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The Dark Side of the Moon

Like most kids I was scared by the dark. I was scared by its potential to hide things away only for them to jump on me and attack me as soon as the lights went out. 
Now, as an adult, I find the dark comforting. It's a place I can hide away in when the lights go out. In the dark I feel safe, covered, hidden in the shadows away from everyone and sometimes even away from myself. When I'm having one of those days of black I have to shut everything away, the shutters come down, literally and figuratively and the light goes out. It could be blazing sun outside, warm with beautiful blue skies but inside it's dark, shady with only music for company and the light hue of my laptop the only illumination.

'Go to sleep, everything is alright'

When I get to bed too that provides me with some respite. I'll either plug in to some tunes or leave the TV on, because although I want to be enshrouded in darkness I sometimes get overwhelmed by loneliness so having the TV on can sometimes give me some audio company.
Whether it's day or night when I'm having a day like today the dark is my friend.
How things change when you reach adulthood. From scary to comforting. Conversely, when I think of even attempting to get into that great comfort of relationships, I get scared.
What was comforting is now so scary.

Everything will be ok once I turn the lights out.

You visit me in my sleep

"I took your words and I believed in everything you said to me"

In Dreams

Another Thursday and another night/morning of dreams about her. I awoke much as I did last week, in a state of tiredness and feeling down and worn. I can’t recall the dreams but I do remember them being mostly about her and her departing from me. At times she was in the dream but mostly she wasn’t and it was me trying to comprehend what was happening or what was about to happen to me. Even thinking about it now the feelings I had are coming alive, like the scent of coffee once you open its bag, strong and permeating. 

At the time the whole divorce situation did not really sink in, not for a long time. The sense of unreality stayed with me for a long time and has only now, until I have these dreams of course, really dissipated. Despite it all, however, some days I really do miss her. I miss being with her. The face she’d make when she’d try and grab a cheeky snack from behind the cupboard door, waking up wit her and grabbing a hug, the kiss she’d give me before she left for work of a morning. And damn it all, I just miss her presence and her calming influence.

Still hurts.

Today that is all being tempered by the bitter and icy cold reality that she wanted to divorce me. I think it has taken my subconscious a long time to really work out what has happened, the near suddenness of it all. From what I can remember in the dream, I was driving around with her, then I was in a house alone and feeling so very sad, knowing that she wanted away from me. Even in dreams, in wonderful beautiful dreams I'm separated from her.

Why? Why did she want away from me? Why did she hurt me like that? The girl who said sh'd love me and be with me forever and who wasn't going anywhere when I opened up to her about my deep darkest fears and of my depression returning?

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?