New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve

I was in two minds whether to write this as to be honest there is something brazenly predictable about putting down ones thoughts at the end of a year and the beginning of another.  Anyway here goes nothing.

Another year closer to the grave...well for year substitute day or week or minute or second..,all the same in the end. I’ll be 53 if I make it till Feb...i never really envisaged being in my fifties and now that i’m here I probably made the right call on that. It’s been a strange sort of year...a hernia diagnosis... my car packing in...a 92 year old parent falling down the stairs...the ongoing financial grind of a business on its last legs if only I had the sense or the balls to kill it finally. I await a surgery date, have car payments I had not anticipated and am more of a carer than i was this time last year. My head continues to be a mess of concerns and anxieties. How will I cope if the business folds? What will happen to my father going forward? How will I cope if his health worsens? How will he cope if his health worsens? What about my own medium to long term health? Can I keep the shop going? Can I live on fumes? How will I deal with people in any of the above scenarios or mix of them? The last one may sound odd but it is what it is. I am increasingly removed from people...I avoid contact where possible unless it is at the safe distance of social media. I deal with them in the shop but that is slightly different...that’s me on auto pilot to some degree. It comes from years of habit. Even that however is becoming more difficult. When you feel the walls closing in around you it is hard to think or act expansively. You contract and look inward. You huddle in your own corner and brace yourself for the worst. Your world shrinks and your horizons reduce. It is about surviving day to day mentally...it is about not giving in to slow rising panic that reserves its worst onslaught for about four in the morning when your resistance is low and sleep is fleeting. It is stopping your head from bursting into pieces and your mind from caving in on itself. It is about distractions and diversions and messy inconclusive little  victories in dark corners of the psyche. I read a blog lately by a guy comparing himself to an iceberg (it was a bit worthy and wordy) and talking some gibberish about how the things you seek are actually seeking you...or some such twaddle. If it works for him then fair enough. I suppose if i’m an iceberg then i’m waiting for my titanic...though I feel more like the titanic to be honest...holed below the water line and in denial about the outcome. Now I’m talking gibberish. It did prompt me to ask myself what it is...if anything...i’m seeking on the verge of another year. I’ve no ready answer. I suppose just getting through it would be a start...with finances still intact.. or at least moderately so...that seems a tall order from here but we shall see. Other than that my expectations are at floor level..,or lower. I’ve always preferred to keep them there so that anything is a bonus...not that i’m predictable or that I resort to tried and tested psychological props. I suppose i’d like the hernia sorted...at

least then i could get out of track suit bottoms and possibly pee straight again (long story). I’ve long ago given up on having any sense of well being or security but at least it would be good not to feel the excruciating weight of worry in that regard every waking moment...I’d just like to take a step closer to getting by and not constantly looking over my shoulder or being primed ready to dodge the latest bullet or missile from whichever direction. I’d like to be able to take some pleasure in my work again as opposed to merely fire fighting and expending most of my energy merely on keeping things on track. That last one is probs a non starter...more likely i will have to re set my whole way of thinking and prepare to get a job...even writing that sends a frisson up my spine. I’ve been self employed for over thirty years...the idea of doing something else...for someone else...fills me with dread. But it is an increasing probability so i will have to get my head round it. More on that later. It’s also funny the way i never now think of relationships...as in having one. As in with a woman. I was asked the other day if it bothered me that I didn’t have anyone in

my life in that way and i always give the stock answer that it doesn’t. And to be honest that is mostly true. I tend not to dwell on it. I miss intimacy...again i was asked that very specifically. But I miss it in a general way. Almost as a concept. Well more than that I suppose. I would not want to live with anyone...to have another person around at close quarters all the time. I’ve become used to my own space and my own company. But I do miss...well...I’m not entirely sure what I miss. Just being physically close to someone possibly. Being considered desirebale...in the broadest sense. Being understood by someone...if that’s really possible...or at least having someone try to understand you...and be willing to be understood by you. Having someone to physically cling to in the night...who wants to share that intimate space with you in that undefinable way that is...well love I suppose. Someone who you can be around without pretense...and who doesn’t shy away from who and what you are. Obviously such a person is an idea more than anything...an amalgam of the things you need or desire. You would wish to be the same for them of course. And no doubt you would fail. I’m not completely cynical though. Such relationships do exist. Such people exist. Perhaps I know them. Perhaps not. In the end it’s an interesting diversion from all the crap to think of such things. To wrap your fragile self in the possibility of such people....if nothing else. To allow yourself to imagine  perhaps they are out there...and seeking you. That it’s not all gibberish. If it helps you get through the night then bring it on. 

As a friend of mine on FB recently remarked...24 hours at a time and then repeat. 

Happy New Year.