The Unmerrygoround

I have now dealt with, or at least understood and accepted, those things in my past which have caused me so much pain and, over the years, influenced too many of my decisions. I want to move forward now. My fear is that I may have simply left it too late........

I keep returning to the same old problem.

Loneliness

I have no friends local to me whatsoever. The "friends" I did have turned out to be selfish and manipulative individuals - I am better off without them.

The difficulty is simply this - how to acquire a social life.

I need to make contact with people, gain acquaintances, make friends - real ones. I have joined a local writers group but it meets but once a month and I will not attend my first one for another three weeks. The exercise I take is solitary, I have always detested team sports and sports clubs are far too competitive.

I went to the pub last night, somewhat in desperation of some social contact. Fortunately some neighbours were there and we chatted, inconsequential stuff - they were fairly drunk and holding a conversation wasn't easy or terrifically satisfying. I had two pints of beer (which made me feel awful all of today) and I left when they did. There was no one else I knew, no one else with whom I could reasonably strike up a conversation.

I just feel so dead-ended. I promised myself that I would escape and get off my face tonight, after finishing the work I had to do but, in the end, that is just a false escape and I lie here, sober as a judge.

I cannot see a way up and out of this predicament. I will keep trying, keep smiling, keep breathing but right at this moment all I feel like doing is curling up and dying.

I felt I was making headway last week. I bought a 2nd CDJ (its still in its box). I also bought about 30 classic vinyls, tunes that I really love. I have tried to play them. They leave me cold. I cannot even find a release in music.

I no longer know what to do.

This is the core problem and I am finding it intractable. I am lonely. Contact no longer seems to touch me. I feel divorced from it as though it is unreal (which of course much of it is).

I fear that I will just grow older, more lonely and eventually wear a groove in my life so deep they will be able to bury me in it.

The real underlying problem is one of contrast, expectation and longing.

For decades, throughout my childhood and my marriage, I thought that life was just supposed to be largely without affection, without love, without passion. I grew to accept the little that I did get as being the most that was possible.

Now I find that most of my life has passed by without great amounts of these precious things. The difference is that I now KNOW what they really feel like.

I want and need more. And I don't see a practicable way to enable myself to become open to finding them.

(Not such) A Funny Old Life