Sharing.

You know, in many ways, I love to share. When I go out for a meal, I readily encourage everyone to take a cheeky bite out of each other. Their food I mean.. ahem. Some people like to be protective. Some people don't like others crossing their boundaries and stealing from their safety plate. (I find these are the types that usually read the menu five times over - only to order the steak again and again... )

I love to share passions - music, film, literature. I am not content until I have seeked out every opinion, every thought. I am not so much obsessed about definites. About being wrong, being right. Blacks and whites bore me. All those shades of grey inbetween are infinitely more fascinating. I am much more interested in why people destroy themselves. In what drives people to surpress culture, or dine on pretension. My intention is rarely to prove myself better, worthy.

I am a competitor - but not in the natural sense. I will fight, but I have only one thing to conquer. My mind. Something inside me burns to question, to probe, to acknowledge. To accept. If life itself is a competition, then I desire to understand it. Not to win it, or lose it. Satisfaction for me would not involve me being the last one standing. This is not to say that I don't crave the occasional moment of glory - but I long to die wise, rather than with a shallow tag around my neck.

Existence for me has never been about the winners and the losers. The remembered, the forgotten. The dead, the living. The living dead. Existence for me runs deeper than surface measurables. I've always desired to know what lies underneath the surface. Sometimes I think there is an extra dimension that we can't see, not with our eyes anyway. There lies a City of questions, a World of answers. A real reason for living. The real reason. Those few people that are insistent enough to get there, never need return home again. For they are home. Home is a mind completed, a body laid to rest at peace with itself.

Some people might say these variables are complicating the real justifications for living. Love. Happiness. So why can't some get over the death of love? When you get to the end of the line, people throw their arms wildly toward the sky. The sweetness of embrace, the joy of victory. But what was the meaning of that race? How long will it bring you happiness? What about the race that is run daily inside our heads? A short sprint can provide an adrenaline rush. But life is a marathon. Our bodies get tired, and start to break. Our minds get weary, and start to fear. When we reach the finishing line of life, people are not happy. They stay sad, and silent. And a part of everyone is afraid. Don't tell me they're not.

I think, perhaps, there is a moment between life and death when we see the extra dimension. Not all of us, perhaps. But those that want to. Perhaps that is why people who talk about the light, become wiser citizens. They have not seen the end, nor the beginning. They have seen the reasons for existing - or more importantly felt them. Then can grab the moment, because when their moment comes, they understand it. Maybe a part of us has to die so we can truly die again, not just disintegrate. Not just fade away. But die completed, ready for whatever comes next.

This was supposed to be about sharing. About how I can't share my thoughts or feeling anymore. How my only security comes from listening to others. Even my journal doesn't quite feel calm in my hands. But perhaps I can. Perhaps I just need to stop fighting this wicked fear that I'll never get to see the answers. Perhaps there are people out there, who can still understand.

Understand me, understand life. Understand what I've gone through, make sense of the madness that's been eating away at my brain for the last few years. Maybe someone can save me before there is nothing left but a skeleton.

The one thing that's kept me going the past few months is this knowledge. That there is more, that I haven't seen everything yet. There is more to existence than pain and dysfunction. That help is here. Help is just difficult to find when you're too fucked up to realise you need it.

Luckily, I'm not beyond repair. I want help. I need it. I crave it. I don't think the walls that I've built-up to stop people getting inside are important anymore. No longer do I consider these wallls of insecurity, but walls of experience. Walls of security, infact. If I didn't have them in place, I wouldn't still be here now. My mind would have driven me to jump from their heights. I think I am comfortable with them, and need others to be comfortable with them too.

Some people are persistent. Some don't give up easily. Challenges motivate people, and I am a challenge. There are people that still want to scale me though - that, I am sure.

The walls have never been higher than they are right now.

Yet never, and I mean never, have I so longed for help and company inside my twisted boundaries.

Where to start, where to end, where to begin.

Looking back on my last post makes me laugh.

In retrospect, it was utterly ludicrous to suggest I could write regurlarly.

I know it would do me good. People keep telling me this. I want to write. I want to look back on the worst times in my life, and take something from it.

But the exhaustion is overwhelming. Every night, every night is too much. Anxiety-fuelled insomnia is no longer an issue. Perhaps unbelievably, I am sleeping more deeply than I ever did. The tiredness grips onto me tightly and will not leave 'til it's had it's dark, dark ways with me.

Besides, it is not that I havn't written. Many, many words have been implanted in my tired imagination, invisible ink permanently scrawled into my consciousness, messy, incomprehensible, maybe even a little bit beautifully fucked up.

I am not bottling it up. You must understand this. And even if I am, you only need take a sip from the bottle, and the taste of salty tears and bitter pain will hit you, will seize you, will strike you - cruelly - a shot of souless sorrow that seeps into your senses slowly, surrounding you with the sickening scent of stagnancy.

Okay, so forget the dramatics. Lets look at the facts.

From that very first moment, I knew she was going to die.

