I woke up yesterday with this immediate notion that I should find something in the world – the thing I want to do – that has been good for me. Immediately I thought “expression” and “emotional awareness.” What has been better for me than that? What was the greatest thing I ever learned if not how to get in touch with the deeper part of me and to some extent work with that? And from there I went to the idea of how it was years before I got onto that, and how tough my youth was without it, and wondered if perhaps “child psychologist” might not be more suited and beneficial than psychotherapist.
Then I wrote my blog entry and that felt great. Then I went for a walk in the sun to deliver somebody’s misplaced mail and that was great. Then I sat in the park. Then I had a nap. Then I listened to the Paul McKenna CD. And everything was great.
After that, I cycled to a church in Headingley. The bike ride was great and the feeling in the service was great too. It was one of those modern happy clappy churches where they’re all young and smiley and raise their hands in the air like they really do care while singing about how Jesus is the only one and all that dying for your sins blah blah blah – but they’re decent and sincere people and I guess they live good moral lives. In any case, it’s not the theology that counts, it’s the heart, and my heart was digging being there, meditating and accepting whatever good things they were praying for. I opened up to one of the speakers who came over to chat and that felt decent too. Chatted about feeling somewhat distant from God and the wanting of a wife. She said things that could have been taken straight from the pages of Conversations With God, that also mirrored some of my own recent understandings, and it was fine, despite the Jesus thing that always sits there between us. Talked about how it’s more important who you are than who you’re. And how crucial commitment is to really loving someone.
I went away thinking of Laura and that maybe we should just run away to Scotland Ireland
The girl in the church prayed for me, for a sense of newness and life beginning again and I was down with that. Didn’t really feel anything – not sure she was really in touch with the spirit – but I took the words and agreed with them and would have liked to have seen them come true in my life. I left there pumping away on my bicycle feeling happy and positive once more.
But then I had to go and muss it all up. I wanted to stop in at uni and check my email. Nothing much doing – but for some reason I couldn’t leave and got to squandering and ended up being there like two and a bit hours, till nearly ten o’clock. I swore I was gonna leave at nine. And even nine was a lot later than it should have been. Honestly, there was nothing there! But I had to keep a-clickin’…
I got to thinking about Nicky, and got to thinking in particular about our weird psychic connection and how we’d dream things that the other person was thinking, like secret things. One of the most striking of those was about three months after we’d broken up and we weren’t really seeing each other. I dreamed that she’d gone down to London London
As it turned out, it wasn’t so bad. Though she said there were some pretty scary rooms and some of the men had been a bit gropey it looked to me like it was more like a fancy dress night that anything truly kinky. But still. She showed me some photos and of what she’d gone as: tons of makeup on her face and her body painted with leaves and then a short skirt and her top half naked. I couldn’t quite process that. I wasn’t sure if I was being prudish or not. It freaked me out. I guess I still don’t know whether it was me being limited or jealous or possessive or afraid or what. All I know is it disturbed me and made me feel queasy. And probably want her a bit more too.
In the days that followed I found some pictures of her online. In truth, I thought she looked silly, and that it was a pretty silly thing to do. To wander around a club topless with your nipples covered only in a bit of green paint. Not that that’s so bad, I suppose, but mainly that she didn’t look happy, that the whole thing wasn’t her. She probably said as much too. And in the pictures there’s no sense of smiling or glee, she just looks uptight and daft. Well I guess you’re young and try these things. But it still freaked me out.
Anyways, last night after all my good mood and positivity I got on this train of thought and wondered about those pictures and thought I’d have a quick look for them. And so I do a bit of searching and find some – and then find a new one too. The others were just of her and her friend – but this one was of her posing with a silly little bondaged-up Asian man holding a sword to her neck. Again, she looks uptight and daft and not happy. I don’t imagine any sense of impropriety: she told me nothing had happened and I believed her. Probably it was just for the cameras. But there it is, for all the world and her friends and family to see. Relationships are temporary but the internet is forever…
I spoiled my head. I got to thinking about her again. Got to thinking of those times past and how it had all gone wrong and how we probably should have still been together at that time anyway. And I got to thinking about morality and about how somewhere down the line I’d lost mine and now I wanted it back. All that free loving and writing about it so carelessly. Sleeping with more than one person at once. Sleeping with anyone I wasn’t in a committed relationship with. Once upon a time, as a teenage boy, I would never have dreamed of such a thing. Is that all that happens when you get older? You just get sloppy and lose your values and think it means you’re liberated. I envy the good wholesome Christians in that. But I just love my sex too much to not do it. And most of the time it feels okay. Just lately…well, I’d gone wrong and I know I’ve gone wrong: that whole 3-day Vipassana headache was a lot to do with my lost morality and the previous months of being with both Laura and Nicky. It was wrong, I believe. And yet here I still am with both of them on my mind, and sleeping with Nicky on the Wednesday, and sharing a bed with Laura on the weekend before and after. That was platonic, sure, but…well I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. All I know is I wish I had a simpler life: all this stuff takes up far too much time and headspace. Funny, that the Christian girl talked about overcomplicating things: I feel like I’ve become a master at that. But if I’d just gone home to bed I could have slept early and glad instead of exhausted and up past one and glum once more. Fuckin’ internet.
But, hey ho, now it’s Easter Monday and that’s the day for resurrection and new beginnings. It’s nine a.m. and I suppose getting out of bed would be a good way to start. Jesus rolled out of his tomb and shook off his mummy cloths and rose from the dead. It’s the least I can do.
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