Hooked on a feeling

I had a low day on Thursday. The warning signs were there the night before where I just felt, bleugh. As soon as I woke up I had that familiar, hide away from the world in bed feeling and was tempted to try and cancel everything that was on that day. I did manage to get out of bed though and kept to at least 2 out of the 3 appointments I had. So it was a sort of minor victory. Throughout though, a certain song was playing in my mind and as it did it brought about certain feelings from when I used to listen to it a lot. It was NIN’s, ‘Right where it belongs’ and as I listened to it my thoughts were brought back to the summer of 2012; my insomnia, watching baseball, watching Adam Curtis documentaries, seeing the night sky slowly morph back into day, the slow realisation that my divorce was about to become a reality and that my life, my married life was now gone. All of that was tied up within that one song.  

Sadness and fatigue were prominent throughout that day and ensured that very little was done. In fact at one point I had to lie down and just ‘be’. Anything else was too complicated to even contemplate.

On the plus side, it was the first blip in something like 2/3 weeks. And in that time I have managed to at least sort out and organise my little space and have got myself to the gym too with some consistency. Before Xmas and during I’d put on weight and made some attempt to shed that afterwards when I was up to it. I got rid of a bit but not enough so, now, instead of trying again to get rid I’m going with it and have instead taken to putting on some muscle weight. So, nuts to it. At least this way I don’t have to avoid food.

I have also just about passed my first year at Uni’. Probably scrapped by but hey, it’s done. Now to try and find some sort of part time employment in the meantime.

Wonderlust

My dreams were very unsettling this morning. What made them worse was the fact that everytime I awoke from them, during a bad bit, I’d go back to sleep and slip straight back into them again. Any other dream that I want to get back into no chance! The one I don’t, straight back in! Typical.

They were unsettling as they were centered around my former. For some reason I was back in our old house back in Warminster. The house was empty, similar to how the house in Bristol was on that awful last day. For some reason her father was there also and I was trying to get back in touch with her, keen to either write to her and find her online. I might have asked her father for help, I’m not sure. At one point I woke up, my subconscious keen to awake me from the mounting emotion that I was feeling. I was on the verge of tears but soon nodded off again to find myself finding her online but seeing that there was an address with the title, Maternal, over it. Very odd and it left me wondering if she was pregnant. 

I didn't find out either way as I soon woke up wondering what the blum and flip that was all about. It might have stemmed from the fact that when I went to see friends and my goddaughter over the weekend I asked if she had visited which she had. I didn't ask but part of me was curious to know if she had brought a new partner with her. Maybe that was on my mind, gestating deep within? One more listen to Alter-Bridge might have watered it enough to flourish in my mind in the small hours, perhaps? The odd thing about it all is, even though she is now on my mind I’m not so over-run with emotion after it that I feel the need to actually follow up what I did in the dream and try and find or contact her.

I remember not long after the separation some mail for me had been sent to her new home. She brought it to me during a get together that sometimes involved both of us. 

On the parcel where her address was she’d actually blanked it out. I think that action set the tone; she wanted no comebacks. At all. So perhaps that’s why, although feeling a bit sad about it, I’m not about to follow my dream, as it were, and try and contact her. 

Sometimes I miss her madly but if it does get too much I try and remind myself how she ended it and her blanking out of her address on that parcel.

One Day Remains

As I've started to try and get back into writing and the book what I wrote, I've been listening to the music that I used to play as I created it. One of the bands, Alter-Bridge I really liked. 

I also shared them with my, now, ex-wife. They are also responsible for a very happy memory shared between me and her. 

After a short lived break up we started to get closer and one particular moment was when we both went to see Alter-Bridge play Cardiff Uni’ back in mid 2006. We both loved the album and decided to go and see them. The gig was superb, the support were fab’ and Alter Bridge were fantastic, the sound, the songs they chose, everything about that night was near perfect. It brought us closer together and would almost serve as the base from which the relationship would build and flourish.

The only trouble is, right here and now, with a divorce now behind me, this is the first time I've listened to that band and that album since we were together. I guess I avoided it, subconsciously more than anything. Now listening to it I’m overcome with happy memories, happy feelings and sad ones. Mostly because I can’t share that time or these songs with her now. It was something I used to do back then, listen to songs that would evoke memories of us and therefore arouse certain feelings. The rub now being, of course, is its power to bring about opposite feelings, reminders of her, us, the split. Like an aural water bomb exploding and drenching me in the past, for good or ill. 

Something else I need to try and deal with. I guess it has to be done. If I stop listening to bands that I liked because she liked them too, well, I won’t have that much to listen to in the future, eh?