I am very highly perceptive - and to a degree instinctive. Not instinctive in a factual sense, as my faulty sense of logic can drive people to despair. I may not see the most obvious hints, but I see what is hidden to others. Sometimes, I just know. The knowledge is most certainly stronger than others.

I know that sometimes I will not speak to a person for weeks, yet we still share some concealed connection that enables me to tap-in to their mood. It is often a comfort, and just as often a burden. I just didn't know how deeply it ran until recently.

Regardless of the fact we suspected something was wrong, it was still a shock.

A shock I was not prepared for.

Yet in those horrible few moments - endless and numb - I could only listen to my instinct which lay buried beneathe my emotionless exterior.

'Cancer, it's no longer the death sentence it once was.' said the nurse.

How wrong I knew she was. How wrong.

Perhaps that has made it hard, and easy.

Easy in that I started the process early. The process of loss, acceptance, understanding. Whatever the process is. Sure, I am still in part going through the process. It is very real. However, anger and regret - topics that I shall no doubt bring up on here given time - have left me now.

Now is the time to make thing comfortable, to try and let the last few moments be precious, breathless in their love rather than their drawn-out emptiness. This is proving difficult, but hope will conquer fear. I do trust that, whether silly or deluded.

We will get the right moment to say goodbye. Our relationship is too important to dwindle and fizzle out to a meaningless conclusion. It has in some respects been my life - my joy and my biggest threat - yet even though it would make sense to have changed everything, I would change nothing.

So many lessons have been learnt, so many moments of beauty, so many moments of tender thought through the imposed silence. I am both very lucky, and very unlucky.

The irony doesn't leave me.

More to come soon, whilst there is still time.

In the words of someone I know....


Love and light.

Maybe, this time...

For many nights now I have sat at this very computer infront of this very screen trying, trying, TRYING to let it all come out.

You see, I know once I have started this, I am not going to stop. A diary of events is important. It's calming, a moment of respite, it's escapism.

It's escaping and it's facing reality. The harsh reality.

It's escaping and it's healing, it's accepting. Perhaps more importantly, it's acknowledgment.

It is something that cannot be forced. It would not be true to say I have been in denial, for I have felt more in the past few weeks than in the past few years. My body is coming back to life. Whether I indeed hate that aforementioned existance is largely irrelevant, it is refreshing to feel emotionally turned on.

My soul is replenished, perhaps with searing pain, but replenished it is and the ability to express sadness is something that inherently makes us human, and something that had been lost altogether from within me.

It is a comfort to feel it once more. To search out the depths, for it is only when looking for loss that we truly can feel every part of our being. That part is perhaps the most indescribable of all.

Nothing and everything does not do it justice.

I do not hope to do it justice on this blog, for it is is a language that goes beyond our understanding. To touch someone you love, to feel that grip slowly slipping away. When we try to contemplate it logically, we cannot.

Tears protect us from the truth.

Love shields us from the wilderness.

Every other feeling can be expressed in words. Either, we have not reached our full potential yet, or the answer lies in some higher force.

I had hoped to tell the full story tonight. Yet suddenly, I feel overwhelmed. Yet still, a little more at peace.

And that is why the rest will follow.

The process has begun, and it will complete.

What starts, must come to an end.

Whilst the last few precious breaths are taken, they will be written about, and remembered.

It is only right.

Goodnight, loves.

We will meet again shortly.

Be prepared.

It won't be easy.

Contemplating happiness.

Strange. Nice. But strange.

Not much more to add!

What the fuck do they know?

Dear Mr Gilder,

I'm afraid to say we're screwing you and your Mother over. Just to rub it in, we're going to pay you fuck all money starting from... er... this week.

Well thanks. Thanks alot.

Yup, that's what the letter might aswell have said.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm well down the road to finding my true self again, to finding my own pathway, to wanting, nay, demanding my name be the one that's lit up bright and proudly. There is no way further for me to help others 'til I help myself and become a little more greedy. That is for certain. And ironically perhaps, as part of this long, but rewarding process, the first steps were to cut the ties. Not completely, but a thin snip, enough to begin to heal the wounds of years of strangulation and breathlessness. Enough to stand on my own two feet, to put pressure on myself, knowing I'd be relying on my income to survive. That's the kind of pressure I want, need. That's the kind of pressure that scares me. And boy, I need to be scared.

But regardless, those issues are not important. Whether I come off Carers Allowance is an irrelevance. My Mum still needs that money to give to someone else. It's vital for her survival. That's not an over-dramatization, but simply a statement of fact. Without the help she would buckle. She would melt faster than a pale-skinned Brit in the exotic sun, dieting on alcohol-fuelled ignorance and protecting their dumb, precious skin by slapping on a tube full of something particularly unsuitable. Lubricant perhaps. The point is, take away the support and she would fall to her death. Literally, I fear...

Things have been awful of late. Truly, brutally awful. In a way I am glad, it's been the making and toughening of me, and I am flourishing - slowly perhaps - but with a fair amount of grace and dignity, qualities that were lacking before. A solid foundation. Good, healthy soil. In my mind, in my bones. Those are the things that will make the flowers turn the most beautiful, rare and tempting colours. Okay. Haha. Perhaps I was pushing it with the grace. But still..

