The Past

I’ve always got it in my head. Swimming around. How can the time be now? How can we be so far past the past?

I found some old photos. Some of my Dad, some of my Nan, my brother and mother as well. People lost because the human condition isn’t as perfect as we often consider it to be as children. What though, if you can’t swallow the present? Is that the definition of bitterness? If it is, I can tell you now, I am fucking bitter.

As a child, at ten, my dad died suddenly. It rips up the future. I think it’s hard because you can’t process it at that age so well. I also found some cards from family. Some both from “Mum and Dad" and that really fucking stings. Why now? Cards from my Nan wishing me luck in my new home. I think that was when I moved to Taunton. That was a shoddy decision. Moving out alone is hard but I don’t know if I could live with somebody.

I struggle with moving out. I feel like I’m leaving my remaining family to drown in the tough times long gone. Like my father’s gone so I need to stick around to make sure everything is okay and that Mum’s happy even if it is thirty years later.

Initially I’d found some NES games which made me smile. No sign of the NES which is a shame. I’d have taken that with me like a shot.

I’m not sure what I’m doing with my life. It just feels like a shame. As a kid you know what to do. I’ve always struggled with behaving like others or interacting like the other kids back on the late eighties and nineties and after my father died and various issues with family I’d kind of given up. I feel so disconnected. I’m 40 now. I can’t believe it. I don’t know how to proceed or how to pretend I’m okay with that. My family’s ages scare the shit out of me. They can’t age. They’re moving on without me. I’m still ten.

In some ways I hope this year is a big one. I’m unemployed but I need direction and I need to learn to both “connect" and to be myself. I’ve started doing that a little bit online, perhaps in places I shouldn’t like where employers may look but it’s the only way I’m comfortable I think.

I hope that my current state can be a positive one. That something positive happens this year. The COVID numbers are creeping up and the government not putting money into research for vaccinations for the future or suggesting masks anywhere anymore it seems astonishing given the rising numbers. Sure there are around 8000 in hospital at the time of writing, not many as a percentage, but what about the vast numbers of NHS staff suffering and the many who must be ill but not hospitalised. People still need to protect themselves.

What are the goals of this year? I have always got a foggy head. I feel like as time passes I recognise myself and people I know less and less. I don’t know who I am or how to pretend I am stable enough to cope in a job. I also don’t know if Brighton, the episode, is or is not a reality. I’ve written to each and every individual in that building. Well I’ve made a shoddy attempt to hit every address. I don’t know if they’ll have received my letters by now, I assume so, though no reply. I’m worried it may have been fruitless.

I’m a touch scared of new people. They’re not a part of when I was a child. Could that in itself cause a fogged up mind?

The goals. Money is one. Consider it the first and the last. I need it to support myself but it’s looking like I’ll be moving back in with my mother on March. I almost feel like giving up. To what end is money? It’s a roof and food. I could get that at Mum’s. Heh. I owe a lot to her.

I love my family more than anything in the world but I need a life of my own. Though quite how one manages that is beyond me I fear. There is money. That’s a foundation.

I struggle to read as I get tired. But it would be nice to have a book a month as a goal. Make your goals SMART, heh.

I struggle because I don’t want or expect anything. I think one needs those things. I do want money in the short and long term but what’s it for beyond not starving or freezing? Six years have passed since Brighton and I’ve spent most of my thirties scared and hiding away. It needs to stop. How?

I guess I’ll go back to the new forest. See what happens. But I am cautious, confused about the present, confused about how other people live and…struggling for energy. As always. I think I need to broaden my mind to life. But I also can’t afford a bus fare.

I’ll ask the universe for; solvency, conviction, knowledge, patience, action and a good night’s sleep…