Apr 19 2010
Nine Years Is A Long Time
Nine years is a long time. In nine years, I grew up, I became a man, I built a home and a career and a life I could never have imagined or hoped for back in my school days when I couldn’t see my future for all the misery that school brought.
Over nine years, I built a life with my best friend, my lover, my everything, and at Christmas, it all came crashing down around my ears.
I drank, I cried, I made a fool of myself. I didn’t know where I was. In recent weeks, I really thought it was all starting to come back together. I thought I was doing a great job of piecing my life back into some semblance of normality and sense.
But that’s rubbish. I’m a lost child. I’m feeling and groping my way through the dark. I’m a teen fiddling with a bra for the first time – sure, parts of it are exciting, but overall it just feels like I could be doing it a lot better.
I couldn’t get off the couch yesterday – I sat there, staring at the monotonous glow of the TV for hours. I attempted to engage with the world, but it was forced and fake and unsatisfying. And that’s just it, that’s what my life is at the moment – a series of attempts. A series of endeavours to get it right, to fix it, to be happy again. But it’s all forced and fake and unsatisfying. I’m unsatisfied with life and the world. I have put in my dues, I have worked hard, I have tried to make up for all my many mistakes, but it just seems like I haven’t done enough to deserve a break.
I am, in my mind, aware of how lucky I am to be surrounded by some amazing friends and those who have become more than friends in recent times. I should be happy, or at least content with my lot, but I’m not. My heart and head aren’t in it. The very simple and silly concept of happiness eludes me. I smile and laugh and joke and engage and kiss and touch and hug and play and sing and dance and bounce and carry on as normal. But as soon as I’m on my own, when there’s no one to perform for anymore, I see the world for what it really is – a miserable mess of stupid people doing stupid things, hurting others and making vague attempts at apologies, though no one truly believes or accepts them.
Apologies, forgiveness, acceptance – these are all imaginary notions that grease the cogs of the world, allowing it to function. Without these concepts that no one truly believes; without them, we would all come to a grinding halt. Because we would see people for what they really are – cruel, bitter, lonely, sad and unwaveringly selfish.
Happy Monday everyone! Just be thankful you’re not me.
But for the belief that your mood will yo-yo the other way in a day or two as usual, I might actually leave a concerned and serious response. You’re up and down Byrne, that’s who you are.
I’m with Sinéad. That’s not to make light of how you’re feeling right now, more to acknowledge that you’re quite good at pulling yourself out of these troughs. Will you come over for dinner soon?
This post strikes a particular chord with me as I am in nine year relationship and I know that it is a long long time. I think it is normal to feel the way you do today and I hope you feel a bit better tomorrow.
I just have a lot of negativity in my head right now and I needed to get it out, to vent. That’s what my blog is for. And no, I don’t feel much better today.
I know where you are coming from, I REALLY do, and I promise I will write somthing uplifting, quicky and funny, someday, somehow. But I got to ask – why are you wearing a bra??
Darren,
Nine years is a long long time, and sometimes it hard to move past that – i’m actually in a simular place to you right now well sortof but i’m talking 15 years…….it’s a very scary world out there even if you have a plan on how to get through the day. i don’t know the details of your situation or anything like that, but from what i see you have alot of friends and that’s never a bad thing….think happy thoughts…..
Darren,
I’ve never met you, nor do I know you apart from a few brief conversations over emails/discussion boards over the years. I have however dipped in and out of your blog fairly regularly over the past couple of years, and have always enjoyed your writing immensely – you’ve written some truly inspirational pieces and they’ve always been from the heart.
I’m deeply sorry to hear that you are going through a difficult time at the minute. Reading your post reminded me very much of myself and how I deal with upset in my own life, how I live so deeply in the emotions that I’m feeling at any particular time that I find it nearly impossible to step back and see the wood for the trees and realise that bad times will pass. I swing from high, to low, to acceptance to anger and back again as a matter of course, and while it’s what makes me the person I am, it’s sure as hell not an easy ride sometimes. Still, I console myself with the thought that I deal with these things as they come along, rather than denying them or bottling them up, and that helps me to feel a little better in the long run.
You say you feel like you are performing for the people around you. That may be so, but I promise you if you keep doing what you’re doing, and throwing yourself into life – no matter how empty it may feel – the time will come when you suddenly realise you’re not performing any more and you’ll feel a little bit of joy creeping back into your soul. In the meantime don’t give up. Keep fighting the good fight. You’ve come through very tough times before and emerged a stronger person, and you will again. More cautious, yes, more cynical, probably, but most definitely stronger.
Let’s face it, nine years IS a long time. Four months is not. Give yourself a break, take the time you need. You’re a great guy who got a raw deal. You’re going through the ‘stages’ – the blasted, cursed stages, and they suck – but I promise you’ll get there eventually.
Best wishes
AM
Right, bloody late with this (I was washing my hair) but read this a couple of hundred times and you might start to believe it.