So what fucking right, what fucking right have THEY to tell ME that things have gotten better? Can they see the bigger picture on a form? Can they see the constant, exhausting battle to stop her from tipping over the edge of insanity? Because I can assure you, she's been teetering on the brink for a long, long time now. But how would they know that? Have they come to visit? Have they seen her bedridden, anxious, frail, completely at the mercy of a perceived cruel and dangerous World? Of course, the physical work is nothing. Not having come out of the years of dozy-eyed meandering, a drugged up zombie living off nothing more than an addiction to depression. No, the physical work is the easy thing.

Ironing, cooking, washing-up. Who really gives a fuck. We all have hands. There are always arguments. Always. But these are inconsequential, in the bigger picture. But clearly, they don't see the bigger picture. The braindead morons buy the picture, seeing it's signed 'Van Gogh'. That's enough for them. That's alright. That's proof enough that it will be a masterpiece. They forget to look at it. I mean, really look. They don't notice there's nothing there except the bleakness and emptiness of a blank canvas.

Because people are fucking braindead nowadays. They'd rather make a decision based on a bit of paper. Rather make life-changing decisions based solely on the mundane, uninformative, characterless text staring lifelessly at them from the murky screen. What if they cared to listen? Just for a change. Just for old times sake? What if they came round, and saw the shit that I have to put up with.

I'm not going to whinge. That's in the past. I could whinge 'about' the shit. But the shit has been shatted out long before now. I live with it. Of course I regret it. I regret it impacting negatively on other people. Especially one of them. But as it goes, now sometimes I think the shit makes me stronger. This is not a whinge. This is anger, pure and thoughtful, but furious in it's own right. I am angry that they dare take my money, our money away from us without even so much as a proper explanation. I am angry that it takes 5 fucking phone-calls to get the right sodding number. What if I was a brainless moron like them? I'd stand no chance. I'm angry about their lack of empathy. understanding. Lack of anything. Lack of life. They need 'evidence' in writing do they now? Or over the phone? WELL HOW ABOUT THE FUCKING EVIDENCE THAT WOULD BE STARING THEM, GRIMLY AND FRAILY RIGHT IN THE RUCKING FACE IF THEY BOTHERED AS TO SO MUCH WASTE THEIR PRECIOUS TIME PAYING US A VISIT? How about that evidence, hey? Does that not count?

Lets forget the physical symptoms once again. I could list them on a big piece of paper. I could mention the fact I could probably pick her up with the strength of my little finger, due to the months and months of near-starvation. I could list the drugs she mostly throws away. I could list the upcoming hospital appointments. But even if those are not enough for you, what consideration is given to the fact that any sane person could see that she is a stark raving lunatic? What procedures have you for dealing with them, for the stress they cause those around them when they're confined...well...to the freedom of their own home and not locked up in some looney bin?

Oh yes...you've forgotten about those havn't you.

You've forgotten that some children lie awake at night, simply wondering with deadened eyes when they would hear the thud on the cold pavement outside. Oh sorry, suicide. That's a difficult topic. Better not fucking mention that to you, had I? It's black and white for you. You're either in an asylum, or you're out. You're either alive, or dead. There's no room for being stuck in the middle, in a permanent state of living deadness. Those people are aliens. Sorry, zombies.(Wow, two mentions of zombies in one post! I might read this back and get all sexually excited afterward. Well...who doesn't have a zombie fetish?!)

They don't exist.

Or if they do exist, we know about them. We know all about them. We keep them under lock and key. It hasn't once occurred to us that some of them might have escaped the 'perfect' system, that some of them might be putting on happy-go-lucky faces for the Doctors smiling back in approval, nodding in all the right places. Lying, blindly, but unconsciously, to themselves and to the outside World, and to the forms they stain their mad-blooded fingers on. Smudging the ink, manipulating it till it looked right to them. Not evidence of the facts, but evidence of delusional, misplaced thinking. But you'd never know, would you? You'd be such a dumb cunt, you wouldn't notice any smudges. Shiny, shiny paper.

Shiny, shiny World.

In with the white people. Out with the black. Fuck everything inbetween, it doesn't exist. At least, we'll pretend it doesn't.

Because that's easy.

It's easy to be a face behind a screen, a title behind a letter, a government shuffling together like mindles sheep to hide and cover up individual corruption.

We are all finding more and more ways to communicate, yet all losing our touch when it comes to remembering how to.

How about next time, you stop making a judgement based on how we respond to your own fixed, thoughtless, emotionless questions?

How about next time, you treat us humanely and let us have our say first? Let us write a script. Paint a picture. Then maybe you'll see the full story.

Life isn't black and white, you fcuking wankers.

So stop telling us it is.

live from the wii

where I go when I get bored www.failblog.org

2 bottles of Westons Organic Cider.

Half a bottle of Sparkling Prosecco.

Three glasses of Taylors Reserve Port.

Two pints of Carlsberg Export.

Two glasses of Ardbeg, neat.

One glass of bucks fizz.

6 chocolate liquers.

No wonder I'm still hungover.

Ugh.