#oneaday Day 107: Tackling Loneliness

I’ve seen quite a few news reports and political manifestos over the course of the last few years that claim “we” as a society are supposedly doing something to “tackle loneliness”.

Okay. What? What are “we” doing to tackle loneliness? Because from where I’m sitting in this extremely lonely state of mind, I can see precisely fuck all going on. I am in a position where I feel like I need some sort of help in this regard, and I do not have a fucking clue where I might go to find it.

Oh, I can see lots of statistics and reports that confirm indeed, yes, people are feeling lonely. But no actual action taking place. Lots of big words like “we need to take a holistic life course approach” and other such shit, but no actual evidence of anything really being done.

Which, of course, begs the question: exactly what can be done? “Tackling loneliness” isn’t just a case of dumping a bunch of people in a room and telling them to talk to one another — though one of our local bus companies seems to think that branding their buses the “ChattyBus” and encouraging people to make “bus friends” is an approach that will have any effect whatsoever, clearly not understanding that the sort of people who will talk to you on a bus are generally not people you want in your immediate circle of friends.

There are volunteer services that exist in an attempt to “tackle loneliness”, but I feel like these would always feel very artificial. Someone is acting like your friend because it’s their job to act like your friend. I’m sure real social connections can and do come about as a result of initiatives like this, but judging by a quick scoot around the websites for ones in the general area, they are all very oversubscribed. Which, in itself, probably says something that isn’t all that good.

Mostly I just want my old friendships back. Friendships from before an age of social media, friendships from before the worldwide political stage became the perpetual firework show it seems to be these days, friendships from when we were all just happy to hang out and do something fun in one another’s company.

And it’s not as if I haven’t tried to maintain those friendships that used to be like that. But I always seem to be faced with resistance: resistance that seems to grow by the year. I have reached a point where I feel very much unwanted by a lot of people with whom I used to be very close, and it upsets me. Like, really upsets me. Keeps-me-awake-at-night upsets me.

And this feeling of being unwanted of course feeds into other mental health issues — including self-esteem and social anxiety. If the people who are supposedly some of my oldest friends don’t want me, how on Earth can I be expected to find the confidence to make new friends? How, even, do you make new friends in 2024? I just don’t know any more.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever known. I’ve told this story before, but I’ll tell it again, because it’s relevant.

On my first day at secondary school, I was pleased to discover I was in a class with several of the people I had known at primary school — including the person who was ostensibly my “best friend”. We had been put in a seating arrangement for morning registration, presumably in an attempt to get us to mingle a bit and get to know one another. I was sat next to a lad called Murray. I had absolutely no idea how to talk to him. I vividly remember turning around to my former “best friend”, who was sitting behind me, and urgently whispering to him “I don’t remember how to make friends”.

Because I didn’t. And I still don’t. Any friendships I found myself in tended to be ones of circumstance such as living together in the same flat at university, and I always felt like I existed on the periphery of larger friendship groups that these acquaintances had. I felt like I was “intruding”, like I wouldn’t be welcome if I tried to ingratiate myself with these people who “weren’t my friends”. Those people were their friends, not my friends, and what right did I have to attempt to call them my friends too?

It looks silly on paper, I’m sure, but that’s the reality of social anxiety. Legitimately one of my proudest moments of personal growth in my whole life is a time I was caught in a lift with a stranger I was on a music course with and I plucked up the courage to actually introduce myself. I felt enormously awkward and like a complete idiot at the time, but that one occasion actually became a genuine friendship — and several other friendships came about as a result of that initial contact.

But good Lord, did it ever feel like scaling Everest to get those words out of my mouth in the first place. And these days, I don’t exactly find myself stuck in a lift with people I might have something in common with all that often. So here I am, stuck typing this to myself at 11:15 on a Sunday night, wondering where it all went wrong and even if it’s possible to fix things at this point. Because the longer this goes on, the more I worry about what the end result of it all might be for me.

