Inspiration or introspection

Sometimes I wander the streets, trying to put all the different things going on in my life into different compartments. I suppose it is a way to keep myself sane as the world goes insane around me. 

In the past week I have lost 2 friends both having moved on to better places. One was expected as she had been ill for some time, and I recall the moment when I received the call to say the hospital had moved her to a private room which told me there was very little time to go. The other well I suppose my jaw dropped when I found out he passed away, it came as a complete shock. He just had a heart attack, at the age of 45. One moment there the next gone.

And now I reflect on my own life, I wander the streets looking for, well I don't know, maybe inspiration is the word, maybe a big light in the sky to tell me or show me the way, I have no idea but it's a way to put my own life and troubles into perspective and to try to compartmentalise my own thoughts, and come to term with where my life is going.

You look at the world in general and there seems to be just pain and suffering out there. So my own problems and thoughts are nothing but a tiny pebble on a beach of rocks, but as I've said before our own worlds are the very immediacy around us. The larger world very rarely imposes upon us, and we end up blowing the smallest problems into life changing issues. 

I admit I can do that myself but I admittedly wear my heart on my sleeve and do allow my heart to rule my head more often than I would like to admit to which can be a problem. As then normally the depression kicks in and mentally I fall to pieces until I find a way to get on top of my life.

I'm sort of going through one of those phases at the moment, I met someone that I thought I had a connection with (the first time in over 10 years that this has happened) and then she leaves me cold with no explanation as to why she no longer contacts me. Now randomly I receive a text from her asking if I'm still alive, bit of a bad choice of words then she's not to know. And we meet up for the 5 minutes that classes as a lunch break for me at work and I find out she is now seeing someone else but wants to stay friends. How confusing can my life get, or should I say have I heard this one before? 

After a week of debating I've decided to remove her from my life, a tad harsh I hear you say, but how I see it is that she wasn't straight with the things she told me, if I hadn't broached the subject I would have found out she was seeing someone else when I added her on Facebook, which would have made me more angry than anything. And trust is a major thing in my life and I hope everyone's lives, and she broke that trust, the one thing I asked her to be with me, was straight and truthful, she said she would be and then she wasn't, therefore it's best to move on and let her move on with her life too.

Anyway the problem I suppose is how do I handle everything, that is the crux of the question. Well at the moment I'm writing this locked away in my house hiding away from everyone and everything, but that is the wrong way to handle things, I realise that, they say when you are having problems it's best to talk, but talk to whom. The only friends I ever confided in have moved on so at present the only time I tend to have a meaningful conversation is when I talk to my cat! What does that say about me, that I'm one step way from a breakdown or that maybe I need to go out more to meet new people. But trying to find like minded people, now that is a challenge in itself.

In all honesty I'm at one of my lowest ebbs at the moment, I seem to be losing the battle with my life and I'm not sure where to go with things or how to go about sorting my life out and putting myself back on track. At the moment I just want to crawl into a hole a pretend that everything is ok, but I'm already in the hole and feel that I just want to cry, scream and find a way to understand why life is the way it is. 

As I said I'm at a crossroads in my life, and in all honesty I just want to disappear off the face of the earth and I don't know, start again? Reinvent myself? Live as a hermit? 

The next question I suppose is that do I want this? In reality do I need this? For my own sanity do I just cut my losses and start again? I don't know but with how I feel at the moment it seems to be my only option.

Crossroads

At the moment I feel like I'm at a crossroad in my life. I was discussing this with a friend earlier today and her attitude is just do it. I feel that I need a break from my current life and just up and do something crazy, many will think it's the start of a midlife crisis but those that know me will realise although passionate I will think everything through before making any major decisions in life. And this has been on my mind for some time now. 

I've had what I call the 5 year itch for sometime now, I never seem to be able to settle in any one place or job for more than 5 years. I'm now in my 6th year in my current job and I just want to get away. I'm also living alone, which I suppose gives me too much time to dwell upon my life and where it is leading.

To be honest this is not going to be an immediate thing. I have a house which is in negative equity and also have bills to think about. What I do plan on is a 2 year plan, to sort out the house, sort out my life and just up and go somewhere new and fresh.

