Wednesday, 10 June 2020

Post Covid peak

I've not blogged for a while, as I've been busy creating something amazing. More on that another time. But a lot has happened in the world since early last month. For one, Covid is on the decline (yay) despite Britain having the highest number of deaths behind America. 40,000 and counting. If only we'd started Lockdown sooner, eh?

I feel a lot happier at the moment. My previous job is now behind me and I am moving on. I'm still shielding, but I have been out of the building a few times now, for walks around the area. I wish I could move down to Sussex now, where there is more space. Hopefully that will happen in time for the main part of summer.

Job searching is actually not really progressing, but if I am honest I am not too worried. I'm not spending much money right now and I have plenty to fall back on for now.

I've been browsing the internet a lot, especially on Instagram. I love flicking through that. It's kept me sane over the past few weeks. I've found a number of cool sites, one of which is Billington Pix, which is one of the only websites I know that sells photographic greeting cards that aren't boring. Normally if you put a Google search in you just get cliche shots of trees or hills, or some flowers. Billington Pix sells much edgier photo cards. It also has an accompanying philosophy about them. It's existentialist mostly, which I am drawn to of course!

I do miss going to restaurants though. That is my biggest regret of Lockdown. I'm not sure when that will happen. It's not like there's much opportunity in the UK to eat outside and it will probably be the end of the year before even that happens. I suppose pubs are serving takeaways, but it's not the same.

In the meantime I have time to eat, relax, watch tv, read, get fat, and now go for the occasional walk, making sure to cross the road every time I am about to pass someone.

Friday, 8 May 2020

Forever Covid-19


Beautiful creation, you have taken us in your play.
Taste our energy to live like it’s a drug for you to tend.
Random pickings for a beautiful media to seize.
Yet you control it, unlike the powers that beat
The roll call of destruction. They amuse us with daily talk,
Like you never knew what you might one day achieve.
Tease us now, but let us breathe, more so the insular ones.
They know the power you seize from right thinkers.
Make the ridiculous ridiculous and expose those who spin the wheels
Of power and mighty media limelight.
Forever Covid-19.

Tuesday, 5 May 2020

L'enfer, c'est les autres

I've been meaning to return to Camus. I first read La Peste in 1987. It changed my life. How a people could be so aware of their own existence haunted me. And that existence, under threat from an invisible enemy, challenged their very reason for living; made them look deep into their souls to see what the true meaning of it all really was.

I remember walking on Brighton beach one evening around 1988 with S, my very best friend. I asked her what she made of all the pebbles, shining from the surf, all pretty much identical. For they were as plentiful as all of mankind. So many pebbles, so many humans. And we, some of those poor humans, crunching our way along the moonlit expanse, were as insignificant as each of they were. Our life is meaningless. For what reason are we here? We are without reason, devoid of meaning. Each a pebble.

You can obviously draw parallels between the plague that descends upon the town of Oran, for which there is no meaning, those pebbles on the beach, and the current Covid experience. Why are we here, is the obvious question. If it is to suffer a painful end of breathlessness. Why would any god put us through that, or the fear of that?

So I ask myself, what is the meaning of my existence now, confined to my apartment, listening to free Jazz via Alexa, listening to lying politicians who tell us they have miraculously reached 100,000 tests a day, when they haven't, to the Brexit lies about the utopia that awaits those who remain alive? What is the reason for all of this? Why do I have to put up with this?

It is truly Hell that is these other people. They torment me with their deceit. I don't need these people. I prefer to enjoy my confinement like it will always be like this. The jazz is a bit monotonous but I can always pause it to listen to the silence. Except there is no silence. I must endure the heavy stomper upstairs, or the drug dealer across the hallway who bangs his door when he rushes downstairs to deal a hit, or the crazies in the building across the road who wake me at 5am every morning, tapping on the front door to be let in. They are my current Hell. Brexit and Covid are my external Hell. I won't let them in to my space, but they are lurking outside.

I'm happy to watch my Netflix documentaries or the occasional mini series, not withstanding my increasing lack of attention, or my audio issues. Drink my wine. Eat pasta. Observe my Monstera deliciosa, or my attempt to grow avocado from a jam jar.