I’m lonely. That’s about it, really.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

#oneaday Day 44: What’s Next?

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re just sort of waiting for the next “major” thing to happen in your life, and that you’re unsure exactly how you might go about triggering such a thing, if indeed it is trigger-able?

I feel this quite a lot. It’s disconcerting. It’s like a constant sense that I should be doing something, but I have no idea what. It’s a feeling of unease that creeps up on me and whispers “Don’t you think you should…” and then trails off before saying the important part of the sentence. It is, in short, just a general feeling of discontent.

Considering the situation rationally, I’m not sure I have any real reason to feel like this. I have a comfortable living situation, a good job, a loving wife and two wonderful cats. I have an enormous video game collection, likely more than enough to see me entertained until my dying day. I have creative outlets in the form of this blog, my website MoeGamer and my YouTube channel.

And yet something still doesn’t feel quite right. I am dissatisfied. I am restless. And I think a significant part of my reason for feeling like this is plain ol’ loneliness. While the aforementioned wife and cats are wonderful company on a daily basis, I do mourn past eras of my life when social activities feel like they came a bit more naturally and easily.

Going to a friend’s house after school. Dropping by the coffee shop on the way to lectures with a university friend (and sometimes not quite getting around to leaving the coffee shop for said lecture). Evenings spent couch-surfing between numerous different friends’ houses because my own house was a significant distance from where everyone else I knew. Habitually dropping by Hoffers Bakery for a roll and a cake, then settling in for an afternoon of multiplayer N64. Weekly board game sessions. Going out, like, anywhere.

All of those are things that are well and truly in the past, and were already going that way before COVID hit — and once COVID did hit, nothing ever really recovered. I’ve seen the people who are supposedly my closest friends maybe three or four times in the last few years. There are people online with whom I used to be extremely close that I can’t remember the last time I heard from. There are people that I once thought would be “lifelong friends” that I feel have probably forgotten about me.

At least some of the blame for this can be laid at my own feet, of course. But honestly, my own efforts in these regards tailing off stemmed from growing frustration that I would often want to do something fun with people I liked, and for one reason or another, it seemed like that was never possible. Scheduling conflicts. Family commitments. Illness. Simply not being arsed. I got to a point where I felt like I was putting in effort that wasn’t being reciprocated proportionally, and it just didn’t feel worth it any more. That, in turn, did a number of my self-confidence, meaning that more often than not my brain just doesn’t want to let me try and reach out to people for fear of them just rejecting me — or worse — once again.

As such, the end result of all this is a 43 year old man sitting in front of his computer in the dark typing about how he feels lonely to the maybe 5-10 people who still actually bother to read this site. Admitting you were lonely amounted to social suicide in my teenage years — you were a “Larry” (for “Larry Loner”) — but now, it feels like an increasingly inevitable part of life in 2024. And it sucks.

I think that, more than anything, is why I’m dissatisfied. I want that “next thing”, that amorphous “major event” in my life, to be the end of this horrible loneliness. But at this point, I simply don’t really know how to make that happen.

The Age of Loneliness.

I’m having one of those evenings where I’m feeling a tad maudlin for a variety of reasons, but essentially it all boils down to one central issue: the fact that today, we live in a world that is more “connected” than it has ever been, and yet also where it is highly likely that any one given individual will be suffering from a crippling sense of loneliness and isolation.

This has affected me to various degrees over the years. As someone on the spectrum and with social anxiety issues, there are most definitely times where I very much want to be by myself. I’d go so far as to say that I prefer the vast majority of my time to be spent by myself — or at least, in the company of others who are happy to get on with their own thing while I also get on with mine. (My relationship with my wife very much falls into that category.)

However, I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started craving a certain level of… interaction. I don’t think I’m necessarily craving something more than what I used to enjoy — rather, I simply think that the opportunities I once had to just hang out with people that I liked are no longer present, both offline and online.

For me, probably my golden age of being “sociable” was between the ages of 16 and 22 or so — to put it another way, from sixth form onwards through university. There, I found I had a good balance between what one might call a relatively “normal” social life — in that I had both time to myself and time with friends.

