Questions? Part II

So I'm feeling a little uninspired at the moment post wise.

So in the meantime, and as a bit of an experiment, I'd like to know if you drop by here is there anything that you want to ask me? It can be either by comment or to pastandfuturetense@googlemail.com the email linked with this blog. I'll answer anything. It really is open house - if something I've said has clicked, or indeed hasn't or there's always been something that you've wanted to know ask away!

An Acrobat...

"The sky is often used as a metaphor
I suppose that's because it's so big and expansive
When a long stranded cloud sits just above the horizon
Leaving a strip of clear blue beneath it
It becomes the panorama
And you turn your head 360 degrees
And the same line follows you round
If the land is sufficiently flat
Really nothing can be compared to it" - Acrobat - Maximo Park

Earworms Part XVIII

Ok its comedy, but get behind that and its brilliant...



Its the Brett Domino Trio from Leeds doing Justin Timberlake with mini-instruments. Quite frankly its amazing. I'm not a big Timberlake fan, or one at all... But hearing this adaptation makes me smile, especially the keytar, the theramin, or the rapping...

Working Through...

So just what is this, this feeling? I don't know right now quite how or why I've ended up here. I'm so scared of the future, frustrated about the present. In such a damn funk that I can't seem to shake. Just for once I want some peace, I don't want to think and feel this way. Maybe in short I just want to be someone different. I'd trade in all the medals, all the trinkets; just for some peace with myself to be able to sleep and not rage at myself, maybe just to be able to man up and find some confidence and find something good about myself.

I guess I've fallen back into feeling broken, too many things from the past have caught up. I just want some peace and the feeling it'll all be OK - but no matter how much I get told it I'm not sure I believe it because how can it when it hasn't worked in the past? I don't know how to break the circle, and its frustrating because there was once when I felt that I had and I'd started to see things in a much better light. Its just got to some point in me where I really need to break the cycle.

**

This is written more as an addendum, maybe a memo to myself not to post after a day in the office when too much is going on in my head. There's stories to be told from today, many (not bad but interesting) stories but they are not for now but maybe in the future.

Looking too Hard

I think maybe the title says it all. Maybe its time to take some confidence and not try and steer too much. Let go slightly and not worry. Its easy to say, but really hard to actually do. I guess its part of all the pre-conditioning that goes on throughout life. I've got enough of it and I've spent so long going over it that I'm really tired of it, the big list of expectations.

I guess its one of those things, not quite an impasse but certainly something close. Maybe I've fallen out with myself. That sounds a *really* odd statement, I know. People talk about travelling or other methods for trying to find yourself. I do sometimes wonder whether I'm still looking, or I've got so fixated. I know not everyone is always comfortable with their present selves - and it takes time to find that balance. Maybe just once I'd like to see some kind of path; I spent so many years just assuming things would come right. Now I've got the determination to do something about it but the path feels so overgrown that I can't find it. Maybe I'm just looking too hard for it.

Looking After Number One

Its something someone at work said to me the other day. Whilst I've never made my mood especially public, I've been off on one for a couple of weeks and I keep feeling like I'm being a bit of an idiot. But until it just feels part of the process of breaking myself free from all the shit that's been in my head.

The difficulty with the phrase is that for the first time I'm really wondering whether I actually know how to. Not in the sense of cooking, eating, dressing etc, but actually asking what the hell do I need to calm my mind down in some way, at least so that I can get more than four hours sleep a night and not have the same worries (relationships, self-image, body-image, past mistakes) re-appearing.

One suggestion that I've read about and been told about is to stand in front of a mirror and repeat a phrase about how good you are and how you deserve good stuff - it worked for a bit but kind of breaks when I slip back into the day and the weight of my past catches up. Without breaking my past I can't seem to make my future, but without being able to see a future there I hang onto the past because its all I know. I've got this picture of myself I'm trying to bring to the fore but its so tricky as I'm breaking out of the view people have of me, trying to remove the labels without ending up in the emperor's new clothes. Maybe I'm just searching for the right relationship with others, myself and someone special.

Perspectives and Stuff...

I feel that I've got a long post stored up somewhere. Somehow something that will shake the cobwebs out. This week has dislodged a lot of thoughts for a lot of reasons. I'm trying to keep a lot of things in check as there's a temptation to just want to run away for a bit and hide in the country - but I can't do that; not until August (Point 5 if you're wondering...).

There's been a lot of realisation that plenty of people suffer and struggle, especially in the industry that I'm in. But there's a (big) part of me that says that just isn't ok and accepting it isn't a good answer - I'm spending my time at present taking control of my life and not letting work get in the way, but to work for me - lunches are my time, not time for meetings or to be taken at a desk. I've changed some business travel plans to be more agreeable for me, so that things are on my terms - I've got a gig to go see, and its easier for me to travel direct there and sort my travel plans. It feels very liberating in a way to be able to take control of small parts. Maybe it means that the big parts will follow, I don't know.

One thing that amused me in the past few weeks was a friend who said that they could see me married in two years. I've stopped and thought about that for a long time. Its not something I can see - whatever nice things people say, there are a set of steps 1 through to "pick a big number" and right now I'm somewhere around 1, beating myself up about an image I hold of myself from the past; trying to channel somewhere new.

But two years is a short time for something like that. I don't think of this as a dating blog, more a my-life blog; and the one thing I can state is that relationships are good things. They certainly are beneficial for the soul but not something to jump into. This isn't a "I love single life" post but nor is it a "I need to be married tomorrow either" post or even a "I enjoy the dating scene" post, because my view is none of the three.

But I've come to realise why I think certain things, maybe that's a good thing. Because around all this I'm starting to feel a drive to get to where I want to go - to become the person I'd like to be. The question is always how to get about it! Maybe confidence really is a preference for the habitual voyeur...