I might light my scented candle, peer out at the blue Shard top, watch the masked folk pass below in the street. I've stopped clapping the NHS every Thursday. It seems artificial now. I'm obviously grateful for what they do, given my history, but I resent the fact that those deplorables at Number Ten join in with their fake virtual signalling whilst over 50,000 people have died through the choices made by the Tufton Street cabal. 

I'm quite happy. I've been paid. I can sit her in my own company for the next year or so. Who cares if I am not able to leave the building. We all know that will be the lot of "the vulnerables". And soon, the elite will be those who hold the immunity card in their back pocket. But that is fine, I can live with that. I can observe from afar, without having to mingle in the madness that is current affairs.

This is the edge of my world. It indeed is an affair to remember. We will all remember. But some won't really care, so long as they can parade in their exceptional Britishness and crow about how wonderful the UK really is. 

This is my Hell.


Wednesday, 22 April 2020

Lord Tennyson vibes

I had so much to say the other night, although after a few glasses of wine it is all now forgotten. My memory is shockingly bad of late. I forget things almost instantaneously. I think it has been getting gradually worse over time, so gradually that I don't notice.

It might also be due to the confinement. It doesn't really matter what day it is anymore. I wake up, look for work, nap, look at social media, might watch some tv, look for more work, eat, sleep. That is pretty much all there is to my routine of late.

Last night I picked up my copy of Lord Tennyson's lyrical poems. It has been in my bookcase for years. It's a lovely small, blue leather bound book, embossed in gold with a flute playing classical boy on the front. Inside it is inscribed to Toodie, with love from Nancy, 25th July 1940. And next to that the "£2.50" price written in pencil, which is when I purchased it from a secondhand bookshop in Harrogate. It would have been around 1989, before I went to university. I remember loving the smell of that bookshop, a smell that I could last night conjure from the pages of the poetry book.

It was quite nice to spend a decent amount of time last night reading. I have not been able to focus for some time. I have quite a number of uncompleted Netflix films on the go. Everybody has been watching Tiger King, so I did watch that all the way through. I enjoy documentaries more than fiction of late. And biographies, although Michelle Obama and David Cameron both remain unfinished.

I get my fix from politics during the day. Either by the Guardian live updates on Coronavirus, or by Twitter. After last year's election disaster I was unable to go to Twitter for a long time. And I stopped listening to Radio 4 Today. I retreated into a parallel world where reality didn't need to exist. But now I have returned to those things, and it is right to understand where we are in the world right now. But I still feel myself seething inside when I read or hear what some people say.

In other news the cheese plant has gained a second new leaf growth. The first one looks fairly large. I'd like to get more plants into my flat. I planted a mango seed the other day in the pot on my balcony. I don't know if it will grow but I'm watering it every day. And I have an avocado pip suspended in water on my windowsill. Let's see what happens next.

I'll leave the final words to Lord Tennyson.

I envy not the beast that takes
   His licence in the field of time,
   Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
 
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
   The heart that never plighted troth
   But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
 
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
   I feel it, when I sorrow most;
   'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
(In Memoriam A. H. H.)

Friday, 17 April 2020

Friday night thoughts

Friday night, stuck alone in the flat. Nowhere to go; no-one to talk to. R has gone to bed early, not feeling well. Not that he was here of course, but alone too, feeling the same frustrations as me.

And the fact that he went to the supermarket yesterday and was concerned how close he came to other shoppers. That has of course made me worry somewhat that he might have caught it. And a future version of ourselves came hovering over me like an infestation of locusts. How it would suit my destiny that I might be deprived of him when I need him the most.

As I am writing this I consider how much I am missing his company. Just the fact of hanging out together. Our phone calls are a second best. I cherish them to but it's not the same. The sooner this plague is over the better. I dream of the time I can join him at the house. Just to share a glass of wine on the grass, watching the sunset, in the warm summer evening.

It's been a tough few days. I just cannot seem to focus on anything. I'm aiming to do some sort of technical study that might help me with my career, but just can't seem to set my mind to it. I took just one call today, advising that the role I had applied for would not be suitable. Others have just not called back.

I worry that I became institutionalised in my last role, and didn't adapt enough to the next generation. I have stalled. My career has stalled. And now my life is stalled.