Better times, probably. I’m the second one in from the left. I fancied the girl who is sitting on me.

In retrospect, this period was almost certainly the time of my life at which I was my happiest, even if it was also the time where I first started feeling somewhat conscious of my own mental health and that something wasn’t quite “right”. I felt I had people who liked me, who appreciated me for who I was, and who supported me when I needed it. I had people that I simply enjoyed spending time with, and that I wanted to know more about. I even fell in love once or twice, though I have to admit that none of those particular situations quite ended up the way I perhaps would have hoped.

But it didn’t matter, because everything else was just… pleasant. It was good to see people. It was good to talk to them, share private jokes and just enjoy their company. It was sometimes difficult for me to take that step forward into a friendship group rather than simply observing from the periphery — but on those occasions I summoned up the courage and mental fortitude to do so, I never regretted it. (Well, except perhaps once.)

These days, though? There are days where it feels like I have no-one. I know that’s not true — I’m fortunate enough to have a very supportive family and a wife who is inordinately patient with my numerous shortcomings as a human being, and there are friends I have where all it takes is a single message to get some sort of supportive acknowledgement back in response — but even so, there are days where it feels like that.

Days where I feel like people might just forget about my existence if I didn’t prod them on WhatsApp or Discord every now and then. Days where I miss the ability to speak to them via some means other than ad-infested social media, which has become increasingly terrible for simple conversation as the years have advanced. Days where I miss having the equivalent of bundling around a friend’s after lectures have finished, playing N64 games and drinking made-up cocktails until the small hours. And days where I miss people having conversations via means other that boring memes and GIFs. You know, with words and stuff.

I am exceedingly lonely, and what makes this feel all the more painful at times is that the numerous means I’ve tried to make myself “noticeable” in some way online all feel like they’ve failed in one way or another.

I’ve made a point of celebrating the things I love online in various ways — both written and through video — over the course of the last few years, in the hope that it might draw people with similar interests to me, or help the people I care about the most to understand me a bit better. But it often feels like hardly anyone gives a shit. In fact, it often feels like it’s the absolute hardest to get the people supposedly closest to me to give a shit.

I don’t blame anyone for this. Today’s world makes ridiculous demands on our time and attention span, and when push comes to shove, most folks will end up choosing some form of professionally created “content” over something that some dude they know decided to make.

But it is getting to a point where I’m feeling both exhausted and out of ideas. And, to make matters worse, as my mind and general enthusiasm for existence has declined, so too has my body. The COVID years in particular knocked me about a lot, leaving me today a disgusting fat lump of a man who is in near-constant mild but nonetheless annoying and frustrating pain, finds it difficult to do pretty much anything relatively normal and is increasingly hesitant about going outside because he’s so disgusted with the way he looks and feels all the time.

Change starts from within and all that. But when you’re feeling crippling loneliness, that desire to change and improve things for yourself — because without a doubt, improving things just for myself would be a benefit — is constantly held back by that big, hanging question: “what’s the point?”

So anyway! That’s what I’m feeling this Sunday evening! Hope you’re having a good one!

EDIT: Apparently I wrote a post with this exact same title in 2014. Good to know that things have improved.

1845: Bleak House

I’ve been “up and down” mental health-wise all week. This evening is one of those occasions where I’m feeling a little bit bleak. I shan’t go into the reasons, as they’re not really important and don’t really concern me directly for the most part, but it strikes me that at the moment, things seem to be a bit shit for quite a few people, if the timelines of people I follow on social media are anything to go by.

