Later on, John Milton appears dressed in traditional crazy Tibetan mystic man garb. He’s come to pay homage to the guru too.
Lord knows what it means.
…
And so, I left you last night just on my way out the door to the game of squash and the movie with Nicky. Before I went, though, I spent some time going through yesterday’s entry and correcting the errors, etc. I kind of wish I hadn’t had to do that as it sort of brought some of the emotions back to life. Though the overwhelming feeling was of, wow, I can hardly remember thinking those things and feeling like that: it felt like reading a diary from a lot longer ago than the same morning. Especially the anger. After the football everything was bright and clear. All I could think was that we were finally over, that I was going to be okay, and that it was all right that she had moved on and would at some point be making it with someone else. She deserves her happiness, I truly believe that. And I’m glad I’ve come to reach that point, despite the rockiness of the journey in places.
Anyways, it was perhaps all this new good feeling that got me playing so awesome on the squash court, despite it following an afternoon of muddy football. The guy I was playing has beaten me the last two times, after an early dominance that went my way during the first several games of our rivalry. But last night I was well and truly in the zone and whupped him 3-0, 3-0, 2-0. That included one game I won 11-0 – the elusive and magnificent bagel! I was so calm, not even thinking about squash. Just playing a smart and sensible game and moving about the court as though I had all the time in the world.
Which, when I type it, makes me hopefully wonder if that isn’t a secret message to reassure my recent fears of how life is passing and the years are ticking on and I seem to be running out of it.
Time, that is.
I’ve been thinking lately that I may be entering some kind of mid-life crisis – or, at least, things are changing and a lot of it seems related to age. I’m having thoughts I’ve never had before. This growing sense that life can’t be re-lived. I don’t know why that isn’t obvious and it’s hard to put my finger on it, but that’s the only way I can explain it. Or maybe I can explain it like this: that in the past I just did stuff and never worried when it went wrong because there was always something else around the corner and maybe now I’m not so sure there will be. Or that it’s just suddenly dawned on me that all these moments and times I’ve lived, no matter how much I replay them over in my head and keep them alive in my writing, reinterpret and reimagine them, and in doing so live a kind of fantasy that they can be lived again, are gone. Like, truly, unequivocably gone.
You’ll probably say that’s obvious, that I suffer that as a symptom of living so much in the past and forever harking back. But it’s really only just dawned on me. It’s as though I’ve been living life as though it were a computer game and that I’d always be able to have another go at a previous level. But maybe life is more like a football match, and despite there being more matches in the future, basically the same, there’ll never be another chance to make that one specific pass, take that one specific shot.
It may be symptomatic of our technology, too. Like, you know when you go and see a sport live that you’ve watched loads on the box, as I generally have? And then something happens that you maybe didn’t quite catch – God forbid, a goal – and you whirl around looking all over for the action replay and there isn’t one and all that’s happening is the jumping and shouting of fans, the present moment? Well maybe that’s a little bit what it’s like. At home, on the television, they show it again and again, from every angle, and you never miss a thing. But when you’re really there – and how it always was before technology became what it is – you really have to pay attention.
Yep, I’m satisfied with that. Pretty deep, I think, if you go into it…
Another thing that’s happened to me lately is that life seems to have grown somewhat unreal. As though I can’t figure out what’s actually happening here. I can see myself just…living, for the next thirty or forty years, and then at some point I’ll be dead. And some people will die today, and some of those people will be very young and walking nonchalantly around assuming that they too have thirty or forty or fifty years ahead of them. I always think about this when you see a story in the news about some happy brilliant young person – the life and soul of the party! always there for others! – who has pegged it in an odd and seemingly massively avoidable way. They’re pretty and together and in a good relationship and maybe planning a wedding – and then a cliff falls on them while they’re sunbathing on a beach. They’re young and gadding and maybe a bit of an arse but always with the opportunity for pretty much unlimited growth – and then one evening they’re walking down Camden High Street and the sign from a betting shop comes loose and falls and their head and kills them instantly. These things happen all the time. But what if it hadn’t been sunny that day? What if she’d chosen a different spot? What if that young chap had passed that betting shop just a few seconds earlier, a few seconds later? And think of every little step and decision he had made that day and of how it all lead to him passing that exact spot right at the moment when the sign came loose. It really makes no sense, and it makes me wonder. What’s the difference? What’s the difference between them and me? And what’s the difference between living and not-living, between being born and never being born? It’s all so random, so flimsy. A bit of semen here, a betting shop sign there. When I think about these things I feel something in my brain wobble a bit and shake loose. I can’t explain it very well. It’s just that…
Well, yes: at moments lately I’ve been unable to see the difference between living and dying. And when living is what I’ve got stretching out in front of me – perhaps – and dying is what’s going to happen in any case…
No, I can’t explain this. But it does grow in me. Maybe it’s just a symptom of life not seeming real sometimes. Or a by-product of all these emotions I’ve been going through of late. Or something to do with age…
I’m thirty-seven. There are times when I think I really need to sort myself out as far as wife and career and family goes. Women’ll tell you it doesn’t matter for a guy because he can have babies when he’s older than Paul McCartney, and no doubt that’s true. But that’s not what it’s about: it’s about wanting to be young for them and wanting to be able to do physical things with them. And it’s about the person that you’re with. Maybe it doesn’t work for me to be with younger women because they seem to want different things and in a lot of ways to be in a different place to me emotionally and spirituality, which is generally a place I was in a long time ago. But, on the other hand, older women – women my age – are either just about reaching that stage where babies are an impossibility or already have them or have long since settled down. To meet someone who wants to live life fresh and new becomes harder, and I guess that’s why I look to the younger crop. I’m still very young for my age in a lot of ways, for better and for worse, and I’m naturally attracted to that. The most interesting people I’ve met in the last year or so were all in their early twenties. But I wouldn’t necessarily want to marry them.