The neighbours are driving me mad. Either from the halfway house across the road, or the ones living above me, or the ones living across the corridor from me. They are all equally irritating. And sometimes  I just stand at my balcony and try to breathe in the evening air, wondering how it might be quite soon.

It might be but perhaps not quite soon. This thing is going to take a while, I am sure. I will be stranded here for months and unable to go outside. This is what confinement means. How little did we consider what these months would bring when we toasted in the the new year. The curve is flattening, the sombrero is squashed, but not dented. The status quo persists, and for how long?

I look at Instagram or Twitter and can see that most other people are in a similar situation. And thankfully we do have social media in order to take a view out on to the world. They didn't have that in 1918. When my great grandfather was recovering in hospital he must have had no idea on the condition of his daughter, my grandma. And we also understand the disease a lot better than back then. Is that a consolation though, to know our terrible destiny before it comes to us?

Let's see what tomorrow brings. I have food in my fridge, television, internet, and R on the end of the line or on Whatsapp. We will get through this.

Thursday, 16 April 2020

Lockdown - Day 36

I had to check how long I had been at home under lockdown. It's become a blur. I've actually been here for 36 days, or just over 7 weeks.

I've had some contact with the outside world, mainly when I visited Guys for my monthly checkup. That is now on hold and I am waiting for an appointment date to be provided. Other than that I have ventured downstairs to check my post, put the rubbish out or to collect my food parcel. As a kidney transplant patient it seems that I am eligible for them.

It's actually good to be receiving food parcels. I had been using Sainsbury's to deliver my food, in anticipation of the all the panic buying. Now with limited slots available I am becoming reliant on receiving the basics from Southwark Council. And how welcome they are too!

It's actually quite interesting when someone compiles your shopping for you. My regular purchases are not there but instead I have a chance to try all sorts of different foods that I would never normally buy. Even down to the pineapple that I cut up into cubes earlier and partly froze. I do, however, need to think about what to do with 3 tubs of double cream...

The hunt for work continues. I did originally believe that the market was quite buoyant, but now it seems to be shutting down. Twice I have received news that companies are suspending their hiring. Still, I can live quite cheaply for the time being. I only really need to get out of bed for the potential recruitment agent calls (they aren't calling).

And Johnson, is recuperating at Chequers. How wonderful for him. He's had the most miraculous comeback from death ever seen. After spending a few nights in intensive care he was, upon leaving St Thomas's Hospital, able to quite fluently speak to the nation in his full suited attire. And from his rested abode, he continues to push the line that the UK will complete trade negotiations with the EU by the end of the year. How convenient that he now has an excuse when it all fails. With the price of some foods already rising in value as they are in short supply, let's just think about what might happen if we don't get a deal, shall we?

I am still done with the whole thing to be honest. In a way it is quite nice to escape from it all by means of my isolation, but sooner or later I will have to emerge and face whatever reality greets me, whether it be later in this year, or the next.

And as people continue to die (nearly 13,000 at the last count), I wonder how different this country might be when it is all over. Will we be poorer? Will we be kinder? Will we be more welcoming to our neighbours? Will the High Street never recover? Will Jeff Bezos be even richer? Will I see R any time soon? Will my cheese plant ever grow another leaf?

For the interim, I continue to eat, sleep, hunt for work, watch Netflix, study the digital cloud and Adobe, and peer down at my strange neighbours below in the street.


Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Contract received

Today I received my voluntary severance contract to review and sign. It immediately threw up some questions that I am pursuing, although I have been asked to return by Friday, which is in 3 days time.

It also made the fact that I am leaving my company all the more real. After 11 years at one place I have been feeling quite institutionalised. That said, there are plenty of jobs around right now. The economy is strong, or at least it was. And recruiters are telling me that they are carrying out virtual interviews and onboarding via webex. I am optimistic.

But the state of the world just gets worse and worse. Today a 13 year old boy died, with no underlying medical conditions. This disease seems to be going for younger and younger people. This was never something that I thought I would live through. The Excel Centre, where I might have gone in May for the annual Adobe Summit conference is now transformed into a hospital. There are field hospitals being erected in Central Park. The next two weeks are going to be hideous.

So tonight I applied for more jobs on LinkedIn. It's a fairly easy process. And this morning I re-worked my CV. Just as hundreds of people are dying, young as well as old.