The next question has to be so what do I do? Where do I go? That I have no idea of at present, whether it be to foreign climes or just somewhere else in the UK. And what will I do, well only time will tell. The key is I suppose there is nothing holding me back it's just a matter of time now and it's a question of whether I am willing to take the risk, but then life is full of risks what's one more to add to the list.

The Meaning of Life

Sometimes I wonder what my lot in life is. I suppose we all go through these sort of thoughts, we debate with ourselves on whether we are doing the right thing in life and what we are here for, what drives us through this mortal coil. What can I say, it is different for each one of us.

For myself, well that is a hard one to explain. My experiences run from the mundane to the downright surreal. I was, as I daresay many single men do, have been trawling through different dating websites to meet women (admittedly some just for fun while others looking for something a little more serious). So I'm your typical male of the species, looking for sex on one hand and an emotional attachment on the other and I have come into contact with some very nice ladies, but I seem to arrive in their lives at times of great stress or as will be discussed later (once I have spoken to the lady in question) about to do something that will probably effect her emotionally for the rest of her life.

The first person I will mention will be the Australian lady that I have mentioned in a previous blog. We had one proper date then she heard from her family in Australia that her mother has breast cancer. I can't imagine how devastating the news of this was to her but I suppose I was just there for her whilst she went through this trying time, giving tidbits of advice where I could and trying to keep her amused and help her through everything that was happening. In the end she found out it was not as bad as originally thought and a lot of her fears subsided at which point she seems to have gone cold on me and no longer contacts me. 

I met another lady through another website, again a bit of flirting and getting to know one another ensued and things seemed to be going well. Then suddenly she tells me her ex has walked into her bedroom, dumped a load of boxes and told her to move out! (Can you tell where this is going yet?) So then I am again in the same scenario of trying to help her look at the bright side of life and giving her advice on how to get a place of her own through the council as he had given her 3 days to move out! And again after the crisis had subsided she went quiet on me and has again drifted away.

Now I come to the third and final lady that I have met through a website, now this shocked me when I read it. I was on the personal classifieds of a very well know website and I found an advert, where a lady of 20 years old was offering her virginity to the highest bidder to help her get through university, now admittedly I'd had a couple of drinks that evening and sent her a random email asking her not to make, what I think will be the biggest mistake of her life and somehow a conversation has now ensued by email between us. I'm hoping that she will listen to what I have said and I have offered her money (I know this sounds bad) to help her through this. Admittedly I can't afford much but I don't want to see anyone do this to themselves. She comes across as a very nice young lady about to do something out of sheer desperation to better herself.

At this point you are probably sat there wondering what is with this guy, is he a mug or just very naive, and I sit here and wonder the same thing myself. But I sort of see how my life is progressing through these encounters. I seem to enter into peoples lives just before or during times of stress, depression or crisis and seem to just be there for them and try to help them through, well the madness is the only term I can use for it.

The question I pose myself is, Is that the meaning of my life? Is my lot in life to sit there and be peoples scratching posts, their shoulder to cry on, the person they can tell all their darkest secrets to? As I said I can end up in some very surreal situations sometimes and this last one is one the more surreal moments of my life. But then chatting with the young lady in question has randomly found some common ground interests, so hopefully this will blossom into a wonderful friendship. But yes I am probably naive and maybe even gullible but I think that even if I am 'taken for a ride' I have tried to do my best to make someone else happy and I put others before my own thoughts and feelings. That's possibly why I am in the situation I am now, being alone and lonely at times, because I put my own feelings to one side and put others before me, even if I don't really know them.

So what is the meaning of life I hear you ask, well i suppose the title should have been 'The meaning of my life' as each one of us is different, each has their own path in life, some are centred on themselves and believe the world revolves around them whilst others (and I may include myself in this) are there to help others, they put others first and maybe at sometime in the future will have a happier and more fulfilling life for doing so. 

Or maybe I am living the pipe dream, personally I have visions of my life being like the ending of 'Once Upon A Time In America', that it has all been a a drug fuelled hallucination and I am dreaming of the way I wish I had been, or maybe waiting in a purgatory seeing how I could have changed my existence for the better before being reborn only to try again. Only time will tell I suppose, but the meaning of my life seems to be to be there to help when needed or to put it another way, to meet people at the perfect time to help them through their trials and tribulations and then like ships, to drift past each other on the great sea that is life.