February is regarded by some as one of the more depressing months. It’s the very heart of winter — it’s bitterly cold outside at the moment, even more so with the windchill, though of course it’s nothing compared to something like a Canadian winter — and there’s not a whole lot of anything going on. Christmas is over, New Year’s is over and the only vaguely celebratory occasion people have to look forward to in the immediate future is Valentine’s Day, and even that isn’t universally loved: I don’t mind admitting that in my single days, Valentine’s Day was an occasion where I pretty much wanted to hide under the covers lamenting the fact that I’d probably never find anyone willing to put on the sort of saucy lingerie that tends to get advertised around this time of year and then [CENSORED]. (Thankfully, given that Andie and I got together around Valentine’s Day, I now associate it with positive things in general, not just saucy lingerie and boffing. But I, as ever, digress.)

There was some sort of half-hearted “mental health awareness” thing at my place of work this week, but no-one really engaged with it, despite the fact that I suspect a few people might have benefited from the opportunity to be completely open and honest about a few things. The trouble with marking off a period like that specifically for Let’s Talk About Feeling Suicidal!! (or similar topics) is that the people who genuinely do want to talk about this sort of thing but don’t know quite how to go about it end up feeling somewhat pressured and consequently say nothing; meanwhile, the people who know nothing about depression, anxiety and all those other wonderful things the human mind does to fuck us up just sort of sit around uncomfortably saying things like “So…” and “Anyway…” until everyone just gives up on the whole thing.

There are quite a few contributing factors to how I’m feeling right now; as I say, I won’t bore you with all of them, but one thing I will talk about a little is the feeling of isolation. Feeling like you’re alone in the world is a horrible thing, and while I’m lucky enough to have Andie around all the time, there are still periods when I feel very cut off from people that I like, love and care about. And this feeds into a vicious cycle where it gets harder and harder to interact, and you start worrying about bothering people too much, even though you desperately want to see them, to talk to them, to just be with them. It kind of sucks. And that’s kind of where I am right now.

Still, sitting around in self-loathing isn’t going to help matters at all. It’s Friday night, so I should be relaxing. So I’m off to do just that. Have a pleasant weekend, dear reader.

1731: The Age of Loneliness

I read an interesting piece on The Guardian earlier regarding “the age of loneliness” killing us bit by bit. And while I feel the piece is, on the whole, doomsaying somewhat, there’s also a lot of truth in there.

I’ve become a lot more conscious of all this since starting my “new life” a little while ago — working a “proper job” with three-dimensional people all around me, ditching most of social media for my own sanity and generally trying to “unplug” a little bit from my utter dependence on the digital realm.

The biggest change has been the opportunity to interact with real people on a daily basis. Sometimes those people are asking me to do things as part of my job, but at other times it’s a simple social interaction where we share things with one another: the problems we had with a retailer; what we had for dinner last night; our pets having various illnesses; what we think of this weather we’ve been having, gosh, it’s been really variable, hasn’t it?

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed this, but being fully immersed in the digital realm for several years had proven an adequate substitute for human interaction at the time. It wasn’t until towards the end of my time with USgamer that I was starting to feel a little dissatisfied with spending all day every day “on my own” (despite hundreds, possibly thousands of people being on the other end of an email or tweet) and, once I was made redundant, it truly dawned on me that I was indeed living through my own personal “age of loneliness”.

It’s often been said that social media ironically contributes to feelings of loneliness and isolation, and it’s a difficult one to win. Without social media, it can be difficult to feel connected to other people — though there are alternative, more focused solutions for communication that rely less on shouting into the ether and more on more direct interactions. But with social media, despite all these connections to other people, it’s equally easy to feel isolated, too; the constant races for oneupmanship on Facebook and Twitter — the race to be the first to post a pithy comment in response to a tragedy; the race to post the coolest photo of an event; the race to get the most Likes and comments on a passive-aggressive statement — all detract from meaningful social interaction, instead turning communication into a competition. That doesn’t feel especially healthy to me.