Sunday, 29 March 2020

The blue apex

It's quiet outside. An occasional car passes by, perhaps a dog walker or a jogger. I can see the Shard from my living room window, with its blue lighted apex, shining like a beacon of hope that we will all get through this difficult period.

It's easy to sound a bit dramatic when writing about what is happening right now. Cocooned inside my flat, I have only the views from my window, or the sounds from the street below, to convince me that there is life still going on. Like the opening scene of a horror film, where the people have all vanished, except for a few shell-shocked individuals roaming about.

In addition to that it is easy for my imagination to go wild. I listen to the news and the daily mortality rates are starting to reach surreal proportions. We've seen it happen in Italy or course, and now Spain. But surely not in Great Britain, where everything is great, where we make great decisions to protect our great people.

We are all deluded. It is going to hit us, hard. We are following the trajectory of Spain and Italy, only a couple of weeks behind. In a short time we will be war-weary as if it really is the Blitz, with bombs raining down on us from this invisible enemy.

Today in the online news I read about a 108 year old, who had survived the Spanish flu, only to succumb to this new disease. I often think of my own grandma who was struck down in 1918, lost all her hair, but yet survived. It really is a game of chance whether it takes us or not. A game that we can cheat though by implementing social distancing and washing our hands. But still a game. A horrid game.

So let's keep looking up at the blue apex, that gives us hope, that celebrates our NHS. It might let us forget how we never bought enough ventilators, or that we stopped testing in the community, or that we refused to participate in the EU procurement scheme. Let's keep living our lives via the spirit of the Blitz.

Saturday, 28 March 2020

Self-isolation - Day 18

I would consider myself a loner; there is only so much of people that I can tolerate. This is something that has crept up on me over the years, although I recall at school feeling the same. Being alone during the pandemic has allowed me to reflect on what exactly this means.

At school I would find conversations with the other kids boring. There was a small group that I hung out with, but more often than not I would drift away and walk the corridors during break or lunchtime. That was okay for a while but it soon felt awkward to me. I began to dread my free time, which wasn't really free to me, it was as if I was condemned to socialise and interact. Generally I drifted into my own thoughts as a means of escape.

This social inadequacy followed me into adulthood. In the sixth form I would do the same, having nothing to say to the other students. At university, I would spend a lot of time in my room, social distancing myself.

I have been social distancing all my life. This is not something new to me.

In later years I value my alone time. At work I am forced to interact, but there is usually a topic of a professional nature that I am comfortable discussing. Ask me something about my private life and I seize up. On the phone the other day, when the IT director called me to discuss my voluntary severance, he asked me what I consider to be personal questions: did I live alone, did I live in a flat or a house? I reluctantly answered but it made my skin crawl.

Opening up has always been a problem for me. I think it is definitely related to my social distancing strategies, and also to the gay thing. These days the young define themselves without any qualms. It is not something that comes naturally to me. For years I have had to hide who I am, and all of a sudden people seem annoyed that I wouldn't reveal to them who I sleep with?

I have built up a hard crust over my skin throughout the years, and I am not ready to shed it now. I know it is good to talk and share feelings, blah blah blah. That's fine. I'll share them by writing them down. I just don't want a conversation about it. I'd rather drift away along the corridors in my mind, considering all the different outcomes and permutations of my next steps.

That said, on Day 18 of my confinement, I am feeling rather strange. I have spoken to R every day on the phone, and I dabble in social media (although keep a safe distance). But actually there is something about having a living, breathing person in the same room that I am missing. I miss R of course, and talking to him is not enough. I wish we were isolating together, as he is my soulmate. That is not a question of being social, it is more than that.

But anyone else, I am weary to let them in. At some point, beyond all this in the future, I will need to venture outside and interact. For now I will endure my own company for a few more weeks.

Friday, 27 March 2020

Reflections on the past

Whilst this was now over 25 years ago, it is one of my greatest memories as I was starting out on my career. Fresh from leaving university, during the recession, in 1993-4, I took this opportunity. To go from the relative comfort of student accommodation and surroundings into a bleak world of poverty, disease and isolation in Ethiopia,  this was certainly an eye-opener for me.

