Have you ever reached the point that you think you have hit rock bottom, only to find you were wrong?
I’ve hit rock bottom before and I know what it is like.
Right now I have not fallen that far, but I am in a place where I cannot see where I am or where I am going, if there is further to go in this particular pit. It’s not the deepest pit of despair stuff, but it sure as hell is bad.
I know it is all related to my first birthday alone, my first Christmas alone is looming, my first New Year alone, is looming, then there is our first anniversary, the first anniversary of his death when I was first all on my own, and his first birthday where I won’t be so lost and confused that I know it’s happened but it hasn’t registered.
Fuck. i want to burst my eyes out. OK, I’ve recovered my composure.
I have faced a lot already this year, as you know, dear reader. Most of it has been easy. The first time having sex with a stranger was peculiar as I was sought out by a younger guy. As this was a first first, it was easy to cope with. These other firsts are first first time around in 37 years firsts. 37 isn’t a big number, but in human terms it is significant.
So with this baggage that has been rattling about at the back of my head, I have been feeling all at sea.
Add into the mix I have, I think, fallen in love with a guy I have met and had sex with. I also think I have found another guy with whom I have been exchanging messages via a dating site and as he reveals more about himself, I am asking is he the right one? There are so many bits and pieces of an equation there.
If that isn’t enough, I am floundering at work. I cannot cope at all. Everything is not as it should be. It got so bad I was staring at a computer screen not knowing what I was doing or what was happening. I “lost it” several times, especially in the afternoon, so much so as that I cleared all my personal effects from my desk and brought them home. I felt like chucking it all in.
This is not the depression I had some years ago when I couldn’t leave the house. I can leave the house, but I do not see how I am expected to function. My job and my life are in conflict, my emotions are running wild, tears are only an unfortunate word away.
I have done so well and come so far, but I feel I a now backsliding and letting everybody down. Stupid, isn’t it? I’m letting you down, dear reader? Am I? Don’t talk such utter nonsense, Tim. You are not letting anybody down. You have people following your every activity (well, what I care to publish, some activities have remained private) who empathise, who nod sagely, who say yes, been there, got the T-shirt, who are learning about cancer and how it fucks you up either as patient, carer or bereaved.
It is to you I write. I also let things out of my system this way, which is good for me, bad for you (nothing is ever plain sailing for someone), but you keep coming back for more!
I know where I am is not the bottomest rock bottom I have hit in my life. Nevertheless, it is pretty darned dreadful.
I am in Zürich as I write. I went to the opera (Janacek’s Jenufa) with my, probably best straight female, friend last night. I shall pack up in the hotel and go to see her soon and we will talk. I know quitting my job is stupid, but it seems to be the impediment to my existence and happiness, yet without it what do I do? As an unqualified office drone, what is there as my kind of work is “mentored to our partners in India” or some such poisonous platitude from management, who seem to have their jobs intact.
Come the revolution, brothers and sisters, we know who will be among the first up against the wall, don’t we? Until then, I have to keep working hard to define rock bottom.