Like I say, though, it’s difficult to find that balance. At present, I feel like I’m having a reasonable time of it — I get along well with the people I work with during the day; I spend time with Andie in the evening and, on certain occasions such as tonight, get to spend time with friends — but I do often still find myself wondering if I’m “missing out” on anything by not checking in on Facebook or Twitter. (I actually closed the latter account altogether after the post the other day, which got shared more widely than I intended and consequently attracted ire I didn’t really want to deal with at the time; I haven’t felt the need to reopen it yet, and should I ever decide to return to Twitter I think it will be with a brand new “fresh start” account)

I am not, however, missing that urge to take a photograph of everything that happens in my day and then post it online as if anyone would give a shit about what the sunset looks like from where I’m standing right now (probably quite similar to the sunset from where you’re standing right now) or what my lunch looks like (pretty much like lunch). I find myself longing for the days when things like photographs were more permanent and more meaningful; everything in the digital age feels so utterly disposable, and that’s probably where a lot of the whole loneliness thing stems from: you can be the centre of attention one minute and utterly forgotten about the next. The modern world is fickle indeed.

Anyway. It’s 1am and I’m doing that thing where I ramble only vaguely coherently as I try not to fall asleep in front of my screen. So I think it’s probably time to go and get some sleep; I have a very long day ahead of me tomorrow, so plenty of rest beforehand would probably be a good idea!

1003: Isolation Chamber

Last night I spent a thoroughly pleasant evening in the company of the few “real-life” friends I see on a regular basis. We played Descent, I made some poor tactical decisions and lost yet another quest (seriously, I am the most incompetent evil overlord of all time) and we had fun.

As always, though the experience was, for me, tinged with a certain hint of bittersweetness. Said friends, you see, all live back in the Southampton/Winchester area, which is where I used to live before the rather inconvenient and upsetting collapse of almost my entire existence over two years ago. I, however, am not located there; instead, I am nearly two hours’ drive away in Chippenham, Wiltshire. It’s not a difficult drive, to be sure, but it isn’t something I can particularly do on a sudden whim. Well, I can, but I do need to have plenty of time on my hands before I do it, and there are other considerations as well.

It’s frustrating, though. Regular readers will know that I am not an especially “social” person a lot of the time, but I do appreciate and enjoy the time I get to spend with these friends. We’ve built a strong Social Link as a group together in recent years, and most of us have had to take on some difficult challenges in that time. Although in a lot of cases, said group of friends didn’t necessarily help and support directly, the fact that they were simply there was often enough. I know I certainly felt that way, though naturally I can’t speak for the others.

It’s hard to feel that way when you’re two hours away, though; when you have to make full on capital-P Plans to see them rather than just sending a text and asking if people are up for something. I miss being able to do that, and not just with the particular group of friends I saw last night, either; there are ex-colleagues still in the area whom I used to love being able to just call up (well, text up) and hang out with.

I feel more than a tad isolated, in short.

And in more ways than one, if I’m honest. Leaving aside the geographical issue that gets in the way of seeing “real life” friends for a moment, there’s also the whole issue of having like-minded friends who are into similar things that you are. I have a number of interests that I am perfectly willing to describe as “niche”, and at times it can be difficult and frustrating to be a fan of these things when there’s no-one nearby to share the experience and enjoyment of them with. It’s not as if I have absolutely no-one, obviously — Andie is good at taking an interest in the things I like (for the most part, anyway!) and aforementioned friends share at least some of my interests.

The “simple” solution seems obvious — take an interest in more “mainstream” things so you can more easily share the enjoyment of things that everyone enjoys. But it’s not that simple. I have tried on a number of occasions to engage with things I know various friends and acquaintances are interested in — everything from football to The X-Factor — and every time I have come away feeling like I’m forcing myself to try and enjoy something I dislike immensely, and it just doesn’t seem worth it. Apparently your tastes are hard-wired into your head somewhere, and it is very difficult to change them. I am predisposed to like the things I like (board games, video games, anime, soundtracks, music, writing, The Internet, My Little Pony) and similarly to dislike the things I despise (too many to list).

