At home, tired.
I’m used to the fact that people come and go now. I still don’t like it. I still get sad thinking about it, but it is inevitable. I used to be unable to think about losing people, and allowed the innate fear to control the way I interacted with people. When I dwell on this, I think how hollow and fragile our relative coexistence is. Keeping a list of contacts in a physical address book seems like an archaic thing to do, and ultimately futile. The current situation is tailor made for loneliness and disconnection.
Monday now, and I’ve admitted to myself and others that I’m somewhere on a scale of depression. I know the signs now. That self-awareness is presumably a good thing. It isn’t so terrifying any more. I don’t feel especially desperate to seek help. It will pass, I’m not blaming myself or trying to fight against it. It is a fact of life. An irritating demoralising fact. The present time reminds me of the worst times in Halifax, when I drifted between jobs, lived up a tower, and carried a burden of purposeless around with me. At that time, I had no real aspiration to do anything more than exist daily, and therefore no realistic way to lift myself out of that state. I now keep aspirations simmering, usually a few distinct separate challenges to aim at. I generally don’t move close to achieving them at any notable pace, but they are there, being refined, researched, imagined.
Writing is happening slowly at the moment. Cognitive function is slowed, reduced. In sustained observation, this is referred to as psychomotor retardation. Perhaps I need to slow down thought processes, this has become a necessary stage to allow daily activities to fall into fragments, which in turn can be analysed and divided into useful, necessary, rewarding or distracting categories. Most of my activities actually aren’t necessary, they’ve just become consuming, draining, burdensome OCD-like habits. Forcibly removing the detritus from daily routines, maybe permanently, and also removing physical paraphernalia and clutter will help. Everyone should do this every so often. Possessions become a mental weight, a burden if they don’t have a purpose or bring joy. I don’t even want all the plants everywhere now, they create shadows. I’ll paint the room lighter. Just white on the walls and floor.
I’m realising now that I’ve gone far enough down this route of painful, self indulgent analysis that something of a slow reinvention is inevitable now. It may not be obvious, dramatic, or even noticeable to many other people. If I was told I was going back to work tomorrow I would go, and try to be committed and engaged, but it would be somehow different, of limited interest, a means to an end, just filling the day. Recently when I’ve had contact from work it has invoked an emotional turmoil, excitement then disappointment at the realisation that I’m still at home, alone, without purpose. I wonder what my new priorities would be? Moving, maybe out of London, saving for an MA course, making art work, tackling finances. I hope that I don’t get sucked into the job so much that I lose momentum for the important objectives again. I think on return I’d feel and act more subdued. Now that we’ve seen how fragile the business is, how readily it can fall like a house of cards, I will find it hard to invest so much emotion into it again. I can’t let it be the only good thing I have. It will serve its purpose and pay me until I’m ready to move on, with structure and self confidence.. That was the mistake before, I didn’t realise how much I needed it until I moved on, moving on to nothing concrete though, I destroyed my support network in the process. I’m more aware of that unhealthy dependence now, so have to create other rewarding objectives for myself. At least I’m able to identify that now. Hopefully I’ll achieve something while I still have time left.
Some people will fall by the wayside, sadly. It happens. I’d rather not think about who they may be. I can’t prevent it happening.
Andrew Stevenson 