I continue to literally battle my way through each day right now. Even keeping busy isn’t quite cutting it but I think, having had to accept there was no option but to have to buy another refurbished laptop after last week’s poor laptop fix, it was easier to spend that money than it was to worry about spending it.
Pills-wise, I’ve managed to hold off until I feel I’ve done what I can right now in terms of getting back to engaging with people as I was for most of last year. I have a small circle so it’s quite challenging to be socially busy, but I would like to be out of the flat for reasons other than gigging. The last difficult 10 – 12 weeks have shown me that and I really didn’t see the isolation of old creeping up on me again.
This weekend presented another challenge in that it was the anniversary of my mum’s passing and then the next day it was her birthday. I think the difficulty I have is looking back and seeing I’ve now lived almost half my life without the most important person there’s ever been in my life. I wouldn’t have thought that possible the day I lost her. That unimaginable pain, particularly in the first two traumatic years, is something you don’t forget and I know the abrupt manner of her passing definitely damaged me long-term. But you reshape your life and you find a way to survive. For me, it was just a cruel thing to have happen. That it was me who found her, me who failed to revive her. Me who was in the actual flat when it happened and didn’t act on the sound I heard coming from upstairs when that was clearly the moment it all happened. Things like that toughen you up and I am grateful for everything my mum gave me. It’s more than a lot of people have.
I just wish I could’ve done better consistently to repay her for her blind faith in me. Even when she was around I was accumulating P45s at a quite remarkable rate for someone so young and yet she still believed in me. Even when I told her I’d be retired by 22 on the back of my first novel. That’s a story for another post.
I spent the weekend rehearsing some of my new stand-up set. I did at least three hours, the material resting on a lectern. Even then it wasn’t enough and I’ll be rehearsing some more tonight. It’s the only way to embed the new material in my brain and when you find the time needed, you realise this is what it takes to learn new material. The problem for me isn’t the writing, it’s learning it.
I have 5 gigs this week so it’s a busy one. I need it.
I did an 8k run earlier, a slow one, but it made me feel better and I’ve been reworking some script ideas that have me excited and focused. Then I went to the cemetery with a budget plant for my mum. Hopefully she’d understand I’m a writer. There was a massive congregation gathered at the top of the cemetery for a West Indian funeral which always have a massive turnout. This confused me slightly as I recently watched a video on the cemetery and the narrator said no more burials are currently allowed there.
There were so many cars parked on the narrow pathways that I found myself having to walk on the grass and I have no doubt, despite my best efforts, that I was literally walking over some graves. The outlines of some of the older graves now are so vague, it’s hard to avoid. A woman with a buggy was making her way towards the exit, only to find her path blocked by all these vehicles and she had to turn back and find another way out. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a gathering there.
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