I was based initially in Addis Ababa, at the Mother Theresa home. The reason was because upon contacting the Sisters of Charity in Queens Park, London, they simply stated that the majority of volunteers flocked to Calcutta to work alongside Mother Theresa herself, and that equally needful, perhaps less famous locations, such as in Ethiopia were desperate for help.

Addis was a raw place, where makeshift accommodation for the poor, sprawled under the shadow of a few luxury hotels. The home was located just near to Sidist Kilo, which I remember there being lots of steps where budding runners would exercise in the early mornings. The pale blue metal gate opened as our taxi arrived from the airport and we were welcomed by the sisters.

Children, lots of orphans, laughing and joking on the inside of the gate, whilst ragged children begging for money, remained on the outside. These were orphans from the recent Eritrean war, whose parents had been murdered. Then the patients in the wards, sick and dying. Literally dying, some from hunger, some from disease. Real people, with personal stories.

My role included laundry duty and helping feed the patients. Laundry was hard. No washing machines, just scrubbing, thrashing and squeezing dry the blue or white cotton sheets. The catering consisted usually of spooning out a very hot meat dish with a sour flat bread (injera). There was also a large bag of donated cakes and biscuits, provided by Ethiopian Airlines. The patients, those who could walk, queued up, always happy and smiling, some cheeky, to receive their meal. Over the weeks I got to know these people, and they became my friends.

Another time, I woke to find hundreds of villagers (in Dire Dawa) queuing up with tin cans to receive cooking oil, some so poor that they only had plastic bags and had to be turned away. I dispensed the oil from the drum with a tin can all day whilst my arm slowly cooked under the sun.

These are incredible memories for me, not from a white privilege point of view, but because of the people I met, the community behind the blue entrance gate, beautiful people, proud and elegant, displaced by terrible circumstances. And the locals on the outside of the gate, the cheeky ragged boys by the snack hut, the lady selling tomatoes on a plastic sheet on the ground., my school teacher friend. My locals.

As we endure the current pandemic situation, where our freedoms that we took for granted barely a few weeks ago have disappeared rapidly, I see myself drawing parallels with those people that I met in Ethiopia so many years ago. I think we will come out of this a better world, but it does us no harm to reflect on those who have always been deprived of our luxuries and western standards, and realise just how lucky we are.

Tuesday, 24 March 2020

Lockdown

Finally the Government showed some degree of leadership last night and announced a sort of lockdown. Johnson, looking nervous, sheepish almost, in what seems to be the most watched television event in British TV history, declared that the British public shall not venture from their homes, save a few exceptions.

I'm glad. The scenes of tourists flouting the advice last weekend was a stark reminder just how ill-informed the British public can be. We saw it with Brexit and now we see it with Covid-19. And this sense of British exceptionalism, that this thing is just the other, over there, abroad, where it won't hurt us, won't possible impact our daily lives, because we are exceptional. It's just bullshit.

As for Farage, he just seeks any opportunity to dig the knife in. He is a nasty piece of work, I think. The funny thing is that he was insisting that the Governement was inept at not closing the borders, therefore clarifying what we all knew before - that the British people do have autonomy from Europe, if we wish to use it. It didn't need Brexit to illustrate that. It just needed a virus...

For me, I'm about to enter my 3rd week of isolation, save a trip to the pharmacy and to the hospital for my monthly blood tests. Thankfully I have been accumulating food since last year, in what was preparation for a hard Brexit (which still might come). I have lots and lots of pasta and baked beans. What I am lacking is fresh produce. My grocery delivery tonight should help rectify that, although I received an email this morning to advise that I would not be receiving any flour, olive oil or wine. No home baking for me. I'll have two loaves of bread until next time. I'm trying to get on the "vulnerable" list at Sainsbury's so that I can have a slot for my next delivery. Let's see how that goes.

Work might end for me this week. I have put in for voluntary redundancy. I hope it was the right decision - I can survive quite cheaply if I need to, which is what I will be doing for at least the next few months.

I just hope that this country has made it's moves in time, and that we don't reach the critical stage that Spain and Italy find themselves in. What a humanitarian disaster.

Of course that would never happen to the exceptional British...

Thursday, 19 March 2020

Self-isolation: Day 9

The world is changing rapidly. It was never a stable place to be complacent in, but the last couple of weeks have shown me just how you cannot take anything for granted anymore.

