Did you miss me?

Sometimes you don't know what you've been missing until you're in the middle of it.

Tonight I caught up with a lot of very good friends. Many of us apologised to everyone for 'being antisocial lately.' It happens so easily sometimes, doesn't it; you're busy for a bit, or fancy some alone time, and the next thing you know you haven't seen some of your favourite people for months.

I've been very lonely and I don't think I saw a way out of that until tonight.

A couple of weeks ago I went home to visit my family. We did the usual Cowes Week things - beach barbecue, fireworks, catching up with my oldest friends - while thinking about how it might be very different next year. Dad's retiring, so a lot of things might have changed when I next go back.

One moment stands out though: it was so wonderful to swim in the sea again. It was the first time I've been swimming since... maybe over a year ago? Could be two. A long time. As I squeaked about the cold and inched my way deeper in, my sister said the sea had missed me, that it had been waiting for me to come back.

The thing that surprised me, both tonight and back on the island, was being reminded that there are other people who think like me. Whether it's my friend Zaru encouraging me to perform my poetry soon, or my brother Michael chatting to me about quantum physics, it's been a blessed relief to be around people who are interested in things that interest me. I don't get that at work.

I work with good people, kind people, but I don't have much common ground with them. I know nothing about football or reality TV, and am too scared to go digging for something real to talk about. So I've felt alienated. At first I thought they were a bit weird, but in the absence of anyone with whom to talk about that, the thought gradually became "I am completely abnormal."

Well, normal is all in the context. These people, my family and friends, are the context in which I make sense. They are my normal. They are my home.

Two-oh-one-two

There is a plastic cup in my room. It is on the windowsill, catching drips. What these drips are doing in my room is anybody's guess; although the letting agency, before pawning our house off on another agency, got as far as deciding that it might be the guttering.

Yes, well done. It might.

I suppose it's damp, then, that's turning my wallpaper a mottled pattern of bleached and black in that corner, despite the best efforts of a dehumidifier my housemate's relatives have kindly lent us.

It makes me feel a rush of hopelessness whenever I pull soomething from my wardrobe and smell, or see, that it is going moldy. I can't afford to replace anything. Or pay my rent, actually, let alone cover bills and food. It's a miracle that I'm limping along as I am, despite sort of having two jobs (I have had no shifts at the first job in two months, and the second is unpaid(ish) for now).

My new year's eve was uneventful. I've been nocturnal and listless for a couple of weeks, and that meant I had no resolve to fight my unfortunate tendency to hide from parties. If I'm invited to one, I'll generally go, but if I'm invited to five on the same night, you can bet good money I'll be at home, in my room, by myself.
As was in fact the case.
It got bad.
I went on omegle.

All of this, basically, is my attempt at complete and brutal honesty. Some of you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I'm interesting, or even "awesome." Well I'm not. But you know what? I have been. And I can be. And, goddamnit, I will be. One way or another, I'll shift gears and change from someone who is surviving into someone who is thriving. I don't know if that means I'll be getting more money in (though, Lord knows, I do hope so), but at the very least I'll be living the way I want to. Trying new things, working on my meagre skills, playing to my strengths and the like.

At least I've been writing a lot of poetry in the last month. I was looking for one I could share with you, but I seem to have started dozens and not finished any, so you might have to wait. Or check out my idlescribe tumblr, that's an option too...

I was looking for blogs to recommend to you, ones that count as an inspiration, but my google reader seems to have had a panic attack and dropped all its proverbial biscuits, so I'll get back to you on that one.

Much love, y'all.