It becomes more difficult, time more pressing. And whether that’s reality or mistaken thinking doesn’t really matter: for it’s something that’s becoming real for me, and therefore influencing my thoughts and my decisions.
Then again, typing that I’m reminded of how it was for me back in my twenties, all that dread surrounding reaching the big three-oh and the worry that life would change for the worse, that I’d get boring and lose my fitness and no longer be able to tear it up on the squash court or the football pitch, would lose my pace and knees and have to retire and miss out on all that fun. But what I found when I turned thirty was nothing but blesséd relief – that not only was I still just as fun and goofy and adventurous and sporty as I ever was in my twenties, but now it was even better because: a) I was doing all that without the fear of it leaving me; and: b) I was doing it with the joy of knowing that it was still there, and probably would be for some time.
But I guess I’m reaching a similar stage now, as the big four-oh slowly creeps towards me. And this time it’s not just worrying about sporting fitness and being able to have a laugh, it’s everything I’ve mentioned above, about family and relationships and children and death. Is this mortality dawning? Is that what happens when you hit mid-life? And, if so, what to do about it?
Well, first thing is to not worry. First thing is to look at reality and acknowledge that, yes, even at thirty-seven I’m still as fit and fast as I ever was and, in all fairness to them, generally fitter than all the twentyone-year-olds I come into contact with. I’ve no problem reffing a football match, then playing one, then playing a couple of hours of squash, but there’s not many beer-swilling students I know of that could say the same thing. Well, such is life: I had pretty much zero fitness at that age too. And though it’s bound to change at some point it doesn’t really need to mean that much: I’ve played squash with sixty-odd year-olds and had my arse kicked; played football with a guy in his seventies; been made to sweat my bollocks off by another septuagenarian on the badminton court, who had me running every which way and beat me severely. It’s only having grown up with such an exposure to professional sport that has put the idea into my head that things get really bad around thirty, and that you’re pretty much doomed by thirtytwo, labelled a veteran and getting ready to drop down a league or retire. Look at Roger Federer, man: in tennis terms he’s an elderly statesman – but in my eyes he’s but a spring chicken and a youth with at least ten or fifteen good years ahead of him, and probably a lot more than that.
In a nutshell: we can’t compare ourselves to professional sportsmen. But the idea has got in our brain.
Another reason not to worry is that life does seem to work out just fine, despite all our expectations about it. At least, mine does, and I don’t see that I’m any different to anyone else. I guess the more heartaches and setbacks we have and the closer we reach some sort of point-of-no-return the more it seems like there will be no more chances – but that’s thinking based more on fear than reality. I mean, right now I feel like I’m perhaps in the last chance saloon – but then I’ve probably had that feeling before and been proved wrong. Probably had it more than once. Things were okay when I turned thirty and I suppose the same rules of physics will apply at forty. Of course, some things are different – like I say, a woman my age may not even be able to have children, or perhaps has already done that bit – but then, if I believe life works out I should also believe that there’s someone out there who can fit whatever I require pretty much perfectly. Three and a half billion women in this world. Thirty million in this country. And I only need one.
I dunno…am I explaining myself properly here? Just the sense that things are changing. The realisation that the past can’t be re-lived (at least not consciously, in this current body and mind (as far as I’m aware; could be wrong)). And the odd sensation that life isn’t real, that the line between living and dying is such a fine and whimsical one. That it almost wouldn’t make a difference either way.
I don’t say that gloomily, like I want to top myself, but neither does it fill me with joy. It just makes me confused, like I don’t trust the only thing I’m actually doing – which is living – and that maybe there’s something else I should be doing instead. Not dying, per se, but some idea of…
Well maybe that this reality we call life isn’t the real reality and there’s some other reality that I’ve a long-faded memory of and that’s where my true home is. Does that make sense? Is there anything about that that rings true? Or am I just typing words for the sake of it and maybe it’s time to move on?
