Wednesday 31 December 2008

Quiet before the storm?

Today has been a respite with plenty to keep me occupied. A quiet day at work spent reading up on a million bits of science, politics and philosophy, home to cook with the vast array of new pans and knives I got for Christmas, and then a few hours with The Next Generation in the background as I researched a load of computer stuff. Put down like that it sounds like I have a load of interests, and I guess I do; but then, it's how deeply your interests fulfil you that matters, right?

I ordered A Liar's Autobiography yesterday so hopefully it'll come tomorrow or Friday and give me another thing to look forward to. Knowing anything about him invariably sends you down a path of reading up on every possible consequence of alcoholism to the point where your liver develops the vocal talents of a X-Factor finalist and screams its way out of your body. Every illness of your past ten years suddenly has a clear and direct cause - your drinking - and will inevitably end in one thing - a sad and lonely death. Perhaps it's fatalism that makes me desperately want to know what it was like for him despite this, but I have only days to wait, either way.

I'm not feeling too much fear about tomorrow. Most likely I will spend all evening at her house - I have been invited to a small house party, but I'm not sure if I'll go. Being visibly uncomfortable around friends I know would bother me far more than looking clearly sober around a bunch that don't make much difference to me. I imagine that it's that question of cohesion again - how I need the group to be together - and why I feel so awkward being sober around drunks. I feel like I'm the spoilsport and no fun and forcing the rest to take me into consideration. I might pop along for a while but more than likely I'll stay with her and escape before the rest come home drunk; I don't like that scenario at the best of times, never mind when all this is on my mind.

I haven't mentioned this page to my girlfriend yet, even though we've spoke almost word for word about everything I've written so far. She knows I was considering doing a secret blog, but I haven't let her know yet. A lot of me wants to, but an over-riding factor stops me: it is because I would wake up every morning knowing she'd have read it and it would be on her mind, and at some point last night's topics would come up, and the last thing I need when I'm battling something like this is to be reminded of it in those precious rare moments of the day when for whatever God-blessed reason I'm thinking about something else, and she steals that away from me. All of this is on my mind so possessively, so consumingly, that I am selfish about the times I have away from it. I don't want to begin to begrudge her for bringing this up when I don't want to talk about it, so for the moment at least, I feel it's better to use this as a way to speak to no-one, but still someone: catharsis.

No comments:

Post a Comment