I've now been in isolation for nine days, and it's not been too bad, in all honesty. For someone like me at least. For someone who craves solitude. For someone who hates crowds, small talk, talking in large groups. For someone who wants to escape from their job. For someone who might want sometimes to escape from life.

In fact I have always been like this. In the early years it was accompanied by a deep feeling of depression and self-loathing. These days it just comes naturally. Solitude. Peace. Self-reflection time.

However tomorrow I must venture out into the world in order to have my monthly blood test. I'm a bit worried about that to be honest. Hopefully it will be over in a matter of minutes as I don't need to see a consultant this time.

R left London last night for Sussex, concerned that there might be a coming lockdown in the city. So far that hasn't transpired, and it makes little difference to me, stuck as I am in my own building. I do miss him though. I miss our weekends together. But we still talk, that is the main thing. He is badly affected by these events, anxiety and worry being a main part of that. I so hope we all come through this soon.

Earlier this evening I caught the photo of my Grandma in the cabinet, smiling proudly on the day she reached her 100th birthday in 2010. It reminded me how she survived the Spanish flu in 1919. As an eight year old she lost her hair as a result. Her mother, tied between looking after her and her husband who was recovering from a gunshot wound from the War, left my grandma to be cared for by her aunt. I've often wondered why a mother would leave her sick daughter, but it was desperate times that, until current world events unfold, might we not understand.

Last night I opted for voluntary severance from my job, The LT had put a lot of pressure on employees to choose between unpaid leave, sabbatical or that. I chose severance as my escape hatch. I've not progressed in my workplace for some time now. My looming operation in the past few years put me off moving but now is the right opportunity. Not perhaps the right time, but the right opportunity. Let's see how that works out.

For now I follow the news, the economy, my pension; I work, whilst I still have my job, and I talk over the phone. I'm also cooking a lot, which kind of relaxes me. And god am I cleaning!

As I mentioned earlier, I look forward to the time that we can all come through this sudden whirlwind that has blown apart lots of people's plans, and in fact devastated many families. I hope it can be tamed quite soon, and we can all be free again.

Sunday, 15 March 2020

Let's get through this

How quickly our world can change, our assumptions and dependencies.

Covid-19 is amongst us, a silent killer, a global killer, seeking out the vulnerable, inflicting misery upon all of us.

Who would have thought last year, amidst the hideous Brexit crisis, that another crisis, even more serious would descend upon us all? As we toasted in the new year, did we ever think that we would be enduring this situation right now?

As we look at the rising numbers of infections around the world, and in our own communities, we need to take stock of what is important to us. We need to also consider how we might protect each other in order to beat this threat.

The future now is uncertain. But I am certain that there will be an end to the crisis. I also think that the world will be a different place when we surface back to normality. Hopefully it will be a better place, where people support each other more, and we look after our vulnerable citizens better. Hopefully it will not be a world where selfish nationalism and self-interest out-weighs our self-reflection.

I am scared. There is no getting away from the fact that the unknown is scary. Who might I lose during this crisis? Will I still have a job? Will I still have a future? But I am trying to seek out the positives. I see that the number of infections in China and South Korea are falling. The numbers in the UK are rising, but at some point there will be a peak, hopefully a flattened one, but those numbers will fall.

And the deaths? If 2% of infected people in the UK die, that would mean (based on a worse case infection rate of 80%) that 800,000 people will die. That's 800,000 who only a few months ago were toasting in the new decade. Gone. Family members and loved ones might be amongst them. I might be one of them.

All we can do is mitigate, avoid or reduce social contact, wash our hands. I am self-isolating because of my immunosuppressants. In the absence of clear government guidance I managed to get a doctor's note to work from home for the next two weeks. Then in two weeks, if there is still no guidance, I will get another. It's lonely, but it's necessary. I still have to attend the hospital next week, however, for blood tests. I will take precautions. I have already spoken to them and my consultation will be carried out over the phone, so I should be in for only a short while. At some point, however, I need to pick up medicines.

I really hope this all draws to its conclusion quite soon. I know we will get through this. I'm not going to apply jingoistic war analogies as some are doing. This is different. We have the internet to help us, we have better access to news; and at some point we will have a vaccine.

