It’s been ten months since I posted here. So much has happened since then. I have no less than six unfinished posts, sat collecting dust. I always wondered how long I would keep it up. I was never sure how much help, if any, it would be. My last post was in August last year. In the early days of this blog, I’d always post when I felt particularly griefy. Which was most days, for a long time. Sometimes even twice in one day. The process felt cathartic at the time. Now I rarely, if ever, look back at those early posts. I’ve got to the point now, where I don’t want to remember those traumatic early days after My Lady died at all. It’s a bit of a contradiction to be honest as I’m sat here at my desktop bashing away at my keyboard, listening to the mediation tunes I had on all throughout lockdown on repeat all day. Lock down came ten days after My Lady’s funeral. We were ‘lucky’ to have a funeral at all. Just the process of writing this post pulls me back a little to the early days.
At the beginning of February, my car failed it’s MOT. Badly. There’s no way I could afford to fix it. As a result, I was forced to cycle to work. It’s a nine mile round trip. I only had a bike at all as my Musical Compadre and his partner kindly gave me their fold up bike when they moved back to Ireland. Without it, I would have been walking as the bus service is horrific here. I’m very grateful for the gift of the bike, but it was small, had only one gear and I hadn’t cycled at all for years, let alone cycled often. On the first day riding to work, I nearly threw up when I arrived there. It nearly killed me. Much like after the first time I did a ‘povo’ grocery shop, I was sat there at work wondering what my life has come to. I knew it would get worse before it got better but Jesus, when will I get a break? Riding to work in sub zero temperatures was not fun at all. My beard is quite long now and one day I even had frost all over it when I got to work. “#fuckwinter” as I told my colleagues and even my bosses several times a day for months on end. Suffice to say, they know full well how I feel about winter. I despise it with a vengeance.
It’s Fathers day. Nearly three and a half years in to this life I never wanted and I still want to ignore days like this. ‘Shittyversaries’ I call them. My Lady made such a fuss of me on these days. I still miss her so much. Much like my birthday, I have no interest in doing anything for myself, other than hide away in my home, cleaning and listening to music. Since My Lady died, I’ve let this house and garden go to shit so badly. I’ve been trying so hard to be motivated to get it all sorted. It’s coming along but it’s the old 2 steps forward one step back routine. How new. Bored now. Most of the house is light years better than it was but the garden, despite a few days recently working like a dog out there, is worse than ever. Making a mess to fix a mess I kept telling myself. Only I haven’t done any fixing. Weeds are cleared, pots are reseeded, Plants are pruned, but now I have a huge pile of detritus left that I intended to burn on a bonfire well over a week ago. No doubt the grass underneath it will be dead, or close to it. Sat here looking out there, it’s a shit show again. God knows what the neighbors think. I’m surprised I’ve had no complaints. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to look at it.
Summer has been here for a while now. The days I spent working in the garden did me good. I’ve needed a good dose of sunshine for months. My arms are tanned already. My Lady used to say I “Tan a beautiful Olive brown”. To this day, almost everything in my head is still in reference to My Lady, or the life I had with her. I’m starting to think it’ll never change. The difference now, is that I wish it would. I’ve been feeling shit for over three years now. I’ve had enough of it. I even had some dark thoughts recently. They came and went in a flash but still. Not good. Don’t worry, I’m well on top of that at least. One thing I do know, is that I’ll always be broken to some extent. I can’t see why I’d all of a sudden, miraculously be happy and content with myself and my life. Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of my life that I AM very happy with. But these are all distractions from the misery, rather than the cure for it because there isn’t one. You can channel your pain through music, art, writing and a whole load of other things of course, but the pain remains.
Will this never end?
The Life and Times of Lord Crookedhorn. 