Plod On

Where to begin, I find this the hardest part. What opening line to use? What’s the attention grabber? Invariably I use the word ‘So’, as if you've been waiting in anticipation of the next thrilling installment and now you can expel the baited breath you’ve been holding for the last four months.

I thought of using an overused quote, something pithy like “the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” but then those who see my life played out in pictorial form on instagram would see the quote as pointless.

I think my favourite quote would be “I told you I was ill”. It pretty much applies to my whole life and attitude, as my nearest and dearest will attest to. If I were to have a headstone that would certainly be on it but, as I don’t see the point of being buried, it can be written on a post-it note and stuck to the beer bottle placed upon the fireplace in which my ashes will sit. A reminder to the family of the grumpy old bastard who used to inhabit the chair by the fire.

Wow not even two hundred words in and I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, cheery as ever, Levine! Obviously the phrase ‘mortal coil’ would suggest there is another coil that we shuffle on to. I'll clear this up for you, there isn’t. However, we won’t get into my or indeed your existential crisis now.

My ability to witter on really does astound me at times.

So *massive expulsion of breath around the world* what’s been happening in the last few months and why the sudden impetus to update you all?

I’m no longer a dinner lady, rocking the tabard look has gone; I’m now assistant manager at the bar I was doing a few shifts at. I’d like to say that my meteoric rise from having never pulled a pint before September to a management position was down to some innate ability, a genetic disposition to the hop and not just drinking it. The truth is less inspiring, everyone pretty much left and I didn’t. Last man standing and all that.

I was signed off from the doctor and therapy, no longer a mentalist...and then I was signed back on again, a mentalist once more. A temporary blip people say, the increase in my medication a preventative measure they assure me. Internally it’s a failure and a realization that I’ll never be ‘better’ or ‘normal’. Don’t get me wrong, I have no yearning to be normal. It’s not me. And, as I’ve discussed before, I have no idea what ‘better’ means. I’d just like the waves of uncontrollable sadness and emptiness to fuck off.

What I struggle with most is that things are pretty good at the moment. I really love working at the bar, although I find having to ‘act’ constantly upbeat tiring. I’ve never been upbeat about anything. I’m naturally dour and morose.

Home life is good again. It goes without saying that we all do each others heads in, argue, fight, make up but what family doesn’t? You try living with my lot for 24 hours!

The main canon of my therapy was that it’s ok to feel sad, low, and miserable. We all do - events happen and you will have emotion. It’s your reaction to that emotion that can lead to problems. You feel low so you shut yourself away and spiral. We all have our own patterns of behaviour. I do shut myself away - as I’m writing this I’m meant to be at a brewery I was invited to. I made my excuses but the truth is I can’t face people today.

What’s happened then? What’s the X that’s led to me feeling Y and behaving like Z? The answer is nothing, I can’t explain my current state and it’s pissing me off.

It all leads to the question of why can’t I be happy? What’s wrong with being content with what you’ve got right now?

*No Spoiler alert* The next part will give you absolutely no insight or answers to the above questions.

Happiness – a mental or emotional state of well-being, characterised by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.

Sounds just like me.

Have I ever been happy?

I’ve certainly felt warm and fuzzy inside, albeit fleetingly, but I do think that part of me is missing at times. When I’m on form I’m really on form, I find myself a rather witty and charming character, fun to be around.

These times are just infrequent, highs of being out with family and friends to massive lows within the space of days. I made a throw away comment to the doctor that I’m probably bipolar, she agreed!! And put up my dose. Well, at least it filled some time for me, researching the symptoms of being bipolar and also the side effects of the medication.

There are things that I enjoy and derive pleasure from but these are tinged with a massive fear of failure. It's not that I have to be the best at something - above average will do fine - I just don’t want to be shit.

I’m the same in whatever I do, whether it’s sport, baking or my new addiction to painting.

I don’t like getting things wrong; some of you will remember the time I decided I was going to make macaroons. I couldn’t be satisfied with a good attempt or those that tasted good but looked shite. Nope. I made the fiddly little bastards for five days solid until they were to an acceptable standard. The house was full of them and Mrs. L hasn’t eaten one since.

It’s like the painting now. I’ve never painted before but I expected to be able to do it. The first day I sat in front of a blank sheet and couldn’t bring myself to put pencil to paper for 30 minutes, the fear of producing something utterly appalling was crippling. I eventually produced something and although it sounds pretentious, which I am, I do enjoy painting. It lets me switch my brain off and get lost in it for hours.

