“Simmering”.

For the first time in a while, I actually woke up feeling depressed. Literally the first thing I thought of was ‘Fuck this life, I don’t want it.’ I just keep curling up and trying to go back to sleep. Just for a few seconds… Please… It doesn’t hurt when I sleep. Every time I nod off for a few minutes, I go through the same process on repeat. Just trying to curl up into the smallest ball I can. Complete refusal to accept this life I have now. I go through this cycle several times. I wasn’t counting. Eventually I face reality, (sort of) and force myself to get up, full to the brim with resentment and hatred for the situation I find myself in.

I just have to push on through regardless, just like I have throughout this whole fucking nightmare. Guess I’m spending the day simmering then. I wonder what/who will trigger me today. As if I’m not perfectly capable of self-triggering myself at any point anyway. Same as every single day, I start with my coffee and cigarette. I haven’t been smoking in the house since not long after My Lady passed away. Well, apart from my bedroom. I’ll go to hell before I give up that small comfort. Say what you like…

Staring out at the garden, dying inside as I remember not only our times out there together, but the countless hours spent out there this summer. It’s strange… I spent so much time out there this year, it makes My Lady’s passing seem like it was so long ago. Then… Bam! It only just happened… Again.

I make a pathetic attempt at shrugging it off and go and start reading the Haynes repair manual so I can at least visualise how the damn car is put together. My left speaker cable has come adrift and the car is disgusting , so I go and hoover it all out. The first step in my fault diagnosis is to check the battery connections. They look a bit dry and corroded so I clean them and that’s as much as I can be bothered to do. I jump in and nip to Tesco for some grief comfort cherry coke and to fill the car up. As I pull away, the thought occurs to me that if the MOT is REALLY bad I’ll have a scrap car with a full tank of fuel… Dickhead. Still it seems to be running ok for now.

I just can’t shake this anxiety. It’s building too. I’m worried about the nursing job, terrified actually. I’m worried about the car. It’s my only source of income at the moment. I’m worried about my income too. I can’t live off my redundancy money. My head is swimming. Overwhelmed. The penny has finally dropped. I’m probably going to have to work ridiculous hours just to make ends meet. I had got so used to my old work routine, it spoiled me. Just when you thought you couldn’t step up any more, along comes another slap in the face from the Cosmos for having the audacity to give oneself the slightest pat on the back. Believe me, patting myself on the back isn’t something I’m in the habit of.

I’ve been quite emotional pretty much all day. My Princeling has popped out for a bit so I pick up one of my acoustics. Strum here, strum there. Then I start feeling morose again… Joy… Rapture… I settle on this song in the end. Crumbled in the middle five times before I got to the end. Love this song.

Work husband popped in this evening. Always great to see him. We spent a good few hours talking. Much needed. So now he’s gone, I’m on my own again. Back to the desktop to bash out more of this drivel. Sometimes I wonder why I carry on doing this and then again, reading back… It’s mental, the different types of horror I’ve gone through this year. Of course one remembers recent events but you don’t always remember the finer details of your internal dialogue. Reading it back when feeling detached from it is a strange thing. Not sure how healthy it is for my mental health reliving it though. In theory it’s supposed to help.

Today, I think not. It just reminds me of times when I had the “luxury” of being able to indulge my broken head space. For weeks. Months actually. Now, when I feel the ‘train’ coming, my anxiety goes off the scale and feeds it, and around we go. I can’t allow myself to spiral like before. There’s far too much at stake now. As lonely as I was during lockdown, looking back, there was some sort of perverse feeling of safety and comfort. I didn’t have to face reality 100%. Part of me could live in denial limbo. If I’m honest with myself, I don’t even want to work at all. All I want is for the sun to shine like summer all year round while I tend the sanctuary that is our garden and play guitar. That’s it, nothing else. I’d love that. As ever, Ronnie Real comes ‘a knocking and there I am again, stressed about having to be away from the house for so long. Something in my head just can’t cope with the idea. Of course I’ll crack on anyway as always but I’m really struggling with it.

I want to hermit…