I only ever seemed to blog about things that were going wrong.
I only ever seemed to blog when I was depressed.
As I was depressed for most of my 30s (maybe not in the clinical sense, for most of it, but I was certainly in a funk) - the entire thing read like some kind of veiled death threat to the world. I only posted 96 times in ten years, which isn't a great amount, but it was all very dark.
I deleted those 96 posts today. And as I deleted them, it felt like I was finally letting go of the past. Things happen. Friends die. Fetuses die. Family die. Relationships break up for all kinds of reasons. People fuck you over for no reason whatsoever: it happens. When it all happens within a month (like it did last year), it's going to take its toll on you, and maybe I turned into someone I didn't like for a while there. I realise now, I had to be that person, to fight for my survival. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be where I am today.
I'm not quite at the point where I'm waking up full of forgiveness and positivity, but I'm getting there. There's a lot of small changes I need to make to my life, and in the spirit of being proactive, I've carved out a rough 12 month plan,
A lot of it depends on my mother's health of course. I am Literally The Only Family Member Alive apart from her; she needs to be cared for, and there's no one else who can do it. I can go away for a week at a time, provided there's a carer coming in, but she gets bored and lonely, and she deserves more than that.
I've always been the opposite. I rarely feel bored, and I don't even know what lonely feels like. I could keep myself busy for the rest of my life, if that's the way the cards fall. I have good friends in every corner of the globe, and I am truly thankful for that. At the same time, I feel as if 'new tech' (i.e. Facebook) has stopped me outgrowing certain friendships, or, at the very least: it's made me complacent about starting new friendships.
My mission for this month is to change that. I deactivated Facebook for six months last year to kick off the whole healing process, and although it helped, I missed out on a few things by virtue of the fact there were very few people who knew how to reach me. My entire 40th birthday party has been planned through Facebook: it's become an integral part of our lives. So, this time, I'm not going to deactivate - I'm just going to stop using it.
I'll probably start up again on Twitter: it's a much more social option. I'm going to reach out to people more, and welcome them in more. If I can manage it online, maybe I can extend that out here into 'the Real World'. (Remind me to tell you about David Puck Rainey one day).
I'm calling this blog 'The Sober Boat'. Not as if I have any plans on changing my drinking habits -it's so rare that I drink nowadays anyway - but because I want my 40s to be in direct contrast to my 30s. The Drunken Boat was a poem by Rimbaud; quite fittingly, it's the tale of a boat getting lost and sea and sinking.
I'm 40 now.
I can swim.
I can swim
I can swim.
Happy birthday to me.
I can do this thing.
