It’s Monday. I have today and tomorrow off work. I booked them off to get my first song finished among other things. I got a fair bit done on it yesterday. I’ve also spent a lot of time painting bits of the house. Throughout this time this whole “feels” thing has been playing on my mind a lot. As you’ll know if you’ve read my last few posts, I’ve been spending a considerable amount of time of late thinking about the next stage of my life. I’m fifty this year. It’s a little surreal thinking about creating a completely new life for myself even now, but I crave it more than ever. I’m done with the current status quo. Other than my job, I want to change it all. Recent events have made me incredibly reflective. I’ve been talking about it with my two soul sisters from my Headcase family. They’ve really helped me put a few things in perspective. What do I want? Who do I want? Where do I want it? How do I want it? I don’t necessarily have the answers to these questions, but I didn’t even have a clue where to start.
Until now I’d never seriously thought about who I want as, initially at least, the whole point was that the new life I’ve been craving had no one else in it, partner wise anyway. I mentioned before how I have twenty years of working life left if I’m lucky and I want to make the most of that. After talking to the the girls for most of this weekend the penny dropped. Twenty years… Do I really want to spend those years on my own? I’ve never been single this long already. One thing the girls said that made me stop in my tracks was the question do I even know what the single version of myself is like? So far, since My Lady died, the answer has been a bloody hermit. In the past I’ve never really been the type to go to the pub or club socially. Even when I’d tried, I always had that “wall flower” feeling I remember from school discos. Sad huh? Over the last year or so however that’s changed. There’s a rock and metal DJ night in a pub in town once a month. I seem to have become well liked there. It’s a new and very nice feeling. Metal heads being metal heads, it didn’t take long to form a bond with several there. We have since become very close. Not once have I ever gone there looking for a date or anything however. As one of the younger lads there once said, it’s one of the few places I can truly be myself. I can totally ‘lose my shit’ there. In the very best way.
After My Lady dying, and then the pandemic, my social skills were totally destroyed. Hardly surprising and many people had the same experience after lock down. Working in the mass vaccination program throughout it’s time however, I met and greeted literally tens of thousands of people. My colleagues were different to the people I was used to being around too. Over that time, I rebuilt my socials skills. I realized after a while that I had rebuilt them differently though. People were interacting with me very differently. I was never really an unpopular person in social circles, but I always had social anxiety to the point that I rarely, if ever struck up conversations upon meeting new people. The vaccination work completely changed that.
Getting back to the point of this post, the new me that’s developed during the last four years is very different. I won’t bang on about it too much here, as I have written about it a lot in past posts, but it’s relevant. I’m now quite confident and outgoing, gregarious even. My attitude now is that people can take me how they find me or not, I don’t care any more. It’s very liberating. As a consequence, I seem to get a lot more respect in general. I’m also a thousand times more empathetic now after the vaccine work, naturally.
Throughout most of my adult life and even as a teenager, I always seemed to get on better with women. I was never a “lad” as it were and most women seemed to feel safe around me. It’s not been uncommon for them to confide in me on topics they would normally only discuss with their girlfriends. Relationships, emotions and such like. Ironic as I considered myself somewhat emotionally immature back then. For a while I assumed it was because I used to be a bit of a Beta male. To an extent I was, but since I’ve had to step up over the last few years, I seem to have struck a balance between being beta, bordering on pathetic and being a strong and confident man. It’s not something I’ve actively tried to achieve though, it just happened. I’ll never be the “lad” I mentioned though.
I digressed a little again didn’t I? How new.
The point I was trying to make is how do I form a deep connection with a potential new partner if I don’t know what the new me would be like in a relationship? I’ve learned many lessons from my past relationships, and particularly from my regrets after losing My Lady, but I don’t know how they would manifest with someone new. I guess the only way I’ll find out is when I get with someone. It’ll be one of the bravest things I’ve done in a long time when it comes. I can’t lie though, I’m starting to look forward to it. Lots. I’ve missed the adrenaline of liking someone and it being returned, regardless of any complications. Like I said in the last post, there’s a vibe in the air I can’t place. I’m quite looking forward to finding out what it is. I’ve learned to trust my instincts (mostly) and I’ve felt lighter, almost airy of late. It’s been a breath of fresh air, even if I can’t clarify it…
Yet…
2024 is looking like being a very interesting year. I’m almost impatient to see where it will lead me. Life is what we make of it of course, but after all my banging on about the “feels”, I’m very much looking forward to seeing if anything will happen on that level. One thing I know is that after all the shit I’ve been through, I deserve a bit of happiness and I’ll grab it with both hands should the opportunity arise. I just hope someone feels the same or similar when it happens. I really don’t want a one sided vibe however nice the “feels” are. Do I not deserve to be happy again after so long? Hopefully any potential partner will understand that they would not be living in the shadow of My Lady. Far from it. My Lady will always be a part of me but it wouldn’t take anything away from any potential new love.
There’s that L word again…
The Life and Times of Lord Crookedhorn. 