Wednesday 21 December 2016

Fighting Talk

     It’s my birthday tomorrow. I shall be 37, which feels like an odd age to be. No, not ‘old’, I’m not one of those wankers who bleats about feeling ancient because it’s their 23rd birthday (as an aside, fuck, those people are annoying. The temptation to pat them on the head and say ‘really, poppet? Are you a bit too dense to realise the choice is aging or death? Which would you prefer?’ can be a little overwhelming). Anyway, yeah, birthday, me, 37. A strange age, no longer really young, but certainly not old. It’s not really one thing or another, which is kind of how my life feels at the moment.

     I have more freedom in my life now than I have ever had, and yet I seem to be incapable of actually using it. I banged on and on and bloody on about how now I would have time to write, to really commit properly to writing and throw myself into it and JUST FUCKING GO FOR IT like I’ve never been able to. And, yes, you have guessed it, of course I bloody haven’t.

     I do write. I write every day. It comes out just like it always used to, except that for the most part it never gets read by anyone, not even me. I’ve filled over 30 notebooks so far this year with all sorts of meandering bollocks and notes and ideas and just… stuff. And yet I haven’t blogged since September, for fuck’s sake. I am frustrated with myself.

     I am frustrated because I know I’m just being lazy and doing a bit of a halfarsed job on everything. The house is still only partly furnished because I couldn’t afford to buy all the things we needed when we moved in, and well, we seem to fill the space ok, so why bother to get bookshelves? My sofabed is perfectly comfortable, so why bother to buy bed slats and a mattress? The clothes I’ve been wearing since March are pretty much my favourites, so why bother unpacking the other boxes piled up in the wardrobe? No one ever comes round, so sod the mess on the living room table. I’ve written what I wanted to say in my notebook, so what’s the point in adding it to here, or emailing it to the person who should be reading it? It’s lazyarseness, pure and simple.

    It is Not Good Enough, however. The Blondies deserve better, Maisie* deserves better, I pissing well deserve better. Something I realised in the long drawn out process of sorting our lives out is that I need something to fight against. Whether that was the CPS, the disturbingly intense colour scheme of our new home, or the utter carnage that was moving day, I need to be riled up and fucked off and fierce and kickarse to achieve anything. Lately, I have been a mopey, anxious twat who struggles just to leave the house. Because there hasn’t been anything to motivate me. There hasn’t been anyone telling me that I can’t do something, that it’d be too much for me, that there’s no point even in trying. I haven't been galvanised into trying to prove someone wrong, I've had nothing to fight against, there is nothing to defeat.

    Except that I’ve just realised there is. There’s me, telling myself that. God, me can be a wanker at times. The type of wanker that really pisses me off, a moany, droopy, energysponge. Bastard me, I will not let you win, just to spite you, you malignant arsehole. I can fucking do this. I can fucking sort Maisie out, I can take this on, I can sit down and write and not just to myself. So yeah. I’m fucking taking myself on and I’m going to fight myself to our mutual death. And there will only be one winner. Me. 37 year old me.






     *Yes, my house has a name, keep up at the back, and if you think it’s naff, yes, it is, and I don’t give a toss what you think, so actually, don’t keep up, sod off.