The more things change

I've had a bit of a miserable week, to be honest.

Amazingly, its nothing to do with having an extra (spare?) brother around the house, although he's off again for a while tomorrow. Only Glasgow, not as far away as Vienna, but still, to me, anywhere that's “not here” is more or less equal. Anywhere beyond the end of the drive more or less blurs into some sort of fog of war for me, I've got my own little level map of my life loaded and the cutscene to trigger the next level freezes up. Wonder if there's a patch I can download to fix that.

I was so convinced at the start of the year that by now, everything would be so different. 8 months felt so far away, there was so much progress I could make if I just worked at it. I even got an extra wiimote for my birthday in January – it was silly, but it was a commitment, investing in something that signified the change, that I was going to be more social this year. To some extent I suppose even at that I've succeeded, my socialising is up infinite percent from the last 2 years, but however nice a single afternoon a friend was kind enough to bestow on me was isn't enough to change the fact that as per usual, the months have blurred together into an endless stream of browser refreshes and periodic disc changes.

I've always known that I'd continue to need the background tasks, the games and DVDs that I can zone out in front of while I rebuild my strength for the next activity to come to the foreground, but compared to the dreams I had of how things were going to turn around it only just stings that little bit more. I hate that a 5-minute trip in the car requires a week's recovery, I hate that trying to power through it now just leaves a longer gap needed until the next attempt, and I hate that after this long, the extent of the pain it causes still surprises me. I know exactly where I'm headed, to another cold, dark winter where I rely on the background games to keep me going, and I hate that the effort of trying to put up a fight against it only pushes me closer to it.

Hopefully I'll be back to posting about random swans and cabbages once this black cloud shifts soon. In the mean time, if I start posting poetry about the bleakness of my soul and the tears I cry inside, you can consider this written permission to give me a slap.

You'd have to come visit to deliver it anyway. So win/win.