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Something that I've realised, or maybe just remembered

I quit smoking for 2024. I was never a heavy smoker, but a drunk one.

But, the things I did when I was alone after a few drinks and some cigarettes were some of the most important things I ever did. Maybe it was real clarity. I reached out to people I'd lost connection with so many times. Rebuilt relationships off the back of those moments.

It gave me a moment to restructure my priorities.

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Whatever I was, I'm not. I'm weathered and tide beaten. Life has found me and also happened.

But as sad as I may look here, this is the best that I've felt in some time. I think.

Next week I move again. For the fifth time in as many years, in the hope reinvention and experience.

I'll likely check in again a year from now, as always, in the hope of some form of self improvement or wistful tidbit. I'll speak to you again then, my blank wall.

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Two Years in London

I've seen a lot. Really, I've seen a lot. Lots of people doing things, special things. I've been a part of some of them too.

I let myself take a backseat in my life, for a while. I've written chapters, not stories.

My life before moving here, I have things to tell. Special things that people want to hear, that people have been amazed by. But these special things have been on hold, comfortably or not, for the last two years while I allowed life to float on by.

This city has reaffirmed my confidence in life. Confidence that I'd lost in myself. I've seen people do wonderful things that I'd forgotten were an aspect of free will. Supported by creative minds that are open to things a little bit different.

I desperately needed that. To watch people do things.

I take that back with me to a quieter place. A place where I can be the main in my own life. A place where I can build my stories again. Where being myself is considered out of the ordinary. I'm excited by the opportunity to stand out in some way - if not openly, then only in my head.

I will travel again. I'll be part of anarchist break ins in places I've never been to. I'll jump into life with the confidence that I'm full of life too.

I won't allow my ruts to rear their head. I belong in this world, if only to make my own corner.

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I dreamt last night that I hugged my mum and didn't let go until I woke up

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It happens to be 2023, exactly 7 years after the day.

I live in London now. Things are slightly better, but not yet fantastic. One day I'll watch myself build a life and forget about the wasted years.

I suppose that's healthy optimism.

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Someone said that Tumblr is back, and that can only mean one thing. I'm back venting to the void.

TW: Loneliness

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It's strange. Whenever I find a new low, I find a new baseline. I'm a few years past feeling sorry for myself, and now it's just pitiful. Comforts have dissolved, I've run out of vices.

Loneliness has followed me through the pandemic, and it has stayed with me. I don't want to bring new people into my life, and I'm not sure I can.

I'm back to feeling however I used to. I don't know how to get out of it. I live with my best friend and it hasn't solved a thing. I'll just keep running and see where it takes me.

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My mum died in 2016.

I've always talked about it openly, but in a way I've never accepted that it's something that happened in my life and experience. Talking about it has been a way to rationalise something that doesn't need to be rational, intellectualising an emotion that should probably come naturally.

I'll talk about it to friends, but I'll never look them in the eye when I say it. Because it feels like a lie, like I'm making up a story about someone's life and attributing it to myself.

I haven't spoken to family about it. I've been too scared to ask about how she was before I knew her, or hear the stories about her from other people, because I was scared that those memories would overwrite my own. And the truth is, they already have.

I'm 6 years on and I've forgotten a lot. I think I accidentally forced it. In trying to forget about the sadness of it all, I stopped trying to remind myself of my life before 2016. And everything just, faded.

I think it'll come back, with time and stories. But for now that all hurts in a way I barely understand.

I'm not a very emotional person outwardly. I try to never say anything that genuinely makes me seem vulnerable, or at least anything that I feel makes me vulnerable. It's always just a story about someone else, if it's honest.

I think my family is the same. Sort of stoic and weathered. I almost assume I'll never get to speak about my mum with any of them in a way that it feels like this has happened to us, because selfishly I don't want to reckon with it.

I almost struggle to say the word 'mum' these days, because 6 years without her has been an entire life to me.

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Friends, it's so long since I've said or thought of anything meaningful. I'm so stuck, and so lost, in the feelings that the last two years have brought up. I've kept mindlessly telling myself that things will be better, just not now. And I really still believe that's the real truth, but in some moments it's hard to. No one here deserves to feel as therapy, and I think I really need some proper help from a professional. It has been hard to admit, because my mum was my therapist and that was her job. But I feel alone for the first time in my life, and I would really appreciate any links or phone numbers that might help me to recover a little bit.

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I feel like I'm throwing all of my time away at the moment

I can't think for myself

Being busy isn't helping

Having time alone makes it worse

I need something big to change right now, and I've got to be the one to push that

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I'm working on it (at Brindleyplace)

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The day my lens got frosty (at Birmingham, United Kingdom)

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I wish I didn't feel so FUCKING sorry for myself

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Can't explain

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I feel

So loved