From Monopoly to the grave...

I've been writing this blog for 2 years and have had this lot of depression for 2 and a half years. An anniversary, of sorts. I can almost imagine the conversation the black could have had with me, could it actually talk...

‘Happy Anniversary! It’s been ten years since your last big depression! And as a present to remember those times, have another big lot of depression! Oh yeh, remember when you were in the middle of it and thinking, well, at least I don’t have a long term partner to worry about or a job or future to be concerned with? Now you do! Those fears will also come crashing down around and upon you. And hey, who knows, maybe they’ll even come true and nearly break you in two?’

And come true, they did. A wife who thought that the, ‘In sickness and in health’ vow was more a guideline rather than something to commit to. A PT job that was taken, the house, caring home… I've covered this before but yeh, those fears did come true.

…the only interesting thing that ever happens to me is sneezing

And so, here I am 2 years on. Progressions? The foundation degree is something and is perhaps a chance at a career while my writing and performing slows to nothing. I don’t really know what to do with those now. Can I do anything with them now? I know I write this blog but this is more for me in the absence of a diary and it’s viewed by what, three people? The trouble is, I feel so unsure and uncertain about everything now. I can barely sort myself out to even get to the gym nowadays and my last push at exercise resulted in a near Batman-esque broken back from which I’m only now just now recovering. I've let my living space deteriorate and myself too and right now I’m back to, ‘Tomorrow is when I’ll sort it.’

Yeh, well, tomorrow never comes, as I’ve mentioned before. Getting old now isn’t it? Hell, the whole illness is getting old. I think it got old the moment I realised my, then, wife was serious about doing one. I just can’t seem to sort myself out. Any hopes I have of forming a romantic relationship are quickly tempered by me either looking at smelling myself or that tiny voice quickly reminding me what happened the last time I got intimate with someone for a long time and didn't take too kindly to depression being a part of the relationship as well. As soon as I browse for partners inner me pipes up…

'Look at the state of you, the state of your surroundings, books, dvds, clothes left where you discarded them, stubble that is rapidly growing from 80s style to disheveled down and out and… DEPRESSION! Remember that?’

And all the enthusiasm drains away from me.

So, I just don't know anymore. 

Perhaps it's best if I just go back to taking it all one day at a time.

Gervais

I don’t know where I really stand, liking or not liking, with regards to Ricky Gervais. 

I remember his early stuff on, ‘The 11 0’clock show’ and his solo stuff on that old cable channel UK Play. Or was it Play UK? Hmmm, anyway, it was generally insulting and not that funny, unless you think calling Alison Moyet names in a piss-poor Beavis and Butthead style is funny, of course.

Then came, ‘The Office’ which is still a bit hit and miss for me aside from the really quite brilliant Xmas special which ended the series. (As a side-note, I’ve really taken to, ‘The US Office’ which is fab’.)

‘Extras’, I watched as well, due to me being and still being a TV/Film extra so I was curious to see what his take was on it. It wasn’t anything like being an extra and from watching it I presumed the idea was more about seeing well known film stars act like their complete, perceived, opposites, ie, complete gits. However, what really annoyed me was Gervais’ main character reacting with, 'I don't want to go out with a psychopath' when offered a chance to go out with someone who had, ‘clinical depression’. That rankled and still does now.

At the moment of writing this I was watching, ‘Life’s too Short’, that show with Warwick Davis in it and it’s the same atmosphere as it seems to be in all of his shows. People acting like complete gits, saying the worst thing and being put in the crappiest situation where the reaction is to any and all of the situations by either saying the rudest thing or to act it out. Watching Warwick Davis in this, watching his ‘character’ being put through and putting other people through various uncomfortable situations usually regarding his height, I find it extremely annoying that he gave Karl Pilkington and others a bad time for similar in their, ‘Idiot Abroad’ show. Yet, what’s this? Warwick sleeping in a chest of drawers for laughs.

All Gervais’ comedy seems to revolve around is the minor shock factor of, ‘Ooh, look Keith Chegwin’s talking about choking himself out whilst masturbating. ‘Oh my! Les Dennis is in the nude talking about sex!’ ‘And look, there’s Clive Owen being an obnoxious tit!’  

Saying nasty things, putting people in crap situations and generally being arseholes.

Hilarious eh?

And as for that depression/psychopath crack, all I have to say about that is a showing of the following. Funny and not spiteful or pandering to people’s ignorance at all. All from the early days of, now, a true comedy icon.

Look and learn Gervais.

Devastated :(