Knowing that doesn’t help with those feelings of isolation, though. Knowing that the things I enjoy are only appreciated by certain specific subcultures can be a difficult pill to swallow at times, but it’s the situation that my own tastes have gotten me into. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret or feel embarrassed about anything that I enjoy; it’d just be nice to be able to enthuse about it with people who are a bit closer sometimes.

But at least I can enthuse about it with people thanks to the trappings of modern society. I can chat with my friend in Canada about anime; I can discuss strategies for failing to beat the hideously difficult secret boss in Persona 3 with another friend in the States. I can rant and rave in private about the things that are getting my goat to someone in yet another disparate geographical location; I can share my pride in something I have achieved with yet someone else entirely.

Things could be worse, in short — but it doesn’t stop those occasional feelings of loneliness and isolation. I’ve been having more than a few of them recently, and it’s getting me down a bit, so apologies if the tone of these posts may be a bit on the melancholy side at times.

Oh well. I’ll deal. I always do.

#oneaday, Day 144: Another Multimedia Extravaganza

More pictures with sound for your delectation tonight. This time I thought I’d experiment with some black and white photos. I hadn’t originally intended to take the photos with a particular theme in mind, other than that I knew I wanted to try doing some black and white ones. When I loaded the pics onto my computer, though, it became apparent that I had managed to take pictures with almost no people in them whatsoever. This wasn’t intentional, but it provided a theme for the set anyway. I shouldn’t have told you that, you weren’t to know, were you? Let’s start again.

This is a set based on the theme of being alone.

Whew, got away with that, I think.

I can assure you that Southampton is just fine and has not suffered a 28 Days Later-style zombie apocalypse which emptied the streets. Some may say that’s a shame. But there are a few nice people here, so I don’t wish a zombie apocalypse on the whole place just yet. A few areas, perhaps.

The music for this particular slideshow is “Living with Determination” from Persona 3. It seemed a fittingly melancholy piece for the moody nature of the photos.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how these pictures came out, and with the overall effect of the slideshow as a whole. It was an interesting day to take photos, actually. You can probably see how the weather changed as my journey progressed – it started dull and cloudy, but the sun eventually came out. The clouds stuck around, though, making for some dramatic, stormy skies. Hence the many pictures of clouds!

I’m definitely going to do more of these, as they’re fun and reasonably easy to put together. Plus it’s yet another means of self-expression, which is always good.

I’ve always enjoyed photography over the years. I remember getting a bit bewildered by an old film-based SLR camera back home with my parents, and later getting my own point-and shoot cameras, taking bajillions of photos and often being complimented for my good composition. Obviously I’m no pro and haven’t had any proper training, so I’m sure there’s all sorts of things technically wrong with them that I can do better. But as I used to tell people who came in wanting to learn about iPhoto and Aperture – if you’re not being paid for the pictures you take, whether or not you like them is the only important thing.

So true – for so many things besides photography, too. Sums up the whole idea of #oneaday, in fact, not to mention the photography-based variant #365. People are doing these things for themselves as a means to express themselves, develop their own skills and perhaps show off just a little bit. When other people end up appreciating your work, it’s always a pleasant surprise. And if they don’t like it, it’s the old artist’s defense – “it wasn’t for them anyway”.

So anyway. I hope you enjoy (or enjoyed) the slideshow. There will be more to come in the future as soon as I get back out there with my camera and get all snap-happy.

#oneaday, Day 127: Good Morning, Sleepyhead

Good morning! Well, it’s nearly 2AM after all. That traditional blogging time, you know.

So I’ve been by myself for some time now after a long time having someone beside me almost constantly. And the thing that’s struck me the most is how one’s perception of time changes. Or maybe it’s not the perception of time, it’s the brain associating certain activities with certain memories and wanting to distance itself from them. Or, to simplify matters, it’s about the messed-up sleepytime routine of the lonely man.

