The End

The end 

“This is the end 

Beautiful friend “

When I chose the title of this blog some years ago it seemed appropriate ...Breathing Underwater. The point was ...and is...that it’s impossible ...unless you are a fish. At the time life was so difficult it seemed impossible...but it had to be lived so the idea was to try to find a way of doing the impossible. Getting through it and surviving. Like breathing underwater. 

I’ve decided to leave it aside for a while now ...not because i’ve solved the conundrum...if anything it’s even more impossible now than it was then...for different reasons. Back then i’d just come through a marriage break up and was trying to adjust to a life I didn’t want. Looking back now my estranged wife did me a favor though of course perspective only comes with...perspective. The water is deeper and colder and more impenetrable now than it was then. The shop is on the brink...the crushing  financial worry of that is a  noose around my neck....tightening by the day. My father is getting more frail  and i struggle with the practical implications of that as well as the emotional ones. I’m not in the best of health myself...the surgery i’m waiting for is delayed and to be honest i’m not particularily inclined to even push for it...if it happens it happens. I’m finding it difficult to cope mentally...im having difficulty concentrating and i’m feeling more and more detached. Walls are closing in. The vice is tightening. Pick your metaphor. I feel like i’m slowly disintegrating. Today I did something else that will no doubt backfire on me...maybe finally destroy me...but i had to risk it because I couldn’t go on the way I was...bottling stuff up...important stuff. Maybe more important than any of the rest...in a way. It’s a perfect storm. When I burn bridges I do it in style...i incinerate them while still on them. But I don’t know what else to do...or how else to be. I’m in a strange place ... it’s like i’m just clinging on. I sat in the bath earlier just staring into space and wishing it all would stop...that my mind would just shut down...that I wouldn’t have to face any of it any more. It’s getting more difficult to dig myself out of such despondency ...to battle through the mental fog and summon the strength of will to keep going. Some of these days I fear I won’t be able to. I’m not being dramatic...it’s just how it is...i’m one of many i’m sure. I find myself thinking more and more these days of my friend Mervyn who took his own life some years ago...i miss him. Not that we were close...not at all. But he was a constant ...a person of iron will or so it seemed. I admired his strength of mind and his intellect...I simply couldn’t believe it when I heard he had done what he did. It seemed ridiculous. If anyone could breathe underwater it was him. What lead him to succumb to his demons...or indeed what these demons were we will never know. I saw him a couple of days before it happened...he was his usual self...I can still see him walking up the street to his car after chatting to me over coffee...I had no idea that he was drowning. I don’t know if he was asking for help...or even if he was whether I could have done anything. I doubt it. I don’t recall anything different about him that day. They say once the decision is made the person is locked down and beyond reach. Who knows. Perhaps they simply do not want to be reached. 

Back to the point of this. Which is really to say that that’s all folks...for now anyway. I plan to stick around for a while yet ...i’ve come this far and I probably owe it to myself to grind on and see what happens. But i’ve shared enough for now I think. I’m talked out. I am not ending with any grand flourish. Except to say that it is the end. 

Take care of yourselves.  And remember to breathe.