Naked Cartwheeling, Requires Shoes!
At the beginning of 2023 I was lost, lost in a world and mind I didn't understand. Not a map in sight.
At the beginning of 2024, I’m back to being a bit lost, but now have the map, where its leading me is anyone's guess.
Last year I started to write things down, I wrote a book, finally I felt as if I had a plan and a direction. I learnt so much about myself, my adoption, and mental health, the world was making sense. People told me that what I was writing was helping them and that gave me the drive to search more into me, helping me and others all at the same time.
A lost soul, a messenger for other lost souls perhaps?
As much as writing the book was enlightening, it was also quite depressing. Looking back into your own past searching for long forgotten triggering events and emotions is a very difficult way to spend a year. Cathartic yes, but that in itself comes at a price.
You see, last year I wasn't very emotive (understatement alert) . I hoped that by writing the book I would unlock my emotional responses. That didn't happen, I was just going through the motions in binary, robotic. Even when I finally published, it was just another day. Yes, I was happy I was able to do it, but I wasn't exactly cartwheeling naked in the street (you only do that once let me tell you).
Being in a situation where an emotive response is the correct response comes with a heavy amount of pressure for me, imagine standing in front of an unexploded ticking bomb with a pair of wire cutters, and the only training you ever did was for a cycling proficiency certificate in 1981. You know which arm to stick out at a junction still, but is it the blue or the red wire!? Come on, come on, people expect great things here! So i have to pretend and just manufacture the correct response, do what is expected.
So, why am I writing about this? Well, as i sit here today, i'm single again. I've been very open about my mind in the previous year and I know it's been a couple of months since I've written a blog post. In truth I've not really had much to say of late, yes i've sat in front of my laptop with an urge to write but nothing came and so i just shut the lid and drank wine. Today, I felt as if I had something to say.
I'm single again because I pulled myself away, my lack of commitment to an emotional life was causing me problems, I went very quiet and shrunk away. I eventually could take no more, I felt awful that I was subjecting my partner to my problems again. Dragging her along as if her overcoat was trapped in the door of the bus to oblivion that I was sitting on the back seat of. The guilt was overwhelming. It's a strange feeling knowing you love someone but finding it hard to let it out of the box in your mind.
Personal growth, It's a phrase we all know but it's not always as positive as you might believe. I've grown personally because I now know that I need to let go, for them to find happiness while there is still time to do so. I think I've been cyclically building a lego house knowing that I will smash it to pieces as soon as it's built.
Yes, yes, I know this all sounds terribly negative, but it's not really.
Unlike last year where I was truly lost, this year, I get it, I see it. I'm mature enough to look at myself and the world I influence and interact with and say this isn't right, it's selfish and unfair on others and myself. And I want better things for it all. I came into 2024 unwell, unfit, overweight with the world on my shoulders feeling as if I'd done a full circle and I was back where I started.
A few months ago a was gifted some incredible vintage Bang and Olufsen speakers, they were pulled out of a skip in 1984 would you believe and then sat in a friends dads house ever since, last year his dad sadly died and so the speakers came to me as my friend had no use for them. I love them, they sound incredible and I feel as if a little bit of his dad is still here everytime i use them, although I'm not sure he would approve of me blasting out Foo Fighters tracks through them! While listening to music today I found myself getting choked up and then later this evening I took myself off to the local cinema to see the new Bob Marley Biopic ‘One Love’ and again the music moved me every time it was featured. This was an absolute joy because finally now I have an emotional outlet, a therapy if you will.
I appreciate that all this seems a little haphazard, but I'm just writing what comes to me.
So what the fuck are trying to say Wally?
Well, good question, I suppose I'm saying that emotions are difficult, find something that moves you and indulge, personal growth may not be as pleasant as you might think, but those that love you will understand your journey and your reasons. Moreover, I believe that my adoption has conditioned me. I feel better alone, I feel less pressure to be emotionally attentive and present, I appreciate that it sounds selfish and that is perhaps a conditioning also. I'm not truly happy being a loner but I'm relieved from the anxiety of hurting others as I promenade this construct we call life. Oh and never do cartwheels naked in the street, (wear shoes at least).
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Photo by GMB Fitness on Unsplash