Take going to bed. I’ve found it quite difficult to make myself go to bed at a reasonable hour. I never was particularly good at it at the best of times, but if the occasion demanded it, I could be in bed before midnight. Before 11PM, even. But now? Staying up late isn’t particularly unusual. This isn’t some attempt to take full advantage of my new-found and not-particularly-enjoyable freedom. It’s simply that going to bed means spending time alone in a dark room. Which, as anyone who has ever suffered through depression, stress, or any sort of crisis (all three of which I’m suffering right now) will tell you, is a sure-fire way to get one’s brain thinking about things you don’t really want to think about. So my body convinces itself that it’s not tired and doesn’t want to go to bed yet. So I don’t. Eventually I will collapse into bed and sleep, but it’s only once I really can’t go on any longer.

The side-effect to this is, of course, that it’s sometimes a bit difficult to wake up in the morning. But not only that. Having grown accustomed to waking up alongside someone else and having that presence there to spur you on to face the day, whatever it might entail, it’s a shock to the system to suddenly have to do all that yourself. I can wake up early, sure. But getting out of bed? More difficult. When it feels like there’s not much to get up for – and certainly no-one waiting for me to get up – it becomes easy to just lie there staring into space or worse, fall asleep again. This is, of course, enormously impractical and could probably be rectified by going to bed a bit earlier, but because of the aforementioned reasons, that’s difficult too. Vicious cycle, you see.

It’s not as if I don’t keep myself busy, though. If I stay up late, it’s not just to stare at a wall or sit there in floods of tears, though both of those have happened at least once recently. No, I find something to do. I find someone to chat to. I write something. I draw something. I play a game. I harass people on Twitter. Anything to avoid having to sit in that dark room trying to get to sleep, failing and hearing that little tap-tap-tap of the unpleasant thoughts come a-knockin’ on my brain. It’s a distraction, though, not a substitute.

So the moral of this story, then, is don’t be alone. It sucks.

#oneaday, Day 118: Homecoming

It is like a ghost house. Haunted by shadows of the past, and yet at the same time pristine and new, full of possibilities, like it once was so long ago.

In through the door, into the hall. A door, usually shut, stands open, looking in one direction. Beyond the door, the darkness of the night creeps in. The other doors remain steadfastly shut, waiting for me to reveal their contents, be they painful, joyful or wrathful.

Passing through the open door, its inviting portal beckoning me within. Flashes of terrible possibilities scream through my head and I wonder if any of them are true, but none of them are. Everything is as it was, only with a layer of meaning removed. Floor once well-trodden with hard labour stands pristine and new as if nothing had ever been there. There is space, empty space, but imperceptibly, outside the gaze of reality, the memories are still there. There they sit, watching stoically, not judging, just being. But then they are not there and there is just space again.

The space we once shared together forever changed, only a discarded sleeping bag and some crumpled cushions holding memories of what once was and what eventually came to be. And the silence. The silence is deafening.

Back into the hall. Hand trembling, I open a door. A door I feared to open. Inside are nothing but spirits. What the room once was there is no trace of, not physically. But the memories are here too. Standing in the corner. Stretched under the window. Sitting in the single lonely chair. They are here, looking at me, not a trace of judgement in them. Do they have faces? I can’t see, and then they are gone again.

Back to the hall. Hand trembling, I open another door. Another door I feared to open. Inside it is like the room behind the open door, everything as it once was but with a layer of meaning stripped away to reveal – what? Is there deeper meaning left beneath?

I sit. Two crystallised memories stare back at me, in physical form this time. I wondered if they would remain strong or shatter like everything else. But they are here. It fills me with great sadness and great joy to see them, for they represent the good times. They were alive, and took in everything that once was. Do they still live? They do, but they do not understand. Part of what gave them life has gone, but the other part remains. Do they still live? They do. And they bear a missive.

The message should make me weep, or wrathful, or sicken with heartbreak, but it does not. Something about it is calming. Perhaps its words merely float on my surface to be absorbed at a later time. The meaning is there and was already there, but right now I do not feel it. I feel little but reality loosening its bonds on my mind and my soul.

I rise off the ground and float through this home, this place of memories, stripped and gutted of part of that which made it what it was, and I feel…