Thursday 28 February 2013

A year, a dozen paces, another life

On the last day of February last year, I was sitting roughly the aforementioned dozen paces from where I am now, in 'work-town' Wetherspoons, when I took my phone from my pocket, and made a call. The phrase 'life-changing' is one of those overused cyphers, often signifying little or nothing, but that call really did change everything. A year on, I'm still sitting, rather dazedly, in the fallout, none the wiser as to where my life will, ultimately, go, or even where I want it to go. What I really want is so inaccessible that it can be virtually disregarded, while none of the practicable alternatives hold much, if any appeal. Still in limbo, still looking back at the smouldering remains of those bridges. With another life, lost forever, on the other side.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

4 comments:

  1. Oh boy, Sammy, you're not sounding good here. Please tell me you're OK. Well, I know you're not, but this is worrying!

    Peace <3
    Jay

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    1. Hello Jay
      Thinking about what happened a year ago left me feeling sad and reflective, but nothing worse than that. The sense of a lack of direction, though, is real - I still, even at this remove, have no idea what to do or where to go to find some sort of 'new life' that would go some way towards replacing what has been lost.

      Love & best wishes
      Sammy B

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  2. " What I really want is so inaccessible that it can be virtually disregarded, while none of the practicable alternatives hold much, if any appeal."

    I disagree with Jay, this sounds like the beginning of acceptance.

    As to the latter half of the quoted sentence, let me relay a short anecdote.

    I had recently noticed that my sister had switched to a brand of watery, tasteless beer, in an ongoing effort to lose weight. She refused to drink anything else (even though she is a die hard "Bud Light" afficianado.)

    When I asked her, "Why are you drinking this, it tastes like shit?" she replied, "You can learn to like anything."

    At the time she had lost 50 pounds; I assume by now she has lost even more.

    :-)

    -Andy

    (ps, I hope the analogy is not lost on you.)

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    Replies
    1. Hello Andy
      You can learn to like anything, or, at least, convince yourself to accept anything, if you want it enough. In many ways, my marriage, even though I genuinely loved, and still love, my ex, was an exercise in just that, convincing myself that it was what I wanted, that it was the right thing for me to do. I really believed it for a long time. Until, in my late forties, I fell in love (or developed an infatuation, depending on perspective) - with an 11 year old boy. All one-sided, I didn't ever even speak to him in any organised way, and I'm sure he barely knew I existed, except in as far as he must, on occasions, have noticed me looking at him as he walked past where I used to work. Which made me realise that what I had wasn't what I most wanted, that almost twenty years of my life had been spent, effectively, living with second-best. Whatever I ultimately choose to do, I'm going to try my best not to make the same mistake again, even if that means embracing the word I've described more than once as the most terrifying in the dictionary - 'never'.

      Love & best wishes
      Sammy B

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