Mortality and Immortality

Today I found out a friend of mine has passed away, she wasn't young but it was certainly before her time. I suppose writing this is a way to release my emotions.

She'd been ill for some time but I suppose that the whole mortality thing never really crossed my mind where she was concerned. She was always just around in her carefree way of doing things, she never complained or made a big thing of being ill but we could all see her weakening as time went on. But because she never made anything of it and just took it in her stride we all thought she would live forever.

In some ways we all see ourselves as being immortal, personally I haven't made any plans for the future, what will come will come is my attitude, life is there to be lived not to worry about what is around each corner. We seem to think modern medicine holds all the answers and that we will live forever. But then you get to a certain age, and your friends and family start being taken ill or dying and at this stage your own mortality stares you back in the face. 

I suppose my life has been slightly different in that respect, I lost my best friend and mentor at the age of 19, he took his own life. That put a certain perspective on life for me. Those immortal heady days in my late teens/early 20's were tinged with a healthy respect for my own mortality. I was the protective one in my little group of outcasts and no matter the situation I was the one that looked out for and looked after my brethren. Oh I enjoyed my time out partying and anyone that knew me then would tell you how wild and out of control I could be, admittedly after he died I went off the rails in a big way and could easily have been a victim if circumstance, and certainly had my moments where suicide was a viable option going through my mind, but I always thought back to how I felt when Denise approached me to tell me what happened, the empty, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The feeling that I'd overlooked something he had said, maybe I could have prevented it. 

But then would I be the same person now if he'd have been stopped, if I had stopped him, as he did the deed barely 200 yards from my home and I suppose that is the thing that dwells upon my mind so much, was he coming to see me that evening? Could I have stopped him from doing something that I am sure he regretted? Why did he do it? That is a key question that I will never know the answer to, his passing away sent me down a road that changed me as a person and made me as a man. 

I remember going into sixth form the following day, feeling empty inside and realising that I would need to tell my peers, even though Alex had quit sixth form about 3 months before. I recall almost breaking down whilst trying to tell my form tutor and the look of horror on her face at the realisation of what I was saying, and I recall how she asked me if I wanted to get her to tell everyone. I thought no, this is my time to step up, be an adult and tell them what had happened, and this I did, I called for silence and choking on my words told them what had happened the previous night at which point they went back to their mundane conversations pretty much ignoring what I had said.

His death  and the reaction at sixth form sent me off the rails and I partied hard, and threw myself into ways to forget what had happened I suppose. I dropped out and went around the country thinking drink would be the optimum way to forget, but drugs and women became a part of my life as well, and I feared getting close to someone, fearing what may happen again. Then one day I sort of woke up from the drunken, drug fuelled craze I had been in for about 2 years of my life and I thought 'grab life by the balls and do what you want to do, fuck what everyone else thinks!'

The reality is that life needs to be lived to its fullest, there are many naysayers out there that will say you can't do this or that, they key is to say sod them, go your own way in life, you have once chance to get this life right, take the risk.  Depending on your viewpoint you may have an immortal soul, or you may be reborn/reincarnated, no one really knows even though they tell you they know and that there is a place in heaven for you. My personal view, well that is literally my own, and it stays that way.  I wont force my view points onto others. it would be unfair of me to do so. But I will say this, life it too short, too many people are willing to follow the river that is the human race, others are pebbles, fighting against the current and then there are the few that are rocks that change the flow of lives around them. 

I personally realise I am not immortal and one day I will pass away, I personally wonder if there will be anyone at my own funeral and those that do turn up I wonder what they will say and what sort of mark I have made on this mortal coil. The one thing I hope is that they realised I tried my best and I was always there for anyone that needed my help, which randomly seems to have been the case with a couple of people in my life recently (more randomly they are  both people I have known a matter of days) but I have tried my best to be there for them and to help them through trying times.

And finally I move back to my friend who lost her battle against the 'C' word, she brought light into others lives and fought to the end sharing her love of life and passion for living with all around her, there can not be a better epitaph for ones life than that. All of us that know her will never forget her and how even at the end she was still in great humour and shared this with all that met her. She will be greatly missed.