Maybe it's age, the illness or the medication but the list of things I enjoy are diminishing. Currently I have to abdicate my title as king of ‘self abuse’, as the pills leave me chemically neutered. Now that was something I did enjoy. If knocking one out had ever become an Olympic sport I'd have been captain of that team. My record is seven in a day; I was 15 and had taken the day off school sick. Why seven? That’s like asking someone why they climbed Everest? The answer - because it was there. Though I have to admit the climax (see what I’ve done there) to the seventh was more a puff of exhaustion rather than the spurt of triumphalism that the feat truly deserved.

Anyway, away from such base things. As I said I have no answers and part of my problem I know is the constant search for the answers.

I'll just have to accept that I feel a bit shit at the moment and plod on. I’m sure it's what most people do.

Does anyone have a clue what it's really all about?

I left twitter, hardly in a blaze of glory more like a damp squib.

The reasons seemed clear in my head at the time, I was living vicariously through others and not living my own life not leaving my chair. I was too reliant on others for my mood, my own happiness. In my mind though I wasn’t giving anything back, constant tweets of misery were annoying me if no one else.

So what did I expect to happen when I deactivated my account along with my FB account? Was a burden to be lifted? Would I wake up the next day magically ‘cured’?

I know it’s hard to believe but none of those things happened. I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t spring out of bed throw on my clothes and whistle a merry tune as I left for work.

Nope I got up, got dressed and sat in my house. The only thing that had changed was I’d lost pretty much my only contact with the outside world.

This was fine it was my choice I had wanted to run away. You see you can’t feel you’re annoying people if you don’t speak to them. There was a slight flaw to my plan, I say slight flaw, my plan was actually as ill conceived as the Charge of the Light Brigade. What about the people who had my phone number?? Yeah well as I say I hadn’t really thought this one through.

Now don’t get me wrong there weren’t hoards of people knocking down my door demanding to know where and how I was, Royal Mail didn’t have to lay on extra staff to deal with the sackfulls of post.

There were and are however a few kind souls who showed their concern. At one point I did consider turning my phone off to avoid contact with everyone apart from those unfortunate to live with me. I didn’t and am glad of this.

So with all this extra time on my hands what have I learned? Well I know social media isn’t the thing stopping me from functioning. I know Prozac hasn’t helped me and so it’s on to another type of Anti Depressant to try to help. I know I’m amazed at the kindness that family, friends and what were initially complete strangers have shown. I also know I can still knock up a mean cake when I want to, it seems there are some things you never lose through it all.

I have tried to rationalise everything out but have come up empty handed, raising more questions than answers. It seems a year spent studying philosophy wasn’t a complete waste of time.

I decided I believed in Determinism but then I again I would wouldn’t I (there’s one for the philosophers amongst you.)

Apart from that I’m still struggling. I think essentially I’m looking for an identity. I don’t know who or what I am.

Yes I’m a dad, a husband, a son, a friend, and a sometime baker. These though are governed by the relationship to other people or other things. Who and what am I?

I have no tribe to belong to I’m not religious. They say football is a religion and I used to believe I was a fanatic but not so much anymore.

I don’t have a ‘look’ I don’t dress or style my hair in a tell tale way. I don’t have tattoos or piercings that would place in an exclusive club.

I read, when I can concentrate, different genres. The same can be said for films and TV programmes. And with music, anything and everything goes. The word for me is eclectic, I like a shitload of different things (I’m not sure that’s the correct collective noun but it seems to fit.)

The question is do I really want to fit in to a type, a club? Isn’t individuality enough, shouldn’t we be non-conformist. The answer is I really don’t know (see as I said – no answers.)

At University I wrote my dissertation on why people join right wing movements. Don’t worry I’m not goose-stepping round the house, although my comb over and dodgy tache do look vaguely familiar.

The conclusion I came to in its simplest form being ‘mans’ fear of freedom, the necessity to belong to something, anything. We just need to be told what to do, to have some kind of direction.

I don't think I've ever had that I've never known what I’m going to be when I grow up.

I think the problem, much to my dismay is that at 40 I suppose I am grown up but I’m still as clueless as the boy who never had a burning desire to be a pilot or a train driver.