For the time being, I will carry out all those chores I have delayed in my flat, water my plants, scroll through Netflix, whatsapp my other half. That is the hardest part, the love and companionship, but I know it is only temporary. This nightmare is only temporary.


Wednesday, 1 January 2020

New year musings

For three weeks I have had nothing to say. But for the new year, the new decade, I wanted to put some thoughts down, about my own existence if nothing else. My existence. What it means to be me. What I think about me. Where me is going.

A new year is always a time for reflection. What plans there might be for the next 12 months. 2019 was a pretty dramatic year for me. My politics has been shattered, just like my family relationships, my mental health, and more physically the operation I had in July, something that has turned around my outlook on life somewhat.

My physical illness and my mental illness have been somewhat entwined, with the one feeding the other. Like a wounded animal, I cut myself away from the world, my family, my career, my ambition as I weathered my decline. But now I am through that, at least physically, and at least for now. Who knows how long my transplant will keep going for. It isn't a perfect fix after all, but it is enough.

So I do have ambition, but in order to realise this I need to address my lingering frustrations. My career has plateaued and I can see the end point no the horizon. Yet in order to extract myself from this path I need to be able to see an alternate route. That is still lost in the fog. This is the same fog that has shrouded my thinking for years, sometimes lifting to provide clarity but then enveloping again and incapacitating my vision.

I want to move on but I need to know where. I look at the stars but they are too small to make out between them. I want to extend my intellect, that is clear. I don't feel clever any more. Perhaps I was never clever, I was just good at faking it. That is certainly the case now. To hide my ignorance I become obscure and distant, so that people cannot identify the real me. I keep myself isolated. I am a loner. I prefer my own company than any tedious drinks party or bourgeois dinner party. I enjoy theatre, Becket in particular, but anything cerebral. Maybe I am pretending to myself of my intellectual superiority, when I am incapable of demonstrating it to others any more. I am insular to the point of seeming weird.

But what is weird? I need to own weird. It is the only interesting thing about me. My backstory is the usual pained youth story, from a broken home, coping with the psychologically damaging stepfather who eventually goes off the rails, my mother only justifying her remaining with him for 25 years by the fact that they produced a son, the wonderful can-do-no-wrong kind, who clearly holds the same gene. That's a gene that has impacted my family since 1983, blood line or not. But is that weird, or just normal family dysfunction?

What it has lead to is my insularity. Like a gradual tightening over the years. Not that I was very outgoing at school, but then that was when family life was at its worst. At university I avoided the Students Union on a Friday night because it was always just drunken and dull, preferring to sneak off to the local gay bars where I was far more likely to find myself. In my year in France I chose an area that was unpopular with the other British students, opting to live with French students. I was probably my most open there, but even then I regressed to isolation on some weekends, preferring the solitary to the busy.

Then my working life began, without ambition I opted for a low paid role in a bookshop in my university town, using the ambition of my then boyfriend to travel to pin myself to him wherever he went, first to Ethiopia where we worked in a Mother Theresa home in Addis Ababa and then by an overland trip to Australia. I've often been known to us my Trans-Siberian train journey story as a foil to show that there is something interesting about me, but its a bit fraudulent when it has always been chance and circumstance that has pushed me onto new experiences.

In Australia I did enjoy a moment of self-awareness when I taught myself to code professionally, yearning to return to the UK where I could throw some energy into my career. Travel was good to me for that reason: it let me identify what I was missing out on: a job and the London property market. I soon made up for that by throwing myself into my career, then saving up for my first property, then saving up for my first pension. Then saving up for a future I had no idea about.

I think its since my recent health concern that this has brought in some light to the question of what future I am living for. I remain isolated: the thread of my dysfunctional family has followed me for over 30 years and I am at the stage where I am considering whether it is of benefit to me anymore. My operation has once again brought me some self awareness. And energy. Energy is good. It fuels motivation and passion. But does it identify which star in the sky to aim for?

So I think I have some ambition but still no focus. One thing I can do is to put this down into words. Like Becket says, we can be pessimistic about the futility of life between birth and death, or we can fill it with words, talking none stop until we finally fill in the void and there is nothing else left to say.

Let's see what words I can fill into 2020. Let's see if I find my direction.