To Jinx the Good Times

So, what's new?

I think, this is just a chance for me to gloat really, and in doing so I'll no doubt jinx my mood. I believe I made a brief point of noting that I've got a (dead end) job now, and that I failed to get into the universities I wanted. However much I put those points behind me, I think it's caused my mood to spiral down into apathy at the best of times. I spend roughly seven of my waking hours, five days a week, in an emotionless trance. Take barrow, push barrow, scan item, put item in barrow, push barrow, scan item, put item in barrow. Take item out of barrow, check number of items, put item in box, rinse, repeat. Check box number, 32, 38, 28, 15A 01A 05A J1 J5 J7 and on and on and send box down conveyor and repeat and repeat and the drone continues and the incessant radio music and the abrasive boss that tells-you-you-can't-do-anything-right.

I'm statistically the worst picker in the warehouse in that I make more mistakes than any other member of staff. My mind wanders, it has to, or else I'll go utterly insane (or, more so than I am already). At times I'll go to the toilets, hope a cubicle is free and sit there trying to pull myself together for a few minutes so I can go back out there and face that intoxicating mixture of the present being dull, the future slipping away from me and a growing darkness of complacency that hangs over my head like a pet cloud, tethered to the fabric of my being. Drinking helps a bit, but I'm desperately trying not to solve my sadness with alcohol, I've been somewhere like that before.

I just need to find more friends, everyone went to university and left me behind and my job is far from social, I need to get hammered with my bezzies down the pub and have stupid long chats about what we've seen on the TV and all those little things I miss soooooo much but took for granted when they were around. That, is probably the worst thing about my life at the moment, loneliness like I haven't experienced for six years, and this time it isn't even self-induced.

And then days like this come along. I took Friday off because I was genuinely ill. Although I felt horrible, I was glad to just be able to sit down and put my feet up. I spent all day talking to a girl which - to be entirely frank - is utterly infatuated with me. She's fantastically sweet, when I go travelling soon, the plan is to visit her for at least a couple of weeks, on top of another friend I've been preparing to meet again for years. I honestly hope I can end up feeling for her what she feels for me because she makes me incredibly happy, it's nice to feel loved by someone, someone who will change their sleep schedule to match yours, who waits for you to finish work so she can 'see' you. The problem of course, is that I don't want a long distance relationship, in my opinion, they're nothing like the real deal, and I want to be able to hold my partner in my arms, not talk over Skype. Once I can get out there and see her for real, I think I might be ready for something a little more substantial. Just gotta break it to someone else that I don't have any feelings for them any more. Fun.

I think I'm rambling a little, this blog sort of turned into a stream of consciousness type thing really.

Today I went suit shopping with my old man and I was so happy. I really treated myself and frittered more than a weeks wages away in less than two hours. And it's made me so incredibly glad to be alive again. To just talk to him properly, father to son, to be on the same page, to know that he supports me and that he's proud of me when really, he hasn't much right to be. Rushdie said it better than I can: parental love is an investment, in return for it, they expect you to make something of yourself, perhaps subconsciously. So when you fuck up, and you're in limbo and you don't know where you life is heading, but they keep financing your soul with love, it's something that warms my heart and makes me feel happy to be on this Earth. Days like this, remind me that despite his eschewed social values and his religion and anything else, he's a good, kind man and I rarely do him enough justice.

I'm writing again too. I've planing my first proper, achievable novel, something I can really finish. I've got a good feeling about it! It's an alternate-reality dystopian crime...thing. Without giving much away, a north-east Asian remnant of the Japanese empire-gone-rogue faces a terrorist threat in 1999 that attempts to depose the government, what effects might that have on a country and would the bad ever outweigh the good? It's going to be so exciting to write, I'm working on creating a creole language for the country, I've basically written an entire Wikipedia article on every little facet of this place's history, economy, landscape, society, etc. Cannot wait to begin writing.

All these things combined are giving me the power to keep on going, I just keep telling myself that it won't be long till I'm free to go travelling, and if it gets too much, I can resign from my job. No one is putting a gun to my head. I will not become a slave to the mundane nor to money. That, gives me the drive to go on.