So I’m giving up philosophising about things it’s getting me nowhere. Instead I’m trying to function again, doing little things each day that are deemed normal by my peers.

Todays ‘thing’ is writing this nonsense.

Oh I still have my fixations, currently it’s on having a slick back haircut, I’ve even ordered Pomade from a shop online. Maybe I am slowly trying to join a club and declared to my long-suffering wife that this new ‘look’ was going to be me now until death.

So I may return to twitter, I’m already back on Instagram posting dull photos of food.

I do feel however I’m slightly more suited to some form of Unsocial media though.

Decisions

I struggle with emotion always have, I don’t’ know how to be emotional. I’m not a great crier, I didn’t when the girls were born and held it together when Dad died. I cried after and went through a period of shedding a few tears each day with little things setting me off.

However public shows of emotion and affection are and have always been a big no no. I don’t hold hands with Mrs.L in public and there’s certainly no kissing and I just couldn’t be a dogger.

I’m a little of dead inside really and the Prozac has finished me off, the emotions are felt but there’s no way they’re going to appear.

I don’t ‘do’ inspirational quotes I’m just not built that way. The sorts of things people post on Facebook drive me insane, not a long journey there these days, I know.

On Twitter I mute or unfollow those who persist in tweeting or retweeting this kind of crap - “a true relationship is two imperfect people that refuse to give up on each other. The world needs more of that” I know some of you will be ‘moved’ by that but I’m not, my world really doesn’t need that.

Maybe I just don’t have a soul, it has been said by someone close to me. Maybe it’s because I’m not religious or spiritual, I can’t tell you why this doesn’t emote me but it doesn’t.

So it’s always been slightly hypocritical in my mind when I tweet #KeepOnKeepingOn

I stole the phrase (obviously) from one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs, Tangled Up In Blue. The line goes “the only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin’ on like a bird that flew”

To me it sums up life, it’s just what we all have to do. What ever happens you face it, deal with it and move on to the next.  Our autopilot takes over.

My problem is along the way I’ve forgotten how to, my autopilot is malfunctioning; I still love the sentiment but can’t follow it through.

At the moment I’m scared of the future probably because of mistakes in the past, making me unable to function in the present – there’s inspiration for you, it came to me after a bottle of red.

To me Twitter is about having fun, playing out my miserable persona to the fullest, ‘meeting’ like-minded people, being informed and also the much maligned and overused word – banter.

I’ve shared a joke and a tear with some really great people. The kindness people have shown amazes me, those who’ve messaged me whilst I’m at my lowest point will always be special.

And I can’t put into words how astonished I was that people from twitter would actually make a journey to visit my business, purely because we’d tweeted occasionally.

So it may seem odd that I’m contemplating saying goodbye again and yes I know I’ve disappeared in the past and come back with my tail between my legs and who knows I might in the future.

I find giving up things easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times, whether it’s booze, carbs or gambling (types while eating a bacon sandwich with a pint next to me keeping one eye on the results from Southwell)

The problem for me is that I’m using twitter to hide from real life, in my strange little mind it excuses the reality that I’ve not really left the house in January.

I get to socialise without actually having to. I can have a night ‘out’ from my armchair, discussing sport, film, TV, music, food, and literature. There’s generally nothing too highbrow, let’s not get silly about things. I pour myself a drink and settle in for the night.

It’s been great, I don’t have to face up to any problems, people don’t judge me and I’m safe and the feelings of self loathing and failure are numbed.

The big BUT to this is that it’s not going to help me in the long run I know this. My fake life isn’t going to help me get better and certainly isn’t going to pay the bills.

I worry that in some ways it actually makes me worse. I can’t keep on relying on other people for my happiness. I’m also finding that my ‘shouty’ brain has me misconstruing the 140 characters people type.

The reality is I’ve probably got more out of twitter than I’ve put in but I do worry you all won’t survive not reading that I’ve walked the dog, loved my fish finger sandwich and the wine is open #DullAsFuck

Deep down I realise by leaving I’m probably clutching at straws, trying to force myself to function in society again. No doubt I’ll replace it with something useful like obsessive macaron making, or drinking.

Anyway I’m undecided, I’m not going to put it to the public vote you buggers will pack my metaphorical bags for me.

But if I do go, then in the words of Jerry Springer – Till next time look after yourself and each other.

If I don’t leave disregard the last line, I’ve just always liked it.