We’ll move on…
I played squash. I got showered. I rushed on up to Hyde Park Corner to meet Nicky and she was twenty minutes late. But that’s okay, she was helping a friend over the phone and you’ve got to help your friends. Plus she paid for my tea to make up for it. What I’d decided – and what I was feeling anyway, after my awesome day of typing and sport – was to just be gleeful and chatty and not heavy at all. No more emotions. No more tears and proposals and suggestions of working at this. No more realisations and probably there weren’t any anyway – I mean, where do you go once you’ve reached that point of knowing that she’s moved on, that she has no intention of getting serious with you, and you’ve shaken off all your jealousy and possessiveness and just reached a place of wanting her to be happy? I’m not sure it goes any deeper than that, ‘cept maybe for the being friends and being able to smile on her and her new man and maybe get invited to the wedding and be totally okay with the whole entirety of it, which is a place I’m nowhere near at. But in any case…
I chatted gleefully about my football match and the squash and how awesome the typing made me feel – she knows it would have been all about her and I guess might realise from my mood that I’ve reached a good place of acceptance with the whole thing – and though I have that thought of my proposal to her in my mind and her bullshit answer and then subsequent explaining text I decide to leave it alone. It’s perhaps a little weird, given that the last thing she’d said to me (in person) was that she’d think about it – but then maybe we both know the truth of what her text meant and that there’s nothing to be said. ‘Cept of course there is, just that I don’t want to do the saying of it. I just want to be happy with a friend and go see a movie and then return home sane. If she wants to mention it, she can. But, of course, being an avoiding kind of person who doesn’t bring things up and would rather just pretend everything’s okay, she doesn’t.
Anyways, we watch the film – No; decent flick – and then say goodnight. I feel cool and collected, but not closed. A brief but happy hug. She kisses my cheek. And off she cycles as the snow falls and I walk on home feeling pretty much normal.
And I guess that’s the end of that. Only that an hour or so ago I decided – and the coin agreed – that I would text her and maybe put the final seal on things. I wrote:
“Hi lovely, I know we didn’t talk about it last night but I just want you to know that I accept your initial answer to my proposal. I said I didn’t believe you because I didn’t believe the reason and now I know the truth of that I understand why I didn’t believe it. But knowing the truth doesn’t change the answer and actually makes it much easier to accept. I think it’s important to say that. And also to say that I really want you to have the happiness you deserve. I hope that makes sense. I love you lots. xxx”
I think that’s fairly nice, and decent too. Certainly, it’s true, and truth is important. Being on the receiving end of a few lies and dodged honesty has really brought home to me the absolute necessity of truth between intimates. I feel those lies anyway, and it just makes me confused and hurt and untrusting – but I can’t say I’ve been a hundred percent honest about things myself. Lies, I may have avoided – pretty sure I have – but there’s more to telling the truth than just not lying. I mean, as far as honesty goes you’d be hard pushed to meet a guy who believes in it more than I do, yet I know I can do better. From this day on, I aim for absolute truth.
The other thing that happened yesterday, just after squash, was that I checked my email and saw that my mum had gotten back to me. I’d written her Friday deciding to be humble and self-effacing – not fake, just letting go of the desire to be ass – and looking to make amends. All this emotional stuff with Nicky and not having anyone to talk to about it. All the reading of Mother Meera and her talk of being good to your parents. All right back to when I took that acid and realised how small everything was and how ridiculous to fall out with anybody. I wrote to her then but all I said was, “how are you?” That was after two years of not speaking and the venom of our last interaction. This time I wrote:
“It's such a lonely old life sometimes. And hard too. There are moments when I feel I have no one to talk to. My dad's turning out to be a decent old egg but he has his limitations. It's a shame we don't speak anymore. It's a shame we've both screwed things up pretty bad. But is it ever too late?
I'd love to hear from you. I'm ready to make amends. I've made so many mistakes.
You live and learn I guess.
Much love,
Rory”
And the same day she got back to me and said:
“Well, I can't disagree with anything you have said.
You and I have always had a volatile relationship, but underneath it all there is a connection that cannot be broken.
We can work through things but it will take a lot out of both of us.
This has been a long time coming so we should not waste it.
Love
Mum”
Aah, how lovely is that? And so I guess now I have to make something happen so that the amends can begin. I know what I need to do, the only question is will I be able to do it? The emotions I have around my mother have always been too powerful in the past, overwhelmed me and got me acting in ways that aren’t in accordance with my highest beliefs. I mean, in theory I know that she is what she is, does the best she can – has her own emotions and upbringing turmoils to deal with too – and that if I think I’m so smart and emotionally aware and knowledgeable about how best to proceed in this delicate matter of human intricate affairs it’s about time I showed it. Not by being pissy and wanting something from her or punishing the mistakes of the past. Not by getting drawn into some ego game of one-upmanship, the power struggle that we’ve always had. Just to love her. Just to swallow some pride and try and be a good son rather than one who demands of his mother what he would want to give to his own children. How could she be any different? And how can I not see that? Well, fact of the matter is I do see it, intellectually – but now it’s time to put it into practise.
Life’s too short for falling out. And if it has to be up to me to make amends then so be it. Last time I said anything to her it was that I couldn’t talk to her unless there was a counsellor or someone similar present. Well perhaps I am (or can be) that counsellor. I know enough to make that happen. If I can just let go of wanting anything from her and overlooking the mistakes of the past – nay, concentrating on my own mistakes and working to perfect only them – then I’ll be okay.
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