Month: May 2018

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Bank holiday

It is a beautiful morning. Looking to set the record as the hottest May Day Bank Holiday ever. I will go out, but I will do some jobs first. Including writing this.

Woke at 6, read for a while, did my yoga and meditation. Have to clear all my stuff out of the van, but I can’t do that till tomorrow when the garage opens and I can get my keys. Although I guess I could call Darren’s mobile and get them from him. Really I should have got them on Friday afternoon but didn’t think about it till it was so late I couldn’t be bothered.

What am I doing? Who am I? Why am I obsessed with people seeing me as I see myself? I don’t know. Obsessed with demonstrating that I am who I am, not who they want me to be, or I might want me to be. Chaotic, lazy, irresponsible, unattractive, selfish, self-obsessed, clumsy, incompetent, disorganised. Why can’t I just be? If other people can’t accept me for who I am, how can I accept myself? I’ve tried to change, honestly I have tried so many times to live up to their unrealistic expectations, tried to believe it was possible to become that better person, brave, strong, hard-working, competent, attractive etc etc etc, all those things I’m not. I’ve really tried, but now I’ve had enough, enough of that stress, that pressure. I want to let it all go and just be who I am without feeling I have to justify myself, without having to be ashamed of myself constantly, always afraid of being found out, of failing, of disappointing them – I mean, I’m used to being disappointed by me, I’ve learnt to lower my expectations of myself, I know who I am.

Trying to be better, trying to be successful, trying to be kinder, more generous, more sociable, more conscientious, not letting everything slide like this. I’ve had enough of all that, it just makes me miserable knowing that everything I try is futile.

I want to be free. What does that mean? Free of any expectation, free of any commitments. What would I do? Is that really what I want? Would I be alone, scared, lonely? All those things, but aren’t they the main conditions of my existence? To be alone, scared and lonely? At least I wouldn’t have to pretend, wouldn’t have to push myself to do the things I don’t want to do, to take care of myself.

There is no answer to that. We all have to take care of our own needs to some extent. Otherwise, life would become… what? Where am I going with this? How have I got to this point? I need a coffee. I will go downstairs and make coffee.

So, coffee made, I need to write another fifty words. What is the answer? There isn’t one, clearly, there never has been and I just can’t change. How do I get round that? How do I cut through these feelings and move on? It’s no good just asking questions if there aren’t any answers.

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Long drive

Just finished my last four NaPoWriMo haiku – only 5 days late! Been at Laura’s and only got back yesterday. I didn’t have my laptop – but more to the point I couldn’t get my head into a place where I could write. I had ideas for two of them – they came to me when I was driving, one when I was driving to Laura’s and one when I was driving to the self-publishing conference in Leicester. I had them both complete in my head at the time but didn’t write them down in my notebook and they went. Still I have managed to recreate them and one is actually better than what I had before because I took a slightly different tack. I had one leftover from the boat which I will throw in and another I wrote this morning from scratch, about bluebells. It’ll do.

I really enjoyed the conference, got back fired up and full of enthusiasm but that all seems to have gone after a week.

I was intending to come home on Tuesday, got everything packed up and loaded into the car, then we went to Coleman’s Craft Warehouse and the Needle and Awl for lunch and then we both got an email from Simon about Laura taking him and Dina from Brian’s to Heathrow on Friday. They’d talked about it ages ago but Laura had forgotten the date and hadn’t got Friday off work. Brian couldn’t take them because he’s going to pick them up and anyway didn’t want to leave the dogs alone in the house the first day they were there. So I said I could stay till Friday and take them then drive home from Heathrow.

I could have done without it because it meant I had to miss lino and my therapy session on Thursday. When I picked them up Simon was in a foul mood about being picked up at 7.00, because his sat nav said it would only take 1 hour 15 minutes, and their flight wasn’t till 11.40. We’d tried explaining to him that it would take 3 hours if we left at 8, but he wasn’t having any of it. I was pissed off because I’d messed up my week to do it and didn’t get a word of thanks or acknowledgement and he started a pointless argument because he said I’d told him the wrong exit from the M25 last time we came up and the sat nav sent him a different way on Thursday. (I didn’t, I got to the bottom of it which was that I told him I didn’t know the exit number but I still directed us off the right exit to the M1, but it wasn’t worth arguing over especially as I was driving. Usual thing as with Laura, I’m the one who has to back down because for me to keep arguing my case until I convince them I’m right would be childish and unnecessary and then it would all be my fault).

Eventually, when things had gone quiet for a while, I said, hopefully in a not-too-argumentative voice: ‘I missed my lino printing and therapy session yesterday to do this for you’ and he had calmed down a bit though I don’t think he actually apologised. Then part of the M25 was closed, he was following it on google maps and it sent us off through the wilds of Bucks and Surrey, eventually getting onto the M4 and returning to the M25 and Heathrow that way, I dropped them at 9.40 then thought I would find somewhere to stop on the way home. Drove into the Starbucks (used to be Little Chef) on the A3 before Guildford, but the car park was full (I don’t like Starbucks anyway) so decided I would keep on to the McDonald’s at Petersfield, saw a National Trust sign for the Witley Centre, pulled off the A3 and followed it but then found it was just a patch of woodland, very nice but no café; then pulled off at Petersfield but it was the wrong exit, thought if I went through the town and followed the signs back to the A3 it must be that one, but it wasn’t, I missed it altogether, kept driving and got home at 11.25 – almost 5 hours driving which has  to be a record.

When I got home the house stank of cat pee and I just sat and cried.