret is family. I thought I'd found my meaning, my home, my place to call my own. But as with so many things, that myth is fleeting and passes by.

It seems so obvious, but seeing that house filled with children, memories and lives just makes it so abundantly clear just what I have missed in my pursuit of nothing and empty self gratification, self glorification and worst of all, self deception that it was in any way real.

We all have our eyes so firmly fixed on a distant point, some far away destination of tomorrow, success, happiness and health.

But all these things are blurry, ill defined and forever moving and shifting maybes. By the time we get to where we are going, we have changed and our destinations change with us. And so we start over, once again searching for the other side of what might possibly make us feel complete, even if it is only for a fleeting and temporary now washed away in the forever flowing of time.

Where to from here?

One foot in front

of the other.

This nameless and faceless

inevitable destination

hidden behind tomorrow's 

cold edged dawning.

One foot placed uncertainly

second guessing doubt

plagued thoughts.

Is this the right path?

or just the only one left?

The next foot is placed

square in the middle

of maybe and truth.

Pathways crossing crossroads

denying certainty.

Forward is the only direction

as the past is left behind

in cloudy memories

of what might have been.

Until tomorrow comes

shining light illuminating

all the different possibilities

quantum fields of could have

and should have,

but did not in fact,

in deed nor

in thought.

There are no signposts,

not here.

It is a path made

by instinct or inactivity.

All that is left

is to drag this aging

meat prison forward, forward, ever forward,

hopeful that one day

conscious mind will be freed

to fly fancifully on fantastic

unfurled fantasies.

Until that time,

life is a battle

that one day,

we are all guaranteed

to lose.

03 January 2022

It is 2022. At one point, this was supposed to be a sci-fi future of promised utopia. It hasn't really turned out to be that way. Sure, we have a global pandemic, that's kinda sci-fi ish in a way. I am turning the page. It is still a work in progress. But I do feel that I have turned a corner. I think I am getting closer to being able to put my past to rest. To own it, acknowledge it, to learn from it and to grow from it. Yes, the very thought of it all may occasionally make me blubber and weep and carry on in a way unbecoming, but fuck it. You have to get the boo hoos out once in a while.

I am still lost and have no idea where I am going or where life will lead from here, but I do know that those last few emotions roots buried deep inside of my heart, and my powerful feelings for her, these are at the very least beginning to wither, and hopefully, her hold over my thoughts, my feelings and my actions can finally be released.

2021 can suck a fuck. Fuckhead of a year. I have no idea how 2022 is going to turn out, but I do know that life hasn't beat me yet. This old fuck head still has a bit of strength left in him to keep swinging.

So here's to the New Year, and whole new set of 24 hours to continue on the path away from being shit and towards being awesome instead.