Sudden wave of introspection
I had planned to post a list of my favourite Teletext pages up today, but in a move that surprised even me, I’m feeling rather melancholy. I’m not really prone to bouts of paranoia, although it does wrack me occasionally, but though I’ve wanted post when I’ve felt like this before, but in the past, by the time I’ve got to a keyboard I’m always been feeling fine again.
Today is a bit different, and I can’t be sure why the cloud is lingering. A whole heap of little things have happened, none of which should cause even a blip on the Melancholy-o-meter but these things accumulated, plus the right wind direction and a combination of physiological elements, and hey presto, I’m feeling a bit gloomy. I’m regretting my regrets a little bit more today, cursing my mistakes with a little more venom, reliving them one by one and shuddering at the thought. I relive opportunities I missed 15 years ago, justify them, smile, and then feel stupid at what I passed up. I’ve been thinking about those moments when you wish you had clarity of thought to act properly but you didn’t and you acted like a tit. I’ve been stupid and thoughtless on countless occasions, and what glooms me is that I know that that’s me, that’s my demon, there’s nothing I can do about it. Much like people who wouldn’t hurt a soul will never hurt a soul. People like me, acerbic and caustic, will always be acerbic and caustic. And as a rule I like nice people, not nasty ones, so where does that leave me?
I don’t regret who I am; life certainly hasn’t treated me badly, on the absolute contrary. I great friends, a superb family, I have a moderately successful life, and by some people’s standards, a very successful life. But at times I question who’s adding value to whom in all these relationships. At work I constantly question how much value people are getting from me, but when it boils down to it, I don’t really care that much. But in my relationships with my friends, who is getting more from that relationship? Ideally it should be a balance, but it’s never going to be like that because life isn’t all straight lines and balance. There has to be an imbalance somewhere, but which way does it tip? I can’t really rationalise why the relationships I have with my friends would ever tip in their favour. What is it do they get from me? It’s difficult to tell. I guess the answer is that it fluctuates from one side to another, and that when the scores are totted up, it comes out just about equal. The thing is, when it’s balanced towards me, I don’t appreciate it or worse, I don’t say it, and when it’s balanced towards them, I can’t see it.
I’m well aware of who reads this site, and it’s mostly people who know me. And, I guess all this navel gazing and whinging is really rather self-pitying. Which it undoubtedly is. But I just thought I should post up how I’m feeling. It’s interesting, at least, trying to articulate it.
Oh, so what has caused the gloom? Well, very few people came to my site today, I finally got round to emailing the people I used to work with (not Clare and Meg, the others) and nobody replied. Then I found out that my last employer haven’t paid me my final week of salary, and now I’m thinking the title of my last post was a little risqué, after all there isn’t a friend of mine that hasn’t been sold up for a cheap gag in the past.
OK, you can all stop nodding now.
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